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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781561707232 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hay House Inc. |
| Publication date: | 06/28/2000 |
| Series: | Journey of the Soul Series , #2 |
| Pages: | 205 |
| Sales rank: | 327,102 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
SYLVIA BROWNE is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Two Marys, Psychic Children, The Mystical Life of Jesus, Insight, Phenomenon, and other bestsellers. She has been working as a psychic for five decades and appears regularly on The Montel Williams Show. She has also appeared on Larry King Live, Good Morning America, CNN, and Entertainment Tonight. She lives in California and works alongside her son, Chris, who has inherited his mother's psychic abilities.
Read an Excerpt
Editor's Note: To reiterate the information stated in the Introduction, the following text has three voices. Of course, Sylvia speaks, but she also has two communicating spirit guides, Francine and Raheim, who are the major contributors. Whenever the voice changes in the text, it will be marked. Also, throughout the portions authored by Francine and Raheim, there are questions that appear in italics.
Chapter One
REASON FOR LIFE
Francine: I want to talk to you about the purpose of life. Now, from our earlier discussions, we know the basics: We decide to incarnate, we pick our life's chart, and we decide to perfect our soul, but not for ourselves—two-thirds of our existence is given over for the experiencing of God. So all of you "warriors for God" will take on more difficult experiences in order to perfect.
When we discuss creation, we have to say "in the beginning," although there was no "beginning." But for your finite mind, let's use the word beginning to mean the starting point of physical life. It became apparent to almost every soul that the only way they were going to fully understand God's knowledge was to come into life—to come into the battleground of good versus evil!
The difference between knowledge and experience is inexpressible. It's one thing to be told about something (call this intellectual knowledge) and another to experience it (call this physical knowledge), especially through the many stages of your many lifetimes. In life, you experience thepositive and negative aspects and nuances, including defamation, rejection, aloneness, racism, and prejudice of every kind. Then, finally, you come to what can be described as an elevated spiritual and neutral place.
Now you're going to find people in all walks of life who want to find "spiritual knowledge." This phrase sounds very simplistic, doesn't it?
Like Sylvia says so many times: "Do good work, help each other, and then shut up and go Home!" This sounds simple, but it will take many, many lifetimes to get it right.
Dark and Light Entities
All white entities come down in a white column of light. All dark entities come down in darkness.
This makes it very easy for us. Of course, even with our intelligence, we're not always aware of who's dark and who's light, unless we see them coming into being. It would be nice if you had eyes that were open in which you could look around a place and see those with a dark column or a white column. It would be much easier for you to differentiate between them, but most of you cannot do this.
The main purpose of life is to help other people combat the darkness that confronts them. Of course, I assume that you understand I'm referring to darkness in people's souls; this has absolutely nothing to do with skin color. I'm referring to inherent evil.
To combat darkness does not mean to do battle with it, cohabitate with it, or pull it into your circle. It does mean to look at it, push it away from yourself, and try to get those you love pulled away from its sticky, gooey "connivances." The world, as you must know, abounds with darkness. We have a huge challenge.
Surviving Life
To perfect one's soul is simply to survive life. That is the ultimate: to be able to keep standing and make it through to the end, regardless of how hard you're hit. No matter that your worst fears were realized, no matter what happened to you. To perfect is to survive—to not give up, not cave in, not despair.
Despair is a killer; it can lead to suicide. You must not drink your way out of life's pain or numb yourself. You need to be a reality-based person. I'm not talking about people who are on medication in order to stabilize a chemical imbalance; that's totally proper behavior.
I'm talking about people who go to addictive behaviors. That's tragic. Probably one of the worst spirits you can take into your body is alcohol, because, when abused, it numbs and dulls and keeps you from experiencing your life. To harm the physiological body, although it may feel satisfying, is wrong. Two things can happen as a result: Either your life will be elongated, or you're going to need another life. There are many ways to commit suicide in this life: Alcohol and other addictions are just as deadly.
Is an addiction ever charted?
Some people are told that they're predisposed to an addiction of one sort or another. Before they come in, a lot of people are very, very adamant in saying, "I can beat it."
