Spirituality/Death

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Did Jesus have children? – 2

This posting is a reply to a comment at the end of the “Did Jesus Have Children? – 1” posting.

In Fulfillment of a Law?

With regards to the belief that He had to have children as fulfillment of a “first” commandment of “Go forth and multiply”, you could also be saying, by Jesus or anyone not having children, they are breaking God’s law. This presupposes that anyone who dies before having children, any priest or nun of any religion that chooses the religious life instead of family life, any woman who remains a virgin all her life, any person in any circumstance whereby it’s impossible for them to have children – all of these are breaking God’s law.

If you believe this, then know that I whole-heartedly don’t believe that God would create any situation whereby we would be forced to break God’s law. How could any child that dies be breaking God’s law by not having children before they died?

Do you see what I mean? To maintain that it is God’s first Commandment that we “go forth and multiply” and that this is a command or law, rather than a general invitation, doesn’t work in so many ways.

However, to give you the benefit of the doubt, I’ll take your point of view and say that Jesus did indeed follow the “law” as you have set forth, but not as Jesus. Jesus fulfilled that particular “law” as Adam.

Adam was Jesus’ first life as a human being. (Did I hear a shoe drop?) It can be said to be very fitting then to refer to this soul as “God’s only begotten son.” The Edgar Cayce readings speak of Jesus and His previous lives quite extensively. As Adam, he fell, and as Jesus, He was raised up. As Adam, he brought death, but as Jesus, He brought Life.

Jesus demonstrated the full evolutionary potential of all human souls in the Earth, by walking the path that every soul must take to evolve in the Earth. Adam/Jesus went through every human experience in order to create in this earth, a way back to our oneness with God. Jesus succeeded wonderfully in doing just this. He gave us the blueprint for how we as souls in our own evolutionary path can return to a oneness with God.

Did Jesus have a child?

While the belief can and most likely will still be held onto, the belief that Jesus had children points away from Jesus’ real mission. From many sources, including Jesus, we get that His mission and purpose is to demonstrate God in every way possible. This includes demonstrating God’s love for each of us, God’s willingness to help us at any time, God’s willingness to teach us, to guide us, to unite with us, to enjoy life with us, and more and more.

It was not in Jesus’ mission, during this one particular life, to set up special relationships with only a few people. That’s what family relationships are – special relationships. We are connected to family members in different ways that to others. From His own words, we learn that His family – his mother, his brothers and sisters are those that follow and do the will of God. (Matthew 12:50)

Jesus had a very definite purpose. His mission was to demonstrate God and in doing this, to do this equally to all souls, so that all souls know that they can at any time come to know that God is a real Being, that we can approach God, be welcomed by God, have a relationship with God, be loved by God, and live from this relationship with God as demonstrated by Jesus Christ. How many ways can we say this? Jesus’ is meant to show God’s love and attention to all soul’s equally.

For Him to show a special love to one or two is to get off course of the mission of showing God’s love to everyone equally. If we insist on maintaining he had special relationships, then think of all of us, human beings, as the “Mary Magdalene” in His life. He is always ready to bestow all love to each of us, if we are willing to accept it. We don’t need a sexual relationship with Him to be “special”, because every human being is “special” to Him, and to God.

One contributing factor to push the belief that Jesus had a relationship and children from it, is that through the centuries, organized religious belief has raised Jesus to a level of Him far above the normal human being to the point of Him no longer being a human being, but being God – above all life – above all human beings. Unfortunately, the result of this has been to separate Jesus Christ from human beings – making Him “special” and at the same time separate. This makes it seem impossible to connect to Him, call Him when we need Him, follow His example, to learn from Him, to be friends with Him and have Him as our friend, and to help us come to know that we can walk beside Him.

Unfortunately again, with Jesus placed in “too high a level that we cannot reach” – with this perspective, we come to think that it is no longer possible to live a life of love, of service, and of goodwill to others. The belief grows that there is a gulf between Jesus Christ and real people, and it becomes greater and greater.

The more we put Jesus on the pedestal, the more we place ourselves so far below Him that our connection to Him becomes unseen and unattainable. We no longer consider Him in touch with our own suffering, our own struggles and our own lives, and He becomes someone not “real” as we know “real”.

By believing that Jesus had a wife and/or children, for some, it is an attempt to try to make Him into a regular person once again. It is an attempt at trying to bring Him back into the realms of real people by having Him take on regular people circumstances – family, sex, children. Among other things, we want Him to be real, so that we can be closer to Him. But, believing this way isn’t really necessary to make Jesus a real person again or to have Him closer. The truth is Jesus always was and is a real person, like you and I. He calls us brothers and sisters, not subjects or pets. He sees us eye to eye, not by looking down. We don’t need to make Him into what He wasn’t in order to make Him real and close.  Putting Him on a pedestal is what makes Him seem unreal.

The bottom line for so many of us is, that we want to be close to a real Jesus Christ – one that isn’t on a pedestal. We can stop putting Him on a pedestal, and walk side by side with Him carrying on a conversation like any good friends who share their hearts and minds together.  Something to consider that may help this is to understand that at any time, instead of waiting for Jesus to move back closer to us, we can move closer to Him. Instead of waiting to have an experience of Jesus Christ, we can give Jesus Christ an experience of us – let Him have our company.

Are you wondering how? The same way that we usually let anyone have our company.

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God is Willing

God is more than willing to help us with our physical world and our physical life, if doing so will help us open more to the spiritual world and our spiritual life.  Opening to the spiritual world and our spiritual life refers to opening more to self”less”ness (unselfishness) rather than selfishness.  It refers to service also to those in need, rather than service only to ourselves.  It refers to recognizing the equality of all people and all souls, rather than the importance of any one person over another.  It refers to forgiveness as a path to peace, rather than vengeance; loving as a real choice we can make, rather than holding grudges as the path we choose; practicing patience and kindness, rather than habitually reacting with judgment and condemnation.  God’s help comes when we seek to grow and learn, not make things worse for ourselves and others.

God’s help also comes from God’s wisdom and awareness of what is needed, not from our opinions and desires.  Remember, there is a very real reason why God does not come to humans for advice.   But, He is willing to listen.

