Will You Be Remembered?

September 4, 1994

  Samuel: Well, greetings, dears.

Greetings, Samuel.

S: Good. [Pause] Have you ever wondered why you’re here, because we’re going to talk about that tonight. Hello, my friends. How about gifts, eh?

Well, for months and months and months now, I’ve been writing and writing, and thinking that someday it’s going to be a book. And finally I decided I really would do this, get down to chapter 1, that I really had to start with chapter 1; I couldn’t keep wandering all over the universe with writing so much. And so one day it finally occurred to me that, when I do my left pillar, I can ask the Masters of the Rays to help me. And by Jove, that’s what I did, and by Jove chapter 1 is now just about complete. I finally realized that I have this gift of a connection to the Masters of the Rays to help me with connection.

S: Now, which part in there is the gift.

My realizing that I have the connection to use.

S: Beautiful. Well done. One of the most powerful experiences that you can have in this life is not the doing of a thing—because that’s the symptom of the gift, which is realizing you can do a thing. There is so much more power in the trust than there is in the doing. Think about that in life. Everything fails, nothing works when there is no trust. Relationships fall when there is no trust. You can act through all the right things and it doesn’t matter, if there is no trust. But it’s when you realize there is something to move with—that power. Good work.

And you know, of course, that you’re not alone. You’re not alone. You have help available to you, be it somebody who knocks on your door and says, “Hi. Just wanted to drop in.” Be it friends that you’ve cultivated over time; be it Spirit; be it God. Be it Goddess. You have help. You don’t have to do it by yourself. Unless you just want to. Good work.

Give me another. All right. This is the awake side of the room this night—is that it? “I’ve got a gift! I’ve had a good week.!” All right.

Well, I’ve had many, many gifts this week that tie in with Cathy’s. The one I’m going to give is not as close … maybe it is, more than I think. I had an opportunity to feel like a grown-up today, and that …

S: Is that a pity?

No, in a good way. My definition of grown-up is one who takes responsibility for their life and doesn’t look for it outside of themselves, and find what they need within themselves, and give themselves what they need. I had an opportunity to come in contact with a person from my past that is connected with a lot of pain. And I experienced that person still trying to hurt me again. I was able to not be sucked in by it and to sit back and see what was happening, and to see that it has nothing to do with me anymore, that that person has to experience what they have to experience, and they have to feel what they have to feel. And whatever they may do, it doesn’t have to affect me at all. And I was able to even look at that person with a bit of compassion and know that they’re doing what they are doing because of their pain. And I felt so nice because that person still needed to feel like they needed to hurt me. But I felt not affected by the pain that I used to feel, and it was a wonderful experience. I felt like a real grown-up.

S: Oh, sweet Mary Claire Grace! I’m so proud of you, my love. Yes.

Sweet souls, there is such power there. Very, very hard to know when something isn’t yours in a world that’s constantly trying to make you the cause of everybody else’s pain, isn’t it? “It’s your fault. You did this. You made me do that.” Or even in a situation in which you took total aware parts in creating pain many, many years ago, because everyone of you, in your life, has a piece of something that holds on just so you keep it around, just so it can whisper in your ear, “Hah!” every now and again. “Hah! You think you’re so powerful. Hah! You think you’re so loving and good now, well, hah!” You’ve got that little voice in there that you keep around just for that little piece of bringing you right back down to earth. And what it really does is it ties your heart so that you cannot give it all away, lest, just in case, who knows what might possibly happen that it end up creating a hah! later on in life.

Whereas in reality, you are not who you were yesterday. How could you be who you were six months, a year, five years ago? When you are holding on to something for longer than this moment, when you are holding on to something that hurt you, that still makes you angry and frustrated or sad, when you’re holding on to the things that cause you—and I mean that—when you are holding on to the things that cause you to think—and therefore behave—in a way that you consider less than loving, you’re not holding on to it because of that other person. You’re not holding on to it to get revenge. You’re not holding on to it because it’s going to do you any good. You’re holding on to it because the only thing you have in your life that is the slightest bit passionate, exciting, simulacrum of life, is the anger, the hurt, the dis-ease. When you don’t have a life of joy, it’s important to hold on to those griefs and strike out and hurt another, because it’s the only thing that allows you to feel you’ve got any power. And when you reach a point in your life where you’re able to see that and then, therefore, recognize that in the lives of those who are trying to strike out and hurt you, you have become compassionate, and you have grown.