They chart with the option for a very strong possibility, the same as a suicide does. They're warned; they're told. A lot of suicides that we see are people who have incarnated too fast. They didn't get any rest; they went back in too fast. They didn't listen to anything, and they're shell-shocked.
God only knows that enough of you are shell-shocked because you've had so many lives. For many, this is your last life, and you're really tired and worn out. That doesn't mean that you're going to take a gun and put it in your mouth. Such behavior always forces you to have more lives.
Survive life. Serve God.
Now I know that a lot of you, regardless of your religious background, have heard so many times that everyone is supposed to "serve God." Even in my life, we were told to serve the gods. As a small child, I used to wonder, How do I serve God? The answer I have found is this: You serve God by serving His people. You reach God in many forms and many facets by serving people. If you just serve yourself, you are gaining nothing spiritually. This has nothing to do with loving yourself. You'll find the love of yourself if you love other people. However, if you just serve yourself and express your love for God, that's not enough. It's so much better if you do more than speak it; instead, go about your daily work giving, caring, and spreading your truth and your spirituality, whatever that may be to you. At least in this way, your God-center touches other people. If you don't serve God by serving other people on this earth, that is not so much an atrocity, but you have missed an opportunity to serve God.
It is very easy, because of the way the world is, to say, "I can't be bothered. I want to crawl back in a hole. Let them all be whatever they're going to be. It's not my problem." If nothing else, your position is not to "save" the dark entities, because you can't save them. But certainly save the white entities who are beginning to despair. It's not that they're weak, but the darkness has a way of making despair come into the minds of white entities. It seems like such an endless task, but it's not. What you're trying to do is keep your "army" together so they don't freeze or falter or burn up or whatever.
People ask, "But don't you want to save the dark entities as well?" You cannot save the dark; God will. Maybe you can save the gray. You want to be a light in the world.
The "gray" entities are experiencing nothing but meanness and negativity. All they're doing is feeding negative energy back into the world. What good is that? I'm sure that God's concept of experiencing through us includes that, but certainly no goodness is being created.
So the meaning of life is service. The perfection of your soul is service—and so many times without any applause. If you come into life and expect applause, you're going to be terribly upset. Your only "kudos," as Sylvia calls them, are what you give to God, and what God knows you give—and those truths are between you and God alone.
Don't expect the world to eulogize you in lights, as you have seen with Sylvia. If that's what you're looking for, then you should know that they can make you a saint one day and a harlot the next.
That's all you can ever expect in this life. So maybe you deal with ex-husbands, people who are prejudiced against you, and people who hurt you. You only answer to God, Who knows where your heart is. When you keep repeating that to yourself, then your strength increases a millionfold.
Your name may not be in lights here, but your name is certainly in God's Lights!
Is Earth's population increasing?
Yes. I see it so much, and you must see it in your world. Sylvia was saying the other night to me that she has never seen so many babies at the mall. You must see them, too—there are babies and babies and babies. War has nothing to do with it. The depletion of humankind is not as great as the boom that is coming in. The boom is coming in now because you're getting to the end of this period. The souls that did not finish up their "coursework," so to speak, have to come in now.
Seeing the Light
You're here to perfect your specific life theme (see Chapter 3). In each life, you can pick a different theme or you can keep the same one, especially if you think you haven't experienced it well enough. In your last life, most of you will touch on all the themes—Tolerance, Experiencer, and all the rest.
You ask, "Where do I fit? God, I've gone through so many." That really is it. If you look very carefully, you'll see that you always have one main life issue that confronts you. You have a lot of them if this is your last life. You constantly have difficulties put upon you, but be aware, and do a self-audit. In other words, say, "Wait a minute. Am I learning Patience? Is this Tolerance? Is this Experiencer? Have I now become a Pawn? Have I now become a Catalyst in this position?"
Those are the things, the meaning of perfecting your soul, that you have to go through. It seems so meticulously analytical, which it is, because you so carefully planned all of it.
