Holistic-Personal-Development.com

Most of the time we move along through life in a very ordinary sort of way following a routine, thinking the same sorts of thoughts as we always have, feeling that the world is physical and relating to one another in terms of the outward appearance of the body. 
 
But for many of us there have been instances (which we often put on the back burner and forget about) where life is far from ordinary.
 
I will tell you about two amazing things that happened to me.  One was in February of 1991.  I was coming home from work on my bicycle.  There was no snow on the ground but there were some loose salt pebbles. 

I came past a row of shops until I was suddenly in front of an underground parking and could see a pick-up truck backing out towards me at full speed.  Out of fear I twisted my handlebars away from the truck and this caused my bicycle to slide on the salt and fall down. 

I put my arm out to stop the fall and the pain that shot through my arm was all the small bones in my elbow being crushed.  So now I was lying on the ground on my broken arm with the bicycle between my legs and the truck still coming full speed towards me.  I thought that this must be how I was going to die and that it was really okay.  I felt very very peaceful and calm once I knew that there was no getting away from the situation. 
 
But…………..leaving my body at this moment was not to be in the drama.  A stranger on the street, a man in a trench coat ran to the truck and thrust his arm right through the glass of the passenger window, causing the driver of the truck to stop.  He stopped with the back wheel of the truck revving to get over my body, just a bump in the road for him. 

The police and ambulance came and a crowd of people gathered around, but the man in the trench coat was nowhere to be seen.  He did exist because the people in the building across the street had seen him from the third floor where they happened to be looking out the window.  I was never able to find him to thank him for what he had done. 

As the years went by the realization sunk deeper and deeper into my consciousness of how super human what he had done had been.  There was so little time to think of doing something like that and he must have moved very quickly and had a lot of strength to break the glass with his hand, and wouldn’t he have been cut and needed some treatment?  It was very unusual.
 
The other thing happened about six years ago.  I had just started taking a course in Raja yoga meditation and I was practicing meditating at home.  I had a CD called Peace of Mind that I was using.  After listening to the CD for about an hour, while sitting in the silent room contemplating peace, I suddenly had a vision. 

First it came in a split second and then disappeared.  I said, (in my thoughts), no, please come back.  Slowly it came back.  I had never had a vision in my life before and here I was, wide awake and fully conscious.  I think my eyes were open, but I can’t be certain. 

The vision was of a very beautiful golden face in profile contained within a square with a black background. The face was androgynous.  It was glowing like the sun hitting gold and from behind the face was a cool yellow light like moonlight.  Filling in the rest of the square was decorative ironwork (curls, flowers and leaves with gaps where light could shine through), leaving a crescent shape of the moonlight shining from behind around the profile. 

I looked at this vision, studying every detail of it for at least 10 minutes, with an idea in my mind of painting it.  I have painted it a few times since, but no painting of it would ever really do it justice. 

All I can say about it was that it was so beautiful and so peaceful and it even seemed to be alive and breathing.  Sometimes I thought it looked like a piece of jewelry. After a while it just slowly went away. 
 
About one week ago I had a flash vision of Ganesh which I found very funny, since in this birth, I have never done any devotion of Ganesh, and I hadn’t been thinking about Ganesh at all.  But after that I went into the internet and looked up some things about Ganesh.  

Ganesh is worshipped in Hinduism as the god of knowledge, writing and art. I found it interesting that for 3 days prior to having that flash vision I had been thinking a lot about how much I love spiritual knowledge.  And of course art and writing and all sorts of self expression have really been my religion in this birth. 

Hummmmm.  I guess it’s not so odd that I had a vision of Ganesh.  I must have done some Ganesh bhakti in a past birth. 
 
I’m telling you about these things to show you that this life is far from ordinary.  It’s very special.  In the first story my life was spared because, although souls are eternal and death is really no big deal, there are certain things which I needed to do in this body that I couldn’t do in a new baby body.  Something had to intervene in what was about to be my death or serious injury. 
 
In the second story, (or two stories)…….. we have visions according to what we do the most intense devotion of.  Visions are the reward of intense devotion.  The visions came to me as the fulfillment of my account of bhakti. 

But, visions are really no big deal.  They don’t do anything for you except leave you amazed, mystified and happy, (temporarily). 

It is the knowledge of the soul which is a tiny point of invisible energy and carries a record of all your births that is the truly amazing thing.  Psychics who tap into your future and tell you things which are going to come up for you are really tapping into the recordings of the soul.  The future is the distant past and everything has already happened. 

There is nothing in this world that is ever happening for the first time.  This life is definitely not what it appears to be.

[Special guest writer Carol Biberstein makes her living as an artist, art teacher and Farmers’ Market Bread Lady in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. She has been a student of Raja Yoga meditation for 6 ½ years, has changed a lot from the inside outward, and expects to transform completely. She writes about deep spiritual matters to inspire others to transform their lives. All thanks goes to the Creator, the one who inspires the re-creation of the world!]