Sweet Mary, it’s hard in this world, when you’re doing so much to be self-responsible, not to want to blame yourself for someone else’s pain, but when you know it’s not you and you don’t, therefore, take it on, that’s power. I’m so proud of you. Of you both. Good work, good, good work. Lovely gifts.

Somebody give me a gift from either one of those that you have received from their gift. Donna, you’re always good for it.

That’s why I try so hard to stay quiet, too.

S: Who believes that? Raise your hand.

Well, I had a gift. I decided to let someone else have a chance. From the first gift, it was a good reminder to me that I know the process and I have a lot of tools—I’ve come here every Sunday night for lots of years, and I have all this knowledge, but it doesn’t do me any good if I don’t use it and I don’t remember to ask for help and go through the process and get a little more information and so that was a real good reminder not to get miss that.

S: When all else fails, read the instructions, eh. Aye, good work.

Anyone else? One more. A gift out of those gifts.

S: Hello, dear. Talk to me.

It’s a gift to be here. I’ve been travelling a lot from a long ways away, and this is a nice place.

S: Welcome back home.

We are talking sort of—that’s fairly accurate, isn’t it?—we are talking, sort of, about death tonight. We are talking about death tonight, sort of. Which would be the accurate way of doing that?

You are going to die soon. I just thought you might wish to know that. You remember when last we were together, I talked about giving a lot of attention to the earth, and so it seemed appropriate that I should begin this night with “you are going to die soon.” Doesn’t that make you feel good and secure and safe? Of course, it’s important that you recognize that I’m not talking about any sort of great cataclysm coming about in your life that’s going to bring about an untimely death. That’s sort of an oxymoron, isn’t it: an untimely death. And those who are laughing are those who recognize that there is no such thing as an untimely death, because you cannot go until it’s your time to be gone.

No, actually I was making reference to how very short your life is—even if you lived two hundred years—how very, very short your life is. You are born just a breath away, and now you are getting ready to die. And I was wondering, my friends, what are you going to leave here once you’re gone. What are people going to say about you once you’re not around to do something about it? How is your living affecting your dying? You see, tonight we’re talking about death, sort of.

Once upon a time there was a very wonderful, loving, happy person upon the planet. They were a light unto the world, and they did much to make the world a better place in whatever way they knew how. They did great volunteer work, they helped those who were sick. They did lots of work at Phoenix, so you know they got all sorts of brownie points, eh? They were kind to everybody they met; they—give me bumper stickers—they lived simply so that others might simply live. And when they finally said, it’s time for me to go, and they closed their eyes and peacefully went to sleep and never woke up again, because of course that is the way good people die, isn’t it? No. There was great sadness and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and they were indeed greatly missed.

And once upon a time there was another person, and this person was not particularly good, not particularly bad—just sort of average, lived an average sort of life, doing what was the right thing to do, which was getting up, going to work every day, coming home, having supper, watching television, perhaps getting married having two-point-five children and three cars—or is it the other way around—something like that—a dog, a cat, whatever it is that you do. They just had a life. Most of the time they did the best they could. And most of the time they were happy.

And once upon a time there was another person who was an absolute hermit, and from a very young age recognized that this is not my world, I’m not going to live in it, and found a cave or a house, or whatever you might want to think about living in, way out in the country, out at the very mountaintop, lived by themselves. never spoke to anybody but the animal creatures, did not really function in the world.

And eventually all three of them died. What is the difference between the lives of these three?

Well, if you’re going to give me the good spiritual answer, karmically speaking there is probably no difference at all, is there? All of them did the best they could where they were with what they had. Did I mention that the hermit out in the cave learned to really care for the earth and take care of the creatures, talked to them often, really had a lovely relationship with them. This was the person who did not get along really well with other people, and so got away from them, but really gave everything they could to the planet. It was very, very nice.

And the person who just lived the average life did not particularly have any grand highs, but no particular lows, either, and just made a routine, a rutty one, of doing the best she could where he was with what there was at the moment.

And then that first one, who was the absolute go-getter, the one that anybody would say shined brightly. What is the difference between these three? And don’t answer this out loud, because you might embarrass yourself this night with your answer.

