Life

I am often asked “why God allows us, to do the things we do to each other?” I look at the person who is asking me the question and I asked them what they are talking about. They say that they are talking about all the wars and all the killing that goes on, and the huge number of people dying each day from accidents, cancer and other diseases, and even the challenges of just living a “normal” life? I am asked about the children “why do they have to die so young?

As I think about how to answer the questions above, I can’t help thinking about the words of Shakespeare who said, “the world is a stage, and we are the actors.”

If we accept Shakespeare’s words as having some kind of truth to them, then the answer to the questions about why all the ups and downs in our lives, and why so many are dying is answered. You and I are here to play our part and when it’s time for us to leave the stage, we do. It doesn’t matter how young or how old we are or whether we are healthy or sick we have done our part and it’s time for us to leave – stage right. When you think of life in this way, it makes greater sense about the happenings in our life, and we are able to take a more enlightened look at our life and our place on the stage of life.

You may ask about the Hitler’s, Casers and dictators who have ordered so many people to be killed. But they are here to play their part even if that part is to bring chaos and strife into a world that is struggling to be at peace. Why? Their part is to show humanity a contrast between what is and what can be – good verses evil. To bring the human race to a point of knowledge that will, one day, produce peace and harmony by showing humanity that there is another way – and it is not their way. Their part was to remind us that history repeats itself, and that we are the only ones who can break the ever changing repetition.

Then you may ask why did he/she have to die so young? Why from such a terrible illness? Why, for no apparent reason? Why was that child allowed to get so close to the water that they fell in and drowned? Why did that child get away from its mother hand and run out into the street to be hit by a car? Or simply got sick one day and died. Again, we have entered this world to play out our part on the stage. We have given of ourselves to our loved ones; to the hundreds of people who have known us, to history, to those who care for our physical and emotional well being. Even the doctors and nurses who have taken care of us during our illness play their part in the care of the sick that needed their expertise. But! But! You say. It seems that we still don’t understand the why.

I cannot give you an answer that will satisfy you completely; but to say that we are here to do our part. We may be on stage as a prop attendant to make sure that the actors have the proper back drop for them to play their part as a military man, a doctor, lawyer, mother, father, son, daughter, student, teacher, street cleaner, janitor, sick child or even a sick elder, etc. etc.

We are indeed here to play our part on the stage of life until we are ready to leave.

Life as it Could Be

As I search through the experiences of my life, I come upon a number of joyful time, problems and contradictions. In this life I have experienced the same things that so many other people have. It is true – what we sow we reap. There is no way to think of it not being that way.

In Richard Rowley’s articles on the SpiritualismList@yahoo.com, I can help thinking more and more each day about how a person’s life now affects us when they die. In the series of articles, Richard is continuing to write about, the old woman (lady) who was in Limbo is now in a higher spirit world where she has been able to deal with the affects of “her critical and unloving and cruelty in herself and the satisfaction she had when she made others squirm”. “She consciously would not admit to all she had done”. As she says, “I thought I was ill-used, that fate was loaded to be just, through service. I could not see”. Because she could not see what she had done to others during her physical life, she had to experience the things that she made others experience by her hand”. As the woman, Helen, who talked to the lady about her physical life, the lady began to realize why it was that she was in that “Limbo” place. The lady began to understand her predicament she was able to make the appropriate changes to her way of thinking. Individuals from the higher spirit world helped her to get out of that Limbo place and get on with her life.

You may ask what does this have to do with me. Well, it has all to do with you/me. Helen told the lady that, “repentance has always been the way to Heaven." Better by far that repentance and the new birth should come to us before our release from the world of matter.” As long as we understand that there is no such thing as death, we have time to make correction in our way of thinking, our action towards others and to learn how to be a loving, respectful and joyful person. We only need to take personal responsibility for all we do in this life.

Why should we have to wait until we leave this world to understand this? If we practice love and compassion towards other people in this world, we will go to the higher spirit world light when we leave this earth plane.

It would certainly be good if the politicians, who govern the countries of our birth, to learn the facts expressed so far in this article. Maybe, we would have the health services, homes for the aged, clean water, proper disposable of discarded material - thing that we accumulate in our lives, and the production of transportation systems that are environmentally compatible, non-smog producing, and clean up the air we breathe, repair the ozone layer; what a beautiful world this would be.

I look forward to a “Star Tract” type of society where true “communism or true democracy” is at its best – all people have what they need through their contributions to society, not from handouts and forced labor by governments and industry. This means that all humans are considered equal. The almighty dollar and “capitalism” is non-existent, and each person has what they need with a simple request from a machine – a replicator. In a Star Tract society, all human beings work toward personal self worth through their studies in school, and the work they perform each day. A society, where the individual can participate and contribute to the well being of all and that all is appreciated.

