October 15, 1985

Samuel: So, five months and two weeks [to go], eh?

Well, darling, welcome back.

Oh, you were there.

S: Well, darling, you must remember that leaving is like taking away a part of the self. But it’s good to have your energy with the group. Welcome back. Such changes, eh?

Major.

S: Aye, but good.

Gifts, eh.

I had an incredible gift this week. Just yesterday, after our Tuesday meeting on having six months to live, and deciding what we wanted to do, and trying to ask ourselves why we weren’t doing it already, I decided that night I was going to quit my job. So I quit my job, and Friday was my last day at work. Yesterday was my first day of unemployment, and that afternoon I got a call, and I got hired at another job. So I was unemployed for half a day. I got a real nice, new job, and a whole new set of lessons.

S: Darling, what’s the lesson there?

The lesson for me was to let go and have faith that getting rid of the old would bring about the new. As long as you’re hanging onto the old, the new might come, but it would be damaged, or the new that you’re supposed to get might not come.

S: You create those gifts, and you can tell that creation you’re a good mother.

Thank you.

S: So, I’m coming to a form, eh? Aye, we can work that through.

I had a gift Sunday. I’m sure that S— and F— feel the same way. We’ve been having a lot of things happening with the band over the last few months. Finally things are really starting to work out, and we had our first meeting with the new edition of the —-, and the energy was real good, a lot of positive energy was there, and all of us felt real good about—we have a rehearsal space coming up. Everything just seems to be rolling right along, you know. It was a real gift, seeing everyone together, and just seeing it start. We started on the new moon. And it’s really inspired me a lot, as far as my music goes.

I’ve had several gifts. One that we’ve all had is the beautiful weather. I love the fall, and the leaves have been beautiful. I’ve been doing a lot of driving, and it’s been very special treat to see the colors this year. And also we finally closed on the sale of our house across the street, guarantees the closing of Phoenix House, which is a nice gift. Another obstacle out of the way to us all moving to Phoenix House. And new surprises.

S: Old houses are much like old forms. You’re never quite sure what they’re going to do.

I think it’s like vigils. Everybody should do it once.

S: However, most people develop […] when they are wee children, eh?

Yeah, well, about eight years ago, I was looking for a place to move, and I—well, it was prettier then than it is now, but this little old lady opened the door, and she had such an air about her that—she was going to Texas to live with her son, and she had something I wanted. And I just figured that if I bought her house—it was all pink and there was all sorts of things inside, which was a little bit much for me, but on the other hand, I figured that she had probably broadcast it around the house, and if I bought the house I might learn it. So I think I might have, a wee bit.

S: And you thought that you would go away from it for a little while, eh, and now you are determining to stay, and to make it the place that represents best what you have been learning, eh?

Well, I get the itches to move, but I let my mother do that, and she’s calm. That’s the greatest gift of all, the stories over, and she said the other day “It’s just blank.” And we’ve got 50–60 years tied up in it, and somebody has bought the old story.

S: One more gift.

Well, we needed another wood stove for the winter, and we couldn’t afford to buy one. We really want to go out of town to pick one up, so this friend of ours from Chattanooga loaned us one, and brought it down for us. So we had a nice visit with him, and a lot of old college friends together, and that visit made me think a lot about interconnectedness. I went to school in western Kentucky, but I still see a lot of the people I went to school with very often, here and in Louisville.

S: So that is a double gift, eh?

At least.

S: Aye. Good work with creation.

Well, how are you changing, eh? We have been discussing …

Death.

S: Can we have a little dramatic music there?

Samuel, is the deadline April? It seemed appropriate to me.

S: April Fool’s Day, dear. You have six months to live, dear. Now, you’ve been told so. What are you going to do with your life? If you know you’ve got six months to live, are there things you’d change in your life? And if there are things that you have in your life right now that you would change if you knew you had but six months to live, then I’d say, darling, those are the things that are killing you now. And that’s what we’ve been discussing these last few weeks. You’ve got six months to live. What are the things you’d change? Are there things you would change? And if so, why are they still in your life now? Can you not create a reality any better than that?

