“What the Eye Doesn’t see . . .”

What a convenient expression for those wishing to excuse themselves for taking an action or thinking something of which others may not approve or they themselves are ashamed. In the vast majority of cases of course, such are fairly innocent, in the category of ‘little white lies’. Despite the implication in the words, nobody really gets hurt or suffers. However, sometimes the action or thought is very serious and others do get hurt; that is why I intend to take a closer look at the sentiment itself.

For me it immediately makes me think about personal responsibility. The British Spiritualists have a principle that originally stated: “Personal responsibility, with compensation and retribution here and hereafter, for all good and evil deeds done on Earth.” It has since been abridged to “Personal Responsibility” and thereby seems to have lost some of its implications in my view. Be that as it may, the full wording is what is important to consider when exploring the subject matter of this blog. The implication in the title is that if nobody is consciously aware of an action being taken or a thought being formed, there can be no harm in it.

The fact is of course that one person is always aware of it. The perpetrator! You may feel that is obvious but really it doesn’t count. After all, if the perpetrator takes the view that everything is fine as long as nobody knows, he or she is hardly going to be concerned that they themselves are aware of it. Let us examine this point closer. The perpetrator believes personal morality is only important when a third party is made aware of their unwholesome thought or action. Otherwise, they can do or especially think, exactly what they like. Whether the person concerned is aware of it or not, the effects on them personally are important, to which many a psychiatrist will happily attest. Many people suffer severe mental problems as a result of actions and sometimes thoughts they have buried deep in their psyche. Such people can become very ill as a consequence. (The ‘retribution here’ of the Spiritualist principle quoted?)

Of course some people are so ‘thick skinned’ as we say, they appear able to carry out these things without any apparent adverse effects, short term or long term. How are they subjected to the principle? To learn this it is necessary to move on to the ‘hereafter’. Accept it or not; like it or not; each one of us is an eternal spirit being and we cannot die whatever we may think. Oh, our physical body dies but the spirit or soul and the mind which is an integral part of it does not. When we leave our physical body behind on so called death, each one of us passes initially to a spiritual realm known as the Etheric World. This world is an exact duplicate of the Earth itself, and I do mean exact, in every respect. Here, once we have become aware of the change that has taken place in us and sometimes this can take a long time for those absolutely convinced that death equals oblivion, we prepare ourselves for onward transition to a sphere in the spiritual world whose light most closely resembles the light we ourselves generate. What determines the light we generate?

The answer to that question is the life we lived on Earth. How did we relate to others? Did we try hard to be compassionate and understanding? Were we completely selfish? Did we try to love others, even those we did not like? Did we only love our families? How often did we place the interests or needs of others ahead of our own? Did we try hard to stifle unworthy thoughts? If we became aware that we had erred, did we try to make amends? Each one of us undoubtedly will be a mixture of all these things. Most of us are neither very good nor very bad. In the etheric world we will be able to see the light given out by others and can compare it with our own. As part of the process of learning how to make our own light brighter, we undergo a life review. We actually look back over our own lives but are able to see some of our acts and thoughts through the eyes of those who were affected by them. In looking back we naturally make personal judgements of ourselves. You are your own judge; there is no “Almighty” sitting in judgement upon you, except in so far as we are each part of the “Almighty”.

As a result of this ‘life review’ we may decide we need immediately to set about making up to certain people for how our thoughts or actions affected them. Should we decide this, we will be given wise counsel by our Spirit Guides whose love and concern for us is total and who remain with us after death as well as before. In some instances we may be able to take remedial action from the etheric world but in others we will be advised that we first have to go to our allotted sphere. That is the sphere our personal light best fits us for. Our life after that will be a process of learning many of the mysteries of the spirit and not just atoning for our errors. As we learn, our light will grow brighter until it is bright enough for the next sphere and so on.

For the person who has deliberately harmed others and has lived a selfish, materialistic life without much justification for doing so, their light will be dim and they will be allocated to a similarly dim or dark spirit sphere. There life will be far from comfortable and the effort needed to move to a brighter sphere will be considerable, including the need to atone personally to those they injured whilst on Earth. Many people who find themselves in darker spheres are initially resentful and are not prepared to make any effort to move upwards. Eventually however, often assisted by loving souls who visit them from brighter spheres at great pain to themselves, they shake themselves free of their resentment and start working at self-improvement. No-one, no matter how evil they may be considered by us, is ever abandoned. The opportunity for redemption through love and commitment is always available.

Perhaps you can see from the foregoing that even those who appear to escape ‘Scott free’ from bad deeds on Earth do not escape at all. The price they must pay may be delayed in time but it will be nonetheless appropriate to their actions and thoughts. I have concentrated here on the effect of bad thoughts and actions but do not forget the principle quoted speaks not only of retribution but also of compensation. I believe all of us will be amazed when we partake in our own ‘life review’ and realise just how much we have helped others in little ways that seemed unimportant to us at the time. When we see them through the eyes of the recipient however, we will often be astonished at the difference our small act of kindness made to their lives.

May your God go with you.