A Journey Towards Enlightenment

By Gary Wonning

At this period of time in the history of man, there is probably more individual searching being done into the theories behind the origin of the human race,what happens after death, the possibility of life on other planets, and what our relationship is to these life forms, if they do exist.
There are millions of people who are questioning the existence of God, who he really is, and what is my relationship with him? Is he someone who mysteriously floats around on a cloud watching and judging us from above like some bigger than life Santa Claus, or is he, like many of the esoteric sciences claim, a part of our inner Self, whom we have constant contact with, someone whom we and everything in the universe are connected and are thus one? Each of us in our own way is experiencing what God is, and thus we are each a part of God, thus we are God!
This book is a brief account of my search for my own truth as I know it today, although, many times the people with me seemed to experience nothing or a totally different reality. Everything stated actually happened, according to my own perception

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Wonning
• Release date: May 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781496035417

Gary Wonning

  Growing up on a dairy farm  in rural  southeastern Indiana ,Gary was  raised in a conservative Christian environment and looked forward to a life much like his ancestors had lived.  The two car garage, white picket fence and 2.5 kids was his life’s dream. Due to some twists of fate his life changed suddenly and a different path was taken.   At this time,he began to question everything he was brought up to believe, his political views, his religious and spiritual beliefs and every value society places on us as members of the human race. During his Vision Quest, which lead him to Egypt, Australia, the Canary Islands, Belize and most of the United States, he reevaluated and examined everything he believed in.   Having always had an interest in things of a spiritual and esoteric nature this was without question  a predetermined path. Through and because of his interest in photography he was able to study and document many ancient cultures throughout the world, in particular the Australian Aborigine, the Maya, and the Ancient Egyptians.   Although his travels have changed his perception of life and many of the spiritual values he once held, one belief remains unchanged.   His belief in the basic conservative core values of life that have been carried down through the ages from time immemorial. Those same core values that led to the founding of our great country and are instilled in our sacred documents, The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence, and the United States Constitution.   His belief in a Supreme Being or God have not faltered. In spite of this, he has found there is much more to life than conventional wisdom leads us to believe.   Time and time again history has shown that when a people or civilization fall from a belief in their God and basic common sense values, their way of life ceases to be. Let’s not let that happen to us. To contact Gary: www.journeysthrulife.com. Email: [e-mail].

Book preview

Chapter 1: In the Beginning

Any story should start at the beginning, but since there really is no beginning to life, just a continuum of experiences or lives, I will begin in the year 1982. It was a period in time in which I was mildly dissatisfied with life.

Life had been good, I had all the material things we needed or wanted, a house that was paid for, three lovely daughters, a swimming pool, two car garage, everything but a white picket fence. I had a marriage that wasn't very happy or fulfilling for either of us, but we stayed together, always hoping it would get better.

Only 38 years old, I had accomplished quite a lot, but I began to wonder what life was really all about. I knew it had to be about more than a two car garage and a picket fence, (which I didn't have). I also began to sense I should be spending more time reading and enjoying life, which for me was extremely hard to do. I always had to be doing something, to be physically active; reading seemed like a total waste of time.

I soon discovered one should never ignore the urgings of the soul, if ignored, they will manifest in some way that is not as pleasant as if one had paid heed and been more attentive.

At the time I was employed as a United Parcel Service delivery driver, a position that I eventually held for twenty-seven years. One afternoon, as I delivered a parcel of garden seeds, I stumbled and began to fall off a back door patio.

My right foot had slipped off the side the patio slab. I could feel the ligaments in my right leg start to tear. Immediately, I tried to stop the fall by bringing my left foot around and down on the cement slab, as a result my foot was propelled into the corner of the cement slab causing great pain and agony. Thinking it wasn't anything serious, I slowly limped back to the package car waiting in the driveway, and resumed my day.

The longer the day wore on, the more painful my foot became and I began to wonder if I could finish my route. Not one to succumb to pain, the day wore on and I finally arrived back at my delivery center.

Changing into civilian clothes, my foot had swollen so badly I couldn't get my shoe on. By the time I arrived home it was swollen and hurt so badly, I had to crawl in the front door of the house.

The next day, a doctor’s x ray showed the foot wasn’t broken, just badly bruised, a little rest, possibly over the weekend, and I would be fine.

