An address given by the Christ messenger Zodiac through the deep trance mediumship of Miss Winifred Moyes,
at the Co-operative Hall, York, under the auspices of the Christian Spiritualist Church, 12, Ogleforth, York, on Sunday, October 15th, 1944
(Note: This message was edited for a more general readership)
"SAVIOUR CHRIST, into Thy Hands I commend the spirit of this Thy child...
"The sunshine of the earth is but a pale reflection of the brightness gathered into this hall of peace, and because you have undertaken journeys, or have put aside material things, the blessing is assured. There is so much hidden from your physical consciousness that it is wise for those free from the flesh to come back to encourage and to reassure, for although it seems to you that you are sowing the seeds, you feel there is so little coming up in the way of compensation.
"But today I have been sent into your presence to speak to you upon: 'Harvest In The Spirit World'.
Some of you associate the Spirit World with a cessation of effort; you are perhaps inclined to think that the beautiful things there are there by the Will of God, and man simply comes to enjoy. But I want to alter that attitude of mind, because Harvest in the Spirit World means so much to us. Again, dear children, some of you, when you celebrate your Festivals upon the earth-plane, are inclined to think that it is something that appertains to the material world alone. There is Easter and Whitsuntide, and the Day you commemorate the coming of the Christ Child, and these times are special times for disembodied souls. Why is this? Because at those times there are always some who are trying to raise their thoughts to God, remembering their early teaching, perchance, or trying to contact with their loved ones in the World of Spirit.
"As you take your daily way, do not join those who are out to forget these old customs or to push them aside because there are other things to distract, but recall that at these special times of the year greater power is given to disembodied souls to come closer to those in the body, to minister unto them, and to obtain a stronger hold upon their troubles and cares.
"But while we think of Harvest in the Spirit World we must consider what it is that enables harvest to be celebrated in the Spirit World. And always remember this, dear children, that those many states before you came to inhabit the earth body, as well as the many states beyond the human experience, that all these states bear a certain resemblance to each other and show CONSEQUENCES. Consequences in this wise: that the Spirit World into which you will pass is the result of the earth life lived by you and many others, and the life you are living today is a consequence of the life you lived in another world, to which you had to die to be born into the physical state.
"I beg you to consider this point because it is so helpful in understanding the so-called inequalities of life as presented to you. You may ask as to the working out of consequences, and I remind you that the Law of Life is this: The strong souls take upon themselves the heaviest burdens, and those burdens are represented by physical disabilities, by suffering in its many forms, by the great load of responsibility which seems in some cases to be too much for the one who has to grapple with it and to solve its many problems. So never forget that if you are having a difficult life today, this illustrates that you are a strong soul, not a soul who has made grave mistakes in the last state, but one who endeavoured to learn some of the harder lessons.
"As you look around you find that many good people are heavily burdened, and that some of the selfish ones seem to have a rose-lined path, and you do not like it, it offends against your sense of justice. So I am bidden to underline Reality, and to ask you, as you pass those who are lame or blind or are suffering from that awful disability of not being able to hear, to remember that such as these will find a wonderful harvest awaiting them in the Spirit World, for they sowed their seeds in sorrow to reap their harvest in joy.
"But we must come back to the purely practical side. You see today on all sides 'consequences'. There are good consequences and those you could well do without, and yet you have to remember this fact: if you found rubble blocking your pathway into your home you would take it as a matter of course that it must be removed; you would call your friends and your neighbours and between you you would open a way back into your own possessions. Well, that law, which is a very practical law, is worked out over your spiritual life as well as your material life, and if you can accept those adverse experiences from which sometimes you shrink, you shall find that this law is worked out after physical death.
"There might be a beautiful condition awaiting you, yet rocks and boulders barred your way. But if you questioned, you would hear from the guides and teachers that there were lessons shirked, burdens placed upon another, the turning away from the bidding of duty. You see at once that man is not parted for ever from the love and joy and peace which he longs to make his own; these are merely obstacles to be removed.
