A Soul's Journey

The story that follows contains a secret to a secret. It is my desire that you know and understand the secret.
I realised once I left school that the thugs were the ones study- ing martial art and boxing. Not those who needed those skills. So, I went looking for a martial arts system that would train a man for all seasons. (All situations)

I found what I was looking for at a school called Togakure Ryu. This institution offers a diverse range of areas of study that extend beyond unarmed combat. It teaches a commando-style fighting system infused with mystical elements, attracting a considerable number of military per- sonnel and veterans.

In my second year of training, I met a karate instructor who held a 4th Dan black belt. To this day, he is one of the fastest men I have ever known. In the time it takes you to blink, he could strike you three times. Often, when I was alone with him, he would speak of the forbidden training he used to do and the strange experiences he had. So, I took him out, got him drunk, and so learned his secrets.

For the first three months of forbidden training, a type of eastern med- itation, I experienced a sense of peace and happiness unlike anything I had felt before. The more I trained, the better it became. It was akin to being high on drugs. After three months, I reached a mental state similar to an LSD trip and started to hallucinate. I approached a friend of mine, an ex-kung fu master named Rodney. He was a man of great knowledge but not of great skill. This was primarily due to his habit of importing books for customers from around the world; during the weekdays, he would read his customers’ books and then sell them to them on weekends. He did this to me numerous times. As a result, he gained great knowledge.

Rodney had advanced as far as possible in Wing Chun kung fu without being Chinese. He had delved into internal training and had combined it with LSD, which ultimately led to him spending twelve months with a psychiatrist. He explained that in the higher realms of martial arts, there are internal martial arts such as Tai Chi and Qigong. In the higher realms of Tai Chi, there is yoga, not just simple stretching, but complex breathing exercises. Both yoga and martial arts use the same psychic force. In Martial Arts, it’s called Chi, and in Yoga, it’s called Kundalini. Martial Artists use it to develop great physical abilities, and yogis use it to develop great psychic abilities.

Knowing this, I brought a book on yoga. Not just any book, but a secret manuscript called “The Serpent Fire”. However, the book was written back to front, with the beginner’s exercises in the back and the advanced exer- cises in the front. This was done so that the uninitiated like myself would become very sick and die.

By some miracle of God, I only did the first exercise for five minutes, and suddenly, my body began to shake violently as my spirit started to rise upwards. Terror filled me as I thought I was dying. This was my first out-of-the-body experience. So, I ran outside, and somehow, the fresh air settled me. Half an hour later, I was driving down the road when it started again. While driving down the road, my spirit uncontrollably began to lift up and out of my body. I then realised I’d begun something that was uncontrollable and terrifying.

Vanity began to enter the picture as I became convinced I’d experienced and overcome death, and, in fact, that I was invincible. I kept training, and the psychic experiences increased in ferocity. Once, while walking down York Street in Sydney, my body suddenly stood still, and I went forward, and a kaleidoscope of colours passed by me. These experiences also fol- lowed me into my sleep. I remember sitting up in bed only to find I was still lying down. One night, when this happened, something attacked me, and after that, I was too scared to go to sleep.

I went back to the kung fu master and the karateka to tell them what had happened to me. Both of them warned me, “You must stop training, or you will die”. For the first time in my life, I felt some peace and happiness, yet these guys tell me I’m dying. After all, the exercises that I was doing were just breathing exercises. You have to breathe to live, right?

They explained, “The energy force travels from the base of the spine up through seven psychic centres to the brain, where it biologically alters the brain structure, opening up the brain for telepathy and clairvoyance. If the energy force is misdirected, it destroys the brain structure, causing loss of function of bodily organs, various types of insanity, and death. This is what very likely killed Bruce Lee. Now, at last, I understood why it was called forbidden training. This energy force is the underlying mechanism behind most self-development systems and all psychic phenomena outside of the church. This is the secret of Yoga and Martial Arts.

Still, I did not listen; I was convinced I would succeed where they had failed. I had a strong spirit and a strong mind. I had overcome death. Nothing could stop me, nothing. At this point, I should have died. For I did not listen but kept training.

