Lessons from Nature

It is surprising the kind of things we can learn from watching the natural world closely. It underlines the fact, I think, that everything that exists is linked in some way and each part of creation can always learn from another part.

I was driving along in my car this morning and at a part of the road that skirts the ocean, I noticed the sea was particularly rough, even though it was a lovely sunny day. At that point, the coastline is very rugged with steep cliffs dropping vertically into the sea. The surf was pounding into the cliffs and surging back out again in a swirl of white foam. It set me thinking.

I wondered what I would have seen at that point had I been privileged to be in the same position two or three hundred years earlier. Would the cliffs have been the same as they are now? Would the fissures and indents in them have been as deep? Almost certainly there would have been marked differences, for the erosive action of the waves, though seeming to have little or no effect in the short term, over many years change the shape of the coastline all over the world.

It’s amazing isn’t it, that water, a normally soft substance can, by sheer persistence, wear away even granite, which apart from diamonds, is the hardest natural substance we know? True, the water needs to be whipped into a frenzy by winds and storms, or in the case of a waterfall, have its energy increased by dropping hundreds of feet but even the gentle drip, drip of water falling a few feet soon makes it’s mark on the ground beneath. There is a great lesson here for all of us.

Replace granite with hard, intransigent human attitudes, even violence and replace water with the action of love. What do we have? We have the perfect illustration in nature of the profound truth in the call by Jesus of Nazareth to “turn the other cheek.” Fighting violence with violence merely increases the level of violence and suffering for all concerned. Use the soft power of love, energised by the power of the spirit, which is what I believe Jesus intended, and although it may take a while, the violence subsides, being worn away by the gentle but persistent action of the waves of love.

The power of the spirit is accessible by each one of us because everyone is a spirit first and foremost. No matter how much we have hidden our spiritual essence by covering it with layers of thought and action dictated by our five senses only, the spirit remains undisturbed. Learn to ‘go within’ and it will not be long before you become aware just how potent is the force lying hidden inside you. It is a force that responds only to love, pure unconditional love and because love is the foundation on which the whole of creation is built, nothing is beyond its ability.

Happy Birthday!!

Today is my step-daughter’s birthday and it leads me to think about birthdays in general. Our birthday is something that is special and personal to us throughout our lives. It recognises the arrival to our parents of the answer to a dream.

The arrival of a baby and in most cases the safe recovery from her labours of our mother. Birth is something that is usually anticipated eagerly and impatiently for nine months. Nine months during which plans are made. Plans about names – should we call him/her after someone in the family? Should the child carry the same name as his or her father or mother? What about calling the baby after some famous person, or the doctor who attended the delivery? Then there is planning the bedroom and buying the furniture and furnishings, the baby clothes; the toys! These days of course most couples opt to learn the sex of their baby well before birth but in my day we had no idea and had to think of names for either sex and to play safe, the first baby clothes would be white.

What about us? We may be helpless little infants but we have arrived on this earth from elsewhere. As William Wordsworth puts it:-
“Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God which is our home.”

Where have we come from? Or do you believe we didn’t exist before the egg and the sperm came together in the womb? In my view, we came from a part of the spiritual world and we deliberately chose to be born to our parents, not to any old parents but to the very ones we have. The American poet Robert Frost said we chose “… for some good discerned.” What good many of us never discover in this life but I am in no doubt that choose we did.

If we came from somewhere else and we chose to come, what are we? We are spiritual beings – spirit is our natural environment. On earth we are as aliens, even though our physical bodies are perfectly adapted for life on earth, our spirit is not. In our early years we are still vividly aware of our former home and our loved ones there who tended and loved us. As we grow up, so those memories are blotted out by the growing influence of our five physical senses. That does not mean however, that we are any less spirit people than we were when we were born. Deep inside, we know that, but our conscious mind usually refuses to acknowledge it.

