The most important thing you can do for your own happiness and for the health of the world is to begin right now to clean out and tidy up your mind. This didn’t seem to be important back when we thought each mind was a temporary artifact generated by each separate brain, with perhaps a part that carried on to sing forever at the feet of God. It was fine back then to fill your own mind with garbage. Nobody ever would know! You could compartmentalize your mind perhaps, have a place where you prepared uplifting sentences for public conversations, and also deep crannies where you could keep the detritus of videogames and horror movies and where you could cherish your various hatreds. You could keep your insecurities hidden there, too. Each of us went about our days projecting success in all that we did, while from our failure crannies came the certainty that any minute now something was going to happen that would show us to be frauds and fools. Back then, your mind was your mind alone! And so long as you carefully managed all your public interactions, it was nobody’s business what you were thinking.
But now everything has changed! What our study of the afterlife and the greater reality has taught us about the nature of our minds means that none of our old assumptions is true. Among other things, we have learned that:
The only thing that actually exists is what we experience in a limited way as consciousness. For convenience, let’s call that great consciousness Mind. Now we know that there is only one Mind, and the one Mind continuously manifests everything that we think is real.
Eternal Mind is powerful! Insofar as we are able to determine, its power is literally infinite.
The mind that you experience while you are in a body is perhaps twenty percent of your actual mind. The rest of your vast, eternal mind is left behind when you come to earth. One of the first things that happen when you return to the afterlife – which we really should be calling our real life – is that you merge back into the rest of your mind, so suddenly you have a lot more memories. And you feel absolutely brilliant!
All of our own minds are inextricably part of that one eternal Mind. The implications of this fact are manifold and even troubling, but they are inescapable now. Your mind is not in any sense private.
Since our minds are all part of a single Mind, they interact and work together beneath our awareness. Leading modern researchers like Lynne McTaggart have demonstrated over and over again that the intentions of a number of minds together can have amazingly powerful effects. And every horror this world faces now is simply the result of the interactions of billions of minds whose proprietors have allowed them to fill up with and then project fear, violence, and hatred.
Whatever is in your mind is readily accessible to beings who are not now in bodies. The extent to which this is true is something I have never wanted to know, but the fact of it should not surprise us. The Godhead can access your mind, as can your spirit guides, as can some others who are not now in bodies. What seems to be the case is that a being not in a body who has a good reason to access your mind is able to do it easily, but I don’t think you need to worry that dead Aunt Mildred is rummaging around to learn what you really thought of her and what your kinkiest fantasies might be.
Your mind is eternal. Far from shriveling into a soul when your body dies, your mind will go on to inhabit your post-death body essentially intact! And wouldn’t it have to be that way? How could you be “you” in the afterlife if only some aspects of your mind moved on? But because this is true, you will be living in your present mind essentially forever. And knowing this starts you thinking hard about where you would prefer to spend your eternity. In a paradise? Or in what is almost a sewer?
It was when I fully grasped those last three points that I realized it was finally time to clean up my act. If I will be living in this mind forever, then I ought to make it a happier place! If my mind is generating good or evil in the world, then I want to clean it up for the sake of my grandchildren. And if important people not now in bodies can readily know what I am thinking, then my mind really isn’t only my mind, is it? Actually, it’s more like my living room. It’s where I spend most of my time, where I entertain my spirit guides, where I meet with God (if I meet with God), and where my dead mother and friends might visit. It was about twenty years ago that I re-thought everything about my mind, including even the way that I think.
For me to share this process with you would have felt uncomfortable twenty years ago, for all the reasons given in that first paragraph. But one of the fruits of cleaning up your mental living room is that you are always ready now to welcome every guest! Now I have no mental secrets, so please come on in, take a comfy chair, and have a cup of tea. I am going to suggest that you do just what I did, and I am happy to assure you that it has been easy. Here are all the right steps to take:
Begin to live with the top of your head wide open. I was still religious when I began this project, so I called it “living with an open prayer line.” I realize now that what I really was doing was inviting my own guides into my mind and asking them to help me clean up this mess. That image that the top of your head is just a big open circle so anyone can come right in seemed powerful to me. It was a symbolic yielding. I kept re-imagining it many times each day, until eventually everything was so tidy that I no longer needed it.
Stop all media. No more TV, movies, or radio. If social media had existed at the time, or if I had played videogames, I would have stopped all of that as well. Since TV had been integral to my life, it amazes me now to realize that I never have missed it at all! If I want to see a movie that I have been assured is not negative, I still will do that. I have seen Avatar, Green Book, Last Vegas, and maybe a dozen other movies in the past two decades. But now I have whole blissful hours to read and write, and to create! Every one of my books from The Fun of Dying forward was written after I got rid of media. I have given myself the luxury of time and a beautiful work-space that I control, and I cannot begin to express to you the positive difference this has made in my life!
Strictly Police your Internet use. If you still read newspapers, then police those, too. Your goal is to absorb zero negativity, and the Internet is a negativity sewer! Apparently now and then there has been news here and there over the past two decades? I assume my friends and family have adequately briefed me on all the big stuff. And if future things happen that are not big enough for the people in your life to bother sharing then with you, then why ever would you want to let any of those things pollute your mind?
Police your relationships. Many of us have people in our lives who are downers and drags for us. You cannot entirely avoid family members, but you ought to gradually and sweetly find ways to minimize your contacts with every negative person who is now in your life.
Police your thoughts. We used to think we could let our thoughts run wild! But now, doing that is the equivalent of letting a herd of demented puppies run around your living room. Never again! From now on, whenever you have a thought that is negative, whether it is defeatist (I’ll never get that raise), angry (that big jerk!), disparaging (my brother is a loser), hate-filled (those ____ are evil), or simply a downer (I hate rainy days), then immediately counter it with something positive. “I’ll find a much better job!” “That poor man is having an awful day.” “My brother needs cheering up.” “I want to better understand those ____.” There is not much you can do about rainy days, so what I do is consider rain to be my permission to goof off. It’s raining! YAYY! I can watch a movie, hang around with my husband, take a quick store trip, or chat with friends. If you are on a work-clock, you might just have a special “rain snack.” The point is to counter every negative thought right away with something positive.
Invite your primary guide to have complete access to your mind. For this lifetime, it is his or her living room, too. I used to fret about the private things that people in bodies have to do, but my guide assures me that his tribe has no interest in watching us in the bathroom or in the bedroom. But many people have a rich fantasy life, Thomas? What about that? Apparently our guides try to avoid our fantasies, but they cannot avoid them altogether. What I have found is that random fantasizing has declined for me as my vibration has risen, except that I can use it as a sleeping pill. When I am having trouble falling asleep, I can think, “I’m about to have that fantasy you hate!” And generally I am out like a light.
Give up on religions. This is optional, but I urge you to try it. Religions are fear-based, which means that all religions will drag you down spiritually. For Christians, the fact that you can have a much better relationship with the genuine Jesus once you are no longer God-fearing seems to provide a powerful incentive for you to take the Lord’s hand now and let Him lead you into a deeper understanding of the genuine God Who is perfect love.
Be patient, and be positive. Remember, you are always in control! If there is something – perhaps videogames – that you worry about missing, just tell yourself you are giving them up for a week. And then for another week. It’s like giving up drinking: you are in control, and you are choosing to do this so you can improve your life. If you fall off the wagon, shrug and get back on. What I found was that filling my evenings with doing fun things that had been piling up because watching TV had gotten in the way made my transition from TV both easy and happy. Where my husband was concerned, I just said, “You watch that show, darling. I’ve got some reading (or writing, or phone calls) to catch up on.” Don’t announce to anyone your intention to possibly give up on a lot of things. Move your family and friends into your new stage of life naturally, without pressures or expectations.
It is impossible to expose your mind to negativity without becoming more negative yourself. When you cleanse your living room of all negativity and then rigorously protect it, you will find that your personal vibration will begin to rise naturally. You will feel more peaceful, more positive, and so much happier! You even may begin to find the time and the desire to pursue your own glorious quest to do something truly wonderful. There is no richer earthly joy than living for a cause that is greater than yourself! If I had not taken these steps two decades ago, I never could have written even one Fun book. Nor could I have done six years of podcasts, or written almost two hundred blog posts. If I had not cleaned up my living room, then you and I would have lived and died without our ever having shared this beautiful connection.
Old Room photo credit: romanboed <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/92082510@N04/16532481487″>Living Room</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Puppies photo credit: susie2778 <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/31018850@N04/46842662761″>Puppies at Lake Kerkini</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Elegant Room photo credit: romanboed <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/92082510@N04/26070481096″>The Library at the Alchymist Hotel Prague Castle</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
There was, as usual, a great deal of wisdom in your blog post – and a lot of humor I needed: I can’t get the sight of a “herd of demented puppies” out of my mind now. ☺️ When I gave up TV almost a decade ago, that was just the beginning. That’s when I realized other ways in which I was hypnotized, etc. The policing of the mind has been easier since regulating what gains access…
All I know is that what’s truly beautiful now is appreciated at a much deeper level. A version of “Stendahl’s syndrome” – whereby a person observing great art almost has a lapse in consciousness due to undiluted bliss. – is possible in very positive ways when I listen to opera now or even laugh with a small child. (A bit of hyperbole here in that I certainly don’t faint.)
Although I still struggle with fears, at least I have tools to help dismantle them. I hardly ever feel anger, but go straight to heartache when someone harms another be it human or animal. These are the times that try our souls, but I know we’re not alone. Thanks for all of your much- appreciated work.
Oh dear Brett, how lovely! It has been true for me, too, that as I cleaned up my mind and eliminated all that I could of the negative inflow, I began to much better appreciate beauty, or even really to see it at all. In fact, beauty is everywhere, and sometimes it stuns me now. Only yesterday I was returning to my neighborhood and noticed yet again the flourishing of summer green. And the rich shade of it – the bounty of it! – felt so overwhelming that I was dumbstruck in the middle of a sentence. Then I babbled about how unbelievably beautiful this all was, and my dear husband patiently agreed. Beautiful. He is used by now to having a wife who talks to him about concepts that are far outside his Catholic ken, and can be thunderstruck by the tiny joys that he otherwise ignores.