I think that each day spent without some kind of audit of yourself is a day lost. "Was there one good thing that I did? Did I help someone with something spiritual?" It can be as small as reaching over and grabbing someone's hand. But when you get up in the morning, make up your mind that on that day, you're going to send energy to someone. You might even send a prayer out to a homeless person. You may give someone a sandwich. You may just call a person on the phone. You might talk to a client you're dealing with and give them a warm word.
A day without doing something for someone else is a day lost!
Now, let's say that you're very ill and are confined to your bed. That is a time in which you can be introspective. You can meditate. You can ask God to let you rest and get ready for the next weeks or months or years or whatever you have left. However, always keep this thought pivotal in your mind: The Holy Spirit is with you. You are doing something for the Higher Spirit.
Constantly ask, "Are my actions for a higher good?" All of your experiences should be for the Higher Spirit. All the calumny and profaneness that you have had to endure, all the battering you have had to go through—I promise you that all of it adds to your soul's perfection.
The phrase, "They have seen the light," has been bantered about from the early Christians on to the fundamentalists. It truly referred to seeing the white light of the Holy Spirit. The perfection of your soul is not only seeing the light, but bringing the light to others.
If you're just paying attention to your own light, you're not going to advance quickly. That doesn't mean that you have to go tromping up and down the street gathering up all types of people to come to church. If you can relieve someone from one day's guilt or one hour of pain, you've done something as far as ministering. You don't necessarily have to be a minister within any church. Just say to yourself, "I want to be a minister for God. I want to administer God's Light to people." To minister to someone means to "serve their needs." Show your truth to others.
It doesn't do any good if you keep your truth inside and don't show it to anyone. That doesn't mean that you have to shove it down their throats, but at least you'll know that you've given them your truth. You may be amazed that people are coming into the light on their own. It has nothing to do with being psychic. It has everything to do with being spiritual. Spiritual and psychic are synonymous. The more spiritual you become, the more psychic you become. That is absolutely a fact. That is the meaning and perfection of life—to reach the pinnacle of being spiritual and psychic, and having those meld together—not letting the world stop you, not making what the world does to you so important. That's one of the hardest lessons that you learn.
Your next thoughts are, What about my job? What about my love life? What about my health? I know all that is important, but it is so fleeting. It's like a flu that you have for two weeks, and the next day you don't have it.
Love Yourself
We're going to talk about behavioral modification. I think that all through your lifetimes, literally, you've been inundated with erroneous information. Then you come back Home (to the Other Side), and you return to your true beliefs. Then you go back into a life, and you're brainwashed into another set of beliefs. It becomes terribly hard to try to figure out what's right. You're inundated by all types of moralistic behavior, commandments, church rules, and law. Behavioral modification is probably the most simplistic.
Our Lord said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Now, let me get more specific about that. Let me try to release some of the burdens of guilt you may have. There are people whom you cannot possibly like. Yet many times, because "Love your neighbor" has been given to you, you are convinced that it's wrong to dislike others.
It is wrong not to dislike. Let me tell you why. If you're going to like and care for every single person (I'm not speaking of love), there's something wrong with your personality. You're deficient in being a whole person. Whole people have decided likes and dislikes, paths in which they follow, paths in which they won't follow.
You must try to love everyone's soul and wish them the best. But you certainly don't have to like their behavior or actions. To stay around a person that you intensely dislike is wrong. It disintegrates that person and yourself. Many marriages, friendships, and family relationships are built upon trying to stay around a person that one cannot tolerate. This causes you guilt and heartache and stunts your spiritual growth. You're laboring so hard to be "perfect" for no reason. Again, Jesus recommends that you "pick up your pallet and walk away."
When you give someone advice (all human beings are filled with advice for everyone), don't ever give advice that you think will apply to you, or what you would like. Try to be objective. That is the most spiritual road. Whenever someone asks you for an opinion or advice, don't internalize it; rather, try to put yourself in that person's place. There, again, is a very spiritual modification.
Care more for yourself. Reward yourself. For one week, try to do everything that you wish to do just for you. For one week, try it. I guarantee that by the end of the week, you will not only be doing things for you, but you'll be doing more for other people than ever before.