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Can Predictions Change?

Can I be wrong?

Sure, sometimes a psychic can misread, but other times that which was predicted can be changed.

When a prediction is accurately made, it is made from psychically seeing the greatest possible outcome of all outcomes  of current circumstances if all things stay the same and if people’s patterns of choosing continues as it has in the past.  Rarely is the outcome 100% set in rock, though.  Things staying the same or things changing is based on freewill.  When Edgar Cayce made predictions, he mentioned that the future can change based on freewill of the people involved.  In other words, our future doesn’t happen regardless of our choices.  Our future happens because of our choices.  We choose what future enfolds.  Our actions have either benefits or consequences.  The actions we choose determine which happens – the benefits or the consequences.

This is true of all predictions, for the most part.  The mechanism of prediction is like a radio announcer who announces that a certain freeway is jammed with traffic at rush hour and will remain jammed throughout the afternoon, if current conditions continue.  If EVERYONE or a great majority who hears this does something to change their usual pattern of driving then the traffic jam won’t happen as predicted.  Someone then driving down that freeway later, could say “The radio announcer was wrong”, but was the announcer wrong or did the outcome change based on freewill of the people involved?

Predictions of weather are similar.  If nothing is done to change things, the prediction will happen.  That “nothing being done” being Prayer.  If people take no steps to change things, then things won’t change. But, with Weather?!?!?!?!

Yes, prayer can change many, many things, even the weather.  How many Texans do you think prayed for rain or for better weather for the Texas region.  How many people are praying for the midwest and central states?  It was the prayers for the Gulf Coast and it’s states coming from people all over the nation after hurricanes Rita and Katrina that healed the energy poised to send more hurricanes into the region through 2006 and into 2007.  The Gulf Coast had a mild 2006 season and 1st half of the 2007 hurricane season and all the meteorologists were stymied by this.

Looking at the mechanism of prayer helps us to understand why anything can change from prayer.  Prayer is the sending of energy into a certain situation or set of circumstances involving people or things.  This energy helps to raise the vibrations related to the events manifesting.  Many times destructive, unbalanced, and unhealthy events are the result of low energy/vibration actions or non-action by people.  War, hatred, vengeance, bitterness, selfishness of many kinds, are events of distorted and unbalanced energy.

When we pray, we help to realign, rebalance and raise the vibrations and energy of a situation.  By our consciously connecting to God, we are sending forth the highest of vibrations and energy into a situation.  The greater the number of people praying, the more power this prayer effort has to it.  In turn, then, the more people praying, the more power available to realign energies and the greater the change that can be brought about.

Realigning the energy of regions, i.e. praying for healthier weather, can help to rebalance all those factors which served to bring about the destructive weather in the first place.  For example, in the Central U.S., this region was the area of many great wars during the Atlantean militaristic times.  These conflicts happened many times in these regions and created a low energy region that is now becoming manifest according to karmic fulfillment.  The rest of the nation is affected by this manifestation now, in the same way that they were affected by the wars back in Atlantean days.

Areas and the peoples of those area that took no action to help or stop the conflicts during the Atlantean days then had the karma of not getting that which the area needs.  This can also manifest in the form of unbalanced weather.  This can be seen in Texas.  Texas’ future was to be no rain, and it has been dealing with very low amounts of water being replenished.  It still has this slated for the state in years to come.  In Texas, because no action was taken to help or stop the Atlantean wars then, no rain came to Texas in our time – that which was needed for life was not given then – that which IS needed now for life – water, does not come.

Except when prayer occurs.  Prayer is an action that we can now take to change some of what is happening as a result of our mistaken past actions and non-actions.  Prayer would have helped then, too.  Prayer is a real mechanism of connecting to God and God’s energy, then putting forth effort to send that greater, higher energy into the situation which needs it.

We can apply this to any part of life and do.  Who among us asks people outright when someone is in the hospital for something very serious “Please don’t pray.”  No.  We ask the opposite – “Please pray.”  because we innately hold inside ourselves the deeper awareness that there is something about prayer that helps.  And that something is the God connection that we make, which we then put forth into the dynamics of the certain circumstances for which we’re praying.

If you believe in a God who doesn’t answer prays, then change your beliefs.  When God seems to fall short in answering prayers, it’s not God that’s falling short – it’s our praying.  Prayers are answered according to the energy and effort put into them.  This includes the power coming from the numbers of people praying.

But, prayers that directly go against another person’s freewill, or prayers that try to take away a person’s freewill are another issue. As we pray for others, so are we praying for ourselves.  If we pray that God change someone else (against their freewill choosing), then ask yourself if you’re willing to give up your freewill to the will of another person’s decisions regarding who they want you to be.

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“We have war because we have not yet prayed enough for it to end.” (The Rainbow Cards, 2008-2019, ©, Jodie Senkyrik)

“We have war, because some desire it.  Those who sincerely pray for peace, don’t want war.  Those who want war, don’t sincerely pray for peace.”  (The Rainbow Cards, 2008-2019, ©, Jodie Senkyrik)

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Visions

“At different times, I’ve had visions of destructive events.  What are these about?”  K.F.

Many people have visions of events of a potentially destructive or harmful nature.  It is important to know that these events are never set in stone.  There is no future that cannot be changed.  When we receive these visions, we are being called to act.  If we can physically act to help a potential event, then it is good to do so.  If we can’t physically do anything about the event, then we can pray or meditate for the healing of these events to whatever degree we can accomplish.  We can change the future – these visions- through pray and meditation for healing asking that the Light of God come more into these circumstances.  We are being called to do just this.

When God’s help is sought for any event, presently happening, or potentially set to happen, great healing and better results become possible.  As Christ said, “With God all things are possible.”  Through our prayers, our meditations, our efforts towards the highest and best in any way, the outcome of these visions can change.  This is because when we pray, when we meditate, and when we put forth effort to help, God’s power and healing becomes real in the world and can affect changes in ways we may not understand or recognize – but are real and effective nonetheless.  The level of effectiveness then is based on the level of our effort in our prayers and meditations that all then put forth.