Our birthday therefore is a celebration of the day we finally made our transition from our old spiritual home to our new homes on Earth. We would have made our choice to come, perhaps long before the event and had been waiting until conditions were exactly right for the transition. Transition – that is a word one associates more with death than birth. Is there a difference? None! just similarities. We are moving from one state of existence to another, we are leaving behind many who love us dearly and most of us do not consciously know what awaits us. We have to face both transitions alone, although there are many there from spirit to help us on both occasions but they cannot interfere, they can just bring peace, contentment and acceptance. The struggle to free ourselves from our mother’s womb demands a great deal of effort on our part and it takes time and we most do the work ourselves. The same is true on death (again in most cases). Letting go of this physical frame is not always easy, even for the relative few who know life continues in the spiritual world.

Just as our birth here on earth is an occasion for celebration, so our rebirth into spirit on death is a cause for celebration there; although it is a cause of sadness and mourning here. Birth is an adventure, as are life and death and this is due to the eternal spirit which is the real you and the real me. We are therefore right and fully justified in setting aside the day of our birth for annual celebrations. Our “Happy Birthday’s” echo down the years and are heard in the spiritual world, where many remember well our being launched on our adventure into physical life and their sense of loss when we left.

If you share today with my step-daughter – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

When Spirit Calls

There are many different ways in which each of us can be called upon to be of service to Spirit. Many believe that serving Spirit means preaching or mediumship. If they are not gifted in those areas, they feel Spirit will not be making a call on their services, but they are wrong.

Serving the Spirit is all about serving our fellow creatures, human and animal. It is not a religious thing at all. It is about using the awareness you have to sense the needs of those around you and then trying to do the very best that you can. There is an old saying that is very true in this context: “Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly, angels could do no more.” Each one of us is particularly good at something and some people are good at many. Such gifts are given to us that we might use them, not keep them to ourselves or to those closest to us. It is also true that by using our gifts, they grow stronger and we learn to use them more effectively.

There is much misunderstanding about how one receives a call to serve Spirit. It is mistakenly thought that such a summons to help must be received objectively. That is, somebody from the spiritual world visits you in a dream or clairvoyantly. Alternatively others believe you only receive the call if you have a sense of vocation, like ministers of religion, doctors, nurses, nuns etc. None of this is the case. Each one of us, including animals and inanimate natural objects too, is spirit, here and now. Because of this, if we ‘listen’ to our inner voices, they will guide us unerringly to where our form of service will be most beneficial.

Our spirit always resonates with other spirits within and around everything and everybody with whom we come into contact. Sometimes that resonance is positive and at others it is negative. This is because our aura, the sensing mechanism our spirit uses to make contact with other spirit sources, is either in harmony with the other, or not. At times, the inharmonious response is a warning for us that there is some kind of danger here and we should take great care, but not always. Often, it just means the vibration of the other spirit, is on a different wavelength, as it were, not anything negative at all. I am sure you have experienced a reaction when first meeting another person that, for some reason you are going to get on really well together or sometimes the opposite. This happens before you consciously know anything about the person concerned. This is due to the resonance between your two auras. The same is true of places. Sometimes, without knowing why, you feel drawn to a particular room or building or alternatively feel repulsed by it. This is because the walls of buildings have auras too and they absorb the energy from everything that happens around them. Where such events are highly emotional or even violent, the imprint on the aura will be greater.

It is well therefore that we practise listening to the messages the aura sends to our conscious mind. If we do, then two things happen. Firstly, we avoid trouble and conflict and secondly we are able to distinguish how we can help in a given situation. That help may be support for someone who is suffering in some way; it may be listening to the person because in that act of listening, you provide them with the opportunity to diagnose and cure their own problem; it may be offering your services to further the work or activity in which the other is involved. It is my belief that we are not drawn to one another by chance. Our aura and theirs are in contact with one another, sometimes over great distances, for sensing is not governed by geographical location. Our auras know our needs at any particular time and are constantly searching for others who can help meet that need, which sometimes is a desire to help others, not to receive help oneself. That contact inexorably draws each into the others orbit, even though again, we may have no conscious knowledge of this. We should always try to discover therefore, why a new person or even an animal has been drawn to us and we to them. There is always a reason and a purpose and by developing the habit of ‘listening’ to our inner ‘voice’ we will be able to determine what these are.

