All individuals, all human beings, are given the tools to see in their faith. For some, that gift is readily embraced. For many others, that gift is ignored, either willfully or by circumstance. But the truth is, all have the gift to see beyond what they see with their eyes and sense in other ways.

You wonder at times about where your life must lead—its purpose, its direction. Is life a series of random events, or is there a kind of master plan that provides identity to the journey? We say to you no life is random, but we also assert that no lives are predetermined in any definitive manner. There is no randomness because life does have a pattern. That pattern is growth. That pattern is movement. That growth is an evolving ability to become loving.

The movement is essentially the change from where you are to where you can be. This is not a physical change in location; it is a change of awareness. A young child is aware of self. A wise individual is it who becomes more fully aware of the other in life. There is no change in position but a radical transformation in perspective. That is the movement—that is the only movement that is of real value.

You are given human life for such movement, for such change. You are given life because of the potential that life provides for your growth as spirits. The challenges you face may seem less spiritual challenges and more physical/emotional challenges. But the physical, the emotional, or psychological challenges are merely part of the greater movement, the greater growth that takes place.

Each of you is given life to be lived. For some, the choice of how to live calls for a withdrawal from the normality of life around them, but it is not the withdrawal into a monastery or some other secluded condition that provides for growth. That withdrawal is only an opportunity that may be taken, that may encourage spiritual growth. Indeed for some, that choice is most beneficial. For others, growth occurs through the direct and daily interaction with all that is around them—celebratory, painful, elated, debilitating as those conditions may be.

You are asked to grow. You are not expected to grow in one environment as opposed to another. Your efforts to grow are more beneficial as you choose how, in what environment, in what surroundings that growth is to take place. Your human growth is only partly emotional, only partly physical, but it is ultimately thoroughly spiritual, not in the sense of a formalized religious approach, but in the soft, quiet reality of what is sacred within all.

When you recognize the sacredness of absolutely everything you encounter, you cannot help but change your interaction with all that is. When you recognize a neighbor to be sacred, you then choose not to respond to that neighbor with disinterest or judgment. The affirmation of sacredness requires an expression of love. How is that affirmation expressed? It is expressed by listening. It is expressed by being there. It is expressed by being open to what others may feel to be sacred in their lives. You reflect the sacredness of something by the way you hold it. If you have an icon of great sacred worth held in your hands, you enfold that icon with great care, great respect, love.

Why is it that human beings often recognize in principle the sacredness of another and yet never hold up the other with equal affirmation, equal love, equal care? Human beings are to be caring, but you are also to be cared for. Both are part of your spiritual paths. Both are inherent to a life with purpose, a life with focus, a life of loving. You are given life as an opportunity to hold up another, to hold up others, to hold up communities, to hold up nations, to hold up religious philosophies, all as being sacred.

What you say to another is sacred. The words you choose are merely an expression of what you feel within. If you seemingly have no respect for another person, the words you choose in your interactions with another are far different than if you are speaking from the position of great love, of great respect, of great caring. You have an expression, “Actions speak louder than words,” but we say, “Words themselves are actions.” Words are one window to what lies within. Actions that are physical actions are another window.

Your response to all that is surrounding you must be characterized as being loving. For the individual with whom you have great disagreement, the only appropriate response is listening and speaking in terms that reflect respect, reflect love. The words you choose are for that moment the actions that you’ve chosen. The actions are not implying physical work, physical activity. The words are the actions. The words are the deeds.

Words, therefore, are as sacred as the individuals you encounter. Your choice of words is sacred. Your choice reflects your current journey. Is anger appropriate? Of course, but anger can be expressed as a divisive action. Anger can also be expressed as a means of showing love. When you are angry at a child, you are expressing your love for that child, for you want the best for that child. If the child is about to do something dangerous, your anger may save that child’s life. You are angry, not at the child but at the situation, and you use your anger as a way of offering protection. That is a form of love.

The words you employ are the actions. They are the deeds. Some deeds have no words and yet speak volumes about who you are. When you are impatient and judgmental, your actions indicate that impatience. Your actions can indicate judgment without the need for words.

Your lives therefore are gifts of the Spirit to the spirit. Your lives are a gift of God to all that is godly within. Your lives are a reflection of the light that surrounds you and a means of drawing out the light that is within.

You learn through these experiences. You grow and thrive through such efforts, but where does this lead? What is the purpose of all that you know of life if it ultimately leads nowhere? If all that you know to be true indicates the necessity of spiritual growth, and there is no result from those efforts, then what purpose can be served by such lives? All that you know would cease to have meaning. As you recognize the importance of finding ways to be loving, you acknowledge in that very way the reality that there is a goal, that this leads somewhere, that there is purpose, that there is a direction to be sought after.

You wonder about transitions—transitions from human life to something relatively unknown. There is, of course, always fear surrounding what is unknown. But from your own experience you also acknowledge that much of what you have fear of, you learn was of no value and often never existed. So it is with the transition from one kind of life to another kind of life. Because the transition is unknown—the nature of that transition and where it leads—the mystery remains strong, and consequently the fear of that mystery remains strong.

You must acknowledge the naturalness, the appropriateness, the importance of those transitions. All human beings of course experience that, and for those who are left behind when you lose someone you love, that transition represents a loss. But for the individual who makes that change of life-form, it is a transition of enormous beauty and joy and strength. The goal is reached. The initial purpose of human life is then in some form or another accomplished. Yes, there are souls who choose to reincarnate for there is yet more to learn, but the transition is a kind of graduation. It is a kind of affirmation that growth has occurred, and it is a moment in your consciousness that is filled with enormous love and warmth and joy.

When you were children, many were afraid of the dark, not because there is something fearful about the dark, but because the dark held something within that was unknown. Children may have a strong imagination that lets them leap beyond what they know and see, but there is a natural fear of fully experiencing what it is that is unknown. As adults you are no longer physically children, but you do experience the same fear of the dark, fear of what you cannot see, what you cannot touch. But just as the dark results in the coming of light, so the transitions that all experience are followed by great light, great love.

We don’t criticize you for your concerns, but we do wish you to understand that such fear of the unknown, of the uncertain, belongs ultimately to the realm of evolving faith. When a child’s parents leave and are out of sight, the initial reaction is that those individuals are no longer there. They have disappeared and the child is alone. Eventually the child realizes that the parent can leave, but the parent will come back, and the child really is not alone. For the first time, the child begins to learn that there is an existence beyond what can be seen and heard. That child realizes the parent is not next to them but also not gone. The parent will come back. The child is not alone.

So it is when you ask questions about the transition. When someone transitions to our side, the common response is “that person is no longer with us,” with you. The person is somehow departed. Even using the term “departed” implies away, no longer present. But the truth is whoever is considered departed is not away any more than a child’s parent who steps around the corner is away. That parent is present. The child learns; the adult learns. You begin to realize that there is indeed a life that you cannot see. It’s a life around a corner from what is visible, and yet it is a life that is indeed fully present.

The physical trappings of life have nothing to do with what is permanent. You say you know this to be true, and yet deep down you may wonder, “Is it really true?” You are given life not because when it ends, it ends. You are given life because when it changes, it continues. You survive because you adapt. Your spiritual essence survives because it adapts to a new environment. The spirit remains and consciousness remains.

We, your guides, are fully conscious. Indeed, we are aware of far more than you can possibly see. We are conscious of what is permanent. We are conscious of what is good. We are conscious of all forms of love. We are conscious of all forms of reaching out. We are conscious of all acts of compassion, of listening, of being there. We are aware of your prayerful thoughts on behalf of another. We are conscious of the response of another’s spirit to your prayers. We are fully conscious. The transition is one of moving from limited vision to full and embracing vision. It is from this greater vision, this greater acknowledgment of love that such joy fully counts.

Your lives do indeed have direction. The paths that you take do lead somewhere, and yet while you are on the middle of that path, you are not expected to easily see where you are headed. If you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, you may not be so aware of where you are. You see where you are, but you have no understanding of where that is. It doesn’t make sense. There is no land in sight. All you see is the sky and the water. Three days later all you see is the sky and the water, and it appears you have moved nowhere. The truth is you have been journeying forward, but have been unable to find evidence of that growth, that direction.

So it is with your lives on a daily basis. You are busy. You encounter your friends, you encounter family, you encounter colleagues, you encounter challenges, you encounter concerns for health—your own health, the health of others. It seems from day to day that you have not moved forward. It seems as if the ship you are on is engaged in getting nowhere. But the truth is the ship journeys onward. The truth is your lives journey onward. The truth is the transitions that you experience carry the journey onward. No life stands still. All life has a direction, even when you are unable to recognize appropriate markers to measure your progress.

Consider your lives to be that ship in the middle of the ocean. A ship has a captain. You have your spirit center, your soul. You have your guides. You have the loving presence of God. You are not in the middle of an ocean going nowhere. Everything you do is a part of that journey. Every individual you meet, every activity you participate in, every challenge you confront—all are part of that journey. The seas may be filled with storms, but the ship moves ahead. Just as you have faith that the ship is moving forward, you can have equal faith that your lives are moving forward, that you are growing in your spiritual development. You are evolving.

All human beings go through this same process. There are ships that find their course with relative speed through the ocean, and there are other ships whose pacing is more deliberate, but they are all crossing. They’re all transitioning from one shore to another. Every human being is engaged in this sacred journey. You are guided through the calm winds and violent seas, but the goal is always reached.  The new land is filled with new opportunities, and your vision is thereby expanded.

