Shawn Stoner's journal, part II

A Weekend at the

College of Metaphysics

Saturday, May 24th, 2003:

The morning started early for me. We started cooking at around 5am. Biscuits, gravy and scrambled eggs. Good food for all the energy that would be moved throughout the day.

People started arriving for coffee and good mornings around 6:45am. Linda, Valerie and I were still in the thick of biscuit preparation. I love making biscuits at the college. I sang a little song as I cut in the shortening, “Light and fluffy biscuits, light and fluffy biscuits.” It probably looked silly to someone else, but it was very purposeful. I wanted to create a thought of the kind of biscuits that I was creating and I wanted to, in a light-hearted way, teach Valerie about the power of your thoughts and intentions.

After breakfast, everyone split-up into their classes and we all headed out to the Universal Garden to weed. I went and grabbed a camera and Terry got the video camera. It was so wonderful to see so many people loving and caring for our garden.

Taking care of a garden is a very good way to learn about Mind.

How thoughts manifest; how love, attention and intention effect your creations. Plants are very responsive to the attention and thoughts that they receive.

The College of Metaphysics is truly wholistic learning, where every experience becomes one of expanded consciousness and greater awareness. It is a wonderful place to learn how to use all the experiences of your life in this way. Weeding the garden becomes a metaphor for tending to the thoughts that you want to manifest by pulling out the ones that you don’t want. Replacing negative, limiting thinking with thinking that will bring to you what you desire.

A lot of weeds were pulled this day-an entire gardens worth, and we have a big garden! It made me think about how much I could change and create if all of the aspects of myself were that focused and concentrated on the creation of what I truly desire.

After weeding the garden, the classes went their separate ways, and I followed with the camera.

Linus Pauling and his class were in the orchard, weeding, planting trees, watering and mowing the grass.

Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Charity were in the kitchen, serving the others by washing the dishes and then preparing the noon meal.

The Dalai Lama and his monks and nuns were at the Healing Wall, applying white concrete into which would later be embedded crushed sparkling white stone, with the intention that the wall would glisten and sparkle in the sun.

President Jimmy Carter and his group were collecting flat stones from around the property so that we could create the garden surrounding the Peace Dome and walk-ways connecting the parts of campus.

Alva Mirdahl and her class were in the bottom level of the dome, collating and stapling copies of Understanding your Dreams, the first book that students read in the SOM course of study.

Albert Schweitzer and his group of metaphysicians were at Dream Valley, tending to the grounds and replacing a barbed-wire fence with a mesh screen fence.

Betty Williams and her Peace People were in the garden, planting new rows and watering.

Dr. Martin Luther King and his group of Christian soldiers were beautifying fence rows.

I went from group to group, taking pictures.

After lunch, Terry Martin and I went around to the different groups and interviewed people, asking them questions like, “What is your vision of what the Peace Dome is all about?” or “What have you gained the most since you have been a student in the School of Metaphysics?”

Here was the manifestation of my goal!

Some people were confident, others a little nervous in front of the camera, however one thing remained true no matter who we talked to. Everyone loves the School of Metaphysics and the Peace Dome.

With rain imminent, the plans for the late afternoon were altered and all of the teachers met with Dr. Dan for Teachology, a class in which he teaches us how to be better teachers. All of the students who are not yet teachers met with Dr. Pam in the third floor chapel to talk about the importance of the exercises, the daily spiritual disciplines all students in the school practice.

Dinner of the garden fresh salad, mouth watering stew and hot french bread soon followed, with much talk and sharing of what had been learned throughout the day. It takes several hours to prepare food for 100 people and the clean up goes on for almost as long. I marvel at how easy it is when everyone enjoys each other's company. Just to think this time yesterday many of us were meeting each other for the first time! Now, through what we have done together, we are like old friends, family.

At 7:30pm, one of the most exciting events of the weekend occurred. At lesson 9 in the School of Metaphysics course, students receive a Past Life Profile as part of their study of Self. This intuitive report relates a significant past life to the present experience in terms of karma and learning. Then the report relates why that particular past life is most relevant to the present and gives suggestions for further growth. These reports are always immensely helpful in aiding students to understand where they are in their learning and what their next steps should be.