Well, now, S—’s response was “Gracious, six months to live. I’ll not be Krogering anymore.” And there was a fine illustration, eh? Any time we needed an illustration of something that was definitely a level one activity, it was very easy for S— to come up with Krogering. Now what will we do? Have we another volunteer for that?

S—, how is Krogering a level one activity?

Quite a few of the shoppers do not shop with love.

S: But do the workers remain loving?

Some. I always did.

S: Your nose has grown.

So you have six months. All right, five months two weeks. But for some it was not enough to think about their own personal six months, so last week we changed it a bit. It seemed to dredge up such interesting things in each of your thought processes that we’re going to have a total of three weeks on this. So last week what did we discuss?

We talked about dealing with the fact that a loved one, your best friend, someone very close to you has only six months to live, and how would that affect your life, and what would you do different in your life, in your relationship with that person.

S: What we discussed last week was to remember that death means only change. It means change. You simply change. It is not the biggest change, even, that you make in this form. Now, granted it is the one that causes the transition, but, darlings, it is not the end. But think about the way that you look at death. Death is a doorway. Is the door open or is it closed for you. The way that you look at death is the way that you look at change in your life on every other level, dears. Think about that. Do you see?

“Oh, Samuel, I do not care to think about that. Never mind my own death, but the death of someone I care for, that’s a little much to think about. The very thought of missing them, I’d rather just let it go.” Well, darling, you do that with change, too. You’d just rather not think about it. You’d rather just let it go, and not face it at all, and let it just happen to you. But it may. No control there at all.

“Well, Samuel, I’ve never thought about death before. Nobody I know has died, and I’ve not thought about myself as dying.” Well, dear, how do you handle changes in your life? Do you find that you’ve never had to make a decision, you’ve always conveniently had another to do it for you? And therefore it’s never affected you at all. Not doing is doing.

“Well now, it is not death that bothers me. It is the void that is left when that one whom I care for is gone. It makes me angry to think they may go and leave me behind.” And change makes you angry, too, for change is like death. Lets you know where you are.

Your friend has just been told that there is but six months. What is your response? Anger? Denial? Sadness? Is your response your own feelings about it, or is it perhaps theirs? Are you thinking of them or are you thinking of you? Well, now, relate that to change. Sermonette.

I had a friend who came down with cancer, and I got—accept the diagnosis, working at the Med Center, which is a very bad place to work.

S: Krogering. Good.

Worse. High paid Krogering, which is almost irresistible. And I became angry at them because I could see the mechanics of the whole thing, which they didn’t look at. And I said, “You do not have to do this. You do not have to accept the doctor’s things. You don’t have to—” I said, “You’re making it up.” “I’m not making it up at all. What happens happens.” And I yammered and I yammered, and I finally got to the point where they wouldn’t talk to me, or I wouldn’t talk to them—I think that was a…. And so one day a new grandson had been born, and their sister died very suddenly, and the story came out that they’d always wanted to be the first one of the brothers and sisters to meet the others at the door, so to speak. And then during the course of the conversation said, “I decided to live.” And by this time outlived all doctor’s—you know, it was four or five years to live on this thing, and now they’ve outlived that, and they settled for a good case of radiation poisoning, and things of that sort.

S: I’m afraid the sermonette has been lost in the words. Let us do bring it out.

They decided to do this, and it was so obvious for someone who has realized that people do make these things up, and I became angry because they were accepting the social judgement and were accepting the medical judgement. That sort of thing.

S: Are you prepared for the zing now, dear?

Yes.

S: Who are you to stop someone on their personal evolution and tell them “This is not what is right for you. This is the way I see it”?

Well this is what I said. I said this is none of my business …

S: “… however, listen to this.” Here is an important point, darlings. Who can help another on their path?

No one. You don’t know what another’s path is. There’s no way of knowing.

S: But wait a minute, dear. That cannot be quite right. I mean there are certain things that we as more highly evolved individuals do know about, eh? For instance, I happen to know that you can heal yourself, and if you’re not doing it, you’re doing something wrong, eh? For it is not your path in the form to be ill.

