Encounter with the Energy of Unconditional Love by Roger A. “Pete” Peterson

Printed in the Conscious Creation Journal
April 2001

Encounter with the Energy of Unconditional Love
by Roger A. “Pete” Peterson

“Nothing you can ever say or do can keep you
from being loved unconditionally.”
– Voice from within the Energy of Unconditional Love.

It began as an experiment in telepathic communication. I live in Santa Rosa, California, and since 1981, I’ve driven buses for a living. Until 1986, I drove for the large school bus contractor, Laidlaw Transportation, under a special contract. Our job was to transport construction workers to and from the geothermal plant construction sites at The Geysers in the Mayacamas Mountains. Located in Northern California and surrounded by Sonoma, Napa, Lake, and Mendocino Counties, this area has long been famous for its many natural geysers, fumeroles, and mineral-rich hot springs. Because of its ability to produce steam, The Geysers is now home to the largest geothermal plant complex in the world.

One day, late in 1985, my friend Michele and I were assigned to pick up passengers in Clearlake Highlands, sixty-five miles northeast of Santa Rosa. It was unusual for me to be assigned to this Run because it only required twelve-passenger minivans. Normally, I drove a large bus to The Geysers, picking up passengers from Santa Rosa to Middletown along the way. To reach Middletown and Clearlake Highlands on Highway 29 in Lake County, it is necessary to drive over 4,344-foot Mt. St. Helena, which is part of the Mayacamas Mountain range.

Leaving the bus yard on Sebastopol Road at 4:45 a.m., just ahead of Michele, I stopped outside the gate long enough to check for traffic and look up at the dark, towering storm clouds that had formed during the night. Exposed by the moon and city lights, they looked like an army of gigantic soldiers sneaking across the sky to ambush us in the mountains. Through my Inner Senses, I watched as they fussed over impossible places to hide in the hills and valleys of Mt. St. Helena, now looking more like ghostly spectators than dangerous warriors! Laughing at their Stooge-like antics, I stepped on the gas, with only a twinge of concern for this strange heavenly force gathering in the mountains ahead of us.

I think most mountains are magical and Mt. St. Helena is certainly no exception. Crossing it four times a day (two round trips) for almost five years, I personally experienced its magic. For example, there was the voice of actor Henry Fonda. Early one morning as I drove up the western slope, there it was repeating a familiar phrase from one of his movies, a western, I think. I was surprised to hear it because, as usual, I was deeply engrossed in my own thoughts. Somehow, his voice broke through my bubble of concentration to grab my attention. How could this be and why Henry Fonda? He has a remarkable presence in movies but he’s never been one of my favorite actors. He always seems distant and cold, in emotional gridlock, so I’ve never been able to warm to up to him as a person.

Once Henry’s voice broke the silence, it became a semi-regular feature on my early morning trips over Mt. St. Helena. It always happened in the same spot, the middle of a short straightaway marked by two right-hand turns about halfway up the mountain. When he spoke I’d always return with, “Hi, Henry, how are you doing?” in an attempt to get something more than a mindless phrase back from him, but I never did. Once, I even asked if he had a message for someone, thinking he might want to communicate with members of his family, but his method of response never changed.  As if it was a mechanical “Thumper” set to attract giant worms on Frank Herbert’s Dune, his voice just kept repeating familiar phrases from his movies. Since there was no place to park nearby, I never stopped to investigate the matter further. Perhaps he’s just waiting for the right person to come along.

Something I did have time to do when I drove over Mt. St. Helena was experiment with telepathic communication. The mountain itself made this seem possible. Only a few people live on it, even today, so as I drove up toward the peak, it was easy for me to imagine that I was rising above the din of human thoughts in the valley below. It was like rising through a cloud into sunlight. When you look down all you can see is cloud but when you look up, your visibility is clear and unlimited.

