I think that how we direct our thinking is of extreme importance as we navigate this life. As The Guides mentioned, most of us are familiar with the New Thought teachings of affirmative thinking. People who have had near-death or out of body experiences report that when they think about something it instantly appears. However, in the physical world, a thought takes a span of time to manifest in reality. The manifestation of the power of thought is not as evident here as in the spiritual realms where it creates a result instantaneously. Yet the accumulation of thoughts does have a result in the physical world. So, if we don’t take control of what we think about and focus upon on an ongoing basis, we can create havoc in our lives.

In the movie “Avatar,” Corporal Jake Sully, the protagonist, rides on the back of the Mountain Banshee, or Ikran, for the first time. It flies wildly through the air, flailing from side to side with Sully barely hanging on. Finally, Sully gives the Ikran a verbal command to go forward-and to his surprise, it instantly follows his command. At first it was a verbal command, but soon he is able to merely think a direction and the Ikran follows.

I used to practice getting out of my body, using a technique I had learned. I was successful several times. The first time out of my body, I found myself like Jake Sully, flailing wildly about without direction. It was quite disconcerting and I immediately reentered my body. The next time I exercised more control of my mind and had a short but more controlled adventure. Our emotions are a bit like the Ikran, following the direction of our thoughts. And until we learn how to focus on things that bring us peace and joy, rather than fear and discouragement, we can feel like we are flailing about without direction.

So, as the Guides suggest for this month, create a plan to attune to positivity, to choose carefully what you focus on and think about. We have an obligation as seekers of truth, to be doers of truth. In the face of a world of negativity, to seek the beauty, the good and hold to the higher vision that will ultimately manifest the divine in earth.

2009 Retreat CD’s - Your Soul’s Journey, A Magical Mystery Tour
The 2009 Retreat CD’s are available to purchase for $55. There are 10 Readings, the openings and closings of the whole Retreat. I have removed all personal questions and answers. There are wonderful teachings contained in these Readings. I know some of you have been waiting for me to prepare them, so here they are. More information about our 2010 Annual Retreat.

John, who, like many of us in the Study Group, is very familiar with spiritual teachings, particularly of the Guides, agreed that on first read the deep wisdom in the words could be missed. He added: “The idea that we are all members of the same flock of sheep is less intellectual information, though important, than it is a helpful idea to practice. The point is to practice relating to people as extended parts of ourselves. It is an effective way to approach problems and difficulties.”

In the words of the Guides: “The single attractive sheep represents your natural human preoccupation with your personal experience. Generally that serves you well. The flock of sheep represents all living humans. With them, you have a “spiritual bond.” You are joined by spiritual energies to the collection of humans presently alive-of course, there is a rapid birth of new humans and the death of old ones. But, in general, the collection of humanity to which you belong while alive in your body is represented by the flock of sheep.
When the sheep wander away, that symbolizes how humans have lost their conscious perception of the spiritual bonds that join them to all living humans. Other humans are the sheep that have wandered away from you.  If you never remember that you had those sheep, then you will never go looking for them. So, we are reminding you that you have those sheep. They are the lost members of your grouping, your flock.”

The Mystery of The Christ Force as an ebook
Ron and I bought a Barnes and Noble “Nook” e-reader for our reading pleasure. I have created a .pdf file of Ron’s book, The Mystery of The Christ Force, that is maximized for the Nook. If you own a copy of this book, I would be happy to send you the .pdf version for your computer, or your e-reader, at no charge. Just email me at rs@ronscolastico.com and I’ll send it by return email.

If you ever wonder if doing attunements or meditation has any value, you’ll be interested in the letter we received from a Study Group member in Kentucky. He wrote:
“I attended an Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) retreat at Wildacres in North Carolina this past weekend. I volunteered for an EEG, administered by Judith Pennington, who was our speaker, and who has been recording EEGs of meditators for several years. Judith is a beautiful person-a healer, writer, singer, and musician-and was trained by Anna Wise, author of Awakening the Mind: A Guide to Mastering the Power of Your Brain Waves.
“She led me through a guided meditation while the results of my EEG were being displayed on a large screen for about 80 attendees. She was quite impressed with the brain wave patterns and especially the delta wave amplitude, which indicates intuition in awake states, psychic knowledge, empathy and healing. She asked what technique I used and I told her and the audience about the Christ Force attunements, which they could learn for themselves in Ron’s book, The Mystery of the Christ Force.”
So, if you want to increase your intuition, get out your copy of The Mystery of the Christ Force, turn to page 225, and practice your attunements.

By the way, our annual Retreat, “The Cosmic Door” will be focusing on contemplation, meditation and spiritual experience.