And where the horrors of this world are concerned, if you cannot do anything about them directly then the most important thing you can do is to treat them like one of those demented puppies and give them the quick pat of a positive thought. Negativity of all kinds is the real enemy! The higher your own vibration rises, the higher will rise the vibration of this planet, so then some future criminal will find his own vibration rising high enough that he will turn away from harming some unknown future victim. Truly, the most powerful thing that most of us can do is to raise our personal vibrations enough so the earth’s future will be much brighter than its past.
As for the fears and angers that are incidental to human life, we will be focusing on them next week. Once you have cleaned up your living room, it is easy then to allow the perfect teachings of Jesus to help you make of this your very last earth-lifetime….
Thanks so much! Been working a while now on stopping and tossing out negative thoughts and especially the little mental scenarios that conjure up negative feelings and downer mental events. Vigilant awareness of what is happening in my mind and firm decisions to stop immediately has been working for me.
As a retired Methodist pastor I have found it impossible to be a part of the church in any fashion. The salvation theology, at the heart of Christianity, is a very negative force that usually obscures the beauty and pure love of the being know as Jesus. I have much to gain in this spirit journey clothed in flesh and so glad that those guides helping me have lots of patience! Thanks again and as always, Mike
Dear Michael, you are purely right about Christianity’s “salvation theology”! It is indeed highly negative, and it is both insulting to God and humiliating to Jesus. It has no basis in anything real.
For a long time I thought that organized Christianity had been a tragic 1,500-year human-created detour in the Lord’s plan, but of late I have been given to understand that it may actually have been the plan. After all, this earth is merely a spiritual gym, and like any gym it has needed to lay down many generations of negativity-based earth-life for us to come here and push against, just as if we were making trips to a gym. All the religions have now created sufficien negativity-based generations, and since there is no objective time we now can incarnate into that negativity for so long as that is needed for the perfection of humankind. Now, though, the negativity has become such that it will destroy this planet if we don’t work to quickly raise the earth’s consciousness vibration, so now the teachings of Jesus are one of the tools to quickly make that happen!
The fact that there are more than two billion Christians in the world (they are close to a third of the world’s population), and that among even non-Christian inhabitants of the world the Lord Himself has a very high approval rating (it’s something like 90% in the U.S.), makes Him and His teachings a literal magic bullet that can now rapidly slay all negativity worldwide.
And this may actually have been the plan all along, dear Michael! So now you and I and so many others who know Jesus and can help Him reach people with the truth may indeed be His minions, having chosen to come into bodies now and be the age here that we are now so we can begin this glorious crusade of love and peace.
Our minds are indeed rooms. Bu they are also akin to elementary particles: if we remain “fixated” on certain contingent beliefs, attitudes or habits, then the original, ineffable, flowing waves that gave rise to our existence (the God-Mind), with its infinitude of potential variations, is arrested, stopped in its tracks, reduced. Our “forgetting” of essence, in each second of our lives transforms us into a dot closed in on itself. A dot only lives in isolation and is most often in conflict or mistrust of other dots that it perceives as other to itself. Your good house-keeping (spiritual cleansing!) advice, when flowed, allows for those dots to be joined up into rings of love and mutual understanding. Followers of your blog, and many others elsewhere, are becoming acutely aware that we are living through unusual times (End-times, but also New-Beginning times, Catastrophic yet filled with immense new possibilities). As you say, the time is now for us to choose how we wish to navigate our temporary and limited Mind-Space-capsules (to use a different metaphor) thorough the plenitude of infinite “space” (which is not, of course a physical space, but rather a metaphorical and a transcendent space of open, undivided and limitless consciousness). And yes, the fear even spiritually oriented people have, deep down, of “dissolving” eventually into a cosmic Non-self would be much like a salt crystal dissolving in warm water, where the slat crystal has lost not just its appearance, but its very being. This derives from a tension-conflict where that the limited selves we identify as (Tom, Jane, Dmitri, whoever) are subconsciously felt to be threatened by vaster, more complete versions of ourselves (our Soul’s essence). When the Heart learns to open, and seeks a return to innocence, unless, through lapses into neglect or negativity, we continue to block it, an inevitable process of transforming back into that Nameless whole from which our Soul arose will take place.
There is also a unity behind the surface of what may at first appear to be variant cultural and religious interpretations. For example, what you speak of here as a clean living room, should always be emphasized as the main obligation of those practicing Yoga as a means to spiritual awakening. That inner practice was called “Ishvara Pranidhana”, and it is the practice of surrendering to God in a manner very much like the one you are recommending in your Living Room post. By the way, Ishvara means both God and Inner teacher, so it encompasses equally the Godhead and those Spirit guides and Mentors who are there behind the veil of the visible, and within the quiet spaces of our hearts and minds, to show us the way, which is different, (yet also the same), for each of us, since formulas, dogmas, and generic patterns are anti-Life, and it is only through individuality that the Life-force creates and sustains us.
A last point on what you say about the space above the head. I wrote in an earlier post how this space is, effectively, a kind of living room which can be entered into both by non-physical beings and equally by our own minds to benefit others in their plights. It is a living, vortically charged and multi-dimensional space surrounding the physical brain. Within this space, the saying attributed to St. Augustine is realized: God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, and whose center is everywhere. Perhaps we can conceive of our living rooms in such a way. They are both a clean, comfortable, domestic place where we can be ourselves in the best possible way and, at the same time, vast, swirling multi-dimensional spaces of exponential insights, understanding, and love.
Hi Nicholas. I used to be a bit of a follower of Parmahansa Yogananda, who considered Jesus one of his primary gurus, and who’s ideas where a nice synthesis of eastern and western thought. One way he would describe God was, I may not have the exact quote, “Center everywhere, circumference nowhere.” I always loved that analogy, but didn’t realize he was quoting St Augustine, as you mentioned. He also spoke of Yoga as meaning to “yoke” oneself to God, and that Bhakti yoga, or the path of love is the fastest and easiest path to God, similar to what has been discussed here in the past. Jesus said his “yoke” is easy, and his is also the path of love. I find it fascinating how different traditions can have such similarities. I decided I didn’t think of myself as the “Bhakti type” back then, and was a bit too uptight for all the chanting and singing, but now, having come home to my western spiritual roots with the teachings of Jesus, I guess maybe I am a Bhakti type after all. (still not that into chanting 😁) Yogananda also spoke of the importance of calming the waves of like and dislike, which reminds of the mental housecleaning Roberta is discussing in this post, yet another interesting similarity.
The old Indian spiritual texts such as the Gita speak of three different types of yoga practice, or paths ( jnana = wisdom, karma = action/activism, bhakti = devotion). But actually all three, just like the Christian concept of the Trinity, are intertwined and interdependent.
In the heart’s understanding, wisdom, love and right action combine in a natural way. In the pre-Life and post-Death worlds, this is our natural state. In the incarnated condition, we are susceptible to division and confusion. The brain, in particular, is a highly programmable organ, whether by our own neglectfulness , ingestion of chemical toxins, too much exposure to appliances and social media, or even from the malign influence of powerful players who are not operating from a position of love, but only exploitation.
Roberta’s good advice to clean up our living rooms makes us invulnerable to these negative forces. But we should include the removal of chemical and environmental toxins, not only the psycho-spritual ones to keep our living rooms bright and clear 🙂
Dear Scott and Nicholas, I love watching you and others here venturing into the Eastern teachings and practices! You are right in saying that it really is all one.
I learned long ago that I cannot meditate – my husband has been doing TM for 40 years! – but it is only lately that I have learned why Thomas has so sharply steered me away from all things Eastern.
Dear beautiful friends, my job is to teach the elevation of our consciousness vibration using the teachings of Jesus exclusively, and of course I am also to teach the afterlife, the greater reality, Christian history, and everything else that my beloved Western spiritual kindergartners need to be able to find and work closely with the genuine Lord. But that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer you on as you venture ever higher, and I am doing that now with all my heart!
No problem, and thanks for the insight on yoga. I like the Trinity analogy, although I’m not a trinitarian in the Catholic way. I suspect God is more like Roberta’s idea of a collective. Along those lines, one of the first messages my guide gave me was “El Ehad.” I thought it was maybe Arabic, but research (he seems to enjoy making me do lots of that😁) lead me to Hebrew for the number one, but in the sense of a union of several parts. I learned there is a whole controversy over using that word vs yahid, which is a single indivisible one, so he seemed to be saying something along the lines of “God is a whole, made of many parts,” or maybe, “God is a collective.” I found that kind of amazing. 🙏
Wow, dear Nicholas, this is beautifully written! And your understanding is well above my own, but I know some other readers will relate to it. As the planet’s consciousness rises, there will be more and more people who can relate on multi-disciplinary and multi-traditional levels, so more and more you will find yourself relating on that level to so many others!
Early in my more public work in this field, I began to think of myself as an “expert.” A big-shot! And I was at once taken to the woodshed, as our guides will on occasion take us to the woodshed during our nightly meetings. I was given to understand that I am not an expert. My job is to point people toward the real experts! And if I ever start to think of myself as more than a kindergarten teacher in this work, I will become useless to it.
So, okay, but at least I do have a role, and I have come to revel in it. Of late, I have come to realize that actually my role is to help to gather the Lord’s flock (here my comment to Michael Newton just above is relevant), and to give them into the Lord’s arms (the greatest expert of all!), shorn now of the earth’s worst negativity, so they can learn at last what He came to teach and be united with Him in perfect love. It is a little role, but a crucial one! And some of those whom I have helped to find the genuine Jesus will rise higher in their thinking, as you have done, which will gloriously enrich the world. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here, dear Nicholas!
