By Bruce A. Smith

Note: The following essay is from my upcoming book, Becoming God-Realized – Stories from my Journey.

What does “God-Realization” mean?

God-Realization, to me, means knowing I am a divine being and that it’s my fundamental state of existence. I believe I am more than just my body, and I accept my potential for being unlimited, eternal and immortal.

This understanding fosters the notion that everyone else is a God, too, whether they accept it or not. Bottom Line: we’re all spiritual beings currently residing in a physical body. The goal is to have the experience of physicality – enjoying it, hating it, or just enduring it – but ultimately moving into a more evolved state of awareness. We learn as we live. As I understand the Big Picture of Life, having a body is not a diminished state because experiencing all the sights and sounds of this earthly reality is critical to our evolution. Where else can we sing a song, make love and war, ponder our mistakes, and celebrate our achievements? Ideally, in that process we evolve into wiser and more authentic beings, ultimately becoming so aware of ourselves and each other that we become like a Buddha or a Christ.

I am not fully God-Realized, yet, as I can’t walk on water or heal myself. But I sense I’m getting closer, and in this book I detail some of the successes I have achieved, and the steps I am taking to manifest this remarkable state.

My family describes me as a “spiritual seeker,” and I agree with that assessment. However, the concept of God-Realization is hard for them to swallow, and I think it’s comforting for them to know it is not an idea I developed on my own. Rather, I heard it from an entity named “Ramtha, the Enlightened One,” who channels through the personage of JZ Knight.

Ramtha’s teachings about being a God have inspired me profoundly. In 1990, I left my home in New York to study with him full-time in Yelm, Washington, and for nearly twenty years I was an active student in Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, commonly called “RSE.” During that time, I attended nearly every workshop and retreat offered. Since leaving active participation in 2009, I have continued my quest on my own.

However, my journey to God-Realization begs the question: who or what is God? I don’t believe “God” is a Supreme Being in the traditional sense of the Judeo-Christian religions. Rather, I feel God is something bigger, more along the lines of the “All-in-All,” or the “Is-ness” that some Eastern religions profess. But more purposeful for me is what I gather from Ramtha – that God is an utterly unlimited creative force that is most accurately described as Primary Consciousness. Further, Primary Consciousness has brought you and me into life, and together we can be thought of as Secondary Consciousness. Along with Primary Consciousness, we have co-created our world, and that’s what I am embracing on this journey.

The stories on these pages are from that adventure. Each one is a stepping stone, revealing how I learned something important about myself, or helped in my realization of the grandeur of life. Some are simple but potent, such as learning that I actually loved someone – my little sister – a story told in “Barbsie Comes Home for Christmas.” (Chapter 2). Others delve into the experiences that helped me cope with growing up in the suburbs of New York, like my time in the woods at Boy Scout camp, as described in the story titled “Wauwepex.” (Chapter 5). Most, though, are birthed in the present day as I integrate a growing number of paranormal and interdimensional encounters into a comprehensive understanding of life. These experiences include abductions by Extra-Terrestrials, glimpses of orbs and energy forms, and even a few modest achievements in self-healing and physical manifestation.

As for my “regular” life, I grew up in a traditional upper-middle-class family on Long Island, New York, and attended Catholic schools until college. As a kid, my family and I lived in the tiny neighborhood of Floral Park Crest, just outside of the New York City line, and I played Little League baseball next door for the Village of Stewart Manor. However, when I was fourteen, we moved six blocks east to the snooty town of Garden City.

My dad, Alan, was a business executive who commuted daily to New York City, and my mom, Frances, was a stay-at-home housewife. They ran a strict Catholic home for me and my sister, but I often felt like an outsider, as my thoughts and feelings were too outrageous to be warmly received. In short, I was the black sheep of the family. And rebellious. Tellingly, my first act of revolt was in fifth-grade when I spent an evening in front of the convent of St. Anne’s Elementary School shouting that my teacher, Mother Michaeline, was giving us too much homework. “Down with Mother Michaeline,” I roared. “She gives us homework on the WEEKENDS!” That got me expelled until my mother repented on my behalf.

