This description of Marshall’s spiritual visions is gratefully offered for what inspiration or insight it may give to you.
These visions are not absolute Truth, because they come and go. However, they have proven to be important guides and signposts to help me realize the Truth which has no form and yet is everything and everywhere.
In these visions, inspired understanding was made available without my bidding or intention. They arrive spontaneously. Thus, the most significant lesson might be that “I do not know!” and “I need do nothing!” to receive the gifts of Grace. My willing acceptance of Truth is all that’s asked and needed.
“I need do nothing.” This was my “reawakening” experience. It was in San Francisco, around 1990.
I’d been studying A Course in Miracles for about three years. I was sitting in a meeting in the Mission District with a small group of political/environmental activists (the Greens). This was one of a series of meetings facilitated by students from the California Institute of Integral Studies, in which we were attempting to create consensus on our goals and strategies. We were talking of the importance of community. One member of the group made a heartfelt plea for home, family, and unity, saying “This is all I really want.”
Suddenly, the group became absolutely quiet. For me, time stopped. I had a vision of an upward winding path made of soft clouds. The understanding then came to me from within that everything is okay, that all problems are solved, and that “I need do nothing.” Over and over I wrote those words, “I need do nothing,” on my note pad. I knew it was absolutely true. Our political activism was a happy fiction. All my efforts are unnecessary. I have the choice, if I wish to fully accept it, to abandon all effort to fix things, because everything is already accomplished, all things are already healed.
Afterwards, at lunch, I asked others, “What was that?” If I had been better at asking or knowing who to ask, I might have learned that this was a direct transmission of Truth which was in my very best interest to believe, internalize, and use consistently as a guide in every choice. At the time, I didn’t know what it was, only that it was true, and that I had the choice of whether or not to accept it. This knowledge, combined with subsequent experience has led me at last to this happy present: Now I know that I really do not have to, or want to, plan solutions for “problems” and evaluate outcomes. I can ask for peace at the very time I see a “problem” arise. Everything has been already planned and solved by One who knows so much more than I.
All is radiance. San Francisco Airport:
I had seen a dear friend off on her flight home to Austin, Texas. We had waited a long time for the flight to depart. Walking through the concourse, I suddenly saw the faces of the people around me shining with an inner luminance or radiance. The purity of their appearance showed me the purity of my own Beingness.
We are all pure and innocent. Denver, CO, August 29, 1993, at Ma’s:
We had just completed an outdoor Sunday church service for residents of a nearby convalescent home. I had offered the morning prayer, the last paragraph in Lesson 189 in A Course in Miracles.
While climbing the narrow back stairs, a dynamic, white light appeared to the right of me, but not outside of me. To my left were symbols of the world — buildings, bodies — in silhouette. The bodies and the buildings faded and fell away. They were impermanent. The light ascended the stairs with me, as a part of me. It came not from outside, but it was rather as if my normal field of vision had parted, allowing eternal light within to shine forth. The world I normally see had parted like frayed cheese cloth to allow the underlying, true world to be seen.
The light had texture. It was visceral. It was energetic,… like powerful, yet gentle, sunbeams. And the light silently imparted knowledge. It gave me to understand that we are all pure and innocent, that there is no basis for guilt or judgment of any kind. The light willingly and joyfully gave this knowledge to me. We are all blessed with infinite, never-ending love; total and complete acceptance; and grace. Our true nature is *Love.* And we can choose to see this at any time. We always have choice whether to look upon, and ponder, the illusory dream world, or upon God’s world, the true world.
Since then, it has been fairly easy for me to question unforgiving, hurtful thoughts that I may have. I have been more willing to receive new, happy, peaceful thoughts of people, places, and things when I am tempted to fear, judge, condemn, worry, or regret.
I have made the world I see. Oakland, CA:
Sitting at the breakfast table, I saw my partner, Donna/Jaya, as a product of my own mind. I could see I made her up. And I could also see at the same time that she offers me salvation, since she offers me the truth in her words and all her other communication to me. God’s Voice speaks to me through her and through all my brothers. These are my mighty companions who will accompany me home.
There is no room for anything but Love. Oakland, CA:
This came to me during an ACIM study group at our home. Two people were sitting on the couch in front of me. I saw them become transparent, and Love became the only real presence in the room. It occupied all the space, including the space within the perceived bodies. It was clear that any attempt to evaluate or judge any situation is impossible, since there is no space available for judgment of any kind. There is nothing but Love. Everything is Love.