The lessons you might learn from the illness are the lessons you need to learn.

S: Oh, gracious, you mean to say that illness might be part of your path?

Certainly, who’s to say.

S: Does that mean perhaps I’m not evolving, because I allow myself to be sick?

Becoming ill is not a backsliding in a spiritual sense. I have wondered mightily over your statement, and there’ve been several conversations I’ve had with myself that have supported your role, but on the other hand, I like to take bulls by the horns, and if there is a devil’s advocate, I will become a devil’s advocate.

S: It is important to understand that there are those things which will not be healed, which is why you do not send healing. You send energy that will be used by the individual in the best manner. “Oh, but Samuel, this individual does not know how to use it.” Darling, they’ve got the god within, just like you. That’s where the energy’s used.

“But when the god within me says, `Say something there’, what about that?” Then, darling, do say something—once. And with love, not with anger.

Do you understand the point made there? Change is for you, dear, change is for you. You will change the world, you will, but only after you’ve changed yourself first. Only. And what is the best way to affect others? Aye, dear.

By good example.

S: Aye, exactly.

I want to be able to be more flexible and to be open to change, and what happens is you tell me—and I read—that I need to change, and that change is necessary, and so my inclination is to try to figure out what is going to be the necessary change. What’s it going to look like, how’s it going to be, what am I going to do. I try to figure it all out. But it doesn’t work that way, so my question is what can I do instead of all this going around in circles in my head to try to figure it out, to be able to change?

Just let go, I would think. Surrender.

S: Very easily said. What is it that she’s doing, dear.

She’s talking in inner conflict rather than listening to the quiet.

S: Aye, very good. There are times that it’s very important to shut up, to quit intellectualizing and discussing things. You do not know what must be let go if you cannot hear to ask for help. Another thing is you cannot receive all that you deserve if you cannot hold out both hands for it, but as long as one hand is still turned to the “because of”, you’ll miss out. Remember that anytime you think “what if”, you’re also letting the hand down, and only taking part of what you deserve.

Another very important thing to remember is that you deserve it all. And the only reason you do not have it is because you have not created it properly for yourself. And when you start those creations, it’s much easier to let go of the past. Now state again, lest we have not fully answered your statement.

How can I be more open to change, willing to change? Because I like the present, and I’m not so sure that the change would be better than the present.

S: The present is all you need, dear one, the present is all you need. Where is your power? Your power is in the now, and that’s all there is. It is when you leave power in the back or the front instead of where you are that you lose it. Change usually does not sneak up on you if you are rebelling against it.

The changes we are having problems with are the ones that hit you smack in the face, and you say, “Ouch, I do not like this.” And then you must look to what it is you do not like. What is it you fear there, for that is what it becomes. You do not like it, for there’s something feared. What is it that you would fear, eh?

Lack of understanding.

Lack of being prepared.

Fear of loss. Greed.

S: Fear of failure.

Fear of success.

S: And the fear of success. The responsibility that it will bring. Lots of reasons that we fear change, that we fear death. “I’ve not done all I should. What is in store for me next?” Well, now, that’s the way it is with change.

It reminds me that as soon as I got to New Mexico, I decided the first day to get my studio unpacked, I said, “Now I want my new work to suddenly blossom.” So, for about a week I put myself through hell. “All right, it didn’t happen today. What do I do about it.” And then I’d get depressed, and then I’d ruminate on that, and I began to just go through the process of doing that, and realizing that that was incredibly detrimental, so then I just changed my tack. “All right, I’ll just have fun today, and whatever I do today is going to be all right. It’s not going to be the world’s greatest work of art, and that’s okay.” And after that, everything went very smoothly, but up to that point—all right, forcing it so much that I was making myself incredibly miserable, and kind of chasing my own tail, until I said, “This is no life or death matter. If I don’t do anything great today, I’ve got tomorrow. For three more months I can just do something that’s fun to do.” So I began to take, in a sense, a path of least resistance that began to really nurture me and feed me the things that were new, but by forcing it and demanding, with the expectations to a level of being vehement about it, I could see it was like struggling in quicksand. I’m going down and I’m struggling, and the more I struggle the more I sink. So I just kind of lightened up, and the problematic aspect of it went away.

