It was destiny night. I was to die at the hands of four robbers.
The happy part of this story is that when a man begins to talk about his own death, it means just one thing: that he survived it. I survived that night but under unusual circumstances. I had to bring everything I know about spiritual survival to play when the scenario confronted me. Believe me, that is not an easy task. It is no child’s play to think rationally when you are staring down the barrel of a gun. However, the human species is equipped to think first of personal survival before anything else.
I have often asked myself why I didn’t take the easier path and not be at that place at the given time. You will agree with me that for an incident to happen the time and place must coincide. For example, if two people are supposed to have a car crash, using their separate cars, coming from different directions, they must meet at the destined place at the exact destined time. Of course, both will be unaware of what is happening. It is the responsibility of the Lord of Karma to make them take off, drive unhindered through specified routes and come to that destination to have the crash at the destined time. Make no mistake, the mills of God grind exceediningly well. So unless a Higher Being takes interest in any of the parties and intervenes to cause a delay (maybe a traffic warden stops the supposed victim undeservedly and both engage in arguments that eats into the time), that crash will take place. And those due to be treated in a hospital will go there, and those destined to die shall do so.
MY GUARDIAN ANGEL
I have a Guardian Angel, known as the Mahanta, the Living ECK Master. In the physical realm, he provides physical support, such as give talks in seminars, answer questions, give oral or written advice, and help do other physical things that people do. But the greater part of his assistance is in the spiritual realm. Aside from teaching us the not so obvious matters about God, his ability to provide phenomenal assistance at times of live-or-die emergencies, is one of his most outstanding capabilities. My spiritual records document several occasions in the past when he has miraculously come to my aid.
So why didn’t the Mahanta orchestrate one form of diversion or another to prevent me from this impending danger? For now, I will just put this down to the need for me to gain the experience, while settling some past karma. A student must at some point sit for an exam. That being the case, the Master let me walk into a den of thieves. That does not mean he left me entirely to my devices. No. He came to my rescue just at the right moment. This is how it happened…
If you’ve read Finding Love in the Dream, you’ll now meet me at the point where I have just met Rae physically for the first time at the Grotto, following a successful spiritual match-making in the inner world. This first time meeting was emotionally satisfying for me because it did not just fulfill my physical yearning to be with a lady who is compatible with my personality, it was also another confirmation of how I can work with the Mahanta to effect a change in my fate.
Inside the Grotto, you could mistake the activities for a party. The camaraderie was that smooth, in the course of which, Rae “seduced” me to drink some quantity of alcohol. That was a mistake on my part. I hadn’t tasted alcohol for more than two decades. It put me in a haze, and my mind in a fog. When it was time to leave for home, I joined Carie in her hired car and she dropped me off somewhere in the streets where I could get a yellow cab down to my end of town.
DANGER SIGNALS
Stepping out of the car into the dark night, I inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly. My breath reeked of cigarette smoke and alcohol. Then I began to get the danger signals. Suddenly, my head began to throb, a sharp pain ran down my spine, and the bones of my two arms began to tremble. These signals from my spiritual antenna indicated the presence of imminent danger. I looked around. The whole place was deserted.
It was almost midnight. Few yellow cabs went by but they were already taken. The buses didn't stop because they were full. The next major bus station was Ikeja less than two miles away, but a lonely and dangerous stretch along that route ruled out the option of trekking. The only realistic decision now was to hitch a ride. At that moment, a lady in a skirt suit crossed the road from the Country Club area. She must have closed late and now wanted to get a ride out of here. Cautiously, she kept a wide space between us. No one trusts a stranger in the dead of the night.
After about five minutes, I saw a dark sedan cruising towards us at a very high speed. Then it slowed down, almost stopping for the lady. But curiously, she turned away. I couldn't understand why she would turn down such an offer after waiting for a ride without success. The car picked up speed and was going to pass in front of me. I couldn't risk spending more time waiting in vain, so I flagged it down.
