

SOUL JOURNEY:

THE SPIRIT OF THE DOVE

Practical Spirituality for Everyday Living .......................and Beyond

by

Starlight Devi

'The purpose of life is to seek Union with G-d and to this end we must strive to reach the highest spiritual point we are capable of.'

Starlight Devi

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Starlight Devi 2009

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

# CONTENTS

Introduction

BOOK I

What is Spirituality?

In the Beginning.....

The Story of Adam and Eve

What is Eternity?

Reincarnation and Karma – How it Works

Fear Worry and the 'What If?' Syndrome

Angels and Fairies

Energy Changes Through our Thoughts and Actions

I Hate My Life and He's Got More Than Me, Syndrome

G-d Judges us by What We Do and That is All That Matters

Live Each Day as if it Were Your Last

Make Allowances for Others

When You Block Others You Block Yourself

Between Death and Rebirth

G-d's Teaching

Celibacy and the Spiritual Path

Health and Spirituality

Money and Spirituality

Religion and Spirituality

Suffering and Spirituality

Escaping Your Karma

Creating Your Own Destiny

Signs or Coincidences?

What Did I Do Today? & Connections

The Circle Exercise

Being in the Right Place at the Right Time

Dealing with Everyday Problems on the Spiritual Path

Bringing Up Children on the Spiritual Path

Japa and Meditation

A Daily Regime

If You Are Ill – Step-by-step Analysis

Etheric Miasma

Power Does Not Always Equal Knowledge

What Are the Benefits of the Spiritual Path?

Darshan – the Guru's Gift

Does G-d Love Us?

Spiritual Masters and Avatars

BOOK II

Training for the Higher Levels

Black and White, Darkness and Light

From Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long Leggity Beasties......

Gateways to Hell

Astral Battles

Facsimilies

Creating for Yourself

Dealing with Trauma

Earning a Living

Righteous Anger

How Much Do You Want G-d?
NOTES

How to Buy and Programme a Crystal

Causes of Illness

Symptom Index

Glossary

Courses, Events and Suggested Books

Useful Addresses, Author Contact Details, Disclaimer

# Introduction

The information in this book is based on my own personal experience on all levels, as well as that gleaned from my teachers, Zoroaster, Swami Sri Yukteswar, Lao-Tzu and the Lord Jesus Christ. There are, however, areas, which I know are not fully explained as there is more to the picture than is presented. This is mainly in the metaphysical areas and is due to putting concepts into words where no words are available, as well as bringing through information from the Infinite into the finite mind which is limited. That being said, this book will, in its present form, take you as far as you want to go, even to the ultimate level. You will also find that some information is repeated under more than one heading, where the subject matter overlaps.

# What is Spirituality?

When I was a child I had a wonderful experience. I was standing in the lounge of my grandmother's flat in Central London, looking out at the sky. Suddenly I had the understanding that *G-d was the only Reality. I was 3 years old at the time.

On another occasion I was walking to school when I suddenly found myself lifted into a state of bliss which lasted all day and then, sadly, dissipated.

On another occasion I was sitting on the floor reading a book when I felt compelled to look out of the window. It was a beautiful summer's day. The sky was an azure blue with not a cloud to be seen, or rather, it had been earlier. When I looked up this time the sky had gone and the whole expanse was taken over by the face of a woman. A woman, with a beautiful serene smile on her face, wearing a cloth of Madonna blue on her head. Not being a Catholic it was many years later before I understood that I had been visited by the Virgin Mary.

I was 17 when this happened and sitting on the floor of the lounge in my parents council flat in North London, hardly the place for a spiritual experience one would have thought.

Over the following years I had other experiences and visions. I also learned that visions do not make one spiritual, but come unbidden to those who have spiritual potential and offers the recipient of them an opportunity to take the path and go forward, a chance to seek the greater understanding.

So, having said what spirituality is not, what is it? It is a state of holiness, of being pure, and purity starts with pure thought.

And how does one become holy? By having integrity; selflessness; kindness and compassion. By letting go of the ego and doing only that which comes from the heart. And added to this, a yearning to be one with our Creator.

In this book I have sought to explain the process, to show you how to reach your full potential, what you can expect as far as spiritual tests are concerned and the rewards and pitfalls that you will find along the way. This book gives practical advice so that you can realise your true spiritual nature without having to go into a monastery or ashram. It gives metaphysical explanations in order for you to have a basic understanding of G-d's creation and the universe around us. There are 2 meditation exercises (and a third, free to read on my site), as well as exercises to help you recognise and overcome your negative habit patterns. You may find that you are attracted to certain headings and want to read those first, that's fine, the order does not matter, just let your intuition flow, relax and enjoy.

# In the beginning........

'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.' So begins the Gospel according to St. John, but it is not quite where this book begins because, even after 25 years of meditation, I cannot answer the eternal question of how G-d came to be, for the simple reason that it is not possible to understand the Infinite with a mind that is finite. What I can tell you is that we are all part of G-d in the sense that there is no separation between us, although we are individual at the same time, a realisation that has to be experienced to be fully understood, and that we, like G-d, have always been. When people talk about a 'young soul' it is in their individuality, in their descent into matter that we are talking about, not their pure consciousness, their spirit, which, like G-d, has always been. So what we are is pure consciousness, an eternal flame.

I can also tell you that to G-d, past, present and future are all the same because to G-d there is no time and space, only 'Is-ness'. At this point you may find that this concept is too hard to grasp, so we will leave it for the present and start at a point in time, at the point of the creation of our universe which is easier to talk about and to comprehend because it is within time and space. So we will start off with the formation of the spiritual and physical worlds in order to give you basic metaphysical understanding, but it is not essentially necessary for your spiritual progress and so this can also be skipped if you wish.

Our universe is created from colour, sound and mathematical formulae, (although sound, at some point, becomes colour). The balance of these 3, form different types of spiritual energy which gives us the multitude of forms there are. Although G-d created the first universe (of which there are many) after that all universes were created by spiritual beings. What was first created was the spiritual realms and later on planets which were, of course, of greater density, in other words, physical.

Everything is created by thought, using this combination of light, sound and mathematical formulae. One would imagine say a shade of blue and make it vibrate to a note and a formulae to create what one wanted. So it is the higher beings (and G-d Himself of course) who 'thinks' into creation the higher forms of creation, the planes of soul and the spiritual realms.

We, as human beings can also create our lives and our destinies by thinking about what we want. Whatever we think we want we will get, for our good or otherwise, and if we don't get it in this life, be sure our desires will follow us into the next. That is why Gautama Buddha said that all desire causes suffering and to end the wheel of re-birth we need to stop desiring, a concept we will go into later on.

# The Story of Adam and Eve

There are many interpretations of the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Many of us have seen through it as a factual account of a family. After all, if Cain killed his brother Abel and took a wife, where did she come from? I've had this argument with Jehovah's Witnesses who say that Cain married his sister. If that was the case there would be no human race as we all know the genetic repercussions of incest! From the Taoist point of view, it is looked at as representing Yin and Yang who have never taken physical incarnation but are responsible for the formation of matter. Any acupuncturist will tell you that these two energies have to be in harmony for health and that creation depends on a balance of these male and female energies. You could say that Yin and Yang are the archetypal male and female energies or the Divine Mother and Father one being love and creation the other being destruction for renewal.

From another point of view it can be looked at in terms of temptation, but temptation in the sense of our conscience. It is the black and the white, the right and the wrong. The same story appears in the Bhagavad Gita (Celestial Song), which is the tale of Krishna and Arjuna. It is the battle of the soul trying to rise above temptation and pettiness and aspiring to G-d. Or one could say that it is about our innocence as pure spirits before we are individualised as souls and released from G-d, as in that state they/we know neither temptation nor desire. After Adam and Eve eat the apple, they know desire. This is the experience of the pure soul descending into matter where he (or she) is confronted with temptation and has to rise above desire which is the goal of every human being.

My own meditations tell me that the story has a far deeper meaning.

There are two parts to G-d. The Unmanifest, in which there is undiluted potential, and the Manifest which we call G-d and also referred to as YHWH or Jehovah (Latinised). It is the Manifest that spoke to Moses in the burning bush. This to me is the first created being from the Unmanifest and is therefore Adam. It is said that Adam created Eve from his rib and we know that G-d, YHWH, Jehovah brings forth individual spirits from Himself, therefore His first created being was Eve, being the first feminine principle and spiritual consort and in Hebrew known as Shekinah. In fact the second part of YHWH is feminine.

Eve ate the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and gave it to Adam. I.e. Eve descended into matter and transferred her experience to G–d/YHWH/Jehovah/Adam so He had compassion for all human beings.

If all this is too heavy for you, don't worry about it. This book is basically to help you progress and in order to do so it is not necessary to have any metaphysical understanding.

So let's begin, but one thing before we do. If you are wondering how people first came to earth, it was by a process of solidification. We did not evolve from apes (or any other species), as all life is a special creation although, I do agree with Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest and also that humans, animals and plants often adapt to their environment and those that don't die out.

There are seven planes of soul and three of spirit and these correspond roughly with the chakras in the body. Originally the planet was populated by beings of a high spiritual level. When they were ready to incarnate they would start at the highest level or plane of soul, and gradually work their way down through these layers, each one being denser than the one before. As they went through the layers they would take on another subtle body, like an overcoat, until, arriving on earth, they had become fully physical. But after living on earth for some time and being faced with temptation, some of these beings found they could not keep up their spiritual ideals. They began to fall and so did everything else around them. Parts of the earth became dry and turned into deserts, others became too wet. Animals picked up the feelings of aggression from people and became aggressive themselves; plants grew thorns, reflecting man's feelings. So the earth devolved and we have the situation we have today. This is the story of the fall of man, but not everyone has to fall. We are not all suffering because of those first beings. All of us, before we enter incarnation have a choice in what we want to do, what we wish to undertake: and it is the result of that first life, that first undertaking that determines the path of our incarnations.

# What is Eternity?

The dictionary defines Eternity as, 'endless or infinite time,' but that isn't strictly true because in Eternity there is no past or future, only 'Is-ness,' an Eternal, 'now.'

This concept is hard to understand unless one has experienced it. To us everything is governed by day and night and the 24 hr clock.

On the planes of soul, however, time is different. It is marked by the events of being between incarnations, of learning whatever we need to for the next one, but day and night as we know it, do not exist. On the planes of spirit, where the Ascended Masters and Archangels exist, time is only relative to what is happening to those they guide and the events on earth or whatever planet their charges live on.

Once we get above those levels, time doesn't exist.

Eternity lies outside the created universe, and could, in a sense, be described as a state of non-existence, except that isn't correct either because rather than not-existing, one feels a sense of joy and liberation which, compared to other states, is unmatched and prompted me to write this.

JOY

Our spirit is boundless.

We can create our own canopy of stars

And dance beneath it.

So can Eternity be experienced with the finite mind?

When I first experienced this state, I had been meditating deeply for 27 years and was out of my body during the sleep state. When I woke up, the feeling was fleeting and thereafter all I could remember was that I had felt this and understood it, but could not recall the actual feeling.

Five years later I experienced this during meditation and so it was far more readily available to my conscious mind, although the total experience cannot be recalled but only glimpsed when I go back into meditation. However, it has left me with a feeling of abiding peace and security, far stronger than anything I had felt before.

# Reincarnation and *Karma – How it Works

When we take on an incarnation, it is to experience all of the facets of life, by which I mean how to be patient, tolerant, give service to others and to love our fellow man. In order to do this we incarnate into various situations, various relationships. We usually incarnate in groups, the families and friends we have, husbands and lovers, are invariably people we have met in former lives, although often in different relationships. How we deal with the complexities and difficulties of our relationships, our choice of job, attitude towards money (generosity or the reverse), even how we spend our leisure time, defines us and determines our next life and lessons. In between our lives, those of us who are aware, will work out, with the help of our spiritual guide, the best location and family for what we need to learn in our next incarnation.

When we have failed to learn our lesson or have acted in an irresponsible, violent or hostile manner, than we start to incur bad karma.

As we go from life to life, so our experiences are held in the cells of our body and it is our bad karma plus trauma (and it could be argued that a traumatic life or childhood is the result of bad karma) that starts to create disease, both mental and physical, in order to get our attention, to tell us we are on the wrong path, or have been on the wrong path in the past and it needs to be addressed. When we have blood transfusions and spare part surgery, we are adding the personality and energy of those whose blood and organs we have used, which was why the ancients were against such a practice, because you now have another energy in your body which is not going to fit in with your vibration. I know this because I have gone into an altered state of consciousness and felt it, it is awful. And whether the deceased person has given his permission or not for transplant, he will still be attached to those organs which will cause him problems on the spirit side of life until the recipient has himself died, (although sometimes it is possible to rectify the matter afterwards for both the living and the deceased). Someone who is unaware may not notice the change in energy and the internal conflict it causes, and it is assumed that an aware person wouldn't have such a procedure! Neither does this take away the original cause. You may live longer in this life but be sure the original cause of the problem will follow you unless you solve the reason for your illness. Even an accident cannot be termed a random event. The accident was already there waiting for you to happen to it!

Sometimes we are ill from soul memory where no bad karma is involved. If our husband beat us over the head because he had problems of his own, we may end up with migraine in a future life, because the body remembers what has happened to it, whether we have deserved it or not. This may seem like a confusing statement, because don't we always get what we deserve? No, not always. For example, you may have incurred good karma but find yourself living in a place that is far from salubrious, the reason being that you need to be there and there is nothing around that is better and can be made available, like living in a war zone or the aftermath of one. Then one might find that one always feels angry, yet one is a kind and loving person, but if one or both parents were perpetually angry than you may have absorbed that anger as a child, and it is still there, again, it is not a karmic situation, they were the best parents for you to give you the start you needed.

When we fail to learn a lesson we may decide to opt for a different lesson in the next life and put the 'failed' lesson to one side for another time and this can also be done with bad karma. It can be deferred. This is why when people look at their lives in chronological order they do not always appear to make sense. One could find that one had a life as a very good person, even a saint, yet the one before or after it was as a murderer. Sometimes people find they can live a spiritual life if there is no hardship but as soon as there is they fall foul to desire.

I see many people who have suffered from terrible childhoods and I have to ask them this question, 'why did you choose it?' It is no good blaming anyone for your situation. I know this sounds harsh; but it is true nevertheless: and whatever has happened to you, you must always forgive. You may ask, 'how can I forgive someone who has tortured me?' The answer is, if it is bad karma as a result of doing this to others in a past life, then as you would want to be forgiven for what you have done so that you can move on, then you must also forgive the person hurting you. After all, how can you ask for forgiveness for yourself and not for the person who is doing the same thing to you? If you have been tortured because you took it on for experience, then you cannot blame the person, for he or she is an instrument of G-d, and you cannot blame G-d. Well, you could, but it would not be a wise move.

But how much karma do we pay for a wrong action? My answer is, all of it! Let me explain. If a man murders ten married women, in his future incarnations, ten of his wives will be murdered. If he realises why he is suffering, feels remorse and starts to make amends, he may find that he only suffers bereavement six times, but in the main it is quid pro quo. And while we are on the subject, I am often asked, 'why do people die young, especially children?' The answer to that is that we have an allotted life span. If we die early because we drank, took drugs, ate junk food or committed suicide, we have to return to complete the allotted time, and if that time was only a few years than we would die as children. Sometimes people die before they completed a certain task or learned a particular skill which they want to accomplish, so they will return just for that purpose and then depart. This of course is what Buddha referred to when he said that all desire causes suffering. Apart from karma, it is our desires that bring us back.

Another point about karma is that you do not just pay it to the person wronged, but also whatever the knock on effect was. Let us return to murder. If a man is murdered and he has a wife who stays at home to look after his or her ailing parents, then by his demise these other three people will suffer grievously. Therefore, the perpetrator has to pay for what he has done to 4 people!

There are also situations where we pay our karma, not to the person who we owe it to, but to someone else, someone to whom we feel no connection whatsoever. One reason is, that the person we owe it to, has moved on, may not even be incarnating again, but we have to pay it to someone in order to be released from it.

Sometimes karma can also be mitigated. If your illness or disability is stopping you from paying your karma, it can, in some cases, be set aside so that you can redress the balance. But if you don't, be sure you will pick up your condition again in your next life.

When looking at karma and karmic situations, one must also take into account those we interact with. When we form a partnership, whether it is business or marriage, we interact with that person's karma and so both have to be gone into with care. It is the reason why those born in the east often consult astrologers or go to a guru before they enter into either. It is a practice that should start here, than more marriages would survive, and people would not find themselves failing in a business venture or being swindled by a partner.

Of course, what we have achieved in our lives, spiritually not materially, determines where we go when we die, to which plane of soul. Very broadly speaking, the 4th or astral is for those who have not made any particular strides. They may say they believe in reincarnation or spiritual matters, but they don't act on it. The 5th or mental plane is for people with awareness and many therapists are 5th, or 6th (causal) which is a higher level of awareness. I used to go to a 6th plane reflexologist whose face shone like the sun. Many at this level have unconditional love for the majority of people, which is the same as a Spiritual Master, but they often have attachments or desires that hold them back. The 7th plane or celestial is dealt with at the end of Book I. This description is overly simplistic I know but there are many books that go into it in greater detail although I always think it is better to meditate and go there yourself!

# Fear, Worry and the 'What If?' Syndrome

Fear and worry are no use to anyone and are detrimental to your health, physical and mental wellbeing whether you are on the spiritual path or not. All these feelings are negative and will draw negative energy towards you and in this way you may even make what you fear, happen.

The future, your future, has already been determined and there is nothing you can do to change it. However, you do not know what your future is and so you must go through the motions and make the appropriate decisions. Worrying about the outcome is of no value because by making choices the future is set in motion and whatever your decision, the outcome is already determined in the mind of G-d. This sounds as if you do not have free will. You do, it is up to you to determine your future by your thoughts and actions, except G-d knows what you are going to do and therefore knows the outcome, so worrying is fruitless.

It is of course always good to prepare yourself. Ask yourself, 'what is the worst case scenario and how would I deal with it?' Once you know and accept that, forget it. In my experience the worst very rarely happens and when it does it is not always as bad as one might think. Obviously I am not talking here about bereavement, that's in a class of its own, but losing your job, losing your home and the sort of things that people generally worry about are not worth the effort. Better to use your mind in thinking of ways to prevent such things happening.

# Angels and Fairies

Quite a few people here on earth today, are not human souls in incarnation working their way back to the Source, but angels who have agreed to incarnate to help humanity. Whether you start out on your incarnations as a human or an angel, is entirely up to you. Angels are not a special creation as such nor is it a reward for being a perfect human. Both are entirely separate and have a totally different function. Under the heading of Angels and Fairies, we must include house spirits, which Feng Shui devotees will be aware of, Elves, and *Devas, not all of them good. Those beings on the angelic ray are concerned with the total functioning of the universe. Fairies, elves and nature spirits work with animals, birds and plants; water sprites look after streams, and I have met some very angry and unhappy ones whose rivers have been dammed up to run electricity generators and others who have had their habitats spoilt by pollution. Next come house spirits, followed by town Devas. The town Devas are there to filter out pollution especially verbal pollution.

Next up are the gods or goddesses of a whole area. In the UK you have one god because the place is quite small and he is simply called, 'The Spirit of England.' In Germany you have gods and goddesses for certain areas, such as Bavaria, which are overseen by one goddess for the whole of Germany. Above these is another spirit for the whole of Europe who you will find in mythology called 'The White Goddess.' On the next level you will find one for the whole of the earth, called Gaia. Beyond her is Solar who is in charge of the whole Solar System. After that there are gods of galaxies and then one for the whole of the universe itself.

When there are floods and earthquakes or the world has been harmed by bombings and radiation, it is the angelic realms that assist the earth to recover. It is also the work of the angelic realms to create new planets and solar systems. Angelics who are in incarnation can incur karma if they make mistakes. And many do make mistakes because they cannot cope with the harshness of life on this planet in a human body. It is, therefore, a great sacrifice for them to come here as they could fall into the same traps as human beings and find themselves having to incarnate time and again. There is a wealth of information on angels and the angelic realms, in fact many books have been written if you are interested in this aspect. I have just made a small mention for those of you who wonder if such beings exist.

# Energy Changes Through our Thoughts and Actions

As we have seen, creation is made up of energies. Energy changes form but can never be dissipated. Energy is altered by our thoughts, which then become words and actions. Because we are no different in essence from G-d, then we too can use thought to create. That thought can be positive or negative. It is unfortunate that few people understand this and so we have a situation in the world today which is the result of negative thought.

If one thinks bad thoughts about a person, that person can become ill and die because our thoughts 'become things' in other words they take on shape. I know of actual cases where this has happened. By the same token, thinking violent thoughts generally, playing violent computer games, watching violent films, becoming frequently angry, swearing and using threatening language will not only affect the person themselves and those around them but will affect the whole world and even the whole solar system negatively, and by negatively I mean that it will cause wars and extreme weather patterns. This is because these thoughts will take form and join with other like thoughts. Thought is a form of energy and energy can change but does not disappear. If you take a photo of a car park with an infra-red camera, after the cars have left, it will show streaks of heat left by the cars. In the same way, any violence that has taken place, whether it is a murder or a war, will leave its imprint behind. It will attract more of the same type of energy unless it is cleared by a powerful person or through prayer.

With this in mind, swearing, now worse than ever before, is causing violence because when people swear all the time it loses its strength, so the next time they get angry and swearing doesn't relieve their feelings, the next stage is to hit someone. This soon escalates to knives and guns....and you don't have to take my word for it, just look at the statistics for the last 40 years. As the planet is also a being and has a soul in the same way as we do, what we do will affect her and she will act accordingly. Just as we put antiseptic cream on a cut to stop the germs and then cover it up, so when we hurt the planet, she will do the same thing. The only problem is, in order to cure the pain or kill the germs, she may react by an earthquake or tidal wave.

I once lived, for a number of years, in Reading, a town in Berkshire, England, which had one of the highest drug related crime rates in the whole of the UK. The energy was so bad it was like living in an industrial town in the north during the Victorian Age complete with the smog from countless factories belching out smoke all day every day, year in year out. When driving into Reading one could actually see a huge dark grey cloud hanging over the place even though the surrounding areas had a clear blue sky. This had nothing to do with the weather, but with the gathering together of negative thought, speech and action which was not helped by the annual rock festival.

Because our pure spirit is one of Light and Love then if we do not develop those qualities whilst on earth we upset not only the world, but ourselves, and this is how disease originates. It has nothing to do with bad luck and germs (although germs exist), but the way we think, speak and live our lives. At the back of this book is a Symptom Index to give you a rough idea of this. You might like to turn to it now.

So everyone and everything is connected to everyone else and unless we start to understand this and act from a motive which benefits us all, then we incur karma ourselves, hurt the planet, do not progress and have to reincarnate. This might be a lot to swallow in 2 lines so let me simplify for those of you who are not familiar with the whole concept.

Everyone in the universe has a spiritual guide and this guide helps them to do the right thing. Some people say that they have intuition, which is really their spiritual guide putting the right ideas into their head. When the spiritual guide looks at the person he is guiding, he sees not a physical being but a mass of colour. These colours are the thought patterns of the person, called the aura and from the aura the spiritual guide can tell everything they are feeling, thinking and the state of their health. The human body has 7 main chakras, or energy centres, and if that person is in perfect harmony the colours will be violet at the crown of the head. It is the crown that helps us to connect with G-d. Amethyst is the colour of the chakra between the brows and is connected with clairvoyance and clairaudience. Blue is the colour of the throat chakra and the colour will vary depending on whether the person speaks words of love and comfort or hatred. If the latter, it will contain red. If the person speaks in a cold or unfeeling way, then it will be seen to be ice blue. Green at the heart shows peace of body and mind. Yellow in the solar plexus, shows an interest in academic subjects: tinged with red the person is more likely to be reading porn than Bronte. A nice bright orange in the spleen chakra shows one who is healthy and full of energy and red at the base of the spine shows ones normal desires and inclinations in sex, food as well as our drive and determination to achieve. The colours will differ depending on the thoughts and spirituality of the person. Someone who is angry will have red in the blue throat area and also possibly red in the green heart area. If he holds on to his anger over a long period of time, then he may succumb to a heart attack. Spiritually evolved people will have gold in the heart chakra and pink, or white, not red, at the base of the spine, showing that they have risen above sexual desire, emotional and material attachments. It also means they have no drive or ambition.

So bearing this in mind, let us look at two very sad tales.

Mr. A gets up in the morning, stands under the shower, sticks a cigarette in his mouth and then grabs a quick breakfast: toasted white bread and coffee. He gets into his car and roars off to work. By now he is probably on his second cigarette.

He spends the day in the office, drinking more coffee out of the machine, doing his job reluctantly and looking at the girls in mini skirts or split skirts and thinking things that are not going into this book. At lunch time he gets himself some ham sandwiches, a packet of crisps and a bottle of coke and sits eating it in the park, where there are more girls to look at in skimpy and almost nonexistent summer dresses. By the time he returns to work he is frustrated and bad tempered and when one of his colleagues asks if he could do him a small favour, he bites his head off.

When he gets home, it's into the shower maybe, a change of clothes maybe, and down to the bar where he has a pub dinner, a few alcoholic drinks and picks up the first reasonable girl he sees. Going back to her flat he ends up in bed with her (whether she is happy about it or not), leaves afterwards with no intention of seeing her again.

So, what have we here. Well, first the damage to his health from cigarettes, white bread (which causes heart disease) and too much coffee which the kidneys can't process, and if it is made in a cafetiere where the coffee is allowed to sit, the oil will cause arterio-sclerosis which will raise his blood pressure. Next comes destroying the environment with his car: surely he could have used public transport or at least given other people a lift to the office. His rudeness to his colleague would have added to the general negativity unless he cleared it by apologising. The salt in the crisps would have upset his kidneys, hardened his arteries as would the sugar in the coke, not to mention the preservative in the ham which would have contributed to cancer and the alcohol would have taken the vitamins out of his system. Of course, I am assuming that for this gentleman, his eating and other habits are part of his normal everyday lifestyle.

Now to his attitude with the girls. His impure thoughts will increase the desire nature in his base chakra, causing him excitement, and frustration and anger if it is not fulfilled. Should this be a continuing occurrence he could start to stimulate himself by looking at pornographic videos or magazines (his solar plexus will now also contain red showing that he can't stop thinking about sex) and he could devolve into a rapist as his base chakra gets out of balance (i.e. too much red, yang, will destroy him).

After carrying on in this way for some time, he meets a girl that keeps his attraction and they live together for a while (marriage of course being out of the question as our subject has no sense of moral responsibility). She becomes pregnant, he leaves her and she is now faced with bringing up a child on her own which could lead them both into poverty. The child, brought up without a father and absorbing his mother's fear and panic, is born with asthma and needs constant care. He grows up without a male role model and unless he has read Robert Bly's book, Iron John, and learns to be a true man, is destined for a miserable life. Without confidence, he becomes miserable and lonely, falls into depression and commits suicide.