S: Letting go again.

So, everybody in here is truly dying. Oh, perhaps you have more than six months, perhaps not. Perhaps you have only a few hours. It can be very dangerous on these highways, eh? You never know, dears. Does that change the way you respond to one another?

Yeah. It makes you be nice to others, and you forget all the petty stuff that went on. Who cares?

S: Who cares? Very good, dear. It certainly puts things in perspective. We have become so used to not dying that we have forgotten that it is ever near, and we treat one another with such presumptuous attitudes. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I meant to speak to this one, but didn’t. I’ll do it tomorrow.” So let us get back to—not change now, but the death aspect, eh? The delightful thing, the promise of birth, is that it does not last.

What is this?

It’s our life.

S: In what?

In this reality.

S: Gracious, dear, you have been doing your homework, eh.

I was sitting here last week.

S: You are not this form right here. You are energy that lasts forever and beyond. Even forever has limits and boundaries that the mind of the form gives. Even forever has its ends. You have no beginning and no end, and you have chosen this blink here to do a few things. When you are in the form, you take on quite a few limitations. One of them is you become totally convinced that this is all there is, but there is more, because you are more. And remembering that will also help you change your attitude. It does end, for everyone at different times, and you never, ever know, my dear ones, when that time is for another. T—, darling, I’m sorry to tell you, you’ve got about three minutes.

All right, in this room, how does it affect your thinking? It is, darling, you’re making a transition, and that’s good. And we’ll miss you; that’s good. And I do not quite understand it; that’s bad. But this is not the end, and you have done the work you were meant to do, or you would not be going, eh?

Doesn’t anybody else’s free will ever interfere with your own choice of when to die?

S: K—, dear, you have a cat story about that.

Yes. I had a cat that lived fifteen years, and during the winter—she actually died in September—but during the winter previous to that I was feeling especially love, and she began to get very ill, and I started freaking out, so she’d drag herself around for a number of months after that. And one day I was talking to a friend, and I said it would be all right now if she died. About two days later she died.

I’ve experienced it from that standpoint. I’ve seen people and animals hang on longer for another. My dog hung on longer because I didn’t want to let her go. But I was referring to people dying sooner than they really had planned it. Like in wars; a lot of people die in a war. Did they all plan when they were going to go, or did somebody else’s free will build a bomb and drop it, and wipe out a whole bunch of people.

S: What do you know about the evolution of mass consciousness from the boards that we’ve had in the past?

I know that it affects general outcomes.

S: It is rather the spiritual evolution of a species, so to speak. War is a manner of mass changes in consciousness. “Well, are you saying that all of even those wee ones that came onto the earth at that time and got blown to bits before they were two years old because of some bomb dropped upon their country, and they had nothing to do with it, you mean to say that they perhaps participated in that in some way?” Aye. You are energy. It is not bounded by this form. But you have made the decision to come into this form for a reason: to learn and grow, perhaps to help others. You have made that decision. You have set up contracts, you have set up agreements, pacts, with those you will deal with to work with you, to meet with them. Gracious, darlings, the energy in this room is so familiar when you walk in, for most of you have been together before, and it feels good. You think, “Where do I know you?” You’ve come selecting the best method for you to learn the lessons you need to learn. Perhaps you have chosen a time that you needn’t be here long, and so you set up several choices. Well, one of the times might be to have yourself born into a country going through quite a bit of war. It’s a very good chance that your life will be ended by a bomb. But you can set up another path right next to it that at the same time you’re going to make this particular exit, you may be hit by a car instead, or taken by a disease that could be an offshoot of the same thing, but you have chosen the way you leave, just as well as you chose the way you came in.

It must be so.

It seems like so many things are left open to chance. From the time that you’re born until your death comes, if you live a fairly long life.

S: How many times have you narrowly escaped a situation, perhaps because you listened, perhaps because circumstances changed—[whispering] coincidences?

Okay, a lot.

