Good is in the center of every experience that appears to be negative. If we understand the value of anything that happens, then we know the good that it offers. Just because we do not like it does not make it bad. The word or concept “bad” is a value judgment based on our limited point of view or our selfish desire of what we prefer to be experiencing. Most people do not see the good because they label something as bad, and then, of course, that becomes their reality. Most of what we call bad is because we are labeling it bad – because we do not like it and either do not see, or want to see the value it offers us spiritually. It is our inability to see things from the perspective of the Universal Self, the Universal Spirit or God that contributes to our labeling anything as bad.
Once we accept the first two propositions of AMSWAY, there is only good in the universe.
The first proposition is the belief in the Omnipresence of God. A God that is self-aware throughout creation. An omnipresent reality means there is no room for anything else, regardless of what name you wish to give it. There is only God and manifestations of God, or expressions of God within God.
The second proposition is the continuation of our awareness of being aware after the death of our earthly body. Some might call this continuation of the awareness of being aware a continuation of our self-consciousness. Consciousness of the continuation of the self we are referencing when we say “I”. Not the continuation of what we see in the mirror and what we “think” is us. Most of what we think is “us” is not us at all. The true us does not die. What we see in the mirror and what we call our “human” self dies, disintegrates, and becomes part of the building blocks for new expressions of earth life. The true “self” of us, the real “I” is the soul, the spirit that is eternal.
There have been a lot of sorrowful and seemingly tragic and senseless experiences spirit-people have had. Parents, children boyfriends, girlfriends, raped, tortured or and killed. Perhaps all three in one experience - raped, tortured AND killed.
We must remember that if there is anything for body after our earthly body dies, then no one has ever been really killed. Only our loved one’s body was killed. The spirit that they truly were and are was not killed. A belief in an Omnipresent God, that is self-aware through the manifestations of God that we call physical reality, means that God was with, and in, each one that was tortured and killed.
We have compassion. Therefore an Omnipresent God has compassion. If an Omnipresent God did not have compassion, then we could not have compassion since we totally live, move and have our entire existence within this Omnipresent God. How could a compassionate God allow a seemingly innocent child to be tortured and killed? There must be some very important lessons to be learned through the experience – both for the child that experienced the torturous death and the loved ones the child left behind.
What lessons could possibly be worth the death of the child? The lessons have to do with the education of the spirit that was experiencing through the body of the child and education of the spirits who were experiencing through the bodies of the ones left behind on earth.
Remember, if there is anything after our body dies, then we are the spirits that go on. We do not have a soul. We do not have a spirit within us. We are the soul that has a body. We are the spirit looking and experiencing through what we call the physical body.
Think about it. If there is a soul, then when the body dies the body disintegrates and literally becomes food for other creatures and becomes one with the earth again to become part of new life forms. If there is a soul, then it goes on somewhere. Where do WE go? Do we ride piggyback on our soul? Of course not, we must be the soul that continues. If we are not the soul that continues, then our soul would go on and we would not. Are you following me? We are not the face we see in the mirror, nor are we the flesh under the face, nor are we the bones under the flesh. We are the witness of what we see in the mirror. We are the soul experiencing through what we call the physical body on what we call Earth. The body is our vehicle of communication. The body is our vehicle of transportation. Our body is what we use to contribute to the rest of creation. Our body is what we use to learn to be better contributors to the rest of creation.
We learn through trial and error. Some of the trials and some of the errors can be very painful. Which one of us has not had many learning experiences that were painful only because we did not apply the lessons what they were offered to us in less painful ways? God tried to teach us in more gentle ways. However, for whatever reason, we continued to do what we knew we should not have continued to do. We put off applying the lesson and doing what we knew we should do until the pain of not applying the lesson was so great that we decided not to continue doing what we knew we should have stopped doing long ago. Whew, that was a long sentence. However, re-read it until you get it. It is the reason for most of what we call painful lessons.
The spirits in the young children and the spirits in the bodies of their parents are eternal spirits. Spirits do not have an age. Spirits just have different levels of awareness, understanding, acceptance and ability to apply universal laws and principles. Spirits just have different levels of potential for manifesting the Glory of God based on what they can handle. What they can handle as spiritual beings expressing the Glory of Infinite God is determined by what lessons they have learned and apply in their daily living.
