Inner Guidance (15 page)

“You will have a child before you are thirty, and it will change your life.”

Time was short then; now there was even less time left. But I was married, so one obstacle was overcome.

Surrounded by rugged mountains, I inhaled deeply of air filled with the clean smell of pine. The weather Inner Guidance_CH 11-15.p65

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was crisp as I paused in a secluded spot in the fading sunlight. Through sobs, I spoke aloud to God and the universe: “I want a baby. If I
agreed
never to have a child in this lifetime, I have definitely changed my mind. I want a baby!”

I stamped my foot just to seal the deal.

Frustration with my choices had prompted this out-burst. I had come to understand that before birth in each lifetime, we participate in a sort of planning process in the spiritual worlds. There are certain lessons due us.

We foresee many of the experiences we will have and the people with whom we will have them. This becomes our probable destiny. Yet, as I understood it, the Mahanta, the Living ECK Master could help us to go beyond that probability and fulfill our greatest possible achievements on every level.

Perhaps regretfully, sometime after we are born, most of us suffer varying degrees of amnesia about the whole planning process. Nevertheless, I knew I could rely on the guidance and protection of the Mahanta as I made it known that I wanted to change the plan.

Yet, I wondered if that were even possible.

E
verything seemed to hinge on this moment. I felt a softening in my heart as I spoke to the Mahanta, the Inner Master. “I want to have this experience. Please,”

I pleaded. “I want it! I want to change the plan for my life, and I want a baby.”

We should always want God’s will to be expressed in our lives, and I felt deeply connected with the divine will in this desire. Still, I was not beyond begging, just in case it might help me in some way with this manifestation in my life.

Standing in the woods that day, I ached deeply with Inner Guidance_CH 11-15.p65

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the desire to have a baby, and the Mahanta surely knew what was in my heart. As if in reassurance, I again thought of my previous inner message: “You will have a child before you are thirty, and it will change your life.”

That was what I heard. Yet, how could it be true?

Surrender finally came—meltingly, softly, gently inside. I whispered, “Thy will be done.”

Then, adding my beloved statement of surrender that seemed to take it all to an even higher level, I smiled and said, “If not this, then something even greater.”

Maybe I had not fully comprehended the meaning of the inner message or been able to believe it, but the promise now seemed real, and somewhere deep inside I suddenly caught a glimpse of what it meant: I was
supposed
to have a baby! That was why I was having this revelation.

The facts, however, weren’t promising. I would turn twenty-nine in spring. And sadly, I had to concede that my marriage to Jon was in trouble.

Regardless, the fervent desire for a baby persisted.

I released all pain and doubt, yet I gently continued to cry until I could cry no more.

I
n my study of Eckankar, I had learned about the Blue Light.

“Those of you in Eckankar are very familiar with the Blue Light,” Harold Klemp writes. “This is a sign of the Holy Spirit, the Sound and Light of God speaking to the individual. Sometimes It comes as Light and sometimes It comes as Sound. Sometimes It comes as both.”17

As I stood there in that secluded, wooded spot, I felt a response. The Sound Current seemed to answer in the wind in the trees. Was it the ECK, the Audible Life Stream, Inner Guidance_CH 11-15.p65

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that I heard, swirling and calling all around me?

What was the sound buzzing in my head? And this high-pitched call that pierced through my cries?

Ah, yes, it was the Voice of God, which can be heard as Sound and seen as Light. I had already experienced It in the inner worlds, as the Light and Sound of God, yet now It palpably permeated the outer world in which I stood.

As the Sound became louder and louder, I saw the Light inwardly—blue, blue everywhere.

“Help me, please,” I spoke aloud to the trees, the sky, and the ground where I stood. My tears had stopped, yet I admitted to the Mahanta and all who would listen,

“I want my child. I want the inner message to be true and real. I want the child I am promised.”

Then I dropped to my knees in reverence and exhaustion.

W
ith the festivities of the holiday season and the New Year, the next two months passed quickly. I had been in Utah for just over six months when Jon arrived in town, and we moved into a house together. I was very busy with teaching, and Jon went to work immediately, helping to build a large house for a new client.

Our relationship seemed to be a little better than it had been previously, in Indiana, but things were still tentative. Despite my personal longing, the timing did not seem right to talk about having children.

I took on new responsibilities at work, as my alternative high-school programs were growing. One curriculum was environmentally based, and we did a lot of outdoor activities. Once snow began to fall, the students and I skied several times a week up to the top of a local mountain to take samples of snow, water, and Inner Guidance_CH 11-15.p65

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other natural elements for study at the university.

One day, at a particularly high elevation, the world began to spin; I became lightheaded and incredibly ill.

I felt so faint and disoriented that it would have been dangerous for me to try to ski. So the students practiced their rescue skills; using my skis as a sled, they slid me down the slopes, flat on my back. They managed nicely, and as soon as we were off the mountain, I felt fine.

Just to be certain, however, I went straight to a doctor.

The tests I took at the clinic came back quickly, and the results were mind-boggling. The doctor sat opposite me at his big mahogany desk. Coolly and kindly, he explained with a smile, “Well, my dear, all of our concerns were for nothing. The fact of the matter is, you are pregnant!”

In an automatic response, my arm swept across his desk, knocking down anything that stood in the way of a perfectly clear line of communication. Pens, books, and papers all scattered and fell to the thick carpet. The doctor looked at the mess and laughed.

