My Spiritual Journey

For those familiar with my health blog, you know something about my journey regarding nutrition, fasting, exercise and the like. This blog has a bit of a different twist.

As I have struggled with my health and moved into areas like yoga, I find myself changing rapidly in the area of spiritual matters. This is causing a radical shift in my life to take place. This shift and its impact on my life is the subject of this blog.

First a bit of history.

I was raised by a radical atheist and a closet Christian. My father was the atheist. He was rabidly bigoted concerning anything which smacked of spiritualism. His parents (my paternal grandparents) had prayed for another child late in life, and then along came my father: The miracle baby! He was dedicated to the ministry from birth. (Both of my father's parents were hardshell Southern Baptists.)

During his adolescence, he rebelled. He became the early 1950s equivalent of a Hell's Angel, riding around on a motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket and all that. He also became somewhat notorious around his home town. Eventually, folks did not want to have much to do with him. He was estranged from his family and all of their friends due to his rejection of the Baptist religion. He probably would have ended up in prison or worse had things continued to progress in that manner. Instead, World War II interrupted that process, and he enlisted into the United States Army at the age of sixteen, lying about his age.

Two years before that, at the age of fourteen, he had met my mother. She was seven at that time. Amazingly, within a few minutes they had decided that they were going to get married someday. (Today, this would be considered extremely creepy.) Seven years later, when my father was 21, having been released from the Army, and my mother was fourteen, they did in fact get married.

(You would think from this story that my father would have had some kind of spiritual awakening. I mean, how can you not believe in God with a story like that? But it never affected him in that way. Not until much later in his life. More on that later.)

My mother had been brought up in an environment of crushing poverty. She and her family nearly starved to death during the Great Depression. Further, her father was a notorious criminal who was killed in a shoot out in Houston after escaping from Huntsville prison. This happened when my mother was only several months old. Her mother had remarried a rough, hard drinking, violently abusive man. I never determined if he sexually abused my mother, but it would not surprise me. I am sure that he was very physically violent both to my mother and grandmother. Although she never spoke of it, the effects of the insecurity in her life, both physically and emotionally, left deep scars that she never overcame. My mother was very mentally ill her entire life. She was also in thrall to my father who duplicated her own stepfather in many respects.

During my entire childhood, my mother tried to provide some spiritual influence on me, offsetting the influence of my father. This was very difficult for him, as he was completely bigoted concerning spiritual matters. (He considered all ministers to be closet homosexuals.)

Her marriage to my father was thus no picnic either. They both did obtain a college education as a result of my father's GI bill benefits. (My father benefiting directly, and my mother being able to attend from the additional income my father received, plus supplemental income.) Thus, both of my parents escaped from the cycle of poverty and ignorance that had kept their families in prison for generations. I am a result of that liberation. However, they never were able to transcend their upbringing during the Great Depression and World War II which continued to haunt their spiritual and emotional lives. My father was abusive and violent, and my mother was a silent victim.

I say all of this to lay the foundation for where I began: I was an atheist like my father. I bought into the example he gave me. I was living for myself, living for the moment, and for my own pleasure. Just like my father did.

I remember when my mother first took me to church. This was, of course, a Southern Baptist church, and they were having a revival. They had a couple who were from the Philippines. They were missionaries to the United States, and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to us poor lost souls in America. My mother full expected me to "get saved" as result of hearing this message.

They told me the good news: I was a sinner. I needed to die to myself. If I would receive Jesus Christ, then the person I was would die, and Jesus would be born anew inside of me. Then He would live out his life through me.

I said: "Screw that! I don't want to die! I want to live my life! I want to be myself, not this Jesus guy!"

This was, of course, the self inside of me, crying out for its own way. This was step one in the spiritual journey. I lived as a young man in a state of complete carnality, following in my father's footsteps so to speak. I lived entirely for myself. Since I had been endowed with significant intellectual gifts, I exploited those to my advantage.

I attended Duke University where I was lonely and depressed for the first time in my life. At that point, I encountered the practice of Transcendental Meditation, as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Seeking for some measure of peace, I did become initiated into the practice of TM, receiving my mantra. My family reacted with total disdain. I was the object of ridicule and scorn as result of this decision. That experience did have an effect on my though. I found meditation to be very relaxing and peaceful. Nonetheless, I stopped meditating regularly, although I continued to do so occasionally for the rest of my life.

My first marriage resulted in a child who was diagnosed as autistic when she was four years old. That was the first hit to my carnal self's hard shell. Partly as a result of the influence of my first wife, I began to attend the Anglican church. I was still completely selfish, though. I simply wanted to find a way to stop my pain, but I did not know of anything outside myself to help me do so. For me, the church was just a social club.

The pain I felt about my daughter's condition was overwhelming though, and I began to break down. I had several near nervous breakdown experiences, and eventually my marriage failed. During this time, I encountered the practice of self-hypnosis and biofeedback, which I incorporated into my life. This was a result of receiving training in pain management at a major teaching hospital in Dallas, Texas. I began to use self-hypnosis to help with my emotional pain, sleep, and the like. Again, I began having transcendent spiritual experiences. One night, when I was completely unable to sleep, I went into a hypnotic meditative state where I remained all night. The next day, although I had had no sleep at all, I was amazingly aware. It was like reality was a sparkling liquid that I was swimming in.

After I remarried and moved to Lockhart, Texas, I had two shocks very quickly: My sister committed suicide, and I was fired from my job. These events happened within the same week. That was a pretty rough week I can tell you. The loss of my sister, the member of my family that I was most close to, was mixed with guilt over what I could have done to help with her situation, anger at her for her violent, self-destructive decision, anger at my father who I judged to be responsible for her death, and many other emotions. My being fired was a result of my own arrogance and stupidity. That was a major humbling experience. The effect of these events was to weaken my self and make me more open to spiritual influences.

That came shortly thereafter when I was hired by Delhi Pipeline in Dallas, Texas. A man named Frank Allen spoke at a company event I attended. He gave his testimony concerning Jesus Christ before his discussion of natural gas regulation. I was completely offended.

Two days later, Frank invited me into his office and challenged me to an intellectual game. His invitation was simple: "Now Jeff, you are smarter than I am. I know that and you know that. But, I can beat you."

He had me.

Over the next few months, Frank and I spent a lot of time together. He had me examine the Bible. He asked me challenging questions and I searched for the answers. Frank had launched me on a spiritual quest.

In my next post I will explain the next step in my spiritual journey, and where that led me.