I think that when a person leaves his/her physical life, in a Star Tract society, they will all go to the highest spirit world, and maybe not have a need to return to this world. We don’t need a world of physical and emotional suffering only to die under the most horrible of circumstances.

Life and the Limbo Planes

In the past, I have written about life, and what it means to me and how my life may affect others. I find that it doesn't matter what I think or do, others have their own ideas that don't necessarily agree with mine. That's Ok, for we all have total freedom of choice. Freedom of choice reminded me of an article I read by Richard Rowley.

It was an article that Richard had placed on the internet site spiritualismlist@yahoo.com about the after-life place called "limbo". I learned that it doesn't matter whether a person lives a really loving unselfish, non-self-centered life, here in this physical world, and whether they think more about others than themselves, or whether they are a total …., all will go to a spirit world that is conducive to their personality. Jesus said, “In my father’s house are many mansions.”

In the article, limbo is described as a gray lifeless place in the low astral regions (spirit world) that is extremely depressing and lonely. It doesn't seem to matter whether other people are living there also, “a person feels alone with themselves” and are not able to communicate with the others – the others just don’t want to communicate with them. The low astral regions are where some people (knowing it or not) who have, "starved their soul (self centeredness) while living in the earth plane and feeding on the EMOTIONS and DESIRES of their own personality.”

We take into the “after-life” the same emotions, desires and personality that we have in our physical life. However, not all is lost. More advanced people from the higher spirit worlds go into the grey limbo lands to try and convince those who are there to take charge of their life (change their way of thinking) through understanding themselves and their relationship to other people. The person there has to correct their wrong way of thinking by recognizing it for what it is, and to become loving, thoughtful and forgiving.

The best thing that a person can do while in the earth plane, is to become a loving, out-going person who takes personal responsibility for their emotions, desires and relationship with others in order to go to the higher astral world (spirit world) of light after the change called death.

As I continued to read the article, I realized that it doesn't matter what a person is like in their earth plane life, they will reap what they sow and get their just reward. So what does it matter whether we treat others with a total lack of respect, talk about them behind their back, belittling them, and making them out to be something their not. What you sow, you reap. This says that you haven't taken responsibility for your actions here, so you will have to make amends on the other side of physical life. If you think that I'm being a little too strong in what I have just written, maybe it is true for you and you need to think about it.

We all have to take personal responsibility for our action, emotions, desires and thoughts while here in this physical world; even though it is never an easy job for us. We have to first recognize that we have a problem, and then search through our lives to learn about the source of the problem, and then take the right actions to correct the problem and thus ourselves. If the correct action means that we have to forgive someone like our father or mother, brother, sister or a person we once called a friend, then we must do it. Waiting until we get on the other side is no excuse to procrastinate. The sooner we take care of our problems the better and the possibility of keep our friends.

I realize that most problems come about due to misunderstandings of some kind, which are most often due to pride or not hearing the person correctly due to our internal dialog that distracted us at the time. Or, not really understanding where the other "person was coming from". It may have been a poor choice of words by our self or the other person. It may have been our not asking for more information or saying that we understood this or that, and we needed greater clarification. If you didn't think to give them a chance to explain, then you are totally in the wrong and must make the appropriate corrections.

This article was written to all of us, especially me, to try and get us to think a little. Maybe we can save our friends and ourselves a lot of problems later on.

Healing

Kenneth L. Dennis PhD. Has written an essay on Lesson 18 of my course in Modern Spiritualism that I would like to share with you, my readers. The essay is as follows:

This lesson covers the history Spiritual Healing. Spiritual Healing comes from Infinite Intelligence or God. There is a subtle dance between the Healer and Spirit working together to produce a healing outcome in a person. The connection between the Healer and God (attunes) is the crucial component of the healing process. God produces healing, but those that do not accept the existence of a divine presence may still be able to go through the motions of healing. Without Spirituality, such activity would be only a basis for a bad movie or a lifetime income from television. Of course, the greatest source of spiritual healing comes from the person receiving the healing. We often look at the Healer without that important component of, “I will do my part.”

Many people have become excited with the various forms of Reki. This appears to be a good healing method with a strong historical foundation. Healers can move up the levels of certification with books and computerized instruction. At the top level of Reki Master, a Healer needs personal training. We all want our approaches to become popular, and Reki (in its various flavors) has become very popular. This popularity has become a problem. When a Respondent tells me that the rank of Reki Master has been obtained, a serious pathology (paranoia and other delusions) is anticipated. The open entry of Reki has produced a huge base of people that desire to help people and make money. Unfortunately, the screening process has not prevented actively psychotic Respondents from becoming Reki Masters certifying other Reki Masters. This is a sad distortion of a good healing method that does not seem correctable at this point.