When these visions happen, take time to pray, and to meditate, sending prayers, whatever light and healing energy one can to help with healing the situation and circumstances described in the vision.  But remember, knowing whether our efforts are successful or not, is not necessarily going to happen.  Even with these events and our efforts, we are called to have faith that bringing God into a situation will have a greater impact on the situation than if we did nothing at all.

“The more prayer and meditation, the more God.  The more God, the less war.”  [The Rainbow Cards by Jodie Senkyrik]

“Imagine your life if you put no effort of any kind into it. Imagine your life if you put as much effort as possible into it. 

Imagine your life if you put no effort towards prayer of any kind into it. Imagine your life if you put as much effort towards prayer as possible into it.”  [The Rainbow Cards]

“Which helps more – Praying or not praying?”  [The Rainbow Cards]

“Would you rather have someone praying for you, or would you rather have no one praying for you?” [The Rainbow Cards]

“God’s presence is strengthened in the lives of those prayed for.” [The Rainbow Cards]

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Developing Psychic Ability -1

“I have just been on your site and read about how you later in life became aware of your psychic abilities. ”

“I did not have, as a child growing up, any psychic ability, but I am trying to develop this at the moment in my adult life. I would love to be able to develop it to a point where it will be of benefit to other people, and also make me aware of what life really is, and of course to help myself, and enjoy what the Lord has truely given us.” B.R.

Developing psychically is really a path of going inward, asking oneself questions and then learning how to be honest with ourselves. We have all answers and information within us, but rarely the determination, patience, willingness and acceptance that it takes to learn how to discern the information. Sometimes, we even don’t want to know.

We may see psychic ability as a worthwhile thing to pursue, but there is a price to pay, and that price is that we have to give up prejudice, judgement and condemning of others and ourselves, guilt, blaming, resentment, selfishness and the multitude of other stumbling blocks that are inside of us. This takes years and lifetimes to do, requiring patience and perserverence.

The good thing about this journey is that we need only begin it – we don’t have to end it, before we recognize the awakening of the awareness of that which is beyond the physical awareness.

The challenge then is to “learn the psychic alphabet”, (a metaphor for learning how to “read”) then to practice on ourselves – through the journey of “knowing thyself”.

There is a wonderful book series that came through the psychic, Edgar Cayce, when asked “How can I develop psychic ability?” The book series is called “A Search For God.” It helps a person learn what psychic ability really is, and what the path is that helps to develop spiritually first, and develop psychic ability safely. His own story is documented in the books, “The Sleeping Prophet”, “A Seer out of Season”, “There Is A River”, and “Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet”

There are no shortcuts and God is the guide for developing our psychic ability, because developing our psychic ability is really a development of the awareness of the soul/spirit aspect of ourselves and the soul/spirit realm.

In many ways, we humans have already been aquainted with aspects of psychic ability that we refer to as “hunches”, “women’s intuition”, “precognitive dreaming”, “gut feelings”, and the like. These are the psychic abilities that we think of already as normal for humans, but these can be developed more through learning how to discern that which we already have been sensing all along, but which we have ignored or not recogized.

Finally, the one thing that developing psychic ability doesn’t give us is Love. People don’t love us strictly because we are psychic. We don’t love others because they are, or aren’t. Psychic ability isn’t what brings forth Love into the world. Loving is what brings forth love into the world. Psychic ability comes with it’s own set of challenges and pitfalls. It is not a power, but an ability – an ability which can be used to help God be first, or help our own selfishness be first. These are issues that you must address also, because no person escapes themselves, and no person escapes their own character. When developing psychic ability, our biggest boulder in the path of this development is our self. This is why developing psychic ability is a serious undertaking, and a choice no one but the person themselves can decide. Like many other things that are challenging and sometimes require hard work – when pursued appropriately, it can be one of the most enriching abilities that humanity has available to be developed.

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Did Jesus have children? – 1

(See also “Did Jesus have children? – 2”)

Did Jesus marry and have children?

First of all, remember, as humans, anybody can say anything about anyone at any time… even about Jesus.  It’s always been this way with the human race, it always will be this way with the human race.

Yet, this isn’t my answer.  Rather, I will answer this way:

It has been hundreds and thousands of years in which religions have been translated and re-translated, argued and then re-argued, debated and re-debated, passed on and kept hidden.  Generations upon generations have passed in which spiritual beliefs have been taught from one person to another.  During this time, there have been and still are gospel truths, half-truths, little white lies, and bald face lies all through the different religions, and spiritual belief systems.   To some extent, this would be expected, because of the diversity that beliefs are applied to each individual’s personal life circumstances and experiences.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.   For argument’s sake, here, this isn’t the main issue.  The issue isn’t whether the man Jesus did or did not have children with Mary Magdalene.  The issue is, and what matters more is – what do we do with our beliefs?  Many will continue to believe he did regardless of any presentation of evidence to the contrary.  Many will continue to believe he did not regardless of any presentation of evidence to the contrary.   Jesus didn’t concern Himself with the differing beliefs of religions, He concerned Himself with our actions towards and relationships with each other.  Jesus’ message was put simply, “Love God above all else and Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The same is true of every issue ever argued within the walls of any religion or spiritual system of beliefs, including the creationism vs. evolution arguments going on everywhere.  Yet, the idea still is practiced by many  that what we believe is somehow more important than how we use our beliefs to act towards those whose beliefs are different.
Can any of us say that we believe exactly like anyone else?  With so many different versions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc, can any of us say that we, and only we, have the truth?  Alright that’s the wrong question to ask because almost every member of every different version of every religion tells themselves that they hold the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and others are lying to themselves in a big way.
Every belief we have comes from our learning from a mixture of sources – parents, teachers, leaders – spiritual and non, friends, books, experiences, thoughts and feelings, television, movies, politicians, and many more sources.  Because of this, everyone is going to draw upon their own life to develop their own unique set of beliefs.  It makes sense that everyone would do this.
God knows this.  That’s why the greatest spiritual teachers don’t say what to believe as much as how to relate to each other from within our chosen set of beliefs.  The greatest spiritual teachers tell about our brotherhood and sisterhood among each other.  The greatest spiritual messages don’t speak about what we think or believe, but rather what we feel in our hearts, then what we do with these feelings.  Because it is in our heart that love resides, and it is in this Love, that God resides within us.
Jesus doesn’t ask so much the details of what we believe, He asks us what are we doing with our beliefs.  Jesus asks us – that which we do believe – how are we using our beliefs to affect how we relate to our fellow man?  He never spoke out against other religions that were prevalent in that time – and there were many.  He told all that listened, that God is the God of all people.  He spoke out against hypocrisy, which is a factor influencing how we relate to each other.  He spoke out against placing oneself above others in God’s eyes, which is another factor influencing how we relate to each other.
Therein is the message that Jesus spoke of – that which is in a person’s heart.  Our beliefs may be what builds religions, but what is in our hearts determines what we do with our beliefs.
Our beliefs bring us to the point of asking – Are we using our beliefs to recognize our unity and oneness with our fellow human beings, or are we using our beliefs to separate and divide?  Are we using our beliefs to love God above all else, and our neighbor as ourselves, or are we using our beliefs to ostracize and push others away if they are different?  Are we using our beliefs to celebrate diversity in peoples or to condemn diversity?  Are we using our beliefs as gavels with which to judge others, or are we using our beliefs to recognize the value of every difference.
We all have our reasons for believing that which we do or don’t believe, and we all make choices pro and con.  Very few logical, mental arguments from others are going to change the beliefs we grow to have.  That is why the greatest spiritual messages speak about what is in the heart – the place where God’s love and our love can and does reside, when we bring that love forth.

