August 28, 1981
God and all of us rejoice in the presence of your circle of closeness and harmony.
The period since we were last together has been witness to a great strengthening in each of you individually. This strengthened spiritual awareness is visible both to us and to each of you. It has been a time of growth. It has served as a period of reflection. There have been challenges for all, but each of you, with little difficulty, can recognize evidence of the growth of faith. Remember, as we have so often said, it is this growth which gives evidence to the movement of your souls toward God. Not all growth is comfortable. Not all growth is visible. Whether or not you are aware of such growth, it is God’s plan for each of you to draw closer to God and, because of that, to one another.
The growth of your loved one who recently passed to our side continues. He is with us and he knows of your prayers and feels the warmth of your light. There are many with us who care for him and countless others, and you should be confident in the belief that he is surrounded by God. He is gaining awareness of his new life and experiences joy.
If you wish to help in his development and in the development of all whom you know on our side, such help is most effectively offered through the prayerful expression of your love. This love is offered in many ways. It can be offered through the conviction of their well-being, confidently reminding yourselves of their continual strengthening. It can be offered by recognizing and emulating those qualities which you recognize as reflections of God. Such love can be expressed through your conviction of faith in another life, in a spiritual life, and a strong belief that each of you will one day be a part of us.
As you open yourselves to these communions, you are for the moment accepting the reality of a spiritual level of existence which is unseen, but, nevertheless felt. Despite your experiences with God’s teachings reflected through us, it is human and acceptable to doubt or question how real is such a future life. The caterpillar has no way of imagining the experience of flight, but that does not take away the fact that another form of life awaits, a joyous life, a life with challenges and treasures, a life with a sense of awareness far greater than your own. When periods in your life occur which cloud your faith in the future of your souls, you must remember that you cannot take away the reality of that next life. It is there. It is undeniable. It is real, vibrant, joyful and full of love. That is the life which those who depart have an opportunity of living.
We say it is an opportunity, and not all choose our way. You have been told in the past of the importance of these communions as they relate to your choice of following that which God lays before you or remaining close to the human side of life. The life that we know of is that life directed toward God. The love which you have for those who have completed their earthly existence may therefore be expressed in prayers of dedication to God. Pray for another’s strength. Pray for another’s sense of wisdom. Above all, pray for their vision to see the glory which God can provide. Those prayers will be answered immediately. So many souls who join this side of their spiritual lives flounder, for they have no experience in their earthly lives of God’s immediacy, and they have none who pray for that soul’s vision.
It is like being at sea without food, with no sustenance. Life eventually loses its meaning. Those who are starving lose their vision, lose their sense of touch and smell and hearing, and are finally alone. When you pray for another who has crossed to this life, you are providing food for that soul. You are supplying the sustenance which gives the soul the capacity, the strength, vision and keenness of awareness to recognize God’s path. There is therefore much that each of you can do to help another who has passed along.
All that you do for such a soul may be done for each of you, for the soul is not different because it has left the human body. The soul’s characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, all remain unchanged. Only the vision is different. As you know, there is much that we can see which is hidden from you. That is the difference between spiritual and physical life, but the soul receives strength through God’s light. That light is received both directly and through other souls. Each of you has the ability to direct, to reflect God’s life, light, and strength to another.
In the months that have passed, you have become more aware of the reflection from God through others. Each of you has become more aware of the importance of others in your lives. It has been a time of growth, but with growth, in turn, comes responsibility. Your increased awareness of God in your lives has no function unless it is spread to others, for you do not grow merely by becoming aware of God. That growth can only be achieved when you are able to bring God’s light to another. God’s light and love are your light and love. Love is not received; it is given, and by giving love, you strengthen it. The more you give, the more you have to share. The less you give, the less meaningful the love you have received.
A candle can serve its function only when lit. A candle is brighter when it is burning than when it lies dormant. So it is with your souls. Your souls are brighter when they are active, when they reach out and use the energy available to them from God. The candle is lit by a match. When the candle is kept isolated, the match cannot reach it. The candle cannot ignite itself; it must have heat. Your souls cannot ignite without God’s heat, and they cannot serve their function unless they have been ignited. Your lives, therefore, must be lives of service, but the inspiration for that service, the fuel for that service, can only come from God. The match alone cannot light a large room. Many candles are needed.