Have faith that you are blessed and guided by the journey itself, not just when you reach another shore. God’s steadying hand provides shelter but also the potential of absolute inner peace along the way.  Look around you as you contemplate your place along your path. All that you do see contains the same sacredness as what you perceive to be the desired goal. Embrace the present, whatever it brings, knowing that you are guided, led by the sacred presence of God, and that you will reach the shores you seek according to the needs of your spirit and the outreachings of those who surround you.

You are blessed in your gift of seeing beyond the sky and water, beyond merely standing on a path. You are blessed in your ability to take on greater understanding of the depth of God’s presence in each stone, each molecule of water, in the moisture in the clouds and the beauty of the clear sky.  Be strengthened by your confidence in the goal and the appropriateness of your place in the Journey.

Amen.

You ask so often in your own ways about the direction of your society, the direction of the world, the place of light and darkness, the relationship between balance and imbalance, the purposes of joy and sadness. You are, as are many in the world, on an extensive journey. This journey encompasses fair weather and foul. It encompasses great friendships and challenging relationships. The journey that you are on is the journey you must be on.

You are not placed upon your paths by some matter of random occurrence. You are where you should be because you are where you belong. You are brought to this place of consideration, of listening and sharing, because you are ready for this encounter. You are brought here because it is most appropriate for your own paths of growth.

Your position within your own paths is not unlike the position of your society or your government within the wider framework of humankind. What you experience politically and socially within your country is presented to you not as a random act but as an integral part of what it means for many to evolve into a society that values others.

Your society, indeed your nation, is very young. It is much like the youth of human life. Youths approach their lives as they feel it is best for them; the degree of commitment to what is best for all measures the development of humans on their paths. A child thinks about “me.” Many adults think about “us,” and a few think about “you.” This latter group has reached a stage in their development when the sense of “I” or “me” or “mine” is entirely eclipse by the importance of “you, yours.”

Ultimately when a group of individuals considers of primary importance what happens to or what is important for, the ultimate beneficiary becomes not the other but all. If you wish a group to benefit and grow in the most effective manner, each member of the group must be concerned primarily with the other. You ultimately grow through your concerns for another, and when that is the condition of everyone, everyone grows. There are no fences. There are no barriers. There are no deterrents. It is all a function of doing what helps and affirms and provides love to someone else.

And so it is with societies, with communities, with nations, with collectives of nations. Most in the early stages are concerned about what is in their own interests. How often do you hear it said about your own government, “We are concerned about our defense and an appropriate response to our interests abroad”? How often do you hear statements that say, “We are interested in our own defense, but we are committed to what is best in the interests of other nations”? That “otherness” is a state of being that can only take place with great maturity and humility. It is as rare a national policy as it is an individual perspective.

It is a form of judgment to say that another individual cannot think beyond himself or herself. It is also a matter of judgment to say, “A nation cannot think beyond itself.” As you are always being asked to be nonjudgmental of others, you collectively must learn to be nonjudgmental on a much larger scale. You may not be happy or convinced about the direction of your political machinery, but it is important that you recognize that what you are observing is part of a process. Governments evolve just as human beings evolve, for governments are merely a collection, an assembly of human beings. The government will never be more advanced than the humans that occupy those positions of authority and decision making, policy making.

If you wish to see a change in how governments relate to one another, you must be concerned about how you relate to others. Your development as individuals is not separate from your development as a society, your development as a nation, or your development overall viewed as the entirety of humankind. Each of you is part of a process. Each of you is evolving. Your community is part of a process, and it is evolving. Your nation is part of a process, and it is evolving. The relationship between nations of the world is a process, and that also evolves.

It is not a problem to recognize the shortcomings of your own or the shortcomings of those around you or the shortcomings of a nation, but it is counterproductive to feel that the current state of development is what in your words would be considered “a lost cause.” There is no lost cause. You are not a lost cause. There is no one individual who is a lost cause. You know that. No government is a lost cause.

Human beings may be misdirected in their passions just as nations may be so misdirected, but misdirection has no bearing on value. You’re not a lesser being if you proceed through life somehow misdirected. A nation is of no less value when its policies are misdirected. They are simply misdirected, and being a part of the process, they will move forward. Each of you continues to develop as human beings. Each nation is on its track in evolving and discovering what is truly important—that not being the continuation of self but the valuing of others.

It is easy to feel discouraged when your lives experience imbalance, when you face frustration and anger, regret, when you experience illness, but that imbalance is part of the process. It is part of what it means to evolve, to grow, to become broader. All the values that you hold to be true as they relate to personal growth apply equally to the growth of state.

You turn to us asking for insight. That action is a statement filled with trust and more importantly with the kind of vulnerability we speak of so often. It is the fate of all nations, all communities, all groups of individual that they ultimately become vulnerable. Vulnerability is not related to weakness but rather refers to an openness and a willingness to learn from others, a willingness to value the presence of others. When you become vulnerable, when you become willing to receive the gifts of love, you grow. You become more sensitive to the gifts of God’s presence. A nation must also in its way become vulnerable—not weak, but yet willing to acknowledge the value of all other nations to the collective good, to the collective growth. When one nation acknowledges the importance to another with the objective being a peaceful, respectful relationship, then that acknowledgment generates the peace and the respect that is sought after.

If you and another individual are committed to sharing existence as human beings characterized by mutual respect, then that relationship will create respect, and that respect will create justice and peace. It requires a commitment from both parties.  So it is with nations. When countries acknowledge the value of one another, not for the purpose of how another can satisfy our needs but rather how each can satisfy the other’s needs, then the building process that leads toward peace is begun.

Your relationships to your neighbors must ultimately be based on this mutual commitment. It is uncommon to achieve that relationship truly, for one generally finds one party more interested in mutual respect and another party seeking ways to meet its own interests. But this reality should in no way discourage the effort to create those types of relationships. A good marriage must be worked at. If one party seeks a good relationship and the other does not, the marriage is not strong. But if both are committed to the value of the other, then that relationship is sealed with great strength.

When you are in relationships with another individual or another community or another nation, and that other seems less interested in acknowledging shared mutual interests, that is not an excuse to give up seeking to contribute in some way to that relationship. You seek because it is who you are, not because of what you expect to get from it. You offer love because you are loving, not because of what you expect to receive in return. That is not love. That is all about another entity meeting your needs.

Just as you must learn this as individuals, so must nations also learn the same lesson. We can say with absolute clarity that the process and the result that you seek—one of fairness, one of understanding, one of responsiveness at the national level—is moving forward. You may not see that progress because you don’t see the pattern. You see the details. You cannot understand the great beauty of a tapestry by looking at one small corner. You must stand back. You must gain a perspective, and then you begin to sense with great clarity the nature of that tapestry.

From our perspective, we see the entirety. Yes, there are details that are important, that contribute to the entirety, but our view is what is happening in your growth as an individual, what is happening in the growth of your community, what is happening in the growth of your nation, what is happening in the growth of humanity. Looking at that greater pattern, it is very clear that what is good is far stronger than what is not.

Light is stronger than darkness. Light contains an energy that is lacking in the dark. The power of love is far more impressive than the power of hate. The desire to communicate is ultimately stronger than the desire to separate. A view is more powerful than a fence. The warmth between human beings far outweighs the animosity. What you see that unites you with others is more powerful than the evidence of your differences.

We can say these things with full knowledge. You can understand the words, but the challenge is to apply them in the practice of your daily lives. You must have faith that the hand of God is very much a part of the human experience. The Creator does not create and then pull away. The Creator creates and continues to create. Human life has evolved to become human life, but as humans you continue to evolve. That evolution did not stop once human beings existed in forms that you now recognize. This is again evidence of the continuity of process. You are part of that process. You are part of that growth. You are part of what it means to be godly.

As you continue your lives on a daily basis, consider what it means to relate to those around you with full respect. Avoid the temptation to base the relationship on what serves your interests. Take that relationship and turn it outward rather than inward. Live the kind of life that you hope others will emulate.

Don’t reflect what is dark, for the dark does not have energy to reflect. You can only reflect what has energy. You can only reflect what is light. Reflect all that is good that you see in others, and let that reflection be acknowledged as worthy of the benefit for all, and you will find the evidence you seek in life moving forward with more peace, more tolerance, more understanding.

We guide you with our love, not because of what you do for us, but because we are committed to what is best for you. As you reflect that love, as you reflect that light beyond your own circle, you will truly be the hand of God. We pray for your reaching, we pray for your hands, we pray for your vision of others, and we pray for your openness and willingness to reflect all that is good.

Amen.

At this time, there are so many who are drawn by the tradition of the season to try to give what is loving to others. For countless individuals, what is loving gets translated to what can be purchased and given as gifts that can be packaged and presented in a physical manner to another. It is at this time of year that such attention to gifts should more appropriately be directed toward how you can give who you are to another.

Each of you knows how it feels when through sacrifice you do something which creates a strong and penetrating joy to another, for you see it in their eyes. You do not need words. The eyes are the window of the spirit, and when you look to the eyes, you know. Words are merely an adornment to a representation of others. What is important is how you become open to what the needs of another are, and your response.