God gave me a dream; someone poured petrol over me and set me alight. I screamed for help, but no one came; I rolled on the ground, yet the flames continued to burn. I was dying. When I woke, I understood the dream. The fire represented the Serpent Fire or Chi, and calling out with no reply indicated that there was no one who could assist me. This time I listened, for the knowledge came from within and not from the mouth of a man. I dreamed again; I was walking up a mountain with a blindfold on. Suddenly, the blindfold was removed. I was on the edge of a great precipice, and one more step and I’d be over the edge. This dream speaks for itself.

By now, I was convinced that the chi was killing me, yet I felt compelled to continue the internal training, as if the chi had an intelligence of its own and wanted to kill me. One other question that stuck in the back of my mind was whether my sanity was intact. Even though I had knowledge of psychology, I could not be sure. I had definitely changed.

I stopped all meditation and continued only with physical training. Some time passed, and a friend told me about a book called “Death of a Guru” written by the son of the Greatest Guru ever to come out of India. (Maharaj 1984) This seemed to be the missing piece to my jigsaw. The book explained how chi was a demonic energy force creating a demonic oppression in the students, and by the time it reaches the brain, it becomes demonic possession. Then I remembered how I thought the Chi had an intelligence of its own. It really did. This is the Secret to the Secret; the energy force isn’t an energy force, it’s an entity.

I went back to my book, The Serpent Fire, and read the introduction, which I had skipped the first time; it read, “Yoga is the Highest Secret of all Occult Doctrines”. I had great trouble dealing with this reality. It wasn’t what I wanted to believe. Then I remembered my Mikkyo (a combination of Buddhism and Tantric Yoga) teachings: “Be there”, “Keep your mind where your body is”, and “Insist on reality”. But what was reality?

I had heard that rebirthing could help people affected by chi training, so I decided to visit a practitioner. I was placed in a trance through connected breathing and experienced severe cramping in my hands and legs. This was both torturous and terrifying. The breathing felt suspicious to me. A bit of research revealed that re-birthing was introduced to Western society by a man named Leonard Ore, who was a student of a man called Babba Ji, a powerful yogi who practised and taught kundalini yoga, the very sickness I was trying to escape. This was yet another trap in the journey through life. Next, I went to a therapist to see if my sanity was intact. For forty dollars a session, he introduced me to exercises called “The Feldenkrais Method”. He didn’t tell me if I was crazy, or he would lose his forty dollars a week. Now, it was my final year of training, and I was only engaged in physical training; yet I could feel the chi growing rather than diminishing. I bought a book called “Occult Shock and Psychic Forces.” It described Feldenkrais as a form of occultism based on yoga. Yet another trap in the journey through life.

If I’m possessed, maybe I can get exorcised. I remembered a doctor I once visited who was both a Christian and knowledgeable about spiritual matters. If anyone could tell me whether I was possessed, it would be him. So, I went to his surgery and had a chat. He assured me that if I was able to come to his surgery and discuss the possibility of demon possession, it was unlikely that I was truly possessed, as possessed people are not in control of themselves. However, because I had been open to occultism, I was, in fact, demon-possessed, and I could expect reoccurrences of psychic experiences for as long as the oppression existed. My only chance was to turn to God. I walked away from the surgery that day, believing it was all a bad dream, and I could not comprehend this reality. My training had been the solution to all my problems, and now it was the problem.

Having gone into denial about everything that had happened, I decided to train with my teacher one last time before retiring. You see, my teacher lived on the other side of the planet, in a place called Dayton in central Ohio. I travelled there once a year to train. I believed in an ultimate fight- ing system that could produce a man for all seasons or all situations. While training saved me from the problems of life, what was going to save me from training?

One of the closely guarded secrets of the Togakure Ryu was the secret of “Kuji In” finger weaving, combined with controlled breathing. Once back in the States, I got my teacher Steve alone and laid it on him. “What is Kuji In”? What is it really? He answered, “What does it matter if you’re summoning demons to do your bidding so long as your objectives are achieved”. I couldn’t believe what I heard, and I didn’t ask any more ques- tions. Nor did I ever speak with him again.