Karmically speaking, my friends, I’m trying to set it up so that there’s no difference, trying to set it up so you would understand that these individuals were doing what it is they were put here to do, that most of you are doing what you’re here to do. Aye, and in the biggest picture every one of you is, without any doubt about it, because on the most basic level you’re only here to do one thing, and that is to allow the energy you are to do what it’s going to do in spite of you. And you can feel better about that whole process—which is called spiritual work in the world—if you believe you’re actually doing something specific to make it happen, and therefore what you do is live love. It’s an ache within you. There is something within your physical measure—the spirit of your physical self, your very bones and blood—that has a desire to love and be loved, that wants more, that even without an understanding or Source of all, there is a part of the pure physical essence that tries, because it’s engraved on your very genetic structure that you are spirit borrowing form. So whether you ever have an awakening or not, there is a part of you that is simply going to—without trying—it’s going to live love. You’ve got to try [in order] not to.

And, if you continue in the process of, “Well, gosh, that was nice. I liked when I smiled at that person and they smiled back,” you start giving yourself behavior training toward the good. As you start socializing, you start finding that in order to function at all in the world, you’re going to do the best you can where you are with what you have at the time. These are basic principles of living in the world, and you can be doing what your spirit self is here to do almost without thinking about it, and it is good to do so.

No, living love, doing what you are here to do on the most profound, the most basic, level, this is not what makes the difference between these three. For those of you who were thinking, well obviously the first one, the one who was volunteering and helping and actively seeking and consciously growing and doing and being and doing and giving and giving must be the shiny, bright, happy one. And the one who just lived in the cave must be the ultimate wrong one, and then he’s going to say that we are all sort of in between, right? You see why I suggested you don’t answer this out loud, because there is no difference in any of those.

“Samuel, you cannot be saying that everything that I am doing for conscious growth, that everything that I am doing for giving love and being the example and the marvelous bridge—best bridge ever built between the world and the world of spirit—doesn’t count as much as the person that just hightails it up to the top of the mountain and hides all of their life, just talking to the animals and being good to the grass? You cannot mean that. Doesn’t that go against everything you’ve been teaching for years? Say it’s not so, because surely that would mean that everything I’ve been doing all of this time is such a waste.” Don’t you love it? I do.

There is no difference in the heart of any of those. The difference is in what they’ve left behind. The difference is in whom they have left behind. For the hermit in the cave, what has been left behind is probably a whole lot of really happy squirrels, groundhogs, woodchucks, and so forth. The deer will probably be sad, but because the creatures tend to live very much in the moment, as soon as the food supply is gone, they’ll find out where to be, and not miss the person for too long. And the flower fairies will get over it somehow. Living in a cave doesn’t change the world, even though it may change you.

The individual who is absolutely doing their best, living a life of constant constancy, of just doing their best day by day, following the rules, getting up in the morning, going to work, being fairly friendly with those they work with—a pleasant person trying to be nice—coming home, perhaps playing with the children for a few minutes or talking to the partner, if there is one, for a little while, going to a movie now and again, having friends over for dinner—this is a good life; it’s consistent; it’s not particularly hard. And when that person goes, that family will be sad. Of course, once they develop another routine, your memory will more quickly fade from their minds, because you’re out of their everyday consciousness, because all they shared with you was a routine, and routines change. So don’t worry. What you leave behind won’t be here for long, either.

And then there is that first one that I mentioned, the one who is doing a lot. Maybe doing a whole lot for all the wrong reasons. Have you ever done that in your life? You’re just giving, giving, giving, because you’re hoping to be accepted, but by gum, you’re giving and you’re making sure that you’re being loved because you are dependent on it, but you are being loved. Have you ever had that in your own life? You might not want to shake your head or raise your hand, but I will tell you, yes, you have. Perhaps you spent a long time trying to get over it, but nonetheless, you know exactly what I’m talking about here. A life that’s giving, giving, giving, that’s out there all of the time, that’s doing all sorts of things, that’s involved in—name things for me here—that’s teaching people to dance, and working in their lives for healing, that’s providing flowers and happiness and creative things for others, that’s going to soccer, and when you’re at a cocktail party you’re always surprised, because there’s always somebody that you know. (I always talk about cocktail; parties, don’t I? Isn’t there something else where groups sort of come together in mass?) When you go to the University of Kentucky bash, where much of the city comes together to say, “How about them cats?” And you find that you actually know a lot of those people, because you have a whole lot of touches into the world around you. Some of them because you’re doing, some them because you’re just being. Some of them are old drinking buddies that you hardly like to remember, but they keep showing up in your life now and again. Some of them are old boyfriends or … some of them are casual friends; some of them are close friends. But you are always finding … that there’s someone you know.