Thank you so much for what you say. For sure, we are all kindergartners. Or, at least, we should be. For it is the child within us that is wise, not the adult, with his encrusted patina of beliefs, habits and illusions. Or worse, as you constantly point out, dogmas, whether they be of the “scientific” or the “religious” sort.
Roberta, the work you do for people is like clear water running.
In fact, for me the ideal “living room” would be one with a stream flowing through it. There actually are some old structures in Europe from centuries ago that were built like this. That unending flow or rippling water through one’s living space would be a constant reminder for your advice to clean up our acts too 🙂
I am so glad that you emphasize the connection between our inner housekeeping and the fate of the world at large.
Thank you, Lorie! These lyrics underscore how important it is to remember that our minds are not our thoughts, and that our thoughts are not necessarily even from our minds. Thoughts are often ricocheting cultural artifacts — echoes of things we’ve heard and probably don’t even believe, and subtle chatter from a to-do list that we gave into for a purpose that serves something or someone else. Sometimes our thoughts are fear-based reactions, as we sense some spontaneous physical stimulus and then race to attribute that physical feeling to something we have been participating in, for good or for ill.
Some of our thoughts are ours. How to tell the difference?
Through our hearts. This is not new, but it’s news to many of us that our hearts have neural tissue. The heart is not just a ticker, but it’s also a thinker. Thoughts from our heart cut straight to the chase. All we have to do is ask, and the mind in our hearts will respond with an answer that is clear and blunt.
How to learn this? Our guides are very good at using our hearts as the channel for getting messages through to us. Trusting in all the ways of working with our guides that have been discussed here helps us think with our hearts. It’s not just an expression. Other cultures have known this for thousands of years.
Dearest Roberta,
What a growth essential and beautifully crafted blog this is.
It reaches right into the living room of my mind and inspires me to look closely at the mess.
Please indulge me this image that keeps insisting on my mind, drawn from one of the opening scenes of the movie “Annie Hall” (MGM 1977):
A Brooklyn Mother is sitting in Dr Flicker’s surgery with her young son Alvy Singer. The boy looks about ten years old, has a pasty complexion, red hair and think black rimmed glasses. He is withdrawn and pensive.
His assertive mother tells Dr Flicker that he is nervous and can’t eat or sleep . When the doctor asks Alvy what the problem is, the boy says,
“I read in a book that the universe is everything and it’s breaking up. That means everything will break up! I can’t eat, relax or sleep.”
Before Dr Flicker can answer, infact before he can draw breath, Alvy’s mother loudly says :
“ What is it your business ?!!”
That’s what I have to do to keep away from current affairs, world politics and assessing prevailing geopolitical forces. I have to tell myself, ‘What is it your business?” every time a news item or political post arises on my TV.. That is the self policing trick I’ll use.
Roberta, I have had some evidence to the fact that I can’t completely ignore the negativity in an area of interest to me. The bad stuff does get in, even if just by osmosis. I see that now.
You see, as I would talk about current issues with friends and some family, I would feel kind of ‘heavier’ afterwards and kind of ‘hurt’ by the duplicity, self interest and scheming that typifies the workings of this world.
I have lessened my polical focus greatly over the last half year. As I focus on forgiveness, gratitude, abiding love and as I learn about the greater reality, I’m ‘lighter’ and much happier day to day. So you see ? My cutting down politics has already had a rapid and lasting effect on my vibration, as it were.
Thus, I can now focus on giving up habitual viewing of Netflix and internet movies, series and news items that are often turgid with negativity. (Perhaps the shedding of some externals would also help reduce ego identification.)
I guess I’ll try to be patient with myself.
I know Spirit will make it easier and Jesus definitely wants us to be happy and filled with light.
Hey, what if we on this blog (and others who are aware of this entry) all clean out our living rooms together? That could be interesting, eh?
Love and hugs 🙏🏼❣️
Efrem 🕊
Dear Efrem, when I first gave up TV in all its forms, altogether and in a single day, I thought it was going to be impossible. It had been integral to my life with breakfast and from right after dinner until late, and especially integral to my relationship with my husband. We would check in the morning to see what was going to be on that night, and plan around it. We watched the news channels obsessively, and we talked about current events. Who would I even be, without television? Could our marriage survive this change?
So I told myself that I would just go day by day, and I didn’t tell him anything for weeks, until eventually he noticed (men can be thick sometimes ;-)) that I had a habit now of going right to my office after dinner and not watching TV with him at all. I told him about this or that book I was writing, this or that project I was doing for a client, and I’m glad you’re watching the news, darling, and let’s talk about it in the morning instead of watching those dumb old talking heads at breakfast. I don’t think I told him for as much as a year that I likely would never watch TV again, and by then it was so much our new normality that he just shrugged.
I think it’s much easier to give up TV altogether than it is to keep watching some TV but policing it for negativity. And the beautiful fact that you gain back hours and hours – once I calculated that I had gained three work days each week! – makes the effort so much more than worthwhile. You are always in control. Why don’t you try it?
Efrem: At least your downfall on the negative included only politics. I had taken a course in criminal justice and always wished I completed it, but my interest in it never waned. That means that I have been exposed to things that the average person hasn’t been at any more than a basic level. There are people who have devoted their whole careers and lives to this, trying to understand the human psyche in an effort to find out how to stop or at least lessen the terrible atrocities that exist. Staying away from all negativity and concentrating only on positive things sounds good in theory, but it is very much like an ostrich hiding his head in the sand. It is much easier to do when your personal life hasn’t been affected by this sort of thing, but when it has, the “victim” of it can never be the same again. Therefore, I don’t believe that ignoring negative situations altogether makes any sense.
Dear Lola, your point is wonderfully made! Please understand, though, that an ostrich is accomplishing nothing productive and simply ignoring reality when he buries his head in the sand, while what we spiritual warriors are doing is the literal opposite of that. Think of this process more as fully and deeply looking at reality, and realizing that while we cannot change either the past or the present, we do indeed have the power to change the future!
The consciousness vibration of this planet has fallen so low that we are told now that it cannot recover on its own, so the initial work of raising our planetary vibration is being done by elevated beings who tell us that it is going to be up to us to carry this process the rest of the way. On a planet so steeped in fear, anger, and hatred, in fact the horrible things that you point out – the cruelties and the tragedy of man’s inhumanity to man – are just the natural fruit of a humankind so negative that we are living in a spiritual sewer. What should be a beautiful spiritual garden is clogged and choked almost to death with the weeds of deep negativity. Of course, to pull a few of those weeds and stake the spiritual plants and fertilize them to make them flower again here and there, as we can manage it, is a good thing. That is what you are talking about – trying to lessen the very worst things and make human life a bit better – and of course yours is a wonderful effort!
What a few of us are talking about doing here, though, is something very different. We are talking about tilling the entire field – acres upon millions of acres of it! – and planting anew the most beautiful spiritual flowers and helping them to grow so abundantly that every negativity weed will be choked out, withered, and gone.
This amazing result is what actually will come from a sufficient elevation of human consciousness worldwide! This is the only way that we truly can end the evils of negativity forevermore, so this is what we will have to begin someday. Why can’t that someday be right now?
I am grateful to every brave and glorious soul who is pulling the weeds of negativity today, and staking the damaged plants and applying the fertilizer. You are making the world better for those living today, and I applaud you for it! But please don’t disparage those of us who have undertaken the very different task of working with the elevated beings who are revving up those spiritual tractors and beginning to plow and prepare for new seeding. While you fight so hard for the present, we are fighting for a much better future for us all.
Hi Lola,
That’s fascinating, that you have studied and focused closely on criminal justice. I bet you’ve been exposed to some horrifying things. It must have been difficult to look, unflinchingly, into the darkness of man.
I think that you are a brave person who passionately wants to make a difference. I bet that you have done so too.
And it is true that when something terrible has happened to you, or affected you very personally, you can never be the same.
I haven’t shared this, but I’ve been through a deep trauma and the subsequent mother of all storms. (It has truly felt like this for me.) The storm took twenty years to pass. And due to the work I have involved myself in because of it, I have seen many people die untimely deaths.
Previously, I thought that J.R.R. Tolkien was right when he said some wounds never wholly heal. Now, I’m no longer convinced of that. In the end, even my deepest wound will heal I think, and I’ll be left with a whopping great scar, that I may even be able to talk freely about one day.
What makes this time of life so rejuvenating, is that I’m finding rather than losing. I’m finding delightful changes happening inside and Roberta’s helpful hints are already bearing fruit. So I’m starting to come at life from a position of abundance and not of lack. I’m neither victim nor post trauma victim, I’m just growing in Spirit.
So it is already easier to give up the flashing talky talky box in my living room. I can now feel sustained without it. In a way, I’m curious to see what this feels like.
As a student of life and literature, I too have delved the mind of man. I’ve had enough of this. Now I want to unify with the Eternal Mind.
And while I’m doing so, I am loving talking to you, to Roberta and others in this unique group. 🌹🙏🏼❣️
I’m guessing that certain professions, such as law enforcement or the military, very necessary and honorable as they are in this world, would not be a good fit for those of us working on this energatinc / spiritual project? Otherwise there would be some serious conundrums to deal with. I have certainly struggled with this issue. As spiritual “warriors” we are not hiding under rocks, but coming at things from a different perspective. To Efrem’s point, I have found that as I work on digging those bits of coal out of the crannys of my mind, it is a natural byproduct that TV, news, and all the other mostly negative media gradually become more repellant, so we should definitely be patient and gentle with ourselves, and let the process unfold.
Yes, dear Scott. I think I originally gave up TV because so much of what my husband wanted to watch was cable news, and I was finding it increasingly difficult even to be in the same room with it. As I write the post that is planned for next weekend, I realize more and more completely how much I cannot now stand to be anywhere near negativity. And that seems to be a universal problem for those who are sincere about doing what is necessary to materially raise their consciousness vibrations. This isn’t for everyone, but for those who are sincere about really acing this lifetime spiritually, downers like television are literal acid on snow!
