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FAQ | What is meant by the Living Light?
What is the purpose of life?
What is personal responsibility?
What is God?
What are soul faculties?
What are sense functions?
What is a medium?
What is the psychic realm?
How is a spiritual body built?
What is the white light that we have been advised to follow at the time of transition?
How does one prepare for transition?
“When will science make a breakthrough in proving the existence of life after death? What evidence will be presented?
What is freedom?
How can I start on the path to freedom?
How does the “Healing Prayer” work?
How does one educate a desire?
How are young babies cared for in the spirit world?
What is a law?
How many laws are there?
What is the difference between reincarnation and evolutionary incarnation?
What is a soul mate?
What is the relationship of unity, self-control, and concentration to organization?
After death, as we move through the realms, what do we say to the forms that will try to tempt us to their levels?
| What is meant by the Living Light?
“The Light is the Divine Intelligence. And we accept that the Divine Infinite Intelligence is a living, demonstrable principle in all universes and in all places. And that is the true meaning of the Living Light. You see, if Light is Light, then it is the Divine. And if it is the Divine, then it is living.” CC 21
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What is the purpose of life?
“All of nature responds to kindness, all of nature, including man himself. All of nature responds to kindness and to love. And so it is that you are a vehicle that refines whatever enters it. You have that opportunity to be that. That’s what we are designed for, you see: to help this evolution of the form. The purpose of the soul’s incarnation into form is to raise the vibratory waves of form that, in time, in eternity, they will know their Divine Source.” CC 23
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What is personal responsibility?
“Acceptance, the will of God. We all have acceptance. It is the limit of our acceptance, it is the limit, the effect of judgment, that truly is our problem in life. Look at the struggle and ask yourself the question, “Am I accepting the right of this expression and, in so doing, moving on to something better? Or am I denying this experience, the effect of my own thought?” You see, my friends, it all comes back to the very foundation of personal responsibility. When we accept that life is an effect and we, deep within, are the cause, when we truly accept that, then we accept all experience, the right thereof. We accept its right to return unto us. And once having done so, we flood our consciousness with that which we have chosen to become.
“In many ways this same truth has been given to you. Place your attention, the door through which the intelligent energy flows, place your attention on what you have chosen and desire to become; remove your attention from that you choose to overcome. When you remove your attention from the obstruction in your life, the way will appear. But first you must accept the right of that expression. And once having done so, when you truly accept something, my friends, especially when it’s those chickens that have come home to roost, when you accept them in that moment you face the personal responsibility of having created them. When you continue to deny and to refuse the return of those chickens, the ones you have created, then the battle goes on and on and on and on and on.
“Accept the return, that you may move on in life to gain what is yet waiting for you. But you cannot see, when you permit the mind to view the door that has closed. Look for that which is in front of you. It’s ever within. It’s waiting patiently for your acceptance, but you cannot experience it as long as you are expressing denial. As long as you battle the return, the return will continue to control you. It is the very purpose of these classes: to show you a way, through applying the laws revealed, to be free from these experiences.” CC 188
“So let us make more effort to encourage ourselves to accept that which will bring the good into our lives. To stop blaming our jobs. To stop blaming our companions and our wives and our husbands and our relatives. To stop blaming the politicians. To stop blaming everything, everything outside, outside, outside, until it just isn’t even worth living any more. You’ll have all the success that your heart desires, you’ll have all the abundant good that you could possibly want, if you will only accept on a daily basis your divinity. Think of it, my friends, each time you think, you permit your mind to think and your mouth to speak that it’s outside, each time you do that you lose your divinity. You lose the goodness that is truly yours each and every time you permit your mind to deny the truth of personal responsibility. You shut the door to all the goodness that is your eternal right.” CC 215
“All experiences reveal—and we state this truth again and again, again and again and again—all experiences—family, business, and otherwise—are effects. In time, we learn to be in the world and not apart of it. In time, we learn to be with a thing and not a part of the thing. We learn that when we demonstrate, by application, the Law of Personal Responsibility—the acceptance and the response—the ability to respond in all experience, the ability to respond in consciousness to the infinite truth that we alone are the cause of the experience, no matter what the mind chooses to delude us with—to respond to that truth within us, that we alone can change the experience that is taking place in our consciousness, that it is our consciousness, that we are personally responsible for its action and reaction. And being personally responsible for its action and reaction, we can consciously choose whatever we choose to choose.” CC 108