S: Aye. For everyone. How often as a child have you been very sick, perhaps close to death, and you did not die? Darling, you’re indestructible until it’s your time to go. Well, perhaps not indestructible. You can make your last few days pretty miserable if you wish, but you will not go?

What about suicide?

S: K—, what about suicide?

It’s still set up.

S: Aye. It’s a way to go. And think about this, darling. There are times that the biggest statement you make in your whole life is the way you go.

And you predetermine to go that way?

S: Darling, as I said earlier, the choice of going, for instance suicide or sickness, you are left with options. What you do with those options may be a determination that your higher self makes. You may decide that suicide is the way to go, but things change so much in the path that you are going to take that it is not the logical means any more. It depends on what compacts you have made. Do understand again here, there is no wrong path. If you’ve come here to do a certain work, and in the middle something changes, that you’re doing a different work, well, you’ll have another chance to do the first. It is not wrong to go with that change, it is perhaps going to be more difficult, for you’ve set things up totally for your first path choice. You may not learn all the things you set up for yourself to learn, but you learn something else. Second violin, second fiddle.

Could you conceivably—let’s say before you’re born you see things pretty much as they’re going to be in your life, and then, at a certain point, you make a kind of transition, while you’re here. Can you change something you decided upon somewhere else. Let’s say you were going to commit suicide at twenty-one. Things don’t go in that direction, and you don’t want to do that. Can you make a change in the here and now that hasn’t been agreed upon?

S: Sure, dear, that’s what I’m discussing. The paths do change.

I had an interesting experience. I left my body. It was like I was being swung up by all this golden light, and it was really nice. And I looked down on the earth, and it was very dark. It was real heavy, like there was all this negativity, and I realized, looking down on it, that in my lifetime, the probability of that changing was [end of tape] … And I was essentially told by all this energy around me that it wanted me to stay, it didn’t want me to go back. They were kind of teasing. They said that I would have to kill my […]. And it was interesting that I didn’t have to leave an explanation at all, but I felt a social responsibility to explain it. You know, I’d have to do something that people could understand that I had died. And I looked at my body, and I was very nostalgic, and I felt a lot of affection for it, and I couldn’t kill it. But that wasn’t the most important thing. The main reason was that, looking down, I saw that in my lifetime there might be some contribution that I could make that would make it just a little bit brighter. Just a little bit would be enough.

S: Oh, darling, you’ve said so very much there. You’ve had a very wonderful gift.

Next week we will discuss a little bit about what L— has shared here, how it is you make these choices, how it is consciousness changes, that you have a glimpse of what can happen, and be done, and that you make choices based on that.

“Well now, Samuel, do we all have those same choices?” Nay, dear. Being able to make the choice comes as the result of very hard work, and much learning, and much growth. Sometimes you need somebody to direct your decisions a bit.

I think there is some discussion that is needed on, perhaps, why we choose what we do.

It seems that a lot of times the way you die doesn’t affect you as much as it does the people around you, that you leave behind. How much of that goes into consideration when you’re choosing your method of escape, of how it affects other people?

S: Can you learn from any situation?

Yeah.

S: Is it an opportunity at all times to learn? If one of the pacts you have made with those you love is that you will help them in certain lessons—and we’re speaking on a much higher level than “I’ll meet you Tuesday, and we’ll discuss a meeting”—then would you choose the way that you died, which is the perfect way for them to pick up on a lesson, just because it might hurt their feelings, too?

We need to discuss the epitome of changes, changes within your own path.

As we change our realities, do we not also change our path?

S: The road is wide, dear. Perhaps you are seeing the same path differently. Then again, perhaps you’ve changed it altogether. But I would say that, take the road out to your farm, the path before you, the road out to J—’s farm, starts out paved, and then it becomes very rough, and then it becomes smooth again—not paved, but smooth. So it is with your own personal path. As you create your reality, you learn to pave. But until you’ve learned how, it may be a bit rough. It’s the rough that makes you want the paving, eh? Sure.

Let us stop, my dear ones. The intensity of your energy will suffocate you.

Look for gifts. Look for change, and watch how you respond to it.

Happy trails.