MY STORY  by Dr. Robert Estling, Senior Minister and Founder, Seraphim Center

I believe that everyone has within them the “Keys to the Kingdom,” the answers to Life, and the ability to reach the highest Spiritual Awareness.  What we have are blocks or belief systems (B.S.) that interfere with our perception of Life. The result is we lose our Spiritual Identity in the confusion that results.  All any of us need are a few practical tools, techniques and the abilities to recreate our lives, to overcome centuries of karma, and to help bring others, as well as ourselves to the light! At any point in time we can totally recreate and redesign our lives, in what A COURSE IN MIRACLES calls “a Holy Instant.” 

  In doing this, we can each be spiritual way-showers or inspirations to other, by laying down what did not work in the past, and (including many incarnations, vows, root causes and belief systems) and make the necessary changes and the personal commitments that it takes, to reach focus on the life we want to live, now.  As Jesus said to Glenda Green (paraphrased), “If you want to go to heaven, be sure to drive the bus that takes others there.”  I have made a personal commitment to taking as many with me as I can. To me that is spiritual leadership, and that is what I have dedicated my life to since 1970.

What is in the past is just that.  A COURSE IN MIRACLES says, “The one true thing you can say about the past, is it is not here.” However, if we do not learn from the past, it has this funny way or repeating itself.  (“Why is this happening to me, AGAIN?”)  Looking at each failure as simply an intense learning opportunity and experience will help us greatly as we move towards the new simplified, spiritual journey that await us. Holy Spirit is not complicated.  We create the complications.  Spirit’s solution is always simple, loving, gentle and practical.  

  (Picture above, Dr. Janet C. Moore and Dr. Bob)

The goal of my ministry is to share what I have learned about spiritual leadership while on my spiritual journey and creating and helping other create, successfully operating spiritual centers.  It has been a journey of trial and error, but I can hopefully simplify the process and help others use my experiences as a jumping off place to even greater success.  It is my prayer that others will be magnificently more successful than what I have experienced, and provide that same inspiration to spiritual generations to come, and keep the flame of Truth, Love, Compassion, and Simplicity growing.

In our first Seraphim Center building we had a wall designated as “THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS” where we posted pictures and quotes of those ones who had been significant players in their spiritual evolution.  The title came from a quote, attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in 1676 when he said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." We have all had giants in our lives, and I owe so much to the patience, the love and the guidance of all the giants in my life.

I was born, January 22, 1943 in a log cabin in   Gooding , Idaho. When my mother knew she was pregnant she went to the doctor, who told her that because of her poor health (after enduring the depression), only by the “Grace of God,” would any baby she carried,  go to term.  She told him, “Than, by the Grace of God it will happen.”  She never went back to him.  I was delivered by a gentle and wonderful midwife.  My sister Mary, was home delivered by an Osteopathic Physician January 5, 1949 . So much for medical opinion.

I grew up in Walla Walla, Washington.  My boyhood home was a bike ride to the Lewis and Clark Trail, the first Anglo explorers of this incredible wilderness.  Of course they had the able assistance of Sacagawea, the young pregnant 14 year old Indian woman that played such a vital role in their success.  

There is a wonderful I-MAX movie at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. about this expedition.  (more on-line at www.edgate.com/lewisandclark/expedition.html )  This route later became one of the corridors known as the Oregon Trail , the primary point of entry for early settlers of Washington and Oregon . 

Walla Walla is also near the place where the first white woman to ever cross the Rocky Mountains lived.  Her name was Narcissa Whitman.   In 1836, with her doctor husband Marcus, they established their home and the Whitman Mission, a resting place for settlers to regroup after their arduous crossing of the Rocky Mountains, and a gathering and healing place for the local Cayuse, Palouse and Nez Perce’ Indians. 

I grew up reading her diaries and journals, and knew her contribution and place in history.  I believe this helped me with some of my gender issues, in my current role as a minister and long before it was a national issue.   ( some excerpts of her diaries can be found at:  www.isu.edu/~trinmich/00.ar.whitman1.html

I attended Pioneer Methodist Church which was established October 11, 1859 .  The first organized meetings were held in a log cabin courthouse and when they built a church building, it was the first church building of any denomination in Walla Walla .  It was built on 2 newly defined lots at a cost of $1,046.52 and was ready to use the fall of 1860. 