One thing that’s important to remember is that as we do this work, we change, inevitably. Those of us who are law enforcement or military can do the work, too, but it’s likely that as they make progress in cleaning up their living room, they will find that their role in these lines of work is less “rewarding.” I am finding it personally hard enough to do a fairly neutral public relations job the more progress I make, so I can just imagine how much dissonance others may feel. But change must be expected, and allowed for. In the long run, to Roberta’s point, if everyone is successful at raising their vibrations, the world will change so much that there will be no more demand for law enforcement or military.
Please don’t misunderstand. I totally support your efforts. No one in their right mind would criticize anyone with those goals. I just feel sorry for the victims because in many cases, they have done nothing to cause the things that happened to them.
This may seem a bit off topic, but I wrote Nanci Davison who, like Roberta, was an attorney until she had a near death experience when she “died” of an anaphylactic reaction during surgery. She suddenly found herself surrounded by light beings who imparted what she feels is a great deal of knowledge from the afterlife including the art of manifesting a reality for ourselves here on earth. My question was if we can do that here, is it also possible to do a similar thing in the afterlife when we die. She loved the question – so much so that she wishes to address it in her July newsletter instead of answering me directly. Since that won’t be until a month from now, I wondered if Roberta (or anyone else here) has any thoughts on this.
Dear Lola, on your first point, I think it’s important for everyone reading this exchange to know that each person on earth is on his or her unique planned journey! Some, like you, feel driven to help those here on earth who need their help, and that is such a beautiful mission. No one ever could question or want to interfere with it!
As to Nanci Davidson, I think that first it is important to say yet again that near-death experiences have nothing whatsoever to do with actual death. They are an entirely different experience! The dead tell us consistently – and the accounts of experiencers often give evidence this is true – that death is always a one-way trip, so anyone who “died and came back” has had an extensive and wonderful out-of-body experience in the astral. NDEs are wonderful evidence that our minds easily exist apart from our bodies, but otherwise nothing that happens during an NDE can be taken as evidence of anything.
That being said, I have read many NDE accounts, and while most are clearly experiences created by the individual’s guides from information pulled from that experiencer’s mind, there are some – perhaps as many as 25% – which seem to me to impart verifiable information that the experiencer could not have known, and even to include genuine perfected beings. I don’t know whether this experiencer’s information might be of that sort.
Now, I am trying to understand your question! I believe you are asking whether it is possible for us to manifest our preferred reality once we arrive in the afterlife… is that right? If I have understood your question, then yes, it actually is much easier to create your own reality – or a reality that you share with a few others – in the afterlife, than it is to do that here. It is much too easy! If you die with a certain kind of post-death reality in mind, in fact, you will probably be so drawn to others who share your vision of what the afterlife will be that you may not even make it to the Summerland. Instead, you risk ending up diverted into what Bob Monroe called a “hollow heaven,” of which many actually exist. A hollow heaven looks and feels real and solid, but it is populated only by other people who are as confused now as you soon will be. A cloud, with or without St. Peter’s gates, is perhaps the most common hollow heaven reported. There is a throne room version too, but it is less common and it lacks God on the throne. Another pretty common one is a little village at twilight surrounding a steepled church, where apparently people endlessly carry home-baked pies into a church social. One hollow heaven, of course, is a fiery hell, but those who expect to end up in hell are quickly screaming, so they are rescued almost at once. Everyone else who is off-track this way must be rescued as well, but since they assume they are already in heaven they tend not even to notice their rescuers until they are pretty much completely disgusted.
All of this is so easily avoided! I consistently say – and I will say it again! – that you should never believe too much in anyone’s vision of the afterlife, especially including my own. Instead, look for and trust your deathbed rescuers, and follow them to the great shared post-death reality that is far more wonderful than even our very fondest imaginings!
It is lovely to see you here, dear Mac! And as always, you are the voice of skeptical reason ;-). However, as you know, I am the eternal starry-eyed optimist, so I think an individual can make nearly infinite progress in a single lifetime! Let’s see what you have to say about that next week….
Thanks for the welcome, Roberta but I’m more likely to remain a lurker here than to become a contributor; an observer more than a participant, rather as I am in ‘real life’. I do admire your optimism about humankind’s spiritual potential but I fear you may indeed be starry-eyed. It would need an unprecedented sea-change for the world you envisage to come about; not impossible but not likely in my estimation although individually you may be the change you see.
Thanks so much for answering me, Roberta. I know there are an infinite number of hollow heavens that one can partake in, and even though Bob Monroe was the first to mention them , he is far from being the only one to see them. It’s just that in Nanci’s case, she expected nothing, so I found it odd that these light beings seemed to spend so much time with her (time as we know it). If she had stayed there, of course, the light beings would have likely gone away and a new reality would have presented itself, but she seemed to feel it was necessary for her to return and “let people know the truth” as she put it. Thanks so much for mentioning the hollow heavens. I had read Monroe’s books while he was still alive. Since he’s been gone quite a while now, I totally forgot about the hollow heavens, and yes, that does answer my question. Thanks again
PS -It is just my opinion, but I feel that in order to avoid places like hollow heavens and similar earth-like environments, we would need to totally disconnect from what we experienced while we were in a physical body – at least to the point where it no longer held any major importance .
Dear Lola, it is primarily to keep us from going off-track that every natural death includes deathbed visitors as a key part of the death process. Those who come for us are generally the people we are most likely to trust, and once we are free of our bodies – even before the silver cord is severed – they try to claim our complete attention and rapidly raise our vibration (and theirs) so we leave the scene of our death as quickly as possible and almost at once Level 3 of the Summerland appears all around us. It has to be quick! Otherwise we might be distracted by mourners around our deathbed, which could lead to our losing sight of the deathbed visitors and thereby becoming earthbound. Or we might become focused on what we thing the afterlife will be, and – again – drop our vibration enough that we can’t see our deathbed visitors anymore, and instead we gravitate toward a hollow heaven. This is why I tell people that latching on to and closely following your deathbed visitors once you are free of your body is so critical!
And BTW, everyone gets at least one visitor. There is in the literature the tale of an old curmudgeon who died more than a century ago with no one on earth to comfort him, living or dead… until the psychic nurse sitting at his bedside was astonished to see a big white cart horse walk into the room. The hermit’s cranky face was suffused with joy, and he sat up and grabbed the horse around his neck… then his body fell back dead on the pillow, and the man and the horse disappeared.
Dear Roberta. I’m curious about your idea of the head wide open. Are there certain precautions people should take, like psychic self defense? The reason I ask is that in my last couple meditations with my guide, he seems pretty positive about things ” snapping together,” but has also hit on the theme of “security,” and negative entities that want to “turn off the lights.” I don’t want to be alarmist, but as we attempt to turn up our lights, do we become bigger targets?
Dear Scott, you make an excellent point! Whenever you work with spirit, it is important that you protect yourself, which is something that I didn’t know to do twenty years ago. I was never bothered by negative entities – not even by a single negative thought – and I think now that was the result of a combination of factors:
1) I was frequently praying The Lord’s Prayer, and when I thought of my head being wide open it was always as “an open prayer-line to God.”
2) I have never dabbled in any form of negativity, not in satanism or Ouija boards, and not even in attempting direct contact with spirits on my own.
3) I’m sure Thomas was protecting me, even back then!
The most obvious beacons to negative entities not in bodies are apparently anything that they can seize and use to communicate with the world, so therefore mediums, Ouija boards, etc. When you dabble in any of that, be wary! The best thing to do is really to develop a prayer of protection and grounding, and then say it every time that you are attempting to connect with spirit. Carol Morgan always picks up her pendulum and at once calls, “Mikey, Mikey, and only my son, Mikey!” The one time she picked up her pendulum and forgot to call for him, she attracted some mischievous spirit who began to spell out nonsense, and at once Mikey showed up and basically chewed her out for not calling for him as soon as the pendulum was in her hand.
So in short, dear Scott, there is some risk, but it seems to be modest in the case of the open-head exercise because that alone doesn’t give a negative entity much of an opportunity to do mischief; but still, you ought to call for the protection of your guides and also for God’s protection. Can’t hurt!
That may account for why many people die when family and/or friends leave the room, even sometimes only for a couple of minutes. This happened to me when my husband died. Who knows – it might be better that way, as it would lessen any distractions. Your account of the horse is eerily similar to one from Leslie Flint, a famous British medium. Through the medium, a man who worked as a peddler came through. He had no children and had little time to make any friends while he was here, and spent most of his time with a horse he called Jennie. She eventually died and left him devastated. When the peddler died, he described a grassy hill and saw Jennie running toward him supposedly to greet him. How wonderful to think that animals can meet us like people can if appropriate
Dear Lola, we are told that most of those who are in the process of dying very much prefer to leave their bodies without the presence of living loved ones. For them, dying is a private act, they are in the arms now of long-dead loved ones, and reportedly they (wisely) don’t want the distraction of people around their beds who might be upset to see the actual death.
And yes, the bond with our horses can be every bit as strong as our bond with our dogs and cats! My own dear wonderful horse of 30 years’ duration is reportedly now a member of my guidance team, and Thomas tells me that I have requested and been granted the gift of riding him away from my death bed. So when I see my two so much beloved friends, Thomas and Beau, standing waiting for me, I will know that it really is time to go home!
My own father waited until we had all turned our backs and become engrossed in an entirely unrelated conversation as we sat in his hospital room. I remember it very clearly. We were all in the room with him, but then someone asked a question and our attention wavered from my father’s beside. Then, suddenly, we realized how quiet it had become. At that moment, he was gone, while our family backs were “turned.” Remembering him as I do, I am sure he waited for that key moment.
There have been many accounts from those we used to say are dead of their pets being there for them after they passed. The peddler being greeted by his faithful horse is, perhaps, less common but the bond of love between master and animal is little different from that concerning a much-loved pet.
Our unseen, discarnate helpers will try to orchestrate whatever is needed to help a transition, even organising just such a reunion.
