I find myself curious about how I came to my spiritual beliefs. Most days I believe what I believe and go on about my life. Some days, however, I wonder how I came to this point. I think an understanding of my background and what experiences formed my opinions and beliefs might help others on their path through life. Everyone’s path is different, indeed each person’s whole experience is different. We all create our own realities. That was a tough concept for me to grasp at first. Now it seems obvious. The difference is experience and a willingness to question.
I think movies came first in my explorative development. The Witch Mountain
movies were thought provoking. I think most of the kids of the time wished they could move things with their minds. It was a nice introduction that there may be more to the world than we think. It certainly made me think. For those of you not familiar with the movies, they are about two orphans that can speak telepathically. They have some other abilities that serve to make some people want to exploit them. Not to give too much away, but they eventually find out why they are “different”.
One of the first authors of non-children’s books that I can remember reading is Anne McCaffrey. (Isn’t it crazy that I have to be careful how I said that. I was going to put adult book author, but that has a completely different connotation, doesn’t it?) I started with the Dragonflight series and voraciously read anything she wrote. I loved the telepathic communication between man and dragon. The book that I remember having the greatest impact at that point, though was: To Ride Pegasus
. It was the book that introduced me to precognition. The fact that people with all of these various abilities were not superheroes really moved me. Anne McCaffrey portrays her characters as real people with problems, different than the rest of us, but the same as well. At least that is how I saw it as a child.
A couple years later, I ran across the first of the Seth books: The Seth Material
. The carefulness of even Jane Roberts and her husband, their disbelief even as it was happening, made this book readable to me. For all that I may seem open to any type of Metaphysical – New Age – or Woo Woo stuff that’s out there, I am rather skeptical. Much as I was during my Sunday School classes, I question everything. However, unlike many people who have had awareness expanding moments and then denied them, I do believe my own experiences. If I experiment with something like seeing auras, and I see them, then I will accept that auras exist and people can see them. Seth’s explanations of the universe made sense to me based on what I had experienced in life (little as it had been at that point). It resonated with me. It opened my mind to a new way of looking at how life worked. Basically, it laid a framework (creating your own reality and a connectedness with all things) through which I was able to see life.
I think the movie that really cemented my thoughts on the interconnectedness of all things was The Empire Strikes Back
. In Star Wars
, they talk about the Force and it relates to many of the Metaphysical and New Age ideas. But when Yoda started explaining about how everything is tied together, it made a lot of sense to me based on my own experiences. When he explained in his cryptic way that you cannot start something and be successful by trying, you can only be successful by knowing you will succeed, it was eye opening. I examined my life and could see that when I tried, I usually did not have much success, but when I said to myself, “I can do this”, I had great results. And I still love the lesson that if you start something knowing it is impossible, you will certainly fail. I’ve started many tasks in my life that seemed insurmountable by reminding myself that many other people have already done this, so I certainly can, too. Those tasks seem to almost magically work out. Frame of mind and intention are what those movies brought to me. I may have read more into it than what was really there, but that’s basically how guides, angels, and intuition seem to work in our lives. We receive insight into something that perhaps others do not see.
I am very grateful that I was drawn (guided) to these books and movies in my youth. I still pull out fascinating bits that expand my awareness of myself and of life out of the books, movies, and music around me. Connecting it all to real life is the real joy.