After that my family kept me at arm’s length. I think I was just too outspoken to be held close to anyone’s heart, and in response I became a raconteur—a “re-teller” of tales—to work my way back into the bosom of the family. At the dinner table, I told stories about the daily occurrences of my life, which seemed to earn me some respect from the family. At least I captured everyone’s attention for a few minutes while we ate.

As I got older, I expanded my repertoire. At holiday gatherings I’d describe epic family events, like getting stuck in a blizzard on the way to spend Christmas with relatives in Massachusetts. (Chapter 3). By the time I was fifteen or so, I had become the master of ceremony for our family’s color slide show on our summer porch, regaling our neighbors with accounts of recent vacation trips, such as getting soaked-to-the-skin on a camping trip, touring EXPO ´67 in Montreal, or visiting the iconic cathedral for miraculous healings in Quebec known as the Cathedral of St. Anne du Beaupré. I still remember seeing worn wheelchairs and dirty crutches hanging from the ceiling – a fierce testament to the power of belief, or similarly, the power of prayer.

Traversing through my teenage years, I discovered a deeper voice – one that was richly connected to my soul. This accelerated the friction between authority and me, and I dropped out of college, got fired from my Boy Scout camp, and went ski-bumming in Colorado for a winter while I ignored my draft board. (Chapter 9, “Not Going to Vietnam”).

Eventually, I worked as an ambulance orderly for a year, and that led to an interest in medicine. I returned to college as a pre-med student, graduating from Hofstra University in 1974. Afterward, I coupled my youth work for the Scouts and the YMCA to build the foundational skills to be a recreation therapist in psychiatry, first at the Nassau County Medical Center (NCMC) in New York, and then later at the nearby Northport VA. Eventually, I got my masters in recreation from Lehman College in the Bronx.

At NCMC I started a passionate romance with a fellow therapist named Barbara Jean, whom I call “BJ,” and I lived with her for fourteen years. After ten years of doing psych work in New York, I left to start a business, a beachcleaning operation called Sandsifter. For eight seasons I sifted the beaches of Long Island and New Jersey, removing trash and debris through the screening plates of modified potato harvesters. By the late 1980s, I was knee-deep in environmental concerns, particularly the issue of medical wastes washing up in the greater New York area. It was through this environmental work that I first heard about Ramtha. (See Chapter 18, “Mail Call”).

Once I arrived at RSE, I developed another long-term relationship. This time with a schoolmate named Francesca, and we lived together for seven years. When I turned 50, I married a woman named Jen, but within a year we divorced. A year later, I married a second time to another RSE student. Even though it’s been an unconventional marital road, I cherish all the women who have shared my life.

In the course of my studies with Ramtha, I began to nurture my creative talents, and started performing as a storyteller and singer-songwriter. Later, I added my grandfather’s banjo and began strumming “story-songs” at folk festivals and on public-access radio. I never made much money, but the rich connections I’ve formed with my audiences have kept me going.

Along the way, I spent fifteen months in Nashville crafting my musical chops, and that stint led to a five-year career as a stagehand. In turn, I wrote a freelance news column titled, “Stories from Backstage,” which later earned me a reporting job at a weekly newspaper in Eatonville, Washington. That gig evolved into investigative journalism, and along the way I wrote a book on the infamous skyjacker, DB Cooper.

I even became an active candidate for the presidency of the United States for six weeks in 2003.

The stories on these pages are all borne from these experiences. Some are tales that I’ve told around the kitchen table with my family or campfires with friends – and even a few on loading docks with fellow grips. Many I’ve performed on stage as a professional storyteller, and the majority are simple accounts of love expressed or fears overcome.

Even though all these stories are true, several individuals have asked me to change their name to protect their privacy, and I have endeavored to do so.

One more thing. If you’d like to get in touch with me, the best way is via email: brucesmith@rainierconnect.com.