The car zoomed past but stopped and backed up. The rear windows were up and heavily tinted. I moved nearer. A man of slight frame sat in the front passenger seat. "Where are you heading?" he asked, rather loudly.
"Ikeja!" I raised my voice to match his.
"Hop in!" He waved me towards the back of the car.
I opened the back door. There were two other men in the back seat. I hesitated but the driver began to move.
"Come in if you're going to Ikeja. We're in a hurry!" The man in front shouted in Yoruba with a Lagos accent.
IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE
There was no time to think clearly. Nor was I in the best frame of mind to do so, due to the alcohol I had ingested in the last three hours. Decision making was in slow motion. As I sat down, the car sped off, racing at top speed. I heard the central lock click into place. It sounded like the ricochet of a submachine gun. The alcohol had made me hyper sensitive to even normal sounds. At the same time, it made me insensitive to the higher vibrations of the ECK.
The interior of the car was dark. It wasn’t just a lack of physical light, but the aura of the four men was tainted with evil. Near me sat a slim, tall young man. He looked to be 21 in age and above six feet in height. The other guy at the far end was hefty, about 5’9”, weighing over 200 pounds and about 40 years old. They were dressed casually. And in a very strange manner, they both avoided looking in my direction, neither did they utter a sound. The driver, about 35, was of a medium build. Not once did he look back. The man who had shouted at me from the front passenger seat was about 5'5 feet and of a slight frame. He was very vocal. He had a cell phone to his ear and was speaking loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Just take it easy, man. I will pay you by Monday, unfailingly. That check will clear tomorrow. So, don't stress yourself."
I later realized he was only faking a phone call to create a semblance of normalcy, the intention being to keep me calm, so I wouldn't anticipate his next action. He was clearly the leader of the gang. Slowly, he ended the fake call, pocketed his cell phone and turned so quickly that before I saw the move, a gun was already pointed at me.
"What is this?" I uttered defensively. My past training in martial arts, both in the inner and outer, set my body in a fight mode. I tensed my muscles in readiness.
"If you move a muscle, I will kill you!" He brought the gun to my face, then motioned to the young man, who swiftly clambered over me to the door side, sandwiching me between him and the hefty guy who had also whipped out his own gun. These were experts, I thought, judging by how smooth they executed those moves.
"Search him!" said the leader.
The young man held a stilleto, (a knife with a long, thin blade) to my side. He was trembling. So, I kept still, making sure I didn't do anything to excite him. A false move from me and he would stab me. Then they might throw me on the sidewalk to bleed to death before dawn.
With one hand, the young man began to frisk me. He took all the money in my breast pocket, removed my cell phone, my wristwatch, and tried unsuccessfully to unbuckle my sandals. All this while the big guy had his gun pressed to my ribs, and one hand pressed to my chest, pinning me to the back of the seat. I noticed the fingers had some rings known to possess psychic powers. I wasn’t frazzled by that, though.
"How much did you find?" The leader demanded as the young man handed over everything.
"Not much." The only two words the young man uttered during the whole encounter.
The leader was furious. He dropped my belongings beside him and began to poke me in the chest with his gun. "I need money. What am I going to do with these? I need money!"
"That's all I have. I am also looking for money," I calmly replied him without any trace of anger or animosity.
Rather than calm him, he became ferocious. He poked me in the chest so hard I felt my breastbone might break. "Then you're going to die tonight! Tonight, I'm going to kill you!"
For the first time I took a clear, detached look at this small frame of a gang leader. Then, I recognized him. The effects of the champagne in my system were clearing up. My senses and awareness were beginning to return. I could remember these guys. I had met with them three times in the last six months. It wasn't a physical meeting. It was in the Astral, in a community with a low group consciousness. Each time I met with them, they either shot or stabbed me to death.