“I take it this is a surprise?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“Why do you think I am pregnant? What’s that got to do with dizziness and feeling faint?”

“Your hormones are quite elevated—sky high, as is typical for the first trimester—and you couldn’t handle the altitude, I suspect. That happens sometimes. When was your last period, exactly?”

“I don’t have any usually,” I said. “Not any normal ones. I’ve been told I can never get pregnant. And if I am pregnant, this is
not
my first trimester.”

“That’s confusing. Well, it would be hard to tell without further tests, but since you don’t look . . .” he began.

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Interrupting to help him better understand the situation, I added, “I don’t know about the tests, but if I am more than just a few
days
pregnant, I am at least six
months
pregnant. My husband has been more than fifteen hundred miles away for over six months. Until he arrived a week ago, I had no chance of getting pregnant.”

He looked at me, shook his head, and unscientifi-cally remarked, “You don’t look six months pregnant; you’re far too thin.”

I
skied often and hard. Also, in the environmental program I taught, my students and I had recently taken up rock climbing. I peered down at my flat, toned stomach and asked the doctor, “How could I be sitting here six months pregnant?”

“Well, this is confusing,” he repeated. “No, you definitely don’t look six months pregnant; certainly not. Do you think there could be some mistake?”

“None. Six months or nothing,” I responded firmly.

“We will have to take further tests, then. I must tell you that with the hormone levels you are showing, if you are not pregnant, it could be something else very serious,” he warned.

We took the tests, and I went home.

Exhausted and confused, I needed to relax and take a long, hot bath. Could it be true? Was I to have a child before I was thirty? Would the prophecy be real? As my mind whirled with the thoughts of the last few hours, I fell asleep in the tub of warm water.

When I awoke, I called the midwife my friend Susanna had used to assist with birthing baby Bart. I asked if she could come and examine me just to see if, in fact, I might actually be pregnant.

She said she could come in a half hour, so I dressed Inner Guidance_CH 11-15.p65

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and waited nervously for her arrival.

I hadn’t mentioned how far along I might be, but Rhona took only a few minutes to size up the situation.

She touched my stomach area, felt around under my chest, examined my body for a few moments more, and then confirmed, “You’re almost full-term. I would say about six and a half months, maybe a little more. If you want me to help you in a natural childbirth, you need to put on a lot of weight to support this pregnancy.”

Bingo! She said the magic words—six months or more. Jon and I looked at each other in amazement. That was precisely how long we had been apart.

“But if I am that far along in this pregnancy, why is my stomach so totally flat?” I asked incredulously.

“How could this be? Is the baby OK?”

“My guess,” she said, “is that your baby is lying laterally from hip to hip—lodged in tightly in that position. And you have been exercising a lot and not eating enough. If we turn the baby now, while it’s still so small, you should both be just fine.” While she explained this, she began to open her bag and pull out a sterile sheet and gloves.

A short time later, Rhona confirmed the presence of a new life inside me. And she had turned the baby in the right direction. Like magic, my stomach began to swell and swell and swell—like something out of a science-fiction movie! I went from a flat stomach to the look of an almost full-term pregnancy in less than a half hour. We all laughed at the sight.

“What about morning sickness and all that?” I asked the midwife. “I never felt
anything
like that at all. I felt great until my last ski trip.”

“It’s different for every woman. Some women don’t get sick; they feel better than ever when they are pregnant. Apparently that is how your body is functioning.

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That’s how it is for some women,” she explained casually.

A powerful realization struck me. Only a short time ago, while I had been crying for a baby, after Susanna’s birthing, my baby was already growing strong inside me. There I had been, pleading, begging, and demanding from God what I wanted, and I was already very pregnant
—
with the child I had been told I could never have.

Before I had even known my own heart, before I had even thought to ask—the gift had already been given!

My thoughts raced wildly.
The gift had already been
given!

I was begging and pleading for something I already had? Is it always that way? Is what we desperately want already waiting for us—somehow, some way? Do we truly have to just step up and accept the gift? Could it be that simple?

What I knew for sure was what was true for me. The gift had already been given—and an important spiritual lesson was received as well. Now I understood it for myself.

And inner guidance had proved true again, even though it sounded impossible at the time.

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13

Learning

about Inner Masters:

Inner Guidance

and Inner Realities

Each of us is a unique individual, with our
own peculiar combination of experiences accu-mulated over many lifetimes. The truth of ECK

comes to each of us like a special key, custom-designed with millions of little notches and
grooves. It is the only key that will fit the lock,
turn it, and open the door of Soul.

—Harold Klemp

Unlocking the Puzzle Box
18

O
ur inner guidance is custom-made for each of us, and it can help us create perfect solutions for ourselves spiritually and in every detail of our lives. We each understand things uniquely, desire different things, and have different experiences. So our answers come uniquely as well. Our inner guidance perfectly responds to our needs, desires, challenges, questions, and state of consciousness at any given time.

When I first came into Eckankar, I wondered about 127

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the ECK Masters. The Eckankar writings spoke of these amazing beings. Were they truly real? And could they work with me through inner guidance, in the dream state, and in my waking life? Would this have any outer effect in my life?

Before finding Eckankar, I had often felt alone and separated from God. I wanted to know I was loved and was part of some wonderful, mysterious plan of the Divine for my spiritual growth.