The Nonspecific Spiritualist

8 horses killed in McConnelsville barn fire.

I hate intolerance and cruelty.  My heart was aching when I read this news story.  How can people be so mean?  Oh my God – those poor horses, including a week old foal and a mare ready to drop another.  Burned to death – and for what?  Because someone hated the owner’s sexual orientation.  I’m sad and disgusted.  I really doubt that a person who hates like that will ever become tolerant.  The hurt of those horses and their owner will surely be felt by the criminal when he dies.

I just made a small donation to the ASPCA in honor of the horses.

We are all God’s creatures.

Further to this earlier post,  I believe that one of the first things that happens when we cross over is our life review.  Through the history of mankind it has been seen by those with vision (prophets, psychics, mediums, etc…) and occurred enough to those that have had near-death-experiences that the phrase “my life flashed before my eyes” has entered into the lexicon of our languages.

It works like this:  Soon after arriving on the other side, you experience by seeing and by feeling the significant and special moments in your life.  You feel it – it’s pure empathy.

You feel the joys, the happiness, the satisfaction of the good you have done in your life.  But it’s empathy.  You’re not only feeling your own joys.  You’re feeling the joys of those who have experienced it because of you.  It’s rewarding.  It’s one of the rewards of heaven.

But empathy works for all emotions.  If you caused hurt and pain to others, you will feel that hurt and pain.  You will feel the pain as if you were that person feeling it.  The more people you hurt, the more pain you feel.  I think it helps if, before you die, you can take responsibility for your hurtfulness and own up to what you have done.  Remember in Dead Man Walking how Susan Sarandon wanted Sean Penn to own up?  If you can feel remorse, then that is a bit of empathy.  If you are truly sorry for what you have done before you die, I think you can minimize the pain.  If not, the God within you will judge yourself accordingly when you cross over.  I’m not so sure that there is a hell as much as there is judgement.  The judgement will come from yourself.  You will reap what you have sown.

As a quick follow-up to my earlier post about God, I just want you to know that I’m OK with using “Him” when referring to God.  I’m tolerant.  I understand that there are many personal ways of interpreting God, and many beliefs.  Who knows?  Maybe even I will use it if it is convenient or works well.  I’m also OK when the word “God” is used with that separate, singular-being connotation.  In either case, I’d rather see it in reference to good.  “God made you perfect,” for example.  But when I hear “How could God let this happen?” that’s when it is better to understand it from my point of view.  No, there is not one being, not one decision maker, not one choice maker.  There is no “one” to blame.

- Namaste -

I just realized that in the picture (which I took) at the top of my blog you are looking at the Hudson River there on the right.  It’s the part just south of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.  It’s the part where the boat ramp is which I just mentioned.

Something in the news today hit close to home for me.  The boat ramp where the woman drove her van with her kids into the Hudson River is 4 miles from my house.  She apparently took her own life and those of three of her children.  A fourth escaped from the sinking van.

I am a surviving family member of someone who committed suicide.  I have had two close co-workers who have lost family members to suicide.  I was not spiritually enlightened when it happened to the first co-worker.  All I was able to say to her was how sorry I was.  Even though I personally knew from my own experience what she was going through. I never said more to her about it.  I knew at the time that suicide is a selfish act.  If you remove yourself from the lives of those who love you, that’s selfish.  You leave in your tragic wake great pain and suffering for those that survive you – suicide note or not.

Years later, the second co-worker I was able to talk to a bit more.  I was more enlightened.  I gave him my copy of the Van Praagh book where I learned the following:  Except in the case of a physical/chemical ailment or condition which prevents one from thinking properly (a brain tumor, for example), if you choose to take your own life you are sorry for your decision as soon as you cross over.  It is not a dreadful, sad or suffering sorrow.  That part of God that is within you is suddenly free from your ego and your physical self, and you are instantly aware that you have done wrong.  You as a person do not solely create life, and you do not have the right or authority to take it – especially your own.  You still feel the bliss and love and happiness of being on the other side, but now you have the uninhibited love of God to forgive you and have mercy for you.  It’s all good - you won’t hate yourself for your mistake, nor will any other spirit.  You will feel the love and support of other spirits, and also the love and support of God within you.   Nonetheless, you immediately regret taking your own life and realize that it was wrong of you to do so.

It is also important that those left behind on Earth pray for your departed suicidal soul.  It will need your love, your loving thoughts, your prayers and hopefully your forgiveness for support and to help it move forward in its spiritual progression.

