December 11, 1997

• How guides recognize the presence of other souls

• The importance of relationships

Your guides share the light and warmth that we feel with each of you. So many times we mention that we are gathered as a group—in many ways, just as you are so gathered. For us, the nature of this gathering is far different despite the similarities. The similarities of course are communication, a sense of presence, but that is where the real similarities end. We are aware of one another’s presence because there is a particular feeling, a particular light by which all souls are recognized.

When you hear the voice of someone known well to you, you immediately feel in that other’s presence. It makes no difference that you do not see them, cannot touch them, cannot identify a particular space that they occupy. The mere presence of the voice provides the sense and benefit of closeness. Your reaction to the voice of someone you love is very similar to our reaction in the presence of a spiritual nearness. We recognize that spiritual proximity, we feel the spiritual warmth, we see the spiritual brilliance. Because of that recognition, we are easily in communication with each other.

There is no physical presence, of course. There is no place that is occupied by another soul any more than there is a place occupied by a voice. The voice is its own reality when you speak on the phone. The voice is what you hear. You may connect that voice with an association of place, but the voice itself has no place. It merely is. When you speak to someone on the telephone whom you love and who is located in a place you have never seen, never been to, that voice still has a reality. It still has an identity although it occupies no place. Regardless of your inability to see another whose voice you hear, you have no difficulty whatsoever communicating—communicating feelings, communicating expressions of love and compassion. In that communication, the absence of space has no bearing on the relationship to the voice that is heard.

That is much like our experience within the realm of the spirit. We communicate with one another through the presence of love, through the presence of compassion, through an atmosphere of sharing. That is a meaningful relationship, and that is the relationship that ultimately survives beyond the physical limitations of human life. When you think of our communication with one another resembling your communication with a voice heard in a distance or over the telephone, then you understand more fully what we mean when we indicate that each of your guides is assembled. We are fully present with one another although we occupy no space. We are able to express love and compassion although we occupy no space. The skills of expressing love and expressing compassion are therefore independent of the physical.

When you enter into a relationship with another that is characterized with compassion, with warmth, with love, trust, understanding, those characteristics have a life of their own, and it is that life that is unceasing. If you have a loving relationship with a relative who later moves to the spiritual plane of life, that loving relationship is retained, the feelings remain, the closeness remains. You may not see another and you may miss that sight, but the relationship itself endures.

The point that we are leading to here is that the only enduring quality experienced in human life is the relationship. It is not just the relationship with a spouse or a significant other but also relationships with associates, friends, neighbors, with others who share common concerns and interests. Treating another with respect is investing in a permanence—one that is constant—that is far more significant than any other activity in which you may engage. The importance of relationships exceeds personal success as measured by society, financial success, political success. However you may wish to identify humanity’s assessment of success, nothing compares with the importance of relationships.

It was expressed that you miss your departed loved one. He recognizes that. But what is most important is not that he recognizes it, but that you recognize it, for you are acknowledging a cherished relationship. Those feelings continue; those feelings are lasting. When you remember others who have moved to our form of life, after the disappointment, after the disillusionment, after the remembered anger, ultimately the relationship becomes refined and strengthened and affirming. Those who have left human life who have created difficulty for you ultimately are remembered, valued for the positives in the relationship. The negatives fall away as leaves fall to the ground, and you are left with the tree and its own grandeur as a tree. You are left with a memory of an individual and the beauty of that individual.

Frequently we emphasize the responsibility that you have to reach out and be with others, being with them ready to help. That is a relationship which is positive. That is a relationship whose values will be unending. We have experienced the meeting of souls on our side who fought in their human forms, and their relationship now is characterized by the greatest love imaginable. We are not saying that all of you should proceed through life just doing good for others because those are the positive things that one does. What we are saying is that when you weigh your alternatives in life, what is really important in life, you must recognize that it is your relationships with those around you that achieve the highest priority. It is what is valued and what is retained.

As you enter into a period of the year when there is much celebration and much emphasis around you placed on the material representations of relationships, you should divert your thoughts from the material toward the spiritual relationships that are present and possible. Rejoice in the pleasure of the family. Rejoice in the possibilities that your relationships contain. In so doing, you are really commemorating and acknowledging the whole purpose of the holidays that you celebrate. Put highest priority on what is permanent and allow what is transitory to be retained in the second place of importance in your lives.

Your group is characterized by relationships which have grown over many years, and although some have moved away and then returned, it is the relationships between you that really pull you together and are the most meaningful. Yes, we are together because we recognize and value who we are, not what we are. Cherish your opportunities of being with one another, not only in the group, but among your friends and those with whom you work. Cherish those opportunities for who they are and not for what they are.

Our relationship to you is close and constant, and your awareness of us grows deeper and more significant in time, for though you have never seen us and have only a limited understanding of the nature of our lives, you nevertheless accept us into your lives. That loving acceptance is totally without judgment. There are no conditions that have been imposed upon your acceptance of us in your lives. If you welcome us whom you’ve never seen, isn’t it easier to welcome all whom you do see? Open your hearts to the world around you, to all people, to all nations, and be grateful to God that you are in a relationship that embraces the entirety of humankind.

We bless you with the magnitude of that embrace and with the warmth and light of God’s presence.

Amen.