Some of the elderly “Church Ladies” at Pioneer, that I knew growing up, had themselves been pioneer children and crossed the mountains with their parents, pushing handcarts fashioned from covered wagons parts that had broken and failed, eating the same horses and oxen that they had believed would carry them to the “Promise Land”, for survival.  They also ate the weeds on the roadsides, the fodder that would have fed their animals.  These women were gentle giants.  They had an indescribable inner strength that brings tears to my eyes when I remember what hardships they endured to obtain their dream. 

Where I grew up men and women worked side by side in most of their endeavors, it was this or failure.  I grew up believing  women were equals. Women in Washington State never had to fight to win the right to vote, it was written into the first Washington State Constitution years before it was Federal law.

I had the additional benefit of growing up in a spiritual home.  My parents had been spiritual seekers all their lives and were plugged into many of the spiritual programs that were available at the time.  We were corresponding members of Unity and I grew up on “WE WISDOM”, the Unity Children’s magazine. I always had an understanding and acceptance of reincarnation, karma, astrology, acceptance of other faiths and religions, a natural vegetarian diet, organic gardening, etc. while growing up.

My father was a bit of a pioneer in these areas, being an organic gardener and natural foods advocate, beginning in 1948.  I learned at an early age, one does whatever one has to, to create success.  I grew up with the inner knowing that if anyone else can do something, I can do it too.  I was always confident I could endure the same hardships the pioneers experienced, if I was called to do it.  It was bred deep into my heart by my parents, the environment, my friends and relatives, and by my experiences.  I also learned from these loving giants in my life, that one learns more from our failures than our mistakes.  These fundamental standards of success have served me well in my spiritual quest. 

At age16, I experienced my second “Grace of God” experience.  The Walla Walla valley is the green pea capital of the world.  It also provides a significant amount of wheat and vegetables to the national marketplace.  It is a great place for young people to make a lot of money working in the various harvests.  While driving a harvest truck on a mountain side, the downhill front wheel went in a hole and the truck rolled three times down the mountain, throwing me out below.  If it had rolled one more time, it would have rolled over me. There was no explanation why it stopped when it did, folks called it a miracle. I had multiple injuries and head fractures, and experienced my first (of three) near death experiences.

Most of my life has been in some sort of pioneering effort.  My first job out of college was teaching art in a rural junior/senior high school that had never had an art education program there before.  Within a month of starting at that school I also had an evening adult education art class operating, helped the students build their first “float” for the Lilac Parade, in Spokane, and motivated several talented senior students to apply to colleges with strong visual arts programs . 

After a few short years I was asked to be the art curriculum consultant and federal programs coordinator for five counties and focused most of my attention start up art programs in remote rural schools that were lacking any programs in the arts.  I organized and received Federal funding for a program that took artists, musicians, theatre, ballet and symphony orchestra programs out to these school, so they could experience some of the similar cultural events that many of their city and suburban friends took for granted.  I worked with schools as small as one teacher with three children, and on three separate Indian reservations. I also organized experiential events taking tour busses filled with students from these same schools to Seattle for a week.  They experienced for the first time large cities, staying in hotels, ordering for themselves in restaurants, going up the Space Needle, visiting the port authority and understanding the shipping and fishing industries, seeing salt water for the first time, and visiting the State Capitol and many different museums..

My fine arts career started to flourish.   I was president of the Washington Art Association, traveled nationally as a resource on remote and rural education, and started to have a reputation in educational and artistic circles. 

Then in late 1969 I discovered my own spirituality.  In less than a year I had quit my job, gone full time with a non-profit educational/spiritual program, called the Inner Peace Movement, and during the ensuing almost 6 years, traveled and lectured in over 40 states, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico, sharing the message that we are all divine beings, that there is spiritual purpose in life, we can control our own thoughts, feelings and experiences, that there are angels and guides to help us, that we are all psychic, that ESP is not weird but advanced communications skills that everyone can experience, and we are the masters of our own destiny. 