So, the call to serve Spirit comes from within for us all – no exceptions. That service may seem mundane to you at the time but you can be sure its effect upon the recipient will be significant. In the case of people, that service may be a small, one off, thing after which you may never come across that person again. Service is not about creating long term relationships – sometimes it is but more frequently it is spontaneous, happens quickly, is frequently forgotten speedily by the person giving the service, but it is a vitally important part of our attempts whilst on earth to further the growth of our own spirit and that of others too.

Regression Therapy

There are thousands of Regression Therapists throughout the Western World and they claim two things for their treatment. 1) It proves that experience in previous lives can cause health problems, particularly mental health problems in this life. 2) By reliving those past life experiences, patients can have their health restored.

I accept these claims but do not place the same interpretation upon them as the therapists appear to. Once a person is hypnotised, they enter an altered state of consciousness that is identical to that experienced by trance mediums. One therefore has to be extremely careful about how one interprets any utterances made whilst in that state. I believe even people who have no previous history of trance mediumship, can under such circumstances, be used by those in spirit to recount their own experiences whilst on earth. It is by no means certain that the details given are accounts of past lives on earth experienced by the patient.

I have never been hypnotised but I do know the early trance mediums such as Andrew Jackson Davis were 'magnetised' into trance using mesmerism which is a form of hypnosis. Once entranced and in that altered state of consciousness, with the hypnotist taking the patient back to previous lives, I see no reason why a person from spirit could not move into the picture and begin relating their life on earth. After all nearly every person who undergoes regression therapy knows nothing at all about trance mediumship and in entering trance they offer themselves for use as trance mediums. People in spirit have so few opportunities to contact the earth, that when such opportunities present themselves, they jump at the chance. The therapist asks questions and from my knowledge, spirit will always respectfully answer such questions, so any mystery about why they would describe their life on earth can be explained in that way.


Allan Kardec, the founder of Spiritism, obtained all his information for the Spirits Book and the Mediums Book, with their emphasis on reincarnation, through trance mediums that he had personally magnetised into trance using Mesmerism and he refused an offer from Daniel Dunglas Home (the leading trance medium of the day) to work as one of his trance mediums. The reason? Home insisted on entering the trance condition on his own as he normally did. He refused to be magnetised because he claimed Kardec would thus impose his personality upon the entranced medium and would receive from spirit exactly what he was looking for. How can that be? There are many in spirit, who believe absolutely in reincarnation and because of this, when they are asked about it, they affirm it is so. Hence the biblical caution to “test the spirit”. Many believe in it to such an extent that they insist on reincarnating. The mind is supreme in the spiritual world. Just as those who are convinced they will not awake after death until the sound of the last trumpet, remain asleep until more enlightened souls in spirit can help them to see otherwise, so the reincarnationist will seek to reincarnate and from all accounts, will succeed.

My position on this is dictated, I admit, by being uncomfortable at the idea of compulsory reincarnation and its effect of reducing the spirit world to a mere waiting room. I know from conversations with spirit people that it is not like that. Life moves forward in spirit, there is no question of hanging around near the earth waiting for an opportunity to reincarnate. That some people might choose to do so, I am willing to accept but regression therapists maintain everyone they treat gives accounts of previous lives. Please don't misunderstand me I am not saying that past life regression has failed to prove it is a viable way to treat certain people. I am sure many have recovered their stability following such treatment. All I am saying is that it is misleading to regard what is said by patients under hypnosis as invariably proof of reincarnation and that therefore reincarnation is a natural part of human spiritual growth. There is another way to look at it.