“Whether or not you choose to fulfill your life in your present Earth form or you make that choice of fulfillment in another realm, another planet, and another time, the principle of the Law of Personal Responsibility will not change. The moment that we accept that demonstrable principle, in that moment we stand at the very head of our ship. Each moment that you declare that truth, each moment that you fully accept that truth, you are freed from the control of the forms that have already been created in your mental universe. Think, my good students, of that principle. Whatever your experiences of the moment, when you declare that truth, “I accept the responsibility within my own realm of consciousness. I and I alone have created, and I and I alone can change,” when that is truly faced, in that moment and each and every moment that you face that light of truth, you are in control. To remain in control of your life takes that moment-by-moment choice. It is worth the effort. It is the inevitable journey. It is in your own best interest to declare that truth each moment of your conscious awareness. Remember that acceptance of that truth puts you in control of your destiny.” CC 193
“This philosophy teaches the Law of Personal Responsibility: that you and you alone, as an eternal soul, are responsible to God. You are not responsible to man. You are responsible to God. And remember that God knows our thoughts before we think them. And that responsibility is very clear. When you experience things that are distasteful to you, remember it was your choice. God simply sustains that choice. It is his love and his will of total consideration and total acceptance, but you alone have made the choice. And only you alone can accept something better. Nothing in life will ever be better until you first accept. It is through your own acceptance that change is made possible for you, the gracious, harmonious and joyous way.” CL 62
“All of the experiences you encounter are revelations of your own mind and its many levels of expression. This is the Law of Personal Responsibility, the ability to personally respond, to personally respond to your own experiences, to respond to them in the light of eternal reason.” CC 115
“We alone are the cause and cure of all of our experiences in life.” CL 52
Back To The Question List | What is God?
“God is not a judge, as we all know, that sits on a throne and tells us of our errors and of our omissions and transmissions, that is not the God that is understood by the Serenity Association. But we do understand a Divine power, a Divine love, that is without lack, that is without limit, that is ever available to us, that the only obstacle to its full expression is the limitation our of own thought. So let us, friends, expand our consciousness, broaden our horizon, and fulfill the true purpose of our being.” CL 22
“I listened with great attention to your discussion earlier and it has been and is the teaching from our realm that this so called God or Infinite Divine Intelligence is a neutral, impartial power everywhere present, never absent or away.” Discourse 16
“I have said long ago that I have come to dedicate, not to dictate; and I shall ever try to remain the servant because those who ever seek to be in front destroy themselves in the illusion of their creation. He who serves is served by the greatest servant of all. My children, God is not a master. God, the Infinite Intelligence, the Divine Love, is the servant.” Discourse 40
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What are soul faculties?
“Faculties are the expression of the eternal soul.” CC 122
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What are sense functions?
“Functions are the expression of the vehicles through which the soul is expressing” CC 122
“We understand that there are eighty-one levels of consciousness, that there are forty soul faculties and forty sense functions. We also understand that a function is only an undeveloped faculty.” SS 1
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What is a medium?
“Our National Association has defined the word medium as “a person who is sensitive to vibrations from other dimensions and through whom intelligences from those dimension are able to convey messages and produce the phenomena of Spiritualism.” There is indeed much more to Spiritualism and to mediumship than conveying messages. The very nature and purpose of mediumship is to bring awareness to the world. For man is responsible for all his acts, thoughts, and activities and indeed is it sad to be responsible for effects from causes that we have set into motion through so-called unawareness.” CL 19
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What is the psychic realm?
"There is so much that is brought into the world, you know, with what they call the psychic realm. Remember, and I’ve spoken it before, the psychic realm is nothing more or less than a thin vibratory wave between the astral and mental realms. That’s all the psychic realm is. A medium is psychic, but a psychic is not a medium. And a medium is ever subject to psychic experience. However, they jumble the whole thing together and they call all the communications psychic.” CC 18
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How is a spiritual body built?
