mark@cbd.co

 

 

Mark McCammon

 

Coming to Baba:

 

My story on coming to Baba is unique, but of course every bodies experience in coming to him is unique. No two stories are the same and yet they are all identical. The human condition is to learn how to love. Some find love through a partner or a beautiful work of art; others have a love for sport or friends. Others even find their love through hate, passionate hate can of course manifest as a deranged form of love, history continues to prove as such, and yet true love is not really known until you can understand that there is a GOD. My journey is truth that this love is latent in us all.

As a child I used to lie in bed of a night. I was however not sleeping, but thinking. My mind was awash with activity .What happens when Mum and Dad die? Why was I born? Where did I come from? Is there something under my bed? What was that noise? This was real anxiety.

 These thoughts weighed so heavily on my tiny frame that the only way I could lighten them was to get out of bed and run around the house screaming the WORLD’s going to end, the worlds going to end. Trust me you can run fast when you are full of fear and in a blind panic.  I was only five but I would run like the wind to the safety of my parent’s room via several laps of the lounge. It was like my feet were on fire! Breaking the scenario down nearly 40 years later I just couldn’t see any point in being alive.

Christened as an Anglican my family wasn’t exactly God fearing. My mother to this day is an Atheist / borderline agnostic as is my brother. My father has recently found a love of Christ within the Church but when I was a child his religion was working shift work at the Steelworks in Port Kembla and being grumpy. That’s how it was. This was my reality and I loved my childhood.

As we all do I grew and became more conscious, conscious of being a smart arse mostly. What joy it was to laugh at the scripture teacher who imparted to us the wonderful stories of Kane and Able, Moses parting the red sea .What a crock! I thought, not only was it ridiculous to me but I felt it my duty to let everybody within ear shot know how I felt. Lying too became an art form, not serious lies but lies nonetheless. My mind had taken over and it was exercising its greatness.

As you can imagine when the mind becomes conscious of its apparent specialness the EGO can do little except follow. My adolescence was full of good times spent at the beach with my friends and drinking flagons of wine at the weekends. I vowed not to smoke, take drugs or be promiscuous but it wasn’t long before I had broken all of those vows and more. I was smart and handsome. I was naturally invincible!

University came and went by which time I had forgotten any importance in God at all. Not too dissimilar from the Atheist intellectual elite of today Dawkins, Hitchins et al. God was nothing but a crutch, a plaything of politicians and political power brokers. Marx was right as far as I was concerned. Religion was an opiate for the masses, such stupid people could only love God.

 

As my life unfolded I was now living in England, earning more than a decent living for a 24 yr old and above all having lots of fun as I believed.  My prospects were bright and seemingly everything I touched turned to Gold.

One night I was invited to a party in London, it was only a little way away and I had nothing else to do. It was a typical London house party, loads of booze, music, candles and smoke. Not knowing anybody I was attached to the wall as pretty as a flower, it was late, so I just drank my beer and watched.

“Hello, my name is Lucy, what’s yours?” “Umm, I’m Mark, how ya going?”  Look I saw you standing there so I thought I’d say hello. I’d like to give you my number,” she said.  “Oh ok?” Man was I taken aback. That was the first time somebody had given me their number. Weird!! To be honest I wasn’t that interested. She practically lived across the road from me so I said goodbye and told her I would call her.

Two days later I had some people from work over my flat and there was a knock on the door. Unusual ….one of my guests answered the door. It was Lucy and she had bought her dog over to say hello? Ahh Hello um come on in.

They say Love comes when you least expect it and they are right. The following two years spent with Lucy were unlike any I had with any other girlfriend. I loved her. In many ways after one spiteful divorce and three children later I still love do, but for different reasons.  Up until that moment I hadn’t understood love. It was entirely special and it opened a portal within me. Lucy and I were not meant to be however this love was the beginning of another love, one which grows every day.

Lucy was another awakening for me. It was the world ending all over again but in a profoundly different way. It was a loss unimaginable which shook me up for many years. Back in Australia without Lucy I needed something to fill the gap. How could I live without her, at times I really didn’t think I could? In my loneliness and suffering I turned myself to religion. It’s amazing what pain can do. I couldn’t and still can’t tolerate “Christianity as a religion so I decided to take a course at the Sydney Buddhist Centre to try other avenues to GOD, I visited several spiritual retreats, boy I even got married thinking love would surely grow, unfortunately I was wrong about that!