As I have said there are many in spirit, convinced they must reincarnate and do so many times. There is a school of thought that holds such people will do so but their objective can only be achieved at the expense of the spirit/soul who was intended to live in the body they have commandeered, If this hypothesis is true, regression could be helping to deal with the conflict and inner guilt caused by the stronger of two spirits forcibly preventing another from properly using its rightful home. The theory goes that this condition is possession (a condition dismissed as superstition by most, these days) and the possessors will coarsen their spirits by successive incarnations, rather than strengthen and purify them, as reincarnation theory asserts. By this theory therefore, regression therapy may well be proving reincarnation occurs, but it needs to think again about the reasons reliving past life experiences cures people of phobias etc. In failing to draw the conclusion that reincarnation is unwholesome and retrograde, rather than progressive, they are missing an opportunity to demonstrate the fallacy of reincarnation. Were they to do so, many may be spared the agony of having their physical bodies possessed by these zealots.

I write this as an alternative view in an attempt to persuade thinking people to accept there are other ways to look at the question than that put forward by ardent believers in reincarnation. Once a theory becomes part of religious belief, (as reincarnation has in Spiritism) objective thought is discouraged. I realise that to many, the idea of reincarnation brings great comfort, especially if they lead a life of deprivation or it seems to them that luck is always deserting them. They can blame it on their karma. I do not wish to remove comfort from anyone but believe it important that, before accepting any theory as truth, one should examine the alternatives with great care and also look at the possible disadvantages of unquestioning acceptance of the theory.

Too many of us are persuaded to look at life only from the narrow viewpoint of life on earth and I believe reincarnation theory reinforces this approach. To look at life in this narrow manner means it appears grossly unfair in countless ways. On the other hand if one views earth life as a small part of one’s life in eternity, the apparent unfairness of life on earth disappears. Earth life is not an end in itself; it is a means to help our souls evolve because the effect on the soul of being constrained by a physical body is similar to the effect on a stream of forcing it into a narrow channel. The strength of the flow is increased

A Dream…

I was away for a couple of days and couldn't get to the internet so I apologise for not posting anything since Friday. Here is something I wrote while I was away - I hope you enjoy reading it. Lionel

Wake, wake, my soul to the bright, bright morning: The day of the spirit has returned and the world is changed! The dross of materialism has been swept away; all doubt and uncertainty concerning immortality, gone with it. The scales have been lifted from our eyes and the world is suddenly full of light and colour.

Each tree, each plant, each flower, each insect, blazes with the inner light of the spirit; the light of life – and I can see it! The beauty and majesty of even the most humble creation takes my breath away as its light dances before my wondering eyes; light that pulses with fire and colour and is in no way outshone by its more illustrious brethren. The whole world is alight! What yesterday seemed dull and life-less, today is splendid, and pulsing with life.

To my astonished gaze each human head is surrounded by a brilliant array of lights and colours, shooting outwards like a series of comet’s tails; lights and colours that change constantly. Their beauty is breathtaking and I realise what I am seeing is the action of mind. I am seeing thoughts! Each thought, each emotion, registers its own individual colour and light so bright it is difficult to distinguish the physical features of the person. I am conscious only of the lights and colours, in a display of pyrotechnics that outshines even the most spectacular New Year’s Eve firework celebration.

As each individual registers the changes going on around him, it is fascinating to watch the play of light around the head. At first it seems tinged with shadow, as though unsure whether to accept what is being revealed. It seems to pulse and probe and hesitate. Suddenly, it erupts like a Vesuvius – a veritable explosion of colour and brilliance. Realisation has dawned; realisation that the light shining everywhere is the light of life. This is quickly followed by acceptance. Acceptance from the overwhelming evidence on display, that all life is one. The light that animates the glowing flower, shares the light that animates the dancing butterfly, the industrious bee, the swaying plant, the nodding pine, the soaring bird, the leaping trout, the running deer and the mystified human being too. All are equal regardless of size, shape dwelling place, natural ability, colour of skin or earthly possessions.

Surrounded by such beauty and spectacle there is no room for doubt, or fear, or hate, or envy: The soul has come into its own once more: The day of the spirit has returned to stay. The past is dead: All is in harmony and can be seen to be in harmony: There is certainty that the aspirations of each and every person can and will be realised in and through love.