The Christmas season may be a season of giving, but more importantly it is a season of understanding the true meaning of what it means to receive. We are not suggesting that Christmas is about getting. It is about giving, but more importantly being aware of what it means when another is receptive. You give, of course, because true giving is a reflection of love, but you give in faith that there is a receiving, that there is a recognition of being valued, of being loved, of being affirmed. You give spiritually to another. You may not know what that impact is, but the fact is you do not give to emptiness. You give to another. Remember, it is to another. There is a receiver of your gifts of love. Giving without an acknowledgment of the receiver is merely an exercise, but giving with an understanding that there is a receiver becomes a true act of faith.

When you pray to God, you pray as a way of listening and giving, but you pray in the faith that there is a God that receives your prayer. Conversely, you have faith that God gives to you—gives you strength, gives you balance, gives you courage, gives you comfort—but in believing that God provides this for you, you are also providing value to yourselves as being receivers of those gifts of love.

This time of the year is a celebration of giving and receiving. It is not so much the celebration of giving and getting. There is a difference between getting and receiving. Getting is all about the “me,” the “I.” Receiving is really an acknowledgement of a giver, and it is this approach that we wish you to understand.

When you express love toward another, another receives that love, and part of that reception is an acknowledgment, even nonverbally. When you pray for another, be open to evidence that that prayer has been answered. Be open to the reality that there is a recipient for your gift of prayer. When you feel strengthened by others, you are seeing yourselves as a recipient of the gifts of love and care offered by another. You don’t get healthy. You don’t get balance. You receive health, you receive balance, you receive love, you receive compassion. Getting often implies a sense of being entitled to something. You get paid. You don’t often consider that you receive payment. Receiving payment acknowledges the giver. Getting acknowledges mostly the person who is at the receiving end of something that is transferred.

At this time of the year, therefore, it is important to consider the blessing of giving and the blessing of receiving. Remove the concept of getting from your lives, for such approach is of no benefit, least of all for your own spiritual growth. But receiving acknowledges another, and it is in that acknowledgment that you grow, for you are acknowledging the presence of another and the loving expression of that presence.

Your guides provide you with an environment of love, with an environment of peace, with an environment that is totally nonjudgmental. Each of you in your way finds opportunity to receive what we offer. You don’t get what we offer, for in the receiving, you acknowledge the giver. You acknowledge our place as guides at the table of your own daily lives.

This concept of guides and the spiritual receiving that takes place is difficult to share with those who have no perspective of such a relationship. You spoke this evening of concerns about how to widen the existence of spiritual recognition and acknowledgment of the ongoing nature of spiritual enlightenment. This is done best in small groups rather than large collections, for in a small group there is more freedom to express viewpoints and differing perspectives. But such an exercise of sharing is always appropriate. It is not proselytizing. It is not trying to change people to your own perspective, but rather is an effort to expand others’ awareness of their perspectives.

You come to this environment with an openness, you come with inquisitiveness, but you don’t come with answers. The first stage to spiritual growth is an openness, and for many the greatest gift you can give to others is an example of openness. They develop through this openness. They develop that openness through their receiving your gifts. Each of you knows through your own experience there is no gain by the insistence that your views on spiritual life are the most appropriate. The normal reaction is to draw away. No one wishes to move through life feeling that their beliefs are being imposed. There is much effort to impose beliefs, but generally human beings feel that they believe because that’s what they believe, not because that is what they have been told. If you can give the gift of openness, then the environment is rich to expand the beliefs.

Spiritual growth is all about openness. It is all about listening. It is all about observing. It is all about nonjudgmental love. The distance that must be traversed for many from their own perspective to a broader perspective can be enormous. Indeed, for some in their current human life-form, it is insurmountable. But there is no requirement that that distance must be traversed within a given frame of time. God does not say you must learn this during a single human life.

All life is a process. All life has a direction to it. As we have often said and we reiterate again, life is not a race. There are no winners. Everyone finishes. Everyone reaches the goal. For some, it is in a single life. For others, it is in multiple human lives. For yet others, it is a combination of human lives and life-forms that you do not see and cannot hear, but that growth indeed persists and is unfailingly successful.

You will always encounter in your lives individuals who confront your reality with disbelief, and that is okay, for your gift to others is not the product of what you say to them. Your gift is who you are. It is how you live your lives as a reflection of your beliefs. That is the gift, and others will recognize that gift as they can. The broader viewpoint, the broader perspective that is achieved is what has been received, not what has been gotten. No one should shy away from an opportunity to share, but it is important in your sharing to recognize what it is you share, what it is you really give.

This season of the year is a reminder of the ultimate gift, the gift of love, the gift of being loving. That is the gift. That is what you celebrate. There are of course biblical stories of gifts, physical gifts, being presented, but those physical gifts are allegorical in nature. There are no truly physical gifts. They are gifts that represent what it means to offer love to another. This celebration that many have throughout the world should be a reminder of the gifts you really are celebrating, but that celebration cannot be limited to a few weeks in the calendar. That celebration should be an example of what it means to give always, and what it means to truly receive.

We have spoken often about the necessity to be vulnerable, the necessity to place yourself in a position in which you can receive the gifts of others. This vulnerability, which is an openness, is what is required to receive and not to get. Getting requires no vulnerability, no openness. Receiving requires it in abundance.

Each of you must concentrate on what it is you wish to give. You know it is love, but each of you has ways that are unique to you as to how that gift of love is transmitted to a receiver of that love. That’s what you seek. That’s what you seek at all times. For many, a list is made of what must be purchased for person one, person two, person three on the list. Make a list that each of you considers, and that list should include, “How do I give love to this person? How do I offer love to the next person? How do I offer love to yet another?” In doing so, you are strengthening the power of God. You are deepening the commitment of your spirit to the support of another. You are directing your lives, guided by love.

At the same time, make a list of how you can become more vulnerable. How can you become better receivers, more sensitive receivers? How can you become more aware of the gifts of others, the true gifts? In doing so, you transcend any religious and social traditions of giving physical gifts, and you join in very clear ways what we, your guides, give to each of you and what God gives to all of creation. You give and you receive. The bond that joins becomes strengthened and emits a light that illuminates all.

May that light be with each of you, now and always.

Amen.

You are bound to each other, not in a physical way but in a very profound spiritual sense, for you are united in a journey of growth, a journey of development that is outside the realm of time. This shared journey brings you together through your search for understanding.

Your paths are enmeshed even when you are not in one another’s company. Your lives have brought you to this condition, this way of expressing the energy of your spiritual commitments. We could say in a more comprehensible way that you have been brought to this point in time, that you are aware of one another’s journey of understanding.

Our last message with you dealt with concepts that are difficult to grasp. You are not going to fully understand the implications of all that we have shared, but we share these truths because we want you to understand that there is an energy to life that stretches far beyond what you can sense on a daily basis. You are, in fact, a small part of the totality of God.

God did not create the world in the way that you create a physical entity. You build a house with many rooms. You build a structure that contains many floors. You also conceive of a God that creates the world just as you know it, but the world is only a part of that creation. There are many worlds. There are many states of living. There are many conditions that are assigned to the reality you call “life.” And there are many conditions that belong to All That Is which reside beyond your single awareness of what is provided you through your senses.

What do you do with the knowledge we impart? If you understand somewhat the complexity of all that has been created, you will more readily acknowledge your close connection to all that comes within your awareness, whether it is the natural world around you or the neighbor next door. When you acknowledge that you and the natural environment are the same, when you acknowledge that you and the neighbor next door are the same, you approach a kind of awareness that is characterized by our form of spiritual energy. You are given this information, not for the purpose of understanding its every dimension, but rather to provide a context that consciously connects you with all that you do see and feel, hear and touch.

There are many life-forms that occupy the same space as what you see. These life-forms occupy the same present. They occupy the same place along the continuum of energy forms. We tell you there are other forms of life, other energy transformations, that exist with you regardless of how you identify your own location. These spirit-forms are always positive. You don’t live in a haunted house. You don’t live in an environment that is saturated with a threatening presence. All the conscious energy-forms that surround you share an awareness at some level or another of the Spirit Center you refer to as God.

There is much in common between your own life-form and theirs. There is an awareness of light. There is an awareness of heat and color. There is a common awareness of what surrounds you. These life-forms are dedicated to the development of spirit, just as you feel that same dedication.

There is nothing you can do specifically to see these life-forms, but it should suffice to know that they exist, that they are with you, inside of you, outside of you. They occupy what is the here and now. They don’t just sit quietly next to you, out of your vision, but they do influence your own actions when those actions reflect an understanding of the loving Spirit Center that is God. All life-forms that are other than what you can perceive are forms that you can welcome, that you can bring into your own acceptance if not your own awareness.

These nonhuman life-forms are characterized first through their spiritual strength; second, through their compassion, their giving, their supporting, their affirmations, their protection, their gift of recovery, their contributions to balance as we have described it.

You sometimes are aware of coincidences. There seems to be no logical explanation for why a surprising relationship in terms of occurrence is observed. What you identify as coincidence is frequently your awareness of the presence of other energy life-forms. You don’t identify that energy as another life-form, but you recognize its unexpected quality, and you say, “What a coincidence!” There is nothing truly unexpected by coincidence. What you identify as such is the meshing of various energies, spiritual energies, and that meshing is observed by you as an activity of coincidence. It seems perfectly appropriate, yet could not have been predicted.

There are many times when the spirits that are with you may assist you in such a manner that is unrecognized—your safety, your feeling, the patience you sometimes experience when others are impatient, the peace you feel when around you reigns chaos, the sense of direction that occurs to you when others may find such solution difficult. If you consider the reality of spiritual entities, invisible presences, the mere consideration is enough to acknowledge your true place in all that has been created. These spirit entities find interaction with you in so many ways.