Oh yes, dear Mac! Those not in bodies consider a life on earth to be extremely hard duty indeed, and they will do whatever they can to make our return to our eternal lives both easier and even more joyful!
What do you think is the best way to deal with those people who are fixtures in our lives who make negative comments? It is sometimes difficult, when a friend starts criticising and grumbling, not to join in! It almost seems rude not to!
I have tried just smiling or nodding but not taking the bait, sometimes using a circle of protection around myself, and so far have had limited success. I suppose, as my schoolteacher said, I ‘must try harder!’
Dear Alex, it never is rude to avoid negativity, and anyone who tries to goad you into being negative is someone you definitely must avoid! Here are some thoughts:
1) You don’t have to see anyone you don’t want to see. Just gently put them on “discourage,” ignore their texts and let their calls go to voicemail (and you don’t get the messages – darn it, your phone must be broken!). And be all “Can’t do it! Darn it!” about anything they reach you about and want you to do that will put you in close proximity with them. You can do this successfully even with adult siblings, grandparents, parents, anyone! If it’s someone to whom you had been close, you can try – just once – to share a gentle lie, something like saying that your doctor has determined that you must avoid all discussions that might affect your blood pressure, so if the friend/relative can’t help you with that, you are very sorry but you will have to limit contact for awhile.
2) Above all, never be judgmental! Never let yourself even feel superior about this in your very deepest heart. Feel for these people, love them, bless them, and if they are relatives then reach out to them every couple of months if possible, saying only positive things. It is very important that you and I sow peace and love wherever we go!
3) Bosses and co-workers can be harder to avoid, but if someone is really negative you can just unfailingly say something nice in response. Your boss says, “Those &%##$ are awful! They shouldn’t get to vote!” And even though you agree with every syllable, you at once say, “I love your tie! Where did you get it?” Or, “Those shoes are great! Wish I could wear heels so high.” If a co-worker is similarly negative, you can be blunter. Perhaps you might use the blood-pressure excuse, or just simply say, “I wish I could talk now, but I’m way behind!” If you NEVER take the bait, soon they will stop throwing it.
4) Some people have less-well-off friends and relatives who hit them up with hard-luck stories. Giving people money this way is profoundly unhealthy for everyone involved, and I don’t care how rich you are! I have a wealthy and soft-hearted friend who suggests that people set up their own little foundations, and if you are going to give to hard-luck cases, always do it anonymously.
No one should be a fixture in your life! I know what you mean by the term, but if you look back you’ll see that people have come and gone in your life as circumstances have changed, and that will continue to happen. Perhaps you should go down the list of your contacts today and frankly re-evaluate each of them as to whether they are pluses and treasures in your life, or whether they are drain-people you wish you could avoid. Then begin to act accordingly!
You can find Roberta’s radio show and podcast posted freshly each Monday on Webtalkradio.net. If there is any guest you would like her to interview, or anything you hope she will talk about, please send your suggestions via the Contact block!
The most important thing you can do for your own happiness and for the health of the world is to begin right now to clean out and tidy up your mind. This didn’t seem to be important back when we thought each mind was a temporary artifact generated by each separate brain, with perhaps a part that carried on to sing forever at the feet of God. It was fine back then to fill your own mind with garbage. Nobody ever would know! You could compartmentalize your mind perhaps, have a place where you prepared uplifting sentences for public conversations, and also deep crannies where you could keep the detritus of videogames and horror movies and where you could cherish your various hatreds. You could keep your insecurities hidden there, too. Each of us went about our days projecting success in all that we did, while from our failure crannies came the certainty that any minute now something was going to happen that would show us to be frauds and fools. Back then, your mind was your mind alone! And so long as you carefully managed all your public interactions, it was nobody’s business what you were thinking.
now in bodies. The extent to which this is true is something I have never wanted to know, but the fact of it should not surprise us. The Godhead can access your mind, as can your spirit guides, as can some others who are not now in bodies. What seems to be the case is that a being not in a body who has a good reason to access your mind is able to do it easily, but I don’t think you need to worry that dead Aunt Mildred is rummaging around to learn what you really thought of her and what your kinkiest fantasies might be.
years ago, for all the reasons given in that first paragraph. But one of the fruits of cleaning up your mental living room is that you are always ready now to welcome every guest! Now I have no mental secrets, so please come on in, take a comfy chair, and have a cup of tea. I am going to suggest that you do just what I did, and I am happy to assure you that it has been easy. Here are all the right steps to take:
your living room. Never again! From now on, whenever you have a thought that is negative, whether it is defeatist (I’ll never get that raise), angry (that big jerk!), disparaging (my brother is a loser), hate-filled (those ____ are evil), or simply a downer (I hate rainy days), then immediately counter it with something positive. “I’ll find a much better job!” “That poor man is having an awful day.” “My brother needs cheering up.” “I want to better understand those ____.” There is not much you can do about rainy days, so what I do is consider rain to be my permission to goof off. It’s raining! YAYY! I can watch a movie, hang around with my husband, take a quick store trip, or chat with friends. If you are on a work-clock, you might just have a special “rain snack.” The point is to counter every negative thought right away with something positive.
written even one Fun book. Nor could I have done six years of podcasts, or written almost two hundred blog posts. If I had not cleaned up my living room, then you and I would have lived and died without our ever having shared this beautiful connection. 
Dear Roberta,
There was, as usual, a great deal of wisdom in your blog post – and a lot of humor I needed: I can’t get the sight of a “herd of demented puppies” out of my mind now. ☺️ When I gave up TV almost a decade ago, that was just the beginning. That’s when I realized other ways in which I was hypnotized, etc. The policing of the mind has been easier since regulating what gains access…
All I know is that what’s truly beautiful now is appreciated at a much deeper level. A version of “Stendahl’s syndrome” – whereby a person observing great art almost has a lapse in consciousness due to undiluted bliss. – is possible in very positive ways when I listen to opera now or even laugh with a small child. (A bit of hyperbole here in that I certainly don’t faint.)
Although I still struggle with fears, at least I have tools to help dismantle them. I hardly ever feel anger, but go straight to heartache when someone harms another be it human or animal. These are the times that try our souls, but I know we’re not alone. Thanks for all of your much- appreciated work.
All blessings,
Brett
Oh dear Brett, how lovely! It has been true for me, too, that as I cleaned up my mind and eliminated all that I could of the negative inflow, I began to much better appreciate beauty, or even really to see it at all. In fact, beauty is everywhere, and sometimes it stuns me now. Only yesterday I was returning to my neighborhood and noticed yet again the flourishing of summer green. And the rich shade of it – the bounty of it! – felt so overwhelming that I was dumbstruck in the middle of a sentence. Then I babbled about how unbelievably beautiful this all was, and my dear husband patiently agreed. Beautiful. He is used by now to having a wife who talks to him about concepts that are far outside his Catholic ken, and can be thunderstruck by the tiny joys that he otherwise ignores.
And where the horrors of this world are concerned, if you cannot do anything about them directly then the most important thing you can do is to treat them like one of those demented puppies and give them the quick pat of a positive thought. Negativity of all kinds is the real enemy! The higher your own vibration rises, the higher will rise the vibration of this planet, so then some future criminal will find his own vibration rising high enough that he will turn away from harming some unknown future victim. Truly, the most powerful thing that most of us can do is to raise our personal vibrations enough so the earth’s future will be much brighter than its past.
As for the fears and angers that are incidental to human life, we will be focusing on them next week. Once you have cleaned up your living room, it is easy then to allow the perfect teachings of Jesus to help you make of this your very last earth-lifetime….
Thanks so much! Been working a while now on stopping and tossing out negative thoughts and especially the little mental scenarios that conjure up negative feelings and downer mental events. Vigilant awareness of what is happening in my mind and firm decisions to stop immediately has been working for me.
As a retired Methodist pastor I have found it impossible to be a part of the church in any fashion. The salvation theology, at the heart of Christianity, is a very negative force that usually obscures the beauty and pure love of the being know as Jesus. I have much to gain in this spirit journey clothed in flesh and so glad that those guides helping me have lots of patience! Thanks again and as always, Mike
Dear Michael, you are purely right about Christianity’s “salvation theology”! It is indeed highly negative, and it is both insulting to God and humiliating to Jesus. It has no basis in anything real.
For a long time I thought that organized Christianity had been a tragic 1,500-year human-created detour in the Lord’s plan, but of late I have been given to understand that it may actually have been the plan. After all, this earth is merely a spiritual gym, and like any gym it has needed to lay down many generations of negativity-based earth-life for us to come here and push against, just as if we were making trips to a gym. All the religions have now created sufficien negativity-based generations, and since there is no objective time we now can incarnate into that negativity for so long as that is needed for the perfection of humankind. Now, though, the negativity has become such that it will destroy this planet if we don’t work to quickly raise the earth’s consciousness vibration, so now the teachings of Jesus are one of the tools to quickly make that happen!
The fact that there are more than two billion Christians in the world (they are close to a third of the world’s population), and that among even non-Christian inhabitants of the world the Lord Himself has a very high approval rating (it’s something like 90% in the U.S.), makes Him and His teachings a literal magic bullet that can now rapidly slay all negativity worldwide.
And this may actually have been the plan all along, dear Michael! So now you and I and so many others who know Jesus and can help Him reach people with the truth may indeed be His minions, having chosen to come into bodies now and be the age here that we are now so we can begin this glorious crusade of love and peace.
Wonderful post.