 Something had changed in me however. I was now 27 and The loss of love had turned me into a seeker. The thoughts of those early childhood years came flooding back. There must be a reason for this misery. Why do I have to go through this? Is there still something under my bed? Yes it’s true I was still occasionally checking.

A good friend in Randwick who knew the pain I was going through had turned me on to Wayne Dyer and a CD on manifesting your heart’s desire. I had read a couple of Wayne’s books so I was open to listening to what was essentially a chanting CD.  On that CD Dr Dyer quoted Meher Baba “How to love GOD”:

 

 

HOW TO LOVE GOD

Meher Baba

 
To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings. If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones, we love God.

If, instead of seeing faults in others, we look within ourselves, we are loving God.

If, instead of robbing others to help ourselves, we rob ourselves to help others, we are loving God.

If we suffer in the sufferings of others and feel happy in the happiness of others, we are loving God.

If, instead of worrying over our own misfortunes, we think ourselves more fortunate than many many others, we are loving God.

If we endure our lot with patience and contentment, accepting it as His Will, we are loving God.

If we understand and feel that the greatest act of devotion and worship to God is not to hurt or harm any of His beings, we are loving God.

To love God as He ought to be loved, we must live for God and die for God, knowing that the goal of life is to Love God, and find Him as our own self.

 

 

That was it. My journey had ended and another had begun. Here is a man who isn’t religious, who is direct and speaks with authority. Here is a man who categorizes all of humanity as one, without thought to caste creed or scripture. Immediately I was fascinated in someone who clearly spoke like God should. Was this God himself?

I’m not one much for numbers or remembering when things precisely happened however since coming to Baba my life has changed. Through all the up’s and downs of my life I find myself again married with two more children, one from my first marriage and two from my second. I’ve had the good fortune to ride high in business and fall flat on my face. I’ve made money and lost money, I’ve found love and lost love only to then find it again. I have suffered a nervous breakdown and more besides however all of this has happened with Baba’s nazar firmly upon me. Slowly, yet ever so surely I have been tempered in my love for God, and at this moment I couldn’t be happier. I can now accept all of my suffering as a natural part of the journey and I realize the true heroes are the ones who never complain.

 

Suffering is absolutely essential to the journey of the soul, as it alone can break us of our attachments, and it may even be intensified for a short while as Baba guides us on the most direct route.

 

Baba has said that nothing happens without His will, but that His wish gives us the privilege of choice: we can choose to obey Him. Baba's orders come from His all-knowing compassion. Sometimes when we ask Him a question, the answer is an order that we might not like, but it is Baba's wish that we obey. Baba has said, "Better that you don't ask Me; if you ask Me, then you must do as I say. If you don't want to obey, then don't ask Me." This lesson has to be learned.

 

I was allowed to see the painful consequences that occur when people ask Baba for something and then expect His approval or when they simply act according to their own desires, forgetting to seek His pleasure. Baba gives us alternatives to our destiny that can cut short our suffering if we will only obey Him.

 

As He once told us, a huge field contains grass of different lengths and thicknesses — short, tall, thick, thin. But when a flaming match is thrown, it burns the whole field of dry grass within minutes. Baba said that His spiritual match, in the same way, can burn away the whole field of our sanskaras. But complete obedience and faith are necessary. These qualities take many lifetimes of dedication to develop, and only after we are prepared, by the grace of God Himself, do they manifest.

 

(Alternatives to our Destiny) A.N. Dadachanji

 

Early on in my journey to Baba I felt sorry for myself not having the opportunity to have bowed at his feet within my own body. Now I am thankful. I know I haven’t the courage to be as he really wants me to be and yet in his ultimate compassion he allows me to grow in my own time. Our Lord has never been vengeful. He is only the purest of love, beyond comprehension, beyond our imagination.

As a lover of Baba I realize I have so much to learn, it never ends until we merge in him, however I thank him most especially for the love he shines upon me and the experiences he has presented to me to get where I am. I am very fortunate to have had him lift this veil of love upon myself and my family

Post Script: The world is going to end by the way. It’s no big deal either! He has another one waiting for us ready to go!

In finality  it is only his will that matters.

Mark McCammon

Melbourne. ( mark@cbd.co )

mark@cbd.co