Driving home at night my telepathic experiments normally took the form of asking my wife, Sandra, what we were having for dinner. This question never failed to produce a word description or an image of a meal in my mind. Even though we shopped together on weekends, she took responsibility for planning and preparing our meals during the week. Whenever I wanted a particular meal for dinner or something special from the store like a deli sandwich, burrito, or fresh pizza, I’d describe it and create an image of it in my mind to send her telepathically. For example, I’d say something like, “Hey honey, I sure would like to have a Grilled Steak Burrito Supreme from Pepe’s (accompanied by vivid image of desired food) tonight.” Of course, I’d be licking my lips in anticipation at the same time.  When I got home, all I had to do to check the result of my experiment was pay attention to what I was eating.

Although I didn’t document these many experiments, the number of correct hits went well beyond chance or informed guessing. In reality, the results were almost perfect. On those rare occasions I didn’t get what I wanted it was because I didn’t ask for it soon enough. In these cases, Sandra had already purchased or committed herself to preparing something else for dinner. Later, when I’d tell her what I had asked for, she would say she had thought about it but too late to do anything about it.

One evening, after cresting the peak of Mount St. Helena with a busload of passengers, I burst out laughing. I had suddenly noticed the similarity between faxing a message to someone and sending one telepathically. Unlike direct human communication, where give and take is the rule, when you fax a message to someone it’s more efficient to complete the message before you send it. This is exactly what I was doing when I sent messages to Sandra telepathically. I would figure out what I wanted to say and then send it to her. I would also send a visual image if that was appropriate. Suddenly, there was a phantom fax machine hovering in the air in front of me. Wasting no time, I started composing a new message to Sandra. When it was finished, I loaded it into my imaginary fax machine and dialed her imaginary fax number. Using of my imagination (my Inner Senses), I watched with delight as she smilingly read it standing under an olive tree in a parking lot.

This morning, as we approach Mt. St. Helena, I decide to try communicating with Michele telepathically. Thinking I might get better results if I direct my questions to her Higher Self, the larger consciousness surrounding each of us, I ask a question and then listen for an answer. At first, our exchange seems one sided and imaginary but with each new question, the answers become clearer and more real. That is, until my fourth or fifth question. Then it happens! When I reach out to deliver my next question, I literally bang into an invisible wall of energy that has inserted itself between us. Like a tight rubber band, I snap back into myself, sobbing uncontrollably. While part of me wonders what happened, another part of me is studying my emotional reaction with amazement; I haven’t bawled like this since I was a baby!

After blubbering for what seems like twenty minutes, I decide to check my location because it only takes that long to drive all the way over Mt. St. Helena. When I shift enough of my attention to the outside world for it to clearly register in my awareness, I realize with great surprise that we’re still only about a third of the way up the mountain and it’s beginning to rain.

When I regain my composure, my curiosity gets the best of me and, again, I reach out to Michele telepathically. Wham! The wall of energy is still there and again I snap back into myself, sobbing just as hard as I did before. This time, though, I wonder if something terrible has happened to her. Otherwise, why would I be having such a strong emotional reaction? With growing concern, I wonder if she’s been involved in a bad accident or driven off the road. She must be running four of five minutes behind me because I haven’t been able to see her van in my rearview mirror since we started up the mountain. In response to my question, a voice inside my mind says, “No, that’s not something she would choose to experience.” Does this statement imply that we each attract certain experiences to ourselves while rejecting others? If so, what an intriguing thought! As my fears concerning Michele’s safety begin to subside, other thoughts replace them.

Near the top of the Mt. St. Helena, the rain has become a downpour and water is sheeting across the road driven by powerful gusts of wind. In amused curiosity, I wonder if Michele is aware of the amazing drama playing itself out in the invisible world between us. With that thought, I decide to approach the energy field again but this time I’ll stay with it until I know what it is. Wham! It’s still there and again I have the same intense emotional reaction but this time, I stand my ground. I refuse to budge one inch. Suddenly, I’m inside the energy!

After nothing bad happens, I ask the question, “What are you?”

“This is the energy of unconditional love,” says a deep, soothing male voice that seems to come from many points within the energy field at once.