Once you can love yourself, so much love begins to emanate. If you find that you're a person who doesn't like people, you're in great difficulty. Not only is your world filled with people, but where you come from is filled with people. The greatest challenge that you'll ever have in this life is to get along with other people. That doesn't mean having to like them or constantly give out more than is humanly possible. It means being able to discern how compatible with you others will be.
It's perfectly within everyone's normal behavior to release frustration, to show anger, and to show fear. Instead, far too many people suppress their emotions within their own body; a vehicle that does not work exactly as it should. You have a superconscious memory of a body free of heaviness, free of ills. That, in itself, causes frustration.
Do you know that Jesus did not like everyone? He did not like the Pharisees. He could not stand the courts. He could not abide the rulers of Rome. Yet he cared for all people. Do you understand that?
It's impossible for you to walk around constantly, truly loving everyone. When you try to love everyone, you've diminished the word love. You use the word love so much that when it comes to truly loving and caring, you have no way to express it anymore. Most of you, I can truly say, "like" and "care" for others, but very few of you in physical life know what true love is. This is not because you're deficient. It's because on your plane of existence, it's nearly impossible. Infatuation is probably the closest thing, giving you a few brief months of what you feel continuously on my side, but it's still accelerated a thousand times more where I am.
Because you get a brief glimpse of this feeling with a partner, you're constantly looking for the next, in your slang, "fix." The older you get and the more worn down you are from life, the less it comes. Something else must replace it—some deeper knowing that you're finishing out your contract with God, then you will go Home.
If you're constantly bogged down with grief or what should have been or what was not, you'll stunt your spiritual growth. If you're constantly wondering what people think of you, you stunt your growth. Does this make you an uncaring, unfeeling human being? Maybe according to the world's norm, but not in the bigger scheme of life.
Every single one of you is individually alone, making your way on a well-defined path to get back where you came from. You may select partners and companions along the way, but as I've stated before, because of your physical body and because you cannot merge, every single one of you is isolated. We, your spirit guides, are probably closer to you than any human being can ever be.
Don't be so obsessive about the next day, the next year, money problems, and so on. You may reply, "But I have to live." Yes, you have to live, but things are only going to be one way or the other. Believe me when I tell you: Almost everyone survives the money worries, the business worries, the love worries. So much excessive time is spent worrying about what is already predestined by you and the other individuals anyway.
Money is a great deal like love. It's meant to be taken in and given out. If money is taken in and held, it does not reproduce anything. People become too terribly concerned about materialistic holdings.
People have asked me, "Am I too materialistic?" Almost every time, I have reiterated, "No." Very rarely have I seen a person, regardless of their holdings or houses or cars, who I feel is truly caught in material greed. Now, as far as possessions, people can get caught up in materialism by caring too much in almost a self-conscious way what people think of them. That is being caught in matter.
It is so simple. You care for the majority of people. You hope they care for you. If they don't, there are others who will. That's what makes you more spiritual.
Simplify
Quiet down the mind. Know that God, within and without, takes care of all things. Leave the door of communication open for us to enter. We can't get through very well when you're constantly obsessing over something, such as money or a love affair. Because your mind is filled with that, we can't break though the noise long enough for us to make contact.
You can be simplistic and still be very intellectual. This means caring for the smallest as well as the largest. It's a whole process of retraining your mind. Walk into your home, close the door, and be grateful that you have four walls that reflect you, whether it's an apartment or a house. Be grateful that you have a job that brings in money so that you can eat and live, that you have friends around you, and a beautiful country that allows you to get to the ocean or the mountains in a matter of hours.
I don't want to sound like many of the so-called gurus who have wanted you to become so simplistic that you blank your mind. I have been called very "Westernized," which I find very strange, because my philosophy is very "Eastern."
I believe in activation and passivity: activation in doing something with yourself, passivity in letting life pull you. Don't move upstream. Let the stream carry you.
Pushing against the flow of life also stunts spiritual growth, because the path becomes harder. You put one rock after the other into the path that you've chosen. Most of those rocks are created by you. Oh, yes, there are also external blocks to deal with. There are periods of grief, joy, and aloneness. But how you get through these times depends on your frame of mind. A positive frame of mind definitely makes the journey easier.