Now for the girls. Miss B gets up in the morning, jumps into the shower and covers herself with various skin products containing aluminium. After downing a yoghurt and banana she goes off to work on the bus, wearing the shortest mini skirt she can find. Sitting on the bus, she is ogled by the men, shunned by older women and young mothers, who try to turn their children's heads away. She alights from the bus and hears one pensioner say to another, 'disgusting, she ought to be thrashed.' Totally unaware how her clothes are causing offence, she tells them where to go with a liberal sprinkling of the 'f' word.

Getting into work at a dress shop, where she sells the same type of clothes she is wearing, she spends her time in-between customers with the other assistants, discussing what they did, or more to the point, who they did the night before, with the sort of details that are not suitable for anyone's ears.

In the evening they all go to a disco to see who they can pick up. Having all found a willing man each they all pile back to the flat of one of them where they all have sex even though it means more than one couple per room.

Our subject, liking her particular man enough to see him again keeps the relationship going. She has had a bad background. Her father beat her and her mother and she thinks that by carrying on like this she is getting her own back on mankind in general and her father in particular. She is insecure and emotional but refuses to admit it or show it: attack being the best form of defence in her eyes. But she has chosen a wrong one this time and is found one morning with her throat cut. This, however, may be a blessing in disguise. Had she lived, the poor girl would have found out she had AIDS and the likelihood of her suddenly having the realisation that she has brought it upon herself and then seeking out a spiritual master, are, unfortunately, extremely slim. Neither of our examples are practicing the Divine Principle of Awareness where we think how our actions will affect others.

There is not much comment needed on this feminine example. It is quite clear that she has no idea (and nor does the man in our previous example) of the sacredness of sex, (more of this in the Divine Principle of Morality), of taking responsibility, of seeing the world as one big family where we should all try and be like *Jesus or Mother Theresa. In fact, neither of our two examples have even considered such a possibility, which is very sad.

Of course, fortunately, not all the world falls into these two categories thank heaven, and although the second one appears to be rather extreme, it is not. I was on a package holiday in 1975 (in other words more than 30 years before I wrote this book) and was given a room with two other girls. I was not happy about it but the hotel could not find me a single room or so they said. The girls, both English, went to a disco one night and came back with two men whom they took to bed. I got up and left. After telling the courier, I got my single room. Also at this period couples who wanted to rent houses or flats, could only do so if they were married and could prove it! 30 years later, therefore, this behaviour is more prevalent than I would like to believe and this is the reason why.

In the west it is the norm for children to throw tantrums at around 2 years old as they soon recover their equilibrium and grow into well balanced adults. But now, many of them don't and the result is what is now recognised as ADD/ADHD or Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder. This is anything from tantrum throwing, continually swearing, hurting other children and animals and in teenagers, streaking and killing ones classmates. This is due nowadays to sex and violence being thrown at us from shops, TV and advertising hoardings: we are being permanently fed a diet of 'red' energy. Greed and desire are all around us. Dirty magazines and other items, which, in my day, would normally arrive through the post in a brown envelope, (or one had to take a personal trip to Soho), are openly displayed in shops in the High Street.

As our desire nature is titivated so our base chakra becomes redder. We want more sex, more booze, more violence and like the drug addict, we need to keep upping the dose to 'feel' something. This damages us all and if you think I am being narrow minded and it is all nonsense I found an article the other day (20.2.07) on the BBC website saying exactly the same thing - that the fact that sex is shoved at us from every conceivable outlet is damaging young girls physically and emotionally.

I have given you a glimpse of both ends of the spectrum. At the top being a Jesus or Mother Theresa, a goal open to every human being: and at the bottom, men and women who are irresponsible and wish to wallow in the mire of their sexual desires. I have given illustrations of how wrong thought, speech and action affects us all. Later I shall be going into how we can progress, talking about G-d's Laws and the Divine Principles but for the moment, let's look at some other headings.

# I Hate My Life and He's Got More than Me, Syndrome _(or All Desire Causes Suffering)_

You hear it all the time. People complaining about what they haven't got and how so and so up the road is a thoroughly nasty piece of work but he has everything. Often the nicest people are the ones who seem to be poor and the money grabbers who walk over everyone and who would not give a loaf of bread to a starving man, seem to have everything. There are many reasons for this, so here are some.

When we separate from G-d in the sense of having lives on earth (because we are never truly separated from Him), we go through a test. This takes place on plane of soul where all souls that await incarnation 'live' and it is while they are on that plane they are put through a test. The main thing is that whilst on this plane, one becomes so engrossed in whatever life one is living that they forget they are there to be tested. It is a bit like the Holodeck on Star Trek, or being on a Hollywood set! It seems real at the time, but isn't really. The time spent there could amount, in earth terms, to day, weeks, months or years. Because every soul has to master all the qualities such as patience, tolerance, compassion etc., the test will reflect at what point they start their incarnations on earth. Put another way - how well a person does determines how much awareness they will bring through with them when they are born. So the outcome may mean a person born to normal parents, and who ends up with an average job and a seemingly boring life, or born in India where he has the chance to be taught by a *guru and learn all his lessons in one lifetime.

When beings take the test they are in a state where they have no experience of life. They also have no idea that they are taking the test because it is weaved into their current state of existence so surreptitiously that even if they are on the look out for it they won't see it. Imagine you are sitting quietly at home when there is a hurried knock at the door. A breathless person says that there has been a fire and would you come and help. You rush out and find that there are people lying all over the place. Some are burned, others struggling to breathe: children who can't find their parents and need looking after and comforting. It is not until afterwards that you realise it was a test. It happened so quickly you never had time to think. I have known people who have taken a test like this. Some have failed because they went to help not because they cared about the people so much but because others would think well of them. With that attitude of course they failed.

Then there are the people who actually fail spectacularly in the sense of refusing to go at all! These would end up as 4th planers, in other words, starting out on their first incarnation as an ordinary person, with an ordinary background. Not rich, not poor. They will have an opportunity in this life to redeem themselves by either rescuing someone from a fire or saving a colleague in war. Or, they may, if they have learned their lesson before they came into incarnation, join the fire service. Their next life will depend on their actions. This is of course, just an example. It doesn't mean that ordinary people have failed their first test; it depends on how many other incarnations they had before this one!

When people fail this test it is called, the Fall of Man, and has nothing to do with the Garden of Eden. Man did not fall because of Adam and Eve. The failure is individual. As a man (or woman) fails the test and fails in subsequent incarnations to develop the right attitudes, so it affects the planet and everyone else on it and society starts to devolve.

There is a saying by a Kung Fu Master which roughly translated goes:-

Innocent of goodness, innocent of badness, such is the mind of a child.

Curious about goodness, experimental in badness, such is the way of youth.

To discard the good and follow the bad, such is the way of society.

To change the bad into good, such is the (job) of a Master of Kung Fu.

It is also true that for every person that advances spiritually, so the whole planet, even the universe, moves closer to spiritual realisation.

So now let us go back to why some people have more than others. Well, I think you now already know the answer, it is the result of our actions from past lives, or karma. People who are really nice may have nothing because in a previous life they were unkind to others or it may also be that they are too kind, give everything away and have not the get up and go to get more. Spiritual people are often poor because they have not the drive and ambition to take the necessary steps to secure a good income or they are too busy ministering to the poor to look out for themselves. However, on the spiritual path, although it is important to help people, you should not give everything away. I always remember that Mother Theresa fed herself and her nuns first and then gave to the poor what was left. Without proper food and sustenance, we become ill and are then unable to work ourselves and look after our families although there may be times when total selflessness is called for. If you are firmly on the spiritual path you will know when that is.

People who act in a thoroughly nasty way and have plenty may have been good in previous lives and so have now reaped the rewards and the rewards have made them greedy, or they may be into fraudulent dealing, crime, or just work for the highest bidder, stepping on everyone along the way. If they don't reap the rewards of this nefarious behaviour in this life, then they will in the next, being born into a poor family maybe and never making headway. Then you get the anomalies, like the rich man in a wheelchair. That is a simple one to answer. He could have money because in many lives he helped poor people but he is in a wheelchair because in another life he broke someone's legs and he has decided to take it all on together. Therefore it is no good being resentful. You get what you are meant to get when you are meant to get it, but circumstances can be altered by your attitudes. You need to understand why you have nothing and deal with that, not wish for what others have.

Always remember the words of Gautama Buddha, 'all desire causes suffering.' I heard of a woman who wished for money. Her husband died and she collected the insurance. So be careful. Your desires might be fulfilled and then you wished you hadn't asked.

But what if our desire in this life is not fulfilled? This is an even worse scenario because you will have to reincarnate to realise what you wished for even if you no longer want it. The Taoists not only say that one should not have any desires, but that one should not even have a desire to succeed on the path : one should just learn to 'be'.

There is also another reason why people have nothing, especially those on the spiritual path. It is often to test us, to see at what point we reject G-d. It is easy to love Him when we have everything, but how about when we go hungry, have no proper heating, no warm clothes or descent footwear? Many have given up on the path for this very reason, instead of trusting in G-d and their own process, which is a pity.

If you are suffering financial lack, look at your karma, your childhood, were you told you were worthless or was your creative ability blocked? Look at your attitude to money. Look at where you are living: have you feng shui'd your house, especially the wealth point in your lounge? Are there people around you who are taking your creative energy away, or are you a woman who has been abused and cut off that part of yourself, which is where your creative energy is stored? Looking at all this could make a world of difference.

# G-d Judges us by What We Do and That is all That Matters.

How do we overcome these feelings of resentment we have for others who are doing better than us and in our opinion do not deserve what they have? Look at the title of this chapter. G-d is only interested in what is in our hearts, also Jesus told us not to judge others. The bottom line here is that G-d looks at our motives for doing and thinking whatever we do and think. For example, in the bible do you remember the story of the widow's mite (which today we would probably call a ha'penny)? She left that in the collecting plate and the priests tried to humiliate her because it was so little. Jesus then put the priests to shame by pointing out that when they give they make a big show about it and irrespective of the amount they give, they make sure they still have plenty left. But she was a poor woman and what she gave was all she had.

What I am saying is, never mind about the other people, your covenant is with G-d and as long as you live your life in the right way, let others get on with theirs. No one escapes The Laws of Karma but that does not mean that when people suffer for their wrongs you should be pleased, remember what I said about compassion (see Divine Principle of Unconditional Love and Compassion). People who do not live in accordance with G-d's laws suffer and we should look on them in the same way we would someone with a physical injury or deformity. What other people have and what other people do is none of your business unless they interfere with you in which case we bring in Jesus' saying of, 'Being as Wise as a Serpent and as Harmless as a Dove.' By this he meant that we must not harm people, (obviously), but we must be mindful that people could harm us and if we sense that a person is not nice or even dangerous, then we should keep our distance but not do them harm.

In fact, it is better to keep away from people who do not have the right attitudes because these attitudes could lead us astray and rub off on our children. Indeed, Gautama Buddha always emphasised the need to keep 'Holy Company'. If you need to help those who are going in the wrong direction you need to protect yourself. That means you have to be strong in your faith and keep your chakras closed, especially your solar plexus which is where we absorb energies from people and places. You know what I mean, you walk into a house and you get an awful feeling in the abdomen and the first thing you want to do is to run out of the door. If helping others is part of your normal job, i.e. probation officer, then keep an amethyst crystal on your desk, regularly cleaned to filter out the energy. Take a shower when you get in and imagine violet light streaming over your body and put on fresh clothes afterwards. Old jeans and a sloppy sweater will do. Always remember that unenlightened people are not to be condemned in your own mind, after all we were all unenlightened once and are all entitled to a chance. It is also their life and their choices and although you should help as much as you can, it should not be with an,'I am better than you,' attitude.

People are also often mistaken about what G-d wants from us and how he judges us. Professional people with a whole string of qualifications cannot think how G-d could be interested in the uneducated classes, those incapable of reading or writing. Yet in the past some of our best saints and teachers fell into this category. Sarada, the wife of the Hindu Saint Ramakrishna, could not write: she could not even sign her name, yet when her husband died she became a Mother and Teacher in her own right. St. Catherine of Siena could not read and was taught by Jesus who was her constant companion. When learned men from the Vatican came to challenge her they went away with a flea in their ear having been humbled by her. We cannot take academic qualifications with us when we die. Wisdom is given to us intuitively during meditation and so the ability to either read or write is not necessary. Conversely, I have had students who have had a great deal of spiritual knowledge but could not make any headway because they could not relax and meditate, their head always going round and round with their 'knowledge' which they had gained from reading books!

We have gone off at a slight tangent here because we were talking about forgiveness and not being resentful. How can you forgive someone who has harmed you or your family? First put yourself in their situation, would you not want forgiveness? These next two stories should also help. One needs to let go of the past and move on otherwise we get stuck in it.

I knew a lady who was married to a company director and so they were fairly well off. They were both in their late twenties and had several children. She never smiled and the longer I knew her, the fatter she got. One day she suddenly started telling me about her life. She said that when she was going out with her current husband she got pregnant but by the time she found out he had returned to university. For some reason she never heard from him and she never told him she was pregnant, so he started going out with someone else. The child had already been born when he found out, ditched his girlfriend and married her. As she was not her husband's first choice, she resented him although she loved him at the same time. What she wanted to do was to go back in time and for him to marry her because he wanted to and not because she was pregnant - but this of course was not possible. And so she carried her resentment around with her as fat; which got worse as she got older, and as her resentment deepened. I lost touch with her but I know that if she continued with this attitude she would probably get cancer. She was also her own worst enemy, for if she had told him she was pregnant in the first place he might not have gone out with anyone else. In fact, he may have taken another girlfriend because he thought she had ditched him! Misunderstandings can lead to a lot of pain. By this action or non-action, because she did not contact him, she made herself and her whole family unhappy because children pick up on their parent's feelings, no matter how well they try to hide them.

So let us look at another example, not one I know of personally, in fact the story line is partly based on a play I once saw but I am sure it fits someone, somewhere.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones go into business together as equal partners. The business fails due to circumstances that neither of them could have foreseen and so they both lose their money. Mr. Smith still has some funds of his own so he starts another business by himself and does well. Mr. Jones has nothing, and like our previous example, becomes more and more resentful. When he happens to see Mr. Smith in the street he shouts abuse at him and makes threatening gestures. He cannot hold down anything but the most basic of jobs and so he, his wife and two sons live in a cramped flat. He has no car. As he gets older he becomes more and more rhetorical on the subject, continually talking about Mr. Smith and saying that Mr. Smith is the reason why he has nothing and Mr. Smith must make everything right. While he is waiting for something that is not going to happen his opportunity to *create his own destiny is passing him by. His two sons pick up their father's attitudes and become the worst kind of bullies, until one of his sons gets accused and convicted of murder. Eventually, in his rage he kills himself. He has ruined his life, his wife's and that of his sons.

You may think it is okay for me to talk about getting on with one's own life, ignoring what other people have done to hurt us, and forgiving them, maybe even trying to help them. Obviously I don't know how hard it is and it can't have happened to me. Well if you think that, you'd be wrong. If you knew everything that happened to me you would wonder why I haven't gone mad with a machine gun and blown up several government buildings!

So next time you feel like swearing, hitting someone, killing someone - start taking deep breathes and DON'T. You'll be the one to suffer not only because this will make you ill, but your thoughts will affect the other person and you will get karma for that too. It is also possible that the person who is trying to harm you may be doing so because it is your karma from a past life, but there is also another reason, which I call voluntary pain.

Everyone knows the story of Cain and Abel, yes I know it is allegorical but it is useful for this example. Abel was the good guy that Cain killed. If they were the first 2 children of Adam and Eve then why did Abel die? He did not have any karma because this was his first life? The answer to that is that there are people who suffer what others do to them but don't deserve it. They volunteer, usually out of love for the other person, to be there as a test for them. For example, a man fails his initial test. Say he was put in a situation where he was a butler. He became jealous of his rich employer and killed him. Now he has to have a life on earth in the same situation. Someone in the spiritual realms, his *soul father perhaps, may volunteer to come to earth and be his employer, being more enlightened he might be able to help his son change and therefore steer him away from what looks like a premeditated life. There is also a chance of course that the servant may well kill his employer again and therefore this person has suffered for no reason.

Then there are people who come to earth in the guise of a tempter to test a spiritual person to the 'nth' degree to see if he retaliates. One piece of advice given to aspirants on the spiritual path is to imagine everyone is Jesus. When a person is nasty to you, imagine it is Jesus in disguise testing you to see what you will do. After all, you do not know their karma, you do not know who they really are. This is a very good way to learn unconditional love.

Let us now take this a stage further. I have talked about people resenting other people and those who think they have had a raw business deal. But what if it is more serious than that? What if your son is involved in a fight and dies, what if a member of your family has an operation and dies through negligence, or your baby is born deformed because of tablets prescribed to you whilst pregnant or is born brain damaged because of a negligent doctor (this happened to my father's elder brother). What Jesus said was true, that those who take up the sword, die by the sword, but it would take a saint to be able to always act in the right way and I have the deepest understanding and compassion for those who can't - it's terribly hard. In fact some people never recover from losing someone they love and even commit suicide. I can understand that too and I do not condemn anyone for it. Finding out the reason it happened does not always lesson the pain, but it might help and at the very least we should try, try and build a new life for ourselves. Revenge never solved anything and the universe will always deal with it.

When the son of a friend of mine died with cancer at the age of 55 she was totally distraught and wanted to know why. I found out that he had a horror of becoming old and so, before he took on this life, decided to go at that time. Then there is the true story of a woman who lost all of her 4 children and opened an orphanage. Then there is a man I knew whose wife was dying of cancer and although he was totally distraught he found he had the ability to heal and comfort the bereaved. You may say, 'that it's all very well for them, but I can't do it.' Fair enough. We all have our limitations; I am just pointing out to you how Divine Law and karma operate. If everyone could follow it all perfectly, there would be no need for me to write this book!

I have talked about personal karma but it extends far beyond that. Companies have karma. Directors who are individually and collectively responsible for the lawful running of a company, are also responsible for the spiritual and ethical running of it and will therefore incur karma for selling products that cause harm. Religions have collective karma as do races. When you marry you take on the other person's karma. If a Jew marries a Christian they will share in each others religious karma and so will those who intermarry racially. Christians, in the widest sense, have karma for all the so called Holy Wars that they have fought, not to mention witch burning and that horror of horrors, the Spanish Inquisition when it was not just those whom the authorities claimed were heretics, but many Jews were killed and expelled from Spain having to leave behind everything. Of course, a happy union between a Spanish Catholic and Jew would also do wonders to ameliorate this karma. But the inharmoniousness that often results from a mixed marriage is the main reason behind Jews and other religions going against such. From a karmic point of view, there is too much against the outcome of a happy marriage.

Countries also have karma, and one of the reasons why Britain is suffering so much for having to house so many from abroad is because they plundered India and other countries for centuries, robbing them of everything, levying taxes and letting the people starve. When one looks around the world, it doesn't take much to work out what karmic debts nations need to repay.

# Live Each Day as if it Were Your Last

One of the worst things one can do is to pitch into someone and then find out that they have serious problems. One feels a right idiot. Imagine shouting at someone because they trod on your foot or bumped into you and hurt you badly, only to find out that they were dumb or that they bumped into you because they were in a hurry to find a policeman because a friend of theirs had just been beaten up in the street. You do not know what the other person's feelings are. Maybe they had so many problems that they were just totally distracted. It is always better to forgive and forget then to start an argument. How would you feel if you shouted at someone because you took offence and they dropped dead because they had a bad heart? Always leave people with a kind word. If they died and you had been unkind to them, whether you felt it was justified or not, you would feel bad about it possibly for the rest of your life.

I had this when my great grandmother died. I hardly ever visited her because although she understood English she only spoke Yiddish whereas I only spoke and understood English. So I had to go with my mother who only visited her about twice a year. When she died I felt dreadful because I had visited her so seldom but I couldn't go on my own and just sit there not understanding a word. It was only later that I forgave myself when she paid me a visit one night and I understood that she understood how I felt and had come to tell me it was not my fault.

# Make Allowances for Others, After all, You Would Want Others to Make Allowances for You

When I left England for Europe I stopped driving. After 33 years I had had enough and I no longer felt like trying to get used to traffic on the wrong side of the road, never mind the S-Bahn. I had had, over the years, my fair share of near accidents, slamming my brakes on at being cut up. I never got cross. For all I knew this guy could be haring off to the hospital because a terrible accident or illness had befallen a member of his family. The point was that I stayed cool and calm and let him get on with it, sending good wishes after him in case he needed it. What was most important was that an accident, in which I could have been seriously injured or killed, had been avoided. As long as I was safe I didn't care whose fault it was.

I remember a rhyme that I was taught when I first started to drive and this happened to me for the first time. My teacher said to me, 'He was right dead right as he drove along, but he was just as dead as if he'd been wrong.' It's no good insisting on your right of way if the other person is not going to stop. Forget it and be grateful you were alert and saved yourself.....and don't look for revenge, it can be quite sad to see. I had a landlord who was so aggressive that he terrified us. If anything went wrong he would literally go berserk. He was also the meanest person I had ever met. When I moved in I had to get a part for the light bulb to screw in, I forget what it is called. I needed 2 at 67p each. When I asked for the money back he went ballistic and said he had a man that came and fixed all that. I pointed out that it would cost more in petrol one way than the amount I had laid out, but he wouldn't have it. When my kitchen cold water tap stopped working I got the water board in because I thought there was a blockage in the mains but it was actually the tap that needing replacing. The nice water board man dismantled the tap, showed me what was wrong and replaced it in a way which he said should last me for a few days until it could be changed. He kindly charged me nothing. I called my landlord and he came over and took the thing apart as he refused to take the word of the water board man. When he saw the tap did indeed need replacing he went and got a pair of taps even though he was ill at the time and had passed the store on his way to me. He then changed the tap. When I pointed out that he needed to change the other one because now they didn't match, he replied, 'works doesn't it?' and walked out. His attitude terrified us so much that it caused my son, who was ultra-sensitive, to get asthma. Not long after this, one of his sons, who was a carbon copy of his father, got beaten up outside of a pub. When I used to phone and he would answer, he would derogatorily say, 'Dad, you tenant's on the phone,' as if I was such a non-entity I was not entitled to have a name. He was in a coma for 10 days and it was touch and go whether he lived. Not long after that my Landlord died of cancer. I had no doubt in my mind that it was his bullying of us over a period of about three and half years that caused his illness, especially as he knew I was a spiritual teacher and refused to respect me. In fact, because I was a widow and had to have help from the state with my rent, he treated me like scum. However, it was a shock and I felt sorry for him because by the time the doctors found out what was the matter he had only 48 hours to live. Not enough time to repent, reflect or prepare himself, for the next world.

One must always have compassion and look to the reason why these things happen. In one respect it was my own fault, (no I don't mean it was my fault he died)! My Landlord and his wife bullied me from the start. Because I was poor I put up with it knowing that if I retaliated I was likely to find myself homeless. I should have stood up for myself and trusted in G-d to find me alternative accommodation.

So there is no need for revenge. Everyone gets what they deserve so if a murderer escapes a jail sentence on a technicality and everyone knows he is guilty - forget it. He will receive his just deserts in a future life, or, in a past one he may have been imprisoned when innocent in which case he has already paid in advance.

When something happens to us continually (with me it was always being bullied, walked on, beaten up and made homeless) then the universe is trying to teach us something. We should listen.

# When you Block Others, you Block Yourself

In the course of my work I have met people who have told me terrible stories of revenge. One woman I actually met in South London, who ran a cafe told me she hadn't spoken to her husband for 11 years. He lived in the top part of the house and she had the bottom. She would not allow him to use the kitchen when she was in and she deliberately did not go to bed until midnight or later so that he had to start cooking his dinner in the small hours of the morning! All this because he had once hit her, (and it was hit not beat). Although I do not condone couples hitting each other, they should either have gone to a marriage guidance counsellor or she could have got a divorce. There was no excuse for what she did to him.

Then there are the couples whose marriages go wrong. He meets someone else; she won't give him a divorce because she is jealous and possessive. Result - 3 unhappy people. Although everything happens for a reason, we all have free will and it is better to forgive, forget and move on then to try to make others pay because we ourselves cannot move on under circumstances like these. Also, marriage is largely karmic and when the karma is dissolved it is usually time to move on to a new experience which may or may not involve re-marrying.

Another example is a woman that I know well. She always wanted what others had but never wanted to make an effort to get it herself. She had one sister who could sew wonderfully well. She would give her sister the clothes she didn't want and when her sister altered them so that they were gorgeous, she wanted them back! When this woman married she was disappointed with her husband and took it out on everyone around including her only daughter. She did everything she could to stop her daughter having a happy life because hers wasn't. Her husband would never take her anywhere and when the daughter offered to take her to the theatre and to dinner, she refused, saying, 'I won't go anywhere without your father,' even though the father would never go anywhere. Whilst waiting around for everyone to do things for her and for her husband to do what she wanted, she never achieved anything and was always unhappy. In the end her husband died and her daughter stopped speaking to her because she had had enough. Her friends rallied round after the funeral but when the woman would not do anything to fill her time constructively, like working in a charity shop, or helping people voluntarily (she did not need any money), one by one they dropped her. She ended up a lonely old woman with arthritis (because of her meanness). By not creating for herself and by blocking others, she ruined her life.

# Between Death and Re-Birth

We have seen how our thoughts and actions determine our lives. They also determine our lives between lives.

When we die we go to one of the planes of soul. There are 7 planes of soul (and 3 of spirit) to correspond to the 7 *chakras. It is our conduct that determines where we go, not just from our current life but from those that have gone before, which are all weighed in the balance together although our state of mind at the time of death plays a very large part.

These planes of soul differ from the earth in that the vibration is finer and everything is more beautiful and vivid. Even the 4th or astral plane, the one where the majority of people go to, is more beautiful than anywhere on earth and brighter than our best summer's day. You can gain some idea of life after death by watching the film, What Dreams May Come, starring Robin Williams (pity about the language though). Each plane is finer and more beautiful so that by the time we come to the 7th also known as the celestial or Christ Sphere, houses and rocks are made out of the most beautiful coloured crystal. Flowers are alive and are warm to the touch. These states can only be seen in the deepest meditation, words cannot describe their beauty and no artist I know of can paint it because there are colours in the spirit world that do not exist here.

Then there are the planes of spirit for people who are higher than a spiritual master. It is not possible to describe what these are like.

There is, of course, another plane of soul which people do not think about. It is called Hell and yes, it is a real place, as bad as most religions tell us it is. How did Hell come to be? Quite simply - we created it. As everything is created by thought and all bad thoughts find each other and join together, so hell is a collection of our bad thoughts and actions. If everyone did the right thing there would not be any such place. So what exactly is it like, how can a person go there and how can he (or she) get out of it?

Everything vibrates. The finer and quicker the vibration, the lighter and more beautiful everything is. Conversely the slower the vibration the more coarse and unpleasant our surroundings are. Hell is not a punishment in the accepted sense of the word but the outcome of our negative thoughts and actions. Just as violent criminals are attracted to each other and gravitate towards each other, so the people who end up in hell have done so because their thoughts take them there and that is where they feel happiest (I use the world advisedly)! Rapists and murderers who have no desire to repent find, that in hell, they can carry on the way they did on earth. There are no police to arrest them, no jail to put them in. There is an invisible jail though, because each level is secured by an energy barrier. Murderers who have not repented but wish to move to a higher level will find their way blocked and only repentance will allow them to move on. Suicides too may end up there not because they have committed, as the Catholics would say, 'the mortal sin', but because they had no desire to live and therefore end up in a dark place which equates with the feeling they had when they died, or because they died believing there was nothing and so end up in corresponding circumstances, although in this latter respect their soul is more likely to stay in the place where they died and from this comes the feeling that a house is haunted.