In order to truly know what we did to someone, we must eventually have it done unto us. Until you have tasted both sides of the situation, you really do not know the situation.
I will give you a few examples of what seemingly innocent spirit-humans are doing to creation that would warrant some VERY painful lessons from a God of compassion.
Many years ago, I watched a seal cub hunt. Hunters were rounding up baby seals with beautiful white fur for the purpose of making coats out of their skin and fur. These hunters did not hunt with a gun. This would have messed up the potential saleable value of the seal coats. No, they killed the baby seals by hitting their heads with a big club until they died. One seal hunt in particular, I remember watching a baby seal being killed by a hunter. After it was dead, the mother seal came over to it and looked down at her baby. All of a sudden, the mother seal raised her head as far up to the sky as she could and let out the most heart-wrenching wailing sound that I have ever heard. If you have ever seen a mother in the Middle East who just picked up her dead baby who was just killed by a bomb, and listened to her wails of pain, this mother seal sounded just like that spirit-human mother. If I would have closed my eyes and did not know the wailing was coming from the mother seal, I would have sworn to you that it was human – not animal. The painful emotion the mother seal was expressing was coming from her core of whatever consciousness she possessed. The pain she was feeling was from a senseless killing of her baby. She could not understand that her baby died so that some human could look good and keep warm in her dead baby’s skin and fur.
No one was even going to eat the meat. They actually skinned the baby seal right there on the ice. What a sight for the mother seal to see. What heartbreak she must have felt. She cannot think in words like we do, but there was no lack of pain in the wailing painfulness of what I heard her express.
The ones who purchase and wear the furs of these baby seals – are they innocent of their deaths and are they innocent of causing the terrible suffering of the baby seal’s mother? One way or another, sooner or later, they will have to learn what they truly did in order to make money or to stroke their vanity.
Another example is I was eating a snack once while reading the newspaper. The article I was reading at the time was about a man in Africa who was raising dogs to kill and make coats out of their skin. The dogs were the type of dogs who do not have fur, they have hair. The hair is like ours. If we did not brush our hair, our hair would get matted from the little hair that we lose day to day. This is why what we call shed-less dogs get matted hair if their hair is not washed and brushed regularly. They were poodles, Maltese, Afghans, Dalmatians, Greyhounds, Terriers, Shih Tzus, some sheep dogs, and others. Well, I had a beautiful toy poodle at the time. He was part of my family, if you know what I mean. As I was reading the article, I noticed that he was next to me, looking up at me begging me to give him some of my snack. Get the picture? I looked at him, looked back at the article, looked back at him and said to him, “They would not do that to you, would they?” Of course they would have. He had a beautiful curly black coat of hair. How could they do that to him? He was so sweet and so smart – you know just what I mean, don’t you? My poodle was family. He was almost like my child. He definitely was my friend.
Are the ones who wear these coats innocent of the slaughter of the dogs that went into making their coat?
Even the wool industry is not without blood. The wool industry is arm and arm with the slaughterhouse industry. Even wearing wool is contributing to the painful and fearful slaughter of millions of sheep yearly.
Another example is the slaughtering of the billions of animals each year for food for spirit-humans. I have been a vegetarian for over 30 years. I am over 60 now. I have been a vegan since my son was born 11 years ago. He has been a vegan since he was born. He is a star basketball player, an X-Box live gamer who is rated 334 in the United States and Canada on at least one of the games he plays. He has an A- average in an International School he attends. He hardly ever gets sick. He just gets stomach aches and headaches when he has overdosed on junk food – usually when I am not watching him.
Have you ever seen a slaughter house and the slaughtering process? The slaughtering industry will try to tell you that they humanely kill the livestock. Some religions actually want us to believe they especially kill the animals humanely. They hang them up by their legs, slit their throat and allow them to bleed to death. This is killing humanely? Before the animals are killed, they smell the death in the slaughterhouse. They animals waiting their turn for the killing knife or the killing bolt, or the killing shot of electricity hear the other animals right before and during the killing process. They are scared. They are VERY scared. Some even try to eat through their leg bones to escape the chains holding them. What fear are we sowing to these billions of animals YEARLY because of our lust for the taste of their flesh? Do you realize that even if the body goes into shock, it normally takes four to five minutes for the brain to become irreversibly damaged? The animal is aware while this brain death process is occurring. They might be in shock and cannot feel the pain any longer but what is going on in their mind? What would be going on in your mind during this few minutes after someone cut your throat?
