March 29, 1987
God is with you this evening, and has been a part of this discussion which you have shared with one another. The emotions expressed and those felt but not expressed are certainly indicative of the importance that each of you gives to the matters at hand. There were many areas that were brought up, and it is impossible to adequately provide insight for all topics. Central, however, to all of the issues is the concept of one’s response to society within the framework of an awareness of God’s abiding presence.
How difficult it is to gain a sense of perspective in life on whatever terms, whether that perspective is from the standpoint of a nonbeliever, or from the point of view of one who claims great faith in God. The orientation which each of you has as you cope with life must constantly change. Your response to life is the result of your perception of it. As the perception changes through growth—spiritual growth, growth within a society, intellectual growth—so will the particular responses. You cannot expect to achieve a particular viewpoint of life which then maintains a validity so unquestionable that no changes will subsequently occur.
You may, in principle, feel that you have an understanding, a basic perception, which is essential to life being led according to God’s principles. But such a theoretical view of life must be refined, must be forged by what life offers as experiences. It is fine to say that you must be tolerant of the religious beliefs and actions of others and therefore be uncritical. It is something else entirely to put such a concept into action unfailingly for years into the future.
As individuals you will always be subject to challenges, to feelings of being threatened or questioned, of being doubted by others. The defense mechanisms which people construct to deal with such kinds of adversity will always be a part of your life. As a result, you will find that your reaction to what occurs around you will be in a state of flux. Although such differences will be manifest, you might still insist upon the central philosophical approach of your perception of God and therefore of how you should perceive others.
Being human means being imperfect. It means knowing and yet not knowing. It means being sure of what must be done, and yet not being sure. There will not come a time in your lives when everything that you do and believe and feel will be totally in harmony with a single concept of how you should feel or believe or what you should do. There will always be some distance between what you know to be a fact intellectually and what you accept as fact internally. That gap will continue to narrow as you grow, but it will never completely disappear until you finally have achieved a total unity with God.
Being fully united with God means there is no distance between you and God. It means there is no difference between your behavior and God’s behavior. It means there is no difference between your love for others and God’s love for others. But until such time as that occurs, each of you must accept the fact that you will fall short of what you know is necessary to be in harmony with God.
It is not to say that you are destined to be failures. For every step that you take in your desire to be in keeping with God’s presence, you are moving forward. There may be a thousand steps that need to be taken. If in a lifetime you move three steps in the proper direction, you have grown. You have grown if you move one step toward God. It is not important how many steps are taken. It is not important that you narrow the gap immediately and as quickly as possible. It is only important that the gap be narrowed. Spiritual growth can be viewed, therefore, as a movement toward the narrowing of the gap of what you know to be true and its distance from how you act and what you think.
Because of the discrepancies between your knowledge of what the goal is and your current position along your journey toward God, it is common that guilt is experienced. When we say that you must ultimately develop a life free of guilt, we are saying that you must be willing to recognize the differences between the position of God and the position of you, but accept the position as well, not rejecting it, not feeling ashamed because there is a great distance to be traveled. Guilt can be so destructive because it focuses on what is not being accomplished and is blind to the progress that has been made.
If you are to ultimately be accepting unconditionally of all others, you must first be unconditionally accepting of yourselves. There’s no difference between your place on the road of spiritual development and the place of others on their road toward development. We say there is no difference, but we emphasize that we refer to a qualitative difference. You are each on roads and that is all that matters. There is no road which is better than another. There is no road which is shorter than another. All roads ultimately lead to God.
As humans you have much control over your development, for such growth is a matter of choice. You can choose consciously to find ways of serving others, or you can choose to ignore others and think only of yourselves. It is a matter of choice. God does not ordain that some move faster along the road than others. God places each life, each soul, on a road that is appropriate for its own particular, individual, unique development. You might even consider that everyone, all living beings, are on their own road, for in fact each individual soul has its own set of needs, has its own set of challenges which must be met before final union with God.
For each soul there is a road, and therefore all roads are equal. If all roads are equal, all individuals have equal worth. There is no distinction between people. There is no distinction between races or nations. There is no distinction in age. The reason you are equal is that you were placed upon the path of your spiritual development equally according to the needs of your souls.
