ARRIAN ON CONDITIONS IN THE SPIRIT WORLD
26/1/84.
We have been asked to tell you about life on this side. The important thing to remember is that there is really, in your terms, nothing here. But you form your surroundings yourself. The type of surroundings you experience over here depends on what your basic attitude to life has been in your world. So, if you have been kindly disposed towards other people, if you have been willing to see good in them, to be friendly, to be outgoing, to give of yourself to other people, when you come over here, you will carry on that attitude. You will, therefore, form pleasant harmonious surroundings over here. If you have been the bitter kind of person who has always been automatically suspicious of other people, if you have not been willing to give of yourself to the world and the people in it, you surroundings you will form over here will be less pleasant, more stark and barren. This means that souls with similar attitudes will tend to - I am trying to put things into phrases that you will be able to grasp although the concepts are not strictly parallel over here to what they are on your side. But the only way I can put it is that people with similar outlooks will tend to congregate together. Although, really there is no space here, there is no there, there is no here. But I cannot think of any way of giving you the concepts that we have here because it is so foreign to your terminology, the way you approach life, the way your world acts. So please try to, as this medium would say, put "inverted commas" around things. Perhaps in the future I will be able to get concepts across more similar to the way they really are. For the time being at least, I must try to put things into your terms, your concepts. The main criteria is your general overall attitude to life rather than specific details. It is the acceptance of people, the willingness to give yourself to them. Not necessarily in actual work or deeds or actions but in giving of the spirit to each other, although the physical actions also come into it. What is more important is your mental attitude, your willingness to accept people, that forms the general tenor of your surroundings on this side. The actual details will depend more on the specific things that you liked in your physical experience. So someone who liked gardens, will be surrounded over here by gardens. And if they liked the strict formal English type of garden that is the kind of garden it will be. If you liked the more open, wild, countryside then that is what will be there. It is possible to pass from one side (that is, one type of area in the Spirit World) to the other but only for certain souls, those souls who are wanting to help people in the poorer areas. Because nothing is set here you grow and develop, you can change your attitudes.It is very often quite a while before you are ready to face up to what you did in this life (material life). It is often a tremendous shock to people and they are often completely shattered at the realization of what they did on this earth. So you will, at some point, review your life but that point will vary for different people. Your guides and helpers maintain that link with you when you come over here and it is they who will watch over you and judge this point when you are ready to review your life. It is mainly the more advanced people, the guides and helpers, who can pass from one area of the Spirit World to another. But when a person is "passing over" then their friends and relations, the people they were close to, can then pass from where they are, to their little area. It is also possible to see from one area to another. This is so that the people in the more barren areas can compare and start to realise that something is wrong, that they have to change something. It is when they start questioning and wondering "Why?" that they can start to make stronger contact with their guides and their helpers and so start to break the pattern that they have set up. When a spirit who has been in bad circumstances in the physical world, - a drug addict or someone who has been crippled in some way - starts realising that they can break out of that, they can have a whole body, even though they didn't on earth, that its just the way they are picturing and they only have to picture a whole body and they will have one, they will want to work with people who have the same difficulty and are just awakening. In this way spirits can help each other. People who have been blind have a particular difficulty because at first they do not understand seeing. The senses are very much all mixed up and when you have had a sense missing in the physical world this causes more confusion when you are trying to make sense, or interpret, your surroundings and what is there. When the soul is really wanting to move on and to work and develop, then, the link with their guides becomes even stronger and they can start learning - I guess that is what you would call it - how to develop. (The soul) too, can pass on to "higher duties" as it wishes to help others and to bring them up too. It is this desire to "lift" people "up" - the movement upward being in inverted commas as you would say - that is really development. Although we have given it before, (the movement upward) is a smooth graduation, there are no real steps. But if you look at a rainbow, you can identify bands on it. You can say that is yellow, that is red, that is green, or whatever. But it is difficult to see exactly where one colour starts and the next ends. It is something like that. You can see that you are in one area and there is that crossing over phase, the blending. There is something with the physical atoms crossing over. There is part of the atom - cell - which isn't always there and it comes over this side and back again. This is forming a link.
