by Michael George Reccia

Joseph: Good morning and a greeting from the higher side of life – or, should I say, the more enlightened side of life (and by ‘enlightened’ I mean the side of life that has more Light apparent in its workings, in its dealings and in the way it conducts itself). Over the past few weeks we have watched the situations on Earth with great interest because, here and there, there are pockets of resistance to the Field – pockets or bubbles of Light that are trying to expand. But, for every ten bubbles of Light that exist only one or two come to the surface. That is because the Field dampens down anything that threatens it and also because, with many people who are working for the Light, there is an enemy within, so they fall at the first or second or third hurdle because they do not have the conviction that overcomes all the workings of the physical mind. We watch and we pray, and we add Light to the bubbles of Light – praying that one or two of them will make it and will pour enough higher energy and sufficient Light atoms into the Field for there to be a difference …and for there to be a breeding ground for more bubbles or pockets of Light.

But that is not why I am here today. I just wanted to make it clear that the work continues on our level all the time to ensure that somewhere, somehow, Light gets into the matrix of thought that is the Field of human consciousness and the Field of human endeavor.

What I want to talk about today is ‘endeavor’ and its purpose in the higher realms, and I hope that the people on Earth will pay particular attention to this aspect of spiritual evolution.

There has to be purpose.

How often do you hear people say, ‘I have no purpose’? There are some souls who come over to us and say, ‘Well, if I had known that there was life after death, I would have had a purpose, but I did not perceive any purpose in my life and so I took it away,’ …only to discover that they cannot take their life away because it is not theirs to take away; it does not extinguish if the physical vehicle is separated from the spiritual body.

We look on the Earth with disdain at the present time because so few people seem to have a purpose… and that is not the fault of God or the fault of the people around these souls – it is their fault because they do not strive towards a purpose. They say, ‘I don’t want to do this and I don’t want to do that. I do not have a goal – I simply want to sit here to vegetate and remain the same as I have always been.’ They have no purpose and they have created that lack of purpose.

That is so sad, because when a soul comes back home to the spiritual side of life one of the first things that prompts it is a lusting or need for purpose, but also a recognition that there is a purpose to that soul’s existence. The purpose is to expand its existence, expand its experience and expand its understanding (not mental but spiritual understanding) so that it can become aware of other planes of existence; so that it can become aware of itself as what it is but can also become aware of finer levels of reality; finer levels of illusion, in actual fact, that have as much cohesion to them as the Field of human consciousness does to it on a physical level.

The soul that is reborn into the spiritual realms (please note that I am not using the term “dies into’) is immediately struck by a longing, once the detritus of the physical world has been sloughed away, once the auric field has been quietened and once it has been made aware of its surroundings. It is the same longing that all people have on Earth but do not recognise. It is the longing to become more, the longing to understand more, the longing to experience more and the longing to grow. There is often an analogy of God sending forth his children as ‘seeds’ and that is a wonderful, perfect analogy because seeds need to grow. Unfortunately, on Earth at the moment the soil is not fertile; the soil only gives the illusion of growth. It gives the illusion of growth through the growth of the physical body; it gives the illusion of growth through the materiality that is sought for the physical body and the physical mind – but these things are of the Earth. It is the spirituality and the spiritual aspects of the ‘seed’ that need to be nurtured …and they are not being nurtured on Earth at the moment.

So, there is a shock when a soul comes over and suddenly realizes what it has known as a soul throughout its journey across the earth plane – that it needs, wishes and has a longing to become more than it is at this particular point in its existence.

The need leads to all kinds of trouble for souls who are on the Earth. It leads to dissatisfaction in relationships because there is always a feeling, deep down, that there should be something more; it leads to dissatisfaction with employment and dissatisfaction with materiality. It is felt that there should always be something more …but the ‘something more’ can only come from within and from spiritual growth.

So the soul, having been freed from the confines of the earth plane, finds itself in a situation where it has to ask someone, ‘How do I grow? I am happy – this place I find myself in is a place of Light. It is a place of beautiful trees, beautiful buildings and beautiful people. It is a place where I am freed from the problems and restrictions of my earthly life and physical body. It is all these things to me and yet I am being ‘called’ somewhere else – l have a longing. How can I have a longing in such a beautiful place?’