Some of those entities are what you have come to acknowledge as your guides. We are not fundamentally different from you. We are not fundamentally different from all life-forms that have a consciousness of God. We are a part of that spiritual consciousness just as you are a part.

We share these concepts without consideration for the completeness of your understanding, but it is nevertheless important for you to have a glimpse of what lies beyond your senses. Just because you cannot see doesn’t mean we are not there. When you close your eyes, you are still in the company of friends. Even though you cannot see them, your vision has no bearing on the reality of their presence. Your lack of vision has no bearing on the reality of our existence or on the reality of other life-forms. You cannot go through your human experience limiting what you know to what your senses provide as direct evidence. You don’t see the air you breathe. You may see what the air contains, but you don’t see the air, and yet that air is essential for your human lives. You cannot see the clouds above you when it is dark unless you have special equipment to do so.

And so it is with these spiritual matters. You don’t see what we see without the equipment, but what is the equipment? Equipment is simply a total faith in the existence of what you cannot see. Believing firmly in that existence, you are better positioned to see what gives evidence of that presence. You don’t see goodness—you see the evidence of goodness. You don’t see anger—you merely see evidence of that anger. You see what you perceive to be something beautiful, but what you describe as beautiful may be quite threatening to someone else. You both observe the same entity and yet respond much differently.

It is this way with your spiritual perception. You don’t see spirit, but you see evidence of spirit. You don’t see love, but you see its evidence. You don’t see compassion. You can feel it, but you don’t see it.

And so it is in our energy-forms. We see you through your light. That is the evidence of you. It is not for us to see what you wear, for that is unimportant. It is not for us to see what you do as a career, for that has little impact except as you give evidence of what you are doing that enhances and affirms, uplifts and is loving. We then see that. If you build a house, that is not of importance to us, but we do see what that house that you build means to you. If you build that house for the purpose of serving others, we see that. If you build the house to provide shelter for yourselves, for your families, for your friends, for strangers, we see that, for the building is merely a reflection of a greater purpose, and it is that greater purpose that we do see.

It is this way with other life-forms that you cannot see who have an awareness of God. They don’t see what you wear, but rather how you are loving.

We emphasize so often the importance of your being loving, for that is what is permanent. That is what always remains. It is the love you express and how you express that love that is so important, because in that expression you are emerging as a loving entity, and it is that loving quality, however it is expressed, that remains permanent.

You are not alone. You see others who share an energy-form that is human, but those energy-forms you cannot see because they are not human are aware of you only as you bring your concepts of a loving God into the arena of your very human daily lives.

You learn by sharing. You learn by sharing between these energy fields. You learn by sharing with other human beings. You learn by sharing with your spirit guides. You learn by reaching out to share with that portion of God that you perceive. You learn to be loving. You learn to become more aware of what it means to be alive.

We, your guides, are always with you on that journey. Be assured that all that we see of each of you is that which reflects the loving presence of God. When you are surrounded by negative feelings, regrets, remorse, guilt, shame, fear, that negative energy does not radiate a brilliance. That negative energy is not a reflection of the loving presence of God, and therefore has no presence in our awareness of you. We see all in you that is positive, all that is godly. We pray for its growth. We work for its growth. We communicate with you for the purpose of its growth. We see what you do that leads towards peace, towards compassion, towards all that you associate with being loving, for it is those qualities that endure. The negative experiences that you have, the negative thoughts that you have—all that seems to run counter to a loving God is ultimately cast aside and is obliterated. It no longer exists.

As we have said before, there is no judgment day because there is no judgment. There is only an acknowledgment of all that is loving. We love each of you for all that you are that is becoming loving. We see your growth. We see the evidence of your searching. All of these other God-conscious life-forms are aware only of that, and it is for this reason that we emphasize the essential importance of being nonjudgmental, for when you are nonjudgmental, you cast aside what is negative, and you lift up all that is loving.

We ask you to seek peace, to seek an understanding of your relationship to all forms of energy that you acknowledge. We ask you to apply in your lives what you know to be true, and to cast away concerns about all that is negative that you see in others as well as in yourselves. True happiness is an acknowledgment of what is good. When you seek peace, you seek happiness. You seek balance, and that balance is life-affirming when it is focused on what is good, what is loving in all of its manifestations.

Be refreshed by God’s loving Light.

Amen.

Human beings continue always to be fascinated with life beyond life, for it is for everyone the great unknown. You acknowledge a desire to develop faith in the existence of such life—the lives that we experience—and yet each of you has in your mind that sense of questioning, the sense of wondering what lives that you currently experience lead to. Where do your lives go? Where do they carry you? Why life? And you wonder about the true nature of the extension of life to come.

All human beings are part of a continuum—a continuum of life, a continuum of curiosity, a continuum of awareness, a continuum of some form of love. Your awareness of that condition that you currently experience varies from individual to individual and within your own lives from moment to moment. There are times when you are filled with faith, and there are other times when you are filled with doubt.

You wonder about the return of life from our side to your condition, from our sphere to your sphere. It is a question of reincarnation. If you accept the fact that there is no time, then you can begin to understand the impact, the meaning, of our instruction, our guidance to you, when we say as you wonder about your loved ones, whether they are reincarnated or whether they are still with us, we can say in all truth that both are a reality. There is no future. There is only what is. There is no time, as you measure it, but when you ask about such realities as reincarnation, you ask from the perspective of time, and we can say with all clarity that souls do experience more than one opportunity to learn through the human experience.

But the same souls also experience a rebirth in other life-forms that you have no awareness of. You do not reincarnate into a dog or a tiger. You do not reincarnate into a plant or a tree. You are given human life because there are lessons to be learned that can only be done in your life-form, but it is also true that there are other lessons to be learned as part of soul growth that take place in different life-forms.

You may wonder about the condition of family members and good friends that you have come to know and love. Are they with us or with you? There is no difference in space. There is no differentiation, as we have said, between being with us and with you. There is a difference of energy, a different form of energy, but no spirit, no soul, is totally with us and not with you. The souls of those you love are always with you, and therefore always with us. We could say they are with us, and therefore always with you.

The question of reincarnation as human beings perceive it is one of re-experiencing the energy that you know as human energy. The truth is that energy is constantly changing. A soul who experiences life within the context of your physical life experiences a very different type of life when associated with another human being. You cannot rightly say “so and so is clearly my late brother, someone else is clearly my late father or sister or mother,” for what the soul requires is now different. What you learn in your own physical being as a spirit is different from what is learned when associated so intimately with another human being.

If you wonder whether the spirit of one who has joined our spirit plane is again experiencing human life, we can say yes for some, no for others. But we can always, always assure you that there is a distinct level of consciousness, of awareness—of awareness of being alive, awareness of growth, awareness of development, direction, awareness of benefitting from the love of another and from an experience of being loving. No spirit, no soul, exists unconsciously. No spirit is totally asleep, as you think of sleep being a lack of consciousness. The spirit, the soul, experiences an awareness of self and an awareness of what is around, of who is around.

The spirit therefore continues a consciousness. That consciousness is experienced through human form, but also through other forms. As human beings you are only aware of one very thin plane of life, but life consists of an infinite number of layers, each layer dependent on others. There is no layer that is considered supreme or better than another, but each layer of life is different. Each layer has its own consciousness.

Those whom you have loved in human life remain aware of you. They remain aware of your love. They remain aware of your growth, your development. Your light is a visible presence to all spirits. Regardless of what plane of spiritual energy they may be experiencing, that plane of energy is permanently connected to all other planes. There is no distance, literally or figuratively, between these layers of life.

You as human beings are aware of only one plane of existence, and you seek to grow in your understanding of others. That is entirely appropriate, for you are asked to associate human life with a connectivity to all that you are aware of, but you must also understand that there are many other types of existence that human beings are incapable of perceiving. These other life-forms are not implied to be on other planets around the universe. There is indeed much life in the universe, but the types of life-forms we speak of also exist within your own space, your own sense of planet, your own sense of solar system. There are other life-forms that exist in your home, where you work, where you walk. There is much that is unseen, but it is not necessary for you to see all that exists. God provides you with an awareness that is appropriate for you as individuals and as a collective.

Have your parents reincarnated, and by your parents we refer to all parents? Yes, in that they are all filled with a consciousness that speaks of the Spirit Center, that speaks of the truth of your own lives. There is no period of spiritual growth that remains in the dark. All is to be seen from the spirit.

The question was raised about how human beings are made sensitive to the presence of guides. The souls that are your essence are part of this continuum of growth, of development, of affirmation. Souls who experience human life frequently feel the connection more intimately between human energy and the spirit energy that is our experience. If you consider for a moment what it means to travel between two very different cultures, if you experience both cultures frequently, then it is not a stretch to understand something of one culture while being immersed in the life of the other. If you have never experienced a given kind of life, then it is more difficult to acknowledge the link between both.

Having said that, we also want to reiterate that each of you is guided. Each of you has experienced those nudges, those gut feelings that something must be done or that a certain condition is being encountered. Everyone has that capability, and that ability is no less than the ability of those whose spirits have traversed these different energy forms frequently. It is not a matter of strength of spirit that differentiates those who communicate easily with us. It is a matter of experience. It is a kind of remembering that takes place at a very deep level. But all have the ability. All benefit. All have some means to be guided in a way that benefits others.

