GUIDANCE FROM BEYOND

　"How far is it proper to ask for help in one's daily life from spirit guides and friends?" The question was put to Silver Birch by a business man, a convinced Spiritualist.

　The guide's reply was: "We who attach ourselves to earthly instruments have to become very familiar with the needs and habits and demands of your world. We cannot be immune to material necessities, for we have to deal with beings who live in your world. After all, matter and spirit are both servants of the Great Spirit, and the temple of the spirit has certain necessities, requires certain attention and must perform certain duties so as to be able to fulfil its place in the great scheme. Your bodies require light, air, shelter, clothing and food. To do this you must have money, the coin of your world. I know all that, but I know this, too.

　"Matter is the servant, spirit is the master. Those who reverse that order make a great mistake. By virtue of your spiritual nature, which is your aspect of divinity, you possess in miniature all that the Great Spirit possesses. The great creative principles which enable life to fulfil its functions are possessed by you. You are the Great Spirit, the Great Spirit is you, and within you, by virtue of your birth, there is all the armoury of the Great Spirit. The power that fashioned all life and is responsible for the work-ing of every phase of the universe resides within you. You can tap it, you can draw on this inexhaustible reservoir.

　"If you learn to be still you can allow its great immeasurable force to come into being, and because it is spiritual, it is able to overcome all the diffictulties, all the problems with which you are confronted. Added to that you have the love and guidance of those close to you from our world. Whenever a difficulty arises. become passive. Let there well up within you from your own in-finite store, albeit it is not yet completely expressed, the answer that is waiting. It will come. If by virtue of development, for we are all creatures of evolution, the answer is not forthcoming, then pause again and, instead of coming from within, it will come from without.

　"Right and wrong, these are words; what concerns us is motive. With all requests with all prayers, the paramount con-sideration is motive. If the motive is sincere, if the desire is to serve, if there is an ideal to be attained, if unselfishness and altru-ism are the guiding principles, then he or she who asks for help cannot be refused. By virtue of their own state of evolution they are already putting into motion that which will produce the answer to their prayers.

　When a member of the circle said that some of the best and most conscientious men worried, the guide replied: "Are you not confusing purely physical attainment with spiritual knowledge? If they are the possessors of knowledge of spiritual realities, they must know there is no need to worry. You can go through life conscientiously discharging your duties without worrying about them. I do not mean you should be indifferent to your obliga-tions; that is not part of my teaching. Rather do we stress that you shall become more conscious of them. But there is no need to worry. There can be mental development which is not parallel with spiritual growth."

　The same member of the circle said, "To put it plainly, anyone who worries is not spiritually developed."

　The guide answered: "Yes, it does. The saints never worry because they are conscious of the Great Plan. You can have a good mind and be an honest, charitably disposed individual, quite unselfish, and still not have attained those soul qualities that bring you a close awareness of the meaning and purpose of life. The mere act of worry is an indication of the soul's lack of growth, because it is an exhibition of fear, however slight, and fear means that the soul is not yet sure of itself. If it were there would be no fear. The greatest soul faces life with a completely implacabloutlook. He knows, and nothing can disturb his knowledge. I cannot depart from that because it must be the foundation of our philosophy."

　The same member commented: "Imagine for instance some-body having fifty people working under him and they all do wrong things. There seems to be some basis for worry."

　Silver Birch said: "Personal responsibility is the law. In the eyes of the law you are not responsible for the actions of others."

　"In civilisation you are."

　"Civilisation is not in accordance with the law. The law is perfect, it is unfailing, it is unerring, it cannot make mistakes. You are responsible for what you do, for what you say, for what you think, for your soul bears the index of your own growth. You cannot be held responsible for what other souls do. That is the law. If it were not, justice would cease to be divine."

　Another member said: "Supposing one were to encourage another person to do something and the other person was weak. Does that mean that you are still not responsible?"

　Silver Birch answered: "Yes, you are responsible for encourag-ing others to do wrong; that is your responsibility. You have set in motion a chain of action. Motive is the paramount considera-tion. I do not mean that you should be unconcerned with what happens around you. If the soul has reached any stage of great-ness, it will know its own responsibility and be aware that what it has done it has done, and it cannot do any more. Once you have reached that stage you will know that you will always do the best that lies within your power."

　"If you obey the law as you see it?"

　"No, cause and effect follow one another unfalteringly. None can interfere with their sequence. Any creed, any doctrine, any teaching that says there is a contrary happening to that inexorable law is wrong. There can be no intervention between cause and effect. There are no means by which the responsibilities of your actions can be transferred to other shoulders, neither can the responsibility of the actions of others be transferred to your shoulders. Each must carry the burden of his own life. That is honest, moral, ethical and just. All else is debased, cowardly, immoral and unjust. The law is perfect."

　Here the guide was asked, "In perhaps an esoteric way, are we not responsible for everybody else, because if we try to make the world a better place we are responsible?"