Think of when you were first romantically, mindlessly in love with an individual. At that point in time, in that heightened excitement, if your car would not start and you lost your job, you wouldn't care. Do you see what I mean? If you did care, it would be minimized. But let the glow of the infatuation wear off, and your car doesn't start and you lose your job—now you're in the pits of despair.
The only love affairs that last are those you have with God, yourself, and the deeply abiding and comforting love that you have for people around you.
Infatuation in your world is wonderful, but it must take, let's say, a lower priority than the comforting companionship. That's why so many people commit and uncommit, because again, they're looking for that gigantic thrill. It doesn't come that often, nor does it last.
People who only search for the infatuation thrill really do age before their time, because their bodies cannot sustain it. It's too much. If you remember well, the heart races, you have no appetite, your face flushes, you can't sleep, and your blood pressure elevates, too. You could not sustain that state. You would die.
When we see one of you in a state of infatuation, we can see you sparkle and flare all over. Do you know that when the infatuation dims, your aura turns gray for a while? After the infatuation comes a gray period. If you work through that, then you usually turn a bright green or a bright blue. That means that there's rejuvenation and tranquility taking place. Most of you show varied shades of green and blue or sometimes shades of maroon, meaning agitation and irritation.
You are electrical. You are in control of this electricity. You should try to "cement" your aura so that it becomes greener or bluer or maybe shades of green and blue. It should be confined close to the body, not flaring way out.
Life
Everyone has some affiliation with another person's trials, whether in this life or from a past life. Lives are really not that individualistic. You may think that you're going through something very, very specific to you, but remember that someone, at some time, has gone through that identical trauma. They may not have handled it any better, but they have experienced it, nevertheless.
The more difficult your life is, the more that you're perfecting your soul for God.
How can we discipline our lives more?
Discipline is mostly behavioral. How you deal with your life is based upon acceptance. That's the biggest thing when it comes to discipline. People think they must watch their diet and exercise in some way, but those things are not nearly as important as going with the flow of life.
Most of your problems arise because you push against life instead of going with it. This is so simplistic that most people negate it. Discipline allows you to flow with life's stream. In other words, if a bad relationship occurs, rather than fighting or worrying, say to yourself, "I'll ride it for as long as I can. Then I'll simply jump off this car and get on another one."
People harangue situations literally to death, because they have, as Sylvia calls it, a "one-time" terminal mentality about everything. "If I lose this job or love partner, I won't get another. There will never be anything else." Of course there will. Most of the time, human beings are trying so hard to keep themselves from being uncomfortable—from grieving or wanting—that they create the exact situation they fear.
Does it really matter if you move from one place to another? Is it really that important in life's journey if there is a loss of someone that you'll eventually be with again? It's very hard to explain to human beings that nothing is terminal. Even though we may talk exhaustively about the Other Side and how everything eventually evens out, the frustrations build up.
Just begin to allow yourself to flow. That's a big part of centering the self.
Remember how you felt when you were first in love, and the glow of that first love? In that state, if your car were to break down or there was a gas shortage, it would affect you, but not very much. If you're not in a state of loving or not in a state of being glad every day just to be here and be perfecting, then everything will bother you—heat, cold, gas shortages, next-door neighbors, dogs barking, and children that talk back.
There's a certain amount of worry that comes from being in a physical body, but much too much of it is self-inflicted. Once the need for anything is removed, there's an abundance. The flow of life is a cardinal rule in the universe: If you don't hinder the way, the way will carry you. That applies to every human being. It's the same thing with pain—once the pain is accepted, acknowledged, and experienced, then it can be handled.
The fear of pain or the fear that accompanies pain is so intense. That's why no one's tolerance of pain is any different. Medical people talk about high or low thresholds of pain tolerances. No, that's not true. It's the resistance. Accept the total and complete knowing that God doesn't ever let anybody suffer needlessly.
If you feel that you must have a certain thing, there's nothing wrong with a zealous ambition to accomplish it.
