I would like to relate a personal experience of mine to the wider experience of humanity as a whole over the last three centuries. It's not an exact analogy by any means but there are parallels which I find instructive.
Those who have read my Meeting the Masters book will know that from 1979 to 1999, a period of about 21 years, I was spoken to by spiritual beings who seemed to me then and I believe to be now the embodiment of wisdom and holiness. They instructed me in spiritual understanding and development though made clear that this was a long, slow process. That has turned out to be very true. They spoke through the medium of a man some 35 years older than myself. He was, as I was informed, taken out of his body during the procedure and one of them would then use his physical frame to speak to me. He, of course, had agreed to this. The voice was not the medium's, the manner was not his. It was quite literally another person or persons since more than one was involved over the years. I envisaged them as a group or extended family. They were all male except on a couple of occasions when it was a female spirit who spoke. Even though these beings spoke through a man the female spirit was clearly female. I won't go into more detail here as it's all in the book except to say that this process started as a regular and frequent occurrence but became much less regular and frequent as the years went by. I mention this because it brings me to the point I wish to make.
As anyone who studies myth and religious history will know, God or the gods were much closer to humanity in the past. The points of contact were many. It wasn't an everyday occurrence insofar as recorded history is concerned (it may have been in the very ancient unrecorded past) but it took place and did so on many levels. This decreased as time went by and by the time Jesus was born it seems to have been rare and exceptional. After the Incarnation it probably picked up a bit again but gradually over the centuries spiritual contact faded until it belonged only to the past. It was accepted as having taken place once but it didn't happen any more. Then, with the Enlightenment, it began to be doubted and was seen as belonging to the realm of imagination or even mental illness. This idea has taken a firmer hold until in the present day most of us regard any supposed contact with God or the gods as purely fictitious.
It is not fictitious. It happened but, by and large, it doesn't happen now. God has withdrawn from humanity and he has withdrawn so far that his existence is denied. We are unable to see that conditions have changed but we live in a different world to that of our ancestors, a different psychological world and, I believe, even a different physical world. It's the same as the child of 5 is the same person as the man of 50 but it is different as these two are also different.
So, God has withdrawn but why has he done this? Is it because of our wickedness? That would be a reasonable supposition but I don't think it is entirely correct. God has withdrawn to see how we get on without him. We have reached a certain stage in our unfoldment, one at which we have to start developing spiritual insight within ourselves. We couldn't do this if God were there holding our hand all the time. Therefore he withdraws to give us the opportunity to grow but also to see whether we will grow like this or whether we will refuse the opportunity. At the moment it seems as though most of us do reject God when he is not there to remind us of himself. We are failing the test of the heart. But perhaps as the situation changes and our material comforts are removed more of us may turn to God. He is merciful and will surely give us every chance to repent. At the same time, the repentance must be sincere. It must come from the heart.
The Masters spoke to me for around 21 years though this was substantially reduced as time went by. Their object was to awaken me spiritually but after a while I had to show that I could do this on my own. They acted as a bridge not a prop and once a certain stage was reached they left. Their medium then died. He was 79 and had done his work in this world. Before he died they told me they would still speak to me but on a spiritual level which means through impression. It was up to me to be receptive to this and to translate the impression as clearly and in as undistorted a form as possible. This was the test of my own inner discernment.
Something like this is happening to humanity. We are being encouraged to leave spiritual childhood and start to become spiritually responsible for ourselves. Humanity is going through a kind of initiation, both collectively and on an individual level. The collective initiation does not appear to be going well but the individual one depends entirely on you. Your individual success may even help the collective.
@William - As I think you are saying, this cessation of channeled/ mediumistic instruction was not a 'withdrawal' of God - but a matter of God coming closer: as close as it is possible to be.
ReplyDeleteWhen God ceases to speak in words, intermittently and via some other person, and instead works directly in our thinking (by 'intuition') then it is a change of form; but properly considered is is an improvement. God is knowable by everybody, without need for other persons, and without the ambiguous and unreliable medium of language.
It was this indirectness that made the old ways of God communicating useless. The modern spirit effortlessly dismissed *all* indirect forms of communication (scripture, prophets, church, theology, visions and other such experiences) as deceptive, error-riddled, insane or due to gullibility and wishful thinking.
So God's communications became direct and unmediated; but this cannot be forced-upon anybody, and we must become more inwardly spiritually active for this to happen.
Since people have chosen to disbelieve God, creation, and the spirit - most have driven God away and made it impossible for him to communicate directly.
