The messenger Mark L. Prophet, anointed by God to bring forth his teachings for the Aquarian age, walked before us as a friend on the Path.

And in his love for all who came to him for teachings, he carefully drew each one into his own individual reality. Not just with spiritual teaching and practical wisdom, but with childlike jokes and pranks which made people stop in their tracks of pretension and pride and laugh heartily at their own human self.

I remember how, with great glee, he would let off the air-raid siren on the big Gold Bus at the beginning or end of every trip we took from the retreat, La Tourelle, in Colorado Springs.

Or how he once hid a laughing box in an elderly member’s shopping basket and then watched her reaction from around the corner. Or how he would punctuate the highest truth with "the one about the three men who ended up in hell."

He would wear a cowboy suit just to circumvent people’s image of what a spiritual teacher should look like. As he said to a bearded hippie at the door in a psychedelic tank top and guru pants, who was surprised to see Mark’s unconventional attire: "It’s not what you wear, but what you are inside that counts."

And throughout his life he poured out the utmost love to all whom he met, the love of their true self. And just being around him made you want to realize more of that self.

Perhaps this blend of humor, simple truths and profound wisdom does not conform to the average view of a spiritual teacher.

But learning to laugh at one’s ego is the first step towards redirecting it, which is the prerequisite for expanding the mind and raising it into that higher consciousness which Mark Prophet attained and desires to share with us all.

Read about Annice Booth’s years with Mark Prophet, Memories of Mark: My life with Mark Prophet