This idea shows respect for the path of learning which we’ve each traveled to get where we are, with regards to our beliefs.  And in time, opening our hearts, will help us to open to potential learning from views of our brothers and sisters, even those sometimes different.  This in turn, can lead to finding more to add to our own understanding and to an even greater paradigm than we held in our consciousnesses before.

Do we lift others up or do we knock others down?

Finally,  – Yes, the particular set of beliefs which we hold to is still important, as we see in the world today – many believe that killing others is spiritually good.  Yet, if we looked deeper at the question presented here – “what are we doing with our beliefs?” – we then see that which is in people’s hearts actually fuels people’s actions, and a hate-filled heart uses any belief system, religion, or excuse they can find to serve their already hate-filled agenda.
Those whose hearts are filled with hate, will use any religion, any political persuasion, any reason or excuse to carry out their hatred.  Likewise, those whose hearts are open or carry within them a caring and loving kindness, forgiveness, patience, gentleness, or mercy, in turn, can use any religion and any belief to carry out their caring, their kindness, their mercy, their patience, their recognition of the oneness of all life, the brotherhood of humankind, and peace and goodwill to all mankind.  This is why the greatest spiritual messages are about our what lives inside our hearts, and not the different beliefs residing inside our minds.

I believe that Jesus did not marry and have children.  I believe this because it makes sense to me with my current personal paradigm and falls in line with the life of the Christ Spirit that I’m aware of, coming to show people that God’s love is equal for all and available to all equally.  In the Edgar Cayce readings, the readings say, that “He wanted to be her savior, not her lover.”  Because I believe this, my beliefs could flavor that which I see psychically.  So, what I say here can still be debated.  No logical, mental arguement is going to change someone’s heart, if they don’t want it to be changed.

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The Growth of Our Beliefs

(This is not a psychic prediction of the future but rather what I’ve come to understand and see active within people.)

There are a few principles to consider that are readily at work within the forming of our chosen beliefs.
1. We believe that which we believe, because we want to believe it. It serves us, in some way. It can serve the selfishness inside us, or it can serve the selflessness inside us – and both at the same time.
2. We don’t believe that which we don’t believe, because we don’t want to believe it. It serves us to not believe it. We choose, or rather, we exercise our freewill with what we do not believe, in the same manner that we choose or exercise freewill in what we do believe.
3. What we believe in may or may not be true.
4. Our beliefs are built from the ground up, through our ongoing years beginning with and coming from our parents, authority figures as a child and adult, books, the media, our personal experiences, our inner feelings, our thoughts, our emotions, our understandings, and our own relationships to every different individuals to which our beliefs are connected. Then add past-lives into that, too, if so inclined.
5. It’s possible to believe something to be true and it be false. It’s also possible to believe something to be false, that is true.
6. With regards to spiritual matters and subjects, each individual comes to build their own paradigm of beliefs by using all the same inner tools that everyone else uses to build their paradigm of their beliefs. The outer individual resources will be different, but the inner workings and inner tools are the same. These inner tools are 1) having thoughts and ideas, 2) experiencing feelings and emotions, 3) learning from one’s own experiences and 4) exercising freewill.
7. God has given us all unique and different experiences, as well as unique past developmental influences and factors to build our own beliefs. We can gain more by sharing amongst each other.
8. Gossip and Gospel are not the same, but they can easily become confused, with some thinking each is the other.
9. Question: What would the world be like if everyone believed exactly the same way on everything that ever existed?  …   And no belief ever got challenged?
10. It is best that we don’t believe everything we hear. It is also best that we don’t believe everything we say.
11. We cannot build our own personal relationship with God, through someone else’s beliefs, or thoughts in someone else’s mind, or someone else’s feelings in someone else’s heart.
12. If Jesus Christ has always and will exist for eternity, it gives to reason that there is time to learn about Him, and learn from Him … personally.
13. Rarely is life black and white. More often, its colored in the other billions of colors in between black and white.
14. Most problems arise when we think our perspective and understanding of something is complete and finished.
15. Those that know Jesus Christ today, know the Jesus Christ that walked 2000 years ago. Those that don’t know Jesus Christ today, don’t know the Jesus Christ that walked 2000 years ago.
16. There are many of us humans who don’t believe in Christ, because we are deeply angry and resentful at Him.
17. Do we really want the truth? If we really want it, we must go to the source of the truth – anywhere else means we want something other than the truth.
18. Contrary to popular opinion, God does not deny us information and answers to our questions put to Him/Her, but contrary to popular opinion, we usually have an agenda on what we expect, what we want, and what we’ll accept as the answer.
19. If God is involved, EVERYTHING is possible and ANYTHING can happen.
20. We may release others from the prison chains of having to feel, think or believe the same way we do. We may release ourselves from the prison chains of having to feel, think or believe the same way others do.
21. Just because we don’t believe something, doesn’t mean it’s not true. It just means we don’t believe it. Likewise, just because we believe something to be true, doesn’t mean it’s true. It just means we believe it to be true.
22. Just because someone judges us to be wrong, doesn’t mean we’re wrong. It only means they’re judging us to be wrong. Likewise, just because someone is judging us to be right, doesn’t mean we’re right. It just means they’re judging us to be right.
23. What we don’t believe in – only limits ourselves. It doesn’t limit others or the truth.
24. ?