Now, it appeared what had taken place in the inner worlds had now manifested in the physical. Was this the end of this incarnation for me? I’ve had a life full of adventure, some hardships and plenty of pleasure. I have risen to positions of authority, of leadership in the bank, theater, television, writing, and even in the ECK community. As his gun jabbed me again in the chest, his anger boiling over, I realized this was coming from a lifetime several centuries ago; part of it was from my immediate past life. How this night would end was largely going to be due to the grace of the Mahanta, and whether or not I pass the several tests piled up one on another in the Grotto, the Cave of Fire.
There and then, I had a flashback to the repeated dream experiences I'd had with them. In one of the dream encounters, I met them in a not-so-pleasant place in the Astral, judging by the coarseness of the vibration…
KILLED IN THE ASTRAL
The streets look clean; the houses look decent enough; but the consciousness is not.
While standing at a street corner, I try to gauge the ambience. I can feel something dark lurking underneath. It's a mixture of magic, drug addiction, greed, and what I call camouflaged evil. On the surface, nothing appears amiss, but that is just a cover for the insidious energies nestling below the surface.
What am I doing here? I rarely come to the lower Astral. There must be a lesson to learn or someone to help. I begin to sing HU mentally to keep myself aligned with the highest level of the ECK current as can be allowed in this realm. Everywhere is semi-darkness, like a neighborhood at night where for some reasons only a third of the houses have porch lighting.
I walk towards a building with neon signs. It looks like a hotel but could be a restaurant, or night club, except that the lights are not as bright as one would expect of an entertainment center. About halfway to the place, I suddenly become aware of four men approaching. They block my path. They are dressed in loud, colorful but cheap clothing. I can feel their hostility.
The one in the front is a man of small frame. He appears cunning and malicious. He points his index finger in my direction. I stop. He's accusing me of trespassing.
"Hey, Mr. Man, what are you doing here?" His teeth were colored. A closer look shows two or three are gold-plated.
"Who are you to challenge me?” I counter. “I have the right to be here just like you or anyone.” I stand my ground, legs slightly apart. If they want a fight, I am ready.
Surprisingly, they all bring out weapons, guns and knives. They rush at me. Before I can get out of their way, the leader shoots me in the chest. The bullets pierce through my heart. I hit the ground and die. Then I wake up physically.
It's two o’clock in the morning.
BACK TO SCOTLAND
Two other dream encounters with them ended the same way. After that, I had a lot of concerns and went into contemplation. Why did these guys ambush me three times? Why did I end up in their dark neighborhood? Apart from a past life karma, was there something in my daily life that was attracting me to these hooligans and murderers? Some months ago, when I made this enquiry, the answer I got from the Mahanta shocked me.
"Go back to Scotland. That's where you wronged them."
My assailants in the dream did not look anything Scottish. They were as African as I was. The Mahanta was referring to my past life as a Scottish prince several centuries ago. I was well aware of that lifetime and all the good things I achieved. But not once did I place my attention on the possibility of having wronged a group of people so badly that they would still be chasing after me centuries later.
“God forgives, but the Lords of Karma do not forget," is one of my favorite sayings whenever I give talks on karma and reincarnation. It looked like the chicken had come home to roost. And I had to unearth the issues surrounding my Scottish incarnation.
To do that, I did a Friday fast to align myself properly with the ECK. During that fasting, I chanted ‘Aum-Mana-Mahanta’ consistently as I went through the day. My goal was to go into that particular past life with the Mahanta to see and probably rectify whatever wrong I might have done. While fully awake, I had Soul Travel experiences, some lasting a few seconds, others a couple of hours.
The gamut of that past life is that in my status as the prince, my responsibility to provide for the welfare of the men, women and children of the land meant my administration had to plan, implement, and control state-sponsored projects, without which the complexities of an ever-increasing bureaucracy could quickly develop into wide ranging social problems.
