A Search for the Source

By Hilton L. Anderson

There never was a time when a sense of wonder was absent. Perhaps there were times when it was covered over by more pressing obligations imposed by living, but it was always there. This book is about the exploration of this source of wonder, attempting to understand it. The wonder about death is the most persistent. This wondering leads to questions about the meaning of existence, and the nature of man and God. Accepting religious statements of faith as explanations, never seemed satisfactory to a scientific mind that demanded proof. Casting a wide net for information led to the exploration of wide ranging fields of study: psychology, parapsychology, mysticism, Eastern religious practices, energy biology, astronomy, physics and the perennial philosophy underlying the major world religions. This book is the attempt to make sense of this wide ranging exploration and provide a meaningful view of the diversity encountered. There is an attempt to provide a convergence of meaning while leaving room for each individual to become his/her own explorer and interpreter. It is a presentation of rational fact, yet it is also an exploration of the limitations of rational thinking. This book is designed to help you on your journey of re-perception, bringing you to the brink of spiritual awakening.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 24, 2005
• ISBN: 9781462842902

Hilton L. Anderson

The author is a retired seventy-seven year old who has been writing poetry for the past twenty years or so on mostly spiritual topics inspired by A Course in Miracles. He is a student of the Course since the late 1970's and a study group leader for the past fifteen years. He is a professional psychologist by training and was a practicing school psychologist for 25 years. He is married for fifty-two years to his wife Lorraine and has three adult children and seven grand children ranging in age from two to eighteen. He has been active in the Unitarian-Universalist Denomination since the nineteen fifties, and is presently active in the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Princeton since nineteen seventy-one. His interest in spiritual matters was awakened by his mother’s death in the nineteen seventies.

Book preview

Copyright © 2005 by Hilton L. Anderson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

28675

Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

ABOUT THE BOOK COVER

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PREFACE

This is an attempt to pull together a struggle of many years for spiritual enlightenment. At this writing I judge myself to be awake, but not enlightened. Perhaps this needs some explanation since the two terms are often used interchangeably. People, I believe, can be totally or partially asleep to the spiritual reality that they are a spiritual being at one with the Divine. These are the unawakened. Others, like myself, are aware of the spiritual dimension of existence, but have not had a profound transformation upon which they can, without any doubt, affirm the existence of God or the realization of their Divine Self. These are the awakened but unenlightened. Those, who through their own experience are directly aware of the Divine or their own Divinity, are the enlightened. In terms of humanity as a whole, the base of the pyramid consists of those who still sleep, while the apex consists of the very few who are truly enlightened. For those who are sleeping there is no purpose to write a book since they are uninterested in the subject. For the enlightened there is no need, since their awareness far exceeds the limits of this or any writing. But for many of us between the two extremes there may be some purpose to learning about someone else’s journey.

All spiritual journeys are unique to the individual, yet paradoxically they are all the same. No one can take the journey for you, yet you can learn from the path that others have taken. Perhaps the reader wonders why one who is unenlightened should undertake to write about spiritual enlightenment. The reason is that the journey is as important as reaching its end. Maybe while still on the trail, rather than having arrived, one can tell a story of more interest to those who are also still on the journey. It is with this in mind that I undertake this task. Writing the book can be thought of as part of the journey. One clarifies one’s own beliefs and perceptions in the process of sharing them with others. All of us are both simultaneously teachers and learners and it is often the teacher, who in teaching, learns the most.

You may wish to know a little of my background and how this spiritual quest began. This may help you better understand the source, or bias, of what follows. Briefly my education is that of a psychologist, with bachelor, master and doctorate, the latter in the field of school psychology.

This education was both a benefit and a significant burden. Whatever is one’s field of academic training, it is a burden because it has told you what to believe, thus making it more difficult to be open to the spiritual reality you are exploring on your journey. If you think you already know something you are not open to the new. Your perception is formed by your past learning. Only when you are confronted with the breakdown or inadequacy of current knowledge in understanding a life situation, can you open up to the spiritual. Such a situation occurred for me at my mother’s death. I realized that all my academic training had not provided me with any preparation for the experience with death that occurred at her passing. Death can be a powerful teacher, if we allow it to be, rather than turn away from it in fear. I was determined to try and understand what I had witnessed.

The content of this book is derived from others, others who have written about their understanding of the spiritual experience and other fellow travelers on the spiritual path who have verbalized their experiences, shared their life struggles, offered their existential explanations for life events both tragic and happy. We are all always doing this. This is just an attempt to do it more cohesively. Each of us is like a sponge, taking in information and ideas from others and from our life experiences and integrating it all into our belief system. This belief system is what we communicate to others. In a sense it is who we are at the moment in our temporary ego state.

