　　　　Chapter Ten

YOUTH QUESTIONS SILVER BIRCH

Rejoice that while you are comparatively physically young, you have this wonderful opportunity. How sad it is that too many still live in shadows, chasing will-o'-the-wisps, embracing illusion, failing to find reality. You are the repository of infinite possibilities. How much you can take will depend on you. That is the measure of free will. How far you can travel, only you can decide.

　　　　　　　　　　　　SILVER BIRCH

　I reported the moving confrontation between four earnest young Spiritualists and Silver Birch in Psychic News. The guide invited representatives of the newly-formed Psychic Youth Group to the Hannen Swaffer home circle, asking them to come armed with their most difficult questions. The group had a special session to prepare their queries.

　Four original founders, two boys and two girls, all in their twenties, attended the sitting, where their spokesman relayed the questions to Silver Birch. The contrast between their youthful enthusiasm for making a quick spiritual impact on this sluggish material plane and the tolerant guide, who over the years has been asked similar questions many times, was really a "happening."

　One told me afterwards that he was deeply impressed by the economy of words and the flow of beautiful phraseology.

"It was as if every word was carefully chosen, yet the spontaneity of his replies was terrific," he added. In modern idiom, he said it was like feeding questions to a "spiritual computer" bound to produce the right replies. “Appreci-ating the true simplicity of Silver Birch's words, one can absorb them like a sponge and it helps in answering future tricky questions on the subject," he said. Here, in question and answer form, is this Youth Group seance.

Many young people, like ourselves, seek truth. We want a better world in which to bring up our children. Why must man kill and maim his brother? Why must he hate those of a different race or creed? Why is there so little love in the world? We want peace on earth, but when and how will it come? How can we succeed where the older and so-called wiser have failed? We are young, strong and willing and wish to serve in the war against ignorance and stupidity, greed and hate. What then is your advice

to us?

　That seems quite a question. Ignorance and stupidity, the words you use, have been in your world for a very long time. There is no magical formula that will abolish them overnight. Nature works by evolution, not by revolution. All growth proceeds slowly and inexorably. Any attempt to force physical growth beyond its ordained limits inevitably results in disaster. Similarly any attempt to accelerate spiritual growth must fail.

　I say this in no spirit of pessimism. I know that all those who have been permitted to catch a glimpse of spiritual, divine reality must be optimistic. They realise that man, however foolish or reckless he may be, has imposed on him restrictions. He is subject to natural laws over which he has no control.

　There is no instantaneous panacea that we have to offer. All we can say is that as knowledge spreads and ignorance, as a result, recedes, so the divisions between man and man become fewer, the wars abate, the greed lessens and the areas of light increase. It is not within our power to trans-form the earthly scene. All that we can do is to inculcate into those who are ready to receive knowledge the truths that will teach them how to order their lives aright.

　Man has, again within prescribed limits, a freedom of choice. He can share with the infinite power in the processes of creation and help in the forward march of evolution. He can hinder, he can delay, he can deter. This is his contribu-tion.

　The Great Spirit, with infinite wisdom, did not create puppets, marionettes or automatons. Man was endowed with latent wisdom and with all the divine attributes that the Great Spirit, or God as you call it, possesses. So man must make his choice. He must learn that war solves no problems, but only creates fresh ones, that greed and selfishness contain within themselves the seeds of their own disasters.

　Many years ago the Nazarene said that he who takes to the sword shall perish by the sword. Man must learn these lessons for himself. All that you can individually do is to spread knowledge wherever you can. If you succeed in bringing light and truth to one in addition to yourself, then your earthly life will not have been in vain. This is the only answer I can give.

　　　　. . .

We must be honest and say that the Spiritualist movement and mediumship in general are at a very low level...

　Stop there. We are not concerned with what you call the Spiritualist movement. We are concerned with individuals who are prepared to develop the gifts of the spirit, whether within or without organisations is not very important. Organisations should perform or fulfil certain purposes. It is for the organisers to concern themselves with that problem. Our responsibility is always to help any individual who desires to serve wherever he can.

　Names do not bother me. Spiritualist, Theosophist, Rosicrucian, these are only labels. What matters is that each should seek the truth according to his capacity. Medium-ship is important because it means that here is a person on whom has been conferred a gift which can be used to give one of the greatest services in your world. It is a tremendous responsibility and imposes, or should do, a sacred trust on its owner.

