The theme:
How do we acknowledge the spirit guides, and interact (communicate) with them?
“There is a real communion, the communion of spirit with spirit, that requires the attunement of two souls when mind reaches out across the barriers of earth to commune with a mind in another sphere of being—that is the best form of communion that there can be.”
(p.150 More Wisdom of Silver Birch, edited by Sylvia Barbanell, 1945. Psychic Press, London.)
Ways to attune your vibrations with your spirit guides, like a tuning fork.
—Refining your intuitive insights (inspiration)—
1. The top priority is to learn the spiritual truths and develop your spirituality
(by practicing altruistic love)
2. Practice meditation
3. Always acknowledge your guarding spirit and spirit guides
1. The top priority, “learning the spiritual truths, and developing one’s spirituality (by practicing altruistic love)
The spiritual knowledge is essential when interacting with the other side.
We are surrounded by earthbound spirits, unevolved and frivolous spirits, who are eagerly on standby, waiting for any chance for attunement with human beings on earth. If you happened to have a mediumship constitution, you are constantly at risk of spirit possession (undesirable attunement with earthbound spirits). So, you should first equip yourself with spiritual knowledge, before making an attempt at attuning with the spirit world. The knowledge is absolutely essential; you want to make sure that you are spiritually developed enough to be able to attune with the vibrations of evolved spirits, and not with immature, unevolved ones.
Despite dedicated meditation practices, spiritually ignorant individuals are unable to understand the works of the spirit guides; so, inspirations and guidance from spirit guides pass through them as merely their own imagination, fluke, or just plain coincidence. Not knowing the true purpose of meditation, people are satisfied only with the stress-relief and mind soothing effects of meditation, and they seek no further.
When meditation practices are paired with learning of the spiritual truths, and we make enough progress on both, we will not only start receiving inspirations, but we would come to realize how the spirit world strives to influence us using so many different measures and phenomena. How things develop and turn out, meeting someone, or suddenly coming up with an idea to solve a difficult problem. At first all these events may seem coincidental, but we will gradually become aware that they are in fact, the results of organized efforts from the other side.
Spiritually ignorant will see these phenomena as nothing more than plain coincidences, whereas those with knowledge will be able to see them as the opening of the “guiding door.”
As spirituality develops, hence spiritual unfoldment takes place, the likelihood for us to catch the desirable vibrations will increase. Namely, developing our spirituality is the essential key factor for spiritual communication. But we must remember that there are no short cuts in spiritual development. It will be a perseverant, lifelong journey.
A question was asked to Silver Birch:
“When a person in the physical world does have moments of vivid consciousness of the presence of some loved one in the other world, how is it possible to know for certain whether this is just imagination and wishful thinking or is a genuine fact—a genuine manifestation of a reality?”
Answer by Silver Birch:
“Only by the development of the imagination which is one of the gifts of the spirit. Imagination is a quality of the mind which, in turn, is the means by which the spirit expresses itself. Thus, once the registration of the spirit has been made on the mind, it transmits it to the brain, so that you have physical awareness. These are the stages of manifestation and registration.”
“If you develop your spiritual nature, you become more accessible to the vibrations of the spirit. Until you do, you can have only what she calls the flash, the momentary awareness of a loved one’s presence. It is for the recipient to decide for himself or herself what that experience is. If he or she wishes to dismiss it because it seems possibly to be due to imagination, that is his or her responsibility and nobody else’s.”
“If people in your world will open themselves, mentally and spiritually, to seek receptivity and awareness, then it becomes easier for spirit manifestation, which, in turn, will become clearer, more positive and definite until the stage of certainty is reached. You have heard me say it before there are no short cuts to spiritual attainment. Achievement of spiritual mastery is a long and arduous process.”
(p.78-79 Lift Up Your Hearts, compiled by Tony Ortzen. Edition 2009. The Spiritual Truth Press. First published in 1990)
Spiritual guidance and communications are not something that can be evaluated and given to you by another individual, nor should they be attained easily and instantly, in exchange for monetary compensation, as seen in many spiritual salons and counselors. Rather, these assets must be earned at our own strenuous efforts. The fundamental solution is the persistence to develop, unfold, and nurture our spirituality, on our own.