The division between the material world and this side is not so strong as people think. It is because you see your world, your senses are highly attuned and affected by your world, that you feel there is that definite dividing line. It is not so definite as you think. There is much more of a link, of a graduation, between the two spheres. I feel that this link is being strengthened and that people in the world are beginning to realise this, to look beyond the world. This is linked up with your exploration into space but you will not find the Spirit World by going up in space ships. It is more that the two places are intersecting each other. The Spirit World is where your world is and you world is where your Spirit World is. It is a matter of sort of, looking "up" of looking for the Spirit World. By shutting yourself off you will only ever see the physical manifestations. Human beings are the link between the two worlds. You are, you have the graduation starting with the heavy physical rocks, then soil, then the plants, then the insects, the animals, the higher animals, the primates and then the human being and you are the link between the two, not spheres, but areas. That's not quite the right word but I think you know what I mean. By becoming more concerned with your spiritual aspects you can strengthen that link and you will become more and more aware of spiritual manifestations.
Animals are part of that link, they are more of a basic elemental soul. The lower ones have what has been called a group soul. But when they get to the level where they are capable of expressing individual characteristics then they are more of an individual soul and so you can get the individual animals manifesting over here. Animals have their own "section", but, again, it is not divided off. There is still the link, they can cross, they can meet their masters, their owners. But they cannot be exploited the way they can be in the material world. It is still all mixing up, interlacing, being interwoven.
When a spirit has a block it cannot progress. We have to find some way of removing that block. Now, it depends what the blockage is (and) it depends on what the person wants to do about it. Some people may need to reincarnate to remove it. It depends on their own set ideas. If they believe in reincarnation, if they believe they have GOT to reincarnate in order to work out their "bad karma", (they) are more likely to reincarnate. Suicides are another group who are very likely to reincarnate. Sometimes it is people who have the wish to help people in your material world. People who want to strengthen the link, people who think that they can bring the message about the Spirit World into your world more easily by reincarnating and bringing the memories of the Spirit World with them are likely to reincarnate. Mediums are often in this class. It is easier for them to link up with the Spirit World and so they are again strengthening that link.
(In) the higher parts of the Spirit World people don't manifest the sort of scenery as souls in the lower - in inverted commas - area of the Spirit World. Perhaps we should borrow the terminology from the other circle that we know : the World of Illusion (the so-called 'lower' area) and then the Spirit World proper. The world of illusion is the part that I have been talking about where you form your own surroundings. But when you move into the Spirit World proper, you don't need these props and so you will go through a gradation where you are getting more ethereal. I guess you could say, more abstract type surroundings. Where, instead of a house with walls and a ceiling and floors and windows, you might have more of a diamond or a crystal shape. You, at your stage, would not recognise this as a dwelling place, but to someone in this Spirit World proper that is, sort of, where they "belong" - still in inverted commas.
And, of course, as you go higher up even then, that falls away and there will just be space. An expansion of the soul out into, it's not really space, but expansion out through everything. The phrase has been used "cosmic consciousness" and this medium knows that phrase and I can use that phrase. It is not my invention but she is saying, well, perhaps this might convey what I am trying to say.
Then, beyond that, if there is a beyond, is the Godness, the Absolute, the Godhead. I am not going to use just the word God, because in your material world this seems to be, to have, the connotations of a set concept. People form their concepts of God, and of course, there is no concept of God. So we are trying to use the more, not really vague phrase, but conceptless words of Godness, Godhead, the Absolute, All-There-Is. I am sure you have all heard these phrases before, so we think they will probably be acceptable to you. This Godness is permeating through everything. You have heard the phrase that He, It, is permeating through the physical world, through the material world, that He is in every minute atom, he is all through it. It is known that in your atoms there is more space than physical matter and the Godness is, sort of, like the, not current because that implies movement, but permeates through that, something like a fog, the way that penetrates through everything. But even that isn't the right word. Some people have used the analogy of the cinema with the beams throwing on to a screen. But not even that is right. You have got the atoms sort of there, and there is the Godness intermingling through them. Holding them in their place, type of thing. Try a cake with sultanas in it (laughing). Something like that. You know, you have the cake mixture and you have the sultanas here and there, but it is not solid and hard like a cake would be. It is more amorphous and fluid, finer even than gas. It is a stillness. (pause) It is peace. (Becoming serious) Experiencing great peace. It is the cessation of desires but it is not annihilation, it is not unconsciousness of any sort. It is a greater awareness, a greater consciousness of anything than you can possibly imagine. It is unobtainable while you are in a physical body. You have to leave that body before you have any chance of reaching it and you will all ultimately "reach" it. But "reach" again, is in inverted commas, because (in that region) it is there already, you don't have to reach it. But because of your concepts that is the word I think (that) conveys what I am trying to say.