These people’s lives are going to go on forever. Why? Why? Somebody tell me why. Because it takes [us] where I’m going tonight.

Because they’ll always be remembered.

S: Because they will always be remembered. Why will they always be remembered?

Because they set an example of how to be.

S: Well, one reason might be because they were an example to somebody somewhere of how to be. Of what to be. And then somebody else began living that example, because they saw it in you. And that example then became an example to someone else, and pretty soon it becomes a part of you that’s living on forever.

Why else? Aye.

Because they interact with people, and when you interact with people you make a change.

S: Simply by the interaction with another, you’re helping to bring about change. Were you going to continue that?

I was just going to say that that interaction alters things permanently; it changes the course of events. And so a person lives on forever in that way, because they’ve caused that change.

S: Absolutely. Yes.

So I want you, for a few moments, to think like a trout, all right? Can you do that? Put on your trout head right now? All right, you trout-heads, come now. There you are, minding your own business. You have the most lovely, cool, deep hole in a very deep pool in this whole lake. It is so nice. And as you sort of look to the surface—you know you’ve got to lean over on your side to do that—as you roll over and look to the surface, you can see light up there, and you think perhaps you see a really lovely fat fly. And you are going to move gently up to the surface and see if you cannot just nip that easy supper sitting there for you. You got your trout head on here? Are you moving right up gently.

At the same time, meanwhile, back at the shore line, there is a young child who has just learned how to throw, and picks up a rock and, and as its four-year-old might can do, throws that rock into that lake. And it happens to fall about two feet away from that trout. What happens to that trout? All of a sudden that trout’s whole world has changed. An interaction from a four-year-old that had nothing to do with the trout created a total change in a trout’s environment and in the mechanisms of the workings of that trout.

You can be the trout or you can be the four-year-old. You make ripples in the lake of this world, whether it’s your intention to or not. What you do creates an effect on others, whether it was your conscious intent or not.

Anybody here ever fed goldfish in the pond or fed fish, perhaps? How long does it take before the fish learned that you were not throwing rocks, but were throwing bread or fish food or whatever it happened to be. It did not take too long, but it took a little while, didn’t it?

Imagine the difference for the trout when what is thrown into the pond isn’t a rock, but [something that] simply disturbs everything as it moves down into the bottom of that deep pool, two feet away from that trout’s—do they have a nose?—from the front of its pointy little trout face. Or what that four-year-old threw in with absolute delight was perhaps a piece of bread saved from its breakfast and rolled up and tossed in. Who knows? The trout doesn’t. Maybe that juicy supper fly is in the middle of that.

What’s the difference there, in the rock or the bread ball? What’s the difference there, because both of them are disrupting the trout’s environment? both of them are changing the trout’s mind as to what it’s going to do. What’s the difference?

The bread is life-enhancing.

S: The bread is life-enhancing, hopefully.

The intent.

S: And the intent of what, the trout?

Of the person that’s throwing it in either had the intention of shaking up the pond with a rock or feeding the fish.

S: And that’s exactly how it is in your life. You can simply be shaking things up, totally unaware of the effect that you have on others—it’s a lot easier that way—or you can be choosing to feed the fish. Now, the trout has a choice always. Always, the trout has a choice, doesn’t it? You’ve still got your trout head on here, don’t you? So, still something is coming down into its environment two feet away from its pointy little head, while the trout is on its ascension path to the fat fly in the sky. Nothing has changed for the trout. However, simply by the very nature of physics—a rock is a bit heavier than a dough ball, isn’t it? And it’s going to make a different descent into the environment of that trout. I’m not getting too esoteric here, am I? Which, by the way, is very much a parallel to the difference between a conscious thought and an unconscious thought, because a conscious thought or the intent of putting something out there with love or joy or happiness or the desire to feed the fish rather than simply disrupting, creates an energy that can be comprehended by the trout in the world. Because it comes at you with an open hand. You are able to see it, whether you want to or not—kind intentions coming your way, a loving act. Even when you don’t want to recognize it, somehow you do. But you have a choice to act.

One way the trout might act is fear. “Only been rocks before; it’s going to be rocks again. I better get out of here.” And a lot of people do that, too, and therefore you’ve got to keep throwing that bread in. Before pretty soon that trout recognizes, “It doesn’t look like a rock,” and lets the natural curiosity check it out. Doesn’t taste like a rock. Doesn’t taste like a fly, either.