In the dojo (training hall) the next day, I met a guy called David Cozz, a Delta Force Commando who had been raised by an Indian mystic, and he was teaching the class. He was a man of great skill. He had the class sit down in a circle, gave one guy a knife to attack him with, and proceeded to throw his attacker without physically touching him. He moved to one side, and as he rotated his hands, his adversary did a somersault and landed on his back. Later, I asked him what the minimum time it would take to learn to do this. He said, “One week.” I replied, “But surely it would take longer to train the mind.” He told me, “The mind had nothing to do with it; it was all in the spirit. A person’s upbringing and their own attitudes cause them to put limitations on themselves, restricting them from any great achievements.” Then, I understood how weakness in character creates limiting factors.

One last thing he told me. “The real fight was behind the scenes in the spiritual realm.” As he said this, a vision came into my mind. I saw a theatre and actors on a stage. Most people only got to see what was happening on the stage; only a few got to look behind the scenes, behind the stage. He added, “That is why it is not always right to meet hostility with hostility. If you treat hostility with kindness, then you defuse the hostility and break the demonic powers from behind the scenes. (The truth is that God sets the stage each day. All the props belong to Him.)

I was such a closed book that God was using unchurched people to speak to me.

Mikkyo Teachings taught me to view things from the scheme of totality, or like looking down from above. So, I started to consider:

• Our time scale seems to be measured in terms of B.C. or A.D., Before Christ or Anno Domini. If the man Jesus was of no signifi- cance, why do we use him as a time reference?
• Why do children only need to be taught how to be good? How is it that they already know how to be bad? Who taught them?
• Being bad is easy, but being good is hard.
• New Age teaches that when you are living out your destiny, every- thing goes well for you. When you live contrary to your destiny, things do not go well. What or who, then, is controlling and direct- ing our destiny? The powers of Darkness are the real-world Rulers. The real fight is behind the scenes in the spiritual realm.

Ephesians 6 verse 12 says: - For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and against powers of darkness, against world rulers of this present darkness.

Upon my return to Sydney, I visited Rodney, the old Kung Fu master. Since this whole thing started with his introducing me to the Togakure Ryu; it seemed fitting that if I was going to retire, I should pay him one last visit.

He mentioned in conversation about some kids in Bankstown who tried to summon demons. They went to the church grounds and made a circle of rocks, which, if unbroken, would protect them from the demons. They started inside the circle, reading the Bible backward; suddenly, something very big and powerful appeared. The kids, terrified, stepped backward and broke the circle of rocks, at which point they were attacked. Running from the church grounds, they all headed for the local police station. One kid had what seemed to be claw marks on his arm. The police had some trou- ble believing their story and locked them up for smoking pot. The fact is, if what was written in the Bible was just a bunch of words, why was it being used in an occult ceremony? Why did that need to take place on the grounds of a church?

Not long after returning to Australia, I had another out-of-body experience in my sleep. I found myself travelling down a series of passages and eventually arriving at a very long passage, at the end of which was some- thing that radiated pure evil, with a face like a goat and a long snout, dark green in colour. A sense of absolute fear gripped me as I was drawn to this thing like a magnet.

In the middle of the attack, I said: “ In the name of the Father, the Son,” and I meant to say Holy Ghost, but I suddenly found myself wide awake, sitting upright in bed with a sense of peace. Never again would I be attacked in this way.

I now had an undeniable gut feeling that to be permanently free from demonic forces, I had to find a church. Since I was taught to insist on reality, I now knew what reality was: Jesus Christ crucified. The church would become my sanctuary.

I visited many different churches but found myself getting bored to death. So, I discovered which church my doctor friend attended, a Pentecostal church. They had a band with guitars and a keyboard instead of an organ. The music sounded pretty good, and it was a lively kind of place. More than that, it made me feel sick to go there. If I were demon- ically oppressed and there was any truth in the church, then I should feel sick. The moment I left the church building, I immediately felt better. I am forever amazed that when I am unsure about a direction in life, the devil always comes along with some encouragement.

