Later that evening, after the discussion group broke up, Jack followed Mary to Mother Mary’s. As exhausted as he was from the day’s events, he wished he could postpone the meeting for another day, when he would be sharper, but there’s no time like the present, as the saying goes, and besides, he was curious about Mother Mary — what she would say about his hands… and what she could tell him about Mary.
Mother Mary lived in a large, elegant Victorian house with an intricate Zen garden in the front yard. Jack admired the artfully manicured topiary as he followed Mary inside. As they entered the main room, the temple, he sensed a unique presence, a heavy, yet peaceful silence that evoked feelings of reverence that he hadn’t experienced in a long while.
Mother Mary was seated in a throne-like chair at the head of the room. She was slim, attractive, about forty years old and dressed in a white hooded robe that covered her entire body.
Mary McDonald approached her, bowed down in reverence, then sat before her in the full lotus position. Mother Marylaid her hands on Mary’s head, causing it to jerk violently up and down, then revolve from side to side. Occasionally she laid her hands on Mary’s body in much the same way, also causing her to convulse. This went on for several minutes while Jack stood there, transfixed.
Finally Mother Mary ordered Mary to her feet. “Why don’t you wait in the garden, my dear? I want to speak with Jack alone.” Then she motioned for Jack to come closer as Mary McDonald left the room.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Jack, much longer than you think,” she said with a knowing smile. “Have you ever seen an aura?”
“No, I haven’t, Mother Mary.”
“Well, I’m looking at yours right now, and I can tell you that I’ve never seen one like it.”
That makes two of us, thought Jack. I’ve never seen anything like you, either.
“I’ve been around great gurus — enlightened spiritual masters — but none had an aura like yours, Jack,” Mother Mary continued. “You are the Great One that the world has been waiting for. This world is a prison, and you are the One who is going to instigate a worldwide awakening. The Matrix was just a movie, but this is for real. You are the One.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jack. “I’m smart and a good athlete, but I don’t have any unique powers. I did experience a wonderful stillness and peace when I entered this temple, but I’m not particularly spiritual — and I’m certainly not a saint or a guru or capable of enlightening anybody. In fact, I’m hoping that you can enlighten me. Can you explain what you just did to Mary?
“I transmitted Shakti to her,” Mother Mary explained. “Shakti is the Hindu yogic term for the Holy Spirit. What you witnessed was a spiritual force that caused her head to jerk; those jerks, called kriyas, are spontaneous purifying movements. Because of my ability to awaken and transmit Shakti, the Holy Spirit, you might say that I’m like John the Baptist.”
“And what would that make me — Jesus?” Jack meant that as a quip, but to his astonishment Mother Mary was dead serious.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” she said. “I believe you are, or were, Jesus… Let me see your hands.”
Jack removed the gloves and showed his hands to Mother Mary.
"Jack, those are not man-made holes,” she said upon examination. “They spontaneously appeared as a sign that your time is ripe. In fact, I believe it is significant that they appeared right before you met Mary. She was the connection that led you here — and I’m the connection that will lead you to your Destiny.”
Mother Mary sensed his skepticism. “You don’t have to believe me now,Jack — but I guarantee you will know this for sure very soon.”
She stuck a super-slim cylindrical ruler down the holes of each hand. As she suspected, each hole was three-eighths of an inch deep, one-eighth of an inch wide. The three-to-one ratio removed any doubt from her mind: Jack Cohen had to be Jesus Christ — the prophesied One who, for the sake of humanity, would demystify the Trinity, the three-in-one God.
This is too fucking weird, thought Jack. I’m an atheist; I don’t even believe in God. How can I possibly save the world? Every instinct in his body told him to turn around and bolt. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he wanted to hear more.
“I know this is hard for you to accept,” Mother Mary said. “The world, the secular and religious establishment, will not accept you, either, or the Truth that you will bring as the Son of Man. You will figuratively, if not literally, be crucified again.”