May the holiday lights remind you of the Divine Light that lives within you and within the hearts of all mankind.

With Love,

Susan and Ron

QUESTION: “Often, people will vow that, after their death, they will contact and ‘never leave’ their loved one after they die. However, more often than not, the surviving person does not feel the presence of the deceased loved one. Why is this?”

ANSWER: It is because of perception within the human who is still living. If they could rise up to the perspective of the one who made that promise before death, they would see that the one who died has not left them. That one is still with them. But, the humans who are still alive are limited in their perceptions, therefore, they do not perceive the one who has died with their physical senses.

Since the one who has died no longer has a physical form that can be perceived by the living one, the living one understandably believes, “My loved one has gone. They have vanished. They are not present.” However, they are present, but in a different form that is not perceived through the physical senses-seeing a physical body, feeling a touch or hearing words spoken through a vocal mechanism of a physical body.

Another challenge is that the souls do not speak in words of any human language. So, when the deceased one is present to the living one and is communicating, that communication is not in words spoken aloud, or in words placed into the mind of the living one. That communication is done through quite extraordinary spiritual “energies” that you might call intuitive feelings.

If the living one could live through the disappointment of not perceiving the deceased one in the tangible way that they are used to, then they could practice silent periods of aligning with the soul of the deceased one. In time, they would be able to feel the presence of the soul of the deceased one as an inner movement of what you might call love, or a spiritual presence, or the sense of a loving being existing beside them. This would be extremely comforting and inspiring.

No matter what a living human would promise to do after their death, most living humans are not enlightened in a way that they will have a complete perception of what will occur to their consciousness after the death of their physical body. They do not realize that they will become an eternal soul, unlimited by time or distance, who will stand beside the living loved ones and communicate with them in essentially invisible ways. So, while alive, they make their promise with good intentions, with what they know in a limited awareness, saying, “I will manifest to you after my death and you will know that I am present.” Both living ones believe that that means a normal manifestation to the human senses that will be similar to what they are used to in the physical world.

To be truly accurate, an enlightened living person making such a promise to a loved one before their death would say, “After my death, I will be even closer to you and more real, in the deepest sense. But, you will need to break through the human limitations of perception in order to experience me in that deeper, truer way.”

This scenario repeated itself for two days, and we made eight calls to Direct TV. The people who answered were in various places-Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, and it sounded like India. They even scheduled an exact time that the Case Manager would call us. Still, no call. I was getting louder and more insistent each time I called. Even calm Ron was getting agitated. After all, we were long-time clients of DirectTV, and we pay for their “protection insurance.” How could they treat us like this? What kind of an outfit is this? They don’t care about their customers. They don’t care about me! We had every bad opinion about this company that was possible.

Two days passed and they still hadn’t called. And they wouldn’t let us get to this mysterious Case Manager. I was imagining a room full of 20-year-olds cracking jokes and goofing off. To vent my outrage, I wrote complaints about DirectTV on various sites on the internet. Ron even called a competitor to see about signing up with them. After all, an important Angel’s baseball game was coming up and it simply cannot be watched without being able to fast forward through the commercials.

Finally, I had had enough. I called the billing department of DirectTV to cancel our service with them. As I was on the phone with the billing department, our other phone rang. It was the CASE MANAGER from DirectTV! He told me, “We have been trying to call you for days but we haven’t been able to get through.” He said patiently, “This is what we hear when we call,” and he let me hear a recorded message. It was a pleasant female voice saying, “Sorry, your call has been blocked.” Well, we have a phone system that has a community “blacklist,” which if you turn it on, it blocks telemarketing type calls. Apparently, it read the DirectTV number as a telemarketer and blocked the calls from the Case Manager all the while that we were complaining that he didn’t call. Fortunately, the Case Manager found our other telephone number through diligent research on his part and was finally able to reach us. The very next day, we had a new video recorder, sent by overnight mail.

I was mortified and, with my tail between my legs, I went back on the internet and issued written apologies for dissing DirectTV. But, the moral of this story is-don’t assume that you know what’s going on until you have all the facts! How quickly we rushed to judgment, because the situation fed right into our biased prejudice that corporations are out to get us, and are the faceless enemy. How often have we assumed someone is upset with us because of their demeanor, when they actually are just having a bad day. We adopt the belief that we have done something wrong or that they don’t like us because it feeds our own self-diminishing feelings. The Guides address this so eloquently in this month’s Study Group Reading.

It has been said that to assume makes an ass of u and me. Couldn’t have said it better myself!