Is it true that difficult children don't flow with life?
Well, you must realize that they haven't come into full maturity yet as far as knowing this, but it's the parents' job to "flow" with the child until the maturity factor takes over.
Parents will say, when the child is older, "I'm more patient now; I can handle it." Somewhere along the line, if a person ever says that, they have learned to flow. Learning to flow is the definition of patience.
People are so burdened with finances. God doesn't require anyone to have to live impoverished lives. This "give up everything and walk around with dirty feet" is not what God ever meant. An empty stomach is not conducive to prayer. The only feelings of discontent that you should ever have is if you're not flowing well enough with life.
Do you realize that 99 percent of your fears never culminate? Yet if even one thing or one tiny part of something that you fear comes true, then you'll say, "I knew it." Not only that, but this will augment all the fears you've ever had. Then you think you're psychic enough to "know" that everything you fear will come true. Yet they don't, and all you have now is a fear that you created by yourself.
Let's say that someone flunks out of school and is sent away. Everybody, for a brief span of time, would say, "Isn't that terrible? That person flunked out." But ten years from now, how significant is that? Do you remember back in school, there was always, always a bad person? Where is that person now? Are they directly entwined in your life? Are they affecting you? Yet for that brief span in time, everyone said, "I'm so glad I'm not that bad person."
Everything is transient. Everything is moving.
Einstein didn't flow with the tide.
Oh, not the tide of the masses—but he did specifically flow with his own tide. Edison and all such people were able to flow with their own tide. If you read or knew anything about Einstein, he didn't let anybody bother him.
March to your own drum. Someone's grief can be someone else's joy. It's like the old adage that comes from your side: "One man's meat is another man's poison." It might be terribly depressing to all of you if everyone liked asparagus. There wouldn't be any. If you take nothing else with you from this information, take the one truism that all things do pass. It is the most simple thing in the world.
The simplest rules—those you were born with—have been complicated by humans. They have become dogmatic, and not just in religions. I'm talking about the structure of morality or behavior.
If you think you're not a rebel, that's all right. Every one of you is a rebel in your own right because you think and feel. You're unique and different from any other spark that God created. However, your relationships and experiences are not that much different. You can't give me one situation that you've lived through for which I cannot show you someone who has lived an identical pattern. Whether it was being orphaned, experiencing a death or the loss of loved ones, or disappointment or rejection, there has been someone who has lived it, and maybe that person has one up on you.
It's so ridiculous how much the word karma is misused. Everyone lives a life with a physical malady. Almost every life, depending on how traumatic it is, will come under "attack"—either by your own mental processes or because of disease or circumstances. This is where phobias arise. If in one life you had a heart attack and you felt that things were not finished, you might develop a phobia about heart attacks.
Everyone has had a life in which they were rejected by a loved one, and a life in which they were accepted. You can play off either one, depending on the sensitivity of the soul. Everyone's lives run the same way. You've all had lives where you were alone, surrounded, famous, and dejected.
People will say, "Well, I've only had four." It doesn't make any difference. Within one lifetime, you've seen people go from riches to rags, rags to riches, from beauty to degradation, and from rejection to acceptance. You've had periods in which there was no money, and periods where there is much affluence. You've had periods in which you were ill and then better. But every one of you has spent a life in which there was some type of major deformity.
All of you have had a life as the opposite sex. Some men resent this, because in their "macho" minds, they can't believe they were ever "shrinking" females. And many women cannot believe that they could have been very strong, dominant men. However, you could not ever understand the duality of life unless you knew both sides of Creation. People who question their gender identities have usually spent many lives as the opposite sex. For example, a gay man has most definitely had many female lives.
The more advanced you become, the more your feminine and masculine sides rise as you need them. So even being a female, you will show masculine-dominant qualities and very prominent female qualities, and not get into nit-picking exactly which one you are today, masculine or feminine.
One of the worst things—which destroys natural discipline—is to feel that you are martyred, and to be judgmental and critical of others. People, no matter what happens, are not pleased with criticism. Most of these "judgmentalists" are cross and cranky, and they always have something unpleasant to say. Judgment merely adds darkness to the soul. It's actually an emanation with the intention of annihilating another's ego. There are a lot of things that are worse than physical death. If you're around unpleasant, cranky, mean, cross people for any length of time and you have to live in close quarters or work with them, you should find a way to get away from them.