Michael Jackson

Last night we heard the sad news of the death of Michael Jackson, who was only fifty years old. Understandably, because of the unexpectedness of the news, people are shocked and equally, because of his fame and talent as a musician and entertainer, the number of people who are feeling shock is enormous. The last similar occurrence to this was the death of Princess Diana in Paris.

The death of the Princess was followed by a huge and very public outpouring of grief all over the world and I expect something similar to happen in the case of Michael Jackson. It is quite astonishing to me, as a member of the older generation, to see such public demonstrations of grief from people who only knew those who died through their fame and all the publicity surrounding that. It seems to me quite natural to register shock at the tragic and unexpected death of anyone famous. Especially one who’s every move has been reported avidly by the media and in the case of Michael Jackson, whose music has thrilled millions. However, to move from being shocked into grieving publicly and laying millions of flowers in memory of the person concerned as though they were close family members, is to me strange and says much about the way society has changed in the last fifty years.

I believe it is a measure of the sheer terror of dying that so many people hide deep inside. It demonstrates how far we have moved away from a general acceptance that life does not end with physical death, even though to most, the form that life after death takes is a complete mystery. The paradox here is that although the grief is driven by the inner terror, it also reflects the shock of realising the idol concerned is not immortal!

The problem highlighted by this new phenomena is the inner conflict growing daily more pronounced, between Science, with its materialistic convictions and the inner knowledge of each individual. This conflict is undermining the natural balance that should exist in each individual, between physical and spiritual awareness. The soul knows life is eternal and that to accept as truth only what can be measured with our five senses is madness. However, the inner knowledge of the soul has been progressively hidden under thicker and thicker layers of materialism. I see this previously unthinkable public outpouring of grief in such circumstances as a cry for help. It is the soul saying, I know there is more to life than can be contained in the short span of earthly existence: LET ME PROVE IT TO YOU!

Let those who have the knowledge of eternal life, ask for guidance from the Spiritual Centre as to how best they can use their knowledge to help the millions who walk the earth in spiritual darkness due to conscious ignorance of their own immortality. It is the greatest challenge that faces humanity. If we can restore inner balance in every individual, all the other challenges we face will be simple to resolve.

THE BHAGAWAD GITA SIMPLIFIED

I am usually suspicious of 'potted versions'; of re-interpreting ancient writings to fit in with the lazy life-styles of today but this seems an exception to me. It is not a substitute for reading the Gita or the Upanishads but it does I feel, give more than just a flavour of the fundamental truths contained therein.

Lionel

Why do you worry without cause? Whom do you fear without reason? Who can kill you? The soul is neither born, nor does it die.

Whatever happened, happened for the good; whatever is happening, is happening for the good; whatever will happen, will also happen for the good only. You need not have any regrets for the past. You need not worry for the future. The present is happening...

What did you lose that you cry about? What did you bring with you,
which you think you have lost? What did you produce, which you think got destroyed? You did not bring anything - whatever you have, you received from here. Whatever you have given, you have given only here. Whatever you took, you took from God. Whatever you gave, you gave to Him. You came empty handed, you will leave empty handed.

What is yours today, belonged to someone else yesterday, and will
belong to someone else the day after tomorrow. You are mistakenly enjoying the thought that this is yours. It is this false happiness that is the cause of your sorrows.

"Whatever you took, you took from God. Whatever you gave, you gave to Him. You came empty handed, you will leave empty handed"

Change is the law of the universe. What you think of as death, is
indeed life. In one instance you can be a millionaire, and in the other
instance you can be steeped in poverty. Yours and mine, big and small - erase these ideas from your mind. Then everything is yours and you belong to everyone.

This body is not yours, neither are you of the body. The body is
made of fire, water, air, earth and ether, and will disappear into these
elements. But the soul is permanent - so who are you?

Dedicate your being to God. He is the one to be ultimately relied
upon. Those who know of His support are forever free from fear, worry and sorrow.

Whatever you do, do it as a dedication to God. This will bring you
the tremendous experience of joy and life-freedom forever.