The interrelationship is clear: God starts all. Life begins from God. Love comes from God. Power comes from God. All that is comes from God, but God alone is not enough. The function of the match is to ignite something. The purpose of God is to set your souls on fire. Without your souls, God’s power is diminished, for your souls collectively are a large part of God. It is the massive number of souls on earth and in spiritual planes which serves to provide God with the means of doing God’s will.
You are dependent on God, but God is dependent on you. The communication of which we spoke runs both ways. God communicates with you, and you communicate with God. That relationship is a special relationship. It is important and it is one which gives strength to your lives. You can never separate yourselves from God’s love. That you have heard many times. It is not because God owns you, but because God needs you as you need God.
We say that when you respond with love to another, you are responding to God. When you respond negatively to another, such negativism is offered to God. Since you would not judge God, so should you not judge one another. You see, your lives and God’s life are interconnected with countless strands. All that you are is also God’s. Of course, there are negative influences in your lives. There are times when you judge another, when you feel jealousy, anger and frustration. Those are human feelings. They are normal, but are not a part of God. When we speak of all that you are, being what God is, we refer not to human feelings but to spiritual feelings.
It may be difficult to separate human and spiritual feelings, but the two areas are quite distinct. You may label the spiritual feelings your conscience. If you feel bitterness, you may also feel a sense of guilt. Guilt is also a human feeling, but it is your spiritual feeling which gives rise to your awareness that perhaps there is a more constructive way to approach a particular problem. Each of you has the responsibility of learning to tap those spiritual feelings, of being willing to listen to what your soul is telling you. Those feelings are God’s feelings. They are God speaking to you.
We must caution you against feelings of guilt when you respond to another in ways which are not God directed. Guilt is a damaging feeling, for it leads to a diminished sense of self worth. Since each of you contains the spark of divinity, you cannot accept the worthlessness in you. You cannot accept the fact that you fail, for in truth you do not fail. When you respond to another negatively or opposed to God’s teachings, you do not move away from God, you remain as close as ever. When you feel guilty, it is only that you become aware of the disparity between what you are and what you can be. The understanding of what you can be is essential if you are to grow closer to one another and increase your awareness of God. That is a positive feeling. Therefore, look upon guilt not in the sense of self-failing, but rather from the point of view of divine revelation, for you have seen the light. When you try again and fail, keep your spiritual vision toward God and you will not have failed, you will merely have recognized your own humanness. With such recognition of God, each of you will become more patient.
Patience is a rare commodity in life. Frequently you are impatient with others, but the greatest impatience is with oneself. Impatience emphasizes the importance of ideal life as well as bringing attention to the element of time. Impatience as we use it is irrespective of time. It refers to your response to the recognition of your own earthly lives and the ideals which God lays before you. We must instruct you very strongly to cast out such impatience.
When you are in a race, your eyes are on the goal, not on where you are. When you seek a closeness with God, your vision must be of God, not of your position. When you can focus on God’s light, the positions of your earthly life become immaterial. They lose significance. Those frustrations you experience have no importance. You eliminate a sense of failure, and you avoid that impatience which serves to diminish your strengths.
God wishes for each of you to be focused on God, for God’s focus is upon each of you. God does not judge how far along the path you have traveled, but only seeks for your vision to be God’s goal. What we propose, therefore, is a restructuring of your viewpoint of your lives. You must see yourselves as seekers of God, not as one who fails objectives. You must therefore love yourselves as well as others. Too many of you in your earthly lives hate yourselves but try to love others. That is an empty life and it is full of pain.
You carry God’s spark. Let it ignite. Let it be bright. The flame of the candle carries the same qualities as the flame of the match. You are equal. You have great potential. You have the gift of knowing about God in a manner which presents you with the responsibility of passing God’s light to others. It is a great responsibility. No higher calling exists than that. Recognize your lights, accept them, strengthen them, and ignite the souls of others around you in need. God has ignited each of your souls. God has provided their light and has given us ours. Our lights are passed to you to be spread throughout. Give thanks to God for having begun this chain of light, and rejoice in your vision of this brilliance!
We bless you with God’s love.
Amen.