May 28, 2002

• All souls are a single entity

• There is no time, only presence

• Life is spiritual rather than physical

• All religious practices are valid

• Loving light of God

God assembles your guides as you are assembled in this group. The assembly of guides, as you know, is not a physical assembly, for there are no boundaries to the soul. But they are assembled in their awareness and understanding of your needs, your prayers, and your many causes for celebration. The assembly of the spirits might more accurately be described as an assembly of the spirit, for all souls, all spirits are but a single entity.

As we have mentioned to you on earlier occasions, you are not separated from one another. You are a single unit. The soul that is identified with you as an individual is in no way separated from the soul identified with another human being. They are all a part of the same whole just as the drops of the water in the ocean are a part of the same body of water. Your guides are, in fact, a single guide, a single presence, a single light, a single force, a single love. Belonging to this single entity are any number of capabilities available to meet your individual needs. The body, the human body, is very similar to this single spirit. For some needs, the foot is more appropriate than the ear ,but the entire organism is a single organism. All souls belong to one entity.

We have mentioned also that there is no such separate reality as time because the past and the present and the future are a part of the same act of continuity, of presence. When everything is in the present, everything is in the now. There is no past and future, but there are differences in the state, the state of reality.

We say we are a continuation of your lives. This is most appropriately expressed in this way because in truth, your lives are really spiritual rather than physical. Your lives have always been spiritual rather than physical. The physical nature of life is so temporary, so short in duration as you would measure it, that in truth it is very insignificant. Therefore, your spiritual existence prior to being associated with your physical body is in no way removed in time from your spiritual existence when you no longer need the body.

The reality is the spiritual life is absolutely continuous. It is also always in the present. The fact that you occupy a human form does not change the reality that your spirit is the spirit that existed before your human lives and the same as what comes after the human form. So the spirit is always present. It is always constant.

Our reference to our being a continuation of your lives has two meanings. One, and the most obvious, is just as we are pure spirit, so will you no longer have the physical body but will remain in pure spirit form. Because we have discarded our physical attributes, we can state that we are a continuation of what existed in human life. The other meaning to our being a continuation is that because there is no time, there is no real past, there is no real future, there is only now which has always existed and always shall exist. Our being a continuation of your life also implies an extension of your current life. We are not an extension of your individual human identity. We are merely an extension or a continuation of the single entity of spirit.

When you contemplate spiritual life, you are not thinking of what comes later. You must always think of what is happening now, what is life now, what is important now, because now always remains. It is very difficult for human beings to imagine a life that is continuous with no sense of time or space. There is no distance. We are not separated from you by any distance, for distance does not exist in the spirit.

We are separated, however, in awareness. Your vision is limited, our vision is unlimited, but we are nevertheless the same. We understand fully what it means to experience God’s presence. You seek to understand the experience of God’s presence. Whether you see that presence or whether you seek that presence, the presence remains the only true reality. Nothing is different except the vision.

Your souls, as you know, grow through human experience. Our souls have grown through the human experience. We know what it means not to see the presence, not to see the reality of God, but only to infer the reality based on evidence that is perceived through your normal senses.

Many people in the world perceive God in a way that may be different from your experiences. That does not change the reality of who God is, of what God is, for God exists regardless of perception. Claiming that God does not exist does not cease God’s living presence. It only means that an individual is not willing to acknowledge that presence. Perceiving God as punitive does not change the reality of God’s unconditional love. The difficulty experienced by humankind is merely one of perception. The reality remains.

It is not essential that all human beings come to a common perception of what God is in life. It is, however, essential that individuals ultimately acknowledge that there is a God by whatever name is chosen. There is a supreme spiritual presence. Finding a way to relate to that presence leads human beings to live a life beyond the seeking of mortal pleasures alone. There is nothing wrong in the pleasures that are human, for humans were created by God. The problem is not the pleasures experienced by human beings, but the importance, the dominance that individuals may give to those pleasures such that they block out any vision of a spiritual entity beyond the human condition.

Each of you is fully aware of God’s presence, and yet each of you interprets that presence in a different manner. Whatever interpretation you choose to follow is the interpretation that is most appropriate for you in the present. Your interpretation of God may change as your human lives go through changes. When those interpretations change, it does not mean that an earlier view of God was wrong. It only means that your needs for an understanding of God have changed. Change is always valid. You do yourselves great harm when you deny an opportunity for change. You live your lives in order to gain perspectives. Those perspectives in turn give meaning and purpose to your perception of life. As those meanings and purposes are changed, your needs change and in turn your understanding of God.

All religious practices experienced by humankind are valid. There is no practice that is evil in and of itself. Even the exercise of pagan activities serves to elevate the human consciousness to the potential of a spiritual presence that transcends all human life, and that is important. The interpretations that are shared by one group of people may have no meaning to another, nor should they. You proceed through your lives in a search for meaning. You seek truth, you seek an understanding of “why life at all?” There are many reasons for experiencing life, and for some people, those reasons may be very different than for others. This is as it should be.

You must welcome diversity in the seeking of God. You must welcome diversity in seeking for meaning to human life. It is the seeking that is important. Each of you must continue to search. You are aware of spiritual guidance, but you haven’t all the answers. But in your search you continue to come closer to an understanding that provides relevance and meaning for your own lives.

Diversity in the search is essential. You learn from others. Your search is enhanced by the searching of others, and likewise their searching is enhanced by your own. You are searching and by searching you grow. In your growth, you feed your soul and your soul grows. Some souls experience more than one human life because no search in itself can be complete.

We also search, but we search in the presence of an amazingly loving light. You may not think of light as being loving, but that is our experience. We experience love as light and we experience light as love. When you are in darkness, when your lives remain in shadow, you are removed from an awareness of the light that is available to you. When you feel in the shadow, you do not feel loved. You know the feeling. When you are surrounded by a kind of light that brings intensity to your human lives, you feel affirmed, you feel loved, you feel energized.

Such is our vision. It is what we see constantly. It is this vision that you can also see, but only briefly. You have glimpses of what it means to be loving and to be loved, and there are moments for each of you when you feel unloved and unloving. For us who are the continuation of your lives, we see only the loving light. God’s presence is not as a figure that is depicted in so much art. God’s presence is experienced as a loving light that is unconditional and constant.

You will be surprised, regardless of your preparation in human life, with the intensity that is available from the presence of unconditional love. It is an adjustment for all who rejoin a life of the spirit. It is more than you can imagine. Our view, then, is clearer than yours but despite your limited perspective, the brilliance is still there. It is still with you always, and it is only for you to formulate your lives in order to catch a glimpse of that light. Experiencing God’s unconditional love requires for each of you the opportunity of being alone, of being peaceful, of being quiet. It requires you to listen. In listening you will see the light.

Open your ears and your hearts and bring the brilliance of that light into yourselves. Be warmed by it, be strengthened and guided by it, and know that you are being directed as you must be. The light is there…you are present…rejoice in the light!

Amen.