So, I stayed in the Christian Growth Centre, and when the chi was pres- ent, I felt strong, but after a church service, I always felt weak. Thus, when I was strong, I was really weak, and when I was weak, I was really strong. Every Sunday, I went to church, and I felt great resistance. The more resis- tance I felt, the more determined I became. This continued for six months until the sickness was replaced by a sense of peace. Around this time, I became involved in Wednesday night prayer meet- ings at the doctor’s place. They always concluded with each individual being prayed for. This doctor was a prophet of God and would make state- ments or express insights while praying over you. The prophecies made over me were things I discussed with no one. These words could only come from someone who knew my every thought: God.

One Sunday, I saw an old woman with two walking sticks and someone helping her walk out the front for healing. After some prayer, she returned to her chair without the walking sticks. She staggered a little, but she was cured.

There was power in the church.

In the Church, it was possible to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, also known as Holy Fire. Once you had this baptism, the more you prayed, the happier and more at peace you became. The Holy Fire is the source of all supernatural phenomena in the church. Just as the serpent fire or chi is on the dark side of life, so the Holy Fire is on the light side of life. However, the Holy Fire isn’t trying to kill you, but rather to comfort you. Do you think anyone in the church could appreciate that? Martial Artists train three to four hours a day to possess great skills; many Christians would be lucky to pray for fifteen minutes a day. I’ve also discovered that the more I read the Bible, the more my character transforms. I can read a verse in Proverbs repeatedly and gain new insights each time, proving that there are lessons within lessons. Moreover, I found that reading the gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) often brought tears to my eyes while simultaneously softening my heart. It was the Love of Jesus entering my heart and softening it. Martial Arts Schools seem focused on hardening the heart, and in no school I ever attended did I see any love.

A soft heart is pliable, while a hard heart will be broken.

But God, being so very rich in mercy, because of His great and wonderful love with which He loved me. Even while I was dead, and separated from Him because of my sins, He made me alive. (Eph 2:4)

DAVID COZZ – DELTA FORCE

Not long after I left martial arts, David Cozz started his own martial arts organisation called Wind Warriors, based in Spokane, Washington. It was more of a cult, as every member had to adhere to strict discipline. Control is a central theme in all cults. Members were required to maintain part-time jobs to accommodate full-time training, which lasted eight hours a day. They also had to follow strict diets, maintain rigorous exercise schedules, and dedicate a significant portion of their day to meditation. This level of discipline produced some truly tough warriors. What equivalent practices do we find in Christianity?

By the way, David Cozz died of an aneurysm at age fifty. His great skill could not save him from a premature death, nor did he die with the knowl- edge of Christ.

RODNEY HALL – KUNG FU

Another important lesson can be drawn from the old Kung Fu master. Many years after dedicating my life to Christ, I googled Rodney’s name one day, and a mobile number appeared, so I called it. At that time, Rodney was living in West Ryde (a western suburb of Sydney), which was on my way home from work. I decided to drop by on my way home. There was the great Sifu (Teacher), dying from bowel cancer. He spent his days searching the original Hebrew and Greek of the Bible, looking for what to expect after his death. But at night, he used a machine to try to invoke an out- of-body experience, aiming to get a glimpse behind the scenes of what to expect. My first shock was that, despite his background and knowledge, he had never had an out-of-body experience. The second shock was that, even though he knew my story and had a hand in it, he was still reaching out for his own experience.

For most of the year that followed, I visited him once a week, sometimes at home and sometimes in the hospital. In his quest for his own out-of-body experience, he discovered two types of people. The first group claimed that astral travel is harmless and that everyone should try it. They encourage as many people as possible to participate. The second group maintained that the moment they found themselves outside their body, a demon was waiting to enter and take possession. This group sought to discourage anyone from engaging in astral travel.