What does hell look like? Well, the best level is like a bad part of East London during Charles Dickens' time, in other words, the early Victorian era when there was a real London pea-souper. No lights, just the shapes of very poor terraced houses, roads covered in ashes and debris. Not a sign of life as no one in their right mind would venture out otherwise they would be dragged off by gangs to be raped and tortured. As the person is already dead, there is no such thing as a relief in death, just endless torture until they are rescued. People do get rescued as Jesus and others regularly venture into this no-mans-land in order to get out those who are trapped either because they killed themselves or died in horrific circumstances and, in many cases, do not know they are even dead. You will find that inside the houses of those who are there for this reason, that they think they are in their own homes, but that the electricity has been cut off due to the weather. And so they sit and they wait for their husbands or wives to come home, or for the electric man to come. They have no sense of time. These people are very vague in their minds and sometimes do not remember their own names or their previous life and it can take much effort to convince them where they are and what has happened to them.

And what about the victims in this realm who are endlessly tortured? Well, these would be people who had killed others and they need to be rescued to, but the main ingredient that will secure their release, is a repentant heart and a desire to change.

There are darker parts of hell, but I don't think you want to know about those and in fact the darker side of creation is the province of spiritual masters and higher beings. In fact, hardly anyone talks about the dark side and I have often lost people who came to me to be trained because they refused to believe such a concept. 'G-d is love', they tell me, therefore hell must be fictitious. I agree that G-d is love, but one has nothing to do with the other. More information on the forces of darkness can be found in Book II and is not for the feint hearted.

When we die we are at some point shown all the relevant events from our life on earth. We are shown our inappropriate actions, and our re-birth depends on which of these faults we wish to correct. It is also a pity that most people are too busy with this life to find out who they were in a past life, or to remember that everything we do now determines our future life or lives. The karma we have left may be cleared over several life times or, if we are very brave, we can elect to sort it all in one go. We will work with our spiritual guide to determine which parents and which environment will suit us best. Rebirth can be taken anytime from almost immediately to hundreds or thousands of years later. We can do some of our training on the planes of soul. There are schools there. The trouble is that it is easier because there is no temptation and so often the only things we can learn to bring with us are skills and metaphysical knowledge rather than the conquering of negative traits. Sometimes one gets child prodigies because they have learned on the planes of soul and brought their talent with them, at other times they may have been allowed to bring with them talents from their previous lives and the great painter, Turner, actually falls into both categories.

# G-d's Teaching

G-d's Laws, which I tend to call Divine Principles, are, of course, immutable and extremely difficult to do. Indeed, it is only those at the top of the spiritual tree who are expected to follow them to the nth degree. So, when you read them and think, 'I can't do that!' don't worry, your not supposed to, just do the best you can. Of course one day, in a later life when you are going for the highest level, (or if you decide to go the whole hog in this one), you will be expected to, but then you will find you can do them with ease!

## Unconditional Love and Compassion

Before we even begin to have unconditional love for people we need to ditch the ego or to put it another way, we need to learn humility. It is not possible to be arrogant and spiritual. Spirituality and the ego cannot co-exist and only those people who are truly spiritual can feel unconditional love. When I have made this statement to others they are usually terrified. 'But if the ego is destroyed, I won't exist,' is the usual reply I get. This of course is not true. Neither does being humble mean we get walked over. Once the ego is removed then what is left is pure spirit, 'us' with only our highest qualities. I also find that people get confused as to what the ego is. Well, all negative traits and feelings are ego. That means hatred, greed, jealousy. Doing things from wrong motive, even helping people can be ego based. For example, if you help others because it makes you feel good about yourself, gives you a feeling of self-worth rather than for the love of the act or the person, that is ego. Doing favours for others, even making yourself indispensable to those who are suffering because you want them to like you, and not just because your love for them is pure and selfless, is ego. In short, doing anything with any motive other than selflessness, is ego. A good way to tell if you have ego is how you react to what people say about you. To an ego-less person, 'praise or blame is all the same.' If you are prone to flattery, if being praised for what you did makes you feel good and conversely being criticised makes you angry or upset, than you have ego.

It is possible to have ego and still have compassion for people. Feeling sorry for their suffering because you know how they feel. But it is not possible to feel unconditional love and have ego, and having unconditional love for others is a Divine Principle that many find extremely difficult, if not impossible to accomplish, because it means loving and caring for others, passively not necessarily actively, no matter what these people have done. It means feeling the same way towards a person who has lost all their family as the result of a terrorist attack and having the same feeling towards the now dead bomber who caused the attack! No exceptions. Remember what Jesus said about loving the Romans and that no one got any Brownie points for loving their own family because the Romans and the tax collectors did the same?

How can we love someone we do not know and have never seen, or love someone who, when to look at them, makes us feel revulsion, or someone who is a serial killer and is behind bars? What is more to the point, why should we? Why waste our time or energy on people that cause trouble, on people regularly now defined as low-life, scum and under-class?

It is true that violence breeds violence. I have given you a metaphysical explanation of it and you only have to look around you to see the results of it everywhere. Only love can dissolve hatred. It may take time, but let's face it, no one is going anywhere. You have been given a certain life span. If you spend it feeling unconditional love for everyone it will not make life worse for you, only better. If at the end of your life you look back and you have not acted in this way, I am sure you would have wished you had. I have a perfect example here. My mother, who never believed in anything and whose main goal in life was to outdo Marks and Spencer with her stock of clothes refused to try meditation when I seriously began it. 'It takes ages to get anywhere,' said my mother. 'True,' I replied, 'but just think, if you start now, only doing a few minutes a day, in 2 or 3 years it will have made such a difference. And if you don't start now, when you look back you would have wished that you had.'

I was wasting my breath, she did not want to know, but I persevered while she became more bitter and resentful. Don't put off till tomorrow what you can start today. Get on with it and end re-birth. A great teacher once said that the pain of trying to achieve the spiritual path was nothing compared to the pain we would suffer through re-birth after re-birth if we didn't achieve it. How right he was.

When we talk about loving the person, we are not talking about their personality for this life, but loving their divine spirit, which is the part of them that is part of G-d, so on this basis we are all equal. Next, if we remember when Jesus was asked this question, he said that everyone was his brother, his sister, his mother. Sounds odd so let us look at it another way. A couple get married and have 4 children. One of them marries the girl next door who is, say, an only child. Another marries a person who lives in the next street and so on. The 4 people that the 4 children marry do not have brothers or sisters. Even so, from a couple having 4 children, 10 families are connected because each of the future spouses has a family on their mothers and fathers side plus the parents of the original 4 children. Now if these 10 sets of parents all have at least one brother or sister who has married that has brought in another 10 families who also have brothers and sisters, children, nieces, nephews, cousins, second cousins not to mention grandparents - the list is endless. If you pursue it, I am sure that you will find that everyone is related to everyone else, because everyone who is married immediately connects with another family, who is connected to another family. People also marry those from different religions, cultures and countries, other than their own. This way everyone is related to everyone else no matter how far removed. Now, if you say that you can't stand your family and this does not help you love everyone, we can look at it another way.

When a spirit leaves G-d and becomes an individual, even before he incarnates on earth, in other words, while he is still in his perfect form, he becomes part of a spiritual family. This family does not change. So every one of us has a spiritual/soul family waiting for us on the other side. These spiritual families are called *'soul families'. Sometimes a member of our soul family may incarnate with us. Have you ever felt that you were closer to a friend than a family member? This person may well be your soul brother or sister, or even one of your soul parents. In this way, we are connected to everyone all over, not just the world, but the whole universe.

You may say that this is all very well and you understand, but the way people act on the earth plane stops you from loving them unconditionally, that you don't even have compassion for them. Understandable - so maybe this will help you.

I was standing in the queue at the supermarket check-out many years ago keeping well away from the guy in front. He was a tramp and stank to high heaven. Now I have nothing against tramps. In fact I have always felt sorry for them and I have always given them money, or bought them a sandwich and a tea. The problem here was that the smell was unbearable. I did not want to be like this and when I got home I felt so awful that I told my husband.

'How can I feel unconditional love and compassion for him?' I asked.

'Easy', said my husband, 'imagine the tramp is you and how you would feel if someone rejected you.'

It worked instantly. I never had any trouble after that.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who used to walk the streets collecting the sick and those dying from leprosy and other terrible diseases, including rescuing unwanted babies from dustbins, went about it a different way. She used to say that to her everyone was Jesus. When she found a baby it was the baby Jesus, an old man dying to her was the dying Jesus. What she meant was that she saw not just the person of Jesus, but the Christ spirit in everyone.

If you do not even feel sorry for people who have died in disasters, then put yourselves in their place too, or in the place of a husband, wife or child that they have left behind. Experience that person's pain and grief, then you will start to grow, learn compassion and unconditional love.

But what if that person has done terrible things to you? After all, it's one thing to have compassion for someone who has lost their whole family in a plane crash or tsunami, but what if they have actually harmed you or a member of your family?

We do this by understanding that these people are not in their right mind. They are not exactly mad but they are not dwelling in their own pure spirit but are doing everything from ego, pain and hurt, upbringing, environment, past lives.....you name it, they are acting it out. If they had any awareness of how their lives affected not only others but themselves, how it is going to cause them endless pain through re-birth after re-birth until they learn, then they would not do it. So how do you learn to love them? – by expanding your heart chakra, which we will talk about in the chapter on meditation. It also helps to understand why they have done terrible things to you. As already mentioned, it could be karma from past lives or it could be because you need to learn something, but we will explore this later on in the book.

## The Divine Principle of Patience and Tolerance

We've all done it, screamed at the kids when we have had enough of their tantrums or because we are tired or worried. Shouted at our spouse when they came home late from work because it has put us out or made us late, or maybe we were just worried that they had been in an accident. Or we have had a bad day at work and taken it out on the closest members of our family. We have sat in traffic jams cursing away because we are going to be late; sat in waiting rooms tapping our fingers or our toes ready to scream at the receptionist because dentist is running late and we are bored, bored bored!

It is a waste of energy, don't bother. All it will do is make you ill and everyone else around you. You have to wait around, so what? Anyway, you know there is nearly always a wait at the dentists and all these NHS places, so take a book with you. As to the traffic jam, well isn't there nearly always? Either start earlier, take a different route, use public transport or sit in the car and use the time wisely by doing *japa, (see the section on meditation) or put some classical or new age music on.

So people have given you a hard time at work. If this is a frequent occurrence you need to know why. Is it you or is it them? Another chapter heading that needs looking at. Meanwhile, why take it out on someone else? Go to the person and ask them why they spoke to you that way or treated you that way, or if the person is unapproachable, then go to see the Personnel Officer, that is what they are there for, or maybe it is a call from the universe to you to change your job or your whole profession. Stop reacting. Learn not to react by taking a step back. When people insult you they are insulting your ego, not your spirit. So why bother to retaliate and bring yourself down to their level? If they make you angry they've won too! And if you think I haven't suffered humiliation at the hands or more literally at the words and actions of others, here is a little scenario.

I used to have my own company doing photocopies for people, taking their mail and their calls if they did not have their own suite of offices. One customer I had regularly chatted me up. Every week without fail he would walk into my office to get his mail and stand so close to me as to be offensive and ask me why I wouldn't sleep with him and I mean sleep, not go out. I could not kick up a fuss because there were other customers in the shop so I rebuffed him as politely as I could. After he had gone I used to fume because I was not only married but he was living with his girl friend whom I knew and he knew that I knew her. I made myself ill. In the end I stopped it by realising that I was getting angry with him and making myself ill from his words and attitudes which I hadn't caused. In other words I was getting angry from something that had nothing to do with me. It was his problem. So when he came in I would take a deep breath and just ignore everything he said. In the end I felt sorry for him. After all he had to live with himself not me. He also had a visit from my husband complete with very large dog!

And here's another scenario. I used to work in an office with a dozen other girls. The problem was I was the top secretary and had my own office! So they would insult me to my face, leave nasty notes (unsigned of course) in the print room where I collected my work and when I left for the day those on the late flexi-time shift removed some files off of my computer, so when I arrived in the morning, I would find my work had been deleted. Was I upset? You bet. But they never found out. I ignored it all and sent them unconditional love several times a day. Was it hard? And how! But I did it, it stopped me being angry or wanting to retaliate. In fact, I got the last word because I never said anything to them and they must have wondered if they were going nuts. Did they or didn't they remove my work? Did someone else pick up the notes left for me? Would they be in trouble when the handwriting was recognised. You can imagine the rest.

Getting angry serves no purpose. It shows that we are out of control, have a big ego, or both, (unless it's righteous anger, but that is the province of beings like Jesus who have conquered their emotions and their ego). If we get upset because we are weak it is what I call negative ego. It is still ego because we are not perfectly balanced and let ourselves be bullied and controlled although in this case it is only us that gets hurt not other people. Why should we care what other people think as long as we act from right motive? The phrase coined by Abraham Lincoln, 'you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time', is very apt. There is always going to be someone who doesn't like you, who may even hate you, no matter what you do, so why bother? If people could find fault with Mother Theresa, and they did, what chance has any of us got? And look what happened to the Old Testament Prophets, New Testament Saints, not to mention Jesus. No one wins when there are people around who think that your kindness and spirituality are a threat to them. Don't waste your energy.

If we do not set an example of patience and tolerance then how can we expect others to be patient and tolerant with us? It is the same with children, sure they take an age to get ready and can't think as fast or do things as fast as we can, so give them more time. Shouting is only going to cause them trauma for which you will get karma later on. That is why I advise women who are going to have or who want to have children, to stay at home until their child goes to school and then to only do part-time work so as to be able to collect them from school in the afternoon. Children need time with their parents, not child minders or even really other relatives.

As for tolerance, we all need to be tolerant of other peoples colour, race and religion. We are all individual sparks of the divine and our outer colouring is only a covering for our spirit. Yet in the west there is great prejudice against non-whites, against people's religions, against the English in countries that haven't forgiven us because of World War 2 and heaven knows how many others reasons. In fact, everyone seems to act like a bunch of school kids. My own personal opinion, looking at the world, is that in the last 2,000 years nothing has changed. People and governments are just as intolerant and prejudiced. I don't recall who said, 'before nations change, men must change' but he was absolutely right. Meanwhile, we can only make allowances for the ignorance of other people, people who look like adults but are obviously not in their spiritual development or mental capacity. We must also make sure we do not retaliate, except where it is legal, lawful and karmically appropriate, otherwise we are no better. We need to keep before us the examples of people like Mahatma Gandhi and Gladys Aylwood, better known as Chen-Ai, who was portrayed by Ingrid Bergman in the film, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. As Jesus said, 'Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven:' (Mathew 5, v.11-12), and it is that which is the most important factor in our lives, but don't deliberately make yourself a martyr, because that would be ego too!

## The Divine Principles of Morality and Self-Discipline

We have already had a taste of immorality with my two earlier examples. So what's wrong with immorality? Do we all want to live in the Victorian age when sex was a taboo subject or during the 50's and 60's when parents thought that sex only took place after 10.30 at night and so impressed on their daughters the need to be home before that time? After all, why bother with marriage when the divorce rate is so high?

There are many reasons for this. From a metaphysical point of view, the energy used to create a child is the same energy that is used to create a planet, the only difference being that it is in a purified state. This is also the energy used by beings like Jesus, to create food out of the air and indeed to dissolve tumours from cancerous patients. This is why, in the main, such high beings are celibate: they need to conserve all their energy for their work.

Therefore sex is very special. In fact, making love is meant to be the worship of the Divine Creative Principle in each other, and should, therefore, only be expressed between husband and wife. I know many people who have found their own way spiritually and do not believe in any of the organised religions and therefore refuse to be married in a church. That's all very well and fine, I don't think anything of the church's marriage ceremony either, but there are alternatives such as being blessed by a guru. It is also possible to be married by a Buddhist priest.

Also, if you divorce, if you were married in the sight of God, you must ask God to release you, Decree Nisi notwithstanding, otherwise you will go into your next marriage with all the karmic attachments from the old one and old 'etheric' baggage.

I have often heard people say that they have no need to marry because they are twin souls and nothing would part them. This I understand and if we lived in the sort of society that I would like to see, where ministers of the church are replaced by Spiritual Masters and/or guru's, with direct experience of the Ascended Masters, then these beings would marry people in love as a spiritual not a legal ceremony, but as we haven't evolved to that yet and our current society is still founded on marriage, then people should go through some sort of ceremony in order to set an example, otherwise the message is, we can all live with people and have sex, without any Divine sanction and that it's okay, which of course it is not.

Of course, sometimes, even with the best of intentions, relationships go wrong, because we have karma to work out with that person. In which case, don't beat yourself up about it and just chalk it up to experience. If that relationship has gone as far as marriage and is now finished, one or both partners being destined for someone else, it can get a little messy, but if karmically it needs to end, than these things have a way of working out. For example, I had a friend who attracted a lot of gossip because she pinched someone else's husband but as I pointed out to the gossip mongers, in a previous life it was actually her husband that the other woman stole and this time all she was doing was getting him back! In The Prophet it says that we shouldn't judge others unless we know the person's whole soul pattern and that when we do we will understand and therefore there will be nothing to judge.

There is also another reason why couples should go through some sort of marriage ceremony. Children who are brought up by unmarried parents are insecure. This has been verified by an independent survey. This is one of the reasons why there has been such an increase in asthma in children, due to fear and insecurity. Instinctively they know that their father (who is more likely than their mother) can walk out anytime and leave them with nothing. At least if one is married and it doesn't work out, there is always the recourse to law to ensure the family have some security. Divorce isn't contemplated easily because of all it entails, selling the family home, dividing everything, agreeing on times to see the children and agreeing on maintenance. It is a real wrench. Also, many women end up as unmarried mothers because their boyfriends walk out on them as soon as they realise they are pregnant. Marriage is a responsibility. Having sex is a responsibility because one moment of carelessness and thoughtlessness can create a child which you have to look after for at least 18 years of its life although there are exceptions to every rule. I do know of women who have wished for a spiritual child and whose husbands have left them so that they had to bring up the child on their own, because the child needed its mother's spiritual influence only, and also in a few cases, unmarried mothers whose boyfriends have cleared off, who also had a spiritual child, again because a spiritual husband could not be found and the child was best reared under the influence of its mother. But this is rare and presumably, before these women took on their incarnation, they would have had special dispensation!

If everyone took responsibility we would not have the high rate of domestic violence, of drug taking because of children brought up by single and stressed out mothers, living in poverty or working all the hours G-d sends in order to keep their children out of poverty. Our actions determine our destiny and as we think and act inharmoniously, so we create our own conditions including diseases. From living a life that does not accord with the law, so sexually transmitted diseases ensue.

When a heterosexual couple make love, provided their minds are in the right place, they make a yin/yang circuit of energy. This, in a sense, is how universes are made. If both parties are either male or female, that energy will be inimical and therefore create havoc with the physical body. Even schoolbook physics will tell you that opposites attract. All life is based on the interaction of Yin and Yang, male and female. When things try to be wholly Yin or wholly Yang, disaster ensues as any acupuncturist will tell you.

Preferring one's own gender is often to do with childhood trauma, especially domination or abuse usually by a parent or close relative; it can also go back to previous incarnations, and is not a natural state. Like all relationships, just because one person loves another, doesn't make it right for them to be together, as in the case of first cousins, or is morally indefensible as in a woman having an affair with her teenage son's best friend or taking her daughter's boyfriend! We have to deal with the reason, break the ties and move on. This can be incredibly painful, especially where there are strong karmic ties or the other person is our twin soul, irrespective of whether they are the same gender as us or the opposite. But we are here to learn and clear our karma, so by sparing ourselves pain now and giving in to our emotional needs, means we only store up more pain for ourselves later on.

There is more information on this under the heading 'Celibacy and the Spiritual Path.'

Bearing in mind the foregoing, I am sure you will have gathered that any kind of IVF treatment, or having a child by donor, is totally out of the question. Children who are not conceived in love, who do not know who their father is, are hardly going to be happy individuals.

Under this heading naturally comes abortion. This is also against divine law but again there are exceptions depending on the person's circumstances. When children are conceived their soul enters their mother's body usually for 9 months, but not always. With some children, their soul does not enter their future physical body until the actual birth. From this it is obvious that with some abortions the physical vehicle has been terminated only. Whether an abortion is allowed under Divine Law depends entirely upon the karma of both mother and future child and I would strongly suggest that any woman who is considering a termination, should consult a Spiritual Master or a medium of very high renown, in order to avoid karma. Having said this, I still feel that the law should allow for abortion so that people have a choice, especially as in some cases having a child can cost the mother her life. There was a time in England when abortion was illegal and was denied even in those extreme medical cases where, without a termination, death was certain.

Immorality and other negative traits have to be transcended by self-discipline. Self-discipline doesn't mean being miserable, it doesn't mean not having fun. It is possible to have fun without excess. Who says you can't go out to dinner or the theatre, or buy new clothes? One can enjoy the things of this world as long as they are within the law and one is not attached to them.

Aspiring towards G-d through meditation and doing the right thing is also a joy in itself. Desire, whether it is for sex, alcohol or drugs is just a pain in the neck. Who wants to be controlled by feelings that are out of control? What kind of a life is that? I'll tell you. One that ensures you will have painful re-births. When one lives in the spirit there is pure joy just in being; in looking at a sunrise; of watching a heron, still and silent or a kingfisher swoop or the first snowdrops poking through the soil, and that is what we are aiming for.

How does one sublimate the sexual drive? Well you could cheat by drinking a tea from strawberry leaves as that will stop you being interested. Meditation and japa, because by repetition of a mantra you are stopping your mind thinking of other things (provided of course you can stick to the mantra)! You can shout Jesus or Krishna at the top of your voice, do some really hard work in the garden and tire yourself out and, yes, the cold shower really does work.

Another reason for celibacy where there is not a firm relationship, especially in women who do not want children, is the stress. The stress of the possibility of being pregnant. Nothing is 100% safe. The pill, which fails to work on about half a percent of women, also causes thrombosis, and everything else has a much lower prevention rate. Even vasectomies are not 100% guaranteed. A woman who is not entangled in a relationship and has risen above desire can feel pure joy, peace and freedom.

Morality is not just about sex but honesty. Being moral means not pinching the stamps out of the office drawer or having your personal mail franked.

My ex-husband told me a story about a friend of his. This chap bought a hi-fi and took it home on the bus. Idiotically he went upstairs. You can imagine what happened. The bus jerked as he was walking down the stairs to get off at his stop and he dropped the lot. When he got home and found it was all damaged he took it back to the store, demanded to see the manager and said, 'What is this load of old rubbish you sold me?' Of course, he got it replaced. Funny it may be and yes we know the store could probably afford it, but it is hardly the point. Yet most of us would have probably done the same and thought no more about it. We certainly would not have thought ourselves as being dishonest or immoral. Yet we would have been.

Gossip is also another area where self-discipline is needed. It is not right to discuss other people with other people. Here is another example why.

I was in a house in Munich and having a very thin time of it. My landlady who let me stay there for 3 months rent free whilst I taught her healing, said she would help me by lending me money and if I couldn't pay it back it didn't matter. Then one day a shop keeper I knew slightly asked me if my landlady had any more places to rent. I told him yes, she had recently had 10 tenants leave and gave him her number. I found out later that they discussed me and she found out from him that I was planning to go to a different country than she originally thought. So she didn't give me the money because she thought it was the wrong place for me. She also decided at that point that she didn't want me there. I lost everything I owned and was homeless for the next 2 months. So much for gossip – get the picture!

When people talk about other people we have the result of Chinese Whisper. The information starts out as correct and ends up anything but. Don't do it. Talk about things that matter. Global warming, reincarnation, think of ideas to recycle and save the planet, recipes for healthy food, how to improve state education or how to home teach your children or start a spiritual school of your own. Or talk about the classics, Bronte, Austen or Turner's paintings. Things that are wholesome. We all talk too much anyway. Don't waste your breath talking about mundane things like soaps (you shouldn't be watching such rubbish anyway). In fact at the time of writing I have not had a TV for 6 years. In the evening I read, paint or go for a walk or watch a DVD of my own choosing that I know isn't going to be full of sex, violence or obscene language.

There are three types of thought, constructive, destructive and neutral. Talking about everyday things, what you need from the shops, where you have to be at what time, just the minutiae of everyday life, is neutral. Saying bad things about people, saying you hate them, wish them dead, insulting a person's race, religion or country and similar expressions, are destructive. Constructive thought is talking about anything that is beautiful, from G-d to the flowers and trees around us or that which helps others to understand. Time spent with a therapist is constructive, reading your children a story. In short, anything that enhances or beautifies.

## The Divine Principle of Awareness

Awareness is basically thinking about the possible outcome of our hopes, wishes and desires. Before we undertake anything we should meditate and find out if it is right for us and if it is right from a universal point of view. Asking a married woman for a date, even if she accepts is hardly following a divine principle because it is the start of an affair. You may be single but unless the lady in question is in the throes of divorce, she is not free and an affair will rebound on her children. Although it takes two, it is also not right to put temptation in someone else's way. I remember a man asking me out to a party. I wanted to go but felt I should decline. Later I found out he was living with someone. I was glad I'd said no.

Negative thought is lack of awareness which can create some very bad situations. Lack of awareness can be called evil because of the effect it has. People who hate others; kill others; are permanently angry; feel they have had a raw deal and take it out on the rest of the world; get drunk and beat their wives and kids, have total unawareness of how their actions affect others. There is a saying from the book, 'A Course in Miracles' that every word that isn't love is a cry for help or healing. Admittedly if you were attacked and you said to your attacker that he wasn't loved or wanted as a child and he needs help, it would make him attack you all the more. You can't help anyone who has not realised that they need help but it makes it easier for you to forgive a person who acts out of unawareness.

So awareness in this instance means thinking how your actions affect others. We have already seen how being immoral affects others, whether it is by creating unwanted children or having an affair and ruining other peoples lives. When we buy a house often we get the best we can afford without thinking what would happen if we lost our job or the mortgage rate went up. This is not being pessimistic but sensible. Sometimes we even buy a home that is above our means being sure we will get a rise in salary or a better job. This is being irresponsible. People, caught up in greed, spend their lives trying to get more and more of the best, when the Law is that we should seek money for no other reason than to have enough for ourselves and our families and to help the poor. We should not seek money and possessions for their own sake, yet many people do. This makes us aggressive and we start to lose the qualities of basic decency and humanity when we want everything for ourselves and our families even if it means depriving others.

So awareness is about thinking before you act no matter what the action is. If it involves other people you must think if it is the right thing to do. Sending your children to a boarding school when they are sensitive and are better off at home, just because you, your father and grandfather went there is a typical example. Moving to another part of the country or even abroad to take a job you really want when it means taking your children away from their friends and bringing them to a country where they don't speak the language, where your wife doesn't either and won't know anyone sounds selfish unless everyone thinks it's a good idea and a great adventure.