There is no soul that is better than another. Some souls have moved a little farther along their road than another, but that only indicates growth. That has nothing to do with quality or importance, for in our frame of existence there is no sense of time. There really is no sense of space. All is one, and therefore all development from our perspective is the same.
We are, in fact, asking that you view one another as we view you, recognizing that such a challenge cannot be met fully, but also acknowledging the fact that there is great value in accepting the validity of another’s spirit from the perspective of a spirit, from the perspective of a soul—not from the perspective of a human. This is difficult perhaps for you to understand, but if you are to move forward in a way that benefits others, you must attempt to view others nonjudgmentally with love and respect, just as we view you nonjudgmentally and with love and respect, and just as God views all life nonjudgmentally and with love and respect. There is a spiritual continuum here, for you are being asked to view one another as God views one another. Those moments in your lives when you are successful bring you that much closer to God.
But do not despair at the long stretches in life when such an interaction is unsuccessfully sought after. There are times when you will be full of spite, jealousy, anger, or a sense of competitiveness. That is natural. As we have often said, that is part of being human. But when you are able to encounter a stranger with peace and love and tolerance, at that time you are providing your soul with an opportunity for great growth, and your lives are then truly reflecting the directing and guiding light of God.
The involvement in life is varied and contrasting at all stages. But what you must do above all else is to recognize that through it all there is a presence of light and compassion and peace that you know to be God. That is really the beginning and it is also the end.
As we your guides continue to grow, we become more successful at recognizing God’s presence. Though we do not see God yet, we know that God is here. That knowledge is more intense at our stage of spiritual development than at yours, and it is from this perspective that we try to provide guidance to each of you.
Our success as guides depends in part on your choice to let us enter your lives. We say “in part” because we also guide countless numbers who have no conscious awareness of us, and yet their souls do. We can communicate with any soul. That is the way we communicate with you. But it is up to individuals to tap into their own souls to receive the help that is waiting. It is much like an individual waiting outside the door to provide food for the hungry. The food is there. It is up to those within to open up the door for the nourishment to be welcomed.
You often wonder how to be more effectively guided in your lives. It is very simple. Be willing to accept the guidance by being open to it. You become open through prayer. You become open through being quiet, and you become open by having the courage to exercise faith—faith in welcoming what you may not know. Your guides are constantly available for help. That is our most important function, and we stand ready with great love, with deep compassion, and as reflectors of a light emanating directly from God. We reflect it, we focus it, but we don’t initiate it. All is initiated from God.
One of you wonders about the significance of a dream. We can only say at this point that dreams are significant for all of you. They do not predict the future, but they reflect your concerns and hopes and states of mind, and those in turn help to shape the future. It is better that you become more in touch with your own feelings and emotions and understand how they may help or hinder you, rather than dwell on the importance of a particular dream. The fact that an experience has made you quite conscious of the reality of importance to that experience, it serves a strong function. Too often one has such dreams, such experiences, but one releases them quickly, not thinking what may have generated them in the first place. There are many dreams that one has that are immediately forgotten. But when they are remembered it is more beneficial to search yourselves for their meaning rather than to be told the meaning, for the result of searching is insight; the results of being told is information. Information is short-lived; insight is permanent.
You all came this evening from different perspectives, and we found it interesting how you expressed those differences. We encourage you to continue such expression, but urge you to avoid any judgments. It is more important that questions be asked than it is to have answers offered. You all have answers and they reflect your own position on your road of development. But one is not more valid than another, and therefore you cannot attempt to convince someone of the validity of another viewpoint. The fact that you share reflects the diversity present in viewing life. The recognition of that diversity is much more valuable to each of you than the acceptance of a particular viewpoint. Be tolerant of that diversity, for it is a microcosm of the diversity of all humankind. If you can be tolerant of another’s opinion, then you are on your way to being tolerant of those whose opinions you don’t know.
It is a great exercise in reflecting God’s presence when you meet and discuss and question and search. Your meetings in the past have dealt with issues that have brought joy as well as tears. You have celebrated life and you have celebrated death within this gathering. What a magnificent opportunity you have! Grab hold of it, welcome it, seek it out, and grow with the knowledge that God is ever a part of your seeking and your sharing.
Amen.