Then she pointed to his hands. “That explains the holes, and the blood from your wounds,” she continued. “They are a harbinger of what is to come for you. My mission is to prepare you for your Mission. You cannot decline your Mission, Jack; Destiny declares that it must be carried out.”
All Jack could do was shake his head. “I really don’t know what to say — I’m interested in science and politics, not religion. In fact, I’m sure there is a scientific explanation for the energy you transmitted to Mary.”
“Jack, I’m not asking you to believe or accept anything,” Mother Mary smiled. “Just be open to what I’m saying. And I’m sure you’re right: there must be a scientific explanation for the Shakti — and you’re probably the One who
will provide it.”
Jack drew a deep breath, slowly exhaled, and took a seat on a nearby chair.
“Are you going to give me the Shakti tonight, like you did with Mary?”
“No,” said Mother Mary. “You should read some books first and get an intellectual grasp of the spiritual process. Besides, I want you in a more relaxed state when I initiate you. Right now you’re in turmoil because of your hands, your new friend Mary, and the heavy Jesus trip I’m laying on you.”
“Will the holes in my hands go away now?”
“I’m going to give you some yogic Ayurvedic ointment — you can get it from Mary when we’re done. Fill the holes with it twice a day. The holes have served their purpose now; I predict they will heal and vanish within a few days. If they don’t, let me know. Don’t waste your time going to a doctor. A physician can’t help you with this. Your problem is metaphysical, not physical.”
“Mary said you’re a physicist.”
“I was, but I moved beyond physics to metaphysics many years ago. I will help you make the same transition.”
Mother Mary then told Jack that she used to work with Mary’s father, before the government “murdered him for knowing too much. He was always too outspoken.”
“Like father, like daughter, I suppose,” said Jack.
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” said Mother Mary. “Mary doesn’t know this, and I don’t see the point in burdening her with it. Her mother died when she was young, so I kind of adopted her after her father’s death. She was already
sixteen and very independent, but I’ve always loved her and have always been there for her.”
Jack asked Mother Mary whether he and Mary McDonald were astrologically compatible.
“Aries and Capricorn is not a combination I usually recommend,” she replied, “and your Mercuries square each other, meaning conflict in communication and ideas. But your Venus/Mars/Jupiter/Neptune interaspects are fantastic, so you will be each other’s ideal lover. The magnetism is so overwhelming, uplifting, and other-worldly, it will be very difficult for you to resist each other.”
Jack sat up and rubbed his hands. “I don’t understand that girl at all,” he said. “On the one hand, she is very spiritual. On the other, she works at a strip club, smokes, drinks, cusses, and does drugs. She’s like Jekyll and Hyde.”
“That’s my Mary,” laughed Mother Mary. “She’s a wild tantric yogini. You’ll never tame her, so don’t even bother. Just try to survive her — and watch out for her cutting tools. She’s a bit of a dominatrix and might want to experiment on you.”
Jack stared at her blankly for the longest time. “You’re putting me on now, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not. She uses pain to lead men to a spiritual realization — rich, powerful men — men who can control our future. Everything in the universe is energy, and Mary enables her clients to transmute the intense but contracted energy of physical pain into the free-flowing energy of erotic and spiritual bliss. That’s tantra yoga.”
That may be tantra yoga, but the “erotic” part alarmed Jack. What exactly did that mean? There are other ways to control people besides inflicting pain. Was Mary sleeping with any of her clients?
“No one is putting a gun to your head, Jack,” continued Mother Mary. “If you’re not moved to play with her, then don’t. But my guess is that she was Mary Magdalene when you were Jesus, and I doubt that you can resist the
karmic connection.”
“Mary Magdalene?” said Jack quizzically. “Don’t you mean Marquis De Sade?”
They shared a laugh, which was the desired response. But it wasn’t long before Jack was worried again. Mary Magdalene, after all, was a whore. The implication was pretty clear. Just as important, even if he did succumb to Mary McDonald, where did that leave Polly? “What do I tell my girlfriend?” he asked.
