Читать книгу Guided By Angels: Part 3 of 3: There Are No Goodbyes, My Tour of the Spirit World - Paddy McMahon - Страница 4

One of the things that formed part of the religious teachings of my youth was the fact that, when people died, they lost contact with their relatives and friends on earth. They waited around to be judged (at least, as I imagined it) in a sort of comatose state until the Last Day, when the sheep will be separated from the goats, as it were. I don’t know why the poor goats were selected as the symbolic representatives of those souls unfortunate enough to be consigned to eternal punishment.

I was musing on all that because Margaret Anna had mentioned that she would like to discuss further how souls in spirit continue to interact with people on earth.

She said, ‘As we’ve seen, there are different levels of contact. Guides, for example, have agreements with those whom they guide, and are always instantly available to them. The contact is more sporadic where other souls are concerned.’

She went on to tell me a story about continuing contact, concerning a woman called Jane who is another of Margaret Anna’s ‘charges’.

Jane is a woman in her 30s, happily married, with three children, aged six, four and two. The household revolves around her, and she looks after all the details of the domestic scene with superb efficiency.

She had launched a promising career as an interior designer, but she has put it on hold until the children are older. Her husband, Oliver, is a partner in a busy firm of accountants. Life is moving along smoothly and harmoniously for the family.

Jane has never suffered from anything other than minor illnesses, such as colds. When she begins to experience a nagging pain in her stomach, she ignores it for some time. She doesn’t even mention it to Oliver. But it’s not going away, so she decides to go to the family doctor. Because Jane trivialises the pain, the doctor doesn’t take it too seriously and gives her a prescription for painkillers. He suggests that she return for a further consultation if the pain continues.

Jane experiences only minimal relief from the tablets. She goes back to the doctor, who arranges for her to go to hospital for tests. At this stage she feels she has to tell Oliver. Not surprisingly, Oliver is worried, but he convinces himself that because Jane has always seemed indestructible, the tests won’t show anything serious.

Oliver’s optimism proves to be unfounded. Jane is riddled with cancer. The medical prognosis is that she has, at the most, three months to live. And so it proves. The grief of the family knows no bounds as Jane’s body gives up the struggle, and they’re left helplessly wondering how they’re going to manage without her.

Jane herself is devastated. She had tried to hold on, but even her powerful will had no chance against the cancer. When she leaves her body, she’s in a state of utter distress at being separated from her family. She also carries the burden of their overwhelming sadness. She’s around them all the time, but they’re so numbed by their grief that they’re not aware of her. She sees Oliver doing his best to organise things so that life can go on for the family in some fashion.

Margaret Anna knows that there’s no point in trying to reach Jane while she’s so enmeshed in her own grief and that of her family. In our time, there’s an interval of nearly a year before Jane is ready to come to terms, even to a minor extent, with her new state. She has begun to relax a little as she sees that Oliver and the children have found a way of coping. She’s had many bouts of exasperation because she’s not there to sort things out when they get into a muddle, as they often do. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t get through to any of them. However, they manage, somehow, to get by.

Margaret Anna has enlisted the help of Jane’s father, Daniel, who died when Jane was only 15. They had loved each other very much. As Jane begins to relax, she becomes aware of her father. She’s overjoyed to see him and they have a loving reunion. He talks to her and persuades her to go with him, constantly reassuring her that she’ll continue to be able to be around her family.

They have arrived at a minor breakthrough. With the help of Daniel and other souls, Margaret Anna is able to show Jane that she can mind her family much more effectively by letting them go a little. The guides illustrate to her that her unbroken connection with her family is confusing them, because it sets up a vibration around them that they don’t understand. It’s a heavy vibration caused by her distress at her separation from them, and her inability to be physically there to take care of both them and all the details involved in managing the household. The guides arrange for her to meet other parents who have had to leave their families in somewhat similar situations. They invite her to join them in a cooperative grouping, whose aim is to be able to help the families they have left on earth, while finding ways to make progress on their own evolution. Soon she realises that she has immediate access to experts in all sorts of fields.

We here on earth are usually full of grief when our loved ones pass on. But we often, maybe usually, don’t realise that the distress levels for the departed may be even greater than our own. In this case it was dreadful for Jane to be around her family and not to be able to connect with them or they with her.

In some cases the newly arrived soul in spirit connects immediately with family members who are already in spirit. It all depends on the states of mind people are in when they pass on. For instance if they don’t believe they’re dead or if, as in Jane’s case, they can’t bear to tear themselves away from their loved ones, then it will take longer.

Margaret Anna said that Jane’s case was quite common. If she could only have seen that she wasn’t helping her family at all by staying around them in her state of distress and exasperation, things would have been so much easier for both them and herself. She would still have had all the sadness of separation (as would they); however, she would have been helped to realise very quickly that detaching from them to some extent didn’t mean that she was abandoning them. The others in the group showed her very convincingly how well the liaising arrangements with their families’ guides worked in practice.