The story is over. Stinson Beach, CA. April 5, 1998, Palm Sunday:
I was at a weekend intensive retreat with Gangaji. In the morning session, Gangaji spoke of the honoring and anointing of Jesus on Palm Sunday.
Arising to leave, I experienced the feeling of being anointed and blessed, myself. I then had a vision of waves crashing on beaches around the world. I was given to understand that the waves represented generation upon generation of humanity needlessly repeating a tortured and futile life in this world as we see it. Then the waves became transparent, and only the ocean from which they arose remained. The constancy of this eternal, loving Source told me that the fleeting, impermanent drama of human experience is over whenever we so choose.
Later, as I walked on Stinson Beach looking at clouds on the horizon, Heaven opened to me (or vice versa). Deep peace and joy were my only experience, and it was as if a chorus of harmonious bells were ringing — and angels were singing. I felt blessed beyond measure. I left the beach and sat in bliss for a long while on a picnic table in a nearby park, eyes moist with gratitude. We are free now to end the story of human suffering. How loved we are!
My Self is infinite in size and silence. Hendy Woods State Park, CA. July 30, 1998:
I was at a week-long silent retreat with Neelam. I was in deep peace, knowing that there was nothing outside of me. After a morning session, I rode my bike into the nearby Hendy Woods State Park redwood grove. To my surprise, the stoic stillness of the ancient, stately redwood trees was no match for the silence in which they and “I” arose. I could see the trees vibrating with a strange fuzziness. Also, they seemed puny within the context of the vastness of my true Self.
As I biked home, the stillness continued. I could hear the gravel beneath my tires, but the sensation was one of floating, rather than bumping or crunching along. I was perfectly safe, at one with the universe.
Two days later, I awoke in fear. Rather than denying it, I lay still and asked to see it truly. Peace arrived, and with it assurance from my Satguru, the Holy Spirit, that “You have arrived on the shore of Certainty, where all doubts and fears can be gently washed away by the waves and tides of forgiveness. Allow perfect cleanliness to be your goal and your reality.”
Thank You!
“There is something very good for you here.” Fox Creek, Oregon, June 1, 2000:
Guidance received on June 1, 2000, directed Donna and me to move to Fox Creek, Oregon, a remote nature preserve. We were visiting Fox Creek for the day and were walking up the canyon. I received a vision of me standing in a room with wood beams and wood paneling on the ceiling. It seemed like a meditation hall or a retreat center. The Holy Spirit advised that “There is something very good for you here.”
We moved on the first of October, 2000, and found ourselves living in peaceful surroundings, with a year-round creek to keep us company. We also found ourselves completely removed from our “comfort zone” in terms of our daily activities and what we thought was necessary to sustain us. We found that, if we were to avoid suffering, we must rely totally on Holy Spirit to guide us. This is actually a true blessing!
The room with the wood paneling has not materialized, but may be merely symbolic. Today my only goal is to see only innocence, accept the Atonement for myself, know Truth, and allow consistent, full communication with God.
We’re all in this together. We are One. Paradise, CA, September 14, 2001:
We were in Paradise, California, on Friday, September 14, 2001, the National Day of Prayer following 9/11. We watched the ecumenical service from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on a TV in a motel room. The prayers, sermons, and music were quite beautiful. Suddenly, as the camera panned the audience, I was unexpectedly drawn into a feeling of perfect unity with all those in attendance. It was gratifying to see beyond the seemingly distinguishing features of political parties, gender, age, race, and so on, to the grace that unites us. No judgment of others is justified, no labels matter, for we all are One.
I trust my brother as myself. Boise, Idaho, October 30, 2002:
Departing Boise airport, I was chosen for a detailed security search just as the plane was boarding. This is where they even make you take off your shoes to check them. I was feeling imposed on, as I would be the last person on the plane. But then the fellow using the detector wand told me three times that I was to have a nice flight. It went beyond simple courtesy. He was quite emphatic. It struck me that it was a message from the Holy Spirit. I understood that we really just don’t know what, or who, the bodies we think we see really are. It is entirely correct and justified to see them only as perfect communication devices, and not as complex beings with possible ulterior motives. We just don’t know… We can always choose to see it differently.
I turn with all my brothers to the Light. Fox Creek, Oregon, December 11, 2002:
During our morning meditation, I received the vision of a group of people, myself included, turn gently, silently, and joyfully toward an immense, loving Light. The understanding that came with the vision was of our unity and shared inheritance. We’re all going Home together, and we are doing it with full awareness and mutual consent.