Man Changes His Name to Change His LifeBy DAVID ROSS July 28, 1999 Just as the entertainment media now refers to "The artist previously known as Prince," so might we refer to the "computer programmer/musician formerly known as Mark Huppert, and now known as Ahyh." Pronounced "Aye-Uh," Hup-pert's new name has a meaning rooted in ancient Hebrew. The significance of the name is in its symbolism of Mark Huppert/Ahyh's journey from an almost suicidal rock bottom to a current level of profound peace and spiritual contentment. On Dec. 8 of 1996 Huppert's 19 year old daughter was in involved in a fatal car accident. Although his daughter was not seriously injured, the accident created an emotional strain that eventually led to the break-up of Huppert's six year marriage. "Strong relationships get stronger through stress," reflected Ahyh recently. "Weak relationships get weaker." The following months were a time of extreme emotional stress and soul searching. "In such circumstances you either die or you heal," he said. "I went through a healing process." By August of last year Huppert became focused on all the issues of his life: all the mistakes he had made and the proper decisions he needed to make. He spent months ruminating on this situation. What was wrong with him? What should he do next? If everything had led to this wall of failure, what was he going to do with the second half of his life? By early 1998 he had no faith or fight left in him. Huppert, who had become very well known in Valley Center and the surrounding area as a top classical organ artist, and locally as the organist for Light of the Valley Lutheran Church, admitted to himself that his life had been dedicated to the achievements of "expedited results." "I found that I did not marry my wife for who she was, but what she would become. I did not buy the house for what it was but what it would make me if I sold it. "I did not get involved with Light of the Valley for the ministry but for the opportunity I was convinced it presented. I didn't get involved with my rock band just to play, but just so the proverbial masses would hear us and love it. "For Mark Huppert, nothing was ever an end in itself, but always a means to an end. When the expected ends were not achieved, Mark Huppert was a mean, miserable son of a bitch." August 1998 represented his nadir. "What is wrong with me?" he asked himself over and over again. "Everything I've done is a failure!" One day, quite suddenly, two revelations hit Huppert straight in the eyes. One came to him from an ancient Hindu religious text, the Hindu "New Testament," "The Bhagavad-Gita." The other revelation came to him from the Christian New Testament. In the Bhagavad-Gita, the Hindu god Krishna tells Arjuna, a prince, that he has to learn to work without attachment to the fruits of his labors. The New Testament says essentially the same thing: "Whatsoever you do in thought, word or deed, do all to the glory of God." In other words, said Ahyh, "do what you do because it's the right thing to do in and of itself. If you get rich or crucified, ultimately it doesn't matter." That philosophy has been true of the truly influential people in history, he says: Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi. "All of these people were doing what they were doing because it was right. It was their calling. They weren't out to necessary achieve an end. "When Gandhi laid down on the track in front of that train he didn't know if it was going to lead to liberation of a subcontinent or he was going to be dead in three minutes. Ultimately it didn't matter." Although he refers frequently to a variety of religious texts, Mark Huppert/Ahyh became a Christian in 1976 and remains one today. He hosts a religious homepage on the Internet: www.yhwh.com None of the revelations that struck Huppert last August were new to him. He had studied them all his adult life. "I had practically memorized them, but that didn't keep me from spending twenty years in misdirected enterprises. . . .It's one thing to read about it, sing about it, talk about it; it's another thing to internalize it and live it. I don't have the words to express to you the momentous nature of that to me," he recalled. "My entire life I've been doing that one thing and that one thing had led me to this and that and this and that. How could I have been so blind?" With that realization, Huppert wanted to do something that would tangibly, directly and immediately mark him as a new creature. "To give me a daily reminder of my new commitment to my life" He decided on a new name. Mark Huppert became Ahyh. In doing so he chose an honorable tradition. "Throughout the Bible, and other religions, when people go through major changes they get new names. It's even true in everyday life: privates become sergeants, misses becomes missus. Saul became Paul, Abram became Abraham. You can go on and on. "Everything about you is embodied in your name. The truth that opens the door to all God's consciousness is God's name." "Ahyh" expressed