When I was offered a job in town, I went to see Rodney and told him I might not be dropping in much anymore. He had a breakthrough. He recalled being out of his body and in what seemed like an underground cave. He remembered turning a corner, and whatever happened next was so horrific that his mind blocked it out, leaving him unable to remember. The following week would be my last to visit, and this time, Rodney was different. He was once again the great sifu, with pride and vanity filling his voice. Then the Lord spoke to me in a small, still voice: “He has a spirit of confusion, and if you stay longer, it will leap onto you.” I left and never saw him again. Looking back on this, I have the same question you probably have: “Why didn’t God just get me to cast it out?” I honestly don’t know. It might not have been as straightforward as you and I are thinking.

Mullamullang Cave

Mullamullang cave is situated 37 km northeast of the town of Madura on the Nullarbor desert.

The land that this cave resides on is part of Madura Station, the second largest sheep station in Australia, occupying 810,000 hectares or 2 million acres.

This event was the climax of a drive around Australia in a 20 year old Volkswagen. The picture about is the entrance to Mullamullang with the car parked under a tree.

I was traveling with my friend Laurie and we would both enter the cave at 2pm each with half a litre of water, a head lamp and a backup torch.

From the entrance the cave descend quickly and it isn’t long before we find the Southerly buster. It’s a narrow crawl through what feels like a wind tunnel, as the wind screams past you as you crawl.

Beyond the Southerly Buster we came to a giant sand dune which looks completely out of place so far underground.

Then started the climbing over boulders, the size of a car. These covered the cave floor forming a mound which matched the ceiling of the cave. We pushed on not considering where the boulder came from. Progress was slow and tiring.

After a long period of time that seemed like forever we came to a triangle shaped rock with 1M marked on it. This was the 1 mile mark.

At this point Laurie turned to and said “Well, it’s been fun, but I’m heading back”. I wanted to make it at least as far as White Lake, and so we parted company.

After what seemed like a couple of hours I was confronted by a fairly steep climb down. This led me to White Lake.

I had drunk most of my half litre of water so I tried to drink from the lake. It had a heavy salt content making it undrinkable. The white you see in the picture above (not taken at the time) are crystals of salt.

I left the lake and continued for what seemed like an hour. My head lamp battery ran out and I was left with a flashlight. I had also finished all my water. So I decided to turn back.

Several hours go by and there’s no sign of White Lake. I’m tired, exhausted and dehydrated, and I come to a dead end. At this point I breakdown and started to cry. I lay down on a rock and cried myself to sleep. I lay there until I started to shiver uncontrollably as the rock draws the warmth out of my body.

But God. I stand up with renewed strength and hope. My view shifts from can’t do to can do, and I take a closer look at the dead end. There’s a vertical crack about 60cm wide which is hidden unless you are within a couple of metres of the rock wall.

I squeeze through the crack and find myself on a ledge looking out over a vast cabin so large you could fly a plane through it. In the distance there is a pile of boulders that form a mound. At my feet is a knotted rope to enable a climb down.

I climbed down and started to head for the mountain of rocks. Having reached that goal, I looked in the distance was another even larger, more prominent mountain of rocks and I headed to that mould and this time the top of the mound had a flat surface and a sign which read “Camp One”. This was on the map. I finally knew where I was. I was no longer lost. New strength and courage filled my soul. Looking down I could see Lake Cigalere.

I started to retrace my steps. I climbed up the rope ladder. (Marked on the map as the Drop-off) I had ran out of water and was holding my urine in, in anticipation of having to drink it just to survive. Back through the squeeze and back to climbing of the endless boulders.

Eventually I made it back to White Lake. This time I’m climbing up from the lake and I’m needing to stop and catch my breath several times before reaching the top.

After many hours of climbing I reached the Sand Dune, and then the Southerly Burster. My heart starts to fill with joy as I know I’m almost out.

Reaching the final climb up. I look up and it’s night and the stars are out. Upon exiting the entrance I’m overwhelmed with joy. In fact it’s the only time in my life I can say, I was delirious with joy.

Now you ask: “Where was God in all of this?” The batteries in the backup torch never died. I never got to the point where I had to drink my own urine. God sustained me.

The Nullabor Incident

Weebubbie cave is located on the Western Australian border, ten kilometres north of the town of Eucla.

An old unsealed road led us into the desert and eventually to a large hole in the ground, the size of a football field.