Most people I speak to will not even watch a slaughterhouse video. They pull back and say they could not watch it. However, they will go out and have a steak, a roast chicken or a lobster. Are we turning away from the pain and suffering we are giving to billions of creatures YEARLY because we only have to look at it in a sanitized plastic container in the grocery store. Are we turning away from the pain and suffering we are causing because of the good aromas of the cooking flesh with the delicious herbs and seasoning we smell coming out of the kitchen? I feel the same way about smelling a potato cooking with garlic and onions. At least I do not give the potato pain and suffering before I start cooking it. Have you ever heard a lobster scream when it was put into the boiling water alive to prepare it for the enjoyment of some spirit-human at a table out of sight and out of sound of the killing field?
One time I was watching some people spear-fishing. I remember one of them spearing a fish and holding it out of the water at the end of the spear. The fish did not look like it liked it at all. It was violently struggling to get away. Later that day, a friend of mine asked me to go to the fish store and pick up some shrimp for her. I loved eating shrimp and said I would be happy to go for her.
Well, I got to the store and it actually took me a couple of hours to leave the store. Within a few minutes after I entered the store I started feeling very uncomfortable. I looked at all the fish in the fish cases and one thing was unavoidable. They all had eyes. I felt all the dead eyes staring at me.
I do not know how a fish thinks. I know they do not think in words. However, they do act like they have some intelligence and sense of self awareness. I do know that if I try to catch one for dinner, it tries to swim away as quickly as possible. Sort of like a very fearful burst of energy to get away from injury. I remembered earlier in the day the image of the fish struggling to no avail to get off the spear and get back into the water to live.
Again, I do not know what is in the mind of a fish. However, I do know that if I am attempting to catch the fish, and the fish looks at me through its’ eyes, that it probably sees and feels what I would see and feel if someone was trying to catch me for a reason I did not know. I would look at them and feel fear and do my best to get away – just like the fish.
How many billions of fish are killed each year, for the taste of their flesh? Some say they eat the fish for health reasons. Fish are not necessary for human health. I am one of the healthiest 60-year old spirit-humans I have ever met. I can still outrun any of my son’s classmates. I definitely can do more pushups than most of them. I do not need fish to be healthy. I eat mostly healthy non-animal foods, including flax seeds which give me good sources of what people think they need fish to get – such as the Omega Oils. I can eat over 450 different fruits, seeds, nuts roots, vegetables, grains, leaves and other things without ever causing pain that God has given me the awareness giving to another feeling creature. Some say carrots scream when I pull them out of the ground. This is just an excuse to not think that a cow feels more of what we feel as pain than a carrot feels. A carrot does not have a central nervous system that enables it to feel what we call pain.
What about the wars in the name of God? Remember, one persons freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist. Look at all the pain and suffering caused by the endless wars in the history of the human species. The ones who plan and fight the wars and the ones who go along with their government and do not protest the wars are equally guilty of the pain and suffering caused by the war machines.
In a war, if you kill a soldier that has children; do you really think the children of the dead soldier will understand why you killed their father? To the child, even the parent who we call a terrorist is not a terrorist – he or she is the child’s father or mother. This child is going to grow up with a hatred of you and dream of getting back at you for taking their parent away from them. They will grow up and blow up a bus with your children on it and the revenge cycle will continue.
What about the things we put in front of our love of God? What about the people we put before God? Perhaps God has to take some of these things and these people from us in order for us to realize that God must be number one in our life. Most of the religions that have ever existed have all said, “Not your will but God’s will be done”. Submission to the will of God is what God asks of us. Not as other spirit-human tells us we should submit, but as our heart tells us we should submit. Even humans who mean well have their own agenda and their own opinion of the right way to love and do the will of God. But which one can tell you how you uniquely should do the will of God. Which one of those people really knows the will of God for YOU? Which one should you listen to when he or she tells you that you should do unto another what you would not want done unto you?
The greatest religions all say we should love our God with all our heart and all our soul. What are YOU putting in front of what you know you should be doing for the Glory of God?