At some point, my attention is brought to a group of heretics who denounce the Christian faith. I am informed they practice a form of witchcraft, casting spells on “good” Christians. Their crime included calling Jesus a foreign God. To combat this, I had to introduce a mobile court which tried and executed witches and other non-Christians at the guillotine. Witnessing these executions became psychological poison to my body and drove me to rely on immeasurable quantities of alcohol as a means of forgetting the horrors of chopping off people’s heads, like butchers in an abattoir.
In the course of these repulsive transactions, I incurred the hatred and wrath of some citizens who wanted me dead. Another incarnation in England didn’t help matters, as they followed me into that lifetime also. That was how I created the nemesis that followed me into this life, attracting people like the unholy gang of four, who clearly were among some of the people who were wrongfully executed for practicing witchcraft. It also accounts for the terrible effect alcohol has on me, and why I must distance myself from it. Alcohol was the bane of my spiritual liberation in that lifetime when I had the unequaled privilege of being friends with Ismet Houdoni, the ECK Master of the time.
That moment of weakness at the Grotto, when I allowed myself “seduced” into taking alcohol was nothing but self-betrayal. It poured two decades of discipline down the drain. All in all, my past life as a Scot proves the Mahanta is always there to help us understand all that we have been, and the possibilities of what we could be in the present and in the future. These records and potentials are all encrypted in each person’s Causal and Soul bodies. So, with the Spiritual Exercises of ECK and the guidance of the Mahanta, we can know what is needed to make life worth living.
MAHANTA!
Back to the present, as the car made its way through the crawling traffic on the bridge, heading to the airport, I thought of several things I could do to save myself from this predicament. The leader jabbed me again in the chest with his gun. He was expecting me to do something. What it was, I didn’t know. He kept insisting I give them more money, otherwise he would kill me.
“Are you not the one he’s talking to?” The big man spoke for the first time. Being close to me, our auras were in close proximity, and I could easily know what was going on in his mind. He was the custodian of psychic power in the group, but the powers he had acquired did not threaten me in any way.
Rather than answer him, I began doing a spiritual exercise. Every spiritual exercise of ECK is designed to link the initiate with the ECK current, the Light and Sound, aka the Holy Spirit. This is the true love of God. In the process, some of the benefits of divine love begin to manifest in, around, and through the initiate. Soul Travel, calmness, wisdom, clarity, and creativity are some of these benefits. The spiritual exercise I was doing is known as Tiwaja, the gaze of the Master.
Simply put, I visualized the Mahanta, the Living ECK Master sitting in the front seat, rather than the gang leader. Simultaneously, I invited Sri Rebazar Tarzs to take the space to my left, where sat the bulky man with the gun and the psychic ring. To my right, I invited Sri Fubbi Quantz to occupy the space where the jumpy, young man held a blade to my ribs. As for the driver, I invited Sri Lai Tsi to take the wheel. It wasn’t difficult for me to do this within a second. It had been a regular practice for at least twenty years.
At work, in class, on a bus, in a taxi, strolling down the street, I performed this exercise to bring myself into the presence of these ECK Masters and Divine Spirit. The exercise works very fast, especially when I could not sit down or find the privacy to sing the HU or my personal word to my satisfaction.
Immediately I commenced with this exercise, I noticed the big guy shiver visibly. The young man stopped being jittery. The gang leader changed his tone, even though his words remained the same.
“Officer, give us money, or I will shoot.”
At this point, I look into the eyes of the image of the Mahanta sitting in front of me. Rather than see anger, I saw true love; rather than a gun, I saw a single stem carnation, a symbol of pure love. Then I chanted, “Mahanta! Mahanta! Mahanta! You will not shoot me. We are friends. We have been friends for a very long time. You will not shoot me.”
There was total silence in the car. The ECK current was flowing very strongly and there was a battle between dark auras and the Light and Sound flowing through me. The first person to recover from this shock was the bulky guy.
“What nonsense talk is that? What strange language is that?” He followed this by hitting me on the head with his knuckle. This was the hand bearing the ring. His calculation was that the power of the ring would counter whatever power I was invoking, which had startled him and the rest of the crew.