It is particularly special to be present for these reports. For most people it is unlike anything they have ever experienced before in their life.

There were over 100 people packed into the downstairs main room to witness the reports. Throughout the giving of the reports there were moments of intensely focused silence, collective intakes of breath, and a few moments of laughter. From the girl who was born mute in Japan to the Eyptian who was neither male nor female, the reports surprise, confound, and delight those present. It is in the signifiance that the universal truth comes forward and each one attending is fed spiritual wisdom. The Intuitive Reports are truly one of the most amazing services that the School of Metaphysics offers. I know that my own spiritual growth has been geometrically expanded because of what I have received from the reports over the years.

After the reports were given, Dr. Dan and Dr. Barbara answered questions from the students for over an hour. Questions ranged from, (to Dr. Barbara) “Do you remember what you said?” (the answer is no-all reporters are trained to not remember the reports that they give) to “What is the significance of Wesak and how does it relate to the mission of the School of Metaphysics?” Perhaps one of the most memorable moments was when they spoke of the power of gratitude for healing, for abundance, and for timeless connection between souls.

After the question and answer session, we all met again in the great room to go out to the Dome for a group meditation led by Dr. Dan. I was very much looking forward to this meditation - I could feel the need for connection within me.

Much had been coming to my awareness within the previous several weeks, much of it having to do with the difference between my ideals and my experiences and how I felt and reacted to this. Habitually, I would go to the old thoughts of “I am just not a good person, not capable enough or strong enough.” I was coming face to face with these ways of thinking in ways that I hadn’t up until that point and I felt beat-up and beat-down. Tired of fighting to convince myself that I was worthy of good things in my life. This was why I was craving the connection that I knew would come in meditation.

I passed by Simone (Sheehan-teacher from Tulsa) and reached out to hug her. As we embraced I could feel myself opening my heart to her love. In waves of reassurance I could feel comfort, peace and the thought that everything was going to be okay. The tears started to flow from my eyes and I surrendered some of the fight then.

There is a line in one of the lessons that says, “Spiritual Family is one of the best forms of therapy there is.” This was the reality of what I was experiencing.

There have been so many times when I have sat in the great room at the College and looked around the room, full of upwards of 80-100 people and I have been struck and awed at how blessed I am. Although there are usually always new people to meet on the student weekends, I can look around and look into the eyes of a roomful of people that I have shared some of the most profound, poignant, and spiritually uplifting moments of my life. I know that before I was a student in the school, I searched for these kinds of connections, and they would be few and far between. Now I have an extended spiritual family, any one of which I could call upon at any time and they would be there for me, as I would be for them. What an incredible gift. It is profoundly humbling and gratifying all at the same time.

We walked out to the dome in the dark. Entering the second level of the dome at night is like entering into a space ship, one that will perhaps take you to heaven.

We settled into our meditation positions, with Dr. Dan giving us some basic instructions for the meditation time, for those students who had just began the daily practice of meditation. We chanted the AUM to prepare our consciousness for meditation. Chanting in the dome is unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. The sound echoes back in upon itself, reverberating upwards, creating harmonics and overtones the can take you deep within.

As we chanted, I could see within my mind, the vibration of the chant rolling out from the dome in waves. I saw that we, every person present, was being lifted by that sound. I came to a place where everything was white-all around me echoed and filled the sound of AUM. It was as if I was in the space that the vibration created. The sound of AUM had taken on form, and I was experiencing that form. There was a doorway in front of me, and I knew that if I were to enter here, I would know all connection, all truth would be clear to me. I felt myself asking if I was ready to enter here, and then asking the one standing next to the door if I could enter. I was allowed to enter for a brief period of time and found myself flying or floating through this space that wasn’t really a space at all, but more a way of being. I didn’t stay for long, and can’t now consciously describe to you what I saw when I was there, however I know that my consciousness has begun to open in ways that it hasn’t before. I know that more will be revealed. The rest of the meditation was a peace that was hugely profound and joyful.

Many people after the meditation talked about how powerful meditating in the dome was. Energetically, it is a marvelous experience.

It is intriguing to me to imagine how our consciousness would be different if we were to live in dome structures.

Perhaps we wouldn’t have so many sharp edges if we lived in houses that were soft and rounded.

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