a religious concept he was intimately familiar with. Ahyh is a Hebrew word found in Exodus 3:14, when Moses is talking to the burning bush. Moses asks God who he is. God replies: "Ahyh asr Ahyh." Translated that means: "I will be who I will be." According to Ahyh, the phrase has been mistranslated into "I am that I am." "The correct translation is actually a formula, the formula that has generated the universe and generated everyone in it," said Ahyh. "I + will = being." To change his name, Huppert had to go through a legal process. "You go to the Vista courthouse and say 'I want to change my name.' The county clerk hands you a package of papers." He filled out a petition to the court saying he wanted to change his name. That, and at a check for $188 got him a petition court date for Dec. 3, 1998. He had to post a notice of his intentions in a certified newspaper. The law says that if nobody files a protest and the court doesn't find the name objectionable, it must grant the name change. Ahyh is not a first name, he points out. It's his name. Period. Like Liberace, Cher or Prince. The reaction to the change has been divided about evenly into thirds. "My friends will go 'That's great, wonderful and exciting!' About a third couldn't care less. About a third say 'You're crazy! We can't put that in our documents!' " Some businesses won't put the change in their documents. He has trouble getting some people he does work for to change their email addresses to reflect the change. The bulletin of the church he plays the organ for, Zion Lutheran in Fallbrook, still lists him as Mark Huppert. "It's not something I'm challenging anyone over. I'm not trying to get a reaction. They know my name. They know it's important. If they want to honor me by using it, fine," said Ahyh. The most interesting thing about the process, he said, "is that it is a daily reminder and daily challenge to live without the attachment to the fruits of my labors. Is it right because it's right or am I trying to accomplish something here?" Professionally, Ahyh has been a computer programmer for much of his life, along with being a professional musician. "I have different contracts with different groups. For the first time in my life I know that if I lose those contracts and the money, I would be at peace about it because I am a different person." Aside from the name change, and the fact he let his hair and beard grow to quite Biblical lengths, he remains much the same person on the outside. Soft spoken, polite, articulate. The beard was a result of his daughter's accident. That was the last time he shaved. He said to himself "I'm tired of shaving and having welts on my throat." For the most part he does the same activities he always did. "I just do them with a different attitude," he said. "The motive, the focus, is one hundred and eighty degrees different." That manifests itself in small ways. "On a Sunday morning I play a Bach prelude. The old Mark Huppert would have gotten annoyed if no one said how cool it was. But, bless his sainted soul, he is dead! Ahyh is able to appreciate the beauty of the music and the beauty that I have fingers to play it. That's a remarkable change." Although he considers himself a Christian, Ahyh feels he doesn't belong to any religion, "because all of the religions belong to me. So, yes, I am a Christian. I'm also very Hebrew. I've also learned an awful lot about Christianity and Judaism through Hinduism and Buddhism. If I say I belong to a religion that religion places certain expectations on me." "When I say that all religions belong to me I recognize that this is 2000, we have thousands of writings, millions who have encountered the living God in every tradition and every millennium. All of that is a part of my history." "You are an eternal, immutable part of the Godhead, in Christianity called the spirit. If the spirit is coupled with your will, (the will is the thing that "sits" right above thought) the will focuses the spirit into action. The eternal spirit plus your divine will has created you, your thought, your history, your weight. You are doing what you are doing because of the will. That is the formula that generated the universe." Ahyh's website he calls "God's homepage." It contains different writings from many different sources. Hundreds of people have visited the site. Is he running a church of the Net? If so, he says, it's one with no membership lists. No liturgies. No mailing address. "Even if someone wanted to they couldn't send me any money. There's no meeting times. All this is a free delivery of the truth of God as I know it." But he adds, "Don't believe a single thing on this site until you personally have wrestled with it. Believing what someone tells you is one of the stupidest things you can do for your soul."
|
|
[Home] [Colorful Introduction] [God's Name] [The Revealing Science of God] [Jesus Died for You] [Contact] [Support]
(c) 1996-2009
The Church of Yahweh. All rights reserved. May be freely distributed, but never
sold. |