I found it very interesting and helpful to hear how guides interact with souls who are in similar situations to Jane’s and I wanted to know how usual that was.

Margaret Anna replied that it was becoming more so. She thinks it’s an ideal arrangement. For example, Jane is introduced to the broad evolutionary picture involving herself and her family. She sees the purpose of the human tragedy in the context of what each family member set out to achieve through their lives on earth. Jane realises that she can meet them regularly while their bodies are asleep, and talk to them and listen to them and hold them close. Her children and her husband don’t usually remember when they wake up – or, if they do, they’ll probably convince themselves that they were dreaming. Still, they’re likely to find that things that were bothering them before they went to sleep seem to have sorted themselves out – if only because they have a different way of looking at them – and they feel much better.

Jane sometimes wishes that they would be more aware of her. At the same time, she understands that it’s best that they get on with their lives. She also knows that, in due course, she’ll be able to meet them again in a more conscious way for all of them. In the meantime, because she’s looking down from her ‘helicopter’, as it were, and has a panoramic view, she’s able to mind them in ways that wouldn’t have been open to her on earth. And by getting on with her own life and releasing herself to the joy of her changed state, she’s spreading a loving vibration around her that includes her family in its embrace.

The power of dreams

In her story, Margaret Anna explained that Jane meets the members of her family regularly when they are asleep. Are we more conducive to visits from spirits when we are sleeping, I wondered?

I remember once listening to a radio programme, during which a psychologist was talking about dreams and their interpretation. A listener telephoned and said that his young daughter had died recently. Shortly after her death he had a vivid dream in which he met her. They had a wonderfully happy reunion and when he woke up he felt as if a huge weight of sadness had been lifted from him. He felt that he had really been with his daughter, but could he trust that feeling? The dream analyst’s interpretation was to the effect that the man’s subconscious had created the dream to help him deal with his grief, and that his daughter in the dream represented a healing aspect of himself. I had no doubt that the analyst’s interpretation was not simply totally mistaken, but it very likely destroyed what had been for the distraught father a beautifully joyful, real experience. In my view he had experienced a meeting between himself and his daughter on the astral plane, a common description of where we go while our bodies are asleep (there’s more about this in Chapter 12).

Throughout the ages, dreams have always provided a source of guidance for people. In my own case, one dream stands out vividly. I dreamt I was standing beside a gate, which Buddha was holding open. There were thousands and thousands of people coming towards the gate, but only small numbers going through it. Even though Buddha was looking at everybody with great love – and was obviously inviting them all to go through the gate, if they wished to do so – most of the people were ignoring him. They passed by the gate as if he wasn’t there. After observing all that for a while, I asked Buddha how could he continue to project so much love towards everybody when he was being rejected by so many. He said to me, ‘That’s the way I am. The only way I can be.’ He indicated that he was going to continue to hold the gate open until everybody came through it.

At the time I had that dream, I was newly into individual consultations. I thought that I’d be letting my guides down if I couldn’t come up with a solution for every problem, no matter how intractable it seemed to be. I felt a huge sense of failure if no immediate solution emerged during the session, and I sometimes endured sleepless nights afterwards. The dream was as timely as it was helpful. Apart from the all-embracing love flowing from Buddha, which was relevant to every aspect of what I was doing, it showed me that the very best I could ever do would be to present myself as I was – with whatever I received from my guides – and then to allow the outcome to be whatever it would be.

Incidentally, while I had known about Buddha, I hadn’t previously had any particular interest in him or Buddhism, nor have I developed any since. I have, however, always felt deeply grateful for that experience.

Letting go

It is not just souls who find it difficult to let go of their physical existence on earth, lost in feelings of bereavement. Humans, too, can continue to grieve for a lost child, lover, parent or friend, and find it difficult to let go.

Margaret Anna commented, ‘Partings are an inevitable consequence of the temporary nature of the human condition, with death being seen as the final one. As we know, it’s not (or what am I at?). There are always good reasons for them in overall evolutionary patterns.

‘What can I say? It’s a matter of profound regret that the experience of humanness is still so painful for so many souls. We can’t interfere with free will. All we can do is try to lighten the burden of suffering to the best of our abilities. The more people accept that there’s no final parting, and that continuing contact between the physical and spirit states is possible, the more we hope and expect that the grief of separation will be lessened.’

As I see it, grief is an inbuilt feature of life on earth. It’s an ironic fact that from the moment we’re born, we’re dying. Even as we grow into the fullness of our youthful vigour and physical prowess, we’re constantly reminded of death – in our immediate families and our friends and acquaintances – and through news reports, death notices in newspapers, wars and natural disasters. As day passes day, we’re that little bit nearer to the inevitable end of our physical existence.

That’s a morbid way of looking at life and it’s best that we don’t indulge ourselves in it. If we can see it as a temporary experiment in helping us to become ever closer to a level of consciousness that’s in complete alignment with unconditional love, we can enjoy the experiment, even while as human beings we’re not exempt from experiencing deep levels of grief throughout our lives. The grief will be more bearable for us when we can see it in the wider context of continuing life, as Margaret Anna suggests.