Awareness is also about purchasing things. Buying leather shoes might be alright because the animal was killed for its meat but alligator and snakeskin aren't because they would have been killed expressly for their skin. This is not just awareness but encompasses the principle of respect for all life as well.

One thing I abhor is those who make money out of the misfortune of others. People who buy houses at auction cheaply because they have been repossessed because the owner lost his job and could not pay. This can never be right.

To illustrate this, here is a little anecdote.

A poor man named Ramas went to see his guru because he had borrowed money from a money lender. The money lender was now threatening him but the poor man was unable to pay.

'Don't worry,' said the guru, 'I will sort everything.'

The guru then went to pay a call on the money lender.

When the money lender saw who was at the door, he bowed low and welcomed the guru into his beautifully rich home. Thick Turkish rugs covered the floor and the hand made wooden furniture inlaid with precious woods, shone bright enough to light the room.

The money lender bade the guru be seated, offered him refreshment and asked him what he could do for him although he already had a good idea. Everyone knew everyone and so he already knew this was Ramas' guru and why he had come. But business was business, he told himself, and religion was quite another matter.

The guru sat quietly for a minute and then said, can you do a little favour for me?'

'If it is about Ramas.......'

'No,' said the guru, taking a gold needle from his pocket. 'No, what I want you to do is this,' he said, handing the gold needle over to the money lender.

'I want you to take this and have it buried with you when you die. Then bring it back to me when you re-incarnate.'

'But that is impossible,' said the money lender.

'Precisely,' said the guru, and left.

## The Divine Principle of Respect for All Life

This is a big subject and covers more areas than one would at first think. So let us begin with the planet. The planet is a being in her own right and anything one does to harm her or anything that is part of her (forests, oceans etc.,) is going against Divine Law. That means always using biodegradable products, (although even the so called environmental products can be improved upon). For the washing machine you can get 'washing nuts' and that is exactly what they are, nuts! You can get them from the health shops or over the internet and so there is no need to use any form of detergent. It is possible to get a waterless toilet that composts the waste. Using oil should be avoided at all costs because it is the life blood of the planet, just as we have blood in our veins. We stick it in our cars which in turn pollute the atmosphere and cause global warming, and in central heating systems, yet solar panels have been around for years and in India are put in the poorest homes, the energy being used as a chief source of light in the evenings. Then there is zero point or free energy which would mean we would not need nuclear power plants.

Pesticides which poison the insects, plants, soil, water supplies and us, are not necessary when there is such a thing as companion planting. For example, the carrot root fly hates onions so planting onions and carrots together acts as a natural deterrent. There are many other combinations, mostly found in books on organic gardening and offering other natural deterrents so that pesticides could easily become a thing of the past.

Killing animals is our next port of call. In the beginning we did not really need to eat anything except fruit and nuts because the planet was such a beautiful place, the climate was perfect, as portrayed by the Garden of Eden, Atlantis and Camelot. As we fell and became coarser beings, so are bodies became heavier. The climate changed too because everything we think and do affects everything around us. Our anger caused places to become dry. Our emotional imbalance caused rainfall, our confusion fog. The animals also took their cue from us and became more aggressive mainly in order to protect themselves and some plants did the same by developing spikes. It has been proven that if you talk to cacti lovingly so that they feel safe, they lose their spines.

Eating animals is against Divine Law because, except for some, they have individual souls, in the same way we do. There is no difference in essence between the soul of a human being, a dog or a reindeer. All will become pure spiritual beings one day, (and so will a tree), it is just a different form of expression. So eating an animal is really no different from eating or killing another person and eating them, from a soul point of view. Of course, many of us need meat or if not meat certainly fish, because of our cold and damp climate and because of our individual metabolisms. Also remember that you are what you eat and that men, who in the main have too much yang energy, might do better on a vegetarian whilst women, on the other hand, who are too pliant, may need meat in order to give them a yang boost and help them to stand up for themselves.

If you must eat animals then eat those that do not have individual souls but are on a group soul. This will only give you chicken and turkey on the meat front and lamb but as lambs are babies that is taboo too unless you are extremely ill and need a large boost of yang energy. Lamb is more yang than any other meat. Goat is also definitely off the menu and pig because the DNA of a pig is so similar to ours it would almost be like cannibalism. Also, pigs have individual souls. They are intelligent and you can train them, like dogs.

If you do eat meat, then, unless it is kosher meat, you need to add a few drops of Bach flower remedy Aspen and Mimulus to your cooking, as animals are killed in fear, and you will ingest this. With fish, add Rescue Remedy to counteract the stress they felt at being caught. Fish that is also taboo because it has an individual soul is crab, lobster, langoustine, oysters and large fish such as shark or tuna, so you need to stick to plaice, cod, rock, haddock, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, prawns and shrimps, as these are on a group soul. This means that there is one soul guiding a group of animals or fish as opposed to an individual soul residing in its body. But of course, it still feels pain. Always bless your food at your main meal and if it is fish or meat say an extra prayer for its soul. Be mindful that you eat by the grace of G-d, good karma notwithstanding. He can, any time He wishes, take everything away from you as He did to Job.

From eating animals we come to working in a butcher's shop or tanning factory, where animals have been slaughtered. In fact, we need to look at our jobs to see if we are doing anything to cause harm.

Many years ago I worked as a secretary. In fact from the time I left school I spent nearly 20 years in the commercial world. I found myself living in an area where the only work I could get was working for companies that made defence and communication equipment for aircraft; medical drugs; chemical fertilisers and pesticides. I refused the jobs as being unethical and was out of work for a number of months. I could not claim unemployment benefit because refusing a job on ethical grounds was not an accepted excuse. But I survived and eventually found a company that made sellotape!

We therefore need to look at this area of our life too, to make sure we are not making money by working in an industry that harms other people, the planet or animals.

I am sure I do not have to tell you that killing another person is wrong. The ancient martial arts teachers always say that if there is trouble, be somewhere else. It isn't cowardice, it's common sense because to take a life is a very grave business. If you are unable to, 'get away' then do the minimum amount of damage to escape.

Killing people during war depends very much on the circumstances at the time. Wars these days are started by governments and rarely have anything to do with the wishes of the people. We could avoid it by all becoming conscientious objectors, but then both parties would need to participate. Mahatma Gandhi may have got the whole of India to strike on the same day but I doubt if we could build that kind of solidarity in the west, yet if we could, there'd never be any more fighting. How wonderful that would be!

There is a story of a yogi who was beaten up by thugs. Being a pacifist he would not retaliate and it was a group of people who saved him by beating the thugs off. How you act will depend very much on where you are on the spiritual ladder and what dependents you have. There is, certainly, an argument for killing others in self-defence, especially if a friend or family member is suddenly attacked by a maniac with a knife. After all, one may be in a position where one has no choice. Also saving others during times of war, (if the war be unavoidable) shows courage. It is therefore up to you to look at the situation, knowing full well the law and working within it as best you can.

It also goes without saying that sentencing anyone to death is wrong. People need the opportunity to repent and change their lives. If murderers and the like are safely locked away from society then they should be given their full length of life to change and change some of them do, from murderers to priests. As only G-d gives life, it is only right that He should be the only one to take it away.

## Divine Devotion

I have written this as the last principle but in fact it should be the first. Yet I have placed it here because it is probably the hardest one of all to do.

What exactly does Divine Devotion mean? Well, it means many things. It means believing in G-d as the Creator of all things and the Source of All Life and therefore never taking His name in vain or swearing in the name of G-d. It means thinking of G-d in everything you do and doing everything as if you were doing it for Him. We have a perfect example in Brother Lawrence, the monk who did the washing up for G-d. He said that to him, meditation time was no different from any other, (see The Practice of the Presence of God, Being Letters and Conversations with Brother Lawrence). This was because his mind was centred on G-d the whole time. This is how our life goes perfectly and smoothly, even if one has an ordinary job. There is a saying, 'if you cannot do your work with love it is better to sit on the steps of the temple and beg from those who love their work.'

Before I had my children I used to get up at 6.30am. I would do *japa until it was time to drive to work. I did not forget because as soon as I woke up I was confronted by a sign on the bedroom wall, opposite my bed, which said, peace and love. I was in work for 8am. At 9am, if my bosses were out, I would close the door, look out of the window at the sky and imagine a beautiful 6 pointed golden star and I would say, 'at the magical hours of 3, 6, 9 and 12, I will attune myself to the Christ spirit and send forth the Light.' I would then image great rays of light going out from it. This would take only 2 minutes but I would extend it to 5 if no one was around. I would repeat it at the other hours if possible. If my bosses were in, I would disappear into the Ladies for a couple of minutes or stop on the stairs which had big windows and do the little prayer and visualisation there.

In the evening when I cooked I would think that I was cooking the meal for G-d and therefore it had to be done with love, as did the washing up of His crockery and utensils as well as cleaning His house. When I had a bath I would throw in a handful of salt to remind myself I must always be pure in every way. Apart from meditation in the evening I would also say, 'please G-d, let me be like Jesus.'

I would also not make any decisions without meditating on them or asking my guide if it was the right thing to do, that way I knew I would not be making a mistake or making a choice from ego.

## Paradoxes

The 10 Commandments are immutable laws, they cannot be changed. There is no excuse, as a spiritual seeker, for not following them. Killing is wrong, adultery is wrong. These are G-d's Laws. But there are exceptions to this rule here on earth. Why?

It has to do with learning.

Earlier I talked about the man who could not get a divorce because his wife was jealous and possessive. I said that as the result was 3 unhappy people it was better to forgive and move on. Yet, in my example of Mrs.W and Mr. Y, I said that it was right for Mr. Y to stay with his wife and that Mr. W had cheated on Mrs. W for her actions in a previous life. Surely they both can't be right, yet they are. People who are exceptionally spiritually aware, live the right way, as well as those who are still enmeshed in the karma system and need to learn, need difficulties in their lives in order to make the right choices. Although when we marry it is for better or worse, maybe the words should be changed to, 'until we have sorted out past karma'. If a woman who is always possessive and jealous has a husband who has an affair, well, it is not really surprising, she must have driven him nuts. If she allowed him a divorce so that he could remarry, it would show that she was no longer jealous or possessive. That she has learnt to be aware of other peoples feelings rather than just her own and therefore she has progressed. What happens to us in life is for our learning, but it takes someone of high wisdom to know which couple have to lie on the bed that they have made, and which can get divorced and remarry in the hope of a happier life.

# Celibacy and the Spiritual Path

Much has been written about the above subject, and, all in all, with such differing views, it is hard for the aspirant to know what is right. The main consensus of opinion is that for those who wish to become spiritual masters or higher, then total celibacy is called for. In fact, the reason why all Catholic priests are celibate is because it is believed that *Jesus and his disciples were. Yet the Jewish priesthood which consisted of the tribe of Levi, were married. What is more, if we look at past history, Yogananda's teacher the very, venerated Swami Sri Yukteswar was married and had a daughter, but as far as I understand it, his wife died before he became an avatar. Sri Yukteswar's own teacher Lahiri Mahasaya was married and slept in the same room as his wife. They had several children. She moved out of their bedroom when she woke up in the middle of the night and saw him levitating in front of his altar. Milarepa's teacher was married with a son and the Hindu saint Ramakrishna was married to Sarada, but she moved out of their bedroom after six months because he spent all night, every night, in meditation. Confused? I'm not surprised.

Firstly, making love is meant to be the worship of the Divine Creative Principle in each other, bearing in mind that the energy to create a child is the same as creating a planet and is therefore not meant to be entered into lightly. Also, the reason why those who wish to become Spiritual Masters or higher are usually celibate is because they cannot have any desires. As sex is the strongest desire there is and it is almost impossible to have sex without it, (unless one is an avatar, in which case they can take it or leave it), then they are usually celibate or have been celibate for a long time to prove that they can rise above this desire. Men in particular find it next to impossible to be married and keep away from their wives. It can be done but many consider it such a strain that they stay single and use their energy to better purposes. Women who have reached the level of Spiritual Master may be married or unmarried, as with women the desire nature is generally not so strong. If you think I am being biased in favour of women, no chance!

Another reason why Spiritual Masters of both sexes, are usually unmarried and therefore celibate, (they can't have affairs, it's immoral), is they have to be available if needed. A marriage is not going to last long if he goes rushing out to an emergency and she has just put dinner on the table. Occasionally it might be alright but not if it is a frequent occurrence. By the same token, he is not going to be amused if he comes home from work and finds no dinner because she has had to rush off to an emergency, or is out until 2am trying to talk someone out of committing suicide, or even bringing that person home for the night, until she can get them straight. No domestic felicity there.

It is therefore not just about sexual desire, but also about freedom to do what is needed. Jesus and his disciples could hardly have done their job hampered by wives and children, and, of course, it is believed that Peter chose to leave his behind, although to be fair, he didn't realise he would never be going back. For the average person starting on the spiritual path, it is enough to follow Divine Law and keep sex only for marriage. It is also important to mention at this point, that sex inside marriage can also be a 'sin' if the reason for it is not the expression of love, but is merely one of lust.

For those who reach the level of Spiritual Master and above, sex, in this instance called 'sacred sex,' is sometimes allowed but you will find it isn't quite what you think. First you have to be above desire so that you can take it or leave it. Secondly, it is only permitted if both parties meditate the whole time!

Sacred sex has nothing to do with physical sex: it is to do with sacred energy. No physical interaction is necessary, at the highest level, i.e. the couple both being avatars. Spiritual energy is generated between two people and that energy, at its height, moves through the chakras. This causes both a physical and spiritual sensation; more akin to spiritual bliss than anything else although usually only avatar couples practice this, and they are very few and far between.

Some couples, who are not at the ultimate level, may find that some physical contact is necessary, similar to the Taoist way of making love, but it is still on a much higher vibration than the normal western style which takes no account of spirituality and is purely the satisfaction of animal desire.

If this is what you want, you might find Jon Blofeld's Taoist books useful as he speaks on the matter, as does Daniel Reid, in his book, The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity, except that he looks on it from the point of view of health and not from the 'sex is sacred' angle. Both books as well as the internet give information for men on conserving their stock of 'essence' or 'jing' For those who are interested in elevating their sexual energy, I offer remedies for sacred sex and sacred part of my Rainbow Remedies range available from my site.

However, many of you who are reading this have already probably had several partners and may even be despairing! Don't worry, all is not lost.

We do not, unfortunately, live in a world where morality is foremost, rather the reverse. Gone are the days of Jane Austin where women were chaperoned and there are few religions where this still happens. In fact, sex and the encouragement to be promiscuous is everywhere, on the high street, on the telly and on the beach! Women who sunbathe with a full bathing suit are likely to be the odd one out!

We also live in a time where the earth's vibration is at an all time high, at least since the days of Atlantis, and so it follows that we are getting through our karma quicker. This means that we often meet people who we were married to in previous lives and who still have an attraction for us, although it may not be relevant in our current time. This is why it is so important to have either an astrology chart done; or a reading, past life or otherwise, to ascertain where the relationship stands, and to cut past life ties and move on if necessary. This can also happen within marriage: it is no longer 'till death us do part,' but more like, 'until we have paid out karma to each other,' and moved on.

# Health and Spirituality

The body is the temple of the spirit. What do we mean by this? Simply that it houses the divine spirit in the same way that symbolically a church is the house of G-d. Just as people look after their churches and places of worship and would not let them fall apart so we need to treat our body with the same respect and keep it in as perfect a state as we can. We do this by eating sensibly, which means no junk food (because it contains chemical additives which cause cancer and artificial sweetener which also causes cancer as well as diabetes and destroys the optic nerve). Avoid food containing hydrogenated oil (causing arterio-schlerosis), white sugar (a veritable poison) which destroys the vitamins in our body and can cause violence, especially when combined with white refined products as in cake and cereal, (see Guarding the Three Treasures by Daniel Reid), tap water which, in the UK, is probably the worst in the world, use a water filter or better still, bottled spring water. Aluminium cookware, causes Alzheimer's and microwaved food (causes cancer). Genetically Modified food which, as far as I am aware, the government is still trying to introduce, causes the cells of the human body to mutate resulting in organ failure and death, what's more, this condition is hereditary. It is, therefore, sad to see, that at the time of writing, the Soil Association which licenses organic food growers in the UK, allows food to be classed as organic even though it may contain up to ½ % GMO. In Germany I have also noticed that organic hydrogenated oil is in organic foods even though making it organic does not lessen the harm it does. Eating organic and cooking in glass, stainless steel, enamel or Le Cruset cookware over an open fire, or gas, is the best way to stay healthy. EMF's from electrical appliances, microwave transmitters (and ovens), power lines, transformers, radar stations, the computer and especially wi-fi hubs, cause cancer and I personally won't even use an electric kettle! If you don't believe me, look at the studies by Dr. Robert Becker and Dr. David Savitz, which can be found on the internet, with references in Daniel Reid's book, Guarding the Three Treasures. Exposing yourself to EMF radiation actually cooks you! You may as well stick yourself in a microwave oven!

As to foods, cheese and yoghurt should not be eaten to excess because they clog the system, as does milk, unless it is raw, unpasteurised and TB tested only, and with some types, milk is only suitable if boiled, nor should we drown everything in vinegar based products, pickles and ketchup as it pickles the insides (you've seen what it does to onions), nor cover everything with salt, even sea salt. Sugared, fizzy drinks as well as tons of chocolate is not conducive to good health, nor are tons of chips, doughnuts, burgers, prepared meals or processed meat, like ham and salami. Red meat should be kept to a minimum and avoided altogether if possible, as it decomposes in the system before it is expelled and so you have toxins running around the bloodstream. Too much red meat can cause bowel cancer. It is also a good idea to find out if you need a special dietary system like Hay or Ayuveda.

So, now I suppose you are thinking that there is nothing left to eat. Well, you'd be wrong. How about dried fruit such as apricots (unsulphured) and dates with muesli, for breakfast? If you find muesli too hard and grainy, you can always soak it overnight in a little spring water. This along with wholemeal bread toasted (better still if it is spelt or rye), with fresh butter and honey and organic tea means you will survive until lunch. Or freshly squeezed juice, plain yoghurt topped with fresh fruit, a little honey and sprinkled with chopped nuts, is another alternative (but not peanuts which is also a carcinogenic food). Then there is always yummy porridge sweetened with honey or fruit spread. Even better is its vegan counterpart made with water after which you stir in ground almonds to make it creamy and add a sweetener such as maple syrup and a little cinnamon? Mid morning, banana or flapjack, and rose hip tea. Lunch, tofu burger and salad, or vegetable soup. As for sandwiches how about these:- date and cottage cheese; mushroom pate and salad sandwich; avocado and alfalfa sprouts, all made with wholegrain bread, or jacket potato with coleslaw, the list is endless if you think about it. In the evening, bean stew with creamy mashed potatoes, thick lentil and/or bean soup, ratatouille, stir fry Chinese vegetables with tofu etc., etc. and we haven't even added fish yet! For yummies, I make a Victoria sponge cake but substitute honey for sugar. It still rises and comes out perfectly. I add ground almonds or hazlenuts to the mixture which gives it a nice flavour and texture. When it is done I put a sugar free jam in the centre such as St. Dalfour (be careful that some jams say sugar free but contain artificial sweetener). Or I make a chocolate sponge by adding organic cocoa powder and use cocoa powder, butter and honey for the filling (you can also use carob). There are plenty of recipes where you can omit sugar and put honey in instead. Always eat fresh. You can keep a packet of frozen peas for emergencies and a tin of baked beans too, but don't make a habit of it, especially as tin foods are heat treated, in the can. Deep fried food should be kept to a minimum as they promote free radicals which are cancer causing cells, but you can bake chips in the oven, covered in olive oil and herbs. When cooking, use olive oil, a little butter or ghee. Make sure that everyday you have some fresh fruit, salad or raw vegetables and as these are the only alkaline foods, then try and have them with each meal. The idea of meat and 2 veg is really perfect because there is twice as much alkaline (vegetables) to acid (meat) and one does not want too much acid food.

I am often asked about fasting. Everyone should fast occasionally to give the body a rest and to clear out toxins. Eating fruit only on a weekend is good or just having a day with mineral water to which a little red grape juice has been added. For those who wish to become Spiritual Masters, then fasting is a good way to lighten the body and make it a clearer channel for meditation. At Easter I fast in preparation for Darshan, which is a combined healing and blessing service, rarely seen outside of India.

Now that you know you are not going to starve, what else do you need to do to be healthy? Make sure you have exercise. Twenty minutes yoga a day should keep you fit for life or go swimming or walking regularly. Add meditation and you can't go wrong.

If you are ill I suggest you go first to a homoeopath or herbalist, or go to the doctor, find out what is wrong, bin the prescription and treat yourself, (which is what I used to do). Mind you, make sure you know your stuff first. Unless, Heaven forbid, you are taken seriously ill and need to go to hospital, than take the natural medicine approach because nearly all orthodox medicine harms us, as it is too strong for the body and takes over the bodies function rather than cures it.

You have to remember that all illnesses (including accidents) are the result of our attitudes, past karma and things we have to learn. This is covered extensively in my other books. Even catching an illness from another person via germs, is not by chance. You were either scared you would get it and your negative attitude drew it to you (fear), or you needed to learn something from that person or something about yourself and the illness gave you a legitimate reason not to go to work thereby giving you time to sort it out.

Hallucinatory drugs are also against Divine Law and frankly I am sick of hearing people tell me that cannabis and other so called 'soft drugs' should be legalised because they aid meditation. It is not an argument I am prepared to go into other than that the answer is no, no and again no!

Gem Remedies such as *amethyst aid meditation, so does listening to soothing music, whether new age or classical. There are no short cuts to the spiritual path, but then no one has ever said it was easy.

As already mentioned, we have for years taken blood transfusions for granted and now no one thinks twice about the ethics of transplants but this is not the way to solve our health problems. Firstly, every cell of our body contains our soul memory as well as our personality. When we receive a blood transfusion we are taking into ourselves a part of the other person, not just the way they are now but how they were: their soul memory. Enough people have attested, and so have their families, to a person's change in character since they had a transfusion. It has also been proved that people who have had a blood transfusion, show, when tested, two sets of DNA! Spare part surgery is even worse because it is a solid object that becomes part of you. Admittedly a blood transfusion may be necessary in an accident as a life saving procedure, in which case it will have to be sorted out afterwards. It is possible to have your own blood stored in case you ever need it. Organ transplants are another matter. People who need them have usually been ill for some time and have had, therefore, an opportunity to get to the root of the trouble by going to a homoeopath, healer or a person with insight

Self-understanding is the key that unlocks the door to the universe and often we are taught to unlock that door through our suffering. Also, please note that I am not for a minute suggesting that you should let your children or other family members die by refusing such treatment, I am merely pointing out the karmic reasons against it.

We must not, under this heading, forget about hygiene, a subject I would not have thought necessary to mention in this day and age. But having travelled around a great deal and stayed in many homes, I am appalled at the goings on of people. The people I stayed with were all supposed to be well educated, spiritual people yet I found they had dirty toilets, didn't change their sheets, didn't wash their clothes, would roll out pastry on cracked surfaces, stick a fork in a piece of meat to see if it was done and then stick the same utensil in a meal for a vegetarian and the horror of horrors, washing raw meat in the sink, chopping it up on a board, then washing the board with a sponge and using the same sponge, now covered in bits of raw meat, and probably salmonella, to wash up other dishes! Words fail me!

# Money and Spirituality

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people on the spiritual path are poor and for a variety of reasons. Many people think it is wrong to have money and that it is not possible to be spiritual with it. This in actual fact is nonsense and our belief is due to a misunderstanding of Jesus' teaching when he sent his disciples into the towns by two's telling them to take nothing with them. 'Freely you have received, now freely give.' At that time it was important for him to make a distinction between himself and his disciples as compared with the rich Pharisees who pretended to uphold the law. Of course, it was fine for those days when there was a tradition of wandering rabbi's. It still works in India which abounds with gurus and wandering *Saddhus, but it doesn't work in the west where it is not safe to sleep out, not only because of the climate but because you will probably be set upon during the night, if not by muggers, then by the police with their policy of zero tolerance. Also, in Jesus' time all the teachers were men, but now we have women teachers as well, it is impractical for them to live like this and impossible when one has children, so money is a necessity.

Another reason why people on the spiritual path are poor is because the tradition is that spiritual advice was freely given by the nuns and monks who survived due to donations from benefactors (and starved when there weren't any). So the tradition has come down to us that spiritual people do not need to be paid because someone else will and that as spirituality is a gift from G-d it should be free. I'll tell you right now, spirituality is not a gift from G-d and there are no such things as spiritual gifts, one has to work for them and it is harder than getting any university degree. Don't believe me? Try it! A spiritual master once said to me, 'a labourer is worthy of his hire'. As for not paying because someone else will, obviously if everyone passes the buck then the Spiritual Masters won't get paid at all!

No, the real reason why spiritual people are poor, apart from the reasons I have just mentioned, is that G-d or our spiritual guides often keep us poor while we are training. It is easy to love G-d to the 'nth' degree when you have food, warmth, friends and a decent home. The picture may be a little different when you're cold, hungry and walking the streets. Spiritual tests of such magnitude certainly separate the wheat from the chaff.

There is also another reason. Few on the spiritual path can claim that money means nothing. They may say it doesn't bother them but if they lost their home you'd soon know all about it. It is fine to have money provided you are not attached to it, as this little anecdote illustrates.

A rich man was going off to see his guru, when his grown up daughter asked to go with him.

'What do you want to come with me for?' her father asked, 'how can my guru possibly interest you? After all, there is no difference between us. I am rich, my guru is rich. I have three cars, my guru has three cars.' But she persisted so he took her with him.

When they arrived the father went off to talk to some of his friends in the ashram and the daughter went to see the guru and related what her father had said. The guru then sent for her father.

'You cheeky monkey,' he said. 'We may both be rich men but I can walk out of here wearing nothing but a loin cloth without the least compunction but you can't put your hand in your wallet for a £5 note without it causing you extreme pain!'

So it isn't the money that is the problem and often thought of as a barrier to spirituality, but one's attachment to it.

This is further exemplified by the person who asked Jesus what he must do to have eternal life. Jesus is supposed to have replied, 'Take everything you have and give it to the poor, then come and follow me.' To which the horrified man replied,

'Everything I own, everything my father worked for?'

After the man had walked away Jesus said to his disciples,

'See, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.'

By this Jesus didn't mean that we should have nothing, but our attitude was all important.

If you are short of money or can't get a job, you need to find out why. Initially feng shui may help.

One also must look at one's attitude to money. Do you feel guilty taking it? Do you feel you don't deserve it? Is it something rooted in childhood?

Money is the only common currency we have, and although I would like to see a moneyless society, until we rid the world of greed, it isn't going to happen except in those isolated communities that have cut themselves off from the main economy, are self-sufficient and barter for the rest. So while we live in the world we have to change our attitude and as Barbara Wilder says in her book of the same name, understand that 'Money is Love.'

In this way we will be happy to take what we have earned and happy to pay others for what we have used, bought or rented. If you are not happy paying others for what they have provided, than that too needs to be looked at. If you resent paying your landlord because you think the house you are in is a dump, than why are you there? Is it karma from another life or something you have failed to learn? Or do you look around at others who have plenty, are thoroughly nasty people and evoke the green eyed monster?