It is not surprising that healing can be effective for present and absent people. There is an assumption that the Healer’s channeling is not bound by geographical limitations. In Hands-On Healing, the Healer, Recipient, and Spirit are all present in the same location. Absent Healing is a similar process where the Recipient and Spirit continue to be located in the same location. While we think of the Recipient being absent, actually, only the Healer is absent. The Recipient and Spirit continue to remain in the same location.

There are a few people that receive Absent Healing from my wife and me each week. Part of the Healing is letting each person know about the prayers for healing so the “doing my part” can be included. One person was having a bad day when I was visiting and he said I was spending too much time with that “spiritual stuff.” I asked him he wanted me to not pray for his healing, and he quickly said no, he “needed all the help he could get.” Perhaps we a just very superstitious and want to make patterns out of random events.

I am certain prefer being present rather than absent. Healing is a human interaction. Just as I can meditate on my own, it is more effective to have the assistance of another person, and the same applies to Healing. There are exceptions to this when the person guiding the mediation is not able to adapt the pattern and words to match the needs of the Recipient. The Healing part of the Church service starts with a guided meditation and transitions to Hands-On Healing for those that want to come up. There are usually two or three Healers for Hands-On Healing. This is at the middle part of the services. There can be logistical problems when several people want Healing. This can lengthen out the mediation of people waiting for the next part of the services (Messages). I understand that some Churches have Healing before the service starts, but the logistical problem would still exist when too many or too few people wanted Healing. People seek out a Spiritualist Church for several reasons, and it is difficult to know how much emotional and physical pain will be present at a given service.

Life is so Unfair

I am often asked, “why God can allow humanity to do the things we do to each other that we do?” I look at the person who is asking me the question and ask them what they are talking about? They say that they are talking about all the wars and all the killing that goes on, and the huge number of people dying each day from accidents, cancer and other diseases, the challenges of just living a “normal” life? I am asked about the children, “why do they have to die so young? The answer to these questions is not easy because each of us have different ways of dealing with them. The lucky ones may say “that’s life” and get on with there life as tho nothing has happened, while others say “I just don’t understand it” and feel very sorrowful for a long time.

As I think about how to answer the questions above, I can’t help thinking about the words of Shakespeare who said “the world is a stage, and we are the actors.”

If we accept Shakespeare’s words as having some kind of truth to them, then the answer to the questions about why all the ups and downs in our lives, and why so many are dying is answered very well. You and I are here to play our part and when it’s time for us to leave the stage, we do. It doesn’t matter how young or how old we are or whether we are healthy or sick we have done our stage act and it’s time for us to leave – stage right. When you think of life in this way, it makes sense and all of the tragedies’ of life then take their proper place on the stage of life.

You may ask about the Hitler’s, Casers and dictators who have ordered so many people to be killed for no apparent reason – as far as we are concerned. But they are here to play their part even if that part is to bring chaos and strife into a world that is struggling to be at peace. Why? There part is to show humanity a contrast between what is and what can be – good verses the bad. To bring the human race to a point of knowledge that will, one day, produce peace and harmony by showing humanity that there is another way and it is not their way. It may take a hundred more years, or maybe a thousand, but it will happen. Their part was to remind us that history repeats it self, and we are the only ones who can break the ever changing repetition.

You may ask? ”Why did he/she have to die so young? Why from such a terrible illness? Why from no apparent reason? Why was that child allowed to get so close to the water and fall in and drown? Why did that child get away from its mother and run out into the street and was hit by a car? Or simply got sick one day and died? Again, we have entered this world to play our part on the stage. We have given of ourselves to our loved ones; to the hundreds of people who have known us, to history, to those who care for our physical and emotional well being and to the doctors and nurses who have taken care of us during our stay in the hospital. We were the sick ones that needed their expertise so that they were able to do play their part on the stag. But! But! You say.

Their is always a "but" and I cannot give you an answer that will satisfy you completely. However, I can say, we are here to do our part and that part on stage is to provide a service to other even if it is only for a moment. We may be on stage as a prop attendant to make sure that the actors have the proper back drop for them to do their part. To the person on stage playing his/her part as the lead in the role as a military man, a doctor, lawyer, mother, father, son, daughter, student, teacher, street cleaner, janitor, sick child, sick elder, etc. etc.