. . .

To what would you attribute the sudden increase in drug-taking and addiction, especially among young people? Can we offer any tangible aid to them?

　Yes, you can offer healing, the power of the spirit. This is always directed to the spirit or soul of an unfortunate being who has resorted to what could be dangerous drugs and who can be helped. You must try to realise that the power of the spirit is also the power of the Great Spirit, which is the life force.

　It is the vitality, the dynamic, the mainspring of all existence. There is no life without spirit. Everybody who moves, breathes or thinks, does so because of the spirit. In healing, the life force is applied to the weakened vitality of the individual whose body, mind and spirit are in disarray through the intake of certain drugs. These have caused this disharmony, and thus there is a blockage, an impediment where natural channels should be flowing freely and harmoniously with one another.

　If you have the gift of healing, you are a channel for this divine power which can stimulate, in the way that you charge a depleted battery, and enable the life force to flow again, rid itself of the impediments and blockages which have brought ill-health to the individual.

　This is a much greater contribution than giving the individual another drug to get rid of the previous one. As to why so many resort to drugs, this is very simple. They are in despair, they are frustrated, they are pessimistic, they see no hope for themselves, they are out of touch with reality, they have lost their spiritual way and they can find in materialism no support for them. They look to the drug to give them a lift, but it is not the way. As I said before, nature works by evolution, not by revolution.

. . .

How can we young people best channel our efforts towards healing the rift between coloured and white people?

　Only by example. If you show by your own lives that to you there are no yellow, red or black souls, that bodily skin has no relationship to soul qualities, then you will attract towards you those who are subjected to these bars, bans and barriers. The Great Spirit, with infinite wisdom, devised it that all His children should possess many coloured hues, so that together the perfect family make the rainbow. A white skin is no evidence of supremacy of spirit, neither is a coloured skin evidence of an inferior spirit. The real test is when you exhibit qualities of divinity, that is when the spirit is supreme.

　　　　. . .

What are the spiritual aspects of heart-transplant surgery?

　Motive is always the important consideration. Un-doubtedly in some cases the motive is to sustain earthly life. It can be that experimentation encourages an enthusiasm for more experimentation which in the end is not concerned with the prolongation of earthly life. Also it must be said that subjecting helpless animals to cruelty in order to learn from them is not an act that can be considered to have any

spiritual value. Not through cruelty will man find health. Not through exploitation will he learn the secrets of nature that have so far eluded him.

　I am not in favour of the transfer of any bodily organ from one to another. Indeed, I am not in favour of the transfusion of blood. I do not think, from my point of view, and I speak only for myself, that the sustaining of the physical body must be the be-all of every endeavour. I maintain that man should be instructed how to live aright, spiritually, mentally and physically. If he thinks right, then he behaves right and his body will be right.

　The solution is not the transfer of bodily parts. The solution is for every man to order himself to live as the Great Spirit intended. Man must have compassion for other men and for all the creatures with whom he shares this planet. They were not placed here by the Great Spirit to be used as experiments, to prolong the physical life of man,

　　　　. . .

Is it right to say at this stage that heart transplants must be doomed to failure?

　It is conceivable that there may be some successful experiments. What I am concerned with is that the experi-ments are taking the wrong spiritual turning. This is not the direction in which those who should be dedicated to man's well-being should be working. They will not bring health. Health is harmony. These are merely attempts at a tempor-ary patching up of bodies.

　You must understand the simple essence. You are created body, mind and spirit. These are indivisible; they are not exchangeable parts. You are a whole individual. To achieve health you must have wholeness, harmony, rhythm, concert, between your tripartite being. This is the only way that you can get health, not through drugs, not through medicines. These are temporary reliefs. Your world is full of ignorance. Death is the dread monster to be evaded. Death is feared, but death is part of the natural law. Physical immortality is not the object of earthly existence. The earth is the training ground, the school to learn your lessons for the greater life that must inevitably be yours.

. . .

How would you describe God?