　Silver Birch answered: "Yes, in that sense we are responsible. We are our brothers' keepers because the thread of spirit runs throughout all humanity and binds us together to make us one. But our responsibility is to ensure that we help and serve and co-operate to the fullness of our knowledge. Our responsibility ends with what others do with their lives. But none lives by himself alone, we are all interdependent on one another. All life mingles and merges and blends and harmonises. All of us live together in one universe and our actions affect others. That is why knowledge brings great responsibility. He who sins without knowledge is not so bad as he who sins with knowledge, for the sin has been increased by the awareness of the action. It is no light task to embark on a spiritual quest and it must be that the capacity for knowledge brings the capacity for greater respon-sibility. Sorrow and happiness, these are equally servants of the Great Spirit. You cannot have one without the other. As high as you can reach, so low can you fall, and as low as you can fall, so high can you reach. It must be so."

　Here are the words spoken by Silver Birch to the business man and his wife, who had been bereaved in the war by the passing of two sons:

　"It is a source of great joy to welcome into our midst those whose lives are guided by the power of the spirit and who have now made those magnetic links with our life which enable them to walk, day by day, in the full knowledge that they are completely surrounded by love which desires to guide, uplift, and serve them. You are both richly blessed. Out of sorrow has come great knowledge. Out of the slumber there has come a great awakening. The soul has found itself after being tested and puri-fied in the fires of sacrifice.

　"You have gone down to the depths of bitterness. You have experienced the great sadness and sorrow when the soul almost rebels at what has come to it. But it is because you have plumbed the depths that you can soar to the heights. The Garden of Geth-semane and the Mount of Transfiguration are opposite ends of the same pole ofexperience and you cannot have one without the other. The capacity which enables you to suffer is the same capa-city which enables you to have appreciation of profound spiritual truths. Sadness and joy, darkness and light, storm and sunshine, these are all servants of the Great Spirit, each fulfilling its allotted task. The soul can find itself only when it learns that the source of its existence is not in the things of matter, which are temporal, but in the things of the spirit which endure for ever. Those who cling to earthly riches and neglect the spiritual treasures find that their possessions tarnish and rust, but the joys of spiritual attain-ment are possessions that will last for all time. You have found yourselves and placed your feet firmly on the pathway that has brought you closer than you have ever been to those who love you in our world.

　"I would like to reassure you that your two fine boys, so full of vitality, are always by your side. There is not one moment of the day or night that they are absent. They stand as constant sen-tinels at the post of self-appointed duty to guard you, to ensure that no harm will befall I do not mean that difficulties will never cross your path. That cannot be so, for life is a constant struggle in which the surmounting of obstacles enables character to grow and the soul to evolve. But no difficulty will come your way, no hardship, no problem, that the power of love which sur-rounds you will be powerless to dissipate. They will only be shadows, nothing more, nothing less, shadows that will come and go. All that which brought misery and sorrow is behind you. What lies in front of you is a rich spiritual adventure, a tremendous mental exploration in which there is much to dis-cover that will enrich you and bring you closer to those eternal realities which you are learning to understand so well.

　"You have been brought together to fulfil a plan, a plan that could not operate until sorrow came your way, so that you could recognise her for being the masked messenger of divine joy. Sorrow is but a mask, joy is the real presence and when the mask is removed gladness reigns. Fill your lives with beauty and know-lege, with the richness of the spirit. Let the soul soar striving to reach those altitudes where it belongs and thus you will enfold yourselves with its natural warmth and beauty and lustre. True happiness is within, not without. When the soul comes into its own the individual is filled with that inexorable conviction that makes him know he is in unison with the law of the Great Spirit."

　During the course of the sitting, the guide gave the husband and wife this advice, typical of his teaching, on spirit communica-tion:

　"Do not accept anything which comes to you from our world if it is contrary to your reason or if it seems inconsistent with wisdom. Do not abandon the dictates of your conscience, or surrender your free will. We have no desire to impose tasks upon you; we have no desire to compel. We ask only to co-operate, so that in this great you feel you are voluntarily coming all the way because it is right and proper for you to do so. You will never offend us by using reason. You will never offend us by questioning what we say. If we cannot satisfy your reason, your intelligence, which are, after all, attributes of the soul, then we are not worthy to presume to act as guides for you.

　"We do not appeal to blind faith, to dumb obedience. We desire willing co-operators who are prepared to do all that is necessary because they are satisfied that that is what the Great Spirit intends them to do. Thus, with these as our ideals we can-not fail. Together we can march hand in hand, truly ministers of the Great Spirit, striving to exhibit His will in our lives and rendering service to all his children who need it and who are ready to receive it."

　Silver Birch ended the sitting with these words: "Let us finish where we began, with the power that has no beginning and no end, that is infinite and eternal. Let us bow our heads in acknow-ledgment of its sublime majesty. Let us pause to receive its divine benison; let us inbreathe its splendour, fill ourselves with its radiance and surround ourselves with its strength. Let us become conscious of the divine love that seeks, with infinite wisdom, to guide us all, to knit us closely together in the willing bonds of service. So shall we live our lives in useful accomplishments, bringing us closer to the Great Spirit who broods over us with beneficence, so that truly we might feel, hour by hour, that the cloak of infinite love is around us."