So, after calling into work and getting the next few days off, I settled in for a short vacation. Early the next morning the phone rang. It was my driver supervisor, they were short of help, and since managers can’t deliver unless there is a driver on the clock, he practically begged me to come in and just drive he would do all the work. Despite the fact I would have to use the clutch with my sore foot, I decided I could always use a few brownie points and drove to work.

About midday, I noticed my doctor’s car following me, I pulled over and he explained that the swelling in my foot had hidden a break in the bone behind my second toe from the left on my left foot, my foot was broken. This healing was going to take a while.

I, or something had caused that foot to strike the cement with such force as to cause a fracture in the bone. I might add that at the time I was wearing shoes with a sole approximately 1/2 inch thick. After the bones healed, I tried to simulate the experience and it was not possible to exert enough force to even cause the slightest amount of pain.

As a result, I was forced to sit down and read, thus began an adventure that would certainly change my life, the lives of those around me, and which would certainly change the way I viewed life and my role in it.

Although the time off was restful and relaxing, I began to wonder what this was all about, and about what was to take place during this time. Life soon became boring with nothing to do but sit around waiting for my foot to heal, my life consisted of swimming, eating, and mowing grass.

I didn't have long to wait. My three young daughters were regular visitors to the local library and often checked out books to read. They normally rode their bikes the two miles to the library, but it was a hot day, and needing something to do to get out of the house, much to their delight, I offered to drive them.

At first I decided to sit in the van and listen to the radio while they went inside. Changing my mind at the last minute I decided to go in also. The library was on my delivery area, I knew everyone who was working there. Maybe I could find someone to talk to; maybe I would even find an interesting book to read.

I thought all of this was rather silly; I wasn’t old enough to sit down and read, that was something old people did. I walked into the library, when something in my gut guided me to a bookshelf in the very back of the room. I looked upward to the top shelf. A book suddenly fell from it right into my waiting hands!

Startled, I looked at the title. A book written by Ruth Montgomery The World Before, was staring innocently back at me.

Leafing through the book I hadn't noticed who the author was, but from some of the terminology in the book, I first thought a mason must have written it. After realizing the author was a woman, I concluded that couldn't be so. The book, for anyone who hasn't read it contains a lot of information on the Lost Civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria, including a lot of esoteric knowledge. Checking the book out of the library I took it home and literally tore the covers off reading it.

My interest had been sparked; I read every book I could find on everything from reincarnation to UFO's. I just knew instinctively that everything I was reading was true or had some piece of truth in it. It was the only thing I had ever read that made sense; I had been trying, with little success, to make sense of what I had been taught in Sunday school.

It wasn’t that the church leaders were lying to us; they were just repeating what they had been taught and believed.

But it didn’t matter how I rationalized it or tried to make it fit in, it just didn't make sense, there had to be more to the story. I had tried many times to just go along, to go with the program and think that these people, because they were supposedly more educated than I, knew more about religion and God than I did.

I was to find over time that education, and, or our station in life really had no bearing on how intelligent we are, each and every one of us has the same opportunity to gain knowledge and sometimes when we become educated by others, we only learn what they teach us and we forget to think for ourselves.

I have found that I, and I feel most people knew more about God when we were five years old, than we do now after years of false indoctrination. It seems crazy, but when I need to know what the truth is really, I go inside myself back to that five year old child, and ask him what is true. He tells me because he hasn't yet been fed all of the dogma that the churches have been feeding us for the last two thousand years.

I'm not saying that everything the world's religions teach is unfounded and untrue; they do teach a lot of valid truth, most of which teaches us good practical information on how to live a happy and successful life.

But a lot of times it gets twisted and shaped to fit a particular dogma or need and a lot of times the powers in control are serving their own agendas rather than the needs of their congregations.

Each and every one of us, before accepting any belief, or spiritual or moral value, should use our own good judgment and common sense and not go blindly by what someone else has determined to be the truth.

We are not lost sheep, destined to follow whoever or whatever belief comes along, rather we are thinking, reasoning light beings capable of making our own sensible well-thought out decisions based upon our own logic. Each and every soul is connected to the God Source and is capable of determining what its connection is.

We are here to guide and counsel our fellow human beings; we are not here to force or coerce anyone to do anything. If each and every one of us would remember, and practice this, the world would be a lot better place.

During this particular period, I began connecting with people who were having the same concerns, and were asking the same questions that I had been asking. I would develop some type of repertoire with them, only to have the relationship last for only a short time and then literally dissolve.

