God’s light is everywhere.
June 12, 1981
God surrounds each of you with light and comforting love. We, your guides, are together spiritually just as you are all united in a spiritual search for a closer relationship with God.
You pray to know God more fully. We pray that you will become closer to God. We work with you, we speak for you. At times in your lives you need God but do not ask. We recognize those moments and our prayers to God are for you. Our relationship with you as your individual guide is a strong one. Each guide whom God has chosen loves you as you love God and as God loves you.
We are concerned for matters of the spirit but also those of the body. For you to gain the most from your experiences in life, you must respond in a physical manner with your surroundings as well as spiritually. The spirit, while growing, is still in a condition of near perfection. It is not at some distant point from God. You are close to God. You are as close to God as you are to us. That is ever so much closer than each of you to another. With distance can come misunderstanding. Communication implies distance. It implies a transmission between points.
We have spoken of God’s relationship with space, with distance and our perception of it. Such space, such separation, does not exist in a spiritual world, but it is very much an essential aspect of your physical lives. Because there is distance, there is the need to communicate, to transmit ideas. It is the difficulty brought about by such distances which is seen as disharmony, strife, jealousy, anger, covetousness. But it is also such distances, such separations, which serve to manifest to each of you the power of love. Therefore, your physical state is of great concern for us. We do not limit this state to matters of health but to the quality of otherness of which you are aware.
The distances, the points of separation of which we speak, cannot and should not be measured linearly but in attitude, in viewpoint, in perspective. Each of you has a different perspective of God, and each has a unique sense of appropriate response to God, but because your positions along the road of life leading to God are different, you frequently lose sight of one another. If several people are standing in a straight line, one can only see what is adjacent. In a way, this is what we perceive as we recognize the attitude, distances, the differences which characterize all human life. Somehow the line of individuals must gain an awareness of its unity, of its oneness and not its otherness. When each of you becomes more sensitive to that unity binding all together, the differences, the disparities, lose significance.
Part of our responsibility as your guides is to help you cope with others whose approaches are different, within the framework of your recognition of human unity. That is the so-called physical guidance which we offer. The spiritual guidance serves as the building block, the key or essential material out of which your physical life must take shape. Your physical life then is that pathway which must be traversed slowly. Such traversing necessitates your being aware of all that is around you.
Your surroundings are not always harmonious. They cannot be, for without them, the opportunities for growth are diminished. Growth is achieved through application, not theory. That application, however, is based on theory. It is life based on God, not necessarily Christianity or Buddhism, or any other specific religious expression. Christianity, in your experience, can serve as a model, but not the only one. Your understanding of Christianity in its truest sense provides the theory, but that theory, those principles, are powerless without application. Therefore, your experiences on a daily basis become essential. They are vital for your growth.
It is easy to say, “Let life be a challenge,” but it is more difficult to recognize that life is, in fact, the application of God’s teachings directed by your soul. It is not only a challenge; it is the rich soil for the flowering of your spiritual lives. It is the means by which you grow closer to God. Life, then, is not without difficulty, but it is always with hope. In the most desperate hours hope can endure. It lives only in the light of one who recognizes God. When you are faced with difficulties, with frustrations, experiencing anger or bitterness, focus on the fact that thereby exists potential for application. It is your human condition to choose to exercise or ignore such potential. But ignoring the opportunity serves to break down the communication, to widen the distance between people.
Perhaps all this sounds very theoretical and you ask yourselves, “How do I make something of this? How do I use it in my life? How do I get the strength to use it?” On a very real level, the answer must be one of willingness to be open, a willingness to express yourself honestly but without pride, clearly but without hurtfulness. Such openness, such avoidance of pride, of self-worth, serves as a vehicle enabling others to be open. A road is not a road unless it is used. It is only a clearing. A road must be traveled. The lines of communication between people must be used. Such use is an expression of faith. It is the faith of being open to whatever is returned.
If you wish to avoid being judged, do not judge. Judgment is a response to judgment. If you are open and do not judge, the response will not be judgment. Communication, therefore, suspends judgment. We have said many times that you do not bring judgment on God. Because each of you is divine, you must not bring judgment on another. In this environment such openness is always constructive. It is an expression of love. Judgment has no place in love. Love is a constant relationship and because it is constant, there is no room for judgment, for judgment denies love.
Each of you is human and, therefore, experiences feelings on a very human level. When we speak of communicating spiritually, that is on a much closer level than communicating on a human level, and therefore we see the human emotions of pride and anxiety and fear very much a part of your lives. Your responses to others are so frequently the result of those very human feelings. We pray that the generation of those feelings will be altered in each of you so that you can respond by reaching out and touching another with love as the basis for your openness.
Love is essential for any relationship to grow, but love is not always seen. It may be offered silently and never recognized by another. The offering of love does not include the need for recognition. Love is a gift and it is therefore to be given. Such love often goes unseen. We see it but you may not. We pray for it. We live by it. We grow by it and in it. We build it and we spread it. All of our responses to love can be your responses. Your success cannot be our success, for we have shed those elements of our human personality which stand between us and God’s love.
As you progress toward your next spiritual life, you too will shed that raiment. It is not a part of our existence, but is a part of yours. Nevertheless, our relationship to love can be yours on a meaningful level. It is very hard to achieve, and you may feel frustrated or hard pressed to recognize progress. Such progress is essential to aiding your spiritual growth. It is for this reason that your physical life is so important for your eternal life. It is not a temporary influence. It may be temporary in time, but its effect is permanent.
You grow through your exercise of love. When you are unable to see the love of another, you must learn still to love. When you reach out to another and you are not met, continue to reach out. You enrich both lives.
In this message we dwell so heavily on difficulties, but it is not meant that life is to be suffered through. Life is joyful in the long view, but it is also cyclic. There are changes in its character. There are changes in its contour, but nevertheless, your experience of life is a positive one. When you face challenges with fear or doubt or anger, realize that they are only passing. What is more important is the joy. It is the growth. It is the movement of your souls, their development. It is the feeling of closeness to another. It is the recognition that God’s light is everywhere. There may be trees with shade, but the sun is shining and the world is bathed in light, not shadow.
This is your life. This is what life is meant to be, and when you are faced with times of shadow, remember that the sun shines. The sun is visible between shadows, and when you are removed from the object, the light is unhindered and warm and full of energy.
Each of you in this group has much to look forward to. There is much to rejoice about. There is much light to be felt and seen and warmed by. Your life is full of growth, and it is full of potential for recognizing the divine in all people. The divine is not present only when all goes well. The divine is constant. It is the one characteristic that unites all of you. You all have the spark of divinity. You all have a spark of perfection. Let that spark ignite and set each of you on fire with God’s love and presence.
Amen.