You can choose to participate, to acknowledge, to listen, to be aware, or you can choose to ignore out of disbelief or a fear that such engagement is purely human-made and not God-made. But those are your choices. If you are open, you will receive the guidance you seek.

As you experience the learning that takes place through multiple human lives, you find it easier to slip, as it were, between both energy forms with little effort. There is no other qualification. There is no other element that differentiates those who feel comfortable in various energy forms and those who are less receptive. Your human lives are characterized by growth. Some of that growth may be developing the ease, the faith, the peace that provides the bridge you seek.

Your guides understand human life, for we have experienced it. We have also experienced other life-forms, and because of our experience, we are able to focus your souls on the loving light that is God’s presence.

Trust in this unity of existence—multiple energy forms belonging to the same entity, multiple consciousnesses that exist simultaneously. Acknowledge who is next to you, recognizing that each is an extension of the other. Acknowledge your environment as an extension one from the other. Commit yourselves to the unity of which we speak. Have faith in the reality of many life-forms, many kinds of consciousness, many levels of awareness, and be grateful and humble when your awareness extends beyond yourselves. You are part of the universe, a uni-verse, a singleness of existence having many components, but all belonging to one, mainly each other, collectively embraced by the loving light and presence that is God.

You are blessed in your awareness. You are blessed in your peace. You are blessed in your vision. You are blessed in your seeking. We are united with you through the loving light of God.

Amen

At our last gathering, we spoke much of our relationship to you and your relationships to us. But it is the wish of the Spirit Center that is God that you understand more about your relationship to God and God’s relationship to you.

Human beings are always prone to a description of God in human terms. You talk about God’s love. There has been much written that talks of God’s judgment, God’s anger, of the weakness of humankind, of the ultimate strength and power and force of God. Much has been written about a God who is loving to a select few. There has been much written about those who are in some way saved at the expense of others. So much has been said of God. So much has been written about God, written as if the author had full and perfect knowledge of who God is, filled with human characteristics.

We are here to explain in terms that are designed for you that God is not a human being who looks out upon creation and says it is good or it is bad. God does not select some to be saved and others to be damned. There is not in reality a God that sits in judgment. You will not be brought before God as a human-like presence for the purpose of evaluating whether you deserve the goodness that is God or the punishment that is a lack of God. There is no judgment in God. God is not about being disappointed or pleased, as these characteristics are so human in their form. God is beyond a sense of human characteristics.

God is a power, a strength, a presence. The closest that human beings can understand of what God is is for us to reiterate what you have heard countless times: God is love—not God is loving—God is love. To the extent that you become love, you become a part of what God is. This love is in fact a connection to all that has been created. It is a power that unites everything together.

When you acknowledge a tree in the woods, and you acknowledge its beauty, its power, its size, its resilience, its importance to your environment, its importance merely because it is, you are loving that tree for what it is, not for what it isn’t. You are not loving it because you can take from it as you wish. You are loving it merely because it is. You feel in that moment your connection to that tree. If you can feel such a connection to a tree, can you not also feel a close connection to every human being that you encounter?

Somehow humankind is selective in what it considers important, worthy of being loved. There is no selectivity in the sense of God’s relationship to All That Is. There is no selectivity between a blade of grass and an animal across the globe. Both exist, both belong. You belong, the animals of the field belong, the grasses of the world belong. It is this connectedness of All That Is that is reality, a presence that you seek as you call out to God.

God exists, not just in the fact that everything exists, for everything needed to begin. Everything has a sense of evolution. Human beings are part of that evolution. They’re not necessarily at the top, but they are a part of the process. You are a part of the process. This process of evolving means the process of growth. Evolution is merely growth and adaptation and reconciliation.

We ask you to reconcile with one another, to find common ground, to find what unites you, not what divides you. What unites you ultimately is a part of the reality of what God is. God is love, but love which is a power which unites everything together. When all recognize such unity, there is only peace. There is only a sense of continuity. There is only a sense of belonging. Life always continues, and life always evolves.

As people prepare to enter our life-form, you often refer to it as a transition, and that is what it is. There is no end; there is only change. You experienced transition in birth; you experience transition in death. But birth is not a beginning. Birth is merely a physical incarnation of change that is taking place. Life begins long before conception. Life continues after what you perceive to be death. Consciousness, when understood as an awareness of all that is around you, continues. There is no change that stops such awareness, but merely transforms and expands that awareness. That awareness really is a sense of being One.

We do not see you as something far separate from us. You do not see your hand as a separate entity from who you see yourselves to be. God, the power of love, the communion of love, does not see you as being separate and needing to be deserving of love. You belong to All That Is. You belong to all that continues.

When you were mere young children, you were not different in terms of the essence of who you are. You were not different from what you currently are. You have changed, of course, but you are the same person. You have an identity which continues beyond childhood, and that identity remains with you in adulthood. That identity is also a part of what you bring to our level, our phase, our stage of life. Yes, you go through changes from childhood to adulthood, but you are really in essence no different. You have evolved. You have become deeper. You have become more understanding, but you are what you were, and you are what you will be.

God, the Spirit Center, the Center of all consciousness, the Center of all harmony, of all peace, is aware of your own continuity. God, as the Spirit Center, is aware that you are precisely the same as you were at birth, as you were before birth. It is your perspective that changes, but you are what you have always been, and you must believe you are what you will always be. There is no beginning. There is no end. There is just change, balanced with the continuity that you are what you are. This continuity is characteristic of God.

God seeks balance. God means balance. God assists in balance—balance emotionally, balance spiritually, balance physically. All that you seek that you perceive to be good is precisely a descriptor of what it is that you and we refer to as God. You are elevated through God. You’re uplifted, you’re supported because God is the creative power, the creative energy that has given you human life. The nature of your lives may change, but the nature of the creative spirit, of the peaceful presence, of the uplifting support that is God does not change in substance. But God does grow as you become more compassionate, as you become more loving. As you resemble more and more what it means to be love, you are increasing all that God is.

You cannot destroy God. You can deny the existence of a Spirit Center, if that is your choice, but that has no effect on the reality which is God Is, and therefore You Are. You Are because God Is. You are in a state of becoming so that you may be God. It is not a statement of arrogance to assert that each of you is God. It is a statement of fact. The hand that you see is a part of you. You and the hand belong together. Your feet and your hands have different purposes, but they belong to the same organism, the same entity, the same reality. The context may be different, but in reality the totality is one person. Your feet, your hands, your heart, your brain all are differentiated, and yet all belong to a single entity.

You belong to the entity that is God. You belong to all that is created, and you belong to all that belongs to the Creator, for all that is created is the Creator. God does not just create what you see with your senses. God is you. God is what is created. God is the force of creation. God is the continuity of all that exists. You are a part of that web of unity.

When people claim that they have been chosen by God for a particular purpose, those may be arguments that have validity for those who hold them. But in fact, there is nothing that is chosen, that is somehow exclusionary, for God does not exclude, but rather includes.

All That Is belongs—all that you see and hear and taste and touch. All that you are aware of belongs. But also, all that you are not aware of—other life-forms that you have spoken of. All belong. All are a part of God. You are in no way separated from a living entity somewhere else in the heavens. You may not be aware of one another, you may not sense another’s existence, but you and the other both belong to the web of creation. You are therefore both a part of God. You both have a capacity to be loving, as we define loving to be totally accepting without judgment and with mutual concern for the uplifting of another.

All That Is is in part God. That simple statement means that each of you belongs to one another. If you treat another with abuse, you are abusing yourselves. You are abusing the whole concept of God. You cannot turn your back to God, therefore you cannot turn your back to your fellow human being. You cannot turn your back to your environment that sustains you. You must always acknowledge, and in acknowledging, you are reaching out and touching God.

God’s compassion is not a compassion of human form, but rather is a caring for All That Is. You sense God’s caring because you exist. The more aware you are of your lives, the more of God you can perceive, and you will soon recognize that God is all around you. God is not in a kind of heaven that is above you. We are not in a kind of heaven that is above you. We are inside you, we are next to you, we are looking down upon you, we are looking up to you, we are looking inward to you. There is virtually no space between you and us, and as a result, since both you and we are part of the creation of the Spirit Center, there is no distance between you and anything you perceive in your lives. Distance, the concept of distance, of separateness, has been created through your brain as a way of orienting one part of your evolutionary life. But the reality is there is no separation, either between you and your surroundings, or you and us, your guides, or you and God, the Spirit Center.

God comforts because the natural state of everything is balance, and balancing and being balanced are the antithesis of pain and suffering. So seek balance. Seek an acknowledgment of what is. Seek a vision that includes you as an equal partner in what has been created. In so doing, you will see God more clearly. You will hear God more clearly, and you will find yourselves transforming from being loving to Love.

You are blessed in that vision. You are blessed in the unity with God and with one another.

Amen.

We know what you experience. We know much of what it means to live a human life. We know of your concerns. We know of your worries, fears. We know of your rejoicings. We know when you feel successful. We know when you feel a sense of failure. We know your pride in those moments when you feel yourselves elevated to be the best you can be as loving human beings. We know your sense of disappointment when you become aware of those events that do not reflect your true faith.

But we know these because of our having had experience in human form. There are many spirits who have experienced other life-forms, but your guides have one thing in common, and that is to have existed at some point as human beings. Because of that experience, it is our understanding that you experience emotions, personal feelings that are in common with all human beings. There is no emotion, there is no sense of joy or sadness, that any of you encounter that is unique to you.