At first, we felt violated, vulnerable and powerless. But, once we got into gear and took action-made a police report, changed bank accounts with passwords this time, talked to “Life-Lock” which I had had the impulse to sign up with in January, our demeanor changed. We felt in control again.

The electronic age has made us more vulnerable to crimes than ever before. My son told me there are sweat shops where they buy and sell stolen information. It is big business. The bank manager told us she had seen a report on CNN that only 2.4% of the people in the world are completely honest. My son retorted facetiously, “And how do you know the 2.4% aren’t lying?” The Guides are more hopeful as you’ll read in the answer to Question One of the July Study Group Reading. The Guides ask us to say, “These human ones who are perpetuating negative events on earth are the same as me. They are wonderful human beings with talents and abilities, and also many fears.” It seems to me that thieves are simply trying to gain a sense of power and control in their lives just as I was. They just choose a different path from most of us, one that happens to hurt other people.

Question One of the July Study Group Reading asks: “Is the level of good behavior increasing over time or lessening? Are our efforts of being kind, compassionate, and loving helping to raise the consciousness of the planet?” Sometimes it can feel like our efforts to be “good” are useless. What difference does it make, you might ask, if so many are just trying to get what they can from life, regardless of others? The Guides respond:
“Those humans who commit themselves, to the best of their ability, to kindness, compassion, and love, and then try to integrate that into their words and behaviors, are the only hope for humanity. For, the souls will not force humans to stop being frightened and stop creating negativity. Only humans can touch the negative-doers through the expression of kindness and understanding, which will help them heal their fear.”

So, having regained our inner center of stability, we continue on, living life “defensively,” and loving life passionately, because at least it means that we are alive in the midst of the most creative, intense time in the history of this amazing earth adventure!

peace and beauty in Albion, CA

LIVING LIFE PEACEFULLY: On a more serene note, we spent ten days in Napa and Mendocino, staying with dear friends and giving Readings. This photo is the view of the Pacific Ocean from the back yard of our friends Jeannette and Robert in Albion, California.

Faith….the word seems benign, soft, soothing, implying trust and comfort. What this article seems to point out is that some faith is about clinging to life at all costs, as if this is all there is.  I guess If I believed  that  after I died I would be in heaven sitting, playing a harp for eternity, or perhaps burning in hell while my loved ones are in heaven, I would cling to life at all costs too. Scary!

The Guides teach that we as beings never die. We are souls temporarily living a human life. We have lived many human lives, and are always a soul. We simply change form. But there is no loss, there is no fear, there is only experience gained in love. We are all connected to one another by the force of goodness that some call God, cosmic consciousness, All-that-is, and so forth.

So is your faith fear based or love based? That is the question to ponder.

Read more about the Guides’ perspective here: A Thumbnail Sketch of Life and Death

In the US today, the simple pleasures have long disappeared. The cost of living in our society with all of its “pleasures” is so high that we are constantly under the stress of maintaining our lifestyles…enter credit…and the rest is history.

Joy is a state of being. Pursuing happiness is like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick. Always slightly out of reach.

1. Fear - First and foremost, address the fears. What are your worst fears? As the Guides say, wallow in them, talk about them, and then release them.
2. Facts - Assess the truth of your life. What is your current situation factually? Do you have a job? Do you need a job? Do you have resources? Can you continue to work beyond retirement if you want to? Separate the fears from the facts.
3. Focus - Plan your next steps. If you need help, reach out to your friends and allies. What will you do today, tomorrow? What can you do to enhance what you already do? Where can you cut back? How can you be creative? If you do not need to make any changes to your own financial situation, where and how could you help someone else in need?
4. Faith - Here is where you use the spiritual tools at your disposal and tell yourself the higher truths. Use whatever affirmative statements inspire you, such as: “I am an eternal soul, temporarily living a human life. Nothing can damage my being.” Another one I like is: “God is my source and my supply.” Turn your attention to the beauty of nature, or to people you love to soothe your heart.
5. Future - Begin to envision what you want to see in your own personal life and in the world. This is a time of reassessing what true wealth means. Refuse to participate in the mass “negative hypnosis” that the Guides speak about in the Study Group answer. Develop a feeling of expansiveness rather than contraction. Spend from your boundless inner wealth, sharing your love and yourself with others.

And always remember to put one foot in front of the other and take the practical action steps that are needed to manage and maintain your life in the physical world.

If you are not a member of the Study Group, the Readings are a great source of inspiration, delivered each month digitally, or as a CD or printed transcript. If you would like to become a subscriber, I will include the February Reading with any new subscription. Follow the link to learn more. You can read the questions that were asked this month here.