Love Your Local New Ager
"When the light of Bahá’u’lláh dawned from the East, He proclaimed the promise of the oneness of humanity. He addressed all mankind, saying, “Ye are all the fruits of one tree. There are not two trees: one a tree of divine mercy, the other the tree of Satan.” Again He said, “Ye are all the fruits of one tree, the leaves of one branch.” This was His announcement; this was His promise of the oneness of the world of humanity. Anathema and execration were utterly abrogated. He said, “It is not becoming in man to curse another; it is not befitting that man should attribute darkness to another; it is not meet that one human being should consider another human being as bad; nay, rather, all mankind are the servants of one God; God is the Father of all; there is not a single exception to that law. There are no people of Satan; all belong to the Merciful. There is no darkness; all is light. All are the servants of God, and man must love humanity from his heart. He must, verily, behold humanity as submerged in the divine mercy.”
From "The Promulgation of Universal Peace" by Abdu'l-Baha'
All right, go ahead. You know you laughed when you read that title. "Love your local new ager"? "What's this girl talkin' about?" So go ahead. Get it all out of your system. And when you're done with all the giggling ( because there's nothing more hilarious than Sister Mary Moonbeam walking around in her tie-dyed long skirt and peasant blouse and watching her read tarot cards or translate the ancient runes), O want you to think about this one little fact. New Agers are part of mankind, too. It's true. You don't want to believe it, but there it is. After all, I was one. In fact, I will go out on a limb here and say that being a Baha'i is the highest expression of the New Age. It's here, now. It's us. We are all part of it.
I can hear the "yeah, but..." chorus turning up the volume. I hear you. There's absolutely no reason for associating the Faith to some transient aspect of pop culture to make it acceptable to the astrologers, trancemedium readers and healers, clairvoyants and other manner of weird folk, right? I agree. That's not what I'm doing here. I'm talking about the nature of fear, fear of others who seem strange, or have differing views about God, spirituality and religion. I remember folks telling me years ago that "people should stay away from that stuff because those abilities are supposed to develop naturally." I have no problem with that. Total agreement. Then I explain how I see the world, and that I have ALWAYS been this way, and I suspected that I was somehow "different" from other people. No better, just different.
It's like this. I'm a clairsentient, which means I receive strong feelings (vibes, if you will) from people all the time. And I do mean, ALL THE TIME. There hasn't been a moment in my life when I didn't experience energy reverberations from other people. Sometimes the feelings are so strong that there will a picture that suddenly pops in front of my eyes, kind of like a snapshot. At that point, I can either ignore the picture (which is what I do most of the time), or ask the person a question about it. Usually when I do that, people look at me funny and say things like, "how did you know that?" I don't know how I know. How can you explain something that always been a part of you? Oh, but the chaos this has wrought throughout my life. I've come to believe that part of my struggles with food addiction is my ongoing attempt to "numb out" the barrage of vibrations that I experience on a daily basis. It helped a bit, but the cost to my health has been incredible. And it only created a bit of distance from the feelings, which was better than what I had to contend with when I was a little girl. However, the need for more food began to spiral out of control, as I began to have more life experiences and found myself unable to cope with all of them.
So I got help. I took some classes that helped me manage this ability so that it wouldn't drive me insane. (Can you imagine standing in a crowded elevator and feeling every emotion of the people crammed in next to you? Welcome to my world.) Was I developing my abilities unnaturally, or just trying to manage my life more effectively? I would say it was the latter. I was raising children as a single parent at the time, and becoming mentally and emotionally unglued was simply not an option.
It's taken me years to apply the protection techniques that I learned to every situation that comes up in my life. In fact, I'm still learning. It ain't easy to turn away from cheesecake and meditate instead. But I'm getting better at it, slowly, one day at a time.
I've had to accept that among all that I am, and being a clairsentient is just part of my identify. I can resist this ability all I want in the name of being "normal", but it won't go away. So what do I do with this clairsentience? Do I charge $100 for a half hour reading and publish books with mystical titles so others would clamor for my "spiritual advice? No, thank you. That's a possibility I suppose, but I don't have the kind of patience that's required to answer questions that a person has within them already. A little honesty and taking oneself into account (lovingly, self-flagellation never helped anyone) each day is much better than a psychic reading. I've done enough readings to know that my ambitions in life can not center around having a career like that. I'd much rather go back to graduate school so I can teach and and use my clairsentience whenver I sit down to write . For me, my clairsentience is most effective while I'm writing. There's a whole universe of feelings out there to write about, and all I have to do is reach out to them. Psychic readings are not much fun for me, in fact, I refuse to do them. I leave readings to the people who enjoy that kind of work.