All human beings have a story. All human beings have a set of life experiences. Those stories, those life experiences, differ in detail but not in substance. The substance we speak of is the need to be loved, the need to be cared for, the need to somehow at some level be responsive to others. Those needs are shared by every human being. How those needs are played out differs for each person, but the basic needs that we enumerate are a part of every human being.

Because we have also experienced them, we are in a position to respond to what is really important in your lives. Our response to those needs is through loving instruction. This instruction may be by words. It may be by a kind of sixth sense, an intuitive feeling. It may be experienced in a very physical capacity. But our engagement with your lives is facilitated by having shared in what it is you experience. The day to day details of your lives are very different from what many of us have experienced, but those details are actually insignificant.

We love you because you exist, because you are sacred. It is the sacred bond that allows us to share a reality, a consciousness with you. Part of our responsibilities, our loving activity, is to challenge your perceptions of what it means to be alive. You’re asked to think beyond your own lives. You’re asked to see beyond your vision. You’re asked to touch beyond your reach. You’re asked to dream beyond your knowledge. You’re asked to love beyond your vision, beyond what you see to be valuable, beyond what you see to be meaningful or relevant to your individual lives. These are the challenges that contribute to your growth as spiritual beings.

If we had no experience living the essential lives that you live, it would be most difficult to communicate with you in a manner that is recognizable by you. Our function within your lives is to be a constant presence. It is our wish to provide relevance that connects your daily experience with a more profound spiritual reality. By making this connection, your lives take on more meaning, and as that meaning is increased, you become more sensitized to all of life around you, all that has been created that surrounds your presence.

But what does this mean for you? What is your response to our presence? Your response continually varies, and that is to be expected. Sometimes you respond to our presence without a conscious acknowledgment of our existence. Sometimes that response is directed clearly to us or to God. In those moments when you have the clarity of mind to acknowledge that you are indeed being guided, you are establishing a context in your life. When you see there is evidence of God, you are providing a context, you are giving meaning to all you experience and endure.

It is not God’s anticipation or our expectation that you are constantly aware of your guides. We are with you. We support you. We uplift you. We guide you. We protect you. We acknowledge you, whether or not we are acknowledged by you. What we do for all human beings is initiated out of love. There is no other motivation.

You have heard God described as love. That is certainly an important part of God as a reality, but love is not a passive presence. It is active. It is creative. It is through the presence of the Spirit Center, Love, that all is created. But you are not asked to fully understand the nature of that creativity, for that is an issue that is of God’s making. Not understanding all there is to creation is considered okay. It is not a requirement. You are not in some way failing when you acknowledge the difficulty of grasping what the totality of God’s creation really means and your place within that.

Despite the impossibility of full knowledge of all related to creation, you are nevertheless asked to find ways of interacting through your own understanding. Some individuals have a greater understanding, and therefore their interaction will be different from those whose understanding is limited. But such differences in this understanding cannot be the subject of judgment. You learn as you learn. You learn as you are conscious to learn. Your perspective is grounded upon what you have learned, and as your understanding changes, the perspective changes, and your vision of creation will in turn evolve.

These messages that are shared with you are always given with our understanding that they may at one point have less relevance and yet at another moment greater relevance. But they are a glimpse of what is true. They are our means of communicating in a very discrete, clear manner that which is important ultimately to take within you and make a part of you. Your response to what we share is always appropriate, for you can only respond as you hear and see and feel and know. But despite the variety of responses, the truth remains.

As you are aware of your guides, always seek an understanding of what that presence means. You don’t need to hear words, but you do need to feel something within. There are moments in your lives when feeling something within that is spiritual is far from your chief concerns, and there are other moments when there is great clarity and great understanding. That difference in your response is understandable, for each of you has your own set of concerns, your own set of close family and friends for whom you have a vested interest based on love. Just as each of you has a different history, each of you has a different response to what is there.

Your lives understandably must interact with whatever surrounds you, but you must each seek those opportunities for drawing away from your daily demands to just listen. Even if what you hear is the falling rain or the crackling of a candle, in hearing, you may be brought to the hands of God. Your hearing can be one of greater understanding, understanding of what it means to be loving. Hearing may involve an awareness of the needs of those around you. Hearing may be a conscious identity with events that have had great impact on your lives.

You approach an important anniversary of a great tragedy that your nation has experienced, a great tragedy that families still wrestle with, a great tragedy that questions where do you go from here? What can be learned from what was experienced? These are a kind of crossroads affecting many people, many different perspectives, many different contexts, many different histories.

Where do you go when you contemplate an awareness of events that you see in the past? It is important always to remind yourself that it is not something in the past any more than it is something in the future. It remains in the now. There is no past. What you experienced is really what you continue to experience. The suffering that was endured is the suffering that is endured. Events that you see from the past are events that affect you at this moment. There is no real separation. There is only a change in perspective, a change in context. But what your nation recalls as a great recent tragedy is part of a chain of countless tragedies that have encased the lives of countless people.

What do you take from experiencing such profound grief and loss? You must look upon such events as an expression or an acknowledgment of the need each of you has for one another. You can take away from such suffering a commitment to the sacredness of human life. You can take from such events a commitment to find ways of being more effective listeners, listeners who direct attention to where there is deep human need.

You do not live on a series of islands. You happen to live sharing a common place within the limitless heavens of God’s creation. You are all in the same place. Each of you shares a common relationship, a need to be loved, and the capacity of knowing what it means to be loving, however that may be expressed. You take from such tragedies an increased valuation of the importance of all that is created, whether human or not. You can take from this place a respect and a love for all things—human, inhuman—a respect for all that seems positive, and an acknowledgment of the negative forces that you experience in your lives, belonging to your lives, for purposes that are known to God but must be acknowledged by human beings.

Losses always create pain, but such pain can drive human beings to great acts of compassion. The real power of loss is the development of a context for love. Initially loss produces anger, but ultimately that anger leads to a sense that somehow God is not only present but necessary, that God is ultimately inevitable, that love ultimately is victorious, that out of pain, out of that hatred must come love and reconciliation.

Look upon losses that you have experienced and seek evidence of reconciliation, seek grounds that provide comfort, seek opportunities that demonstrate the presence of love within the context of loss. In so doing, you will clearly see God’s presence, and your response to our efforts to clarify God will be strong and true. None of this happens in the blink of an eye but rather belongs to your spiritual growth, belongs to your response to guidance, and ultimately is guidance itself, for in your response you become a kind of spiritual guide for those whom you love. Love all, and your guidance will embrace all.

We embrace you with our love, and with God’s great warmth and light. God Is! You Are! Rejoice!

Amen.

Life brings with it for each person challenges, moments of joy, moments of fear, moments of pleasure, moments of suffering. You wonder about the presence, the function, the importance, the relevance of God when all seems dark and when things seem without hope. God is with you in those moments, just as lovingly as when you are filled with gratitude and thanksgiving. God is with you in those moments of darkness in equal measure to when you experience moments of great balance in your lives.

If God loves you, why are you allowed to experience the darkness in the midst of the reality that is fully Light? As was mentioned, there is a naturalness, a sense of connection, a rhythm that belongs to all that exists. You may feel at times there is disorder and unrestrained chaos, but the truth is that all that happens, all that exists, exists because there is God. It is not God that creates the storm, but it is because of God that storms exist. It is not that God wishes you to experience pain, but rather pain exists because God exists.

The events that occur in life are the result of the natural rhythm of what has been created. When you experience pain, the pain is not a random entity that suddenly exists. Pain is a signal that there is some kind of imbalance. This pain may be a physical pain, it may be an emotional/psychological pain, but clearly the pain is evidence of imbalance that may occur.

All that happens in life is a function of the reality that creation is taking place, creation has taken place, creation will take place. Creation is never static. Creation evolves, and it is because of the existence of God that there is creation. You belong to that system of all that exists, and part of that system is consonant—part of that system is dissonant. Consonance has no meaning without the presence of dissonance. Both are required for the music of life. Both are required for balance. Balance is never achieved when all of the weight is on one side of a fulcrum. Balance is when there are forces that seemingly are opposing one another, but in reality create a sense of stability. You cannot have balance without the fulcrum. You cannot have balance without the scale that measures that balance, and it is God that creates the system that allows for balance to occur.

There are of course opposing forces in life, but those opposing forces belong. Human existence is never a journey in a straight line. You are always pulled in one direction and then another direction, but that countering of energies is what ultimately ensures the final stability that we all seek. That stability is a total union with God, such that you are fully God. You are fully faith. You achieve the peace. You become the peace. It is God’s intention that there will always be forces that counter one another—the positive, the negative. The actions of an atomic particle, the electric charges of an atomic particle are all part of the balance. What brings joy, what brings sadness are part of that balance.

Yes, there is lots of suffering, and you may feel that it is somehow cruel when anyone suffers, but that suffering serves a purpose far greater than the individual awareness. If you are a particle with negative energy, you may perceive life as being negative. If you are a particle that is positive energy, you might perceive the reality as being only positive, but both the negative and positive particles complement one another. They provide an identity to the element being studied.

You are given a kind of personal identity through your experience of what is positive and what is negative. You are given strength, you are given perspective, you are ultimately given humility, and out of that humility you are given love. Love flourishes only through humility. Humility is never achieved without an understanding of what seems negative, and yet can be viewed within a greater perspective that acknowledges the positive. You become humble when you recognize your own shortcomings, when you recognize your own sufferings, and identify the reality that those sufferings are no different from others, that you are not singled out to be special in some unique and elevating manner. When you realize that your lives are touched by the same forces that touch all other lives, that you and another are really equal, acknowledging that equality is the first step to becoming loving, and that step is achieved through the humility of which we speak. If many who were around you suffer, and you perceive your life to be free of any suffering, you will not achieve the humility that is necessary in order to become loving, and ultimately to become Love.