Remember, everything happens for a reason. People may get rich from walking on the wrong side of the law, and appear to get away with it, and that's the word, 'appear.' In reality, no one escapes their karma. The mafia boss, swanning around in his top of the range saloon, could well find himself a street kid in Mexico or Calcutta, in his next life. Not much comfort to you now in yours but if you don't get rid of your negative attitudes, it could be you too! And don't forget, everyone has their own covenant with G-d, like the man who went to the marketplace at dawn to hire a couple of labourers and agreed a fixed sum for the day. He went back twice later on in the day and hired more people for the same price, at which point the first two labourers complained saying that it wasn't fair that he had more people now working for lesser hours for the same money. But the man said to them, that they had agreed a price and so they had no reason to complain if he offered the same rate to others for less hours, it was none of their business, they had already made their contract.

You will recognise this story, of course, from the New Testament; I've just put it in a modern version, but it gets the point across. Everyone has their own path and they need to get on with it. If one looks at others, one will always be dissatisfied.

# Religion and Spirituality

Is religion a hindrance to spirituality or can it enhance it, is a question I am frequently asked? The answer is, it depends on the religion. The Sikhs are allowed to go outside their faith if it will help them obtain union with G-d, which it says is the aim of life. I do not know another faith that actually states this as a goal.

The Church of England, Protestant and Catholic faiths seem to me to be a hindrance because they say it is dangerous to meditate and do not accept reincarnation even though there are two unmistakable references to it in the Bible. The first is when the priests ask John the Baptist who he is. He replies,

'I am not the Messiah, he is yet to come.'

They then say,

'If you are not the Messiah or the Prophet Elijah, who are you?'

Well, as we all know, and they did too, that Elijah was dead, what else can be said? Reincarnation was always a part of the Jewish teaching and is in the *Kabbala, the Jewish mystical teaching. In fact it goes so far as to say that there are 3 types of beings. Those that incarnate generally, those who incarnate for special purposes and those that don't incarnate at all.

Next, when Jesus' disciples returned from being sent into the towns by 'two's' and Jesus asked them,

'Who do people say I am?'

They replied,

'Some say you are Jeremiah, or the prophet Elijah or even Ezekiel.'

It has to be remembered that Jesus was Jewish and that he had not come to destroy the law. Therefore the law stands and it was still standing with its views on reincarnation until the middle of the 6th century when the 5th Ecumenical Council threw it out. Emperor Justinian is reported to have said, 'If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema.'

I have also found that when Catholic priests baptise a child, the ceremony blocks their third eye or *ajna centre (the space between the eyebrows), from which higher states of meditation are reached, as well as the seeing of visions. In this way, the Catholic Church have kept people in darkness, especially by their confusing teaching, for thousands of years.

The Hindu faith is another matter altogether and I find it very refreshing that their religion allows gurus of both sexes to comment on and reinterpret for our times, the previous writings of others.

All religions are pure in essence. If we take that essence and live by it, that is fine. It is the conflicts in the teaching and the fact that the majority of priests who are in charge of our salvation, do not have a clue how to go about it, that causes the problems. As Jesus said, 'when the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit.' How many priests do you know who can see Jesus and hear his voice?

Then there is all the formulae for worship and the holidays/holy days, none of which had anything to do with Jesus. For example, the order of service in the Church of England was prepared by Thomas Cranmer, on the order of King Henry VIIIth. Then there is the whole hierarchy of both the Church of England and the Catholic Church, none of which Jesus ever intended. He made it quite clear that he never wanted a church of the bricks and mortar kind, but a community, and this is clear if you look at the translation from Greek into English. In the Greek version of the bible you will find the word' kyrakon' which means community. This has ended up in our English version as 'church' but the Greek for church is 'eklisia' which is nothing like 'kyrakon'. In fact, the churches started out as a community in the true sense, with a group of elders in charge. These elders were chosen for their spirituality and the 'community' was supposed to be run in this way, ad infinitum. By the middle of the 5th century however, Pope Leo 1 had taken the title of Pontifex Maximus and this led the way to decline and corruption by controlling the people through the priesthood which gave the church money, influence and political power. The Christian Church thinks it has the monopoly on heaven by saying that no one can go to G-d except through Christ. The church means Jesus of course, but the real meaning is that of the Christ Spirit. Anyone can become Christed if they have gone through the appropriate spiritual training.

When, at the last supper, Jesus gave his disciples bread and wine and told them, 'this is my body and this is my blood, do this in remembrance of me,' it was meant for them alone because he was sharing with them his crucifixion, and bonding them to him so that they would have the strength to carry on. In other words he was asking them to, 'put on the Mantle of Christ,' which is too hard for the majority of people to do, for to put on the 'Mantle of Christ' means to be like him. Also, the Church has never given the true explanation for Jesus' death. They say it was because he took away the sins of the world and that is why he died. The church teaches that he died to save us, but we can only save ourselves. As a rule, one can't take away anyone else's sin or karma, except in exceptional circumstances, because they have to pay their karma themselves. How else will they learn, because that is what karma is? All one can do, if someone is suffering and has come to the end of their karma, is take the illness away. But any natural medicine practitioner or healer can do that if the time is right.

When Jesus rose from the dead by recreating his body, he was proving the possibilities of man.

'What I can do, all men can do. Yea greater things than these shall you all do.'

Jesus was an *avatar and he was showing us not only what we could, but what we would all do one day. This is the Salvation. By becoming Christ-like, we clear our karma and end re-birth and can do the miracles that Jesus did. This is the true Salvation, this is true freedom, freedom from the wheel of re-birth. This is being saved!

Revelations talks about Armageddon but I have not heard any priests say the truth, that is, that Armageddon is already here. It started when Jesus was crucified, the curtain in the Temple was rent in two and the sky went dark and blotted out the sun. It has been dark ever since. Armageddon also started because Jesus was crucified, it was global karma for what the world, or rather the people in it, did to hi

# Suffering and Spirituality

There is nearly always suffering for those who earnestly tread the spiritual path, not because G-d wants us to suffer, He doesn't, but because we have to be tested and testing necessarily involves pain. G-d needs to know if we will deny Him and so we may be faced with financial and emotional loss as well as lunatic neighbours, tyrannical bosses and corrupt councils. How you face these hardships and whether you suffer or not depends on your nature. Some people will face any adversity stoically and even with good humour. Others will not. How one faces up to these tests is less important than passing the test itself. Not denying or cursing G-d for the position one is in, being, in part, the object of the exercise. Remember the trials of poor Job and yes it can get as bad as that.

Suffering also helps us to progress as long as it is linked to meditation. As we go through our trials, so G-d will monitor our thoughts and as we pass our tests so our spiritual level and abilities will increase. It is also important to understand why we are suffering and not to just accept it and put up with it. It is necessary to know if this is a test or the outworking of karma from a past life.

# Escaping your Karma

There is a lovely anecdote about a sage who looked at his horoscope and realised he was going to have a hard time for the next 6 months, so to hide from Saturn the Lord of Karma, he turned himself into a hippopotamus and hid in a swamp. When he emerged 6 months later, Saturn was waiting for him.

'Ha, ha, fooled you,' said the sage.

'Not so,' said Saturn, 'I decided you were having such an awful time in that swamp, that there was no need for me to act.'

Although this is allegorical it illustrates a point. In fact I know a real case of a man who was fed up sharing an apartment with a friend, even though he had only been there a couple of months. He wanted his own place. Every time he went to look at an apartment and told his spiritual teacher about it, he lost the apartment. Certain that his spiritual teacher was causing his problems he went and took one without telling him. It had terrible *feng shui not to mention evil spirits. His teacher had in fact been trying to steer him away from unsuitable places because the man had so much karma. The man thought that as the whole thing had dropped right in his lap that it was the right thing to do instead of realising that the dark side had made sure it went smoothly because they wanted him there. Had he contacted his teacher he would have saved himself untold grief instead of blaming his teacher who could see all and was trying to save him. When he moved into the apartment his whole personality changed and he started to act purely from ego. He dropped his teacher and left the path.

A guru can also lessen a person's karma. This sounds contradictory because earlier I said that Jesus did not die to save us because you can't save someone else, but if you read on you will see it isn't quite the same thing. In this instance the guru takes part or all of the person's karma away in order to give the person a chance to pay his karma off which he could not do if he still had it. For example, if you give physical sight back to a blind man, that will enable him to help others and work off his karma which he would have found hard to do if he had continued to be blind. However, if he doesn't pay off his karma or make a substantial effort, he will get his illness back in whole or in part, in this life or in the next. Ones karma can also be lessened by helping people in whatever way we can and being ready to serve.

# Creating Your Own Destiny

We have already seen that we create our own destiny and future lives via our actions. But what, if in this life, everything is going wrong? What if we have no money, no job and everything is a disaster, what can we do? Firstly, we need to look at why this is happening to us and I will give you details further on. Secondly, we can use Feng Shui or creative visualisation to help us as well as a vision board on which we put pictures of what we need and meditate on it for a few minutes every day before we go to bed.

It is said that when we give out we get back. This is not strictly true. It depends on why we give, what we give, our past karma and a multitude of other things. If we give to feel good about ourselves, if we give to be liked, then this is not true giving and it will not be returned to us. If we give because we are being blackmailed in some way, including emotional blackmail, then this is not true giving. There are women who do everything for their husbands because if they don't they will be abused or beaten. This is not true giving, even if they love their husbands, because they are giving out of fear of reprisal, instead they should face the truth, face their fears, leave the person who is abusing them and start a new life where they will be appreciated for their true worth. Of course, it is necessary to get professional help for this and even initially one may have to live in a refuge, but it has to be better than living a life in fear and usually poverty.

Everyone has the ability to create for themselves and finding out why things are not coming to you is something you need to look into deeply. Where is your creative energy going? Has it been taken by someone else? Often women who are abused by their husbands make up their mind they are going to leave the next day, but when the next day comes all their strength of purpose has evaporated. This is because the husband has taken away his wife's strength during the night by absorbing her energy into his *aura, especially if they share the same bed. It takes her all day to get it back (while he is at work) and she vows to leave the next morning, but the pattern repeats itself, because when people are together their auras intermesh so it is necessary to separate the aura if the woman is going to get away and have any kind of life. I have a mixture that does this. It can also be sprinkled on the woman's side of the bed to protect her while she sleeps. I also recommend Tony Buzan's books, especially The Power of Creative Intelligence as well as John Gray's, 'How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have. Also look out for my book, 'Living in Harmony with Feng Shui, a Path to Self-Understanding', (see end).

If having tried all this, it still isn't going well, if you are on the spiritual path, than this could well be your testing ground and a consultation may be necessary to find out why what is happening is happening and where you are supposed to be going!

# Signs or Coincidences?

People come into our lives for our pleasure and benefit, for us to learn or dissolve past karma. Sometimes they stay with us all our lives, at other times they are only there a matter of weeks and then we part or the universe parts us. Often we are upset or angry because a friend has left us because they misunderstood our intentions, or in spite of everything we have done to help them, they have turned against us. This is not something to be troubled by, it is something that has to be looked into, with a, 'what do I need to learn from this' attitude. All connections are there for a reason. In some cases it is the other person that should have learnt and failed, and the universe has taken them out of our lives so that they are not a drain or a burden on us anymore. Sometimes we meet people for no other reason then they lead us to other people. There are signs to keep us from harm as in the case of the chap who had trouble opening his garage door one morning. Giving it a real heave it opened, but then he had trouble with his car door and finally the car engine wouldn't start. He thought about it for a moment, went back into his house and found he had left the bathroom taps running.

The signs could be anything such as constantly catching your clothing on a door handle which jerks you back. This is telling you that you are being held back in some or all of the areas of your life – you need to find out what it is. Then you might hear the telephone ring, often during the night, but there is no one there and if you check the last caller you will see that no one rang. If it happens a lot the universe is telling you that there is a connection you are not making. Recurring dreams are another way for the universe to give us a message.

Not all coincidences are good ones. I remember always wanting to give my healing and blessing services *(Darshan) in a quiet place with peaceful surroundings ( I lived in a large busy, noisy town at the time), and then one day I moved to a suburb and two streets away was a little wooden church in a peaceful garden. But the church hall was booked every weekend by someone teaching country dancing and there was just no space available for me. This actually did not do me any harm but one would have thought that the ideal place turning up would mean that it would work out, but it didn't. When coincidences occur and one feels one is being shown a certain direction to go in, meditate to make sure that it is. I remember once being asked to join a spiritual group. They seemed very nice. The local yoga teacher went there but I couldn't afford it. Not £50 pounds a year back in 1982. And then a miraculous thing happened. I won a £50 premium bond for the first time but something bothered me. One would have thought that the money dropping into my lap like that was a sign from the universe. Fortunately I knew a spiritual master and when I phoned him about it he told me to stay away as the group in question was on the wrong side. I never went but they badgered me for 18 months, before I could shake them off.

If we do not learn and grow, sometimes our circumstances can reflect this and the best way is with mechanical devices. We have all heard of the car that keeps breaking down, yet many mechanic man hours has failed to find the fault. And some people seem to be unlucky because they have the same trouble with all their cars! This could be a way for the universe to say that the person is trying to escape his or her responsibilities and the fact that the car won't take them anywhere is a reflection of this and so it is a good idea to look at your home and try and interpret it in spiritual terms, always remembering that the basement relates to desires and the top of the house to the spiritual aspect. If possible try to correlate the rooms with your chakras although in most cases you will need to double up as hardly any of us have seven room houses!

# What Did I Do Today? & Connections

'What did I do today?' is an exercise I devised in order to help you find out what is happening in your life. I have already mentioned that if people do not like you, are nasty and unpleasant to you, you need to find out why and not just retaliate.

With this exercise you can sort all this out. When you get home from work, select a time before going to bed, when you can review your day. You lie down, or sit in a comfortable chair and do japa: you might even want some soothing music in the background turned down very low. As you relax you recall all the events of the day and see if there was anything that distressed you, anything that did not turn out as well as it should. Were you stressed out and tense? Did anyone talk you into doing something you didn't want to do? Or was it you? Were you selfish and aggressive, refusing to do something quick and simple, because it wasn't your job? Look to see how your responses caused the situations or how you were provoked by what appeared to be an unwarranted attack. Do the same sets of circumstances keep repeating themselves? What were you doing or not doing in order for this to keep happening - what is it you are not learning? Keep a note of any negative situations and see how often they crop up.

When you play, 'what did I do today?' you start to look at repeat patterns. When you have identified a repeat pattern you 'play' Connections. So, if you are always angry when people approach you to do something you don't want to do, when in fact you only had to politely refuse, use Connections to trace it back: in other words, you relax and see where it is coming from or you meditate on it. This is called analytical meditation and is mentioned later on.

Here's an example of how Connections works.

A lady came to me because she was rapidly becoming an alcoholic. She said she drank when she got home from work because she was stressed and depressed over her job and that it had started a couple of years ago. I got her to do the above exercise going back chronologically and asking her to look for the reason this was happening as well as when it started. Next time she came to see me she said she had started to get depressed because her marriage was going wrong which was quite a few years ago. In other words, her problems were more than two years old. I got her to do the exercise several more times. Eventually she said that she had always been depressed, even as a child because of the way her parents had treated her. So now we had got to the root cause, we were able to deal with it. Some of you who do this exercise may need professional help in sorting out the problem once you have found it. You can also try Phyllis Krystal's techniques from her book 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' in order to get rid of unwanted feelings from others. I will give you another example.

A woman in her 50's had no sense of self-worth: she felt as if she was stupid and useless although she was a very intelligent woman with many abilities. Having used Connections she found that her feelings came from her mother who was always telling her she was useless and made sure she felt unwanted and unloved. She used the Phyllis Krystal technique 'figure of 8' exercise to give her mother back all the unwanted traits that had been foisted upon her.

There is also another way of using Connections. Instead of relaxing and seeing what comes when you trace your feelings back, you can use one of Tony Buzan's Mind Maps and make the Connections on paper which may be easier for some people who find they cannot clear their mind enough to relax and go back into their memories.

When you start Connections, take only one problem or negative trait at a time to deal with otherwise you will not have a clear pathway in your mind. If you feel that you are unsympathetic with certain sections of the population and resentful of another group, then just deal with one until it is sorted. For those people who feel worthless and downtrodden you can look at your positive aspects. Write them down using coloured pens, draw pictures instead of words if it is possible, and pin it somewhere for you to see to remind yourself that you are worth something!

Once you have got to the root of your problems, the understanding you gain might clear it away. Alternatively you may need to change your attitude, use a technique or take a remedy to remove it. For example, if you have a problem with anger and have identified its source you might try Bach Flower Remedy Holly to remove it.

People may also come into your life to reflect yourself. The friend who asks for advice, but doesn't listen to it properly then calls again with the same problem. Do you do this? Do you have a friend who says he cannot talk to his wife may mean that you don't talk to yours. So look around you, are the people you know opposite to you or reflections of you?

# The Circle Exercise

Do you have a problem saying 'no' to people and end up being exhausted running around everyone with no time for the things you won't do to? Or just being out of pocket ferrying people about in the car and they don't even offer the petrol money? Then the Circle Exercise is for you!

Although you need to look on a deeper level as to why you can't say 'no,' the Circle Exercise at least helps you to define your priorities and from that you can start work on the 'why?'

For this exercise you need a sheet of A4 paper (or larger), a saucer and a tea plate (or if using bigger paper than larger plates!).

Put the saucer or smaller plate in the centre of the paper and draw round it, then place the larger plate in the same place and draw round that. You'll end up with 2 circles with a narrow gap between the two, and a space beyond the second circle to the edge of the paper. In the smaller circle write the things you like to do and want to do. This could be to do with work, recreation, but preferably both. In the space outside the two circles put the things that you won't do under any circumstances, and is probably one of the things that is now making you life a misery, like a friend or relative who keeps asking you for a lift to the shops and refuses to offer the petrol money (which you need) and expects you to drop what you're doing, or a friend or relative who always turns up at meal times and expects to be fed when you haven't enough to go round as it is, or clients who book a one hour session but stay for two (and only expect to pay for one!), or your husband, who doesn't work set hours, but expects dinner to be ready when he comes in (put a casserole in the oven. If you are the door-mat type, you won't need me to give you ideas!

What goes into the gap between the 2 circles? Things you might do depending on the situation. Whereas you won't give up your free afternoon or allow people to use you as a free ferrying service, you are happy to forgo your afternoon off if a friend or neighbour asks for a lift right away to the hospital where her husband has just been rushed! And yes you'll be happy to get your neighbour's shopping when you get your own because she's broken her leg.

When you've done this then you put it on your bedroom wall where you can't fail to see it, or by the phone so when someone asks, the list is there to remind you to say, 'no!' But then the real work begins, of respecting yourself and why you don't. Childhood trauma is usually the culprit, and women tend to be more affected by this than men by being born into a culture where women are not valued, or a marriage where the husband always has control.

# Being in the Right Place at the Right Time

Strange things can happen to us on the spiritual path, although if we are following our inner guidance they usually work out. But we can find ourselves in what we feel is the wrong place and the wrong situation. Taking the former, we may find that we are living in a house that doesn't feel right for us, and maybe the town doesn't either. This could simply be a staging post along the route to somewhere else and we may just have to wait before we move on: the time is just not right. But usually it is more than that, and we have to contemplate why we are there, why we feel we are stagnating, waiting for something to happen, and see what it is that is blocking our advancement. Usually it is a time for re-capping, something we thought we had dealt with which hasn't been fully investigated, the trauma/negative effects are still within us.

If we find ourselves in the wrong job or the wrong relationship, the same arguments apply. We may have to put up with it a while longer before moving on; or we may have something to learn from it, or maybe we simply need to find our courage to move on! Or we have to stay out of duty, or because of our karma, at least for the time being, in which case the spiritual becomes even more important because it can lift our spirit above the mundane.

# Dealing with Everyday Problems on the Spiritual Path

I have mentioned the above in several places throughout this book but thought it would be a good place to recap.

Firstly, if you have a cold or the 'flu remember this is the bodies way of dealing with toxins and take a natural remedy to help the body restore itself. Whatever physical problems you have and even 'flu and colds count if they are not just isolated incidents, seek the cause. Weather it is asthma, migraine, period pain or viral infections. Germs are not responsible for our diseases although of course, scientifically, they exist. The disease is there and we attract it. So look to see what you are doing or not doing. Is it what you are saying, the way you are acting, what you are feeling? Is it past lives or are you empathising with other people? Is the negativity of other people rubbing off on you? Is your house suffering from bad Feng Shui or geopathic stress? The list is endless.

Situations and relationships also need to be looked at if you or your family is unhappy or you dislike your job, (or can't get one), are constantly short of money, hate the area you live in but when you try to move everything goes wrong. Are you frustrated because whatever you do seems to be blocked?

If you look at your life you may well say that so many things are wrong with it you could spend all day analysing it! Well, that's why we have eternity, to sort things out and why situations follow us from life to life! But seriously, if there is too much to sort out or you find you can't get the answers yourself, then I can help.

So next time you get a migraine, don't reach for the painkillers. Take a natural remedy and sort it out!

# Bringing Up Children on the Spiritual Path

At one time there was really no need for such a heading. Children accompanied their parents to church and did as they were told. There were enough deterrents to make us act, if not spiritually, at least responsibly. I know, I remember my upbringing. School meant that we still got the cane or had our mouths washed out with soap for swearing and swearing didn't need to be bad language, just being disrespectful to a teacher was enough. Should anyone come out with the four letter word, which in my school they never did (and I went to a mixed comprehensive), they would be expelled. Now, trying to just bring our children up to be moral is a battle in itself: I know, I've tried it! If you home educate your children you can be in more control of who they meet but if they go to a normal school, no matter how much you ensure they do not watch anything containing sex, violence or bad language on TV, be sure they will pick it up there. As for reading material, unsuitable magazines about sex abound for young girls and if you ban them (as you should), don't worry, your daughter's friends will have them! Children's books now contain swear words and so does music and it is impossible to check everything. The library service which should vet everything, doesn't, and libraries even have CD's you can borrow with obscene words on the covers for children of any age to see.

Since teachers have not been allowed to discipline children and parents can't smack them, (or cuddle them either, both a ridiculous state of affairs), children have run wild. This type of ban does not stop parents beating their children because those who would physically abuse them still will, no matter what the law says. What it does do is stop decent parents letting their children know, with one smack, that enough is enough, which should be every parent's right, although in a world where children do not have the terrible temptations towards misdeeds, as they do at the present time, it should not be necessary, but we are a long way from that. Violence might breed violence but one smack to let your child know that this is unacceptable or even dangerous behaviour, like when they've run into the road (or pushed another child into the road!), which means they will associate that behaviour with a smack, should, hopefully, stop them doing it again, and a second time might be fatal!

Children need boundaries, to know they cannot go beyond a certain point. Good behaviour needs to be reinforced. I had a Hindu friend who always got her small wayward son to behave at temple by reminding him that his cousin would be there and his cousin always behaved – did he want to show himself up? Of course, his cousin was told the same thing about him! But it got a result!

Television and other media organisations, only interested in money and giving people what they want, put on material that would not have even been allowed in the 'X' films I saw in my late teens, when the worst you heard was bas***d and saw Janet Leigh in her underwear (Psycho), and Diane Cliento with far too much cleavage (Tom Jones). Meanwhile now the Charmed Ones are walking around more than half naked before 7pm!

I am not a prude, I have a good sense of humour, but one does not have to be rude, crude or lewd to enjoy life or have friends and fit in. If this is necessary they are not the friends either you or your children need. To live a decent and moral life should be one's aim. Watching Pride and Prejudice the other day I was thinking how nice it would be if we could bring back the type of dancing they had then and the idea of being introduced so that you knew who was who, rather than have your daughter going to a disco, meeting someone and ending up being raped after having Rohypnol slipped into her drink so that she remembered nothing. This happened to someone I know.

When I went to stay in Belgium with a pen friend in my teens, the whole family went to the disco, from the 8 to the 22 year old, plus mum, (who happened to be a widow). She sat and talked to the proprietor whilst everyone else danced and then we all came back with her, at about 11 or so whilst the 2 eldest, brother and sister, stayed on. That way the brother could walk back with his sister and ensure she was not picked up by an unsavoury character.

Another difficulty which is more apparent now than ever, is the disharmony amongst families. This is because the spiritual vibrations of the world, and the universe as a whole, are quickening and so, whereas, in days of yore, one could go through one's whole life with little or no trauma, now it is almost a daily occurrence. Unpleasant though this is, it is for our learning, when we have a nice quiet life we usually learn little – after all, nothing focuses one like pain!

If there is disharmony in your family, look at Bach Flower remedies to help you all and after meditation, wrap your family in a green light, it is calming. For those who have a lot of anger, direct bluebell blue to them which will calm them down, and rose pink or ruby red to those members of your family who are selfish and unloving. With those who are weak and cannot stand up for themselves, lack self-esteem and so become the victim of bullying, deep green as in moss, but this can be quite a complex problem and so a crystal combination may need to be made, (see under products).

If you have trouble even having a decent conversation with your child, try Professor Suzanne Elgin's books!

# Japa and Meditation

These are both essential exercises for the spiritual path, even if you feel you are limited in what you can achieve. Meditation helps you to become calmer, more intuitive, and heightens your awareness. It can help you to be in the right place at the right time or ensure you are not in the wrong place at the wrong time!

So here are the instructions.

The first meditation I am going to give you is actually called japa and is not strictly a meditation because in this you do not have to be still or close your eyes. You can do this anywhere where your mind is not occupied, such as in the bath, washing-up, walking or even when you are stuck in a traffic jam (but not when the car is actually rolling). Start with a few minutes a day. Do it when you can, it will work wonders in no time at all. Here's what you do.

Our brain is working all the time. Even in sleep it doesn't totally switch off and it is this that drains our energy. Most of the time we are thinking about problems, dwelling on the future, or thinking of mundane things, keeping a tally in our heads of everything we have to do. So what we need to do is give our mind a rest and the easiest way to do that is to perform japa. The best way to start is to sit in a chair, close your eyes and for the first few breaths, imagine you are breathing in an emerald green or a violet light. Next, start using the mantra. Think of the word 'peace' on the in breath and 'love' on the out breath. Try and elongate the words so that they are as long as the breath which should be about 3 or 4 seconds for each in and out breath but might be less when you just start. Do not try and regulate your breathing, it will gradually slow down as you relax. When you feel you have had enough, just open your eyes and carry on with your day.

You can do this in a traffic jam, washing dishes, or standing in a supermarket queue, but with your eyes open, or use it to relax in the bath, (be careful you don't fall asleep)! If you are engaged in an activity where you cannot slow your breathing down, as in walking, than just say the words over in your mind. Peace, love, peace, love. This is the nearest to the formal, Divine Light Meditation exercise, which is coming up next. By doing japa you will stop your mind thinking bothersome thoughts. Of course, initially you will only be able to do it for a few seconds, especially if you are walking along the high street and something in a shop window catches your eye, but eventually you will get into the habit of it. You will catch yourself not doing japa and bring your mind back to it. It is also good to start the day with a few minutes or seconds of japa when you wake up. I used to have a sign opposite my bed saying Peace and Love and an 'Om' symbol so that it was the first thing I saw when I woke up. It put me in the right frame of mind for the day. Doing japa when you go to bed also aids restful sleep.