Then the spirit is made aware, through meditation and contact with the God within, and also through counsel with those who are ‘in the know’, as it were. It is explained to the soul that what it is experiencing is its need to be aware as God is aware, its need to see things as God sees things, and that that yearning to return home is a jewel (and by ‘home’ I mean a return to a point of God-consciousness where everything is viewed from that viewpoint of God-consciousness). It is not something designed to give discomfort to the soul – it is a telephone call from God that says: ‘There is more for you! Come back to Me! Come home to Me! Grow! Experience! Learn! Travel! Change!’

So, the first thing that happens to the soul is that it is made aware that this longing is not something to disquiet it as the distorted longing on Earth has done. It is something to be embraced, it is something to be cherished and it is something that gives the soul identity because the soul is aware from that point onwards that it is a part of God (whereas so many souls on Earth are blind to that fact – blind physically, blind mentally and almost blind at a soul level, too). The soul discovers – through meditation, through contemplation, through counseling from other spirits – that it is on a journey back to God and that it is still becoming. Also the Heaven (if it has been steeped in religious entrapment) that it expected as the end of the journey exists …but is the beginning of the journey! It cannot simply sit down and say, ‘Now I am peaceful. Now I am away from the toils of the earth plane. Now I can take it easy. Now I have arrived!’ It has arrived at the start point; it has arrived at a plane from which it must move if it is to satisfy the yearning and longing to be more than it is.

At this point let us assume that we are dealing with a soul who has freed itself from the need to come back to Earth… but here I must put in a couple of paragraphs to explain something to the dear people who will be reading this: the longing that pulls people God-wards and encourages them to progress in that direction can sometimes become distorted. When souls arrive it is explained to them that they should meditate, that they should understand themselves and the longing they feel… but many souls mistakenly feel that that yearning is a longing to return to the conditions of the earth plane. They are counseled, they are loved and they are taken into meditation by evolved spirits but still they decide that that longing is a longing for the earth plane – for the perceived pleasures, the physicality and the experiences of the earth plane.

I point this out to you, the reader, so you can contemplate this situation in your meditations and in your lifetime – so that, when you come over to our start-point, you will have the knowledge that the longing you feel from that point onwards is not a longing for the earth plane. It is a longing to become more, to expand… not to restrict yourself through free will and subtract yourself from experience, creation and joy by putting yourself back into a physical body. I cannot emphasize that too heavily, too highly or too much! Contemplate what I am saying and I will be with you during your meditations so that you understand the concept. If you are longing at this moment, what you are really longing for (whether you consider it to be love, materiality, status or freedom from pain) is, as a ‘seed of God’, to become more God-like and to return to the One.

We have to assume that the soul we are dealing with hypothetically today has realized that the longing it feels is not a longing for the earth plane; it is a longing to become more. We emphasize to that soul in counsel and in meditation that the journey is important and that each point and each experience in the journey is like a rare fruit which needs to be experienced, tasted and embraced at leisure; slowly and not hurried (there is no need for hurry – it is not on the earth plane any longer). We advise the soul to advance through the different levels of evolution at its own pace – not to rush but to experience the wonders that God has made manifest through His children on the various levels of cleansing and evolution that lie ahead for that soul.

Again, we have to sidetrack (and you will now realize why this is such a complex and vast subject to put across to the people on Earth) because souls are, as we have said, at different stages of spiritual knowing and spiritual evolution. Many souls are reborn into the spirit realms who very quickly divest themselves of the entrapment of the earth plane and quickly divest themselves of the personality that they have just used in order to gain more knowledge spiritually. They then find that they are already at a certain stage of spiritual evolution that can take them up and beyond the level they have initially returned to. At that point it is allowed (i.e. made possible by them and by those from their own sphere) for them to return to the sphere they harmonize with vibrationally and to advance from that point onwards as part of the group soul that they are contained within.

…We’ve had a side issue and now let’s return to the soul who has not, through past lives, already taken itself to a higher sphere of existence – a soul that finds itself on one of the entry levels of higher consciousness on our side of life.