"And this relates to that which you regard as Sin. Always remember that, first of all, comes motive; and, secondly, that one sin does not bar your spiritual progress, and many sins do not shut you off from the Kingdom of God, because you are His child and the King awaits your swift advance. It simply means that there must be readjustment, and the only way to clear your path of these serious obstacles is by being willing, by suffering and effort, to put in that which you refused to recognise while in the flesh.
"I want to emphasise particularly that all the good in a man's life or a woman's life is not tossed on the rubbish heap because he or she in a time of temptation may fall. Some may say that this is an unwise teaching, that it encourages evil; but wait, dear children. You cannot avoid consequences, and the results are serious to a man or a woman who understands Divine Law and has been brought up to walk in the way of duty, for he or she cannot claim ignorance, and what is done deliberately by the exercise of free-will means that there is a black harvest to be reaped. The ground has first to be cleared, much toil has to be expended upon it before it is even ready to take the good seed which in time shall spring up and obliterate the memory of the mistakes of the past.
"You look around and you see the workings of science, you see also that there have been many trying to bring different forms of beauty into your lives. There have been the sweet singers, the musicians, the painters, those who have used their skill to make your towns and cities lovely for the eye to look upon. What is all this but the working out of consequences, for they had to give up much to release their creative gifts, and when the gifts were released, only by much practice were they brought to anything like earthly perfection. And, again, in this there is a parable of spiritual life. Within you are all those wonderful gifts. You may not be able to believe it but you are all musicians, all great painters, all sweet singers, all have the capacity to take that which is rough and ugly and to transform it into something that is beautiful and will bring health to those who enjoy it.
"But the reason why these wonderful seeds of talent are entombed is because it was the Spirit's choice that all your energies in this state were to be centred upon helping your neighbour, on accomplishing the mundane tasks. Are there not many women gathered in today who would smile if I said unto them: You are a great artist! They would reply: 'I am simply the mother in the home working from morning to night, and I seem to produce almost nothing at all!' But I will say that such as these are great artists in the sight of God, but they are working upon an unseen canvas, and that is Spirit conditions; not necessarily Spirit conditions in another sphere, but Spirit conditions in their own home, and the consequences will be shown in their own Spirit home after the body has passed away.
"I come back, dear children, to comfort, to reassure you who are really trying to do your duty and who are growing tired, tired in body. Some would say unto me: 'The years are passing by! I used to be strong and to have plenty of vitality, but now I am growing old and everything is such an effort!' Yet they still must keep on doing their best in the work of daily life. What a harvest is built up for such as these, what a future and what a power they will possess!
"And I speak to the men, to those who through circumstances are undertaking work they do not like. They had once high ideals, they wanted to make something that should show they were a great craftsman; and in their spare time, if they have any, they still try to make things, and that is a Divine instinct. However simple or domestic the things they make, it is exercising their creative powers, and when they pass over, in the degree that they strove to make out of the rude material at hand something useful, they shall be shown to their infinite joy that they have the power to be named as a great craftsman and they can create wonderful things, first by borrowing the power, and then by practice acquiring the power, and then by emancipation lending the power to others who still have to learn.
"That again is the Law of Life. Those on earth who know have to teach those who do not know, and they get very tired of it, for sometimes the pupils are very ungrateful, and when they have learnt all they can, they forget not only to thank the teacher, but self-importance so rises up that they forget they had to be taught at all. And you in the flesh are depressed because so gladly you passed on to them your knowledge, and you have only had ingratitude in return. But wait! There are consequences for you and for the learner, but oh how different they are. You, in teaching others what you learnt, perchance by much suffering, are preparing your own place in the Spirit World, and the harvest of what you did is shown then in a totally different form. You find that by the Divine within, you have the capacity to understand by sight. What do I mean by that?
"The teachers of today are finding that physical sight is an easy way of teaching the young. They show them pictures of this and plans of that; they employ their imagination to take them into other lands, and by the very fact of the beauty there or of certain points of importance, the remembrance of it does not pass away as it would after taking a sentence out of a book and learning it off by 'heart.'