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Monogomy, Marriage and Sex

“In Genesis we have God declaring that what God has joined together, no man should tear asunder. This is the reference to marriage being for an entire lifetime on earth. It is also a support for monogamous sex. You had mentioned about other cultures (in history) having a much more casual view of sex. I inferred that you may think the idea of monogamy and one life partner is a symptom of our faulty judgment. Does this concept in Genesis line up with your vision of the role and use of sex? ”

[This is an extremely long response.]

I.  Marriage as a Spiritual Practice
What you state is a reference in Genesis to marriage being for an entire lifetime. It is also a support for monogamous sex. In addition, it can continue to be this for as many people as need to have this support to continue with the personal/spiritual work which they do together in this particular life in which this is important for them.   It is important for many of the billions of people on the planet, because it is this many that are working on growing and learning spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and socially.

I won’t get into any comments about whether these references to Genesis are literal or figurative, conservative, moral, ethical, outdated, traditional, any other label, or anything like that, because none of that is the real issue that must be addressed when confronted with this question. The paradox is: To some these words are truth about life, to others they are not. In some situations, they are real, in other situations, they are not.  No one individual can determine how or what another individual is meant to grow, learn, and evolve into in their human lifetime.  This is only set by God and the individual’s higher Self – and happening at levels far beyond our own everyday human consciousness.  So, each soul must determine their own integration and address towards this issue.

A.  Fortitude and Support for the Spiritual Path
Absolutely, holding to these beliefs can be and still is purposeful. They give people the fortitude to maintain effort when working through the relationship issues becomes very difficult. Many times it takes a commitment to God to persevere through to the healing of these issues which people have and which brings us together to be worked out in the first place. (Holding onto God=Holding onto Love, and Love is necessary.)

Relationships of all kinds are the gardens where we grow Love, and the furnaces which we “burn off” the mistakes in consciousness which we have within our consciousnesses.  And as I’ve said before, Love (Love=the presence of God in the relationship) is the only bond that is strong enough to help us stay together to keep on working on the issues that we need to work on in the relationship. Sometimes, though, we shunt it away when the issues are so pronounced.

When we make a relationship commitment, we are making a commitment to work through the problems we have in our relationships, and to have love grow within the relationships. Together, we create a special relationship, which can become a helpful relationship for the spiritual path/evolution.  In fact, the experience of transformation occurs when we willingly change to heal issues related to relationships.  We transform spiritually when we change our own consciousness to help to heal the relationship.  (Side note: We can heal or we can pretend to heal.  All we need is honesty to determine which.)

B.  Oneness with God and All
The statement quoted in Genesis can also mean more than just marriages.  According to the Edgar Cayce readings, marriages themselves were a creation of mankind. Mankind then sanctified and spiritualized marriage through sacred channels and methods – bringing God into it.  But, these words can also mean for all relationships. “What God has joined together” can also point towards our spiritual nature and be all of mankind – the relationships we have to every person – the commitment we have to help all of humankind through this journey out of the earthly plane back to our real home – the spiritual realm. What God has joined together – the oneness of mankind, as well as the Christ Spirit within our own consciousnesses – no one can take apart. In other words, the oneness of all life and our Oneness with God, cannot be undone by anyone. The marriage then becomes a microcosm of a macrocosmic truth.

For many, it serves a real purpose to strengthen the purpose of the healing of relationships, and the potential for growth that we have available within any relationship. For many, it becomes their commitment to their own spiritual path – marriage as a spiritual practice. And why not? Because it offers a whole school of learning unto itself – sometimes enough for us to experience marriage for many lifetimes.

C.  Fork in the Road
But, the statement, and marriage, both, are not that for everyone. And cannot be made to be that for everyone. For many who have their spiritual practice within themselves – or through a different way, marriage is not going to be the same. For these, marriage is an opportunity to work out problems, to grow within ourselves and to learn beyond our own understanding, but these can also find that when the relationship no longer offers any learning – and this does happen – then, like a school that one is graduated from, both person’s are best to go their own ways.

I’ve seen many marriages end because the learning and growth are finished and no longer available with those other partners. Not all of them but enough to take notice.  Each person has paths which offer them more, but are not together with each other anymore.

Yes, I’ve also seen many divorces happen because people want to avoid having to work on their issues. Unfortunately for them while on Earth, fortunately for their soul, they take their issues with them into the next marriage and the next, and next until they finally decide to work on themselves. Even these will eventually return to the path of their own healing and transformation.  All it takes is honesty to determine which fork in the road we are choosing.

D.  Not a Prison Sentence or a Feat of Endurance
The statement presented during the marriage ceremony, “What God has joined together….” is not meant to be a prison sentence or a condemning sentence put on by God. If the statement becomes that, then the issues present are not being worked on and need to be examined for consideration.

Neither is the marriage to be an endurance feat to see who can outlast the other, or who has the most stamina to stay in a marriage that is no longer based on love.  Who among us wants to be in a lifetime marriage to someone we discover that we really don’t love?  Who among us wants to spend their lifetime in a marriage to someone who we discover really doesn’t love us – a lifetime in a relationship with no love?  We profess to marry for love, but love isn’t always there.  Who does this serve to stay in this marriage?  Yet, it happens often.