Wow, I sob even harder now, because I know it’s true! That’s why I keep bursting into tears every time I touch it. Intuitively, I must have known all along what it was but, intellectually, I didn’t have a clue until now. What I do next completely astounds me but seems only natural under the circumstances–I open up–I utterly and spontaneously open my life and being to this loving Energy. When I suddenly realize that every thought I’ve ever entertained, every feeling I’ve ever felt, and every act I’ve ever committed is now exposed to view, I begin to feel vulnerable and ashamed.

Sensing my growing concern, the Voice calmly and reassuringly adds: “Nothing you can ever say or do can keep you from being loved unconditionally.”

Stunned and relieved by the unconditional acceptance behind these words, I cry even harder. I’ve never experienced this kind of love before, at least, not in earthly terms, and as I experience it now, I know there’s nothing I have to do to earn it. Just being is enough! Here, unlike the human world, there are no demands, no expectations, and no conditions to satisfy before I receive love. It’s simply here to experience and enjoy!

While I bathe in this loving energy, I wonder if all the anger, misperceptions, and imagined sins in my life will wash away. I use this moment to imagine they will, if not forever, at least for now. Even if it’s just the beginning of the end for these negative thoughts and feelings, that’s fine with me.

My own love begins to flow and I find myself wanting to perform miracles for this Loving Energy, to honor it for the loving regard in which it holds me. I am a superman in this alternate reality and I joyfully perform feats of magic and strength that are impossible to perform in the physical world. Returning to earth for a minute, I think about how important it is for me to fulfill my own unique potential as a human being. Suddenly, I realize that the Energy of Unconditional Love is home, my real home, and that it is more than just a “place”- it is a state of consciousness and being that I can create and experience wherever I am.

Barely aware of the change, I suddenly find myself standing in the middle a room with dimly lit, golden metallic walls, naked. There are sharp angles where the walls meet like in most earthly rooms. Realizing that the energy of separation and hard angles doesn’t fit my mood or the soft golden glow of the walls, I reshape the room with the power of my mind. I combine the separate walls into one continuous, smoothly curving wall, including the floor and ceiling. The result is a room that looks and feels like the inside of a womb.

When I stop to admire my handiwork, the air in front of my face begins to crackle and pop with dark, exploding points of energy. Suddenly, the points shoot out as golden rays of shimmering light to form an oval frame. Materializing within the center of this frame is the face of a man with long brown hair and a beard. Before my eyes become lost in his, I notice his serene, Christ-like features.

Looking through my eyes and into my soul, He says, “Roger, you’re delightful, just the way you are!”

Oh my God, here we go again! The impact of His kind face and loving words starts me on a new round of intense sobbing. At the same time, however, the Inner Me, calmly reaches out and lifts the bottom edge of the energy field that surrounds us. Gently holding it above my head, I look out across the fields and vineyards of Calistoga as the loving energy behind His words, ripples out in waves to include everyone and everything on earth. Looking up into the sky, I watch as this loving energy continues to flow outward in all directions, to envelope everyone and everything in All That Is.

Meanwhile, the outer me is struggling to keep the empty minibus on the narrow, twisting mountain road. My body is violently wrenching back and forth with each new sob from the emotional intensity of this experience. And the muscles of my face are pulled so tight; I can barely peep at the road ahead through narrowed eyelids brimming over with tears.

As if things aren’t bad enough, just after cresting the peak of Mt. St. Helena a floating head appears outside my left window, matching the speed of the bus. Turning to get a quick look at it, I’m surprised to see my own face smiling back at me. Despite my curiosity, I force my attention back to the road and my Inner Vision; but not for long. The face peering in at me through the window is once again drawing my attention. It is laughing at me now, with tears streaming down its face. It’s gut-wrenching, knee-slapping, finger-pointing laughter!

Confused by this behavior, I begin to wonder what I must look and sound like from the outside. Suddenly, a channel opens up, which allows me to hear the full volume of my own sobbing from outside myself. It’s deafening! It reminds me of those few times when, as a baby, I cried with every fiber of my being. Now, as an adult, it is much louder.

