July 23, 2014

• All souls learn from similar life experiences

God, who is the Center of All That Is, is joined with the hands of each of you and fills your hearts with vision.

You spoke much at this time about the contrasts in your own lives, the contrasts you feel between what you experience and what others may endure. God’s light that is given to each of you is not provided so that all share the same life experiences. For some, at moments in their lives, the experience from day to day is an effort to survive, while for others, that day to day experience is characterized by an affirmation of what gives pleasure. Seen only in this light, one can only surmise that life is both unfair and cruelly ambivalent.

To gain meaning in the midst of such dichotomy requires each of you to alter your understanding of the nature of human life, for life is not to be described as for “the haves” and the “have nots,” for those indeed who “have not” actually share in what it means to experience plenty. Those whose lives can be described as among “the haves” will experience lives that truly have lacking, have emptiness, and their own kind of suffering or sense of abandonment in society. Life is more than about whether you sing or cry, for the act of crying also has within it a song, and for those who sing, they may sing of sadness. No human being is capable of understanding the basis for suffering or privilege.

As was brought out in your discussion, each of you has the same lessons to learn, lessons of spirit. There is no soul that accompanies human life that is somehow protected from some lessons needing to be learned. All souls develop through the same encounters with human life. That development does not occur at equal pace and in the same time frame as you perceive time to be.

For some souls at a particular slice of time, the greatest lesson to be learned is a heartfelt compassion. For other souls residing in that same timeframe, the lesson may be humility or finding a peace that is felt within. For other souls, it is specifically to learn the nature of spiritual reality, a kind of purity that resides within. So all souls are growing through different experiences, and yet all souls must traverse a path that includes experiences, lessons that are common to each.

Your paths intersect with one another at this moment because they must. There is indeed something that unites each of you with one another. You are not unique in meeting as a group. There are similar gatherings in every culture, and all seek the same: some kind of oneness with the creative force that is central to existence, for what is faith but an acknowledgment of that oneness.

No one can address the ills of the world in their entirety, but all individuals have the capacity to respond, in some fashion, positively to some component within their lives. That positive response, as we have often said, can be just listening, being there, not doing but being. There are times that are appropriate for each of you to be actively engaged, but there are equally times for more passive engagement, passive in appearance but not in intent.

The one who prays for peace, because of an acknowledgment of its need, prays in quiet repose which to others appears to be no action, for no one can fully grasp the thoughts of another. One merely observes or responds to the actions, the behavior, that are a reflection of thought. It is not necessary to be seen by others as engaged in a pursuit in order to be fully engaged. You can be committed and yet quiet. You can be, for a time, engaged and yet invisible. The quiet and the invisibility belie the engagement and intent.

You therefore cannot judge others by what you observe, and you cannot judge yourselves by the measuring stick that another imposes, for that measurement is not a full accounting of what it is you feel committed toward. The seeming split between where you are and what you observe in your lives is only an apparition. It is not really a substance. You cannot be responsible for everything, but you can always be responsive to something. When that responsiveness is directed toward the betterment of something you value, then such intention is precisely the reflection of your own spirit center.

You do not have to physically act in order to find engagement. Your prayers, your concerns, your compassion, your passion toward a given goal or objective are all appropriate and may not be apparent to others. What is important is your recognition that there is a means for you to positively connect with another. We’re not saying connection to a hundred others or a thousand others or a whole nation. If each individual were meaningfully connected to one person, the effect on the rest of the world would be extraordinary.

You find a connection with others because that is the natural tendency of spirit. If you engage with others through thoughtful compassion, then you are benefitting others. There is much to be gained through such commitment. No one is inadequate in his or her ability to respond—no one. You may consider all types of human condition, but within every category there is the ability to be responsive. Such responsiveness may be invisible, but response there definitely is.

You may minister to someone who is greatly diminished in mental or physical capacity, and there will nevertheless be a response. It may be a response of mood. It may be a response that is spoken. It may be a response that is observed through heat, through breathing rate, through pulse, through electrical stimulation within the brain, through any number of ways that are not necessarily visible. Offering love to another is never really received in emptiness.

Therefore, the offering of such love is every bit as significant as a response through political or economic means to the suffering of those in another nation or community or family. No response that is offered with loving intent is less significant than another. Likewise, no response is more significant than another. If you see injustice, find some way to respond. It may not be in the theater of injustice but in the encounter with one other person that reflects a just and compassionate acceptance of another’s sacredness.

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Just as your souls are not at the same point in their journey as all souls, so your lives are not at the same point in your journeys. You recognize the latter, quite obviously, but

former can easily escape your vision. Proceed with an acknowledgment that the differences of which you are aware between people and groups, nations, or cultures are appropriate. There is no group, no person, no culture, nation that is the true representation of all that is godly. There are margins of error within all, and your experience in human form is one of accommodating those differences. This is not to suggest that you rejoice in suffering, but that rather you accept that such suffering that you experience or know of is truly a part of the grand creation that is God’s. If you criticize one corner of life as being fully outside of God, then you are being critical of God’s creation.

Yes, you learn through suffering, your own or the suffering of others, but you learn through acts of love. You learn through those acts, whether committed by you or others. You learn by standing and being counted on what for you is important, even if it is in disagreement with others, but they learn from their standing and being willing to be counted for something that is in disagreement with you. Neither they nor you have a corner on ultimate wisdom and ultimate godliness.

They are on a path; you are on a path. Their spirits are learning; your spirits are learning. What they have to learn is possibly what you ultimately have to learn. What they have learned may lie in your own future. What they are learning, you may have learned long ago, but that trajectory of growth, that trajectory of connection that provides the means of becoming love, still leads to the same end. You will, they will ultimately become a part of the totality of love that is God. That is their future; that is your future.

There is no hell. God’s creation does not provide for what is traditionally thought of as hell. There is only love in the end. Time does not exist, and therefore we can say there is only love. That’s all there is. You are becoming love; all are becoming love. Love is, and therefore you are. Allow this transformation to take place, recognizing the seeming inequality, the seemingly unfair nature of life’s experiences.

You all are learning, you all continue to learn, and you all are what it is you shall each become. You are already there.

Be peaceful as you encounter these many pathways, for the pathway of your neighbor is really your own pathway. The experiences are different, but the goal, the completion is identical. Be peaceful with how you and your lives are united. Be peaceful in your connection with your guides as well as your neighbors, and be peaceful as you consider that in all things, God is.

Amen.