“Whatever you want,” said Mother Mary. “Your life is going to be turned topsy-turvy anyway. The Jack you know now is going to be replaced with a Jack you can’t even imagine. Once you’re Spirit-baptized and then reborn as
the One, you’ll be the Avatar, and the rules that apply to ordinary men will no longer apply to you.”
“But I’m an atheist,” Jack insisted. “How could this possibly be?
“Jack, the only reason you’re an atheist is because the only God you currently know about or can conceive of is either an anthropomorphic or cosmic one,” Mother Mary replied. “But if you Google Bernard d’Espagnat — a renowned physicist who worked with de Broglie, Fermi, and Bohr — you’ll see that he won the Templeton Prize for hypothesizing the existence of a hypercosmic god: an impersonal, unknowable God that exists outside of time and space.
“D’Espagnat based his hypothesis on experimental tests of Bell’s theorem,” she continued. “The word ‘Avatar’ means ‘one who incarnates from without’ — in other words, from outside time and space. Thus, although you were born
in this domain, the Earth plane, you were sent from the Divine Domain, the Uncreated. And you were sent here to save humanity.”
Jack still found all this talk of Jesus and reincarnation far-fetched, to say the least. Yet a part of him looked forward to becoming “Spirit-baptized” — and, being a scholar, he was curious enough about d’Espagnat to want to check
him out.
Mother Mary got up and led Jack to a plastic container near a Buddha statue in the rear corner of the temple. She opened the lid and handed him several books: Some Sayings of the Buddha According to the Pali Canon by F.L.Woodward (“The best book on original Buddhism I’ve encountered,” she said); The Zen Teaching of Huang Po by John Blofeld (“The best one on Zen Buddhism”); Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (“Must reading for every serious spiritual aspirant”); First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti (“His finest work,” she insisted, “a unique, psychologically oriented mystical text”);The Cycle of Day and Night by Namkhai Norbu, The Golden Letters by John Myrdin Reynolds, and Teachings of Tibetan Yoga by Garma C.C. Chang — all of which, she added, “are about Dzogchen and Mahamudra, the highest Tibetan Buddhist meditation teachings” — and The Knee of Listening, The Method of the Siddhas, and Hridaya Rosary by Adi Da Samraj, a controversial figure whose books “are among the most profound spiritual texts ever written.” Then she handed him copies of The Philosophy of Sadhana by Deba Brata SenSharma and Pratyabhijnahrdayam by Jaideva Singh.
“These books are on Kashmir Shaivism,” Mother Mary explained. “They are of particular relevance because the Shaktipat yoga I teach is derived from Kashmir Shaivism. My Indian guru was a Kashmir Shaivite.”
She rummaged through the container until she found “two must-read Indian classics,” the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali by Swami Hariharananda Aranya. Finally, she gave him two books on Christian mysticism: Meditations on the Tarot by Valentin Tomberg, and The Foundations of Mysticism by Bernard McGinn. “These last two titles are particularly important for you to read, Jack, because as Jesus you will essentially be teaching Christian mysticism.
“Most of these books are real oldies, and some are out of print,” she continued, wiping the dust from her hands. “But they’re all classics. I suggest you read them twice — once before you’re initiated, and again after you get the Shakti.”
Jack packed each title carefully into his leather pouch. “Thank you, Mother Mary. I will treat these as if they were my own, and I will devote myself to studying them.”
She touched his face and smiled. “I know you will. Given your intellect and discipline, I expect you to average more than a book a day. Therefore, I’ll schedule our next meeting two weeks from tonight, at seven. Mary will tell you how to contact me — and if your hands don’t heal, or if you have
questions of any kind, don’t hesitate to call.”
Jack bowed before Mother Mary and thanked her again. As strange as this evening was, he knew this place was special and looked forward to his next meeting with his new teacher.
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