Guiding Lights

Questioned about spirit guides, whose voluntary mission is to aid their beloved earthly charge along the path to enlightenment, Silver Birch returned to the simile of the diamond.

“Can you tell me if spirit guides in general are an extension of one’s own personality on a higher scale, or whether they are separate entities?”

It is a rather complex subject. I would prefer to use the word “individuality” rather than “personality.” I draw distinctions between the personality, which is physical, and the individuality which is the soul or spiritual make-up, the reality behind the mask, so to speak.

Persons are persons so far as your world is concerned, but you cannot separate spiritual individuality in the same way. There are, for example, affinities, two kindred halves of the one soul, and sometimes they incarnate at the same time.

There are also what I call facets of the one diamond. This is the over-soul, the greater individuality, and the facets are aspects of it which incarnate into your world for experiences that will add lustre to the diamond when they return to it.

Also there are people who, although separate persons, are aspects of the one individuality. For instance, my medium, his wife and myself are parts of one individual. So you can have facets of the one guide. You can call these extensions if you like, but it comes to the same thing. Only an infinitesimal part of the whole individuality can be manifested in physical form on earth.

“I receive guidance, I am aware of it and the level from which it is coming. I have not been able to know whether this is coming from a general source or a particular guide. Is there any way by which prayer or meditation can lead one to this knowledge?”

Shall I repeat words that are very familiar? When the pupil is ready the master appears. Is that not the answer? Do not bother about it. All guidance streams from the Great Spirit. Ambassadors from the hierarchy and other enlightened beings, who are kindred souls as far as you are concerned, attach themselves to you sometimes before you are born into your world.

Sometimes they make themselves known to you before you incarnate into your world; sometimes you agree with them that you will volunteer to perform certain tasks. It does not matter what names you call them. They are there. They do not leave you. Their task is as it says in your Bible, “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee.”

These are the angels of light who surround their charges, whose self-imposed task is to guard, to guide, to sustain them and always to point the way to the spiritual path that ultimately leads to mastery. It is not an easy path; it is strewn with rocks and boulders. It becomes increasingly difficult as familiar landmarks have to be left behind. But as correspondingly low as you sink, so you can rise, and the heights to which you can aspire are infinite. Perfection is not a process that you will attain. It is one which you will always be in the process of attaining.

If you wish to gain the prizes of the spirit you must prepare to make sacrifices, but once attained they can never be lost.

We are aware of all your difficulties, your problems and your desires. We know that you live in a material world. We have access to the sources of supply to ensure that those who serve will never go hungry or thirsty. All that is necessary will be provided.

What we say to you and to everyone we encounter is to do the best you can; no more is expected of you. When you fall down you can pick yourself up.

The visitor, a healer, explained that she was worried as to what would happen when the time came for Silver Birch’s medium to pass on.

Stop worrying - worry is a bad counsellor. Have no fear. The plan will fulfil itself. I look back at the beginning of my mission with just one instrument. Then I was unable to speak your language with any degree of efficiency. I realize how fortunate we are to have reached so many people.

Others will follow. They will have the means at their disposal of reaching far more people than we have done, because of technological devises that are to come.

You cannot measure what you are achieving. These are the imponderables. You heal physical bodies but, more important, you touch souls. You allow the patient’s tiny seed of divinity to be stirred into activity and begin to flower. It is a start that ultimately will enable the individual to achieve fulfilment. Rejoice at the opportunities for service you enjoy. You were born to heal.

“Just occasionally it gets a little discouraging.”

I know. I have not worked in your world for all this time without being aware of human frailties. You have the divine potential, the divine armoury on which you can call. If that is not sufficient, call on us. We will not fail you.

When you feel tired, frustrated or pessimistic, withdraw from the noisy, strident clangour of your world into the silence of your soul. Gradually attune yourself to all the rich radiance that is around you. Drink in all the beauty. Experience the calm, tranquillity, repose and steadfastness that this attunement has to offer. Then, refreshed, take up the cudgels and start again.

You must continue; you cannot draw back. Give service whenever you can. Deny none who come to seek your aid. Do not look for them. They will come to you. There is no need to go out like a town crier and say, “Who wants to be healed?” They will beat a path to your door.

Those on whom the Great Spirit with infinite wisdom has conferred the gifts of the spirit should go where they are led, to reach wherever they can, and drop seeds in the hope that they will fall in fertile ground and souls will become enriched as a result. You cannot measure or estimate the work that instruments of the spirit are doing.