No town was too small or city too large for me to give public programs.  I was on radio and TV a lot (was interviewed on a TV shows along with Wayne Dyer, Elijah Muhammad, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and other shakers and movers of the time.  Feature articles of my work were written and distributed to newspapers coast to coast.

At one of my lectures, actually in Gainesville, Florida, at the Flagler Inn, a beautiful young woman attended my programs.  Her name was Janet Claire Moore and she would become my wife about four years later. (picture earlier in this document)

It was a different kind of pioneering, Spiritual Pioneering, bringing a new message to the media and to areas that had never heard this publicly before.  The INNER PEACE MOVEMENT, A COURSE IN MIRACLES, CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD and other spiritual pursuits eventually led me to the ALLIANCE OF DIVINE LOVE, Inc.  

On this foundation SERAPHIM CENTER was formed.  After my involvement in the INNER PEACE MOVEMENT, I had a soft but nagging desire to form a Spiritual Center.  Although I was a management consultant, working with Fortune 500 Companies and the University of Florida, my heart was into Spirit.  In 1980 I helped establish a study group for "A Course In Miracles" which is still meeting regularly.  Later, I asked Rev. Dr. Janet Moore to use her Divine Inspiration (channeling) as to the feasibility of creating a successful spiritual center in Gainesville.  When asked, the “Beings of Light,” (or the “Brotherhood of Light”) the Ones that were communicating with her,  suggested that we name this Center " SERAPHIM CENTER,"  after the Seraphim Angels, the highest order of angels, the angels that tend the Throne of God in the Bible Book of Isaiah.  They saw it starting in a building with two pillars, with many good and spiritual souls being attracted and that it would, in time, have international influence. (for more on this click to see the SERAPHIM CENTER STORY)

My most recent “Grace of God” experience has to do with my kidneys.  I inherited what is know as “adult polycystic kidney disease” from my mother. It was not diagnosed until I was 33 years old.  I was told that I would need renal dialysis within 10 years.  Well, with my clean living, positive thinking and spiritual attitude, I was able to push that date to 22 years, when I finally reached kidney failure. 

Instead of going on dialysis, I opted for a kidney transplant, but the waiting list for a kidney was two years. I was fortunate to have a wife, Rev. Dr. Janet Moore, an angel, in a physical body, who was a compatible donor and was willing to be a live donor.  Three other people at Seraphim Center, all ADL ministers, offered their organs as well.  The people at the hospital told me that there is one chance in 144 million that ones spouse would be a compatible live kidney donor.  

(Rev. Janet and Rev. Bob, 26 years married, 6 years after transplant)

I truly feel that I have been saved to do some necessary and important work.  I am making the best of the 30 years that they say this kidney will take me.  (click for more on our kidney transplant)

 
I have made some major blunders, learning opportunities, along the way.  Show me any spiritual leader, that has achieved some part of their spiritual plan in life, and I'll show you at least one or more major failures or mis-takes they endured along the way. It's a simple fact of life.  I now look at it from the standpoint that life may be testing us to see just how strongly we desire, how committed we are, to our intended goals!

In the process I learned persistence.  I hesitate to think of number of ministers I have known, since I began my spiritual work in earnest in 1970,  who have stood on the doorstep of superior spiritual leadership, but their level of persistence gave out just before….., inches away, from crossing that threshold. A careful eye on progress, mixed with undying persistence and initiative, has opened the door to spiritual success for many people and certainly for me.

May we all reach all that we have planned for ourselves, and in doing so, positively impact the lives of many.  Hopefully, one can learn from my mistakes, take my conclusions, pick and choose what is appropriate for them and experience untold spiritual leadership success on their personal journey.  Seraphim Center in Gainesville , Florida has been my spiritual research laboratory and Alliance of Divine Love has provided me with the framework and the support that I have needed to share some of what I have experienced.  I believe we are all “Spiritual Beings having a physical experience.” Together, in the Greatest Degree of Love, I believe we will all get where we are going.

Always striving for Greater, Unconditional Love, 

  Rev. Dr. Bob E.

Reverend Dr. Robert Estling

(Dr. Bob can be reached at 352-339-5946 or RevBob@SeraphimCenter.Org)