You do not have to use the words 'peace' and 'love' although I suggest you start with them until you are proficient. Then you can choose what you want. Religious people might like to use Mother Mary, Jesus Christ or Hare Krishna. Others may like to use words from nature such as 'sun' and 'light' or 'sea' and 'sky'. As long as it means peace and tranquillity to you then the words themselves do not matter although the feedback I have had from other people over the years tells me that 'peace' and 'love' tends to work the best and suits both religious and non-religious people. I have also found that it does not work when translated so that the German and French people I have taught use 'peace' and 'love' too, the vibration of the words in their own language not having the same effect. You can do japa as often as you like, there is no minimum or maximum time, and from the very beginning you should notice a difference.

And that is all there is to japa. See, I told you it was easy!

If you do japa for a long time each day, you might find that it is time to go on to something that is a little deeper, a little more spiritually fulfilling, in which case you can try the Divine Light Meditation. The method I am going to give you next is the one that I have always used myself.

You can use it to experience deep peace and, at the higher levels, feelings of bliss. Depending on other factors it can elevate you spiritually to any height. How far you go is up to you. The instructions for this are harder because you have to incorporate a simple breathing technique, but if you have been reaping the benefits of japa you will know that it is worth it. I have taught countless people to meditate through my booklets without them ever having to come and see me. In fact, one person phoned me to ask me if he could have my permission to photocopy my booklet in order to give it to the prisoners he worked with so that they too could meditate. If people in prison can learn to meditate from a book under those conditions, then so can you, but if you get stuck I am only at the end of the phone and meditation groups and one-to-one sessions are available for those who really feel better being shown. Nevertheless, have a go on your own. These instructions are very clear. The only proviso is that you cannot meditate if you are taking tranquilisers, hallucinatory drugs or drink to excess. If you have the odd glass of wine, that's okay as long as you don't attempt to meditate straight after you've had it, otherwise you may end up having visions of the wrong sort! So here are the instructions. Stick to them rigidly as a variation in breathing or technique could cause a problem. So here goes.

## Divine Light Meditation

Meditation is suitable for everyone except for people who are taking tranquilisers or hallucinatory drugs. This is because they are negative substances and as you start to meditate and open your chakras, so these types of drugs will cause you to draw in negative energy, making you feel worse, not better.

There are many natural remedies for people who are depressed or suffer from anxiety. Herbally there is skullcap, valerian, and pasque flower. For those wishing to come off of hard drugs there are herbal, homoeopathic and gem remedies as well as my own range of Rainbow Remedies.

Meditation is best undertaken on a near empty stomach, but not totally empty, we don't want you meditating on food. Early in the morning or a couple of hours after your evening meal is best. Find a place to meditate that is light, clean and airy. You may be lucky enough to have a small room that you can keep for this purpose, alternatively a corner of a room will do. Either way it should not be used for anything else, if you can help it. You may like to have a small vase of flowers or a picture that evokes peace and tranquillity. If you are using a chair to sit on, always keep to the same one and make sure that it has a straight back as it is necessary to keep the spine erect during meditation. Keep your feet together and flat on the floor or on a small cushion and have your hands either palm down on your thighs or palm up. You can also have them resting one cupped in the other. Instead of a chair you can sit on the floor, crossed legged, lotus or half-lotus, depending on your flexibility. I suggest you sit on a cushion with another cushion behind your back and against a wall for support. Lastly, you can sit Japanese style where you are kneeling on the floor sitting back on your heels, but if you are not used to this position, your feet can go to sleep.

When you start to meditate, your eyes should be gently closed (not screwed up tight), and focused on the outside of your navel. I know it sounds as if you have to be a contortionist to perform it but this is not so. When you are sitting in the correct position with your neck and head straight, simply lower your eyes as if you were looking downwards. You will see the lower part of your body. Then simply close your eye lids. We do this so that the focus is taken away from the forehead. Normally when you close your eyes you are looking straight ahead behind closed lids. If you meditate with your eyes in this position, although they are closed, you will energise your brow (ajna) centre which we do not want to do at this stage. What we want to do is to give calmness to the solar plexus, which is the seat of the emotions and we do this by taking the gaze, the consciousness, away from the ajna centre and focusing it further down the body, i.e. the solar plexus. So when you are sitting comfortably, lower your gaze, without bending your neck forward, and close your eyes. Then open them to make sure that you are still looking downwards. There is a tendency to look down, close your eyes and then bring the eyes back to the 'straight in front' position behind the closed lids.

So, sitting quietly, with your eyes closed, breathe in the emerald green or violet light, as you did for japa. Next, take 3 deep breaths without pausing between inhalation and exhalation, but you can pause between complete breaths, i.e. one round of inhalation and exhalation. As you breathe in, fill your abdomen with air and feel it expand. As you breathe out, contract your abdomen to expel the air. Don't do this so hard that it hurts. So why not have a go now and see how it goes before I continue with any more instructions.

When you breathe you need to move your abdomen and not the top chest. You may find it easier initially to place your hands over your abdomen so that you can feel it expand and contract. For people who have not done yoga, this way of breathing may take a while, but do the best you can and if you cannot manage it initially, then continue with the rest of the exercise and every time you sit down to meditate, try the abdominal breathing. Eventually you will get the hang of it. So try this part of the exercise now.

Do the 3 deep breaths, if possible making the in-breath 4 seconds long and the out-breath, 5. You may find that you can only do 3 seconds in and 4 out, which is normal for people who have not meditated before, but if you have been doing japa for a while then you should be able to do a little better.

Once you have taken these 3 deep breaths, breathe gently from the abdomen, trying not to move the top chest and as you breathe, do your peace love mantra. Don't just say the word as you would in normal speech, but make the words as long as each breath as in p-e-a-c-e and l-o-v-e, the same as we did for japa.

Breathe in and out on this peace love mantra for as long as you comfortably can which initially may only be for a few minutes. Don't tense yourself or try and concentrate, this is supposed to be relaxing! It may take a few sessions to get into it, you will probably have trouble with unwanted thoughts, but if you have been doing japa then you will know that one should just dismiss them from one's mind and go back to the mantra. Do not let unwanted thoughts ruin your meditation. If you find that you have been doing meditation for a minute or two and sticking to the mantra, then suddenly getting the thought, 'I fancy fish and chips.' Don't get annoyed with yourself, stand up and say, 'that's it, it's no good, I've had it,' and stalk off. Just acknowledge the thought, 'yes I would really like some fish and chips but maybe later,' and go back to your mantra of peace and love, nothing is lost.

When you have had enough meditation, you need to close your chakras down before you can carry on with your day. This is because you have opened your spiritual self up to a higher level and if you go out in this state, especially if you live in a town or a violent area, you will pick up all sorts of energies, usually unpleasant, and feel ill and sick, much worse than you did before you started to meditate at all! So it is vital that you close your chakras down every time, even if you are not going anywhere that day. Indeed, I have had to advise some people who are extremely sensitive to close their chakras down when they wake up, before they have even got out of bed!

Closing your chakras down only takes 5 minutes, or less when you become proficient. So here are the instructions.

Firstly, you need to know where your chakras are located. The body has many chakras but I work on 7-8 depending on the sensitivity of the individual and the level of their spiritual awareness. Chakras also have a colour which can be seen by clairvoyants but you need not worry about those. If you are really interested in them and want to learn to interpret them, then get Lilla Bek's book, 'What Colour Are You?'

1. Crown of the head, purple.

2. Ajna centre, between the brows, amethyst/indigo.

3. Throat, blue.

4. Heart centre, between the breasts in the centre of the chest, green.

5. Solar Plexus, roughly from the bottom of the rib cage to a little below the navel, yellow.

6. Spleen, on the left side of the body above the waist. Find it by putting your right arm across your waist. Your hand should fall on the spleen. Orange.

7. Base, at the bottom of the spine where the coccyx is. Red.

8. For those who are spiritually aware and have gone above the heart centre meditation (Stage 3), then close the chakra down at the back of the neck, known as the Medulla Oblongata.

There are several ways of closing down a chakra.

In your mind and using the order 1-7 (8) just given, imagine a symbol over each chakra which you feel will close it down. The symbols should be imagined as gold or pure white light and they can be an equal cross within a circle (draw the cross over the chakra in your mind and then put a clockwise circle around it); the *Star of David; a solid 6 pointed star; a lotus flower or water lily. Choose only one although if you are not happy with it you can change it later. You close your chakras down starting with the crown, by imaging the symbol in your mind over each chakra or you can trace the symbols with your finger if you feel your imagination will not suffice. You can also ask your spiritual guide to help you. We all have one even if we can't see them or do not know their name, (but I can always find out who they are for you), and after you have been doing japa and meditation you should be able to see and hear them yourself.

If you are doing all 8 chakras, the one at the back of the neck is last, even though it seems out of sequence. Out of all the symbols, I find the flowers the hardest, as you have to pull each petal down individually, but like everything else in life, it suits some people. I suggest you try several symbols before you decide which works best for you. I myself found the most effective way was to imagine that the chakras were locks and that I had a golden key. I kept the imaginary key in an imaginary pocket about my person and returned it to the same place each time.

I suggest you do this meditation on the solar plexus for at least 6 months before you go any further. When you can confidently do this meditation for at least 10 minutes twice a day, and can breathe from the abdomen, not the top chest, it is time to go on to the next stage.

Before I go on to explain about the other stages of meditation I would like to talk about noise. Meditation and spiritual progress these days is harder than ever before. Gone are the days of peace and quiet, where one could just disappear into the woods or go for a walk over the fields and meditate without being disturbed by a single soul. The 21st century, with its fumes and noise from traffic, is virtually everywhere. Even going to the Himalayas will probably not help as you are bound to hear a jumbo jet overhead at some time during the day!

It is hard but you mustn't let noise put you off because eventually, if you practice, you will get to a level where you just do not hear it. When I started meditating I lived in a town house and one couldn't get away from the sounds of traffic. Later on, as I continued my spiritual training, I had to meditate to the noise of a bulldozer demolishing the building next door as well as my young daughter screaming her head off! I refused to let it put me off and you mustn't either!

Stage 2 - Internalisation.

Start off in the normal way by doing 3 deep breaths and doing your peace/love mantra until you feel peaceful. This you must do for all stages. Always start from the beginning, it gives you a grounding, a foundation. When you feel ready you need to focus your consciousness on the inside of your solar plexus. When I say inside, I mean in an *etheric sense. I do not want you to see the internal physical workings of your body, but the spiritual part of it. We need to see how much calm and peace you have achieved. When you can internalise your vision you should see colours or even pictures. You can just let the colours or visions unfold naturally in due course or you may wish to try to visualise a peaceful setting like a still lake with a water lily on it or a rose garden. If you do not feel you have any imagination and do not want to sit and wait for something to appear (although it is much the best way), you could try to visualise a meditation from S J Ousley's 'Colour Meditations' or from one of Grace Cooke's books, such as 'The Jewel in the Lotus'.

By the state of the colours or pictures you can have an idea of where you are spiritually. The colours should radiate clear and bright, brighter than on the brightest English summer's day. If they are dull then it means you still have work to do on yourself and it may be well to go back a stage for a while. You may need to do some self-analysis or trauma clearing to get you further forward. You may find that you see nothing, neither colours nor pictures. Don't worry about this. Either persevere with it or go back a stage. But if you feel very peaceful then continue, because it is ultimately what you feel that matters. Some people experience bliss but never see a thing and there's nothing wrong with that. As a friend of mine once said, 'meditation is not meant to be a Cook's Tour of the Heaven World!'

When you finish your individual stage 2 meditation, close your chakras down in the normal way. You do not go back to stage one and do peace/love, you never go backwards in an individual meditation, but close down at the stage you have reached for that day. When you are working on stage 2, do an internalisation about once a fortnight and in the intervening days just do stage 1.

One needs to feel a great deal of love for all humanity, for in stage 3 we meditate on the heart chakra. In order to expand, it has to be very flexible and that can only be achieved when we are able to give out a great deal of spiritual love. A good guide is to try it when your stage 2 meditations radiate clear bright colours or you feel a very deep sense of peace so that you love the whole world. The other point to remember is that before you go on to Stage 3 meditation, your breathing should be imperceptible, so soft and gentle that your body appears immobile and a passer-by will think you are dead! But do not try and control your breathing. As you progress it will be self-adjusting; if you deliberately slow it down you could damage yourself badly. The mind itself has to be still in order for the breath to follow likewise.

Stage 3 Heart Chakra Meditation

Go through your normal routine of taking 3 deep breaths and do your peace/love mantra on the solar plexus, (Stage 1). When you feel peaceful, move your consciousness up to your heart chakra. Leave out stage 2, it is only, in part, a guide to your progress. When you start meditating on your heart chakra you should change your peace/love mantra to something of a higher vibration. Your soul name is ideal if it is 2 syllables. This is the name you are known by in the spirit world and you should have picked it up by now. If not, meditate to find out what it is. If you can't, I can find it out for you. Alternatively, you can use Jesus, Krishna, Rama, Allah and even mine, Star/Light, to take you to this new vibration. When you meditate on the heart chakra you need to have your consciousness focused on it and not on your solar plexus. You do this by adjusting your eyes behind their lids very slightly so that you are not looking quite so far down. Also at this stage your breathing will not be from the solar plexus, except to start with, but as you move your consciousness up it will automatically adjust itself.

When you have finished your meditation close your chakras down. Remember, you do not meditate downwards, in other words, after your have done the heart meditation you do not descend to stage 2 then 1, stop and close down. You close down at the highest point you have reached. Also note that the suggested timing between going on to meditation from japa, and then through the various stages, are only approximate. You must do what you feel is right. I have started some people on meditation only 2 weeks after they had begun japa because they were already experiencing peacefulness and a blissful state.

If you have reached stage 3 and want to meditate but do not have much time, you can just do japa or do the first stage meditation to give you some peace, you do not have to go for the highest point you are capable of every time. When you meditate on your heart chakra you will notice a different kind of peace coming to you. By meditating this way you draw your higher self to you and it also helps you to develop unconditional love. People who have reached stage 3 heart chakra meditation are usually ready to be Spiritual Masters. However, you should still do the second stage internalisation about every two weeks to make sure that nothing has changed. It is possible to slip backwards in our spiritual development and so checking on our solar plexus centre via internalisation will enable to see if we are still on the right path.

There are higher states of meditation whereby we realise G-d Consciousness, but those who are ready for this initiation have to have individual instruction, and it is therefore, beyond the scope of this book.

## Analytical Meditation

Analytical meditation is where you sit down and do your Stage 1, peace love mantra in the normal way and when you feel peaceful, you ask a question in your mind. If you have been playing Connections the question might be, 'why am I not sympathetic towards people' or 'why do I have so much anger' or 'what should I do about the job offers I've had? Then forget about it and go back to your peace love mantra. The answer may come into your mind when you wake up the next morning or suddenly pop into your head whilst you are doing a mundane job. As you progress with your meditation so the answer will be more readily available to you. You can do analytical meditation any time. It is also good at some point in your meditation to send love and light to the world especially to trouble spots or disaster areas.

## Purification

To progress on the spiritual path we need to be as pure as we can in thought. Often unpleasant thoughts come to us which are not of our making but are invaders from outside. Doing japa when we are out and about helps, but being with crowds naturally attracts negativity and so it is a good idea to have a salt bath once a week to cleanse the aura. There is no mystery to this, just simply throw a handful of sea salt into your bath and wash yourself in the normal way. Also see my Rainbow Remedy range as an aid to meditation and chakra balancing.

# A Daily Regime

So how do you tie it all together!

No matter how busy you are you can always manage to incorporate spiritual practices into your daily life.

When you wake up in the morning, do japa, before you get out of bed, if only for a couple of minutes. If you are the type of person who easily forgets, than put a picture on the wall opposite to remind you. If the kids have woken you up and are yelling for you, unless its life and death, ignore them and do your japa, if only for a couple of minutes. If they tend to come into your bedroom in the morning, than teach them not to until you get up unless you want them to do it with you.

As you go through the day, whether you are at home with the children, or at work, do japa whenever you can: whilst washing up or standing in the supermarket queue. You will have to have your eyes open but it is still better than not doing it at all! Trust me, I've been there!

If you are at work, then try and do it at the hours of 3, 6, 9 and 12 to get you into the habit. – in fact it is a good way to get into the habit even if you are not working! If you are not alone, nip to the loo, no one ever bothers you there – and G-d won't mind! In my last commercial job, I used to stand on the stairs and look out at the sky, as for a couple of minutes it was unlikely that anyone would pass me.

Take note mentally of negative situations and actions directed towards you and think about these at the end of the day, whilst in the bath maybe, (see 'What Did I Do Today?').

As to the Divine Light Meditation, if you are not able to do it during the day, than leave it until the evening, (don't forget to bless you main meal!). You can even do your meditation in bed and if you fall asleep during it, be sure you'll have a good night's sleep!

Lastly, every time you re-enter your house, the very first thing you should do is wash your hands because you pick up negativity both physical and etheric from handling money, touching door handles etc, you should also after that, sit down and mentally clear your body of negative energy by doing japa and seeing yourself under a shower of purple light.

# If You Are Ill – Step-by-Step Analysis

In the old days, priests were physicians. These old priest/physicians realised that illness originated in the soul and came through to the physical body. That itching skin could be due to an inner 'irritation', a frustration with oneself or others.

The world we live in is very complex, and there are many reasons for illness, so here is a step-by-step guide for you to work out the root of your problems, as self-knowledge is part of spiritual development. You may also need to engage a health professional as initially, even if you can find the cause, you may not know how to deal with it, but this will come in time. Whatever the cause, ensure any remedies you take, are natural.

I am not able to go into a detailed list of individual illnesses and their solutions: this is just a general guide as to what to look for. More information on the possible causes of specific illnesses can be found at the end of this book and of course, you can always have a consultation with me.

If the illness is physical, the cause could be stress, environmental pollution or allergies. These are the first things to look for unless the illness itself is obvious, like shingles! One should also look at negativity in the form of inharmonious relationships; bad Feng Shui and negative energy in the house itself in the form of geopathic stress: these last two especially if you have become ill shortly after moving house. Illness can also be caused by the weather, especially unseasonal weather which is increasing due to global warming and can cause our meridians to become blocked which in itself can cause a whole range or seemingly unrelated physical and emotional symptoms.

Illness can also be from shocks of the divorce, bereavement, disappointment in love affairs and betrayal of friendship variety. Any of these can cause health problems, even severe ones, especially if we hold on to negative feelings of anger and resentment.

If none of these appear to be the cause, then childhood and birth trauma as well as past lives is the next obvious step. These causes can also be applied to changes in how we feel.

Mood swings can be due to hormonal imbalance in women and lack of starch in low carb diets, but can also be due to allergies, lack of iron as well as all the previous reasons. To this we need to add our natural characteristics which will show up in our natal chart.

With infectious dis-eases like 'flu, these are not something we have just caught because it was going around. You either caught it because your immune system was already below par, or you were afraid to get it and your fear drew it to you. And infections can still be due to emotional causes, as one lady client I had kept catching things because she was inwardly punishing herself. If you want to guard against flu, then get a prophylactic such as Influenzium 30, from *Galen Homoeopathics or Helios, and Gels 30 if you want to guard against swine flu. And if you have contracted either, than still take the above as a remedy.

If you do have an infectious dis-ease, don't panic and run for the anti-biotics, there are, and always have been, natural herbal and homoeopathic equivalents, long before penicillin. Herbal oils are a case in point, the strongest being Thyme, shown to be 8 times stronger than Phenol, a chemical anti-septic. Tea tree oil is another one as is Propopolis which is antiseptic, antibiotic, antibacterial, antifungal and has also been proven effective against strains of bacteria that resist chemical antibiotics, and garlic, also an excellent anti-viral and anti-septic capable of dealing with MRSA. In the 1st World War it was applied with sphagnum moss dressings, in fact the Romans used sphagnum moss on their battle wounds.

Echinacea, Eucalyptus, Myrrh, Nasturtium and Wild Indigo (this last especially for tonsillitis), are all remedies for infections. Also remember that if you have had a lot of anti-biotics in the past or orthodox medicine, that in itself can make you ill, tiredness often being the first symptom. If this is you, don't wait for it to have a negative effect, get a de-tox. This can be done with herbal or homoeopathic medicine or choose from my range of Rainbow Remedies.

It is also important to understand why we have attracted this illness to ourselves so if we keep getting sore throats, is it because we are cold or angry in our speech, or because we were not allowed to express ourselves as children and have lost the courage to do so?

A good exercise to look at causes is to lie down and relax, then, with your inner vision, look at the seat of the problem. What shape and colour is it? Interpreting this is one way of understanding ourselves more and looking for a solution. Bach and Bush Flower Remedies are a good way to start self-help and more information can be found in my other books.

When our problems are due to non-acceptance of our circumstances or of a person who we feel caused our circumstances, than again we need to go back to that time and visualise it. We cannot change what happened, but we can change the way we reacted and felt about that situation at the time. This if done properly, and taking into account any other circumstances that surround it, should release us. We need to see how we allow this to happen, how we should have dealt with it, what we needed to learn from it, etc and view it in a positive light. In the case of a person to whom we felt say resentment, it will release them too because our feelings towards them will also affect them negatively.

# Etheric Miasma

You have seen in an earlier chapter how anger and violence just cause more anger and violence. This is because the energy joins together, in the ether, and when there is enough of it, a war starts, because the energy just becomes more and more coarse/heavier until it comes into physical manifestation, because all thought creates. This also happens with trauma, as I discovered when dealing with a meridian imbalance. Having seemed to work through the same trauma again and again each time I shifted another layer, something was still remaining and the best way to describe it is by using an analogy.

If a child is terrified of a parent, and is often beaten by him, two things will happen. The child will absorb the parent's anger irrespective of whether the parent is angry at the child or is just using it as a punch bag for frustrations of his own due to other circumstances. The child will also become fearful not only of the parent but of authority figures in general. This will affect both his kidney and liver meridians causing physical as well as emotional problems. Going through the trauma, taking remedies will clear the trauma out of the system but won't necessarily clear the 'etheric miasma' as I have named it, because that energy is still in the ether and trauma is usually cleared out of the physical cells of the body.

Remedies such as obsidian and healing/light, directed at this energy should dissipate it provided all attachments to its source have been dealt with.

## Power Does Not Always Equal Knowledge

One can suffer from pride on the spiritual path, as well as in any other area of life. Having spiritual power does not mean that we automatically have knowledge and only G-d knows everything. Next to him are the Maha-avatars like Babaji, who are not born but just materialise when needed and therefore always have an unbroken connection to G-d, which means that if one's guides are not at this level, they may not be right all the time either.

One may have spiritual experiences and exceptional healing power which we have brought with us from a previous life, but not necessarily the knowledge and wisdom that goes with it, which may be denied due to karma, yet we still retain the power to get us back on to the spiritual path and to pay off what we owe. Therefore don't assume that because you can cure a cancer patient in one treatment that you are always right and know the answer to everything – that way leads to danger!

# What Are The Benefits of the Spiritual Path?

People often ask me why they should do the spiritual path. 'What's the point?' they ask, 'it all takes such a long time and what for?'

It only seems a long time because we inhabit a world of time and space, and measure what we do in achievements related to this life-time. But whatever strides we make we take with us for future lives, and these strides may not only lessen the number of our future lives but could result in our ending re-birth altogether. Isn't that worth the effort? As for the immediate benefits, well, feeling better in oneself, more at peace with oneself and those around us. Not being assailed by negative thoughts and feelings which in turn will make us healthier individuals because negative thoughts and feelings impact on our health. Remember, as human beings we all have the seeds of the black and the white within us, whereas, once we reach a certain level on the spiritual path, there is only the white. People often tell me they are afraid of falling and failing, going down to a lower level, being caught up in temptation, however that may manifest. Beyond a certain spiritual level that can't happen.

As we move along the spiritual path we gain wisdom which we can use to enlighten others and help them to advance, or even just change direction from a path that has nothing at its end but material satisfaction. But for me, most important of all, is the feeling of inner peace and sheer bliss which only the spiritual path can deliver.

# *Darshan – the Guru's Gift

Darshan is usually performed by those who are above spiritual master, which is 8th plane and higher, and is a form of blessing. But this blessing, whether received absently or in person, comprises an extremely strong energy which uplifts our spirit and helps us to evolve. However, it will only help us to progress if we utilise this energy through meditation; to understand ourselves and remove our negative blocks. Although few beings give Darshan, especially in the West, there are those who seek out guru's and continually go for Darshan using this energy like a sugar hit and consequently never getting anywhere. The energy of Darshan is very special and Darshan is, essentially, a holy affair and should be respected as such. The effect of Darshan varies from person to person but usually evokes a feeling of peace rising to bliss. Darshan combined with meditational practice can, therefore, help us on the path to higher consciousness.

# Does G-d Love Us?

This is a question I am frequently asked. And when I reply, 'yes he does,' the next question is invariably, 'then why is the world in such a terrible state, why does He allow so much suffering.'

G-d loves us, which is why He created us. As for the state of the world, well, we all have freewill and are therefore responsible for our actions. If one person decides to harm another, that is their choice and the person who is being harmed, well it is probably karma that puts them there in the first place. These matters are complicated and all have to be looked at individually as to their cause and effect.

And G-d proves His love and care for us by continually sending teachers to help us live in a way that brings us happiness and peace. And when one gets to a certain point on the path, one can feel that love and then one knows.

# *Spiritual Masters and Avatars

In order to become a Spiritual Master you need to be able to follow the Divine Principles totally and have spent time as a celibate or are permanently so. Your integrity must be 100%. You should have no emotional attachments or material desires. Although Spiritual Masters do not usually have unconditional love for everyone, they do feel this for the majority of people. At worst they find that there are some people for whom they do not care much for. Hate is a word they never use and revenge is not in their dictionary. They do not smoke, take drugs, gamble or put out money on stocks and shares. They do not make their living at the expense of others or from the misfortunes of others. They have spent years working on themselves to clear their traumas and will know some, but not all of, their past lives. They will have had some experiences of the forces of darkness but usually nothing too harrowing.

They are clairaudient and can hear the voice of Jesus, Buddha or any one of the *Ascended Masters, (an Ascended Master is a high level being that has died, or has never incarnated in the first place, and apart from the two just mentioned, others would include Babaji, Zoroaster, and avatars who have passed on, such as Ramana of Arunachala, Swami Sri Yukteswar, Sri Aurobindo and Sweet Mother and AnandamayiMa, just to name a few). Spiritual Masters can heal and have had at least one experience of G-d, like Larry Darrell in The Razor's Edge.

A Spiritual Master will have reached this stage by doing whatever their spiritual guide tells them, without question. If this is you, then congratulations. Not many make it to this level. Those of you who have and want to continue towards avatarship or at least as far as they can go, should carry on to the end of this book. Congratulations again and I wish you long life, health, happiness and spiritual fulfilment.

End of Book I

# BOOK II

Book II is for those who have become Spiritual Masters and wish to progress to a higher level. It contains some very disturbing material.