Is planning our life based on readiness?
Yes, many years are spent in planning an incarnation. The exception to this is a suicide, who must immediately go back into an identical situation. But for all others, the planning is seemingly endless work. We don't get exhausted, but in your framework, it would be exhausting to really discern the right parents, the right body, the right geographic location, what kind of defects you are going to have, what kind of jobs you may be geared for, what kind of childhood and midlife you'll have, and when you're going to die. Also, your astrological sign is very important. That's why I don't believe in negating astrology, because you do pick a sign that is conducive to certain things, certain elements within the scene.
It's all written in your chart. Sometimes some of those things have to be modified with the help of the Council. [This is the body of advanced entities on the Other Side that can counsel and help us. The Council advises people on making their life's chart a reality; they ensure that it will fulfill their chosen goals. They ask us if we choose to go higher or to test something.] When you're in a perfect environment, you think you can do it all in one life. That is the problem we have in trying to modify. The self is higher, then. When you're in an exhilarated state, you think you can handle it all.
Think of yourself at your optimum degree of health, and someone says, "Would you like to swim back and forth across that lake?" You say, "Oh, I feel so great." You jump right in. After you get in and swim one stroke after another, it becomes very tiring. You don't know whether you can make it back or not. That is much the way life is.
Most of the counseling and orientation is, "Be careful. You're taking on too much." There is constant scanning and running back to master guides and the Council to talk about it and get approval.
Which is more important, our soul's past or our genetic roots?
Your soul's past. Ancestors have almost nothing to do with you, providing only genetics. That is such a small part of your perfection. Otherwise, everyone would be almost cloned. If genes were all-important, then you would be replicas of each other. Often, you're told that you're just like your grandmother, Sarah, or you're just like Uncle Harry. So you adopt this idea, and you become defined by it. But very little is determined by any ancestral roots. It's much more functional to track past lives.
Life with Others
Even though you may be struggling with certain maladies, be assured that not all of them come from internal sources. Most of you are dealing with a lot of external problems that may actually transfer into physical ailments. That should give you some peace of mind—it's not coming from your own soul!
You can choose to either absorb or negate this external bombardment. You know that I don't believe in a passive life. It's somewhat like the old saying about "water off a duck's back." If you're well oiled enough, you really are better protected from things that happen with loved ones, friends, and associates; you can even put up with parents, children, husbands, or whoever hurts you most deeply. If your soul is solid within itself, negativity will not strike the mark like it used to. You will understand everything in God's own time.
In any love relationship, one carries the responsibility for the love, and one does the loving. If the relationship sours, neither one is at fault, but the aware one carries responsibility for the karmic evolution of both. It's that person's responsibility, if they're to perfect, to have a deep understanding and tolerance of what is going on. I don't mean that if someone hurts you, then you should thank them. I would expect you to kick back. You don't need your temple defiled.
There's a lovely prayer that Sylvia has always liked so much. It goes something like this: "My soul is the land on which my house is built. There shall be no trespassing, looting, pillaging, or plundering on this, my land." Once the dignity of your soul rises up high enough, you won't be victimized anymore. You can't be. No one can victimize someone who refuses to be a victim.
If you keep screaming, "Why does this happen to me?" then listen: It's because you've let it sink in too deeply. That doesn't mean that you should be a robot, but your faith can expand to a point where you realize that you might have been just a target that they used. It was not necessarily directed toward your ego. You might simply happen to be in the way of a roller coaster, bank robber, or abusive man. If you happened to get in the way, you might get it. Everyone standing by says, "There's an innocent bystander." You can be an innocent bystander in your own family or job situation and become a target.
If someone wants to put you on a cross, you don't have to hang there. If we in life could not be victimized, no one would stalk anyone. I don't mean the person who has murdered or killed. I'm talking about things worse than that. Ego and soul trauma are far worse than any murder, rape, pillage, or plunder. Rejection is probably one of the worst target situations.