Our minds are indeed rooms. Bu they are also akin to elementary particles: if we remain “fixated” on certain contingent beliefs, attitudes or habits, then the original, ineffable, flowing waves that gave rise to our existence (the God-Mind), with its infinitude of potential variations, is arrested, stopped in its tracks, reduced. Our “forgetting” of essence, in each second of our lives transforms us into a dot closed in on itself. A dot only lives in isolation and is most often in conflict or mistrust of other dots that it perceives as other to itself. Your good house-keeping (spiritual cleansing!) advice, when flowed, allows for those dots to be joined up into rings of love and mutual understanding. Followers of your blog, and many others elsewhere, are becoming acutely aware that we are living through unusual times (End-times, but also New-Beginning times, Catastrophic yet filled with immense new possibilities). As you say, the time is now for us to choose how we wish to navigate our temporary and limited Mind-Space-capsules (to use a different metaphor) thorough the plenitude of infinite “space” (which is not, of course a physical space, but rather a metaphorical and a transcendent space of open, undivided and limitless consciousness). And yes, the fear even spiritually oriented people have, deep down, of “dissolving” eventually into a cosmic Non-self would be much like a salt crystal dissolving in warm water, where the slat crystal has lost not just its appearance, but its very being. This derives from a tension-conflict where that the limited selves we identify as (Tom, Jane, Dmitri, whoever) are subconsciously felt to be threatened by vaster, more complete versions of ourselves (our Soul’s essence). When the Heart learns to open, and seeks a return to innocence, unless, through lapses into neglect or negativity, we continue to block it, an inevitable process of transforming back into that Nameless whole from which our Soul arose will take place.
There is also a unity behind the surface of what may at first appear to be variant cultural and religious interpretations. For example, what you speak of here as a clean living room, should always be emphasized as the main obligation of those practicing Yoga as a means to spiritual awakening. That inner practice was called “Ishvara Pranidhana”, and it is the practice of surrendering to God in a manner very much like the one you are recommending in your Living Room post. By the way, Ishvara means both God and Inner teacher, so it encompasses equally the Godhead and those Spirit guides and Mentors who are there behind the veil of the visible, and within the quiet spaces of our hearts and minds, to show us the way, which is different, (yet also the same), for each of us, since formulas, dogmas, and generic patterns are anti-Life, and it is only through individuality that the Life-force creates and sustains us.
A last point on what you say about the space above the head. I wrote in an earlier post how this space is, effectively, a kind of living room which can be entered into both by non-physical beings and equally by our own minds to benefit others in their plights. It is a living, vortically charged and multi-dimensional space surrounding the physical brain. Within this space, the saying attributed to St. Augustine is realized: God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, and whose center is everywhere. Perhaps we can conceive of our living rooms in such a way. They are both a clean, comfortable, domestic place where we can be ourselves in the best possible way and, at the same time, vast, swirling multi-dimensional spaces of exponential insights, understanding, and love.
Hi Nicholas. I used to be a bit of a follower of Parmahansa Yogananda, who considered Jesus one of his primary gurus, and who’s ideas where a nice synthesis of eastern and western thought. One way he would describe God was, I may not have the exact quote, “Center everywhere, circumference nowhere.” I always loved that analogy, but didn’t realize he was quoting St Augustine, as you mentioned. He also spoke of Yoga as meaning to “yoke” oneself to God, and that Bhakti yoga, or the path of love is the fastest and easiest path to God, similar to what has been discussed here in the past. Jesus said his “yoke” is easy, and his is also the path of love. I find it fascinating how different traditions can have such similarities. I decided I didn’t think of myself as the “Bhakti type” back then, and was a bit too uptight for all the chanting and singing, but now, having come home to my western spiritual roots with the teachings of Jesus, I guess maybe I am a Bhakti type after all. (still not that into chanting 😁) Yogananda also spoke of the importance of calming the waves of like and dislike, which reminds of the mental housecleaning Roberta is discussing in this post, yet another interesting similarity.
Hi Scott,
The old Indian spiritual texts such as the Gita speak of three different types of yoga practice, or paths ( jnana = wisdom, karma = action/activism, bhakti = devotion). But actually all three, just like the Christian concept of the Trinity, are intertwined and interdependent.
In the heart’s understanding, wisdom, love and right action combine in a natural way. In the pre-Life and post-Death worlds, this is our natural state. In the incarnated condition, we are susceptible to division and confusion. The brain, in particular, is a highly programmable organ, whether by our own neglectfulness , ingestion of chemical toxins, too much exposure to appliances and social media, or even from the malign influence of powerful players who are not operating from a position of love, but only exploitation.
Roberta’s good advice to clean up our living rooms makes us invulnerable to these negative forces. But we should include the removal of chemical and environmental toxins, not only the psycho-spritual ones to keep our living rooms bright and clear 🙂
Dear Scott and Nicholas, I love watching you and others here venturing into the Eastern teachings and practices! You are right in saying that it really is all one.
I learned long ago that I cannot meditate – my husband has been doing TM for 40 years! – but it is only lately that I have learned why Thomas has so sharply steered me away from all things Eastern.
Dear beautiful friends, my job is to teach the elevation of our consciousness vibration using the teachings of Jesus exclusively, and of course I am also to teach the afterlife, the greater reality, Christian history, and everything else that my beloved Western spiritual kindergartners need to be able to find and work closely with the genuine Lord. But that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer you on as you venture ever higher, and I am doing that now with all my heart!
No problem, and thanks for the insight on yoga. I like the Trinity analogy, although I’m not a trinitarian in the Catholic way. I suspect God is more like Roberta’s idea of a collective. Along those lines, one of the first messages my guide gave me was “El Ehad.” I thought it was maybe Arabic, but research (he seems to enjoy making me do lots of that😁) lead me to Hebrew for the number one, but in the sense of a union of several parts. I learned there is a whole controversy over using that word vs yahid, which is a single indivisible one, so he seemed to be saying something along the lines of “God is a whole, made of many parts,” or maybe, “God is a collective.” I found that kind of amazing. 🙏
Wow, dear Nicholas, this is beautifully written! And your understanding is well above my own, but I know some other readers will relate to it. As the planet’s consciousness rises, there will be more and more people who can relate on multi-disciplinary and multi-traditional levels, so more and more you will find yourself relating on that level to so many others!
Early in my more public work in this field, I began to think of myself as an “expert.” A big-shot! And I was at once taken to the woodshed, as our guides will on occasion take us to the woodshed during our nightly meetings. I was given to understand that I am not an expert. My job is to point people toward the real experts! And if I ever start to think of myself as more than a kindergarten teacher in this work, I will become useless to it.
So, okay, but at least I do have a role, and I have come to revel in it. Of late, I have come to realize that actually my role is to help to gather the Lord’s flock (here my comment to Michael Newton just above is relevant), and to give them into the Lord’s arms (the greatest expert of all!), shorn now of the earth’s worst negativity, so they can learn at last what He came to teach and be united with Him in perfect love. It is a little role, but a crucial one! And some of those whom I have helped to find the genuine Jesus will rise higher in their thinking, as you have done, which will gloriously enrich the world. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here, dear Nicholas!
Dear Roberta,
Thank you so much for what you say. For sure, we are all kindergartners. Or, at least, we should be. For it is the child within us that is wise, not the adult, with his encrusted patina of beliefs, habits and illusions. Or worse, as you constantly point out, dogmas, whether they be of the “scientific” or the “religious” sort.
Roberta, the work you do for people is like clear water running.
In fact, for me the ideal “living room” would be one with a stream flowing through it. There actually are some old structures in Europe from centuries ago that were built like this. That unending flow or rippling water through one’s living space would be a constant reminder for your advice to clean up our acts too 🙂
I am so glad that you emphasize the connection between our inner housekeeping and the fate of the world at large.
here’s a perfect song for this and it’s not one of mine. it’s by David Wilcox.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjEN-maNlvw
Thank you, Lorie! These lyrics underscore how important it is to remember that our minds are not our thoughts, and that our thoughts are not necessarily even from our minds. Thoughts are often ricocheting cultural artifacts — echoes of things we’ve heard and probably don’t even believe, and subtle chatter from a to-do list that we gave into for a purpose that serves something or someone else. Sometimes our thoughts are fear-based reactions, as we sense some spontaneous physical stimulus and then race to attribute that physical feeling to something we have been participating in, for good or for ill.
Some of our thoughts are ours. How to tell the difference?
Through our hearts. This is not new, but it’s news to many of us that our hearts have neural tissue. The heart is not just a ticker, but it’s also a thinker. Thoughts from our heart cut straight to the chase. All we have to do is ask, and the mind in our hearts will respond with an answer that is clear and blunt.
How to learn this? Our guides are very good at using our hearts as the channel for getting messages through to us. Trusting in all the ways of working with our guides that have been discussed here helps us think with our hearts. It’s not just an expression. Other cultures have known this for thousands of years.
I love this, dear Lorie! Thank you!!
Dearest Roberta,
What a growth essential and beautifully crafted blog this is.
It reaches right into the living room of my mind and inspires me to look closely at the mess.
Please indulge me this image that keeps insisting on my mind, drawn from one of the opening scenes of the movie “Annie Hall” (MGM 1977):
A Brooklyn Mother is sitting in Dr Flicker’s surgery with her young son Alvy Singer. The boy looks about ten years old, has a pasty complexion, red hair and think black rimmed glasses. He is withdrawn and pensive.
His assertive mother tells Dr Flicker that he is nervous and can’t eat or sleep . When the doctor asks Alvy what the problem is, the boy says,
“I read in a book that the universe is everything and it’s breaking up. That means everything will break up! I can’t eat, relax or sleep.”
Before Dr Flicker can answer, infact before he can draw breath, Alvy’s mother loudly says :
“ What is it your business ?!!”
That’s what I have to do to keep away from current affairs, world politics and assessing prevailing geopolitical forces. I have to tell myself, ‘What is it your business?” every time a news item or political post arises on my TV.. That is the self policing trick I’ll use.
Roberta, I have had some evidence to the fact that I can’t completely ignore the negativity in an area of interest to me. The bad stuff does get in, even if just by osmosis. I see that now.
You see, as I would talk about current issues with friends and some family, I would feel kind of ‘heavier’ afterwards and kind of ‘hurt’ by the duplicity, self interest and scheming that typifies the workings of this world.
I have lessened my polical focus greatly over the last half year. As I focus on forgiveness, gratitude, abiding love and as I learn about the greater reality, I’m ‘lighter’ and much happier day to day. So you see ? My cutting down politics has already had a rapid and lasting effect on my vibration, as it were.