# Training for the Higher Spiritual Levels

Beyond Spiritual Mastership there are 4 spiritual levels. What follows are some of the things you are likely to experience on your soul journey to these higher levels and the higher the level the deeper the experience. Also, whereas up to this point you have always had to take notice of your spiritual guides and do what they tell you, now you will go through the process of discernment and have to decide for yourself if what they tell you is correct or not and whether you should do whatever they ask, or refuse, be it change your job, move house (maybe even to another country) approach a person in the street to give them a blessing, it could frankly be anything and often no matter how you try to think what might be coming up, you will never guess. You will be put in situations of varying degrees of stress, of desperation, to test your faith. It is possible to have days when you think you are losing your sanity and even that you may be a candidate for the nuthouse because you have convinced yourself that nothing you are hearing or seeing can actually be real: that the tasks and tests are so hard that they cannot be related to G-d and the Spiritual Path. That somewhere you have taken a wrong turning; that maybe some past disaster has caused you such trauma that it is now coming out in hallucinations; that maybe you have brought all this on yourself because you have been unwanted as a child and somehow your mind has invented all this to make you think you are important. At this point you can experience massive depression or feel suicidal.

During this time you will also go through a process where the physical body is spiritualised. In order for you to reach these higher levels the old energy from your cells needs to be emptied and replaced with energy of a finer quality. The process is physically painful and will happen several times as you reach successive levels. You may feel sick as if you have radiation poisoning and may actually throw-up. Other symptoms include having a cold but not like a normal cold because it suddenly starts and stops where normal colds start and end gradually. Tiredness is another feature and you may find that you pass water more frequently because the old energy has to come out somewhere. However, you must always check to ensure that it is your training and not a health problem. During the changes the only thing one can do is rest, meditate, read or go for a walk.

# Black and White, Darkness and Light

I have worked as a Spiritual Teacher since 1988 and have had many people come to me asking for guidance on the spiritual path. Many of them believe in Advaita-Vedanta. This philosophy teaches that all life is One. True, in its pure essence G-d is only one Being and we are all part of Him. This means that if we are all part of G-d and nothing can be created without G-d, then evil must also be part of G-d. This is a terrifying prospect which many refuse to consider but is nonetheless true. But this does not mean that G-d is evil, of course He isn't. Think about it a different way. If a parent smacks his child for continually doing something bad does that make the parent evil? Of course it doesn't. And in the same way, if someone is given paints and canvas and creates something totally horrific, can one blame their benefactor? Again the answer is, 'no'. So evil or darkness is there for us to learn and those who do not learn and harm others, cause their own darkness..

Darkness is also caused by those who deliberately work against the Light. All the scriptures are full of this teaching. The story of Adam and Eve in the bible is the story of the fall of man through temptation by giving in to his desires. In fact, throughout the Old Testament there are stories of the prophets and how they came to teach people to live the right way. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah (which I have always somehow read as sodomy and gonorrhoea for obvious reasons I think) is a perfect example. The Bhagavad-Gita (which translates as 'Celestial Song') is the story of good and evil, of man overcoming his ego nature. Then there is the teaching of Zoroaster, which talks of the eternal battle between G-d (Ahura-Mazda) and the devil (Ahriman), although again this is taken to mean the battle that man has with his own ego. From Moses we have much evidence of the evilness of the dark forces, from the priests of Pharaoh to the worshippers of Baal.

Jesus (who was also Moses and Elijah, by the way), also talks about the black magicians and shows us a more sinister side, not only in the sense of casting out devils (exorcism), but also in the attitude of the Pharisee priests whom he calls evil, because they do not enter heaven themselves nor let anyone else in.

Being a spiritual teacher now is far harder than when Jesus was here. Now we have science we can explain all that. Possession is now labelled schizophrenia! Yet the film, The Exorcist, based on a true account of possession from a book by William Peter Blatty, shows us that evil, and evil Beings, do exist even today and for me, the story of Myra Hindley is an example of a true case of possession.

I remember going for a walk one night and seeing a billboard outside a late night tobacconist announcing that Myra Hindley, the woman whom so many Britons remember as the girlfriend and accomplice of the child murderer Ian Brady, had just died. On TV and in the press, it was reported that as everyone detested her, no one would be mourning her. Indeed, a guard was placed by her body for fear of its being mutilated.

I remembered thinking that nobody seemed to be searching for the real reasons why Hindley acted as she did. Pictures of Hindley and Brady taken at the time of their arrest shows a malevolence on both their faces that summed up the depravity of their unspeakable crimes. Hindley, bleached blonde, unsmiling and cold, looks the very epitome of evil. However, from research I have gathered that her neighbours all knew her as a friendly person and a good Catholic, not a cold-hearted killer. But that was before she met Brady. Meeting him was the worst thing that could have happened to her and others.

It is ironic that as Catholics, Myra Hindley's family did not recognise the signs of possession. After she started going out with Brady her character changed. As she fell in love, he literally took possession of her. This is not an excuse for what she did. It is worse than that. It is a terrible reflection on a society that has lost its awareness to such a degree that such things go unnoticed. If we had not abandoned our spirituality in favour of cold, hard science and logic, people would have recognised the signs of possession right from the outset and several tragedies could have been averted.

Then there are beings who are dedicated to darkness, to causing chaos, to destroying mankind. You can call it the devil or anything else you please, but it is there, it is real and I have encountered it more times than I could wish for. This darkness is there to ensure that those who seek the Light do not succeed, for, if the Light succeeds, than the darkness will lose. It will lose its control of the world which anyone can see, at the moment, it is winning. You can see that by what is happening in the world and by the way people act. We have already had 2 examples of immorality. That is darkness. By not respecting ourselves and our bodies which are the temples of the spirit, by not living in the right way, we let the darkness in.

You can see it all around you. You do not have to look far. From all the wars for greed and control of others, from so-called ethnic cleansing, right down to the way young children carry on; swearing, attacking others to try and take their belongings, staying up late and watching unsuitable programs on TV (which are often unsuitable for adults too), teenagers killing their classmates and teachers: racism which should have been stamped out years ago which is still prevalent in many police forces some of whom are still using Gestapo tactics (here I speak from personal knowledge, not just that reported by the BBC). This is all darkness, in various forms and guises.

Many people who come to see me, do not accept this. All life is One, they say. The spiritual path is one of happiness. They then go on to tell me that they have no intention of looking at their negative traits because that will make them unhappy and depressed and who wants to be unhappy and depressed? They have totally misunderstood the point. The Buddhists say that this is the world of illusion. True in the sense that only the spiritual realms are our true home, but the people who refuse to look at themselves, and transmute their negative traits are the ones that are walking around in a fool's paradise. One day truth will come and hit them in the face. They will be homeless, the person they love best dies or their country will be war torn and they will be out in the cold with nothing. What has happened to 'all life is One' then?

To illustrate this further, there is an old story about a disciple and his guru. The disciple was meditating one day and suddenly jumped up shouting that he understood that 'all life was one' and before his guru could stop him he ran into the street. There was a parade going on and the disciple found himself in the path of an oncoming elephant. Because he believed that 'all life was one' he did not move out of the way, saying to himself that the elephant couldn't hurt him even though the mahout was shouting and waving his arms. The elephant went past, kicking the disciple into the gutter where he returned to his guru bruised, humiliated and confused. The guru, who understood everything, smiled and gently said, 'Did you not hear G-d on top of the elephant telling you to get out of the way?'

The point I am making here is that those who want the spiritual path must understand that there are two forces in operation on the physical plane and to deny this means they will not progress. What will develop is an unbalanced being, who tries to help others and gives them false hope and information, by which they make karma for themselves. The two forces in operation are still all part of the One. The devil or evil was not originally a force but developed as mankind fell. As people became more evil so the dark regions were created and then a being that we now call The Devil, took control. As we all live in the body of G-d, or the House of G-d with its many rooms, so in one of them is stored hell. 'All Life is One' because G-d is One Eternal Being and we are all part of Him and there is only one life called eternity which is the ever present 'now'. This is another way of looking at it.

It is also true to say, 'that he who isn't for me is against me.' Either one is working for the Light or one is not. Those who do not actively seek to help those on the path of Light are aiding the darkness. Those who sit on the fence and do nothing, help the darkness. This is because they do not support the Light and there are only two sides. I believe it was Edmund Burke who said, 'all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.'

It is the same if you see someone in trouble and do not help. If you say, you did no harm, you would be wrong. You harmed them by omission, by doing nothing and letting them suffer, like the people in the story of the Good Samaritan. If you don't bother and let someone else go and do it you are still aiding the darkness because there was no good intention, and if there is no good intention then there must have been a bad one.

# From Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long Leggity Beasties and Things That Go Bump in the Night May the Good Lord Deliver Us

We have already talked a bit about the forces of darkness, in a general way. For those of you who are deeply committed to the spiritual path, that means Spiritual Masters and higher, then you need a practical working knowledge. The higher you go the more evil you will encounter. Although like attracts like and I used to think, as many people do, that if you have a pure mind, then the forces of darkness can't get to you, remember that opposites attract. Jesus, one of the purest souls on earth, was tempted by the devil and *The Cathars used to say that where the greatest good was you would find the greatest evil also. Therefore, when you are attacked, although it is the dark side wanting to stop you progressing, you can also use it to positive advantage. By conquering the darkness you build your spiritual strength and get a working knowledge so that when people come to you with problems you will instinctively know if there is an evil force behind it and can deal with it accordingly.

If you do not have courage to fight the devil in any of its manifestations, then the path beyond the 6th or causal plane, is not for you, although courage can be gained along the way and your guides are always there to help you.

What sort of entities are there? First of all there are ghosts; these are the apparitions that walk through walls. They may not speak; just frighten the life out of you. These are nothing more than images of beings which have lived there before, and had such a strong attachment to the place that their image still remains. You can simply ask your guide to remove them. They cannot do you any harm.

Then there are those who have died in bad circumstances, whose presence you may come upon either by sight or simply by feel. I lived in a house where I found the soul of a man hanging from the rafters. He had hung himself after being accused of things he did not do. Not being educated and in fact being really only a harmless simpleton, he knew nothing of heaven and so his spirit was still in the loft many, many years later. I asked my guides to look after him and move him on. On one occasion I was asked to visit a flat where a man had also killed himself whilst he was drunk. He had no idea he was dead and was still sitting in the same place, having not moved from the spot in 7 years. Again I asked my guides to move him on.

Another case is where a lady came to see me because she couldn't sleep, couldn't eat and was a nervous wreck. She didn't like the new house she had moved into. 'The kitchen is the worst,' she said, 'I can't go in there let alone cook a meal.'

I asked her if she had been to the doctor. She said that she had gone the previous October (it was now the following April), and he had given her anti-depressants, without giving her a check-up. She became worse and eventually it was suggested that she went to a psychiatrist as it was possible she had been sexually assaulted by her father. This horrified the woman who had had an extremely happy childhood. However, the more she insisted it was the house, the more the doctor suggested she ought to see a shrink.

I went to see the house. As soon as I walked up to the kitchen door I was met with a wall of ice. I knew immediately what was wrong - someone had committed suicide and the soul was still there in the kitchen.

I had only just started working as a healer and had not been trained to deal with suicides so I had to get Rose Hopkins, the President of the local Spiritualist Church, a truly competent trance medium and healer and also a very unassuming woman, to sort it out. She came over with her husband Ron. The discarnate soul then took over Rose's physical body so that Ron could communicate with it and send it on its way. Whilst I was waiting in the lounge with my client a blood-curdling scream suddenly rent the air.

I later found out that the woman who committed suicide had been so unhappy that she had taken her life by swallowing bleach. My client was well enough in two months to go and get herself a job.

Unpleasant entities can be found anywhere; you do not have to wait for nightfall for them to come out of the woodwork. I used to encounter negative spirits in the supermarket or just in the street. These would take one of two forms. Either I would experience a collective form of evil built up from bad energies amassing in a particular area (left over from wars for example), or I would pick up an entity that was shadowing a person. Entities usually shadow a person because when they were on earth they were sexually perverted in some way; or addicted to drugs or alcohol and they therefore shadow someone who has similar habits, rather than going on to a higher realm. This is one of the meanings of earth bound spirits, although you can get some that are totally harmless and who just do not realise they are dead. They keep trying to touch and talk to their relatives and can't understand why no one takes any notice of them.

How do you know you have picked up bad energy or an entity? Simple, you do not feel like your normal self. In fact usually you feel really irritable or angry. When this happened to me I would retrace my steps in my mind and sure enough, I would recall where and when I felt this energy and it would either be a particular place or I would find that someone had looked me right in the eye, and their eyes were certainly evil and penetrating. By finding out where it came from I could clear it because either it came from a person who had harmed me in a past life, or someone who had an entity with them that needed to be sent on its way, or it was collective and the energy of that particular place or area needed to be cleared. I would again ask my guides to deal with it unless I had known the person in a previous incarnation, in which case I would meditate until I had a vision of the life concerned.

There are ways of protecting oneself but sometimes they do not always work. For everyday situations, closing your chakras down before you go out plus putting on a protection cloak, however you visualize it, usually works. If it doesn't, add more cloaks. I got to the point where I had to put on over 100 just to go to the shops! But that is rare! Another good one is the shower cubicle with either a silver mirror on all sides (don't forget to put a top on and a panel under your feet), which will reflect negative energy back or a gold one, which I always used, to transmute the negative energy into love. For a more serious situation reciting the Lord's Prayer followed by this protection prayer from St. Patrick, usually does the trick,

Christ to shield me today  
Against poison, against burning,  
Against drowning, against wounding,  
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.  
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,  
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,  
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,  
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,  
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,  
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,  
Christ in every eye that sees me,  
Christ in every ear that hears me.

When working at home with the forces of darkness, I have protected myself before I dealt with them by lighting a candle, incense stick and putting some spring water in a little bowl and adding another of salt, as well as setting out some crystals. At night I have sprayed salt water at each corner of the bed and put a crystal there.

If you have unpleasant entities in your home that won't leave, you might have to perform some sort of exorcism. Light incense in every room, douse the place with holy water whilst throwing salt everywhere, mainly in the corners, whilst holding up a crucifix and chanting 'om' at the top of your voice.

If your encounters with the dark side have made you feel ill, take a Stramonium C30, which you can get from Galen's or Helios. In fact, best to get a bottle to be on the safe side, a 1/2oz should suffice. You can also protect yourself with my 8th Chakra Remedy, part of my Rainbow Remedy range, see from my site for details.

Next are the elementals. These can be both good and bad, but here we are only concerned with the negative ones. These are obnoxious beings that have built up in a particular place. I remember going into a council house in the worst part of Reading, noted for its crime and drug taking. The police were always raiding it. Had I lived there, speaking English that wasn't littered with swear words, dropped 't's' and 'h's', it is certain I would have had a brick through my window and my kids would have been beaten up. I'm sure you get the picture. Anyway, I went into this house and in the kitchen was this 'red thing' a bit like Mr. Blobby with the most appalling energy, the thing not Mr. Blobby. What it was, was a collective entity, built-up from the surrounding area. The effects knocked me out so much that I ended up in bed for 3 days with exhaustion.

You can also get evil beings in streams. I moved into a house and found a stagnant water stream underneath complete with evil spirit. They can also cause illness. This one contributed to my son's eczema, and my daughter and I had perpetual colds. Whilst in this house blood materialised on my dresser and in my cooking. Black Imps with red eyes, appeared at the bottom of my bed and one night I sensed the presence of archetypal evil, complete with horns, hooves and tail. But the black imps were really a delight and easy to get rid of. The first time one appeared was about 9.30 in the evening. I had gone to bed early with a book. As I read, I espied it just beyond the end of the bed. I gave it a nice smile and said.

'It's very brave of you to come here alone; I'm surprised you're not afraid. I'd bring a friend next time if I were you.'

It disappeared only to come back the next night with, yes you've guessed it, a friend!

'Brought a friend with you?' I said, 'That's nice.' Then ignored them and carried on reading my book. They went away.

This type of apparition is nothing more than a thought form and if you are afraid, then the fear sustains them and makes them all the more real. The more afraid you are the more solid they can become and can evolve into a physical entity which can kill you. The trick to remember is that because these ghastly visions are usually nothing more than thought forms, the best way to get rid of them is to laugh. I once had a visit from the Messenger of Death. It was 4 in the morning and my daughter was awake probably for about the third time that night as usual. We were sitting in the kitchen when he appeared. He looked a bit like one of the Ringwraiths from The Lord of the Rings, all black tattered garments and red eyes.

'Hello Twizzle,' I said, 'how are you?'

They do not like being made fun of and not treated seriously because fear sustains them. Needless to say, he didn't stay long. He returned now and again over the years but I gave him the same friendly greeting. He got no joy out of me or to be more accurate, no fear.

As I mentioned earlier, I lived in Reading, Berkshire for about 20 years and the place abounded in evil spirits, it being one of the top towns for drug related crime, we even had a drive-by shooting not 100 yards from my front door. The house I lived in was a typical turn of the century terrace; damp and with the bathroom built on the back. I had neighbours either side who had had dark lives, knew I was a teacher and hated me for it. Then diagonally opposite me was a Satanist. It is interesting in the 5 years I lived in this particular house he was always looking for me but never found the exact house I was in. He worked in a shop behind my house that backed on to my garden. Opposite the shop was a place where Satanists met. It is estimated that in 1975 there were some 475 Satanist groups throughout the country. I am sure that figure has not declined. So, like the Golden Child, who was surrounded on all 4 sides by evil I had some very nasty visitations.

# Gateways to Hell

Anyone who has read Roger Zelazny's, '9 Princes in Amber' or seen the film 'The Others' with Nicole Kidman, knows about different dimensions. All worlds interpenetrate. While you are sitting in your home there could be another family in the same place, in what they feel is their home, carrying on their lives. They are in a different dimension and so the two of you will not meet, although you both occupy the same space. But there are gateways and portals to different dimensions and that includes Gateways to Hell, where evil spirits can come on to the earth plane to cause havoc. I had one under my house in Reading. You cannot mistake it. The energy gradually changes. You start to feel really ill and want to get out. It is like being choked spiritually, you do not feel quite yourself but can't put your finger on what's wrong. It is as if someone had just covered you in treacle and you are struggling. There may be a feeling as if all your molecules have gone haywire, as if you had radiation sickness. After a while it gets deathly cold, like the cold of the grave. It comes up through the floor boards and up your legs. What do you do? Get out of the house, scream for your guides and wait till you are told it is okay to go back. If you are thinking about moving, unless you particularly want to for other reasons, don't bother, the dark side can open up a gateway anytime, anywhere, in minutes. In fact I once found one that had been opened up under a whole town! As you go on to higher levels you will have to learn how to close these yourself although you usually get help. The worst one I have come across is where there is activity similar to poltergeist activity where things are picked up and hurled against the wall. In this instance the inhabitants used to see someone walk around which is scary enough except in this case one could only see the body from the waist down.

When it gets to this stage it is really serious because the gateway has semi-solidified and the entities are living in your time and space to some degree which is how they can interact with physical objects. Make sure you do not confuse a gateway with poltergeist activity.

# Astral Battles

I don't have to reiterate that the forces of darkness currently rule and those who are Spiritual Masters and going for higher levels will be attacked. The darkness doesn't want us here and will do everything it can to get rid of us. When you start to interfere with them by training people yourselves to a higher level, clearing places where bad entities exist and trying to close their gateways, you will get severely attacked. One of the ways they attack you is to wait until you go to sleep. As your soul leaves your body and gets on to the astral plain they will be waiting for you and jump you. There is nothing I can say to you to help you here, only remember when you go to sleep that this could happen and prepare your mind beforehand by asking your guides to protect you. You can also call on the Archangels. Ensure that your guides are with you although if you are going for the ultimate level you will have to learn to fight on your own.

# Facsimiles

When you speak to your guide, make sure it is your guide. It is possible for the dark side to imitate anyone. There are subtle differences and if you are busy and not taking too much notice they can get away with it. Firstly, their vibration is not quite the same. It does not feel quite right. Secondly their voice, although similar, lacks a quality that your real guide has and lastly, when you look at them they seem flatter, like the life sized cardboard facsimiles one used to see outside cinemas in the old days.

Should you make a mistake it could lead to loss of business (the dark side usually targets your income and living arrangements, as being poor and homeless is the best way to destabilise anyone), and other problems, such as loss or betrayal of friends and those who support you generally.

# Creating for Yourself

You would already have read the section on creating in Book I, but *8th, *9th and *10th planers (which is the name I give to those above spiritual master, spiritual master being 7th), fall into a slightly different category. Because they have unconditional love for everyone they usually sprinkle it wherever they go. In this way they end up giving all their creative energy away. It sounds selfish but it is necessary to send Light and healing only at certain times otherwise there is nothing left for you. If this is what you want then go into a monastery or convent, there you can send Light out all the time and at least you have free bed and board. And no I am not being sarcastic. I leant the hard way. I lost my home and lived in poverty in rented accommodation for years, then I lost all my possessions, clothes, text books, furniture – the lot, simply because I gave my light to everyone I saw instead of waiting for them to ask me for help, (although the dark side didn't lose the opportunity of contributing to my circumstances). The best thing to do therefore is to send Light to the world at the end of your meditation, send Light when there is a real disaster, have compassion but don't send your love, light and absent healing to everyone you pass in the street! Remember, if you do this it is your creative energy you are sending. It will not come back to you. If you are really bothered by a person's circumstances you can always ask your guides to help them. There are always exceptions of course. I have frequently been told by my guides to buy this tramp a sandwich, or bless this or that person, that's fine, but it isn't everyday. Also, unless one has an ashram with many visitors or lives in India, where donations are the norm and the cost of living cheap, than one must charge for the work one does. As a spiritual master once said to me, 'a labourer is worthy of his hire.' What one offers one has worked for, it is not a gift from G-d, and therefore you have the right to charge the same as anyone else, always bearing in mind that there are those one should treat for nothing who are deserving. Exchanging energy is the universes way of doing things and until we live in a world where money has become obsolete, because the world has elevated itself above greed, than we need to charge, or barter, or a mixture of both. Feng Shui also works and can be a way of helping ease the financial situation.

# Dealing with Trauma

When one gets above Spiritual Master one has to ensure that the effects of trauma from past lives, childhood and even events from later life, are clear. Often I have people come to me and when I say they still have blocks, the reaction is, 'but I cleared all that,' and they probably did. But as we progress and the layers come off, we often have to go through it again at a deeper level. It can be very wearing but has to be done. Why does this happen? Because it was only cleared to a certain depth, and so some residue remains. Also there are often other aspects of the situation which were not taken into account before, may not have been even relevant for the level that we were at, but now is. Take a very simple example. A man breaks his leg but when it heals, its fine. Then he decides to play football and finds that he's in pain with it. So now he has to look deeper, maybe go into his past lives to find why it was broken in the first place. If he hadn't wanted to put more stress on it, just walked about normally he would not have had to delve deeper. So, the same applies in a spiritual sense, the higher you go, the more you have to delve deeper into your traumas and the more 'etheric miasma' applies. See previous heading.

# Earning a Living

Spiritual Masters can have an ordinary job during the day, provided it does not contravene Divine Law and in the evenings teach meditation, give healing or whatever their particular flair is. If they have a fully paid day job then their spiritual work is usually on a donation basis although it does not have to be. They can work as Spiritual Masters full time and charge the same price as therapists, although always being mindful that there are some people who are poor and are such pure souls that they should not be charged at all. Your guide will always alert you to these special people who are probably treading the same or a harder path than yourself. Spiritual Masters sometimes work within their own religion and may even go to church although they know that all religions are one.

8th plane men and women are usually in India working as gurus. Western 8th plane men can be in business although they usually work for themselves. 8th plane women in the East usually give Darshan and are revered as gurus, whilst in the west they tend to work as therapists although I have encountered very few, and I only know one or two 9th planers who give one-to-one advice and work as therapists, although more and more are coming on stream.

Avatars (10th planers) are a different kettle of fish altogether and again it is usually only through giving Darshan, training others, giving spiritual guidance and *satsang that they make their money. It is also hard to secure donations in the west because most people are only interested in paying for what they get on a personal basis. They do not see the spiritual work that goes on beneath the surface, i.e. clearing negative energy from countries where there have been so many terrible tragedies. There is also a misconception that all spiritual abilities are a gift from G-d and therefore do not have to be paid for. If you are on the spiritual path you know yourself that that isn't true, also, if we do not get paid, how are we supposed to live? Again the general public come up with 'G-d will provide', but as a spiritual master once said to me, 'G-d helps us through our brothers and sisters,' i.e. the general public! As there are so few avatars, if you yourself are going to be one, I hope by the time you do, the west has woken up to the value of such beings and they are appreciated as much as they are in India. In the meantime you need, long before you get to this level, to sort out with your guides what you are going to do for money. If they tell you not to worry, ignore them and try and sort something out for yourself. It is also difficult for women from 8th upwards to mix with the general public because with their sensitivity they pick up on everyone's negative feelings, which can mean going to the shops knocks them out for the rest of the day. This is why 8th planers and upwards usually live in remote areas or in ashrams and have devotees to go to the shops for them. It isn't ego, it is to stop them being ill!

# Righteous Anger

Spiritual people are not supposed to get angry; they are supposed to have risen above all that. If that is the case, how can one make an excuse for Jesus' actions when he threw the money changers out of the temple? The answer is that Jesus was displaying righteous anger not an out-of-control emotional feeling. Not everyone who is spiritual is allowed this privilege. Spiritual Masters can tell people where to get off, they do not have to take stick from people, they do not have to let themselves be used by others. If they are training people who are not making progress, who are only coming to classes for tea and sympathy, who have joined the meditation group because it is something to do and somewhere to go because they are lonely, yet are not prepared to deal with their feelings, Spiritual Masters do not have to put up with it. However, they are not supposed to lose their temper, nor swear, just be firm.

8th and 9th planers, in other words, Mothers and Fathers, Saddhus, gurus etc., those in fact who have reached the level of being able to give Darshan or a blessing, cannot turn anyone away and must have unconditional love for all. They can shout at disciples who don't do as they're told but again it is not an emotional outburst. Avatars are different: they can also tell people where to get off and do not have to take stick from anyone. They can decide whether the person is deserving of their help and if not they can refuse it. This is because they see all. They see the person's past and their future. They know exactly what is in their mind and what their intentions are. Avatars are not there to be used, whilst 8th and 9th planers, although they should not allow themselves to be used either, have as their main function to give out unconditional love to everyone and even if people insult them they are not supposed to retaliate, just send them unconditional love and try and reason with them. If that fails they just have to walk away.

But avatars do not have to be this docile. In Matthew 23, Jesus tells the Pharisees exactly what he thinks of them, in full view of the multitude.

Matthew 23: v.28 & 33 'Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.'

'Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?'

This is a far cry from Jesus forgiving those who crucified him. The point is that this is what an avatar is allowed, to say and do precisely as they wish, except that because of the level they are, whatever action they take is what needs to be done and is from intuition or G-d's will, and not the result of emotional outburst or an ego trip. That by their actions they can hasten someone's karma, or take it away.

# How Much Do you Want G-d?

There is a story about a sage sitting quietly meditating under a tree by a stream when a rich man's son came up to him and said.

