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Travel Journals from the World Beyond (18)
This is not fiction. These are travel pieces written or communicated by those still living on the Other Side. As for travelling there ourselves, it’s not that we can choose our destination by selecting it out of a travel brochure when our time’s up. Our passport to Heaven is already stamped by the quality of our life on earth. The type of person we are now will select exactly the right place and people for us at the start of our new life Beyond. So this series is a substitute for consulting a travel guidebook which gives every detail of all the attractions, types of country and quality of accommodation and levels of existence available, of which there seem to be seven times seven planes, or more, in most of the esoteric texts. I have selected instead a variety of travel impressions presented by different souls who have already been there, know what they are talking about, and continue reside there.
We don’t need details of what to pack and how to deal with currency exchange rates, since we take nothing with us and have nothing to pay for. We have no credit from donations to churches and charities, just the goodwill, if we were sincere about our generosity. It is relaxing to know that we don’t have to pack, nor worry about who is accompanying us. As it can be seen from what is written, we will never be unattended. Our desire to know and understand will ensure that what we need will be forthcoming at any given moment or in any given situation.
What I am doing in this series is really opening up my library to all visiting readers, and offering a selection of short readings from each book, with the aim of creating enough interest for the reader to sign out the book for themselves. Since there is only one copy of each title here, the solution is to track down a copy from what is available on internet sites, if they are already freely available in the public domain, or purchase a new or used copy from booksellers, most of whose catalogues can be searched on line. There are also many public library systems, and organizations who have their own archives and libraries from which members can borrow books, so no reader should have any problem tracking down a particular text. If they do have difficulty, contacting the group here might bring results, and perhaps a group member would have a copy to lend.
So much is available on the internet now, it is quite a problem, not in finding material, but rather selecting what is authentic, reliable and truthful. This is why we have to keep our wits about us and discern what is valid, and reject inflammatory opinion, fraud, dogma, sectarian propaganda and narrow-mined, exclusive fear-creating doctrine. These discussion groups look at the facts as objectively as possible, independently examining the philosophy of life and discussing individual experience. All branches of religion and science are in the background, to put our findings in context, enabling us to think, choose, select and so become able to discern the true from the false.
For the present offering, I have reviewed and condensed a few passages communicated by a blind medium who now has his sight back as he explores the Other Side, and explains what we have to be ready for.
"All the bad habits of the Earth Plane come over with you and to start with they can make your life difficult. Such as your thoughts and language. On the Earth Plane the former cannot be picked up, and your language you can usually get away with. Over here, what you think is plain for all to hear and bad language gives offence, so, for your own good, try to keep these matters fit for all to hear….On the Earth Plane learn to control yourself so that you really can handle this new way of living and make your quality of life here that much better from the start…..
You will now have to consider the question of having to live without your Earth body. To begin with it is very strange. You have had a body for quite a long time, usually, and you miss it. The first thing to remember is that people over here can see you for exactly what you are. Gone are the things that made up yourself on the Earth Plane. You are now your true self. This does not pose much of a problem, if your life has been a reasonable one, but if it has not been, it is not so easy. There are different colours for different states of Spiritual health and these colours make up the clothes you wear over here, so you see, you cannot hide your true self at all. This is the reason why you should try to come over as fit as you can, Spiritually. If you think you can change things in the last few years, you cannot. It is the way you have lived all your life that decides the colours for they are forming all the time, as you live. The good things and the bad go together to make up the shades which will then be your spirit clothes when you arrive.
The good news is that the colours can be changed by your efforts over here, and this is the true base of Spirit life and why there is hope for all, no matter how much of a sinner you are when you arrive. I cannot stress this too greatly for it is a very big shock to some people when they arrive and find that things are not the way they thought or as they had been led to believe by people who should know better. Even after many years in the Spiritualist Movement I had not been properly prepared for this life, and that is why I am communicating this book. ….If you pass the word along, you and others may be better prepared than myself and many like me. If I can prevent some of the suffering I have seen in others, since I have been here, then I will be doing much good…..