Thus, I can now focus on giving up habitual viewing of Netflix and internet movies, series and news items that are often turgid with negativity. (Perhaps the shedding of some externals would also help reduce ego identification.)
I guess I’ll try to be patient with myself.
I know Spirit will make it easier and Jesus definitely wants us to be happy and filled with light.
Hey, what if we on this blog (and others who are aware of this entry) all clean out our living rooms together? That could be interesting, eh?
Love and hugs 🙏🏼❣️
Efrem 🕊
Dear Efrem, when I first gave up TV in all its forms, altogether and in a single day, I thought it was going to be impossible. It had been integral to my life with breakfast and from right after dinner until late, and especially integral to my relationship with my husband. We would check in the morning to see what was going to be on that night, and plan around it. We watched the news channels obsessively, and we talked about current events. Who would I even be, without television? Could our marriage survive this change?
So I told myself that I would just go day by day, and I didn’t tell him anything for weeks, until eventually he noticed (men can be thick sometimes ;-)) that I had a habit now of going right to my office after dinner and not watching TV with him at all. I told him about this or that book I was writing, this or that project I was doing for a client, and I’m glad you’re watching the news, darling, and let’s talk about it in the morning instead of watching those dumb old talking heads at breakfast. I don’t think I told him for as much as a year that I likely would never watch TV again, and by then it was so much our new normality that he just shrugged.
I think it’s much easier to give up TV altogether than it is to keep watching some TV but policing it for negativity. And the beautiful fact that you gain back hours and hours – once I calculated that I had gained three work days each week! – makes the effort so much more than worthwhile. You are always in control. Why don’t you try it?
It is true Roberta, that if one half weeds the garden those nasty, thorny weeds can come back all the faster.
I will do it now. I will cancel TV watching today.
Why muck about ? I’m eager to grow spiritually and I do have plenty of other things to do.
👍🙏🏼🌹
YAYY!! Good for you, dear Efrem! You will be amazed to find how much you don’t miss it ;-).
Efrem: At least your downfall on the negative included only politics. I had taken a course in criminal justice and always wished I completed it, but my interest in it never waned. That means that I have been exposed to things that the average person hasn’t been at any more than a basic level. There are people who have devoted their whole careers and lives to this, trying to understand the human psyche in an effort to find out how to stop or at least lessen the terrible atrocities that exist. Staying away from all negativity and concentrating only on positive things sounds good in theory, but it is very much like an ostrich hiding his head in the sand. It is much easier to do when your personal life hasn’t been affected by this sort of thing, but when it has, the “victim” of it can never be the same again. Therefore, I don’t believe that ignoring negative situations altogether makes any sense.
Dear Lola, your point is wonderfully made! Please understand, though, that an ostrich is accomplishing nothing productive and simply ignoring reality when he buries his head in the sand, while what we spiritual warriors are doing is the literal opposite of that. Think of this process more as fully and deeply looking at reality, and realizing that while we cannot change either the past or the present, we do indeed have the power to change the future!
The consciousness vibration of this planet has fallen so low that we are told now that it cannot recover on its own, so the initial work of raising our planetary vibration is being done by elevated beings who tell us that it is going to be up to us to carry this process the rest of the way. On a planet so steeped in fear, anger, and hatred, in fact the horrible things that you point out – the cruelties and the tragedy of man’s inhumanity to man – are just the natural fruit of a humankind so negative that we are living in a spiritual sewer. What should be a beautiful spiritual garden is clogged and choked almost to death with the weeds of deep negativity. Of course, to pull a few of those weeds and stake the spiritual plants and fertilize them to make them flower again here and there, as we can manage it, is a good thing. That is what you are talking about – trying to lessen the very worst things and make human life a bit better – and of course yours is a wonderful effort!
What a few of us are talking about doing here, though, is something very different. We are talking about tilling the entire field – acres upon millions of acres of it! – and planting anew the most beautiful spiritual flowers and helping them to grow so abundantly that every negativity weed will be choked out, withered, and gone.
This amazing result is what actually will come from a sufficient elevation of human consciousness worldwide! This is the only way that we truly can end the evils of negativity forevermore, so this is what we will have to begin someday. Why can’t that someday be right now?
I am grateful to every brave and glorious soul who is pulling the weeds of negativity today, and staking the damaged plants and applying the fertilizer. You are making the world better for those living today, and I applaud you for it! But please don’t disparage those of us who have undertaken the very different task of working with the elevated beings who are revving up those spiritual tractors and beginning to plow and prepare for new seeding. While you fight so hard for the present, we are fighting for a much better future for us all.
Hi Lola,
That’s fascinating, that you have studied and focused closely on criminal justice. I bet you’ve been exposed to some horrifying things. It must have been difficult to look, unflinchingly, into the darkness of man.
I think that you are a brave person who passionately wants to make a difference. I bet that you have done so too.
And it is true that when something terrible has happened to you, or affected you very personally, you can never be the same.
I haven’t shared this, but I’ve been through a deep trauma and the subsequent mother of all storms. (It has truly felt like this for me.) The storm took twenty years to pass. And due to the work I have involved myself in because of it, I have seen many people die untimely deaths.
Previously, I thought that J.R.R. Tolkien was right when he said some wounds never wholly heal. Now, I’m no longer convinced of that. In the end, even my deepest wound will heal I think, and I’ll be left with a whopping great scar, that I may even be able to talk freely about one day.
What makes this time of life so rejuvenating, is that I’m finding rather than losing. I’m finding delightful changes happening inside and Roberta’s helpful hints are already bearing fruit. So I’m starting to come at life from a position of abundance and not of lack. I’m neither victim nor post trauma victim, I’m just growing in Spirit.
So it is already easier to give up the flashing talky talky box in my living room. I can now feel sustained without it. In a way, I’m curious to see what this feels like.
As a student of life and literature, I too have delved the mind of man. I’ve had enough of this. Now I want to unify with the Eternal Mind.
And while I’m doing so, I am loving talking to you, to Roberta and others in this unique group. 🌹🙏🏼❣️
I’m guessing that certain professions, such as law enforcement or the military, very necessary and honorable as they are in this world, would not be a good fit for those of us working on this energatinc / spiritual project? Otherwise there would be some serious conundrums to deal with. I have certainly struggled with this issue. As spiritual “warriors” we are not hiding under rocks, but coming at things from a different perspective. To Efrem’s point, I have found that as I work on digging those bits of coal out of the crannys of my mind, it is a natural byproduct that TV, news, and all the other mostly negative media gradually become more repellant, so we should definitely be patient and gentle with ourselves, and let the process unfold.
Yes, dear Scott. I think I originally gave up TV because so much of what my husband wanted to watch was cable news, and I was finding it increasingly difficult even to be in the same room with it. As I write the post that is planned for next weekend, I realize more and more completely how much I cannot now stand to be anywhere near negativity. And that seems to be a universal problem for those who are sincere about doing what is necessary to materially raise their consciousness vibrations. This isn’t for everyone, but for those who are sincere about really acing this lifetime spiritually, downers like television are literal acid on snow!
One thing that’s important to remember is that as we do this work, we change, inevitably. Those of us who are law enforcement or military can do the work, too, but it’s likely that as they make progress in cleaning up their living room, they will find that their role in these lines of work is less “rewarding.” I am finding it personally hard enough to do a fairly neutral public relations job the more progress I make, so I can just imagine how much dissonance others may feel. But change must be expected, and allowed for. In the long run, to Roberta’s point, if everyone is successful at raising their vibrations, the world will change so much that there will be no more demand for law enforcement or military.
Please don’t misunderstand. I totally support your efforts. No one in their right mind would criticize anyone with those goals. I just feel sorry for the victims because in many cases, they have done nothing to cause the things that happened to them.
This may seem a bit off topic, but I wrote Nanci Davison who, like Roberta, was an attorney until she had a near death experience when she “died” of an anaphylactic reaction during surgery. She suddenly found herself surrounded by light beings who imparted what she feels is a great deal of knowledge from the afterlife including the art of manifesting a reality for ourselves here on earth. My question was if we can do that here, is it also possible to do a similar thing in the afterlife when we die. She loved the question – so much so that she wishes to address it in her July newsletter instead of answering me directly. Since that won’t be until a month from now, I wondered if Roberta (or anyone else here) has any thoughts on this.
Dear Lola, on your first point, I think it’s important for everyone reading this exchange to know that each person on earth is on his or her unique planned journey! Some, like you, feel driven to help those here on earth who need their help, and that is such a beautiful mission. No one ever could question or want to interfere with it!
As to Nanci Davidson, I think that first it is important to say yet again that near-death experiences have nothing whatsoever to do with actual death. They are an entirely different experience! The dead tell us consistently – and the accounts of experiencers often give evidence this is true – that death is always a one-way trip, so anyone who “died and came back” has had an extensive and wonderful out-of-body experience in the astral. NDEs are wonderful evidence that our minds easily exist apart from our bodies, but otherwise nothing that happens during an NDE can be taken as evidence of anything.
That being said, I have read many NDE accounts, and while most are clearly experiences created by the individual’s guides from information pulled from that experiencer’s mind, there are some – perhaps as many as 25% – which seem to me to impart verifiable information that the experiencer could not have known, and even to include genuine perfected beings. I don’t know whether this experiencer’s information might be of that sort.