I pray for the mother from the shore of the Hudson, and for my grandfather.

Further to my earlier post, we participate in creating our life and our self along with God but also as God. 

I believe in God, but not in a God.  God is not a singular being or person.  God is not separate from you.  You cannot anthropomorphize God or else you can hate “him,” or blame “him,” or disagree with “him,” or question “him.”  God is not a him.  God is not a her.  God is everything. 

God is part of you. God is within you.  You are part of God.  We are all part of God.  Plant energy is part of God.  Animals are part of God.  The Earth as a whole has an energy that is part of God.  All of the love and energy in the next world is part of God.  All of the love from all of the spirits and angels is part of God.  The love and energy in the next world becomes more pure as it evolves.  At the top of the figurative pyramid the love is the purest, and it flows out and back down and around into the bottom and sides and up again.  Like magnetic lines of flux travel from one pole to the other, God is the love that fluxes through our worlds, and in the process, through ourselves, nourishing us. 

Picture a molecule of water and follow it as it travels Earth.  From a watering hole into an animal.  Out of the animal and back onto the ground.  Evaporated into the sky.  Down to the earth as rain.  Into the ground again.  Flowing into an underground spring.  Up into the roots of a tree.  Through the trunk into a leaf.  Down to the ground in autumn.  Evaporated into the sky.  Travel in a cloud to another land.  Down as snow.  Melted into a river.  Into and out of a fish.  The river into a reservoir.  Reservoir into our tap water.  Into our ice cube trays.  Into our strawberry banana smoothie.  All the while nourishing everything it passes through. 

What would this world be without water?  Well, what would our worlds be without love? 

God is the sum total of all the love and good energy that make up this world. We are part of this world.  We are part of God, and God is part of us. 

It’s all good.  God is good.  God is love.  Love is what makes the world go around.

OK, I just love the show Psychic Kids on cable TV.  I love seeing the kids learn how to use their abilities and how to manage them.  The guy Chip is really awesome, as he has dedicated his own practice to them.  I love seeing the kids transform themselves and improve their lives and relationships as they learn to accept themselves and their special senses.  It has to be hard to have those senses and have them be a negative force in your life because you haven’t yet realized how to harness, control and understand them. 

To Chip and the rest of the crew:  Good at ya, mates!

 - Peace -

I’m not sure when the specific moment was, but somewhere along the way my belief system changed.  One specific new belief that has changed my outlook the most is that we are here in this world after having planned our life in advance for ourselves. 

Requisite to this is the belief in reincarnation.  Some belief systems say that when you die, your spirit goes to Heaven.  I believe that, too.  Some belief systems say that your spirit then lives forever in Heaven.  I believe it can, but not until it’s ready.  Until it’s ready, it will return to this world and live another life so that it may learn, evolve and advance itself some more.  It has to learn by doing, experiencing, practicing and trying.  In other words, it has to learn by living.  Since our spirits have too much to learn and experience in just one lifetime, our spirits will live many lifetimes in this world. 

Our spirit, under the guidance and approval of other more evolved spirits, will plan out its forthcoming life in this world in such a way as to ensure or improve the chances of learning certain lessons it knows it needs in order to evolve.  Certain obstacles and certain opportunities will be in our life’s path to help make that happen.  Obstacles and opportunities come in many forms: persons and personalities that intertwine with us; where we live; how we live; what jobs we have; physical attributes; mental, psychological and cognitive attributes.  Think of anything that affects our lives.  It can be an obstacle or opportunity that we planned for ourselves.  When we are born into this life our memory of our past lives and of our planning for this one is necessarily removed.  We do get it back when we return to Heaven.

Here is the most important thing:  we do not create a life path for ourselves that is impossible to navigate successfully.  We do not set ourselves up for certain failure.  That is not to say that we won’t fail or we can’t fail.  We still have to make the right choices along the way in order to succeed.  We still have to make the correct turns, take the right steps and choose the better choices. 

So how has this belief changed my outlook?  When I am facing hardship, crisis and difficulty I know that it is part of my own plan.  I try not to blame others.  I do not curse God.  I know that I put myself into this figurative mess, and that it is up to me to get myself out.  I know that somewhere is a lesson to be learned.  

Succeeding is learning those lessons. 

I’m still trying.  I’m still living. 

- Peace -