What about the pain and suffering to mother earth? Cutting down rain forests and taking away the living space of untold numbers of creatures. The way we as a species are raping the earth leads me to believe it is only a matter of time before the earth regurgitates us in order to survive.
What about the starving children around the world? How often do you leave the dinner table so stuffed you feel your stomach will burst? Perhaps you should have eaten a little less and somehow got involved in feeding the starving children.
What about the thousands of children that die daily because of not having fresh water to drink? How much drinking water do you waste in the shower and then do nothing to help these children get some safe water to drink?
Remember, if you believe in the Omnipresence of God, then what you do to the least of creation, YOU DO UNTO GOD. Be very, very careful why you do what you do. Be sure that the reasons you do what you do are reasons you could understand and accept if it was being done unto you. If someone believed they needed to kill me and eat me in order to survive and be healthy, I could understand and accept this. Of course I would defend myself and kill them if necessary to survive. However, if someone wanted to kill me for the lust of the taste of my flesh or the enjoyment of hunting me and killing me, I would not think much of them. I would still kill them if necessary, but I definitely would not understand and accept their reasoning.
If what you do to the least of all you do unto God, then most of the seemingly unjustified spirit-human suffering seems to have a simple purpose. It is a spiritual education. It is simple. I must give it to others what I wish to receive from others. I must give it to humans, birds, bees, lions, cows, even mother earth - any and all of creation that would feel the result of my compassion. I have no right to expect from God what I am not willing to give first. I have no right to expect from God what I am not willing to plant first into the soil of creation.
A lot of spirit-humans say that God is punishing people for sins committed. A God of compassion does not punish. A God capable of compassion educates. A God of compassion shows us the error of our ways in the only way we will understand and the only way we will truly know what we planted. We will only truly know what we did by having it done unto us. When we experience it happening to us, the experience may be wearing different clothes but the essence, the core of what was in our heart will be what returns to us to educate us. We may plant the seed, but until we eat the fruit, we really do not know what we planted.
A God of compassion accepts us as we are and understands that we will finally see the eternal light of righteousness through lessons that will sometimes burn like the kitchen stove flame burns the child who will not learn the truth of heat until actually touching and feeling the flame. You tell your child to be careful of the hot stove. However, until the child one day burns his or herself on the hot stove or the hot flame coming from the kitchen range, he or she will not really know what you were warning them about. After getting burned, hopefully the child will think twice in the future about the warnings you give them that are based on your experience of getting burned or hurt.
A God of compassion knows we might only learn what we did to the animals by experiencing similar situations where we are the one who is scared, frightened and painfully put to death for reasons that we cannot understand.
How can we really know, in a spiritual sense, what that seal mother was feeling watching her seal baby being clubbed to death, unless something similar happens to us?
Remember, the spirit that you are never dies. Only the physical vehicle that you are presently using is what dies. No one can ever kill you. They can only kill your body. No one can ever kill the spirit that you are experiencing as your mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, friend or lover. They only kill the body. Even if the death of your loved one, is a painful and tortuous one for their body, the spirit that was living through the body of the loved one had a lesson to learn through the way he or she died and also had a lesson to learn through the actual death. There can be no other answer if God is an Omnipresent and compassionate God.
All those who were close to the loved one who was injured or killed also had spiritual lessons offered to them through the experience. There are no chance encounters. There are no chance births. There are no chance deaths. There are no chance relationships. Not if you believe in an Omnipresent, compassionate God.
Omnipresent means this God is living through all creation, therefore this Omnipresent God feels all the pain and the suffering that any creatures experience. Since we live, move and have our very being within Omnipresent God, what we feel - God feels.
How can we learn the suffering we cause other living, breathing, feeling creatures, the manifestations of Omnipresent God, if we do not experience a little of it ourselves?
Even your own injury or death has lessons for you to learn. What is important is that you learn through the death experience what is uniquely there for you to learn. You really wouldn't want to repeat the same lesson again - would you?
Do you want your children, and your grandchildren, to have to learn the lessons in the same painful way that you seem to need to have the lessons done unto you? Perhaps you should be a better living example of the compassion you want God and the world to give you and to your children.
Remember, God has all eternity and the entire universe to use to teach you what you need to learn to be the best co-creator you can be. Again, I will ask you, you really do not want to experience the same lessons over and over - DO YOU?