So your experience of pain, your recognition of the pain of others contributes to your sense of absolute equality. Becoming loving requires an experiencing of what may seem negative to you. You don’t become loving just through happiness. You experience happiness by becoming loving, and that happiness is experienced through an acknowledgment of the importance of all varieties of life—achievement, failure, joy, sadness, health, illness, confidence, discouragement, courage, fear. The list is unending, but this contrast of positive and negative resides permanently in importance as you grow in spirit.

You hate to see the suffering of others, and you easily ask, “Where can God be to allow something so horrible to happen?” But if you step back and realize that your experience of life is only a part of the totality of creation, then you are on your way to accepting what life gives you, accepting the experiences that are yours as gifts. So often we say you learn through the challenges, and yet it is often felt, “I have enough challenges. I don’t want more. The learning has to rest. The challenges must cease.” The human spirit can be fatigued by challenges. The human spirit can be pulled down by whatever is perceived as negative. But if you accept that all which takes place occurs because God exists, then you are on the path toward experiencing reality on a far greater plane.

It is because God Is that you are. It is also because God Is that all happens. Your lives are not specially determined as being created by God in opposition to what else may exist, for there is no opposition. There is nothing that exists that has not been created by the Spirit Center that is God. Because it has been created, there is purpose, there is value. From your perspective, you may not see that purpose. You may not acknowledge its value. All you see is a countering force. All you see is the other side of the fulcrum. All you see is the other side of the scale, the balance. But God creates the balance that is necessary.

You seek peace, and that is a condition of seeking, of moving toward, but in that seeking you recognize that there is a reality that is labeled as peace, and therefore you see yourself seeking what is a reality. But the counterbalance to peace is also a reality. Does God intend individuals to fight in wars? Specifically “no,” but God creates human beings who grow and whose souls experience the challenges of human life. That growth is never in a straight line, but that growth is assured. The direction of that path of growth may at times wander into conflict with others. God does not wish the conflict, but God ordains the process of growth. When there is war, when there is strife, when there is any discord, that discord is a lack of balance in the process of growth. For growth to be achieved, there must be detours, and those wrong turns in life invariably conflict with the paths of others.

What is happening for every human being is growth. There is some measure of movement toward God in virtually every life, even when you consider individuals who seem the very embodiment of evil. God ordains growth. It is God’s will, as felt by many, that growth must be achieved. Growth is a process. The process is necessary. When there is conflict, when there is destruction of the natural environment, when there is anything that is perceived as being negative, that action is still a function of growth at some level.

It is for that reason that we always urge that you must be nonjudgmental. You are not asked to approve of all actions, but you are asked to acknowledge that even in actions that are perceived to be negative, there is something that is being affected positively and which grows closer to God. You are asked to be nonjudgmental of an individual, while at the same time making a determination whether the actions of another are appropriate or not. You can condemn the actions but never the person. The actions that you see are never the full story. They tell only a part of what lies within someone else.

You are all equal. You are all growing. Your paths are sometimes parallel. Sometimes they move in contrary direction. Your lives sometimes are consonant with another, and at another moment may create great dissonance, but that dissonance is part of the process of growth.

It makes little sense to ask yourself constantly, “Does God belong to the suffering?” It is more beneficial to your spiritual development to say that God exists, and therefore all that God creates exists. All that happens is because there is a God. You thereby acknowledge that God is present, but avoid the pitfall of trying to second-guess whether God wants that suffering to take place, whether God wants that imbalance to take place. It is not a matter of what God wants, but rather it is the reality, the natural course that God creates.

All that God creates is directed toward a kind of coming home. All that God creates is related permanently to a spiritual center point, a spiritual energy, a spiritual life-force that insists all exists that must exist. You will never ultimately sort out the reason why all exists, but that is not your goal in life. Your goal is rather to fully acknowledge that God Is, and you belong to that marvelous creation. It is through your understanding of belonging that you embrace All That Is, and that you work for consonance, you work toward balance.

Where you see what you perceive to be negative, dedicate yourself to being a positive presence, and that effort that you make, all that you do that is positive, brings strength to your spirit, to your soul, and to the spirit centers of all others. Live your life focused on creating that balance, of being positive, and allow yourself to accept, even without understanding, that which seems dark and negative, knowing full well that all that is positive and all that is negative exists because God Is.

You are blessed in the creation. You are blessed in your ability to transform—to transform what you see that is negative into an image that reflects your understanding of God.

Amen.

Every human being has the potential to experience firsthand a moment of infinite peace. Your discussion this evening included some personal experiences, each offering a quick image of what it means to be fully aware through spirit. In experiencing such views, there is no requirement or necessity to think consciously, “This is God.” You may consider that after such moments, but the beauty of the moment is in being within that moment and being surrounded by that moment.

There are times when you experience joy and peace. These moments are not in anyway unique, but they reflect a kind of shawl or umbrella of peace, the feeling of being connected with All, that we feel and that is the essence of a spirit life. Such moments are never planned. They may be sought after, but there is no way to consciously prepare. They don’t just happen randomly, since that reality is already there. Rather you are momentarily open to see what is and not merely what appears to be.

Our lives as your guides, indeed the lives of all spirits, may be characterized as a constant openness to what is. We have referred to God and the reality of God simply by saying, “God Is.” There is nothing more profound yet more simple to state than that reality, and when you experience these glimpses of what is, you are actually experiencing a glimpse of God.

You’re asked always to be open—be open in spirit, be open in intention, but not necessarily to be active in your seeking. How is it that you can avoid seeking and yet be open in intention? Seeking is an active pursuit of something beyond yourself. Being open in intent is meant to suggest that it is your objective to be aware, to be vulnerable to what is already inside you and not necessarily outside you. The peace that you described is not so much a peace existing in something you seek, but rather a peace that belongs to a part of what lies within.

All that you seek is really contained within you. Being prayerful means being open to potential, but this is not a potential that lies beyond you. It is the potential that is you. You and the potential are one. You and the peace you seek are really one. When you are open to your own potential, you are open to experiencing deep within and very personally that which you seek—the peace, the love, the compassion, the sense of light.

We ask you frequently to open your eyes to light, but the light that we refer to is really a light that resides within you. When you feel yourself to be in a dark place, you are merely blocking your view of what is bright within. You have not been created by God for the purpose of seeking what lies beyond you. You are not being given life merely to be a mirror of what is beyond you, but rather to be the very reflection of what is within.

All life is sacred, and therefore every human being is sacred, and if each one of you is sacred, you are sacred because of who you are, what is within you. You are not sacred because of something that lies beyond your grasp, that lies somehow outside of you, whether at great distance or nearby. You are sacred because of the Spirit Center that is within you. That energy, that light, is already there, and you have the potential to reflect that light outward.

That reflection is not just as a mirror reflects. Think of your life as a kind of lens or magnifying glass. A lens takes light and transmits it, focuses it, helps provide its energy, its intensity, its brilliance, and its warmth. Therefore, consider your lives as an effort to take what is within, the light within, and focus it outward.

Of course there are times when you need to replenish, to refuel, to receive nourishment. That belongs to the human experience, but when you are replenished, when you are refueled, you then have the potential of refocusing what is inside to help illuminate what is beyond you.

The illumination you seek, therefore, comes initially from within and is transmitted outward. It is not a matter of just receiving this illumination from elsewhere. A magnifying glass and a lens let light pass through in both directions. It is so in your lives. The brilliance that surrounds you is in part the brilliance of others, and as that brilliance is disseminated, you absorb it. It comes your way. Your lens focuses that brilliance within. Then you are strengthened and enabled to reflect that light outwards, to focus that light, to pass it on to others.

Your lives in fact are not passive. Your spiritual development is not merely a passive act of taking what comes. Your development is directly related to your ability to focus that spiritual light, to act as a lens, to act as a magnifying glass.

The question is raised of how you can help us. You help us when you allow yourself to focus the spirit energy within so that it may be disseminated to all around you. It is by what you do that we are nourished. It is by your effort, your awareness of your spiritual core that we are given assistance. Part of that effort on your part can be through prayer—prayer that acknowledges with total commitment that God Is, and because God Is, you are. That acknowledgment of your connection to what is godly is the nourishment that feeds much of our development. When you pray for us, we grow, not because of what you say, but rather because you acknowledge through your own spiritual awareness that God Is.

Ultimately the purpose of our guidance is to bring you to an acceptance that God Is and therefore you are, that you are connected directly to God. Is there a more important insight to be gathered in life than that? Absolutely not, for it is in that recognition and your commitment to that reality that all that you do flows naturally. It is in that recognition that you become the peace you seek, that you become the compassion that you wish to exercise. All comes from that simple reality: God Is and therefore you are.

What is difficult for all human beings is to accept that reality fully and not to doubt it, regardless of what transpires, either in your lives or the world that surrounds you. That recognition is your rock. It is your foundation. From that foundation, all else grows and expands. That recognition is the center point of human existence. There is a difference between hearing and somewhat believing in that reality, and a total acceptance of what that means. It takes much time, it takes much thought, and it takes a willingness to be open. If this were easy to accomplish, there would be little need for continuous thought and consideration on your part of that reality. You would hear it, and you would say, “Okay, that is it. I know the ultimate truth,” and the need for such gatherings as you experience would vanish. But the human condition is one that requires great effort to come to that point in your lives when that ultimate reality is fully and totally embraced.

