How I Found the Teachings in Boston

By Christina Sarlo

Back in 1980, I was working in Boston at Harvard University. I’d gotten my degree in Psychology a few years earlier. I really thought Psychology might hold some answers to the deep questions in life. Boy, was I wrong! Behaviorism was the hot trend – treating humans like machines. I knew that was not the answer, having been brought up as a good Catholic.

So, here I am in Boston, still searching. I beat the bushes for answers, combing the many old bookstores, exploring New Age books and movements but nothing felt right.

One day, I met a young man who really wanted to share something with me. We met on the banks of the Charles River across from MIT on a beautiful May afternoon. He asked me, “what do you want to do with your life?” Now, this was THE big question that had been dogging me for my teens and twenties. I replied, “I just want to be a good person.”

This fellow replied with great certainty, “I know what you want to do with your life!”

This reply so startled me that I couldn’t look him in the eyes. Instead, I gazed determinedly at a white dome that symbolized MIT across the river.

“What?” I said. “You want to make your ascension in this life!”

As I gazed across the river, clouds of golden-pink rays surrounded that dome, and me. I was transported back to a moment of complete innocence kneeling before a statue of Mother Mary after my First Holy Communion. I hadn’t felt this sense of peace and purity for years.

Then he showed me pictures from Climb the Highest Mountain: Saint Germain, the chart of the I AM Presence, Kuan Yin, and Mother Mary. I said, “I always knew God was beautiful! But no one ever talks about that!”

That night, I wrote to become a Keeper of the Flame. Barely six weeks later, I was at my first conference. And then, packing up my belongings, I moved to California for Summit University in September. Then I joined staff and stayed for the next very happy 18 years.