A compassionate God does not punish. A compassionate God educates. We may not like the education. However, which one of us is really doing all that we really know we should be doing for the Glory of God? Sometimes a compassionate God has to kick us in the head to get our attention. Sometimes a compassionate God has to grab us by our shoulders, shake us and yell in a loud voice, “What Do I Have to Do to Get Your Attention?” Sometimes a compassionate God has to take away our eyes for us to truly see. That would not be a bad as we think since we will have other eyes someday and somewhere in a future body. Until then, do what you know you should be doing, and do it NOW. It just might prolong your present earthly life or the life of a loved one.
What you do unto the least of all, you do unto God. Be very, very careful why you do what you do. You will be educated – if you were not doing it for the reasons you would understand if it was being done unto you. Perhaps you will be born into a family that has no food and you will look at the humans who have plenty and wonder why they are not sharing some with you. Perhaps you will be born in a society that kills and tortures their citizens and you will look at the rest of the world and wonder why they are not helping you.
A different example of how something that happens to us that we really, really would not want to happen might just be one of the best things to ever happen to us is something I experienced a couple of days ago. The other night I met a 42-year old man who six months ago was having a wonderful time on an ATV, an All Terrain Vehicle. You know the ones you see on TV that are being used off-road and you see people driving up hills and down hills, over rocks and through creeks, up and down sand dunes – a small four-wheel motorcycle without windows or doors. Looks like fun, doesn’t it? Well, he was having a great time and all of a sudden, a chain across his path he did not see caught him in his throat. Picture him being caught on the neck by the chain and yanked off his ATV. I know you have seen this happen in cartoons. The only difference was this was reality. This was not funny. When the chain caught him, it cut off the blood supply to part of his brain and he had a stroke. He also broke some bones in his neck and back. They thought he was going to die. However, they fused the bones and saved his life. I met him in his new vehicle – a wheelchair. He cannot move his neck even an inch in either direction side to side. For him to see you, you almost have to get directly in front of him.
I told him that in the greatest tragedy, there is a great treasure, if you are but open to see it. He told me that he has not found the treasure yet. I asked him if he ever heard of Helen Keller, who was blind, deaf and could not speak. He said yes. I asked him would he trade his paralysis if all he had to do was trade places with her. He did not hesitate a second in saying no. I at least started him on the road to thankfulness again.
I have not had a chance to speak more with him yet on finding his treasure in his tragedy. However, I am reminded of all the spirit-humans who become fighters for the underprivileged, for the handicapped, for those with cancer, polio and all the other seemingly bad things that can and do happen to spirit-humans. A lot of your greatest advocates in helping these sick and crippled people have only joined the cause because of themselves or a loved one either having been raped, been killed, been crippled or somehow experienced what we would not want to either experience or have our loved ones experience. Because of the tragedy, they dedicated their lives to helping prevent anyone else from ever having to suffer the pain that they suffer. If your child was raped and killed, and if you can help prevent it from happening to some other child, it will help you in your journey of acceptance. If you can help prevent another child from being paralyzed, it will help you in your journey of acceptance. If you or your child got deathly sick or died from drinking unsafe water and you can help prevent another child from starving to death or dying from drinking dirty water, it will help you in your journey.
This young 42-year old man is a lawyer. Perhaps he will decide to bring his legal expertise to the task of help other handicapped individuals live a better life through fighting for their right to live a better life and for protecting their legal rights.
I don’t know how to inspire him yet, other than when I helped him see how fortunate he still is, but I look forward to walking some of his journey with him and getting him to think on these things. I can help him find the treasures in his present wheelchair, fused neck, left-sided paralyzed body experience as soon as he is ready to look, find, accept and embrace the treasures.
How many lawyers would dedicate their lives to helping paralyzed people unless they or their children became paralyzed? Perhaps they would send some money to some charities, some self-help organizations. However, the life of a lawyer does not leave much time for pursuits other than making money and spending it on rest and relaxation. Most of us do not have a passion for helping others unless we have experienced the pain and suffering they are experiencing. If the lawyer has a passion for helping others in similar situations, then what that lawyer can accomplish is more than money can purchase. Others may help and get paid for it, but they will not be doing it from the depths of their being. They will care for the people they are helping but without the salary, they would get a different job. If you feel the pain of the other, then he or she will want to be helping from the depths of their being and the money will just help him or her live his or her passion. It will become one of his or her reasons for living, for getting out of bed and greeting the day with appreciation that he or she has found a purpose greater than him or her. It will be a purpose that will come from the gratitude in his or her heart that he or she has the opportunity to serve others through his or her personal understanding and experience of what they are going through every day of their lives.