2. “Practicing meditation”
“The best advice I can commend to you is, ‘To thine own self be true.’ This means quite simply that you should be true to your own soul, for it is there that illumination will come.”
(p.145 How to be Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, M. H. Tester.1988. The Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. First published 1972 by Psychic Press Ltd.)
Religions around the world recommend meditation. Meditation clears one’s mind of distractions and irrelevant thoughts, and brings serenity and quietness. The process is similar to shutting down the power of a froze computer. By shutting it down we attempt to bring it back to its normal state. In order to attain this serenity, we focus our mind, thus we “empty our mind.” We have stopped thinking, therefore, no thoughts will come up. We have stopped the entire thought process.
However, it is easier said than done. Indeed, it is quite a challenge to stop thinking altogether. But everything takes practice and training. Do not chase after the intruding thoughts, when they appear.
Concern, worry, anxiety, fear, they represent most of the intruding thoughts, all of which build a dense wall of aura (noise) around us. The noisy wall blocks the entrance of delicate vibrations (pure tone) from our guides, preventing inspirations and guidance from reaching us. Therefore, we “empty the mind” and temporarily delete ourselves (temporary selves), which is the source of the intruding thoughts. We aim to attain inactivity of the mind, similar to the state when we are asleep, while maintaining consciousness of the awake state.
Inspirations do not necessarily enter our minds at this state of emptiness. It is not limited to the meditative state that inspirations reach us. M. H. Tester explains that we should try to commune (make interactions and contacts) with the spirit world; and it need not be a spirit communication (conversations and transmissions).
With our minds clear and empty, we are opening ourselves to the spirit guides. At this state we are communing with (contacting) our guides. That is to say, the voice of silence is the actual state in which we are communing with the guides. If nothing happens, it’s okay. The real self (true self), normally suppressed into the subconscious by the temporary self, have surfaced to the conscious field at this state.
With enough practice, along with concurrent learning of the spiritual truths, we will start catching inspirations and flashes of insights in our daily lives. We will also begin to notice the “guidance” from the spirit guides more clearly.
Silver Birch also tells us as follows:
“But it is sufficient if you sit there in the silence of your own beings, passive, attuned, in harmony. That silence is filled with the power of the spirit; that silence is the sign that you have called a halt to the turbulence of your own material affairs, that you have devoted that short time to the cultivation of the fruits of the spirit and to the recognition of a spiritual presence in your own home.
Your world does not understand sufficient about the value of silence. I often say that your inactivity is our activity and that we can get closest to you when you are still, quiescent, passive.”
Just prior to the above message, he also discussed: “It helps those who love you if you set aside any portion of your time for the sole purpose of reaching them, and, even as I have so often said, if nothing seems to happen in the physical sense, yet something is happening all the time in the spiritual sense.”
(p.45 More Wisdom of Silver Birch)
There are numerous ways to practice meditation. Here, I will describe my method, as an example.
As much as possible, I meditate at around the same time every day. Early and quiet hours of the morning before dawn, when my mind is relatively free from distracted thoughts, works best for me. I shut out the noise, dim the light, and relax with seat myself on the same chair, every time. Then I empty my mind. Although, distracted thoughts would appear on my mind, without fail. At first, I suggest using healing and relaxation music, or maybe nature sounds, like water streams, for example. Listen to the sound wholeheartedly, so that distracted thoughts are eliminated off your mind. By focusing your whole mind, full concentration to the sound, your mind becomes unified (self-awareness with unified mind). Your mind is focused on a single thought, thus the music. From that point, instead of actively listening to the sound of the music, slide it off your mind until it becomes only a background music. The music continues, and your mind is not focused on it. But still, but your mind remains unified (selflessness with unified mind). From there, you guide yourself into the next step by clearing your mind of all thoughts (empty mind), to attain a perfect serenity of mind. For more details, please refer to “meditation” category.
This is the way to “plug into power” as described by M.H. Tester; and also, it is the way for us to become the ones “who have discovered the truths of spiritual laws which ensure communication between the two states of life … ”
(p. 84-85 Silver Birch Companion, edited by Tony Ortzen, edition 2013. The Spiritual Truth Press, Surrey. First published 1986)
However, I ask you again to be cautious, as M. H. Tester also says: “But if you are going to plug into this enormous power you really should read a little about it.” (p.71 How to be Healthy, Wealthy and Wise) Especially, if you are new to spiritualism, or if you only have a halfway knowledge, please be extra cautious.