Not only can I feel my face from the inside as I normally do, I can now see it from the outside as well. The muscles of my face stretch so tight they form a rigid mask that at once looks sad and grotesque. Gently testing the strength of rigidity in my facial muscles, I attempt to change my expression. I can’t.

Viewing my body from a point outside again, I can now see how absurd it looks jerking back and forth behind the steering wheel. From inside, it seems contrived, as if someone is deep inside me pulling strings or pressing buttons. First, the left set of muscles tightens and pulls me to the left and then the right set of muscles tightens and pulls me to the right, violently jerking me back and forth from side to side, in tune with the sound of my sobs.

When the feeling of unconditional love is gone, I wonder what my employers would think if they knew I was allowing myself to have this amazing experience while driving their bus. They’d undoubtedly have a cow!  What would Michele think? For that matter, what would any sane person think if they could see me now? Suddenly, through my mind’s eye, I see two people approaching me in a car. When they’re close enough to get a good look at my face, they react in horror. The passenger covers her mouth as if to stifle a scream and the driver’s eyes widen with alarm. Slamming on his brakes, he quickly turns the car around and speeds away. As other images of people’s shocked reactions flow through my mind, the tension breaks and I begin to laugh. Soon, I’m laughing with the same gut-wrenching, knee-slapping, finger-pointing intensity as the “me” outside the window.

Returning my attention to the face outside the window, I’m surprised to see it has changed. It is no longer my face staring back at me but the face of a much older man, with shoulder-length white hair. His upper chest and shoulders are now visible and he is wearing a heavy, well-made fabric coat over other layers of clothing. A large ornate medallion hangs around his neck and there is a look of both wildness and magic about him. I sense he’s responsible for orchestrating the floating head experience.

There is a satisfied smile on his face and I sense he is about to nod and wink at me but before this actually happens, his face begins to change. His smile turns into a look of anger, and from there, into a look of hateful contempt. Not only are his emotional states changing, his facial features are changing as well. He looks younger and more ancient in origin. Changing rapidly, his features become more course and brutal, while the hair on his head becomes thick and black.

As I continue to observe the amazing transformation of this rain-soaked apparition through my Inner Senses, he begins to recede into the woods. The further he recedes the more I can see of him. There is a dark animal skin wrapped around his hips and he is carrying a large club in his left hand. I almost think he wants to use it on me. At the last moment, before he turns and disappears, he stops and looks back at me. As I watch, a look of loss spreads across his face, filling his eyes with sadness. It’s as if he has undergone his own transformation during this experience. When he finally does disappear, my mind fills with questions concerning his role, and that of the magician, in my overall experience.

Suddenly, it dawns on me that in twenty minutes I’ll be loading passengers in Clearlake Highlands. Looking at myself in the mirror, I laugh nervously as I wonder what to do about the puffy face, runny nose, and red eyelids. Pulling the handkerchief out of my back pocket to dry my eyes and blow my nose, I think, wait a minute; I have to check this thing out one more time, to see if it’s real or not. To hell with what the men in Clearlake Highlands think! With that settled, I reach out to my own Higher Self, Robert who I first met in a dream, but that’s another story.

Wham! The Energy of Unconditional Love is still there and again I sob just as hard as I did before. With my question answered, I hug Robert, and with a sense of profound gratitude, I thank all who participated in creating this amazing experience, including Laidlaw Transportation for the job assignment, and the bus that brought me here. I also thank the earth spirits for the cover of this dark and stormy night. I don’t think I could have had this experience without all these elements coming together. For the fourth and final time this morning, I leave the Energy of Unconditional Love to get on with the business of waking reality.

Driving towards Clearlake in the afterglow of my Encounter, I ask myself, “Why me, what did I do to deserve this amazing experience?” As I ponder this question, I move back through time to a point several years earlier. I’m home alone sitting at my desk, feeling sorry for myself as I think about all the times I’ve tried and failed to achieve my greatest goals in life. In effect, I want to climb Mt. Everest but I can’t seem to get past the foothills of my aspirations. In frustration, I throw my arms up at the universe and ask, “What do I want more than anything else in All That Is?” No sooner are the words are out of my mouth, when a strong masculine voice about six inches in front of my forehead, says, “Love!”