We play our part from the time we enter this world until we are ready to leave and, like those in the spirit world we are in service to others who need our expertise. Those in the spirit world are all in constant service to others there, and in service to us who live here in this physical world; in service to God and others is our main purpose. Even if we don’t understand the part others and you and me are playing, we are indeed playing our part. We are on stage to make our mark, then, move on.

Out on a Branch

You have heard of Shirley McLane’s book “Out on a Limb” and its story of Shirley’s adventure into the paranormal. I decided that a good title for this newsletter would be “Out on a Branch” because Out on a Limb was already taken.

It is interesting to think that each of us sometimes find ourselves in a place that, if we are not careful, we could fall hard – out on the end of a branch that bends with every breath of wind. Insecure in the belief that we don’t have a good hold of the branch, but only have a precarious hold on our branch of the tree of life. No one wants to fall off.

“Falling” is an expression that many people use to describe how they went from living a “normal life” to being in a life of desperation. Feeling desperate over whether we will be working at the same job for another week due to the rumors that the company may be sold, or our job maybe cut due to the company being reorganized.

Maybe, it has nothing to do with our jobs, but what about our children? The son or daughter, who has all that a child could possibly want or need at home, but they believe that they are being prevented from doing all that is in their minds to do in their life with out their parents stopping them.

These kids often leave home believing that they are not loved or wanted believing that they can do better on their own. They leave home only to find themselves living on the street in the part of town where prostitution and drugs runs ramped, where love is a roll in the sack for a one minute’s feeling of being loved and wanted. They get into trouble with the police, get beaten up by other street kids and end up in a hospital with broken bones and scars that will be with them for the rest of their lives – physical and emotional.

Parents, inevitability worry about their children, day and night. Parents want only the best for their children, and in general give them more than they could ever hope for. But, kids today take advantage of this in their demands. Even parents on limited income find ways to purchase the things that their children want, not what they need, but what they want. It is a well known fact that people in general want to have all that they can get and more “come hell or high water.” They are never satisfied. That is why so many people steal from their employers and sell what they have stolen, sell drugs, buy “lotto” tickets, or go to the gambling halls in the hope of hitting it big. Many years ago it was said, “even if every man, woman and child on earth were given a million dollars, in a short time it would that the rich who would have all of the money again and the poor would be poor again.”

So what happened with the kids? Why are kids today thinking that their life is so bad that they think that the only solution is to leave home? Let me say, that I think that most of us as adults have had the same kind of thoughts that our kids have had, but we didn’t act on them. We are all looking for something better; something that will gives us a sense of direction and security. Kids today are told from the time they enter school until they graduate from university that life is tough. That they have to prove themselves constantly and that if they don’t, they can end up with nothing. Nothing, meaning that they have no job after 12 or 20 years of school, no employer will hire them and their parents have banded them from their homes and that life has taken away their ingenuity and ability to be. This sounds very negative to me and I believe it sounds that way to you also. Is their no solution(s) to the “problems” of life?

Does the answer lie in a strong belief in God? Would it help for a person, us, to be involved in a religion sect, ism or denomination? Would this help us to have a strong belief in God? We learn as we go through life that God is a God of love and that we don’t have to be a member of any religion to know this. We believe that we are on a spiritual path and that path leads us back to the presences of God. Or by contrast, through circumstances, we believe that there’s no God and that we are on our own and that when we die, that’s it. Nothing exists beyond this life.

In thinking about what it means to be out on a branch, I have learned that even the flimsiest twig on the very end of a branch can hold a great deal of weight and not break – in fact it is extremely flexible. Have you ever seen a bird too large for the branch it’s sitting on? Does the bird worry about the rest of the branch or the tree that is holding it? They are secure and never fall to the ground below. We as humans, however, we are not as trusting and secure as that bird. We are always checking the branch that we are on. We want the security of a large and sturdy branch close to the trunk where it would be almost impossible for the branch to break. We want all the security the branch (life) and the tree can give us. Thus we don’t have to worry about anything – or do we?

Security may be the answer to what we are looking for out on our branches of life. Security that we are being taken care of by our parents, our government, our spouse, our grown children, the guy next door, the person across the street, even God. How about the person who lives down the street? Or the man who offers us a job mowing his lawn, even though we are only a skinny 10 years old kid.

We are people in a world that is in a constant state of flux that changes from moment to moment. Sitting on the end of our branch, we believe that we will live to be a hundred and be healthy with the mind of a 20 year old.

Our future, on the end of the branch, just keeps growing and moving us forward. Forward to our greatest joys in life of love, money, a home, good job, a song in our hearts, and happy in the knowledge that our kids do have all that they could ever want and need without us worrying about them. Out on a branch, but secure in the knowledge that we are who we are, and maybe, that will be enough.