Some years ago a man named Louis, who happened to be a doctor involved in cancer research, came to see me. His wife, Pamela, to whom he had been very close, had recently died, leaving him with a young family of three children, all of whom were girls. He was disconsolate, not just because of the loss of his beloved partner, but because he couldn’t take away the burden of grief from his children. He also felt helpless because Pamela had managed all of the household affairs; he didn’t know how he was going to be able to cope with them all – as well as with the needs (in particular, emotional needs) of young girls growing up.

It turned out to be a most unusual case for me. I agreed to meet him on a fairly regular basis (which wasn’t my usual practice), because initially I felt very sorry for him and, as time went on, we became good friends. What was really wonderful about his case for both of us was that Pamela always came through as clearly as if she were sitting with us (which she was, of course, now that I think of it). She had answers for all of his questions, as well as most helpful advice about the children. It’s important to say that she didn’t intrude into any areas that the children might have wanted to keep secret from him, which meant that he had no qualms about passing on to them detailed information about what transpired at our meetings. The result was that the whole family felt that Pamela was looking after them in a totally loving way. She, in turn, had the consolation of knowing that they were aware of that, and was comforted by the fact that she was able to anticipate things for them from a broader canvas than would have been possible on earth. An added bonus was that she was able to provide insights for him into challenges that kept cropping up for him in his work, particularly to do with his research.

Sadly, from a physical point of view, he was another of my friends who left his body some years ago. I’m sure there was a joyful reunion with Pamela, and that both of them have continued to help their children (who are now adults). I also hope that, by now, more than likely, he has had fruitful findings in his research towards lessening suffering on earth.

In most cases the contact isn’t so obvious as it was in that one, in which I felt privileged to have been a link. One of my reasons for telling the story is that I believe that the contact is always there, and the people concerned can become more aware of it as they open themselves to its possibility and – I’m convinced – its certainty.

Grief has many guises

Of course, physical death is not the only – or even the most devastating – cause of grief. I have met many people who were grieving over a multiplicity of things, such as problems within families, broken relationships (particularly where long-standing friendships were involved), unhappiness in work situations, and unrequited love. Sometimes it became possible for people to see that what they felt were sources of grief could be transformed into valid reasons for rejoicing.

There was, however, one case where I had to admit to utter failure. A young woman called Sally was totally infatuated – she called it in love – with a well-known pop star. She had never met him. Sally was convinced that he shared her passionate love, although she didn’t have any evidence to support her conviction. What she wanted me to tell her was that they were going to live happily ever after in blissful togetherness. No matter how much I tried to shift her on to other aspects of her life, I couldn’t divert her from her obsession and, of course, I couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. After about three hours, in a state of complete exhaustion, I managed to bring the meeting to an end.

My reason for mentioning this case is that, in my experience, obsessions (often of a totally irrational kind) are a major cause of grief. I think all humans suffer from them to some degree. The possibilities for developing obsessions are wide-ranging; for example, sport, sex, drugs, religious fanaticism, controlling tendencies, gambling, alcohol, judgementalism, possessiveness, making money, careers, perceptions of success or failure, and so on and on.

I suggest that it might be an interesting exercise for people to consider to what extent, if any, they suffer from obsessiveness. Any form of it is a barrier to freedom of thought. As human beings, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to free ourselves from all forms of it but, if we can become aware of an area or areas where we’re inclined to immerse ourselves in it, that awareness can help us to regard it as part of our human foibles. In that way it can help us to experience freedom in our thought processes.

No matter where we go in our exploration of life in the physical and non-physical dimensions, we’re inevitably brought back to the need for open-mindedness.

The role of religion

In resuming discussion with Margaret Anna, I couldn’t resist commenting that, when we look at the whole area of death and the grief that accrues from it, I think it’s fair to say that religions – at least Christian religions – haven’t been very helpful. As far as I know, they would still be dismissive of the possibility – not to mention the desirability – of the sort of continuing contact that we were discussing. Indeed, any idea of the validity of Margaret Anna communicating with me would surely be seen as a projection of my crazed imagination.

Margaret Anna said, ‘Still, religions do provide comfort for many people. And, of course, it’s central to religious teaching that life continues after death. Even the notion of eternal damnation in Hell can be put into the context of tormented states of mind, as we saw in the case of Alfredo; in such a state, a moment is an eternity.

‘Fear and obedience to authority were very much the base of religious tradition, as perceived by many of its adherents. But that’s changing. Except where extreme fundamentalism is concerned, a positive approach tends to be emphasised rather than a negative one; in other words, compassion, tolerance and love, rather than fear.

‘All the same, I’d say that you’d be on to a good thing if you were to bet against our communications being received with open arms – not to mention open minds – by religious orthodoxy. What’s new?’

There’s always hope.