November 22, 1993

• Relationships are permanent and defining

• The colors of love in spiritual light

God's presence is a very important part of each of your lives at this time. It is natural to go through phases of intense reflection on God and practically no reflection on God, for life is a series of cycles. When you walk down a path the road is never straight. There are always curves and bends, there are always needs for detours, but that's in the nature of travel. There are times when you are strongly aware of God, and times when that awareness is much weaker, but that is the normal course of human life.

In our last message we urged you to increase your awareness, and we gave you a number of ways in which that could be accomplished. The purpose of such enumeration is not to create guilt or a feeling of inadequacy. It is meant as a kind of challenge. It is meant to highlight what is really essential in your lives. We could say it more succinctly, simply, "The most important consideration in human life is the acknowledgment and reflection of God, period." All else that is taught is a further clarification. It is a sense of direction which is offered, a viewpoint. It is leading you to greater understanding of the implications, but in its most simple, clear, straightforward sense, that is what's essential in life.

Focusing on that clarifies personal relationships. It clarifies your relationships with yourself as well as with others. It clarifies what is important in life and what is not so important. But what is clear in statement is often most difficult in application, and it is because of the difficulties that you experience in application that we, your guides, are so active in trying to lead you in directions which are appropriate for your spiritual growth.

You are evolving, you are going through change. Sometimes those changes occur within a short duration of time and appear therefore rather rapid. For others, such changes occur over a longer period of time. But the changes themselves are natural and certainly a part of human life. You may feel in complete accordance with your spouse one day and at total odds the next. What has happened? Why this contrast in the dynamics of the relationship from one day to another? That cause is not only the responsibility of the other. It is also a change that takes place within you. You may view the same occurrence on different days quite differently.

You see, life does not proceed in a straight line. It is not totally predictable. Neither events nor personalities are totally predictable. And just as you cannot get to know another completely, you are unable to fully predict how another will respond. There is always an area of uncertainty. So some of the changes that you live with are the result of uncertainty because of a lack of full knowledge and not a function of an actual change which may be taking place.

We have spoken of love as being the essential power of God being reflected in the world. It is almost banal to say that, for the concept is so overused that it has rapidly lost its significance. There are many interpretations to the word love, but it is important to recognize the common thread that unites all of these interpretations, and that thread is seen most clearly in your perception at this time of the relationship between God and human life. Your views and understanding of the value of human life to God, the response of God to human life, essentially reflects the common thread which unites all interpretations of the word love. So although it is a term which is overused and seems somehow saccharine, it nevertheless describes the principal most fittingly.

Your lives should be defined more by your relationships with others than with matters of success professionally, financially—in whatever other sense you may perceive success. The relationships that you have with others have the potential of permanence, permanence not just in the sense of one person relating to another, but the benefit which is achieved spiritually through the exercise of that relationship. That relationship may be expressed through passion or compassion, but the benefit of this expression far outlives the length of any human life. That is what is permanent. A career is not permanent, money is not permanent, power is not permanent. Relationships, and what happens in those relationships, is permanent.

If your relationships with others are characterized as being essentially negative or competitive, you are diminishing the glow that illuminates your soul giving it direction and purpose. But if your relationship is one of support and compassion or passion, you are reaffirming the value of another's life. You are increasing the light your own soul radiates, and the souls of those who surround you become lit as a result.

The concept of spiritual light, brilliance, as we have mentioned is not just a metaphor. It actually describes what happens. It describes what we on our side actually see. When you are filled with love, selfless love, you feel elation, you feel joy, a kind of rapture. The visual radiation emanating from your souls in those moments becomes intensely brilliant, filled with many more colors than you can imagine. There are colors that we can see that you have no awareness of even existing. Your souls become enormously bright lights. That brilliance indicates a strength and provides a sense of direction for your soul’s continuing growth.

Spiritual presence is very much an issue of light. What we see is light, the light of your souls, the light of the souls of others, the light of each of us, the light of God. It is overwhelming for a soul who has just joined us to comprehend the brilliance that is seen, for it is unlike anything that is experienced in human form. But it is this brilliance, this incredible color that we see, which is so much a part of your souls' development. It is this which provides a kind of illumination to human life. The payoff of human life is the experience of this light.

This light carries great warmth, not felt as intense heat temperature-wise, but felt more as an emotional warmth, a sense of incredible well-being and peace. This is what you experience when your lives are given over to love in the real sense. It means that your human lives had purpose, that your lives have been worth living.

Do what is important in your lives. Live your life relishing what is essential and meaningful. Affirm all that is beautiful. Affirm the expression of love. Affirm the values of everyone. Support others. Be present for others to lean on. Be willing to place yourself in the company of others when you need support. In so doing, you will ultimately all share in this incredible brilliance of spiritual life.

We bless you now illuminated by that incredible brilliance.

Amen.