Life

Aug. 2007

Closely related to life is death and the traumas that people experience. Yes, life and death are requirements for people who live here in this physical world. You have heard it said many time, “You never get out of this world alive.” You live, you die and in between times, you pay taxes. It seems as though that is what it’s all about, but on the other hand, life is a lot more than that – you do get out of this life alive. More about this later.

Many years ago I was thinking about my life and all of the ups and downs that I have experienced and, like most people, I wondered why. It seemed that no matter what I did, it was never right or enough. People seemed to want to make me into their own image and I don’t want that or even like that at all. Even today, forty, fifty or sixty plus years later it seems that people are still trying to make me into their image, and I still don’t like it.

You have no doubt experienced that same thing in your life. When did this all start, anyhow? Well, believe it or not, it started when you and I were born into this world. Our parents started to make us into their image and impressed upon us their beliefs and mannerisms that they had impressed upon them by their parents. Not that, maybe, astrology had something to do with it also.

I’m sorry to say, the influence of my parent, good or bad, is still with me today and it is going to take another hundred years or so for me to become the individual that I believe that I am. And even if I do live another hundred years, will it be enough? Maybe not!

One of the things that I have found in my life is that I want to be better than I am at the present time. I went to high school, to junior college and then university. I go to church. I sing songs. I have conversations with and intermingle with other people, and I even go to parks, ski resorts, the ocean, lakes, and just about anyplace I feel like going. But it never seems to satisfy my longings. Just who am I anyway?

I thought I once new who I am, but it seems that every day I’m reminded that I am really the person that my parents and society made me into. What a dilemma! So how do I overcome all of the life programming that I have?

Well I start by recognizing that I am really my parent’s son. Then I recognize that my personality has been greatly influenced by them and I need to determine whether or not I believe that it is good or no so good for me. Then after I determine that, I will have to decide if it is possible to make changes that I think will be for my highest good. Not an easy thing to do.

Question? Do you think that your way of life is better than mine? Do you think that you can help me? Maybe yes maybe no.

I used to be a complainer; yes I was a big complainer. I used to think that the whole world was on my shoulders and that I could do nothing to change it. I complained about my parents, my brothers and sister, even the guy next door, everything and everybody. I complained about the way the government was handling the affairs of the people of this great country. I used to complain about how the boss at work was pushing me to get the job done faster and make sure to that it was done right at the same time. I did my best, but it never seemed to be good enough. Sound familiar? I think that every person who works for a living goes through the same things even if they are one of the greatest engineers, businessman or parent around. Oh boy! What a life.

The question still remains, Will I ever be able to make the changes that I believe I need to make in order to be all that I can be? I will work on these things in this life – until I die, then I’ll continue working on them in the after life. Oh! You do get out of this life alive? Spiritualists have proven this for more than 160 years. Believe it or not, hundreds of psychologists have finally learned and continue to prove that there is life after physical death.

In Carol Bowman’s book “Children’s Past Lives” has detailed her own experiences with past life regression from being hypnotized herself and the hypnotizing of her two children who also under went past life regression by a trained hypnotherapist, Norman Inge. Mrs. Bowman quotes in her book, a number of stories told to her by numerous doctors of psychology who do regressions as part of their therapy sessions with their patients. She also read their books and consulted with them. Mrs. Bowman also talks about the past life regressions she did with various children as a trained and certified hypnotherapist.

In the Bible, Jesus talks about John the Baptist as being the incarnation of Elijah.

In Caroline D. Larsen’s book “My Travels in the Spirit World” she talks about how she started to do out of body traveling (OBT), the same type described by Raymond Moody in his books. She just started one day; kind of surprising event to her senses. As she started to have a number of OBTs she decided one day to see if she could go to the spirit world and see what it was like there. The book is a real eye opener for those who have never read any thing about the spirit world. Caroline’s stories are very much like those described by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, son of Edward White Benson former Archbishop of Canterbury. These two men lived during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Robert pasted to spirit in 1914, and was able to describe the spirit world through the mediumship of Anthony Borgia. Monsignor first book was titled “Beyond This Life;” the second book was titled “The World Unseen.” Monsignor starts by giving a general survey, an account of his passing and his subsequent travels through various parts of spirit lands.

The book of Caroline Larsen and Monsignor Benson are book that make it possible for the reader to know that life is indeed continuous. And that we have nothing to fear of leaving this physical world. Life does continue after the change called death and I will make all of the changes to me that are and will be necessary as I live here and in the great here after. I believe that you will also.