　It is impossible to give you a complete picture. God is in-finite. All language, concepts and pictures must be finite. The lesser cannot include the greater. You can obtain some idea of what the Great Spirit is like by looking at the universe. See how it is regulated by natural law, where provision has been made for every facet of life, even though these manifesta-tions are multitudinous in their variety. Whether it be minutely small or majestically mighty, all that lives, moves and breathes, all that exists, are controlled by natural law. Nothing is outside the orbit of natural law. The seasons follow one another, the earth rotates on its axis, the tides ebb and flow. Whatever seed you plant, what will grow is contained within it; it will be true to its nature.

　Law reigns supreme. Every new discovery, whatever it may be, wherever it may be, is controlled by the same natural law. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is overlooked, nothing is neglected. What is this power responsible for it? It is infinite. It is not a magnified man, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. It is not a deity who is full of vengeance and sends plagues because of displeasure. It is not a capricious, wrathful deity. History and evolution show that the world slowly moves forward, upward, revealing that the power behind it is beneficent. So gradually you get this picture of infinite love and wisdom that rule all, that govern all, that direct all and are within all. And that I call the Great Spirit.

　　　　　. . .

Another question that crops up many times is the thought of returning to God. There is a certain fear that you lose your individuality in this return.

　The ultimate is not the attainment of Nirvana. All spiritual progress is towards increasing individuality. You do not become less of an individual, you become more of an individual. You develop latent gifts, you acquire greater knowledge, your character becomes stronger, as more of the divine is exhibited through you. The Great Spirit is infinite and so there is an infinite development to be achieved. Perfection is never attained, there is a constant striving towards it. You do not ever lose yourself. What you succeed in doing is finding yourself.

　　　　. . .

Is it possible to describe this state we are supposed to reach?

　No, because you get to conditions and spheres that are beyond language. They consist of states of consciousness and awareness. This is something that you will not under-stand until you attain it. You do not lose your individuality in a sea of greater consciousness, but that depth of the ocean becomes included in your individuality.

. . .

To what extent does destiny play its part in man's earth life? Could you describe destiny? Is predestination an outside force or your own choice? If you accept reincarnation, can you say why and what purpose it serves?

　It could be both. An outside force helped you to make the choice. You can have free will and destiny at the same time. If you are content to accept that earthly life is the sum total of physical existence, then so be it. But it is conceivable that the spirit which inhabits your present earthly body has existed before, with not necessarily that facet of the spirit. It could be that you are a fragment of a very large diamond, with each facet incarnating at differing epochs to make their contribution to the whole.

　　. . .

You mention a facet of a large diamond, that I could be one of a group soul of people. It does not seem logical, if we have eternity, that it would be necessary for me to have experience for a number of other souls.

　Action and reaction occur throughout the whole universe. Men in far-away places can produce a tremendous impact on your existence in the way of contributing to the sum total of knowledge everywhere. You cannot live in physical, mental and spiritual isolation. Call it a group, call it a diamond, you are trying to use words to express what is beyond words. Who are "you," and when did "you" begin? Did your individuality commence from the moment of conception? "Before Abraham was, I am," said the Nazarene. What did he mean? Only that as spirit he had always existed; so have you and so have I. It may be that fragments incarnate at differing times.

　I have no quarrel with those who will not accept what I say. I always tell my friends to reject what their reason cannot accept. If we would your affection, and perhaps your love, it must be because reason tells you we say what is true. If we cannot win your affection with reason, then we must be failing in our purpose. We must build on the knowledge that we have, making sure that its base is secure. From that, let us explore the higher paths as we ascend, slowly, gradually.

　You have much to make you rejoice. Problems you will always meet, difficulties you will always encounter. You are not perfect beings living in a perfect world. You are im-perfect and your world is imperfect. But you have free will and a wonderful opportunity of helping to rid the world of its imperfections and yourself of your imperfections. That is your task.

　Whatever knowledge you have gained, the greater is the responsibility as to how you use it. A trust is reposed in you. You must not betray it. You must show by your own life that you are worthy, not only of the knowledge that you have received, but ready for the next knowledge to come to you as it will when you are ready to receive it.

　　　　★ ★ ★

Always there will be offered, as you are ready, a vast richness of the spirit which cannot tarnish, fade, or ever be lost once you have acquired it. These are the prizes for you to earn, the development of your own soul, the strengthening of your own character, so that you are worthy of the light in which you dwell.

SILVER BIRCH

⚫︎ シルバーバーチの霊訓九

　九章　青年部の代表と語る

2024.06