Roberta Grimes

Race and Gender

Posted by Roberta Grimes • March 05, 2015 • 8 Comments
Afterlife Research, Human Nature, Understanding Reality

Recently I received an email from the granddaughter of an American slave who asked a distressing question. She said that people of her race are too often thwarted in life, and she asked me whether racial differences are “a joke from God.” She especially wanted to know whether in the afterlife everyone would be equal. Her question is heartbreaking, but its answer is thrilling.

Each human mind is a powerful and eternal part of the Mind of God. Minds have no racial characteristics whatsoever. Furthermore:

• The evidence is strong that nearly all of us live many earth-lifetimes. Most of us seem to live at least one lifetime of each race, although we favor one race and one general culture for most of our lifetimes. Apparently this makes our adjustment to each new lifetime easier, so it lets us concentrate on our planned lessons with fewer distractions.
• Dealing with the issues raised by superficial differences among people can give us powerful opportunities for learning to better love and forgive. Evidence suggests that those whose present lifetimes include racial or cultural issues planned those situations as important spiritual lessons.

• Those who have victimized people of another race or class often plan in a subsequent lifetime to be members of the group that they tormented. There is evidence that many American slaveholders and Jim Crow-era racists planned subsequent lifetimes as disadvantaged black people.

So I was happy to tell my correspondent that when she enters the afterlife levels her new body will be of whichever skin shade she prefers. Her only legacy from her lifetime lived as a person of color will be whatever spiritual lessons she has learned from the experience, so my hope is that she is making the most of them!

Gender, too, is a characteristic of our earthly bodies that does not relate to our minds. All of us live both male and female earth-lifetimes, although – as with race – we tend to favor one gender.

I have had a number of regressions and past-life readings, and in every previous lifetime of which I am aware I was a male. One psychic told me that I have always been male, although I doubt that. Still, I vividly recall being about a year old and barely walking, and discovering as I toddled toward my bath that this body was missing something essential! My thought was, “Oh. I’m the other kind this time.” My exact thought, word for word: I swear. We aren’t even supposed to form memories so early, but the shock of my gender-switch was so great that I still can distinctly recall that moment.

Rather than being God’s joke, I have come to think of these racial and gender differences as God’s gift. Consider how boring our lives would be if everyone looked and acted alike! It’s important, however, that we not forget that racial and gender differences are entirely on the surface. They don’t exist at the level of our minds. And learning to more perfectly love and forgive in the face of these extra challenges is a primary reason why we are alive.

 

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