It's all in the plan that it would get worse before it would get better. You chose to come down in one of the hardest times. You will not fail. Almost all of you are on your last life, anyway. One thing I can assure you of is that almost no souls ever go backward. All go forward—maybe an inch at a time, maybe in micrometers, but we all go forward in life. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it. Don't you remember in school that you might have sat in a class that you didn't understand at all, and you daydreamed through it? But you absorbed something. You might not have thought you did, but you were there, putting in your time, and something seeped in.
Nothing is lost. Nothing is ever lost.
Human beings carry within themselves heaven or hell—sometimes both. I think that children should be taught at a very early age that they have the power to create either a very happy life or a very disastrous one. That's the reason some people can go through a traumatic situation and come out whole, while others crumble at the slightest thing. They've never found within themselves the control factor or the supremacy of their own God-center to know that they'll survive no matter what is sent to them. Nor do they know that they have the power to handle everything by themselves.
We watch people continually propel themselves into the most horrendous situations. If you look back, you can usually tell when you started down this desperate track. If you're in control of yourself, you have the ability to ride the difficulties more easily.
The greatest truth is to be true to yourself. There is nothing more important than this.
An example of that would be living a lie—not being true to what you believe is true—by living with someone or a situation that you can't tolerate, in which you have to be hypocritical; or living in a family or job situation or anything else that you didn't believe in. I'm talking about adulterating your own soul—being untrue or unfaithful to your own soul.
I've noticed, though, that Jesus is walking the world more than ever before in a real state. However, I want to clarify that he is not showing up on Ouija boards. Jesus' presence is stronger in the world than it has ever been before.
God's power now descends more rapidly than it ever has before.
The world can be quite a humorous place if you can observe it from behind the eyes of your soul, which cannot be harmed. Things can roll off more easily if you adopt the attitude that "this too shall pass."
How important is it to suffer for the moment? How important is grief that extends beyond the point that it should? How important is a little pain—is it important enough to scar your soul? The soul's essence can be scarred.
That doesn't mean that you can't be healed when you come Home to the Other Side. You can be cocooned and sleep for a while. But that's like going on a marvelous journey, going back to see all your old friends, and being too tired to even enjoy it. If you had waited many years to go back to your homeland and you felt sick when you got back, that would be very disappointing, especially when everybody is there and wants to have a party. Then, of course, you don't have what you might term "jet lag," because when you come over to the Other Side, you feel weightless, almost as if you're in water. You know how marvelous that feels? There is no pain.
Those who are more spiritually evolved do not have a transitional problem on the Other Side, because it's a remembered thing, like riding a bike or driving—you never forget it. Please try to assure your friends, if they are in pain or sorrow, that nothing lasts forever—certainly not life. If you don't believe that deep within your soul, you're going to fall into fear. It may even be hard for you to believe that something will not always be. Especially if pain or grief hits, it seems like it will always be there, even for the most advanced souls.
I'm sure that the grief of losing a loved one never totally goes away. It just shifts into another position. The need, loneliness, concern, and love just transforms into a love of other people. Of course, the loved one never really left. In fact, they're closer than they've ever been, but now they're out of sight.
One really never gets over grief. One learns to convert it into something else, perhaps helping cancer patients or working in schools. The world is cruel in expecting grief to end. You're not only grieving consciously, but on a subconscious level as well.
Part of the anger about death comes subconsciously—"You're gone, and I'm not." When some people are dying, they slowly retract from even their loved ones. This is another type of anger, leaving the people they love. Anger starts welling up. It's such a shame that we can't convey to people how lucky they are to be going Home and really mean it.
Convey that truth: "You are going Home. Your work is finished. You are graduating."
(Continues...)
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | ix |
| Introduction | xi |
| Chapter 1: Reason for Life | 1 |
| Chapter 2: Karma and Dharma | 63 |
| Chapter 3: Life Themes | 97 |
| Chapter 4: Synergism | 135 |
| Chapter 5: Tenets for Living | 167 |
| About the Author | 205 |
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