Make no mistake about what I’m saying. Every state of being that we create for ourselves, God can make into a situation sufficient for us to learn and grow spiritually. If we choose marriage and the lifelong commitment, till death do us part, then this will create for us the circumstances within which we can learn (or unlearn) and grow spiritually. But, many of us do not choose this particular setting to learn and grow spiritually. Some choose to have this as part of their learning, but move on to other ways of learning, too. These other ways are just as valid and the “moving on” is also valid.  In today’s world, divorce is an option.  Souls are coming in knowing this and equally okay with taking this option.

Marriage is still a man-made social structure spiritualized through mankind’s desire to bring God into the marriage experience – but not the only structure with this potential. It is easy to see how we have latched onto it through the eons and why – because it is a promising and worthwhile social structure, capable of providing an environment for growth of love and learning about ourselves and others.

Yet, it is an Earth- based, human race-based social structure. Made sacred through our own hearts, and intentions to make it sacred. We, humans, made it sacred through our inviting God into it, as well as our willing participation in it when holding the intention of the marriage going the distance. It was the act of inviting God into it, that brought God into it, and that made it into a place where we could grow and learn. Through the ages, as marriage became more and more based on love, and not political alignments, bloodline or money, or simple procreative continuation of the group or tribe, God became more and more a part of marriage.

In the end, marriage is obviously not the only relationship where we can demonstrate love for someone else. It is a popular one, though. But as I’ve mentioned in my workshop, Love is greater than every social construct, including marriage, and no single social structure or confine here on earth can hold all of the consciousness of Love – God.  No creation of mankind, can hold all of God.  That is why many who choose the paradigm that you state, can and do choose something else their next life – so as to learn those things that they were not able to learn by being married to only one person a previous life. This is also why some who can and do learn at a faster pace, will go ahead and choose to end a marriage and move on when their learning is over.  Yet, I do want to acknowledge that more divorces are because people are not working on themselves rather than are working on themselves.

E.  The Paradox of Marriage
How do we then balance the idea about “What God joins together, etc….”? In some cases, we also have to address the shortcomings of where this comes from. It is not a catch-all and be-all truth in the same way that “I am with you always.” is. Because humankind created marriage, this statement is a human created intention and cannot be imposed upon others from the outside group or force (because it is not originating from within the person’s own heart). The paradox being: it being true in the minds and hearts of those that believe it and hold to it, (those to whom it serves them to hold on to it) and it not necessarily being true in the minds and hearts of those that don’t hold to this belief in their heart nor their mind – (but rather something else holds true in their heart and minds.) Would you say this of those in native American marriages? or in China? Would you say this in marriages before the Christian church or Hebrew religion ever came into being – where religion is or was not part of the equation, but rather marriage to fulfill the politics of the time or when blood lineage mattered more, as well as having marriage from the desire to build wealth or a family to help tend crops?

The issue will never be whether the statement is truth – it is, but the paradox is that on a deeper level, it doesn’t always mean “marriage” for all people. It can and does mean other things. Sometimes it means “Spiritual Growth”, in the saying, “What God joins together [for our spiritual growth], let no one put asunder.”

In the end, our spiritual growth and learning is the most important thing of all – the learning of our relationship to God, to each other and to ourselves and in growing to this, then, helping each other find our way out of the earthly confines. Some find this through marriage and the support of that phrase you gave from Genesis. Others find this through marriage for a shorter while, but move on when time comes to move on, and others find this phrase to mean things way beyond the state of marriage. If we hold marriage to be a spiritual path, then it is good for us to hold to it, but we must address those interrelationship issues that come up for us as a result, since it’s also possible to stay married, not learn anything, and still not work on the issues that are the problems.  This also is done by many.

It is true that some people learn faster than others.  It is also true that generations before now, learning was at a slower pace, and marriages lasted longer because the healing, and learning and growing was slower. Finally, it’s also true that sometimes we marry people for reasons other than our inner growth.

In Part 2: Monogamy and Soul Development
II.  Monogamy and Soul Development
Monogamy and having one life partner are not a symptom of any faulty judgement. They are absolutely appropriate for those whose path of spiritual growth benefits from holding to this. My view is that we can create any social construct in any society and have it be a place where God can help us to grow and learn during any one particular life. (I will also add that it’s easy to lie to ourselves on our basic human conscious level about what would benefit our spiritual path and what wouldn’t.  I will also add that eventually we have to face the truth of our lying.)

But, it means that individually we have to choose, every day whether we’re going to hold to that belief, and with that, then go on to pursue working on the issues that this choice brings with it. In cases of discord, are we going to draw upon that belief and pursue working out those issues that seem to be causing problems? For those who hold this belief, this can be the support that they need to keep going. But for others, it’s not necessarily going to be the same question to address. It may not be the question of commitment vs. not commitment. It can be an entirely different question and issue appropriate for their own particular life and soul development. Souls are coming in with the awareness that marriage need not be a lifelong commitment. This can mean many things to people – one is that we can move on when needed, and another is that we can run away if we want to run away – (not generally the healthy choice, though).

When choosing a lifelong commitment in marriage in one life, our soul consciousness then must move on during other lives to other constructs or life situations to learn of other things. For example, how easy is it to spend one’s entire adult life in contemplative meditation, going deeper and deeper within, learning the wisdom of the sages, when you have 8 kids to feed and a crop to plant and harvest, and cattle that needs tending outside.

One life circumstance takes the time and resources which the other life circumstance would need in order to be fulfilled. One can join the two circumstances together and have a little of both, but not at the depth of experience that one alone would give. An example would be someone learning a great deal by not being in a marriage relationship but at the same time not having had the experience of having a spouse and children – a potentially transforming experience which brings it’s own set of things to learn, from which to grow and be enriched.   We each have experiences which other lives have never had.

A.  Multiple marriages as a Spiritual Path
It’s always going to come back to the individual soul’s journey through their own growth of consciousness – even to the point that we may hold to the lifelong commitment in marriage one life and then choose many marriage partners another life —–because each different circumstance is what we need in order to gain that which that life has to offer. Each offering a wholly different set of options and opportunities to learn and grow. SEE? Even multiple marriages in one life can offer unique experiences with which to grow, which a single marriage in one life cannot offer.