'I want to find G-d, please teach me.'

The sage did not reply.

The rich man's son repeated his request a second time but the sage continued to ignore him. After the rich man's son had made a third request the sage suddenly got up, grabbed the young man by the neck and plunged his head under the stream. He held him under for as long as he dare. When he brought the young man's head above the surface, he said to the coughing and spluttering youth,

'What did you want more than anything else just now?'

'Air!' The youth gasped.

Said the sage, 'when you want G-d as much as you wanted air just now, come back and see me.'

For those who want to go beyond Spiritual Mastership, they must want G-d more than anything else. Indeed, to become truly Enlightened, which means being able to hear the voice of G-d, one must want G-d at any price. If it were a choice of having G-d, going hungry and wearing rags or being rich but without G-d, the poverty must win every time. They must be prepared to do G-d's bidding, whatever that may be, like Abraham being told that he had to sacrifice his only son. I used to think it was allegorical, but it was not. Of course, G-d saved Isaac at the last moment and believe me, when an avatar works with G-d there can be many harrowing moments, but that is the way it has to be. If this is what you are prepared to do, then you must tell your guides and they will prepare you.

When one trains up to the level of a Spiritual Master, one must always obey one's guides, beyond that level one needs to employ discernment. Your guides will try and trick you: be careful. The second piece of advice is that nothing is what it seems and they will play so many tricks on you that you may feel you are going insane. That's normal! Stop and think at every turn and see what you need to learn from this. You may not need to learn anything and they are just testing your feelings of self-worth and humility. If you think they are giving you a rough time for no reason, call their bluff. As mentioned earlier, you also need to make your own financial arrangements because your guides won't help you. Be careful their suggestions don't make you lose more money. Also, when you start on this path you will be given three opportunities to turn back. They will probably come up during a visualisation meditation, maybe, but not necessarily, in a temple. You will be told that beyond this point you cannot turn back and you have to make your choice. These three opportunities may come altogether as in the first few minutes of meditation, or maybe over a period of time. Be warned. Once you have said yes three times you are stuck with it and the price of failure is not to be contemplated. Also be warned that from Spiritual Master to Avatar can take easily twenty years. It did with me. The differences between those of a Spiritual Master and someone who has reached the 8th plane are considerable but less between 8th and 9th. Again the difference between 9th and 10th is considerable. For example, all beings from Spiritual Masters upwards, have a multi-dimensional self. This means that they can be in more than one place at a time although usually they are not aware of it. Therefore if someone needs you and calls you, you can send a part of yourself, which, if they are clairvoyant, will look and sound like you. The higher one rises, the more multi-dimensional selves one has. Next, a Spiritual Master, in spite of all his abilities is still a human being in a physical body, but once beyond that level, he becomes spirit in a physical body. This is because a Spiritual Master has come into his higher self, but a person who has gone beyond that level has come into part of his divine or godself. I say part because the human body cannot take the whole of ones Divine Self and much of it is retained on the other side.

Whereas a Spiritual Master can hear and see Jesus or another person of that level, like Lord Krishna or Lord Buddha, an 8th planer can see and hear the Divine Mother and the Divine Father, i.e. Yin and Yang or Shiva and Shakti. As I have mentioned earlier, it is at this level that one can give Darshan although there are people who are at a lower level who give it (their power will not be very strong unless someone else is working through them) and those on the wrong side, unfortunately, give it also. 8th planers should have more insight than Spiritual Masters and be quicker at picking up what the cause of the problem is. The difficulty here is that once beings have reached this level they rarely give personal sessions. Many of them are not even trained in natural medicine or therapies although as the west becomes more enlightened it is possible to find such a person. 8th planers can, in their soul or spiritual form, be spirits of a particular country, area or even of a whole planet.

A 9th planer has even more power and will be able to feel the Presence of G-d and work with Him. He may be seen as a gold or white Light with or behind the person, or I should say, being. 9th planers can be Nature Goddesses, Sky Goddesses as well as having any of the titles attributed to the level below.

A 10th planer or avatar has tremendous power. They can actually create planets and whole solar systems. They may even be in charge of a whole universe because each one of us, at our highest level is a universe in itself. They can bring people out of coma's, restore health to the terminally ill and even defer a person's karma to another life, if they are unable to cope with it now. In fact, you only have to look at what Jesus could do to know the abilities they have. They can increase food, (Jesus fed the multitude), make medicine from anything, (Jesus made medicine from mud which he put on a blind man's eyes), raise the dead and they will either be able to dematerialise, bi-locate or both. They can hear the voice of G-d.

Going beyond the level of Spiritual Master is usually painful. Even those who are born as 8th, 9th or 10th planers and reach that level as children or teenagers, with full knowledge, still suffer. This is because they will still have to adjust to the low vibration of the earth which can cause constant pain even if one does not step outside one's door. Because the physical body is lower in vibration than the spirit, it has to evolve spiritually to enable the Light to come through it and this is agony.

The differences in the above levels are not set in stone, but are guidelines only and some great beings that have incarnated to do a specific task, do not fall into any category, like Mother Theresa. Yes, she was a Mother for sure, and no one can doubt her devotion to G-d, but her abilities do not fall into any recognisable frame. I only give you these indications so you have a rough idea of what you want to achieve and what can be achieved, not to use it to judge others by. It may be easier to look at the writings of past avatars to get a clearer idea. These are Ramana who lived at Arunachala, Sri Aurobindo and Sweet Mother, Anandamayi Ma, the very venerated Swami Sri Yukteswar, these all being modern avatars as they died during the last century. Babaji and Zoroaster who are Maha-avatars because they can just appear, and are not born.

I also said there were 4 spiritual levels. The 8th, 9th and 10th planers (avatars) correspond to the first 3 levels. The next level is that of the Maha-avatar. Maha-avatars, as just mentioned, are beings like Zoroaster and Babaji, who just appear and are not born, but there is no reason why an avatar cannot progress to being a Maha-avatar. Then there are the Messiahs, of which one is born roughly every 2,000 years. This is not strictly a level and cannot be aspired to in the normal sense, for to want to be a Messiah is an ego based desire. A Messiah will be an avatar (or maha-avatar) who has been chosen by G-d. The criteria for the choice is, that the Being chosen, certainly does not want such a position. As these beings are so few and far between I don't think there is any need to go into the subject further.

Training for the higher levels comes at a very high price. Training is hard up to the 8th level but is bearable. From 8th to 10th it becomes so bad that there are times when you think you have gone completely mad and should be sectioned except that people who are truly insane would not think rationally in this way, other times you might even wish for death, it is just that bad. At your worst moments everyone will desert you. You can call and call for G-d and your guides, but no one will come. Even prostrating yourself on the floor and banging your fists in total and absolute desperation (or submission) can produce no result. At this time you will feel totally abandoned. It reminds me of the song by Bob Dylan where there has been a nuclear war and he is the only one left alive. As he jumps off the top of a skyscraper, passing one of the floors on the way down, he hears the telephone ring

But it is not just in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense too that one feels abandoned. You feel that G-d and the spiritual hierarchy are all an illusion. Like Jesus in the wilderness, this silence from the spiritual realms can go on for a long time, even years. At these moments you can only try and strengthen your faith, keep calling for everyone, do your mantra, say prayers, sing hymns and meditate until the situation changes, and it will, eventually.

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo says,

'I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened.'

and Gandalf replies,

'So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide. All you can do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you.'

We are in the midst of Armageddon. Use your time well.

## End of Book II

Soul Journey is constantly being revised and updated. If there is a spiritual or philosophical issue that you would like guidance on, and which you think would be of general interest to other aspirants, please email me on starlightdevi@yahoo.co.uk for inclusion in this book. Thank you.

# How To Buy and Programme a Crystal

First, go to a shop with a good reputation and where you feel comfortable. If the energy makes you feel you want to run out, then don't buy from that particular shop. Choose a crystal that you feel drawn towards. Remember they all have individual personalities. When you get it home, put it into a glass or crystal bowl, cover it with spring water and add a tablespoon of sea salt and two of apple cider vinegar. Leave to soak for 24 hours. Rinse and dry on a paper towel. Next, sit down comfortably and meditate holding the crystal. When you feel peaceful, hold the crystal in front of your heart centre and talk to it in your mind, saying something like, 'dear crystal, please purify this room of harmful vibrations.' Hold the crystal until you feel a warmth emanating between the two of you. Thank it and place it where you need it to do the work, i.e. beside the computer, T.V. etc. Repeat the whole process about every 6 weeks.

Crystals benefit from being charged by the sun so leave them out in the garden, preferably on a piece of silk, to drink in as much as they can or in winter put them on a sunny window sill. If you find you are unable to talk to your crystal to programme it or cannot feel a warmth from it, then just put it in the sun to cleanse it and tell it what you want it to do. Alternatively I can programme it for you, absently.

# Causes of Illness

Here are some, but not all, of the reasons for illness. For specific illnesses go to the Symptom Index.

Trauma from childhood, birth, pre-birth and conception.

Picking up negative energy from parents even though one doesn't remember.

Reacting to circumstances and environment from early life.

Karma from past lives or that taken on for experience.

Accidents which in themselves may be karmic.

Stress, anxiety, worry, wrong job or lifestyle.

Weather.

Food: wrong diet/allergies.

Anti-biotics/orthodox drugs including standard vaccination.

Difficult relationships/emotional imbalances.

Bad chi or feng shui in the home.

Picking up bad energy from other people.

Picking up bad energy from places where there have been plagues, massacres, fires, air raids, accidents or suicides.

Vampirisation caused by other people.

Gateways, vortexes, geopathic stress, poltergeists.

Curses and/or negative energy directed at you from other people.

Picking up on deceased people who need help.

Torn/damaged auras.

Being given healing by someone who has bad energy with them, being taught the wrong meditation technique which can cause illness, mental imbalance or release kundalini prematurely. Wrongly taught tai chi or other technique.

# Symptom Index

Although many illnesses are caused by past lives, if they have not been dealt with, then the symptoms can repeat themselves in this life. It is also quite possible that the attitude that caused the original symptoms still remains.

Remember that these are possible suggestions only, taken from past cases, and will not necessarily apply to you.

Acne in teenagers - Anger and frustration; allergy (usually to milk).

Alzheimer's - Ingestion of aluminium deposits from aluminium cooking utensils. Most likely sources: school dinners, ready meals, non-organic baked goods, i.e. bread, biscuits, crackers.

Anaemia - Not wanting to live any more as well as low iron intake.

Arthritis - Generally can be excess uric acid through drinking too much tea and/or coffee especially in elderly people. It can also be caused by worry and stress and by consuming liquids with meals. Liquids should be finished at least 15 minutes before a meal and not resumed until at least 45 minutes afterwards otherwise it swamps the villi in the intestinal tract and food cannot, therefore, be processed properly. It turns to acid which in turn can cause arthritis. The only exception to this is a little mineral water or wine which can be sipped if the meal is very dry, or water with a little apple cider vinegar which cuts down acidity. Deposits in the joints from orthodox/prescription medicines. Rigid attitudes, not giving.

Arthritis in the hands – Miserly; possessive of people (clawing, clutching).

Arthritis in the knees \- Does not want to change opinions, perspectives or attitudes or in the past has run away from obligations. Does not want to bend.

Asthma - Fear; grief; insecurity; rejection; unresolved emotional trauma. Allergies, pollution.

Bed wetting in children \- Usually fear and insecurity. Ensure they do not have a drink before going to bed and that they go to the toilet.

Bloating- see Flatulence.

Cancer, generally - Resentment.

Cancer, bowel - Too much red meat, alcohol (especially whisky); constipation, causing a build-up of toxins, which can be due to emotional blockages. People who have been in the army or whose parents were and brought their children up to be cold, unemotional, unfeeling, rigid, and those who have suffered at the hands of the public or convent school system.

Cancer, breast - Unable to express love; not being loved (i.e. unmarried or married to a cold, unfeeling or abusive man). Not being in touch with one's femininity. See my book, Ladies Only.

Cancer, cervical - Unfulfilled desire for children; promiscuity, denying ones femininity. See my book, Ladies Only.

Cancer, prostrate - A lack of understanding of the deep emotional significance as well as spiritual significance of this area.

Cancer, throat - A lifetime of humiliation, put-down's, insults or speaking words of violence or abuse. In the timid person, build up of anger which has not found an outlet due to lack of courage to speak ones mind.

Circulatory problems - Not enjoying life, not participating on the world's stage but rather would withdraw from it by becoming a recluse; anger at being repressed as a child. May not want to put oneself out for others.

Cold hands and feet - May have cold feet about life and lack courage, or may not want to help others or themselves but prefer others to do things for them. May need comfort which has not been forthcoming. May have cold hands because of being unable to give or to receive but can also be just a natural part of one's nature and does fit a homoeopathic profile.

Cystitis - Problems with relationships that one is unable to face, i.e. not facing the fact that one's husband is deceitful or unfaithful. Promiscuity which is often at the heart of many virginal problems. See my book, Ladies Only.

Deafness- Refusing to listen to criticism; refusing to listen to what is happening around them or what their family and friends are saying to them. Refusing to listen to other peoples points of view.

Diabetes - Not being able to enjoy the sweet things of life because one does not feel deserving; self-punishment for some committed wrong, real or imaginary; not being true to oneself or one's ideals. Feelings of guilt which are often not conscious. No self love. Not being loved by others. Being continually rejected.

Diarrhoea - Emotions run away, i.e. out of control.

Digestive disorders - Being forced, as a child to eat when not hungry (school dinner syndrome), not being able to stomach the situation that one is in.

Dyspepsia - Feels that one does not deserve to eat, therefore food will not go down, or causes upset when it does, or one gets full almost immediately. Unable to eat due to stress caused by nervousness.

Endometriosis - Fear of having children; fear of motherhood thinking they will not be good mothers; fear of contracting a sexually transmitted disease; fear of men.

Epilepsy - Usually as a result of shock to the mother during gestation or the way the baby was handled during the birth process. Possible link to drugs used during birth, i.e. epidurals.

Fallopian tubes blocked \- see Endometriosis.

Flatulence and Bloating \- Stress during eating, either meals are hurried or not taken in congenial company. Build up of anxiety in the stomach due to not being able to stomach some part of one's life, therefore it is stuffed down. Wrong diet.

Gall Stones - Possibly built up as the result of deep feelings of bitterness and hatred.

Gum disease - Being the foundation of the teeth, bleeding and swollen gums can mean that we have not got a proper foundation on which to forge ahead. Have not got our teeth into life or not got a grip on life, not biting.

Haemorrhoids - Usually due to constipation, it can mean a problem with that part of our anatomy. In men it can mean repressed or latent homosexuality or due to trauma through sexual assault by a male to either sex. In women it can also be the result of sexual abuse in that area. In both sexes it can be due to irresponsible potty training by parents.

Hayfever - Grief (unexpressed tears), allergies.

Headaches - Anger exploding in the brain.

Heart disease - Anger arising initially in the liver, not being dealt with, becomes internalised in the heart. Grief; disappointed love; resentment; not taking responsibility; guilt; excess joy. Shocks and traumas that have not been dealt with.

Hepatitis - Sudden changes of diet; swallowing water from polluted rivers, plague from past lives; anger, jealousy and hatred.

Herpes - Usually to do with something unclean about the person's mind; lax sexual attitudes from former lives.

Immune system breakdown \- Over use of anti-biotics and orthodox drugs in general; over-use of the computer; too much exposure to EMF's. Bad diet.

Itching - Impatience; aggravated (irritated) by others.

Kidney problems - fear.

Knee, pain in - too many needs i.e (k)needs; a weakness in the emotional body (as in doing too much for others, not standing up for oneself).

M.E. Usually caused by being exposed to too many EMF's through the use of the computer which breaks down the immune system.

M.S. - This is usually a condition which has been built up over many lifetimes. It can be due to having run away from problems which must be faced up to, or having fixed ideas and opinions, such rigidity that the mental state transfers to the body with the resultant break down of the system so that the person has difficulty moving and is eventually confined to a wheelchair. Emotional imbalance is another cause.

Menstruation - Heavy, painful or both - Unrelaxed sexual area which could be the result of feeling ashamed about sex or their own bodies. Fears of having children or becoming pregnant causing tension in that area. Rape. See my book, Ladies Only.

Migraine - Repressed anger.

Neck, stiff - Refusing to look at other peoples points of view (unable to turn around), refusing to look at past misdeeds.

Ovarian cysts - see Cervical cancer.

Pains in shoulder- Shouldering too much responsibility. Carrying heavy emotional burdens.

Paralysis - Running away from ones obligations and responsibilities in a past life and those feelings being brought forward in this one.

Parkinsons's - Diseases such as these are usually the result of karma brought forward from a number of lives and it is rare to find this level of disease as the result of actions or attitudes from one lifetime.

PMT - Emotional imbalance and difficult relationships with the opposite sex. See my book, Ladies Only.

Rheumatism – Anger exacerbated by damp living conditions..

Sciatica - Not facing up to life and walking away from situations. Rigidity.

Sleeplessness - Stress, anxiety; not being at peace with oneself.

Spine, arthritis, paralysis in - Unbending attitudes, rigidity.

Tinnitus - see Ear Disorders

Thyroid, overactive/underactive - Not channeling one's creativity, blocking off one's feelings.

Teeth - There are many reasons for teeth problems apart from too much sugar and not enough brushing. Each tooth corresponds to a part of the body and by looking at its representation, a clue might be found to the problem. You can check the meaning of each tooth by googling, Thieves tooth chart – they also make edible toothpaste! Apart from this, teeth problems can be due to people not getting their teeth into things, whether it is life in general or other aspects.

Throat, Tonsillitis or continual sort throat - not being able to say what one thinks and feels; repressed creativity. Frequently expressing anger but not dealing with it. Humiliation, put downs and insults being 'stuffed down one's throat', which can, in extreme cases lead to throat cancer or thyroid problems.

Vaginal thrush - Antibiotics, deficient personal hygiene; having sex with someone you do not love; promiscuity. See my book Ladies Only for more information.

Ulcers, gastric - Too much stomach acid caused by eating under stressful conditions and worrying generally.

Ulcers, mouth - Swearing or generally using insulting or violent words. Eating foods that are too acidic or to which one is allergic. Vinegar, milk and foods containing lactic acid are prime culprits.

Varicose veins - Not enjoying life to the full. Possibly sacrificing too much - martyr syndrome.

Vertigo - May be due to a distant memory of leaving the spirit world and descending to earth which is like looking down a very long escalator from the top. It may also be due to a fear of heights because of an impulse to jump or feeling that they would fall; deep insecurity.

Vision, short or long-sighted - Not being able to see what is happening on any level; change of perspective needed. Not being able to see matters from a different point of view. Not making connections with the things we see.

Water retention - Not dealing with our emotional problems; blocking our emotional feelings because we have no outlet for them, i.e. no sympathetic listener.

Weight problems - Thyroid dysfunction. Fear of relationships or fear or dislike of men in women so the weight ensures they are no longer attractive and therefore they can avoid not only the relationship but looking at the reasons why they feel like this. Being forced to eat as a child when we either weren't hungry or didn't like what we were given, or being too nervous to eat. Eating the wrong diet or eating at the wrong time of day. (See Ayuvedic diets to determine whether your body type (dosha) is pitta, vata or kapha). Holding on to our weight because we are symbolically holding on to attitudes that need to be discarded or transmuted, such as resentment.

# Glossary

8th, 9th and 10th planers. I have used numbers for the spiritual levels because they equate with the planes of soul. For example, when a spiritual master dies he will go to the 7th plane which is called the celestial or Christ sphere. Beyond that are the planes of spirit, the 10th being the realm of G-d. Ten is the number of G-d because both the one and the zero have no beginning or end. Also there are levels in-between the levels, so one could reach 7 ½ for example.

Advaita-Vedanta – a monotheistic faith literally meaning, 'non-duality' it was first consolidated by Adi Shankara and is found in the Upanishads, part of the Hindu Vedas.

Ajna – the chakra between the eyes through which a person sees imagines in their mind's eye. Seat of clairvoyance and often symbolised by two white petals.

Avatar/avatara means 'the descent of God into matter' but since G-d does not incarnate it is taken to mean the descent of a high spiritual being for a special purpose. In other words, the descent of the God-Self. However anyone can be born as a human being and work up to this level.

Cathars – A sect that disagreed with Catholicism, believing in a duality, 'that where the greatest light is you will find the greatest darkness also.' According to some Cathar's, the purpose of man's life on Earth was to transcend matter and attain union with G-d, whilst others believed that man's purpose was to reclaim or redeem matter, spiritualizing and transforming it. They lived in the Languedoc area of France from the 11th century onwards and were massacred by the Catholic Church who believed their teachings to be heretical.

Chakras - energy centres. These are not physical but etheric centres which can be seen by some clairvoyants and show up in Kirlian photography. They change colour with feelings and emotions. Their function is to channel spiritual energy to enable a person to reach higher spiritual levels which is achieved through meditation and purification. This refines and expands the chakras and helps the person to realise a higher state of spiritual consciousness.

Devas – beings on the angelic ray who, as a rule, do not take a physical incarnation. They are employed to oversee towns and refine the negative energy produced by the ill thoughts of people. Be aware, however, that you can get Devas on the negative ray, usually identified by a high incidence of terminal illness under their jurisdiction.

Darshan – a Sanskrit word that literally means, 'in the presence of' in practical terms it means being in the presence of, or being blessed by a holy person. Very few people give Darshan because the training is very long and hard and those that do are mainly in India, Amma being the most noted. Outside of India, Mother Meera in Germany performs Darshan as does the author. Those wishing to attend Starlight's Darshan should see the contact details at the end.

Etheric – a layer of substance, finer than that of the physical body, which records the body's physical and emotional condition. By looking inside oneself by the use of the third eye or ajna centre, colours can be seen which give a clue to the person's physical and emotional state. The etheric is also a layer around the world and can also be described as 'limbo' where those who are not alive, but still cling to the earth, dwell.

Feng Shui – literally meaning, 'wind and water', it is a Chinese system whereby homes are built in accordance with the surrounding energies and the design of the homes and the position of the furniture within, affects the health and prosperity of the occupants.

G-d – The Jews call G-d, YHWH (pronounced yar-way) and write it without the vowels, latinised it is Jehovah. This is because the name of G-d must never be written. Although I feel that this is taken to mean 'the sacred name which must never be uttered or written', I have always written G-d without the vowel to show extreme respect,in other words taking YHWH as an example and to show that His name should not be taken lightly.

Guru – literally meaning 'Dispeller of Darkness': anyone who has reached the level of spiritual master or above, can be referred to as a guru. This is very confusing because someone who is referred to as a guru, could be a spiritual master or 7th planer, or an avatar. Also, in India, there are wondering saddhu's, sanyasinn's (who usually spend their lives in spiritual contemplation), swami's (which literally means teacher) and others, whose spiritual level it is difficult to determine.

Japa – is a spiritual discipline involving the meditative repetition of a mantra which is used to calm the mind. Japa may be performed while sitting in a meditation posture, while performing other activities or in Darshan. The Hindu versions are often very complicated and more akin to meditation and deep spiritual practice than the one described in this book.

Kabbalah is a mystical text which seeks to explain the relationship between an infinite, eternal and mysterious Creator and the finite and mortal universe of His creation. Its symbolism, the Tree of Life, can be worked as a spiritual exercise to gain spiritual gifts, understanding and eventually, Union with G-d. However, it is based on an older system going back to Ancient Egypt, and the Divine Mother Isis, while the Tree of Life symbol appears to have derived from the Flower of Life from that time and is the blueprint for all creation. Google, 'Flower of Life', and look at books on Sacred Geometry and the Golden Rule.

Karma is the name given to the outcome of any thought, word, deed or desire, good or bad. The actions or speech of any person will have a beneficial or unsalubrious effect on another, and the originator will reap the effects of this for good or ill. Such effects following the person from life to life, hence Gautama's Buddha's maxim, 'all desire causes suffering,' for our desires and negative attitudes will cause us to return to face our karma. The idea is propounded in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies and there are references to it in the Bible.

Sadhu –a mystic, ascetic, practitioner of yoga or wandering monk whose aim in life is to achieve 'moksha' or liberation, through meditation and contemplation.

Satsang – a spiritual teaching, usually in the form of a question and answer session.

Spiritual Master - a term usually only found in the west, it equates roughly with 'guru' and means a person who has reached a certain spiritual standard.

Star of David

Two hollow triangles, one inverted, to form a 6 pointed star, it is usually worn by Jews to denote their faith but was originally a sign of the Initiate.

# Courses and Events

*Darshan takes place Easter Friday and Sunday and at other times throughout the year. You will find dates on my Facebook page or ask to go on our email list. Also see my site, www.avatara.co.uk for the Spiritual Bliss and the Presence of G-d Experience.

Spiritual Advice and Guidance are available by phone or email as well as other issues raised by this book. I also offer absent healing for severe, intractable and life threatening conditions. See my site for further details.

www.avatara.co.uk

My Rainbow Remedies, which cover a very wide range, can be found at:-http://www.avatara.co.uk/rainbow_remedies.html

For video clips on various subjects, visit my Youtube Channel.

# Recommended Reading

## Spirituality and Self-Awareness

Janine's Journey, a novel about spirituality and reincarnation by Starlight Devi. Price £2. Visit my Smashwords author page.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Living in Harmony with Feng Shui: A Path to Self-Understanding by Starlight Devi. Provisional publication date 30th June 2014. Price £2.

Your Body Speaks Your Mind by Deb Shapiro

## Health and Psychology

Be Happy, Be Healthy, guidelines for your general well-being. Free article from Starlight Devi. Email mailto:starlightdevi@yahoo.co.uk

Emotional Healing With Homoeopathy by Peter Chappell

Guarding the Three Treasures by Daniel Reid

The Human Side of Human Beings by Harvey Jackins

The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff

Ladies Only, by Starlight Devi

A self-help philosophical and practical guide covering over 30 female complaints including Emotional Problems and Relationships PMT, the Menopause, Pregnancy, Childbirth, Cancer, Cystitis, Thrush, Leakage, Prolapse and Anorexia and many others, and with homeopathic remedy suggestions). Available on Kindle and pdf £2.95.

Depression Food and Homoeopathy, by Starlight Devi

A self-help book explaining how the wrong food can make you mentally ill, with guidelines on how to find the right diet for you, and what remedies to take if the situation has gone as far as mental breakdown and institutionalisation. Available on Kindle and as a pdf £2.95.

Cutting the Ties That Bind by Phyllis Krystal (for trauma clearing)

What Colour are You by Lila Beck (gives 'colour' yoga exercises for specific chakras and explains which colours mean what in the aura).

# Useful Suppliers

For the best propopolis cream, Chain Bridge Honey Farm, 01289 382362

Homoeopathic remedies: Galen Homoeopathics, 01305 265759 and Helios 01892 537254

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Disclaimer

The remedy suggestions in this book are presented as an alternative to conventional medicine and should not be taken without proper advice. All advice is given with the best of intentions. If in any doubt as to your ability to prescribe for yourself, please consult a health professional.

**Holy Mother Starlight Devi** **(C) Copyright March 2009,**

**This Edition Revised May 2014**

**All Rights Reserved.**