We must not forget the priority when interacting with the other side. Learning the spiritual truths always comes first.
Again, if you have a mediumship constitution, you are always at a risk of being influenced by unevolved, immature spirits. Halfway knowledge of the spiritual truths, admiration and curiosity for spiritual powers, or thinking you are special and privileged as a medium; all these factors amplify the danger of attracting unevolved and undesirable spirits, who are thrilled at the chance to take advantage of your mind. Even inspirations must go through the filter of spiritual knowledge, logic and reasoning, each time, before they are accepted. These are the reasons why spiritual knowledge becomes essential. It is mandatory that we educate ourselves with spiritual knowledge, before anything else.
In other words, we must consider and evaluate the inspirations, and determine whether the message comes from an unevolved spirit, or from our guarding spirit.
If the message contains voices of temptation and excuses, whispering us to follow our greedy instincts for an act that violates the providence, we can certainly assume that it comes from a low, unevolved spirit. Either way, we are responsible for our own decisions and actions.
3. “Always acknowledging your guarding spirit and spirit guides”
Whether we are aware of it or not, each of us are accompanied by our guarding spirit and spirit guides, who protect, shield and guide us. Also, the inspirations, flashes of thoughts, enlightenment and the like, they all originate from the spirit world.
The voice of conscience is believed as the voice of God that function as the monitoring device; however, we find that most of these guiding voices come from our guides.
In fact, these voices of conscience and even our thoughts, they rarely originate from our own mind, according to Silver Birch.
A member of the circle asked:
“Our consciences, are they really ours or those of the guides because they are connected with free will?”
Answer by Silver Birch:
“You are receiving and transmitting stations. It is very seldom that you construct your own thoughts.”
(p.27-28 More Philosophy of Silver Birch, compiled by Tony Ortzen, edition 2008.
The Spiritual Truth Press, Surrey. First published 1979.)
As for myself, I am quite clueless when it comes to distinguishing the voice of conscience from the voice of my guides. I think the voice of conscience is the voice of God within, assuming that the voice originates from my “true self” which is the spiritual mind, hence God’s divided soul. With regards to the voice that speak to me from the outside, in second person speech, I consider them as the voice of my spirit guard and spirit guides. However, according to Silver Birch, even the large majority of what I had understood as the voice of conscience, originate from my guides. If that is the case, maybe my guides not just attend by my side. Perhaps they are almost inherent in myself, always accompanying my every action. We are united with our group soul members with such closeness and intimacy.
“I always wish that people in your world, especially those who have this knowledge, could become aware of what is around and about them. If only they could see the ones, they love who are close to them, shielding them, guarding them, guiding them, ensuring that no real harm will ever befall them.
If you could realise the extent of this radiance you would never have any doubts or fears as to what the morrow will bring. So, you should, as I always tell my friends, greet each new day as the herald of wonderful spiritual adventures.”
(p.45 Light from Silver Birch, compiled by Pam Riva, edition 2009. The Spiritual Truth Press, Surrey. First published in 1983.)
If we acknowledge our spirit guides, with the spiritual knowledge, we will be able to receive concise advises and guidance from the spirit world, instead of mere flukes or flashes of thoughts. Nevertheless, it is extremely important for us to abide by the fundamental rule: do not make selfish requests and demands.
“You will know what to do. All indecision will vanish. The still, small voice that speaks direct to your soul from the infinite source of all wisdom will speak to you. All you have to do is to give it the facts correctly, without distortion and provide the spiritual silence in which it can be heard.
The voice will not and cannot harm anybody. If your decision seems to do this, then be assured that you have not opened your inner self adequately and your selfish motives have been allowed to colour the moment. I am not suggesting that reason be set aside. What I am advocating is that you allow wisdom to illuminate your reasoning. This is the only way. It may take a little practice. It is worth it, I assure you.”
(p.146-147 How to be Healthy, Wealthy and Wise)
“When you meet with problems, you have to make the decisions as to how to deal with them. There is no better rule than to withdraw into the silence and allow the divinity within to point the way where you should go.”
(p.192 More Philosophy of Silver Birch)