This is the blessing of death, as you call it. Death is the first stepping stone to this greater awareness. (Speaking much slower) It is the blessing of Godness to man. The more loving kindness you exhibit, the more the Godness will be available to you, the more you can use it, the more the link will be strengthened and become more apparent. You know how your atmosphere has its layers and gradually fades away. It is something like that. That is another analogy - the gradation of the layers of the atmosphere. But in your world the atmosphere is comparatively thin, whereas in the Spirit World it is the greater part of the Spirit World. There is no limit, it is infinity, that's why there is no movement, because it is infinity. There is no where to go, you can go forever and not reach the end. So while you use the phrases of the "higher" areas, it is still really a going in. This is what you need to do - to go within to tap this source. But you only can tap it - you cannot entirely experience it while you are in that physical body. The body forms a shell which is interpenetrated, but still contains you, one from another, and it is the breaking down of this individuality which occurs in your progress through the Spirit World. And when the individuality is broken down, then you are in Godness. This is the formation of the Groups of souls. You have the individual soul there and there is a link with groups of souls going higher up (forming) bigger groups. So between you and your guides and helpers there is a breaking down in individuality. You believe you are quite separate, one from another, in your world, but you are not quite so separate from your guides and helpers, there is a group there with you. Then it forms larger groups still this gradation, there is no set level. At first, when most people come over this side, they still have this enclosing, they will still have their gardens with walls around. They will still have their houses, and, as the individuality is broken down, so you get the freer manifestations. Until, at last, there is no manifestation. And that is when you have gone right within as well as right without. That is when you, as you would say, are throughout everything. This basically a thing which this group (of guides) wants to try to get across. That is (that) the individuality is only apparent.
But few people on your side can break out of that and those who are in a physical body cannot manifest the absolute Godness. Although a few people can catch a glimpse of it they cannot really experience it, but perhaps (they) have some idea about it, although, like me, they will have difficulty in getting the understanding across to others in your world. It is beneficial to try to develop yourselves, to have this experience but please understand (speaking more slowly) that there is no right way - no only right way a to develop this. There are many ways, the right way for any individual, is or will be known to that person. Frequently people have to go through different ways. They will subscribe to one approach for a while and go on to another. This is right for them. You should not decry them as turn-coats or even traitors to the first set of teachings. You have to go through different ones. At least, some people do. There is no set rule. Please understand that, even if I talk as though I am laying down rules and regulations, there is no set rule for every one. Each path or approach that you try, that you subscribe to for awhile, or belong to, each one will be developing you. The unique characteristics of the person in the world that the soul is working through sort of govern the paths that the person will approach, will use. The soul in a physical body, exhibits certain characteristics, individualities - they will ultimately be dissolved - and the soul having experiences in the world is moulded but it is not only experiences in the world that form those characteristics. The different parts will work on the characteristics and if you are open to new influences, if you will accept that the path that is not "right" for you, may be the right one for another person with different characteristics. It is all leading or helping in breaking down the individuality. Never claim that your approach is the only right one. Never try to force people into it. By all means, tell them about it, there must be this free interchange. But accept other approaches, because there is no right and proper approach. There is only the one that is right for that person, at that time. Even the strictest, most rigid, approach is right for some people. But the pity is when they will not accept that another approach is also right. Do not put such people down, they have to work it out, they have to learn and if they have to wait till they get over this side before they start work on breaking down this individuality, well, that is their way.
And where do you come from at birth? You come from the unmanifested Godness. There is no concept, I am having trouble getting it into words for you. A part will coalesce like a drop of water dripping from a tap. No, no, no, no, (speaking more slowly), if you have a cup of water and tip it slightly on its side, a drop forms. It is that type of thing. But the drop in this case, never completely severs. There is still a very faint link, and, as the individuality is dissolved, the link becomes stronger until you reach back to this Godness. Would you please sit quietly. We hope that we have got our concepts across. We had hoped to allow time for direct questions but this medium is tiring. We suggest that later, when you have your refreshments, if you have any questions, that you ask her then and we will try to inspire her with the answers. If not, hold on to that question and we will try to answer it later.