Peace Pilgrim: A Series of Q’s
QUESTION: I found your website about how you healed from cancer. I am familiar with the life and work of Peace Pilgrim as well. I would like to know more about the period of her life where she "died to self" before she started with her peace walks. Since you have known her personally, what do you know about that particular period of her life?
CHERYL: After becoming Peace Pilgrim she revealed little of her personal life or identity but she did speak about some of the explorations in her youth. She began to question, “What is God?” while in high school. As she matured into adulthood she collected many material things and married at age 25. Some years later her husband was drafted into the military and it was a great struggle for her that he chose to accept military service. She told him she would not go to see him off or visit him as long as he was in the military. He was adamant about going and reported for duty. His military leaders considered her objections grounds for divorce, which was probably where the relationship was inevitably heading. A divorce was initiated and finalized in time.
She had begun to realize that the material life was meaningless and that she had more than she needed while others didn’t have enough. That motivated her to simplify her life. On the collective side she rejected the justification of violence that was rationalized as "the end justifies the means." She called that the war way. She knew from within that "the means determines the end." She saw the immaturity of humankind as its greatest problem.
In 1945 she walked all night through the woods and when she came to a clearing she said, "God, if you can use me, please use me." That began her journey of 15 years of preparation before she was ready for her pilgrimage. She had left the self-centered life for a life centered in the good of the whole. She realized that she had more than she needed while others didn’t have enough. She began ridding herself of anything she didn't need, living to give instead of to get. Perhaps that was the time when she later would say, "I died, utterly died, to myself." Or perhaps it was when she donned her tunic and began her pilgrimage in January of 1953.
QUESTION: I am a Course in Miracles student and I am completely focused on undoing my ego or dying to self as it's called in Christianity. She's the only person I am sure of that was enlightened when she died. So she will not feel attracted anymore to experience yet another life on earth because her ego was gone? No more reincarnation, at least not to undo the ego? That's what I want
CHERYL: About her not having to reincarnate again, she responded to someone who asked if she was an avatar or divine reincarnation, "I would gladly be a 'server,' one who returns again and again to help people toward a more spiritual life." Toward the end of her pilgrimage she told a small group of us that she would come back much sooner in her next life and would become aware sooner. What a blessing it would be to encounter her once again in this life.
QUESTION: I would also like to know more about your spiritual life in regards to dying to the ego, if it's not too personal. Peace Pilgrim saw everybody as light at the end of her life. Have you had these experiences even for short periods of time?
CHERYL: I have been blessed with many experiences. The most telling in terms of dying to ego is perhaps the gift of a near death experience while working in Haiti and contracting viral meningitis. The pain was so intense that even moving my eyes was excruciating. I was lying on a mat under mosquito netting on the floor when a chorus of angelic voices sang my name and then a single voice called my name commandingly. I was drawn out of my body through the top of my head. I felt wrapped in unconditional love as the voices faded out. The beauty, the colors, the sounds, were beyond this physical world. It was timeless. At some point I was shown a hole in what I call ‘my cloud’ and when I looked down I saw an image of the United States. It was communicated to me that this is where my work was. I didn’t want to leave and I asked or thought, “Can’t I just stay here?” But immediately upon asking I was thrust back into my body and the intense pain. What became very clear, though understood intellectually before that, is that I am not the body, but that which activates the body - spirit.
My cancer experience some decades later continued to deepen that knowing. Going back even further in time, an illumination experience in the forest at 29 years old was the beginning of an understanding of the ego/personality that's worn in this life and the ongoing reality that is spirit. As to finding permanent inner peace, it took Peace 15 years. I consciously chose a spiritual path at 29, and have been on it for more than 4 decades - and though I am often on the "plateaus" of Peace's chart of inner peace, I still fall off. As Peace said, once you experience the plateaus you get back much quicker because it so much more painful. As to seeing people as light, I would say I see the light in people.