Our work as your guides is devoted to your acceptance of that truth. You know it, but you must now become that acknowledgment. That acknowledgment must be who you are. There is a difference between knowing a truth and being the truth, and we, your guides, ask you to become what it is that you know. You know what faith means, but you must become faithful—full of faith. When you are full of faith, there is no room for fear, no room for anxiety, for you become entirely faithful. There are many who claim to be faithful, when what they mean is that they are committed to seeking faith, seeking a commitment to the reality that God Is and therefore you are. But being in the process of seeking, you are not faithful; you are a faith seeker.

We ask you to shape your lives so that your faith seeking may bring you to becoming faithful. It is a process that is lifelong in its development. No human being is absolutely faithful, but there are many who commit their lives as faith seekers—seekers of the truth. This truth is all-inclusive. There is no one who is left out of “therefore you are.” It is not “God Is and therefore some are.” All are because God Is. All contain within them a part of what God is, and it is for that reason that you are godly, that you are loving, that you are faith-seeking.

If you accept that this is a process, the central process of life, then you acknowledge it is the central process of all human beings. It is something you share with all human life. There are those further along in their seeking, but there are none who are separated from that effort.

In seeking understanding, it is of course important to experience your own sense of space. You cannot give without replenishment. The well runs dry unless there is a source of water. The well must be refilled in order to provide nourishment, but the purpose of the well is not merely to be filled. The purpose of the well is to nourish, provide sustenance, for those who draw from it.

Do not make the mistake of perceiving your lives as just supplying water for another, but allow the spring to fill the well. Give yourself an opportunity to be in your own space, to be replenished, so that you can continue to reflect and to focus the spirit life, allowing spiritual flow to occur. You grow through your exercise of space—space to be replenished, space to give. Allow yourself to be the receivers of strength so that you can commit yourself to be a reflection of that strength.

We are always with you as you serve to transmit what is within to all who are beyond your own physical space. We are with you as the light within erases that sense of separation. We are with you as that light tears down the barriers that separate you from another. And we are with you as you seek to become the reality that God Is and therefore you are.

Amen.

When life is providing you with affirmation, it is easy in turn to affirm the belief that God is present, and yet in those periods in your life when you feel overcome by darkness, it is most difficult to recognize the presence of God. It is far too easy to feel lost, to feel rudderless, to feel void of any guidance.

We know that feeling because we have also experienced life in human form, among other forms, and we relate very directly to the lives that you experience collectively and individually. Because of our having shared in the experience of human life, we are given this blessing of expressing our love for each of you through our service as your guides. You pray to God, and that is fully expected, and you acknowledge our presence at selected moments like this, but we serve God through our service to you. It is not by a sense of duty, but rather is fed and directed by our expression of love for you.

Every human being is given guidance—that you know. You are not singled out to be guided in a special way in this group. Rather, you are part of this gathering because you happen to share points in common on your path of spiritual growth. Your paths intersect, as it were. It is part of your journey. It is not by obligation. It is not by special designation from God. All people have the same opportunity of being guided, and yet no two people receive guidance in exactly the same way.

Our activities as your guides are designed in a way that is specifically appropriate for your individual needs. It is the need that directs the guidance. It is not so much an assignment. You do not technically select your guides, but you do make choices in your lives within a range that we know, and therefore we are enabled to assist you in those choices. Just as no two human lives are identical, no two guides are identical. We serve as your guides, but we are not alone. All human beings are served and comforted and guided by a multitude of spirits. It is never just one.

When you experience your own frustrations and anxieties, it is at those times that you should open your hearts to your guides and acknowledge God’s presence. We mentioned that every life has some component that is in balance. That balance is actually an acknowledgment of God. There are countless ways that human beings acknowledge God, but when you identify that part of your life where you feel an inner peace, stop for a moment and recognize that that peace is God’s peace, and that that peace that you experience is your glimpse of the total loving support that you receive from God and from your guides. When you recognize a part of your life that is peaceful, that does not mean that is the only part that contains God, but it is your window, it is your portal that provides a recognition that indeed you are held in God’s hands.

You’re not expected, of course, nor are you obliged to make such acknowledgments of God, but if you know as you experience a balance, be it only momentary, that you can see God in that, you will be given the strength to keep on—to keep on seeking, to keep on adjusting, to keep on growing. When you recognize that portal, you then know that you are always in the view of God.

Love is a kind of portal to a vision of God. We ask you to be loving, knowing you will not be fully Love in human form. By being loving, you are in fact acknowledging the presence of God in the reality and presence of someone else. Being compassionate is seeing God in someone else. In exercising concern about the environment, you are seeing God in the world about you. You may not be consumed by thoughts of the environment on a daily basis, but the mere recognition of your own concerns is an acknowledgment. When you seek environmental peace, you are acknowledging the potential for a balance to exist in your environment. You’re opening yourself to that potential.

The act of prayer is an acknowledgment of potential. You may see it as an act of faith, but at its most basic level, you are affirming potential. You affirm something in the life of another person. You are acknowledging the potential that person owns in his or her life, and that is seeing God in that person. It is not necessary, therefore, to constantly ask yourself, “Where is God in my own life?”, for the answer to that question is often clouded in fear, anxiety, worry, pain, sadness. But in those moments when you feel your lives are cloaked in a kind of darkness, turn your eyes away from self and consider ways that you have seen God in someone else.

We say you seek to be loving; ultimately you will be Love itself. We could say, “Seek to be as you perceive God,” but only in the future, as you view it, will you become God.

There are many whose lives are governed by self-pity, are governed by fear—fear of some kind of loss. All of those feelings are directed inward in a very limiting fashion, and ultimately serve to reduce temporarily your vision of God in your own lives. It is for this reason that we urge you in times of discouragement or fear or alienation to consider how God is reflected in others. What this does is not only affirm another, but it also strengthens your understanding that even when you find it difficult to see God, God is still there with you.

You’re asked to be loving because you’re being asked to see God in your neighbor, whether that is a neighbor in a physical sense or a personal sense. Love is recognizing God’s presence. There are many definitions of love—physical love, emotional love, spiritual love. All forms of love are an affirmation of God, and all true expressions of love are directed outward, not inward, for love is the bright light that expands. It is not a light which is directed solely to self.

Living, as we said earlier, is not about duty. Living is about vision. Living is seeing another, loving another, seeing God, seeing the evidence of God’s presence in another. You don’t have to see God in a visual sense. Seeing God means recognizing God’s presence. That presence may come to you in quiet, in silence, but that presence may also come to you in a great rush and with high intensity. Recognizing God in another is a strong component of what it means to be truly alive.

You encounter strangers, but in such encounters, recognizing they share the same spark of God that you do means that when you respond to them, you are responding to God, and since all is really one, in responding to God by way of another, you are responding to your own spiritual center.

Life is directed outward. It is not to deny that each of you has specific needs for which you pray. Those needs are important. Those needs sustain you. Those needs can strengthen you, but their purpose is to uplift you so that you then can see a vision of life beyond your own. You can reach out, and you can be giving and compassionate.

Being uplifted is not unlike standing at the window of a high tower. You see much more of what surrounds you than if you are sitting down on the ground. When you are uplifting to another, you are providing another with an even wider context of what it means to be alive. In encouraging you to be more compassionate, to be more loving, we are encouraging you to uplift so that the horizons of another are expanded and enriched.

You are what you do and not what you say. Your actions are a reflection of your beliefs. Your actions are a reflection of your sense of what is important and what is of lesser importance. Your actions provide a perspective of priorities. When those actions are sustaining and giving and loving, it demonstrates that such activities are important to who you are.

If you wish to reflect God, then be a reflection—don’t merely talk about it. If you wish to be an advocate for peace, then become an expression of peace, and not one who merely talks about it. Being compassionate is not putting the sense of responsibility on another. It is accepting your own actions as being loving and supportive beyond who you are.

Therefore, seek to become what you seek to experience. If you seek to experience compassion, be compassionate. If you seek the experience of love, be loving. If you seek the experience of peace, be peaceful. If you seek joy in the world, be joyful. Commit yourself to becoming what it is you seek, and in your seeking, find evidence as demonstrated by others and not yourself, for if you see yourself as the generator of what it is you seek, then what you do is self-serving, then what you do elevates yourself, then what you are doing is affirming yourself. God does not ask you to affirm yourself but to affirm all life around you. If you see the light in others, then that light will penetrate who you are, and you will become the light that you see.

Look around you. Find the light in others. Find the affirmation of God’s presence in others, and you will be strengthened in your conviction of God’s presence in your own life. When you pray to see God’s presence in your life, recognize that that is the result of your seeing God’s presence in the life of another. You become a light to others, just as others become a light for you. It is not for you to illuminate your own life and others to illuminate their own lives, for your lives will be illuminated as your vision is opened to all that is around you.

We pray for your vision. We pray for your openness to see the evidence of God in even one other person. That recognition will illuminate your own acknowledgment of God within you. The vision for you is a vision of light, and our prayers are for that vision to expand that you may see light, not just near you but far away—light that bathes the countryside in warmth and love. Seek that light, and that light will become yours.

You are blessed in the presence of God’s light, and may God’s light be your light.

Amen.