"Dear children, this scheme of using the eyes in order to hasten learning comes from the Spirit World, because that always has been the method of teaching there. Speech to us is of secondary importance; indeed, in true Spirit spheres it seems a very cumbersome tool to use at all.
"Now, how do we teach the wilful, and how do we show the reward for the faithful? It is all done in that which you name picture-form, but instead of being merely a picture, what is seen is a reality. You see a rose portrayed by an instrument (cinematograph), but in the Spirit World that beautiful rose would have its own life, its own fragrance; it would be part of the Household of the Lord! Keep that thought in mind and then carry on the idea to the teacher and the ungrateful pupil. The teacher who has tried so hard by love and effort to give his knowledge to others, finds himself in a world that seems to him bearing resemblance to Fairy Land.
"Fairy Land is associated in your minds with imagination, but that is simply because you do not understand what imagination represents. It is impossible to imagine something that never existed, remember that. If you conjure upon your minds scenes of beauty and of power and of love, you can be certain, dear children, that in the sleep state you have been there. And if you find those who use their imagination to bring scenes that are repugnant before mankind, who abuse the gift of music or of art or of song, then you can be certain that in the sleep state that individual has been to one of the hells of man's own making. Always hold that thought in mind in regard to that which you call imagination.
"So the teacher finds in the Spirit World something which he is given to understand is his own, and also that he can start upon his journey of adventure; and, through the Divine within, he has the ability to understand the law that governs the life of the fern, the daisy, or of that which you regard as the wind. Take into your imagination the whole of Nature, the life imprisoned within the tiniest seed and the secret that is beyond the human mind to grasp.
"I give but an outline, but surely you can read between the lines how wise it is to pass on what you know which is good, to others, irrespective of the fact of their ingratitude, because the consequences in the World of Spirit will be so amazing, so generous, because given by God Himself, that your hearts will be filled with joy and your minds with peace.
"Dear children, as you look out upon what has been created upon the earth plane, the toil given to the fields for the food that man must have, the machinery brought into being for his use, as you think of all these things, try to carry on that thought and to imagine the consequences in the Spirit World, and how the toilers will benefit and how the shirkers will feel; they will want to scourge themselves because of their ignorant folly in the time that has passed.
"Here again you have your comfort. It is easy to shirk, it is easy to evade under certain conditions; no one seems to notice or no one seems to know, but there are consequences; and for the one who patiently works on, finishing the task at hand, going home weary and perhaps disheartened because there has been no word of appreciation, there are consequences which surpass the highest hopes of any sorrowing soul.
"Today I want to emphasise still more Harvest in the Spirit World in regard to opening man's mind to spiritual truth, separating man from his baser desires, turning his thoughts from the things which will pollute to those which will show him a fitting citizen for that lovely next stage, where all the past is uncovered and something of the future is revealed.
"Then we come back to personal sin, to the falling into temptation, and here again there is the dividing line between those who repent and those who, out of bravado, think that it does not matter, that nobody knows and God Himself will judge by earthly standards.
"In the first place, dear children, God does not judge His own creation at all; it is the Divine within us that sits in judgement upon us, because the Divine is Perfect, and when we pass out of the flesh and we see the record of the past - all the help provided by the unseen, all the opportunities we allowed to slip by, all the warnings to which we turned a deaf ear - we judge ourselves and we hate ourselves. But that must pass away, and the only way to bring the Divine into harmony with the casket that holds it, and the Divine within in harmony with God the Father, is by using our efforts to help others, to prevent them from slipping in turn, to send out thoughts of mercy, of peace, of hope and of strength, and in this wise many who made a mistake while in the flesh, when they pass out fearing to see what lies before them, search in vain for it, for not even a scar remains. The good seed was sown, and the golden harvest to be used for others has taken its place.
