Life absolutely continues.

August 19, 1985

God is with this group with an intensity felt by each of you. 

You are indeed united. You sense the unity. We feel it. You see it in each other’s eyes, in expressions. There are countless ways that you express that unity. It gives us wonderful joy when such a state is achieved between people, between souls. 

Life for all its occasional ugliness is meant to be a beautiful experience. A beautiful life does not imply wealth or health. It means growth. On a mundane level you may experience joy in watching plants and trees grow. What a beauty there is to springtime throughout the world! It promises newness, hope, optimism for the future. That kind of beauty each of you sees. The beauty of growth we see. The intensity of that beauty, to us, is much the same as the beauty of spring to you. Life is beautiful, for life is growth. No one lives without growth. Although few are aware of it, you grow because you live, and you live because you grow. Both are intertwined with each other. 

This same relationship exists between your life and our life. There is very little essential difference. It is only a matter of growth. You grow and ultimately are a part of us. We grow and are ultimately a part of the next level. There is no point where growth actually ceases. This is important, for if you understand the implications of spiritual growth without ceasing, it is easier for you to grasp the real continuity of life. There is no instant between the conclusion of the human stage of existence and the spiritual level. Life absolutely continues. The consciousness does not cease and then begin again. It remains. 

There is a greatly intensified awareness when a transition is made. It is as if you come out of a darkened room into a great light. The only difficulty that is faced is when the room is exceptionally dark. You must squint and close your eyes briefly, and slowly accommodate yourselves to the brilliance. So it is with all who grow to our level of life. The light continues; the consciousness remains. 

For some, the transition to a brighter light is less difficult than for others. For those whose earthly lives have remained essentially in darkness, the contrast of suddenly being in such radiance requires time to adapt. We see this happening so often, yet all do adapt. 

When your friend has been chosen to join us, the transition for her will be smooth. There will not be a great difficulty in her adapting to her newfound freedom. She will be amazed at what lies before her…the warmth, the peace, the brilliance and the intensity of feeling, the closeness of family. It is indeed a joyous event. 

If you could just experience it for the briefest moment and then return to your current life, you would instantly change. Your values would be totally different. Your perspective of those around you would be permanently altered. Your life would have much greater depth than you could ever imagine. Such is the explosive effect upon the soul who leaves this earthly life. It is a wonderful experience.

The contrast between your lives and our lives is greater than between our plane and the next plane, for we are not burdened by the needs and the afflictions of the body. We are free to move. We are free to love and to be loved. We are free to give. Everything is heightened here—emotions, colors, the sense of closeness with another, mobility. For us, mobility is much like your thoughts. In an instant you can transport your thought from where you are to another point in time, another location, another experience. Our ability to transport ourselves is equally swift. 

There is no way that we could possibly describe our experience so that you could understand it. But it is also not desirable that you should fully understand the incredible beauty and joy which lies before each of you, for if you knew all, you would be eager to give up the current burdens in order to experience the future, and that would not be in accordance with God’s desires for your current orientation to your present life and all that it holds for each of you. 

We can assure you that when each of you joins us, that transition will be smooth. The ease of changing life-forms is due to your current awareness and nothing else. For those who remain in a darkened state of spiritual awareness, the transition seems sudden, and some souls require considerable time to realize their newfound freedom. They often want to withdraw into the comfort of the dark. We let them, for it is they who must choose to remain in the brilliance and adapt. If they wish the comfort and familiarity of the darkness, that is their choice. 

You know that each of you arrives at a point in your transition when a choice must be made to move forward or to remain where you are. This is the setting for that choice that we have referred to in the past. None of you need worry about the difficulty of moving forward. 

None of you have goals really. You want to grow, of course, but a goal implies having arrived, having reached the finish, having climbed to the top. But that is not the nature of spiritual growth because spiritual growth is continuous. There are no intermediate goals. The ultimate goal is a full union with God that we all share in common. But there are no intermediate stops, no sign posts, no indications that you are doing fine at your current role, hang in there and go to the next sign post. It just isn’t so. You have no goals to reach. You grow as you grow. We grow as we grow. It is growth which is important, not goals. 

There is often talk in educational circles of the debate between product and process. In terms of spiritual growth what is important is not product. It is not goal orientation. It is merely the process of growing, and each of you grows. Your growth is at times more accelerated than others. That is normal. You occasionally do or say things which you regret afterwards and ask yourselves, “Why did I do that? Why did I say that?” That is normal, too. It does not mean you have stopped growing. The fact that you recognize errors is a means of recognizing growth. 

Each of you must have patience—not complacency, but patience. There is such a difference. Complacency implies self-satisfaction that everything is okay, that there is no more need for further effort, that all is going according to plan. When we mean acceptance and patience, it is our intention that you recognize the value of who you are, the value of having grown, and the promise of future growth with your effort. Nothing is automatic. It always takes effort. It would be nice if your only concerns in life were growth, but obviously in physical form there are other concerns. But that, too, is normal. When you have your energies directed toward more mundane issues, that does not mean that growth ceases. That merely means that you are living a human life in a human way, but that is why you are living. 

Your peace comes through your inner recognition of past growth and confidence in your future growth. Your peace comes through a recognition of love of others and the opportunity of reflecting that love back to others. Your guides pray for your growing peace. We know that feeling is never permanent, but when it is there, hold onto it, grasp it, remember it, recognize its potential, and see ways of providing it to others who are in turmoil. You then in a way become guides yourselves for others in human life form. We are then joined with you as you service others. 

Our prayers are for your peace. Continue to pray for the peace of others, and together we will all help with the spread of peace within the world and within the souls of humanity. God’s peace is our peace. God’s peace is your peace for the asking. Rejoice! 

Amen.