Dancing in the Glory of All that God Is

BY HARV BISHOP

Gandhi famously said be the change that you want see in the world. Rev. Dr. Nirvana Gayle, a Religious Science minister and one of New Thought’s greatest prophetic voices, says that doesn’t go far enough. Oneness demands that we see that we literally are the world and everyone and everything in it.

To create a world that works for everyone, says Gayle, means moving our sense of self-identity from “I” to “we” to “I am all that is.”

“A lot of New Thought and Ernest Holmes’s work is believed to be about the work that the individual does on themselves to raise their level of awareness, to raise their consciousness, to raise their understanding, to be as Gandhi said the change you want to see; to be the being that you want the world to evolve into,” Gayle says.

“To be that being of love and light and joy and peace, harmony, and compassion and understanding. And in being that to manifest freedom and joy and happiness, all of those wonderful qualities that we say are the divine qualities. So we work on ourselves to be that. As we become anchored in One Mind, others can catch the vision. They can begin to move in the direction of that themselves.

“And I don’t deny that. I just have one little caveat that I add. I can use myself as a first-person example. As I have grown and as my mystical consciousness and my awareness of the Oneness of all of life and all people and all of existence has expanded exponentially, my definition of myself is no longer what is contained within the framework of this body.

“Myself is the Self of the World.  So what I am working on myself is that I am not an individualized self that is some fashion, form or shape separate from the rest of the world, separate from other people, separate from other nationalities, separate from other races, separate from other classes, separate from other species, separate from other animals, separate from the air or the sky or the wind. No! All of this is me. That has been the expansion and explosion of my own conscious awareness to the point where all of it is me. Do you get what I am saying?  There is no separate little me that I’m working on now because that would be a form of separation. So all of it is me.”

To be in Dr. Gayle’s presence was to know the truth of these words. When you heard him, you felt the power of God. When you saw him dressed in bold patterns and colors, you saw the beauty of God.  When you were in his presence, you felt the love of God.

Dr. Gayle was spiritual leader of Guidance Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles and a lifelong friend of Michael Bernard Beckwith. Both men were powerful advocates for New Thought’s role in social justice. My interview with Gayle was slated to run an hour but it expanded into a two conversation on Oneness, love, social justice and New Thought. I say conversation, but in truth I was seated at the feet of the master.  Gayle’s deep mystical consciousness and love were palatable.

Gayle’s desire to alleviate suffering in the world began during his childhood.

“As a kid, any suffering and pain in the world anywhere pained me. I could feel the pain in the world. People were being killed and destroyed and I could feel that pain as if it was mine. My mother and father were extraordinary. They taught me to love and be open and to become present and passionate and to stand up for the rights of the downtrodden. … and they talked to me about how you can’t be that sensitive and loving of everybody because it will destroy you; they wanted to protect me from major hurt.

“But the truth that I have learned is that my only insulation against the hurt and pain of the world,” said Dr. Gayle, overcome by emotion, “is to love more. Really! Literally! Love is the only power there is. Love is the power of God. If I rely on anything else in times of crises, in hurt and pain, then I am only reinforcing the hurt and pain. The only way that I can get through anything is to love more, to open my heart to greater love, to greater compassion, and in so being I open my heart to the only power there is, which is God. Anything else and I am trusting in a power other than God and there is no power other than God.”

“So for me the connection to Ernest and social justice is that it is the evolution of Ernest’s thinking. Ernest started off with us working on ourselves and as we do this work the definition of ourselves expands to beyond the parameters of this me that you see and it becomes the I that is We and that becomes the Self.

“For me, my mystical awakenings and experiences and feelings are of that nature. It’s not really a change in the direction of Ernest, it’s just an expansion; what I would consider would be the natural evolution of what happens when you are working on yourself is that the boundaries of what you would define as the self dissolve.”

Dr. Nirvana recalled meeting his lifelong friend Michael Bernard Beckwith when they were 9 and 8 years old.

I asked Beckwith about that fateful meeting during an interview last year.

“We grew up on South Orange Drive, Los Angeles,” Beckwith recalls.  “My brother and I used to sneak out the window early in the morning to play, before our parents would wake up, and then sneak back in. One day we saw this young boy and girl outside. It was Nirvana and his sister. They had just moved to the neighborhood and had gotten locked out. We recognized them. It was like we saw each other and immediately there was a soul connection.  We were very young but we knew we were connected.

“At a very young age we were interested in how we could make the world a better place.  And even though we did all the things that little boys did, you know we got in trouble, we did not skip our childhood, but that was a burning question in us. And we had each other so that regardless of the other things we got into, our conversations were largely centered around making a difference on the planet. It led us into having a revolutionary zeal at one point to change the world, and ultimately to embracing a spiritual perspective.”

It was Beckwith’s spiritual center, Agape International Spiritual Center, which gave Reverend Gayle an honorary doctorate, through its university. Gayle worked with Beckwith at Agape for many years. He was part of the original vision core, first board president, and at one time, director of its Department of Education.

I said to Beckwith, “You two must of have had old souls to start having those types of conversations so early.”

“Yeah, that is what people say,” Beckwith responded, “but also it stems from our parents. My mother was involved in the Civil Rights Movement so there were always a lot of meetings happening at my home.  Back as a young boy, we were very aware that homophobia was evil because some of my mother’s friends were gay. So in my house, gay people, Jewish, Black White, Latino, they were all part of my mother’s running team. And Nirvana’s father was a metaphysician. We had it coming and going. Our parents were very, very progressive people. A lot of things that people struggled with — in terms of evolving, in terms of being in a diverse community — that was no struggle to me because that was the type of household I grew up in.

“I can remember Nirvana’s father telling him that Nirvana would one day embrace these New Thought metaphysical teachings. Nirvana was very young and he said, ‘No, I am not going to embrace that stuff, we have to go out and change the world, we have to be revolutionaries.’ His father replied, ‘One day you are going to understand that it begins within.’

“He was letting us know that there is not going to be a shift in the external world until there is a shift simultaneously inward to use my words now, and he was right and Nirvana was wrong, much to Nirvana’s eventual happiness!”

Rev. Dr. Nirvana Gayle transitioned from his physical form on August 9. A celebration of his life will be held at Agape International Spiritual Center this Friday, August 19, at 4 p.m. western time. It will be live-streamed at www.Agapelive.com. Attendees are encouraged to wear their brightest and boldest colors and fashions to celebrate.