“Yes, that’s it!” I yell. More than anything else in All That Is, I want love–I want to give love and I want to receive love, unconditional love! In this moment, I realize that everything I’ve ever done in my life was for love, that love is my primary motivation for doing anything. When I act out of fear, anger, guilt, or hate, it’s because of love. These emotions are how I react when I feel farthest away from it. They are natural responses to negative judgments I, or others, have made. When the conditions were right, the universe gave me what I wanted, An Encounter with the Energy of Unconditional Love!

Dawn is breaking as I arrive in Clearlake Highlands but it’s still pretty dark out. To keep the men from seeing my face when they board the bus, I turn my head away from them and act as though I’m lost in thought. Even though the overhead light in the bus is dim, you can still see expressions on people’s faces. I don’t think they notice anything different about me but if they do, they’re kind enough not to mention it. Once the men are seated, I close the door and head for The Geysers.

Afterthoughts

It took several months for me to screw up the courage to ask Michele if she remembered anything different about that morning. I knew she’d remember it because it was perhaps the only time we did the Clearlake Highlands run alone together. Her answer was “No.” Even when I described my fear that she drove off the mountain, she could remember nothing special about that most unusual morning.

I’ve attempted to reenter the Energy of Unconditional Love several times since my mountain encounter, but whenever I begin to slip into it again the memory of my loud sobbing and the image of my puffy face, red eyes, and runny nose fills my mind. It stops me cold every time. One time I even sat in the front bathroom of our house with the door closed. Surrounded by other rooms, I figured this room would be the most shielded one in the house. As I sat on the closed toilet lid in the dark with the door closed, I could hear traffic sounds coming through the ceiling fan vent. Was there no place I could get away from the eyes and ears of others?

When I finally started to slip into the Energy of Unconditional Love, I panicked once again. I knew anyone walking by the house could hear the loud sounds of uncontrollable sobbing through the ceiling vent unless they were deaf or hard of hearing. What would they think? What would they do? How would I react if I heard someone sobbing uncontrollably even if it was inside a house? In addition to the sound issue, I knew my son could walk into the house at any time. He wasn’t working at the time so he had no schedule. Defeated by the fear of discovery once more, I haven’t tried to reenter the Energy of Unconditional Love since. Fortunately, I can come close to approximating this experience when I stop long enough to appreciate the magic and wonder of life.

Isn’t it amazing, how un-private our lives really are? There seem to be so few moments in life when we can “let it all hang out” without fear of discovery or reprisal. That dark, stormy morning in 1985 was the perfect moment for me to have an encounter with the Energy of Unconditional Love. However, it took a large, patient hand to move the pieces around until they could all fell into place.

This experience brings up many questions. First, how could it happen? What does it say about who we are and what reality is? Was my imagination the only source for the creation of this experience or were other entities involved in this creation? Where the clouds gathering in the mountains only clouds, or were they something more as I imagined? At one point, while observing them outside the bus yard on Sebastopol Road, it seemed as if they were looking back at me over their shoulders to see if I had discovered them, and to gauge how much they would have to hurry to get to the mountains ahead of me.

What is imagination? In altered states of consciousness, how can we shape things with the power of our minds (reshaping the room in my “vision”, for example)? What are we shaping? Why did I see the face of Jesus Christ in the oval frame? Was it really him? There was certainly a lot of power behind his words. Even though I respect and admire him as a unique and special human being, I’ve never seen him as anything more than that, and many things that have been said in his name, I don’t agree with. Did I see him because I have an unconscious desire to be saved, or was I looking for an authoritative stamp of approval on my experience?