This strikes me as another instance of people getting the wrong end of the stick; people aren't denied Heaven because they've engaged in sinful behaviour, they'll choose sin rather than Heaven when they die. People won't be condemned by God if they refuse to follow him to Heaven, they simply won't find their way there. Cities aren't destroyed as an inevitable punishment, they're destroyed in order to put the unrepentant and worsening people out of their misery. God hasn't abandoned us, we've chucked him out...
ReplyDeleteIt has to do with how a person sees God.
Good post.
ReplyDelete"We have reached a certain stage in our unfoldment, one at which we have to start developing spiritual insight within ourselves. We couldn't do this if God were there holding our hand all the time."
I see much divine wisdom in God's apparent withdrawal. He is no longer interested in presenting us with revelations from above. He is patiently waiting for a revelation from us below -- from the depths of our innermost selves. He cannot initiate the revelation but will respond accordingly when it occurs.
Something came to me a few days ago, instead of seeking God's blessing, that we should instead bless God. God needs our blessing.
ReplyDeleteThere is absolutely a tide / period of withdrawal. Currently it's highly receded. In some ways I get more direct knowledge through dreams, and in some dreams I intuit 'God is Here' but he's hiding, observing. Not entirely unlike like a child quietly spying on us. That hasn't been for several months however.
Instead I've had a spate of 'Cinema Waking Experience' dreams where I'm being forced to watch some tedious medicinal film, in the form of a dream inside a dream of being inside a cinema. Invariably I awake and escape, and the operators of the cinema and me we discuss why they keep trying to pull this on me '(it works on everyone else!)'. Are they trying to pacify us or help us ? They seem confused by me, and I by them. I just know it doesn't work on me. They aren't direct vision. Someone is trying to strap us down into a Cinema experience within dreams, since we've been generally messed up by the moving image concept.
But the dreams of late have been more serious and current.
One involved being in some kind of 'black/illegal' laboratory and a violent disagreement with the corrupt people running it ( in Ukraine ) but ended with me, wounded, walking to a kind of grove/church yard where, in front of some chairs arranged like pews, beneath the trees, there was a very low altar with a small silver-metal cross at knee level, called the well of tears.
The point of this altar was that WE must beg forgiveness, pray and cry over it, to fill the 'well'. And so I did for many minutes, head bowed before the cross and when I opened my eyes within the dream I had cried blood as well, on the low metal altar , before the cross.
Then a whole cavalcade of 'Good' arrived and one man helped me up, saying 'It's done Sasha' - this is the first time I recall someone _else_ has using my name directly in dream. I often give my name in dream but never get named. I then get into car and we leave.
To Beg Forgiveness/Repentance as a People, and then Bless God.
Sorry not to have responded before but I've been away from computers. Thanks for the comments. AS Bruce says, God withdraws on the outside in order to approach us within but we have to be open to this. As ben says, it's all down to what we want. God doesn't punish the sinner so much as the sinner rejects he bounty of God and condemns himself to darkness until he changes. As Frank says, God awaits our response to his withdrawal.
ReplyDelete@ Sasha - A friend and I have had the same 'feeling' as you - that "God needs our blessing".
ReplyDeleteAlso, I believe your dream is highly significant - as for some time, I have been moved to praying intercessory prayer on behalf of the world's peoples....what comes to my mind, is Christ on the cross, praying for the Roman soldiers, "Father, forgive them for they know what not they do."
Through out this whole day, while trying to think what I wanted to write here - every time I contemplate your comment, this phrase "Bless The Lord, Oh my soul" has been repeating in my mind, so I looked it up and it's from Psalm 103 (KJV) which seems pertinent to the subject matter of William's post and the comments...as does this commentary on the psalm:
https://hermeneutrix.com/2018/12/12/study-notes-psalm-103/
Thank you for sharing your dream here Sasha, I hope that if you have other such dreams, you might feel comfortable to post them on the 'discussion thread' at the "New World Island" blog, because I do believe that certain kinds of dreams can contain information from God, even if only to provide inspiration for other believers.
I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when He said He had to leave the earth for the Holy Spirit to come. From a human perspective, it didn't make sense for Jesus to withdraw His physical presence. Surely, remaining on Earth would have avoided so many misunderstandings throughout Christian history. However, Jesus said He was leaving for our benefit. He gave us the Holy Spirit instead of a continual physical presence in order for us to truly learn to follow Him.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good point which hadn't occurred to me. I think you must be right.
ReplyDelete