The major writers who have influenced my journey are: Bubba or Da Free John, Charles Tart, Ken Wilber, Ian Stevenson, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Emmet Fox, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, William James, Dr. And Mrs. J.B. Rhine, Stanislov Groff, Gardner Murphy, Raynor Johnson, Lawrence Leshan, Tom Carpenter, Neale Donald Walsh, Deepak Chopra, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Daisetz T. Suzuki and Elaine Pagels. Reading the psychic literature of the British and American Societies for Psychical Research gave me an early perspective which is much broader than the materialistic view of reality. Phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, remote viewing, out of body experiences, mediumship, visions, channeling, automatic writing, among many other phenomena, opened a window of broader understanding of what it is to be human and redefined the meaning of death. It helped me remove the blinders of material scientism so easily acquired in the academic culture of our society.

A Course in Miracles has been a source of study and inspiration since the late 1970’s. Perhaps no other single resource has had such a profound effect except the recent impact of Rajneesh’s writings. But it is the serendipitous way in which each teaching occurs when the student is ready that is the amazing, if not the miraculous aspect of the journey. We are all simultaneously teachers and learners as A Course in Miracles states. We teach what we believe and we learn from the beliefs of others. We must always remember, however, that no one else can be responsible for our spiritual enlightenment. Only one’s own experience matters. It is with this perspective that this writing is offered. It is my path, not your path, and although incomplete, there may be some guideposts worth considering. We don’t all have to repeat the same mistakes or go down the same detours. Or do we? As Buddha said, all life is suffering. But it is in the suffering that we learn our most important spiritual lessons and through the suffering make our spiritual gains. There seems to be no easy path. So welcome pilgrim, let the journey begin.

I Would like to thank all those fellow learners in A Course in Miracles, from whom I have learned so much, and to Mary Bannon for her intuitive insight of introducing me to the Course when I was young in my spiritual journey. A special thanks to Lorraine Anderson, my wife of fifty-two years, who made many corrections and suggestions for improvement of the manuscript. Also I want to particularly thank Brian Tucker, who acted as my editor, and as a result, readability and understanding has improved greatly. My daughter Jean and her husband William Brantley have made many constructive suggestions. Also, my sister-in-law, Janet Niedhardt read the early draft and made many helpful corrections. Thanks also to William Brantley for his splendid water color used for the cover of the book.

Asleep, Awake, Enlightened

Most of humanity sleeps.

Some are awake.

Very few enlightened.

The rational thinking mind

Leads to understanding,

Awareness of the thinking

begins awareness of being.

Who is aware of the thinking?

Non-thinking, naked awareness,

reveals pure Being.

The known and knower one.

Meditation the bridge

from awake to enlightened.

CHAPTER 1

Death Gives Meaning to Life

Death

Oh death, to all your visit comes,

To some too soon, others too late,

But from your grasp, none escape.

The strong, the brave, the weak, the ill,

Are all the same, your quota filled.

There is no ransom to be paid,

Good works, brave deeds, all paid no heed.

So what is there of meaning left,

When your visit makes us all bereft?

Who testifies against you, when

After you come, you’ve silenced them?

From the stillness is there a call?

Spirit’s voice, freed from the shroud.

To pierce your veil of doom, to

Reveal a changeless, immortal Self,

Abiding ever, concealed within,

Unknown to your restricted view.

Transcendent Self resplendent,

Spiritual Light brightly glowing,

Survivor of the body’s demise,

Radiant ray of eternal sunrise.

As a child death was not an issue. It was not a part of consciousness. Life was so full, demanding all the attention of one’s resources. My first remembered experience with human death was that of my Aunt May Downs who died in 1936 when I was nine years old. She had a strep throat and the doctor lanced it causing septicemia. Before antibiotics this was usually a fatal illness. As was traditional in those times, in the middle of the depression, with little money for the undertaker, she was buried from our house. She lay in her casket for three days in our living room. There was no way to avoid passing the dead body in the house during our daily comings and goings. Aunt May had been an important member of our larger family and I recall many pleasant times spent with her. Her loss was not inconsequential to me. This was my first personal experience with the great mystery. My aunt had literally been alive and an active participant in my life one day and then lifeless in her coffin in my living room the next. It seemed incomprehensible to a nine-year old. How could this happen?

My Grandfather Mills died when I was about four but this made no impression on me that I can recall, because at that tender age my parents felt I was too young to