What was the purpose of the floating head outside the window? In effect, its actions made me self-conscious and self-analytical. Did it want me to laugh at my physical reactions (sobbing in response to the energy of unconditional love), or did it want me to be embarrassed by them, to feel humiliated? Why did the head change from my face, to the face of a clever wizard, to the face of a seemingly bitter and then unhappy caveman? Was this experience showing me how easy it is for outside influences to disrupt and manipulate my thoughts and feelings? I already knew that!

With respect to telepathy, do you suppose people who receive our telepathic messages interpret them as their own thoughts, images, and feelings? Do you know where your thoughts come from, unless someone spoke them to you or you read them somewhere? What are thoughts, where do they come from and where do they go? Let me share a short bus story with you that is quite revealing. I’ve been driving for Sonoma Country Transit since 1986.

It happened late in the evening some years ago. I was alone and sitting sideways in my seat while reading a newspaper at our main bus stop in Petaluma. Through my peripheral vision, I watched as this man slowly and quietly approached the bus. Seeming to slide several feet down the side of the bus before coming to a stop in the middle of the doorway, he hesitantly looked in at me. When I looked up, a powerful feeling of revulsion overcame me. This had to be the most disgusting, despicable, and repulsive person in the world, my mind screamed. Shocked by the strength of my reaction, I thought, “Wait a minute, are these thoughts coming from me or him?” Before I could finish the question, I knew the answer. These thoughts and feelings were coming from him; they were projections of his beliefs and expectations, his thoughts and feelings about himself. When I realized this my heart went out to him and as it did, I watched him undergo an amazing transformation. He straightened up, paid his fair, and sat down across the isle from me as if he wanted to talk, which we did. In fact, we had a pleasant conversation.  In the past, he would always slink to the rear of the bus in silence, or complain about something. Tonight, he was a changed man because I refused to hate him, and so was I!

Whether I reacted to physical clues or telepathic information, or a combination of both, doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that I refused to allow his perception of himself to become my perception of him. I took responsibility for my own actions, and when I reacted with love and understanding to him, it resulted in a profound change in his behavior. Go figure! For some reason, I haven’t seen him since.

To me, the most important part of this experience was to observe how I react in the presence of Unconditional Love versus the conditional, manipulative love of this world. “All of a sudden, my own love begins to flow and I find myself wanting to perform miracles for this loving Energy, to honor it for the loving regard in which it holds me.” And, in a refreshing change of mind, “… I begin to think about how important it is for me to fulfill my own unique potential as a human being here on earth, to be myself to the best of my ability!”

In contrast, I’ve historically reacted with anger and fear to a world that seeks to control me by constantly measuring me against outside standards of being and performance. In this world of value judgment (right and wrong, good and bad), I find myself wanting to withdraw, to shut down, to armor myself against the hostility of a world that seems to have little respect, appreciation, or understanding for who or what I am. I want to withhold my energy and, sometimes, I even want to reach out and smash people and things in the world, especially when I feel victimized by them and powerless to change the way they are. When I was young, I disliked this world intensely, and I didn’t want to be here.

However, ultimately unwilling to accept the tyranny of this negative worldview, I set out on a journey to discover, or remember, a larger truth, one that is more loving, empowering, and freeing. Somehow, I knew it was here all along. It was just a matter of finding it. Much of the world, however, is still stuck in a small worldview filled with limitation, conflict, and suffering. How can we change this situation? The answer is, we can’t change reality for someone else, only ourselves. However, by living our own highest truth, one that represents the best understanding of who we are in each new moment, we can be the light and the way for others.

©1999, Roger A. “Pete” Peterson.  All Rights Reserved. Printed in the Conscious Creation Journal.  http://www.consciouscreation.com (Feel free to duplicate this article for personal use – please include this copyright notice and the URL.)

The secrets of the universe are hidden in the details of our experience, says Pete. Some people, like Jane Roberts in the Seth Material and Neale Donald Walsch in Conversations with God, access universal truths by channeling them from higher sources. All of us, however, receive this same information through our own experiences. All we have to do is pay attention. The truth is whispered in our every thought and action.