Another thing that the trout can do is choose to ignore it, and a whole lot of times the best of what you do is ignored by the world. There you go; you’re giving, you’re doing, you’re tossing it all out there, you’re volunteering, you’re being good, you’re so kind, “Everybody notice me, notice me, notice me, give me recognition, because that’s why I’m doing it.” And sometimes the world doesn’t. They’re just too busy taking care of their own little hole in the back of the trout pool.

The trout has that choice, and if it continues that way, the four-year-old would be wise just to move on to another place to throw its bread, don’t you think?

I hope some of you are getting this.

Or the trout can go for it. Question: When the trout goes for the dough ball, does it lose its opportunity to get the fly? It might. It’s a risk. When you throw a dough ball in and someone goes for it, it might mean that you have deviated them from the work they were here to do. Is that what it means? You have thrown in a dough ball, and that trout was on its way to the best juicy fly that’s going to be supper and fill that little trout belly with just delighted hummings.

Who had the choice there?

The trout.

S: The trout did, that’s right. The trout said, “Hmm, right in front of me is better for sure than the maybe up there.” The trout is smart enough to recognize that the immediate has more chance of success than the maybe in the future, but it still had the choice of the maybe in the future and ignoring the dough ball.

All right, where am I going with this? We were talking about death … sort of. We were talking about how to live forever, sort of. We were talking about what difference will it make when you die. No “sort of.”

You have a whole lot of choices in this life, my friends, and the bottom line of what I’m saying—you can pick up and go right after this line if you wish (you could have gone before)—ultimately the bottom line of what I’m saying is, you don’t have to be doing it right to be doing it well. You don’t have to be doing it all to be doing it. But you do have to be doing something. And simply by the nature of this world, the more that you do—blindly throwing dough balls into the lake of life, not having any idea if you’re feeding the trout or not. But consistently throwing in those dough balls, you are, number one, not going to be hurting anything, because the trout remains with free will to choose the fly, the dough ball, or the nice cool hole it was sitting in so comfortably.

Your passion is to do. It shows up in so many ways. It’s why, oddly enough, when you get up off your couch and begin just walking around, you feel better. Don’t you just hate that? Don’t you just really wish it didn’t work that way? But even on the most basic of physical levels, doing feels better than not doing. How many of you are often the—forgive me—victim—you know it’s not a work I like to use, but I’m using it playfully here—of your own need to do. for instance, when things are emotionally difficult, what is considered healthy? Well, maybe I should say, what is considered not healthy? When you’re in emotional turmoil, the non-healthy person does what? Well, they probably go to bed and don’t get out, don’t they? They stop acting, don’t they? They withdraw out of life and the company of others, don’t they? Therefore, what’s healthy? A whole lot of people—a whole lot of you—when you’re under a lot of emotional duress, get absolutely compulsive, don’t you? you get very, very attached to your routines, and you begin doing everything right down the line, very, very perfectly, because you are getting control of your life and doing things right, because, by gum, there’s going to be something right, aye? And it’s nice, isn’t it? Because the desire is to do. To do. It’s just as much a part of the survival of what is your true self as the very instinctual survival is for the physical body.

Do. Do. Do.

There is nothing wrong with living so you’ll have a really big wake when you’re gone. Of living so that you’ll have the city’s largest funeral procession. There is nothing wrong with living in such a way that you will be missed. Why?—because it sounds so slimy. It sounds so dependent and powerless and unfocused and wrong. Wrong, it sounds wrong, don’t you think? It sounds just wrong to do that. But there is nothing wrong with it, because it gives doors for your spirit to act through. It gives places for your energy to touch. It gives things for your physical self to do so that it sees consistent goodness.

If you have no other way of knowing what it is you’re here to do, you could simply start doing everything—anything—that attracts you at the moment, and begin throwing dough balls into the pond of life, begin putting yourself out there in situations around people who will choose, or not, to be affected by the change in their environment you have wrought. You make a big difference in this world. You alone make a very big difference in the lives of other people. When you are consciously choosing to take your everyday experience and stretch it to include others, then you are extending your life beyond your death.

Everyone you touch—consciously or otherwise—everything you do—consciously or otherwise—changes your death, because it changes your life.

Be the trout or be the four-year-old, be the dough ball or the rock. You have choices in this life, and you’re going to make a difference. Why not make it a big one? A really, really big one.

Labor with your heart. It pays the best.

Happy trails, my friends. Enjoy what little time is left to you.

Glochanumora.