We say to the soul, ‘You must advance slowly,’ and the soul asks: ‘How do I advance? I have reached this point and have the longing to become more, but how do I advance?’ We then counsel the soul and say, ‘On this level, as on all levels, nothing stands still.’ On the earth plane many people shy away from work and the experience of work and feel that they should be doing nothing. On this level you will find that you want to do something because doing something expands your vision of who you are, expands your experience and feeds your need to evolve, which eventually eliminates that longing from your soul.

So we ask the soul, ‘What would you like to do?’

‘Would you like, for example, to counsel other souls who are returning from Earth? Would you like to, by simply sitting with them and telling them of your experience of passing over and what has happened to you – as an everyman… would you like to help them in that way? Would you like to open them up to the new experiences they find themselves in through having been reborn into the spiritual realms? That is something you can do and we will teach you how to do it.’

‘Were you musical on Earth? Did you like music? Would you have liked, instead of listening to music, to be able to play music? There is that opportunity for you on this side – freed from a physical mind that says you cannot do it. Of course you can! Would you like to study the basics and advancements of musical form and see yourself playing where you are surrounded by colors and by visions that you have created through your music? You could become involved in that.’

‘Would you like to become involved in spiritual science? Would you like to learn how this realm is put together and understand your potential and the potential of others in this realm… because we can teach you? We are not teaching you anything that you do not know already but we will teach you to rediscover that understanding within you.’

‘Would you like to paint?’

‘Would you like to sing?’

‘Would you like to take care of those who still believe and feel that they are sick? Would you like to bring them back to full conscious health? We can train you and help you understand how to do that.’

‘Would you like to work with animals in a wonderful and delightful way, in that you will be able to communicate with them? Would you like to work with those animals who have been damaged by their experience on Earth? Would you like to rectify some of the mistakes of mankind by being their representative in working with animals to bring them to full co-operation with spirits of the human form again? In other words, to work with them and say, “I am sorry. I am bringing love to you. I would like to be your companion. I would like to be your counselor. I would like to learn from you.” Would you like to work with animals?

…There are so many things a soul can do so that it never again need experience a state of stagnation. There is, however, the option of experiencing stagnation, and we find souls who have broken the path of coming back to the earth plane who then say, ‘I do not want to do anything.’ We assure them that they will but they insist that they won’t and they encapsulate themselves in stillness (which is wonderful and is something, of course, that we have taught you to do on Earth). Eventually, however, they tire of that lack of perception, lack of creation and lack of experience …and they need and want to do something. Their attitude to work is slowly dissolved and the soul discovers that there is joy in experience (and that is all work on the earthly plane is – experience, albeit experience that is corrupted at this time). What we say to the soul on the entry levels of the higher spiritual realms is, ‘If you wish to grow and to evolve you need to experience.’

There is no other way! Yes, experience silence and experience the nothing – these are essential states of being which need to be entered into regularly – but as part of a program that also incorporates things to do. Interact with others; interact with yourself; realize your potential, because in singing, in playing, in painting, in creating, in healing you are discovering that you are capable of all these things and in accepting that capability as a soul you expand your consciousness by freeing yourself from the I can’t.

The entry levels of the higher spiritual realms are those levels where people have decided that they will move on and the purpose of the entry levels is one of self-discovery and discovery of spiritual potential. They do not include the healing sphere or the preparation level where people (against their better judgment and ours) choose to come back to Earth. I am trying to paint a picture of the purpose of the entry levels and of that journey which is not too abstract. I can fill in blanks as to how those levels appear to eyes, to ears, to taste and to senses but it is the purpose within those levels that I wish to get across to you.

I must obviously talk about where the longing eventually takes you but before I do that I feel I must fill in any blanks regarding the entry levels. Then, in other chapters [future articles], we will address (in physical or earthly terms) where a soul goes (as you know it actually ‘goes’ nowhere – it goes within, it expands from within) but next I want to talk about the changing landscape that occurs as you climb up the steps of spiritual evolution…

Excerpt from Your Life After Death (The Joseph Communications)

See Part II here.