I’d like to share a story with you that’s stayed with me for over twenty years.
A long time ago, I was writing an article for Science of Mind magazine and I interviewed John Easterling. This was right around the time he married Olivia Newton-John. He told me something I’ve never forgotten.
When John was a young man, around twenty-one, he was hospitalized with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Most people don’t survive it.
He lay in a hospital bed and he could feel his life slipping away. And it was. He believed his physical form actually died. He popped out of his body and found himself flying along the surface of a lake on a dark night, moving toward a beautiful full moon.
As soon as he was out of the body, he had access to everything.
For as long as he could remember he’d been fascinated with ancient civilizations, the Mayans, the Incans, the lost treasures and lost mysteries. He’d had an Indiana Jones kind of yearning to discover the hidden secrets.
The moment he popped out of his body identification, he knew the answers to all his questions. It was all so clear to him.
Yet above all the ancient knowledge, the two things he knew absolutely were these:
Love is everything that matters.
Forgiveness is essential.
That was it. Those were the truths that ran underneath every other truth.
John did survive. He came back. And what shifted for him was this: he was no longer afraid of dying. He knew his physical body could die and he would not. He knew there was nothing to fear.
That’s the testimony.
A Course in Miracles talks about people who “see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it.” That’s exactly what John did.
We don’t have to die to learn what John learned. It’s available to us right here, while we’re alive, while we’re in this body experience, while we’re going about our ordinary days.
The two truths John brought back are the foundation of everything we do.
Love is everything. Forgiveness is essential.
If you’d like to practice forgiveness with us, please join my FREE Forgiveness Workshop on Monday, May 25. And if you’d like to go deeper into transforming the way you see the world, my Change Your Mind About the World series begins May 30, with early bird pricing ending Monday, May 25.
If you’d like to do this work with us, my Change Your Mind About the World series begins May 30. Early-bird BONUSES end Monday, May 25. And if you’d like to start right away, my FREE Forgiveness Workshop is happening that same Monday, May 25.
We can do this!
LATEST PODCAST EPISODE: Annihilated by Love with James Twyman What if we’ve been studying spirituality our whole lives and quietly missing the actual experience? This week I sit down with my longtime friend James Twyman about his latest book – and an inheritance that traces back to 13th century women mystics most of us have never heard of. Why does the path to direct mystical experience still terrify us 700 years later? Who would we be if we let love consume the small self we’ve been protecting?
New Series: Change Your Mind About the World – with Alan Cohen, James Twyman, Michael Mirdad and Lisa Natoli – early-bird BONUSES until May 25th. Click here for more info.