The Summerland is what you may call this wonderful World of Spirit. Some places on the Earth Plane boast that they have Summer all the year round, but really they have their tongues in their cheeks. Here there are no tongues in cheek. The Spirit climate is perfect. Like all that God controls it is everything that is best for the soul. On the Earth Plane you have conditions that are most suited to man. You may not always appreciate it if the summer is wet and cold, but that is the climate you have and it changes all the time. Here, it never changes. We never tire of it as perhaps you might think. The fact that it is always the same is accepted by us just as you accept yours. The reason is that Spirit needs this kind of atmosphere to live in because it is spirit [needing a tranquil background]..
Think what a joy it is for the soul to live in an atmosphere like this. What a wonderful life you have ahead of you, and what a pity some spoil it by arriving over here with the soul in an unfit state, brought about by selfish, unloving lives…… Do not let other people decide how you live. If you want to, you can lead the kind of life that is good for you, even when all around are doing the other thing [involved in crime, violence and the drug culture, or dishonest commercial or political dealings for example]. You know you can be yourself and other people will admire you for it.
The Summerland is the place to which you are all heading, regardless of the way you choose to take. You will be met by someone you know very well, someone that you are pleased to see and happy to go with. This person is chosen from among your friends and relations by the group you are to join. When you pass over you become their special responsibility. While [you were] on Earth they have kept an eye on you, but now you are in Spirit, they are able to have an even stronger influence on you. In this Summerland, where all are so happy, love is the driving force and it come to us from God. If only this could be so on the Earth plane. It could be, but you see, there are so many selfish influences at work there, so many people looking out for themselves, which usually means at the expense of others. Then there are those in a position of power who can and do make life difficult for those working under them. You know all this as well as we do. Over here there is none of that. We have people in a position of power, for wherever you go you always find that there is someone above you, but these people are put over us to help and to guide. They are put in this position because they are very evolved souls who have been over here a very long time, and have gained experience which makes them fit for the position. Not a son of someone, or a friend who has been given a ‘leg up!’ It is all so different from what we had been led to believe, or was it that we were never really told – and I had been in the Spiritualist movement for many years, and thought I knew something about it…… We are always told that there is no death and are usually given a few tips as to how we should behave, but not much on the practical part of leaving one life and starting the other.
Think then how surprised people are when they arrive over here. They have their own reception area and their own friends to meet them, but after they have settled down they mix in with other souls who have reached the same stage of development. There is no other segregation. The state of your soul decides the company you keep. What about language?” They have their own areas just as on the Earth Plane, but there is nothing to stop them travelling if the state of the soul allows it. There are plenty of well-developed or advanced souls outside the West, [from all parts of the world]. When you arrive here you will be able to go on learning, if you wish. If you show an interest in any subject, you will be given the opportunity to study it with the best there is in that field.
And when the soul is ready to move on it will know. Until that time it is impossible for it to move from the area it is in. This is a natural law which if perfect. When all souls are of a like kind or state of development then there is perfect peace and harmony.
Trouble as you know it is non-existent over here. We suppose jealousy is about the biggest trouble maker, and that is a state that the soul must be cleansed of. Most other causes of trouble disappear because they are based on material things but jealousy is of the soul and has to be got rid of before the soul can take its place with others. Our very best advice to anyone on the Earth Plane who suffers from jealousy is to overcome it before they come here. Really it is all in the mind and it must be faced up to. It should not be mistaken for envy, though sometimes it is. Envy is material in a sense and not nearly so bad. Anyway, there is nothing to be envious of over here, but jealousy is terrible. It must be paid for, and it is painful if left to be treated over here. Naturally the helper dealing with such a one will do so with love and understanding, having perhaps been through it themselves, but the soul must suffer until it is jealous no more.
It is a wonderful day here, as always, and we are feeling very happy with our lot. Perhaps I should tell you about the house my sister and I live in. It is a single story bungalow with a verandah running most of the way round a a little terrace overlooking the garden. The garden is a thing of beauty by itself. It is not very large but there is quite a lot of grass with flower borders on both sides of the lawn that runs down to a stream at the bottom. There are trees and shrubs dotted about and the colour and the scent is wonderful. Bees, birds and butterflies are everywhere and the birds especially are singing away, and in the background the bees in the flowers nearby with the sound of a fountain playing, round the corner, out of sight from where I am sitting. All this has to make one happy. "
Passages reviewed from ’Everyone’s Guide to the Hereafter’ by Ken Akehurst, though the mediumship of G. M. Roberts. Neville Spearman, 1981
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