Even if he gets more bodily movement through intense physical therapy, he will never have the healthy, strong and flexible body he had six months ago. But someday, his body will die and he will be free of the restrictions of his paralyzed body. The spirit that he is within the body he has now will eventually be set free. He, the spirit, then will go wherever he needs to go, to experience whatever he needs to experience, and to learn whatever he needs to learn at that time. Hopefully, he will learn all he possibly can learn from this experience and glorify God through his present situation so that he will not have to ever experience something like this again. All happens for a reason and if there is no reason for it to happen, it will not happen. You cannot believe in both an Omnipresent God and chance.
I told a friend this story last night and he told me how he was recently in Sedona, Arizona, on a motorcycle traveling at high rates of speed up and down the steep hills. He said he was having such a great time that it was worth whatever might have happened. I wonder how he would have felt if he had an accident and ended up in a wheelchair like the lawyer. I wonder if he would have then told me that ending up in a wheelchair was worth the few minutes of pleasure speeding up and down the mountains on the motorcycle with the wind blowing through his hair. I really doubt he would have said it was worth it. Some of our greatest thrills are the experiences that could have killed us but we came through unscathed.
If we believe in an Omnipresent God, then all has a purpose, even if we not like or understand the purpose. Live your life thanking God for all you have and pray for God to show you how all that you experience has a divine purpose – whether it is to educate you to the error of your ways or offer you an opportunity to glorify God in a way only you can Glorify God
Truly appreciate that you are aware of being aware. Truly appreciate that you have had a chance to experience anything, anywhere and you will begin to see the working of God in all that you have and all that you do.
Remember, even the paralyzed lawyer I met the other night would not trade places with Helen Keller even if it meant having all his other physical strength, movement and health back. And do not pity Helen Keller. She even wrote books describing how grateful to God she was for what God had given her.
Any loved one you have lost. Any loved one that has died and left you with only memories. Remember, the spirit that was truly them did not die and they are not dead. The spirit that was playing the role of your loved one is eternally learning and still living for the Glory of God. They do not want you to be sad or to be unhappy that they are no longer with you. Appreciate the time you had with them and appreciate that you can still remember experiencing them. This will make your life lighter and easier to continue. This will allow them to continue on their journey wherever it will take them with lightness and happiness.
I woke up when my body was 21 and found my pregnant wife dead in bed next to me. We had been married for two months. For two years after finding her dead, I lived in intense emotional pain. For two years I lived cursing any and all the Gods I could think of. I would look at someone who had 20 years of married life and say I was robbed, I was cheated, it was not right. Why me? Why me? Then one day, two years later, I woke up and read about a young man on his way home with his new wife from his wedding. They were involved in a car accident. He lived, but she died. All of a sudden I realized that compared to one who had 20 years of married life, yes I was robbed. However, compared to him, I have a long time. I had two who months more than he did of experiencing the happiness of being married to one I loved.
Some babies never make it out of the chute, are never born. I had two months with my new wife. Since we all eventually die, sooner or later, what did I have to complain about? I had the marriage experience and some never even get that. He never even got home from his wedding.
Her death taught me the secret of alchemy, the secret of turning lead into gold. The secret is the attitude we bring to each and every act, the attitude we bring to each and every experience we have that will determine whether we find a curse or a blessing within the experience. It is beyond incredible that we have even had a chance to experience ANYTHING. Truly appreciate that we have had a chance to experience ANYTHING and we will be well on our way to finding the treasure in the midst of tragedy. Once we find the treasure, it is no longer a tragedy.
Bad things do not happen to good people. People just resist seeing the Glory of God working out in each and every thing that happens. In their resistance, they find their pain. In their acceptance, they find their blessing.
Which will you choose to look for? Will you call it bad and find more of bad? Or will you pray for the lesson that will lead you to the treasure of seeing the Glory of God working in your life, both through you and your loved ones? Will you call it a curse or will you call it a blessing? Whichever you choose to call it, you will most surely find it.