In the picture above, I’m the guy on the left in case you couldn’t tell.
The hole in the ground had a bottom some twenty metres below. A rusty old ladder had been mounted on the left of the cave entrance. I put on my dive gear, including my tank and weight belt, and proceeded down the ladder. (I was the only one with diving gear) At the bottom of the pit was a narrow hole where you climbed down a rickety old wooden ladder to gain entrance to the first underground chamber.

The floor of the cave was covered with large boulders the size of a car. They were piled up in mounds that mirrored the roof of the cave. It would be several years before I realised where all the boulders came from.

Climbing over the boulder for about 300 metres, we came to the surface of the lake.

It was about 30 meters wide and about 120 meters long, and made a perfect mirror of the roof of the cave. At the time, this was the largest underground lake in the southern hemisphere.

The plan was to find the underwater cabin, swim to the Air Dome, take my regulator out and try and breath the air in the Air Dome. Then return to the surface of the lake.

With all my dive gear on, I slid off a rock and into the water and began the search for the underwater chamber.

Searching for the underwater chamber would ultimately consume 3/4 of my air. I was diving around the lake, and suddenly, blackness appeared on my right, which was the beginning of the underwater chamber.

I had a glow stick to place as a marker and, tying it to a small rock, I swam down to the floor of the entrance and placed the glow stick as a marker. This caused a plume of silt to be stirred up. This kind of silt caused a blackout in South Australia that killed fourteen divers in twelve months. The silt, when stirred up, creates a blackout where you cannot determine in from out, up from down. Additionally, if the silt gets caught in the regulator, you will breathe water, not air.

Swimming away from the silt, I headed in and further down to a junction of a passage leading to another chamber. The depth at this point was 30 metres. The ceiling of the cave was about 15 metres deep. With the air I had at that depth, my life expectancy was 6 to 12 minutes. For every 11 metres you descend, your air supply halves.

Looking up, I could see the air pocket. It looked like a massive above-water cabin.

Arriving at the air pocket, it was only half a metre high and about 6 metres wide. I took my regulator out to take a breath, but the air was stale and unbreathable. Placing the regulator back in my mouth, I started to swim away.

Suddenly, the regulator dislodged, and I got a lungful of water. My body started to convulse, which is the body's natural response to clear the lungs. Suddenly, I could feel my lungs going in and out, but nothing was happening. I had just run out of air.

Panic set in, and I started to call the name Jesus, over and over. Suddenly, in a moment of time, I saw a vision of two divers carrying my body out of the cave.

Immediately, I am confronted with two choices. Swim back to the air pocket and breathe whatever air there was or try for the lake. I started to call the name Jesus more earnestly. Jesus, Jesus. I decided to go for the lake as that was the only sure way out.

Looking around, I couldn’t see the glow stick. Jesus, Jesus. The roof of the cave was bowed, and that obscured my vision of the glow stick. I swam down, and the glow stick came into view. I began to swim while still convulsing and repeating the name Jesus.

I finally reached the surface of the lake.

The Rocky Creek Incident

Rocky Creek Canyon is situated north of the town of Lithgow. It is considered a grade 1 canyon, a real no brainer

This is where the commercial adventure groups take their victims. I mean clients.

There were three of us on the day. One had done this canyon with my 4 weeks earlier. He brought along his friend who had never been in the bush before. We had settled on a Friday to do this to avoid the commercial groups as they can have up to 12 people all queued up to climb down waterfalls. This leaves most people standing in the cold waiting for their turn.

We started down Rocky creek, climbing down a hole in the rock to the base of the first waterfall. We were all excited and in awe of the canyon as we swam to the next waterfall.

Then we reached a waterfall with a drop of around 1.5 metres, but it was a waterfall that really had the water gushing. It was known as the washing machine, but I think of it as the toilet as you are literally flushed away.

There was a knotted role that helped in climbing down the waterfall. I was not far from the top when the pressure of the water caused my feet to give way, and I fell forward gripping the rope so not to fall, my hand smashed into the rock while still clenched. (It would take 6 months of rehab before I could clench my fist).

Beyond the washing machine there is a small waterfall to slide down followed by a long canyon walk.