What I'm trying to say is this--let's try a little tenderness with wierd folks like me. I assure you, most New Agers are perfectly harmless. We're not trying to take over the world, or anything other sci-fi or hysterical Salem Witch Hunt scenarios that people sometimes devolve into when they are are afraid of people who are a bit different. New Agers just need some love and acceptance. You can do that much for them, can't you?
From "The Promulgation of Universal Peace" by Abdu'l-Baha'
All right, go ahead. You know you laughed when you read that title. "Love your local new ager"? "What's this girl talkin' about?" So go ahead. Get it all out of your system. And when you're done with all the giggling ( because there's nothing more hilarious than Sister Mary Moonbeam walking around in her tie-dyed long skirt and peasant blouse and watching her read tarot cards or translate the ancient runes), O want you to think about this one little fact. New Agers are part of mankind, too. It's true. You don't want to believe it, but there it is. After all, I was one. In fact, I will go out on a limb here and say that being a Baha'i is the highest expression of the New Age. It's here, now. It's us. We are all part of it.
I can hear the "yeah, but..." chorus turning up the volume. I hear you. There's absolutely no reason for associating the Faith to some transient aspect of pop culture to make it acceptable to the astrologers, trancemedium readers and healers, clairvoyants and other manner of weird folk, right? I agree. That's not what I'm doing here. I'm talking about the nature of fear, fear of others who seem strange, or have differing views about God, spirituality and religion. I remember folks telling me years ago that "people should stay away from that stuff because those abilities are supposed to develop naturally." I have no problem with that. Total agreement. Then I explain how I see the world, and that I have ALWAYS been this way, and I suspected that I was somehow "different" from other people. No better, just different.
It's like this. I'm a clairsentient, which means I receive strong feelings (vibes, if you will) from people all the time. And I do mean, ALL THE TIME. There hasn't been a moment in my life when I didn't experience energy reverberations from other people. Sometimes the feelings are so strong that there will a picture that suddenly pops in front of my eyes, kind of like a snapshot. At that point, I can either ignore the picture (which is what I do most of the time), or ask the person a question about it. Usually when I do that, people look at me funny and say things like, "how did you know that?" I don't know how I know. How can you explain something that always been a part of you? Oh, but the chaos this has wrought throughout my life. I've come to believe that part of my struggles with food addiction is my ongoing attempt to "numb out" the barrage of vibrations that I experience on a daily basis. It helped a bit, but the cost to my health has been incredible. And it only created a bit of distance from the feelings, which was better than what I had to contend with when I was a little girl. However, the need for more food began to spiral out of control, as I began to have more life experiences and found myself unable to cope with all of them.
So I got help. I took some classes that helped me manage this ability so that it wouldn't drive me insane. (Can you imagine standing in a crowded elevator and feeling every emotion of the people crammed in next to you? Welcome to my world.) Was I developing my abilities unnaturally, or just trying to manage my life more effectively? I would say it was the latter. I was raising children as a single parent at the time, and becoming mentally and emotionally unglued was simply not an option.
It's taken me years to apply the protection techniques that I learned to every situation that comes up in my life. In fact, I'm still learning. It ain't easy to turn away from cheesecake and meditate instead. But I'm getting better at it, slowly, one day at a time.
I've had to accept that among all that I am, and being a clairsentient is just part of my identify. I can resist this ability all I want in the name of being "normal", but it won't go away. So what do I do with this clairsentience? Do I charge $100 for a half hour reading and publish books with mystical titles so others would clamor for my "spiritual advice? No, thank you. That's a possibility I suppose, but I don't have the kind of patience that's required to answer questions that a person has within them already. A little honesty and taking oneself into account (lovingly, self-flagellation never helped anyone) each day is much better than a psychic reading. I've done enough readings to know that my ambitions in life can not center around having a career like that. I'd much rather go back to graduate school so I can teach and and use my clairsentience whenver I sit down to write . For me, my clairsentience is most effective while I'm writing. There's a whole universe of feelings out there to write about, and all I have to do is reach out to them. Psychic readings are not much fun for me, in fact, I refuse to do them. I leave readings to the people who enjoy that kind of work.
What I'm trying to say is this--let's try a little tenderness with wierd folks like me. I assure you, most New Agers are perfectly harmless. We're not trying to take over the world, or anything other sci-fi or hysterical Salem Witch Hunt scenarios that people sometimes devolve into when they are are afraid of people who are a bit different. New Agers just need some love and acceptance. You can do that much for them, can't you?
Comments