"Oh, I pray you listen unto my words because you can do so much, however great your limitations, however restricted your lives; you can do as well as any great preacher or teacher because of the many unseen souls who still need to be taught, who refused to learn their lessons when in the flesh, but are allowed by God's mercy to come back and mingle amongst you upon the earth plane and to see how physically weak people can be spiritually strong, how the tired, worn out mothers forget themselves in tending their children, how the fathers refuse to burden the mothers with their troubles, knowing that they have enough of their own to grapple with. And as these unseen, wayward children of God watch what is being done in your homes, all the effort given forth, the prayers you say, and the protection you send to your own so far away, they learn; they are touched over all you are going through, and repentance sets in, and henceforth they are on the way to full redemption, to retrieving the past and ensuring the future.
"So, dear children, I ask you who hear my words and those many who will read my words, to try to get a truer idea of Harvest in the Spirit World. For instance, there are some people who think that Nature, which they love so well, may not find its place in the next life. Is there one watching the wind as it plays upon the ripe corn who could feel anything but regret that, with the passing of the body, there would be the passing of that beautiful scene as well?
"Oh, dear children, everything that you love, everything that raises a feeling of thankfulness to God, all these things will be found in the life to come. The good craftsmen will indeed be able to create as they desire, the good husbandmen will find that they, too, can translate that which they wish into a sure reality. So widen the borders of your imagination and every day, yes, as you awaken, try to visualise what the day to come will show you in the World of Spirit, the consequences for you and the results produced for others. And I can assure you that if you undertake to do this, the weight of the burden of the day will be halved, it will not seem just something which has to be done over and over again. No! you will realise that every task is producing its own beauty and its own power, there is nothing wasted, nothing that is common in the sight of God. The minds of many are filled with thoughts of the earthly harvest, and you thank God with grateful hearts that year by year Nature does her part. Thank God, in turn, dear children, that this is but a symbol of the sweet by-and-by, but an illustration of that which shall gladden your future, and indeed recharge you with a deeper love for God, the great Creator of all things.
"Dear children, I ask you to answer unto yourselves what is it that you value in life, what is it that you hope to see in the Spirit World? There is no one here who would not answer: 'My loved ones!' Yes, but how do you wish to find them placed? That is a grave question, for remember this: you cannot hide the things that are past when in the World of Reality. You cannot make excuses for them, because it is all there, as it were, in picture-form, and it has to be faced. Think of a beloved child who thought mother or father was wonderful, and you when you are free having to see how closely you lived up to the ideal in your child's mind, who passed to the Spirit World before your own call came.
"But there are many here who can be glad at heart because they are indeed among the triers, those who if they make mistakes do not make them deliberately, those who if they fall into so-called sin quickly extricate themselves and pray for strength to do better in time to come. Yes, all who are gathered in surely can say to me: 'I want to be closer to God!' And as the days go on is it not indeed one march nearer Home? And in that Home will you not find everything that you love the most? It lies within your own hand, it becomes your own choice. That which you tried to do, that which you accomplished, the teaching of others, the bringing together of the masses, hoping when the physical mind cried out in despair, cheering those who must travel a dark road - oh, all these things are ensuring the harvest which you long to make your own in the World to come, in that condition where sorrow as sorrow no longer can enter in and pain can be forgotten. And those who strive so hard, the warriors who are willing to make the full surrender, all these, by doing their part to the best of their ability, why, they never see death; they pass into health and strength and a life of spiritual adventure; and there is not one soul, one warrior, who truthfully could say: 'I wish I were back in the flesh again!' For now they see: then they were looking through a glass darkly!
"So I bless you, bless you with greater courage, but still more do I bless you by the Power of God with a clearer vision, with the power to see things in a more spiritual proportion, to take up that which you once despised and to find it is a tool beyond all price placed within your hands. And then, dear children, all the sorrowing, all the grieving over loss and trouble and pain and sickness will seem waste of time; it is something that you have taken on to ensure a golden harvest in the World to come.
"May the great Christ-light shine upon you, may the workers increase their efforts. Place your banner still higher in preparation for the cleansing of the earth plane, which shall show the consequences in the World of Spirit - greater power and wider opportunities for service.
"Peace be with you all, but when sleep holds you this night many of us will meet again. Farewell, dear children, and Christ and His Cross go with you!"
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