Isn’t it wonderful how we can experience all that life has to offer (one marriage one life, many marriages in another life, and no marriages in still another life), gain all that’s available, and experience all the different circumstances which offer learning and growth? (Just maybe not all in any one particular life.) The commitment that comes from “What God joins together….etc” offers different learning than when we choose to end a marriage and move on to the next relationship.

When “lifelong commitment” is something we want to experience, we can hold onto this phrase to help us. We need God’s help to do this. When “lifelong commitment” is not something we need to seek to experience, the paradox is that we can choose another path and another truth about God to help us down an even different path of learning. An example of this idea? When early Christians were facing the lions, many souls came into the life with the intention to seek and hold to a cause that they would die for. They found one. Other Christians weren’t facing the lions and they faced other issues which challenged them.

Just be warned, it’s not always us that makes the choice of whether to continue or end a relationship – the other person has choices to make, too. The other soul has a journey that they’re on, too. And sometimes they can make a choice that goes against the choice that we make. This can be quite a harrowing surprise sometimes.
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III.  Sex and Spirituality
I agree, sex is a gift. And it is a gift that we can share with each other, or give to ourselves.

Did you know that if in a married relationship, the couple’s feelings are weak for each other, and they have sex that produces a child, the child will have a spiritual energy level equal to the couple’s weak energy and feelings between them, but if a person has an affair with someone whom they feel love and passion about, where greater love is present, and they have a child, even though they are unmarried and having an affair, the child will be stronger spiritually, because of the love and energy between the two biological parents is stronger?

Like attracts like – there is no getting around this Law of the Universe. A weak bond of love attracts a soul like it. A strong bond of love attracts a soul like it. A bond of love is the strongest of bonds and attracts the strongest presence of God. If the bond of Love is also joined by the bond of marriage, then that is a great place to be. But, if the bond of marriage is not joined with the bond of love, then other issues will arise.

In our world today, divorce is one answer for that. Believe me, people still do get married for reasons other than love – lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of times. They can grow yet more love in the marriage or they can choose to not grow more love in the marriage.

A.  Sex and the Internal Conflict
I’ve taken the position that sex is an act best performed within a love relationship. The creative energies then can go towards helping the relationship to grow even more. I recommend this because sex and relationships are so intertwined that an emotional package comes along with sex.  Even in connections that happen based solely on the pursuit of sex – no participant can enter into this and leave their emotions, feelings, thoughts – both conscious and subconscious, heart and mind behind.

In society, we place so much emphasis on the role of sex that it impacts us when circumstances go contrary to how we hold sex within ourselves.
In this case, our sex paradigm in our society here in the US is relevant because in general, it impacts our emotional and psychological growth and our spiritual beliefs for us as United States citizens. Other cultures being either more casual or more strict about sex is just that – their emotional, psychological and spiritual paradigms allowed for more casual or strict state of mind toward sex.

B.  Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual
Sex by itself is not an answer to what we seek in our lives, even though some may pursue it as such. Sex is driven by physical elements (hormones), as is libido. Sex is also driven by psychological elements and emotional elements – both positively and negatively. (Examples are infinite and seen all the time, i.e. desire for children, desire to express love, sharing an emotional connection, as well as fantasies about love, sex and marriage, advertising, movies, addictions, using sex as a weapon, etc. – some positive and some negative.)

Sex is also driven by spiritual elements. While the physical act/element is associated with the first chakra, the emotional/psychological element/act is associated with the 2nd chakra. Sex is not just a 1st chakra act. Fear, understanding of human experiences, and adrenaline also contribute to the sexual experience and are 3rd chakra aspects to sex.

How is sex spiritually driven? When a relationship holds the factors which are helping the people grow spiritually within the relationship – especially Love (Love=the presence of God in a relationship).  And when it is the intention of the two people, to share a loving/giving act between them, without guile, dishonesty, or any other negative factors.  I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s driven, but rather it includes that aspect – a 4th chakra factor – the heart chakra. In addition, we can also use the 5th, 6th, and 7th, chakras within the sexual experience.

I would say that sex is something that needs to be learned, because it involves the potential for including so many levels of the psyche and body of the individuals participating. In the same way that we don’t automatically know how to meditate, we also don’t automatically know many, many things – including about sex.

C. Sex reflecting the marriage
I haven’t mentioned marriage with regards to sex, because I want to make room for relationships based on love, not based on marriage. For some, marriage is the container for sex, for others, love is the container for sex. For still others, opportunity is the container for sex, but this last example is usually because they are being driven by bodily, libidinal, emotional, social or psychological factors.  (Of course this can also be said about marriage or can be thought to be and therefore claimed to be “love”.)

If the marriage is truly based on love, then love is part of the sexual experience. If the marriage is based on spirituality, then spirituality is part of the sexual experience. If marriage is based on psychological or emotional issues, or on avoidance of other issues, then sex will have these as part of their sexual experiences etc. etc. etc.

If marriage is based on money, based on sex, based on social factors, based on anything else, then the sex between the two will hold that “based-upon” factor also. This can be a real influencing factor, because it only means the love bond wasn’t that strong to begin with and this will have to be addressed eventually within the relationship. This principle can end relationships or it can bring people to find a way for the love to grow.

D. Sex and Life’s Choices
Finally, sex can also pull us into those circumstances which require us to work on our issues. For example, some have sex as a drive from their hormones (both male and female), then the female gets pregnant.  The couple get married because of the pregnancy, then find themselves in a situation where they have to work on themselves to have a good marriage, or else not work on themselves and divorce.

Because the person didn’t go deeper within themselves at the beginning, the paradigm they were in, pulled them into a situation where they almost had no choice but to go deeper within themselves – to address whether their marriage will work or end.

Even though it’s common, divorce is rarely entered into at a superficial level in the way sex is. People do enter within themselves, in order to address the factors that brings a person to this point – a forced situation bringing them to a place where they’re willing to go inward to figure out what to do with their life. If a child is involved, many times, the love or obligations to the child will be the opening for them to go deeper into themselves to find a way to deal with their situation.