Now, I am trying to understand your question! I believe you are asking whether it is possible for us to manifest our preferred reality once we arrive in the afterlife… is that right? If I have understood your question, then yes, it actually is much easier to create your own reality – or a reality that you share with a few others – in the afterlife, than it is to do that here. It is much too easy! If you die with a certain kind of post-death reality in mind, in fact, you will probably be so drawn to others who share your vision of what the afterlife will be that you may not even make it to the Summerland. Instead, you risk ending up diverted into what Bob Monroe called a “hollow heaven,” of which many actually exist. A hollow heaven looks and feels real and solid, but it is populated only by other people who are as confused now as you soon will be. A cloud, with or without St. Peter’s gates, is perhaps the most common hollow heaven reported. There is a throne room version too, but it is less common and it lacks God on the throne. Another pretty common one is a little village at twilight surrounding a steepled church, where apparently people endlessly carry home-baked pies into a church social. One hollow heaven, of course, is a fiery hell, but those who expect to end up in hell are quickly screaming, so they are rescued almost at once. Everyone else who is off-track this way must be rescued as well, but since they assume they are already in heaven they tend not even to notice their rescuers until they are pretty much completely disgusted.
All of this is so easily avoided! I consistently say – and I will say it again! – that you should never believe too much in anyone’s vision of the afterlife, especially including my own. Instead, look for and trust your deathbed rescuers, and follow them to the great shared post-death reality that is far more wonderful than even our very fondest imaginings!
We should never underestimate the potential for spiritual change that individuals can make.
Neither should we over-estimate it……;)
It is lovely to see you here, dear Mac! And as always, you are the voice of skeptical reason ;-). However, as you know, I am the eternal starry-eyed optimist, so I think an individual can make nearly infinite progress in a single lifetime! Let’s see what you have to say about that next week….
Thanks for the welcome, Roberta but I’m more likely to remain a lurker here than to become a contributor; an observer more than a participant, rather as I am in ‘real life’. I do admire your optimism about humankind’s spiritual potential but I fear you may indeed be starry-eyed. It would need an unprecedented sea-change for the world you envisage to come about; not impossible but not likely in my estimation although individually you may be the change you see.
Thanks so much for answering me, Roberta. I know there are an infinite number of hollow heavens that one can partake in, and even though Bob Monroe was the first to mention them , he is far from being the only one to see them. It’s just that in Nanci’s case, she expected nothing, so I found it odd that these light beings seemed to spend so much time with her (time as we know it). If she had stayed there, of course, the light beings would have likely gone away and a new reality would have presented itself, but she seemed to feel it was necessary for her to return and “let people know the truth” as she put it. Thanks so much for mentioning the hollow heavens. I had read Monroe’s books while he was still alive. Since he’s been gone quite a while now, I totally forgot about the hollow heavens, and yes, that does answer my question. Thanks again
PS -It is just my opinion, but I feel that in order to avoid places like hollow heavens and similar earth-like environments, we would need to totally disconnect from what we experienced while we were in a physical body – at least to the point where it no longer held any major importance .
Dear Lola, it is primarily to keep us from going off-track that every natural death includes deathbed visitors as a key part of the death process. Those who come for us are generally the people we are most likely to trust, and once we are free of our bodies – even before the silver cord is severed – they try to claim our complete attention and rapidly raise our vibration (and theirs) so we leave the scene of our death as quickly as possible and almost at once Level 3 of the Summerland appears all around us. It has to be quick! Otherwise we might be distracted by mourners around our deathbed, which could lead to our losing sight of the deathbed visitors and thereby becoming earthbound. Or we might become focused on what we thing the afterlife will be, and – again – drop our vibration enough that we can’t see our deathbed visitors anymore, and instead we gravitate toward a hollow heaven. This is why I tell people that latching on to and closely following your deathbed visitors once you are free of your body is so critical!
And BTW, everyone gets at least one visitor. There is in the literature the tale of an old curmudgeon who died more than a century ago with no one on earth to comfort him, living or dead… until the psychic nurse sitting at his bedside was astonished to see a big white cart horse walk into the room. The hermit’s cranky face was suffused with joy, and he sat up and grabbed the horse around his neck… then his body fell back dead on the pillow, and the man and the horse disappeared.
Dear Roberta. I’m curious about your idea of the head wide open. Are there certain precautions people should take, like psychic self defense? The reason I ask is that in my last couple meditations with my guide, he seems pretty positive about things ” snapping together,” but has also hit on the theme of “security,” and negative entities that want to “turn off the lights.” I don’t want to be alarmist, but as we attempt to turn up our lights, do we become bigger targets?
Dear Scott, you make an excellent point! Whenever you work with spirit, it is important that you protect yourself, which is something that I didn’t know to do twenty years ago. I was never bothered by negative entities – not even by a single negative thought – and I think now that was the result of a combination of factors:
1) I was frequently praying The Lord’s Prayer, and when I thought of my head being wide open it was always as “an open prayer-line to God.”
2) I have never dabbled in any form of negativity, not in satanism or Ouija boards, and not even in attempting direct contact with spirits on my own.
3) I’m sure Thomas was protecting me, even back then!
The most obvious beacons to negative entities not in bodies are apparently anything that they can seize and use to communicate with the world, so therefore mediums, Ouija boards, etc. When you dabble in any of that, be wary! The best thing to do is really to develop a prayer of protection and grounding, and then say it every time that you are attempting to connect with spirit. Carol Morgan always picks up her pendulum and at once calls, “Mikey, Mikey, and only my son, Mikey!” The one time she picked up her pendulum and forgot to call for him, she attracted some mischievous spirit who began to spell out nonsense, and at once Mikey showed up and basically chewed her out for not calling for him as soon as the pendulum was in her hand.
So in short, dear Scott, there is some risk, but it seems to be modest in the case of the open-head exercise because that alone doesn’t give a negative entity much of an opportunity to do mischief; but still, you ought to call for the protection of your guides and also for God’s protection. Can’t hurt!
That may account for why many people die when family and/or friends leave the room, even sometimes only for a couple of minutes. This happened to me when my husband died. Who knows – it might be better that way, as it would lessen any distractions. Your account of the horse is eerily similar to one from Leslie Flint, a famous British medium. Through the medium, a man who worked as a peddler came through. He had no children and had little time to make any friends while he was here, and spent most of his time with a horse he called Jennie. She eventually died and left him devastated. When the peddler died, he described a grassy hill and saw Jennie running toward him supposedly to greet him. How wonderful to think that animals can meet us like people can if appropriate
Dear Lola, we are told that most of those who are in the process of dying very much prefer to leave their bodies without the presence of living loved ones. For them, dying is a private act, they are in the arms now of long-dead loved ones, and reportedly they (wisely) don’t want the distraction of people around their beds who might be upset to see the actual death.
And yes, the bond with our horses can be every bit as strong as our bond with our dogs and cats! My own dear wonderful horse of 30 years’ duration is reportedly now a member of my guidance team, and Thomas tells me that I have requested and been granted the gift of riding him away from my death bed. So when I see my two so much beloved friends, Thomas and Beau, standing waiting for me, I will know that it really is time to go home!
My own father waited until we had all turned our backs and become engrossed in an entirely unrelated conversation as we sat in his hospital room. I remember it very clearly. We were all in the room with him, but then someone asked a question and our attention wavered from my father’s beside. Then, suddenly, we realized how quiet it had become. At that moment, he was gone, while our family backs were “turned.” Remembering him as I do, I am sure he waited for that key moment.
There have been many accounts from those we used to say are dead of their pets being there for them after they passed. The peddler being greeted by his faithful horse is, perhaps, less common but the bond of love between master and animal is little different from that concerning a much-loved pet.
Our unseen, discarnate helpers will try to orchestrate whatever is needed to help a transition, even organising just such a reunion.
Oh yes, dear Mac! Those not in bodies consider a life on earth to be extremely hard duty indeed, and they will do whatever they can to make our return to our eternal lives both easier and even more joyful!
Thank you dear Roberta
What do you think is the best way to deal with those people who are fixtures in our lives who make negative comments? It is sometimes difficult, when a friend starts criticising and grumbling, not to join in! It almost seems rude not to!
I have tried just smiling or nodding but not taking the bait, sometimes using a circle of protection around myself, and so far have had limited success. I suppose, as my schoolteacher said, I ‘must try harder!’
Dear Alex, it never is rude to avoid negativity, and anyone who tries to goad you into being negative is someone you definitely must avoid! Here are some thoughts:
1) You don’t have to see anyone you don’t want to see. Just gently put them on “discourage,” ignore their texts and let their calls go to voicemail (and you don’t get the messages – darn it, your phone must be broken!). And be all “Can’t do it! Darn it!” about anything they reach you about and want you to do that will put you in close proximity with them. You can do this successfully even with adult siblings, grandparents, parents, anyone! If it’s someone to whom you had been close, you can try – just once – to share a gentle lie, something like saying that your doctor has determined that you must avoid all discussions that might affect your blood pressure, so if the friend/relative can’t help you with that, you are very sorry but you will have to limit contact for awhile.
2) Above all, never be judgmental! Never let yourself even feel superior about this in your very deepest heart. Feel for these people, love them, bless them, and if they are relatives then reach out to them every couple of months if possible, saying only positive things. It is very important that you and I sow peace and love wherever we go!
3) Bosses and co-workers can be harder to avoid, but if someone is really negative you can just unfailingly say something nice in response. Your boss says, “Those &%##$ are awful! They shouldn’t get to vote!” And even though you agree with every syllable, you at once say, “I love your tie! Where did you get it?” Or, “Those shoes are great! Wish I could wear heels so high.” If a co-worker is similarly negative, you can be blunter. Perhaps you might use the blood-pressure excuse, or just simply say, “I wish I could talk now, but I’m way behind!” If you NEVER take the bait, soon they will stop throwing it.
4) Some people have less-well-off friends and relatives who hit them up with hard-luck stories. Giving people money this way is profoundly unhealthy for everyone involved, and I don’t care how rich you are! I have a wealthy and soft-hearted friend who suggests that people set up their own little foundations, and if you are going to give to hard-luck cases, always do it anonymously.
No one should be a fixture in your life! I know what you mean by the term, but if you look back you’ll see that people have come and gone in your life as circumstances have changed, and that will continue to happen. Perhaps you should go down the list of your contacts today and frankly re-evaluate each of them as to whether they are pluses and treasures in your life, or whether they are drain-people you wish you could avoid. Then begin to act accordingly!