This became quite frustrating and it actually took some time before I realized that I was enrolled in the schoolhouse of life, and these new found truths were not some new found fad or fantasy, but were really a way of finding our way back to the God Source, from which we have all in some way or another removed ourselves. These truths would eventually help me answer my questions, and lead to a new and better life.

Chapter 2: Finding a Spiritual Base

All these events were going on in my life when my marriage was extremely rocky and through these extremely trying times, I hoped that all of this new learning would improve my family life. Little did I realize that we were slowly drifting farther and farther apart, and the changes, including a happier life, were coming but meant some trying times in the process. It would follow a lot of soul searching, contemplation, and making some hard decisions.

As my interest in this fascinating study increased, I became more and more intrigued by it. It consumed all of my spare time and was all that I really wanted to talk about, which is probably why my relationships kept falling away, I was probably boring everyone.

I had belonged to the Masonic Lodge for several years and had always wondered what the Hidden Mysteries of Masonry were, in fact my quest for the answers had undoubtedly been one of the factors that had lead up to this point in time. There really is nothing in the Masonic teachings that directly alludes to any of the metaphysical theories as such, but there are references to the hidden mysteries and anyone who is seriously studying both can't help but reach the conclusion that there is a connection between the two. It was this connection that I found fascinating and which enforced my belief that the metaphysical teachings had to have some validity.

This ancient craft has it's modern roots in the year 1717, It was at about that time the craft began to emerge from an operative craft,  stone masons actually were craftsman in the building trades and constructed many of the beautiful cathedrals in Europe. At about this time, the building guilds had begun to become less influential in society and thus Masonry began to shrink in membership.

It was at this time that the craft began to emerge as a speculative craft, and started admitting men of social class, from the professional trades, attorneys, doctors, politicians, etc.

Thus it had evolved into being an institution where the only requirements are that a man be free born, lawful age, and coming well recommended. Although modern Freemasonry began in the early eighteenth century, masonic principles date back to the beginning of time, back to the time man first walked on earth. It's principles are seen in every culture and every religion, from mainstream Christianity to Shamanism, back even to the ancient Druids and even farther to Sumeria and Ancient Egypt.

Masonry is not a religion; it is a way of life, something to be lived every day, in every waking moment. It matters not if a person has ever been inside a Masonic Lodge, what matters most is what is inside a person’s heart.

Drawing on these ancient teachings, I began to see a similarity between the teachings of Masonry and the teachings of the various ancient cultures, and this fascinated me.

During my research, I found that the ancient Egyptians practiced various rituals in the Cheops pyramid that were very similar and had the same esoteric meanings as the rituals I had experienced in the Masonic Lodge. It was very easy for me to reach the conclusion that Masonry did indeed have its very ancient roots in the land of Egypt, if not in some land and time even before the earliest humanoid set foot on that great land.

Speaking of feet, my foot eventually healed and I returned to work with a greater understanding of life. I had been taught to never ignore the urgings of the Soul, although, as I was to later find out, this is sometimes easier to preach than it is to practice.

Chapter 3: The Past Comes Forth

My life had taken a major turn, I would never be the same person again, and the things to come would never cease to fascinate me as I began to realize there is a lot more to this existence than the third dimensional reality we all seem to experience.

It seemed to unlock a door, to not only was about to take place, but a realization that sometimes events occur in our lives that are unexplainable and have no logical reason for their reality. After possibly discussing them with friends or relatives, they are dismissed and forgotten about. Such was the case several years ago. It was a cold Sunday January morning in southern Indiana, the previous evening a cold front had blown through and deposited a few inches of snow. The morning was bright, sunny, and cold.

My three teenage daughters and I were preparing to leave for Sunday school, when this ear piercing noise was heard from the field across from our rural home. Looking out, a large black panther was observed stretching and growling, ready to start its day. After doing its morning yoga, it hastened into the adjoining forest, never to be seen again.

We stood in awe, what was this big cat, larger than anything we had ever seen before doing here in the frozen northland of Indiana?

Where did this animal come from? It definitely is not native to these parts, even if it was a large cat; it is far larger than any cat I have ever seen.

It is my belief there are many alternate universes, more than we as humans can comprehend. Regardless if we are aware of them or not, these alternate worlds exist around us and occupy the same space and existence we do. Sometimes, for reasons unknown, the veil is