So, in that case, they took an easy road – to have sex without thinking – but it put them in a tough situation. This then can lead to other doors (problems in the marriage, a child’s presence, or the issue of divorce, etc.) for them to start doing their thinking about their consequences and actions – “introspection” is what we call it.

IV.  Conclusion
There’s a statement that goes, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” It’s true almost 100% of the time. (There is the rare life that occurs for the purpose of having a “vacation”, but that’s another blog.) When we live our life without ever asking questions or examining ourselves so that we can bring forth more of the Spirit of God and the fruits of such, it’s been a waste of time.

Marriage, sex, and every relationship are like this, too. The unexamined marriage, the unexamined relationship, and even the unexamined “circumstance” is not worth having, because we’ve not gained the food for our greater understanding. We’ve avoided that which we were meant to address – not just within the relationship between the two people, but within ourselves, alone. We’ve not gained/learned or grown in the way that opportunity was offering us. You’ll see this with co-dependent relationships a lot, or co-dependent moments within relationships – not addressing their issues until it is so prevalent that it cannot be ignored. We then have to do the whole thing over in order to eventually start addressing the issues related to our circumstance/relationship that we’re in.

The greater purpose of any relationship is not to have a relationship. Having a relationship is not the end goal of what we are striving for. It’s the beginning. Like the greater purpose of marriage is not just to have a spouse. The purpose of every relationship including marriage is for our spiritual growth – to grow in loving, to examine our self, to face and heal OUR OWN personal issues, to address our shortcomings, our fears, our misconceptions, and misunderstandings, to help heal relationships, to face our own emotional and psychological problems, to practice the fruits of the spirit – patience, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, love, and more.

Every state we find ourselves in has this purpose, because the truth is that we need each other – in the big sense of the word. WE NEED ONE ANOTHER.  We are all part and parcel of God.  We are designed to need one another, because we are designed to need all of God.

Marriage is one container for this, and when that is not the path, creating other loving relationships can then serve as containers, too. Even bachelorhood (or bachelorette-hood) is a container for this, because each situation and circumstance we find ourselves in, God can make into a learning circumstance – God can make into a classroom for us to learn – and no state we’re in is void of relationships in some way.  Sex, then, is just one more classroom in which God can help us learn and grow.
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V.  Marriage, Love and Ego
Now at the end of this, I’ll add one more thing to the subject of marriage and lifelong commitments.

We can also stay together, joined for this life, in order to satisfy our own ego, holding an unconscious attitude of “Look what I can do.” or “Look what I accomplished”. This brings forth the question, are we making this commitment for “our own glory” – to prove that we can do it? To put it in religious terms, ideally, even marriage and the commitment we are making in marriage, is “for God’s Glory” or put another way, for the purpose of Love.

In looking at this question, we then must address whether we remain in the relationship to develop love, or do we remain in the relationship in order to endure a challenge and to abide by the statement “What God has brought together, let no one put asunder”? The issue becomes not whether we should stay in the marriage for the whole lifetime, but whether we are developing love within this relationship, for the whole lifetime.  (Besides, who wants to be married to someone who is married for the purpose of helping their own ego.  This isn’t a love-based marriage.)

The statement from the Bible, “What does it benefit a person to gain [anything], if we lose our soul in the process?” must be brought into the discussion. This addresses any action we undertake if we undertake it for egoistic purposes. Marriage can be this, too, if we’ve entered into it or are in it for our own selfish purposes.

What does it benefit a person to stay in a marriage or any relationship, if we lose our soul in the process? Contrary to the thought, just because a marriage isn’t happy or is going through difficulties does not in any way mean that we are losing our own soul by staying in it. Some could use this as an excuse to not work on themselves or not work on their relationship.  So, it is also worth asking, “what does it benefit a person to leave a relationship, if we lose our soul in the process?”

The issue will always come down to one factor only – love. Did we enter into it because of our love, are we still in it because of our love, do we seek to stay in it because we love the other person? If the answer was ‘yes’ at any time, then it can be again, with the working on oneself leading to the development of love in a relationship that began from love.  And if the marriage ends, can we say that this also is being done from a place to give honor to love?  (Yes, it’s true, whether believed or not, that we can end a marriage because of love.)

The final question, then, is a question we can ask ourselves every day with regards to our relationships, “When it comes time for the other person to leave this earth, – will they, from our relating to them, know that they were loved?”

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Passing Over

“What can we do to prepare for direct and quick ascension to the highest frequency after we leave form…as opposed to being confused and hovering for awhile?”  C.L.

Hugh Lynn Cayce answered this question this way…  (paraphrasing) When we pass over, look for the Light.  We will find it.  Hold onto the Light as long as you can.  There may be distractions but focus on the light as long as possible.  When we become distracted away from the light, we may then stay at that level until we let go of whatever the distraction was.

My advice is keep an open mind to what is beyond this life.  When the time comes, feel free to ask as many questions as come to you.  This will allow that which is real to come forth, rather than your own mind creating a scenario that plays itself out in your consciousness based on preconcieved beliefs.

When my grandfather passed away, I met with him and asked him what it was like.  He looked around and said, “I don’t know yet.”  I knew that he would soon find out and be helped.  He had not yet moved into the light, but his mind was open to whatever may yet happen.

Don’t be alarmed by any possibility of confusion.  There will be very good help for us when we disconnect the silver cord.  There is bound to be some confusion and unfamiliarity – like going into a room we’ve not been in for decades and decades.  There’s bound to be some slow examination of where we are at.  We tend to still think 3 dimensionally for awhile.  Plus there are many things about the other side, that are difficult to explain about on this side because there are not the words that give an adequate explanation or understanding, for example, if I told you there is no “up or down”, “left or right”, or “front or back”, would our minds be able to wrap around it in such a way as to fully understand this?
The dream and meditation experiences help us best to prepare for the other side, in the same way that learning how to swim in a pool helps us prepare for swimming in the ocean.

When a person has apprehension, the best of help is available.  There really is no need for concern or apprehension.  There is kind and gentle ready help.  Just go into the Light, Hold to the Light.