November 15, 1980
The light of God shines upon you all with a brilliance beyond understanding, and God’s voice speaks to you through the strength of countless others who have advanced beyond earthly life.
We see your openness and your receptivity at this time on many levels: a level of rejoicing in your sense of nearness, a level of concern for another human being, a level of burden experienced and the desire to understand, and a level of seeking—seeking God, seeking love, knowledge. Each of these levels is united in your prayers and in your concern for one another through guidance in God’s presence. You recognize many of these levels, for each of you experiences them. You do not share them at one time, but frequently individually. But when you look back even a short time, you will see that all these levels are common to each of you. They are common to all people who are concerned about the place of God within their lives and the position of their lives within God.
We serve as your guides through our love. It is not imposed upon us—it is offered freely. God communicates with all, even those who do not recognize God. God reaches out. God’s light is always present. When you are asleep in a lighted room, you are not aware of your surroundings, but that does not change reality. Life is a cycle of a spiritual awareness and a kind of spiritual sleep. But whether you are focused on God or other matters, God’s light is with you.
When you become aware of God’s presence, we see varying degrees of reflection of that light. We have explained before that you emit light as evidence in part of your spiritual consciousness, but you must also understand that you do not originate that light—you reflect it. The source of that light is always present. It is only the reflection which varies.
Many of you in earthly life seek greater understanding but few apply it. We see this as a great tragedy, and we can only stand helplessly by watching the non-response. That is human, not to respond. It is human to choose to respond.
We want you to be dependent upon these messages and by that dependence we mean faith, application, study. These messages, these words from God, are not offered to eliminate choice, but they are given as a source of illumination in your lives and in the lives of others who capture your reflection. These messages are guidance. Guidance is advice. It is not an order. It is not an unequivocal demand which must be followed by way of alleviating guilt.
God’s knowledge is offered as a way of providing meaning to your lives and direction to your activity. Viewed this way, guidance exerts a pull upon those who wish to be drawn closer to God. If you feel dependent upon the content of these messages, that is good, for they are instructive. When you feel pangs of guilt because of failings in your attempts to follow God’s guidance, that is wrong. It is natural but not constructive. Guilt plays no part in God’s purpose. You must not function in life governed by fear for your lives as a soul. You do not live because you are afraid of what comes after death.
Through the history of religious thought, of theistic teaching, much emphasis has been given to the matter of judgment. There are many who believe that you will be judged harshly or rewarded richly because of activities or decisions made during life. That premise is not correct. There is, however, judgment which takes place in your next life, but you are the judge. You are the person who decides to go forward to God or to reject God. It is the nature of your life which has great influence on the ease with which you make that judgment. So a judgment does occur, but it is in your hands. The matter of choice affects earthly life, but it also directs your spiritual development. That is not a judgment over which you have complete control.
There are many who do not know God. They have not rejected God—they just don’t know God. They are not damned. They are not in some way cursed with no future of spiritual enlightenment. The judgment that they ultimately make is based on a knowledge belonging to the soul as a result of the soul’s own growth. When the growth is slow, the decision may take more time, but there are countless souls who choose to go forward to God never having known God during earthly life.
Judgment therefore is a part of life. It is in the future of each of you but not to be feared. You are fortunate to know God on different levels at this point in your lives, and for you the future promises to be bright, for you are choosing constantly to find ways of drawing closer to God. In some ways then you are already taking part in the judgment of which we speak. This is not to say that the future is set, that there is no turning back, for that is a matter of your decision, but we can say that you are continually choosing a closeness with God.
There are many ways of choosing a closeness with God. There are many religions, many disciplines, seeking to know God. You express interest in Gnostic beliefs. We could tell you that the understanding achieved through Gnostic thought is fully correct, unerring, and the word which all must listen to, but by giving such information, we would encourage a rejection of other paths. Such a response is not appropriate and would not spiritually nurture you in your study. However, we must say that there is great truth in Gnostic thought. The truth is not demonstrated strictly in the content but in the sincerity of the search. It is the search which is vital.
When you take a trip of great distance, you travel several routes. If you were to remain on one highway, although it led in the general direction of your destination, you might not be successful in arriving as you planned. Trips of great length require numerous paths. Some paths provide more support than others. Some paths are more direct than others, but the value of the trip is not solely in the arriving but in the process.
You enjoy a trip because of what you experience during that travel. The travels are given meaning. There is a sense of perspective. If you fly from one coast to another, you are aware of both ends of the journey but have little sense of what lies in between. It is what is in between the coasts which gives character to your country. It is not just the boundaries. And so it is with the spiritual search. It is the process of searching and experiencing and learning which gives perspective to life and an understanding of thought.
It is in our capacity to tell each of you to reject all religions and to listen only to God as God speaks to you directly through your guides. You would know the ultimate truths but by rejecting the process of seeking, you would lose the perspective of your life. God sees it as your duty to search but also to gain understanding and not to move wildly about from one theory to another. It is God’s will that you have direction and not search aimlessly. But you will only truly understand the nature of your lives through living your lives, through sharing in the ideas, the theories, the strong beliefs of others, through gaining understanding of the thoughts and views of God expressed in other ways than your own.
We see each of you moving forward in your lives with strength, with courage to act and the capacity to reach out and extend the arm of God and God’s love to others. Rejoice that you are given these insights. Be glad that you are drawn to them. Be glad that you feel a compelling desire to be guided by them. Accept your weaknesses, but be thankful for your strengths and continue to be open to God’s manifestation from sources differing from that which is your common experience.
God surrounds each of you. God sends you the blessings of love and the strength of faith.
Amen.