We finish up with a 50 metre swim through a cave which opens up into a clearing, and this marks the end of Rocky Creek canyon.

There’s a sandy beach here where we break for a bite to eat and I needed to gather my thoughts, as the only way I knew to get back to the car was to reverse the canyon. That would mean climbing back over the washing machine with one arm. I was pondering if this was even possible when my friend Arun, twisted a funny way and damaged his knee to the point where he could not weight bear on that leg and needed assistance.

Just as I was coming to term with this new reality, we heard the thunder of the storm that was scheduled for the end of the day, and it was only midday. In that instance the picture of the map appeared in my mind, and I remembered there was anther exit about 1 km downstream, immediately on the left at a sharp right turn of the creek.

Heading further down steam the water was mostly waist deep and the coolness of the water acted as a cold pack on my hand but also aided Arun who could wade through the water unaided.

We got to the exit just as the rain started to fall, and it fell heavy. The climb out of the creek was steep and the rain make it difficult. There was a cave about 50 metres up the side, and we took shelter in the cave to wait out the storm. It poured rain so hard that at times you could not see more than a few metres and that went on for 90 minutes.

It was time to pray. Do we go back down and try and retrace our steps, or do we try bush bashing our way back? The right choice would lead to life. The wrong choice would lead to death. Even though we didn’t know the way I chose bush bash as in the worst-case scenario we’d be lost, be we’d be alive.

(Doesn’t this sound a bit like our Christan walk? We start of not knowing the way. We have a choice to accept Christ or reject Christ. One path leads to life; one path leads to death.)

The canyon wall extended above the cave about 30 metres. I made a vain attempt at climbing this not even thinking Arun could not climb. To the left of the cave there was a group of shrubs that had been squashed flat. It was evidence of others having passed this way and following that line of thinking it formed a path along the base of the rocky escarpment.

Eventually we reached a point in the escarpment that we could all climb through. This put us at the top of a ridge and there was evidence of what looked like a path heading into the bush and away from Rocky Creek.

The track we were now following was a bit vague, but it led us to another ridge forming a valley on our left. Then the vague path we were following split. One path went straight ahead, while the other turned left down off the ridge.

I spent some time looking to see which path was worn the most as that would indicate the path most used. When this failed, I broke open the topographic map. To our left was another canyon called Coachwood. It laid between us and the car park. This was our most direct route home.

We headed down and were almost at the bottom when we found a 1 metre drop where we all managed to slide down. On the other side was an obvious ravine angled in the exact direction we needed to go. But there was a 1 metre climb up to get into the ravine.

None of us were able to climb up into the ravine. I desperation we headed up Coachwood canyon in hope of finding a way out.

Sometime passed and I saw a rocky out crop that looked climbable. We all managed to climb this and that got us to the other side of Coachwood canyon. Now What? Where do we go from here?

I broke out the compass and plotted a path in the general direction we’d of headed if we’d gone up the ravine. I gave Arun’s friend instructions on bush navigation, and he led while I help support Arun. We would do this to 100 metres and then swap.

It was starting to get dark when we ran into the dirt road leading to Rocky Creek. I left Arun beside the road while running to get the car. We then drove back and picked up Arun. We were all alive. We’d survived the day. There was much joy in that car.

We had started down the main dirt road back to Lithgow when the driver swerved to miss a pothole in the road. Suddenly the car slides off the roadside ways over a ridge, and I felt the car hit the bottom and start to roll. But then stopped and fell back on all four wheels. It should have rolled but didn’t.

We left Arun with his leg up on the back seat, while the driver and I started a walk back to Lithgow. (I didn’t realise that was a 20km walk). It was almost dark when out of no where a girl in a small car appear to give us a lift. Her name was Angelique. (No, I’m not making this up)

She dropped us at McDonalds so we could phone for a Tow truck. The Tow truck driver was able to pull the car out of the ditch and to our amazement there was no damage to the car accept one tyre needed replacing. Within another 30 minutes we were heading home.

Why did all this happen? Four days earlier I shared my testimony with a Friend. See A Soul’s Journey.