The love, presence, and power of the Mahanta and the ECK Masters have always filled me with awe. I remembered some of the moments I’d enjoyed this presence. Each time, it led to something miraculous, accompanied by an updraft of the wind of change in my life. A common thread in all these experiences is the demonstration of the love of God for Soul, on which our existence is predicated. This is the major foundation on which we build our quest for co-workership.
Soon, the car would speed past the local airport and head toward the International airport. That would make it more difficult to return back to my route, as it would take us several miles off course, a dangerous proposition, even if nothing happened to me while in the hands of the hoodlums. Having to walk several miles at midnight through a dark and lonely stretch was as bad as being in the captivity of these armed men.
I had to be decisive. A co-worker is first and foremost responsible for their own welfare and survival. The ECK, Mahanta, Sugmad, and the other Masters and powers are always eager and ready to assist. Yet, the desire of the co-worker to survive must be matched by his imagination and constructive action.
When our arms are wide open, life will be eager to embrace us. Not until then.
When I chanted ‘Mahanta’ out loud three more times, there was a visible change in the energy in the car. My abductors felt the upward mobility of the ECK currents. The fear, anger, or hatred I felt towards them was extinguished. So, by polarizing on the Mahanta, I did raise the stakes from that of adversarial to one of a loving, Soul-to-Soul interaction. This action neutralized the negativity developed centuries ago in Scotland when I superintended over their execution for what they probably were not guilty of.
More importantly, the four men had been brought into the holy presence of the Mahanta. From this moment on, they would not be the same again. The Mahanta and the ECK Masters had made contact with them. This further underscored the injunction of the Mahanta after I survived the battle with the dark entity in the lower astral: “Always remember, it is not about you. It’s always about the Mahanta.”
These four Souls met with me, robbed me, and threatened to kill me, not because they hated me, but because they needed to meet the Mahanta through me. No matter how discomfiting the situation may be, whenever any Soul meets with the co-worker, it is an auspicious occasion for meeting with the Godman. That demands we remain pure channels for the Light and Sound at all times. This does not imply that we present the teachings to everyone we meet, but as long as we remain pure and open channels, the Light and Sound will touch and uplift them into the loving presence of the Mahanta. Given the present circumstances in the car with the hoodlums, I have helped them reach this stage of spiritual enlightenment. What follows will be up to them and the Mahanta.
WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT?
I made up my mind: it was time to leave.
I was about to chant ‘Mahanta’ again when I heard the gentle voice of Z: “Right now, what do you really want?” That touched me and propelled me to the right course to take. Most times people pray and complain about a problem, but rarely do they identify and embrace the solution. Both situations always co-exist. It takes the discerning Soul to recognize this and choose freedom rather than engage in an endless battle with the problem.
So, I chanted out loud “Mahanta! Mahanta! Mahanta! I want you to stop the car and let me off, right now!”
Something like a bolt of lightning hit the consciousness of the men. The hardest hit was the gang leader. Without hesitation, he barked at the driver. “Stop the car and let the officer get off!”
The driver brought the car to a screeching halt, tires grinding against the asphalt as he slammed hard on the brakes. The big guy withdrew his gun and removed his ringed hand from my chest. The young man opened the door, stepped out. The car stopped just briefly enough for me to jump out. The driver stepped on the gas pedal as soon as my feet hit the ground. The young man had to sprint after the car to be able to jump back in.
An oncoming car almost crashed into the robbers’ car. There was another loud screeching of tires as both vehicles swerved, braked, and accelerated again. I wasn’t sure if the second car was a police car on the tail of the gangsters. I quickly went down on the grass, flat on my chest. I didn’t want to be caught in the crossfire, in case there was a shootout.
I was free!
NB:
For more about spiritual exercises, the Mahanta, ECK Masters, the Holy Spirit, and your spiritual destiny, please visit www.eckankar.org
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