“It’s built through the awakening of the soul faculties and balancing the energy through the expression of the functions equal to their opposites, known as the soul faculties. When the Divine energy is equally balanced and expressed between the faculties and the functions, then man in truth is creating what we call his spiritual body. Having a spiritual body prior to leaving the flesh, he will be awakened. And in being awakened, he will not go to sleep when he leaves the clay, but he will step out of the physical clay wide awake and go into his spiritual abode, which has already been created for him prior to leaving.” CC 1
Back To The Question List | What is the white light that we have been advised to follow at the time of transition?
“The white light referred to many times in our teaching and also in other philosophies is the pure, intelligent energy from the Source itself. When leaving the form, this white light appears. In truth, this white light is ever before us. It is that man rarely views it until he encounters the experience of transition. Now, the reason that man rarely views this eternal white light, which is the pure, unadulterated, intelligent divine energy, the reason that he rarely views it until his time of transition is because self-related thoughts are like a dark wall between man and the divine source or this eternal white light.
“When you follow this white Light, which is the Divine Intelligence expressing itself, you are safe and secure in all that you do at the time of following it, for you are, in following this white Light, in a state of consciousness known as total acceptance and the divine will, unobstructed by the duality of creation, guides you ever onward, ever upward through the peace that passeth all understanding.” CC 126
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How does one prepare for transition?
“When we leave this physical body, this physical world, usually what takes place is, we consciously go to sleep and we are awakened in another dimension, which the Spiritualists call the spirit world. It is rare indeed that a soul is sufficiently awakened and in control to leave this physical world and be consciously aware of the process of passing from the physical body. As I say, the usual process is that we go to sleep and awaken over there.
“Ofttimes in sudden, so-called sudden death, there is a spontaneous, conscious awareness of the process. However, in those cases usually the astral and mental bodies remain at the scene of the so-called accident and, unless help is received rather quickly, experience the trap of what man calls earth-bound spirits.
“We all want to be prepared for the inevitable. We set aside, some of us, a few pennies, to try to take care of that which is inevitable: and in this country, it’s taxes and death. None of us seem to escape that inevitability. We often work diligently to postpone it, but we do not escape it. And so because no one amongst us knows the exact day, hour, month, or year when they will face that inevitability of leaving this world, it does indeed behoove us to make a little effort, just a little bit of effort, to be prepared. To be prepared for that which is inevitable is not only wise and, even to the human mind, surely, is logical. And how does one prepare themselves for the things that are inevitable? By accepting that which is inevitable.
“The struggle and the difficulty with so-called death or transition is not the process; that is not where the pain or suffering is. It is the refusal to accept the process. Because we do not work with our mind daily to view the inevitable with a different perspective, to study and to apply and to know beyond a shadow of any doubt our mind remains the same. Life has already taught us that. We’ve experienced many shocks and many disasters already. It didn’t change us, our thinking, completely. Death, so-called, does not change our thinking. It does not change our interests. It does not change our desires. It does not change the things which we hold. The refusal to accept it, is the mind that is holding to physical things of this planet. If we don’t want to leave the person that we’re with, then we must face what that offers us when we are forced to do so by what is called the inevitable transition from this life.
“Is it not better and would it not behoove us to prepare ourselves by accepting the possibility that someday it’s going to be and it might be this moment? When man accepts the possibility of the worst, then he is prepared to experience the best. Because he has already, in the process of accepting the possibility of the worst, he has already prepared himself and his mind to accept. And when we prepare ourselves to accept, when we are ready and we are willing to do that, then all the fears and all the pain and all of the struggle, it just disappears. And we find that it really wasn’t so bad, this process of leaving this world. In fact, it was like putting on a new suit for a new day. In fact, it was a joyful experience. Because, my friends, when you have no fear, life, then, is beautiful. Whether it’s the life that you are viewing through a physical form in a physical world or it is the life you view in a spiritual world through a spiritual form, it is beautiful when you no longer fear.” CQA 31
Back To The Question List | “When will science make a breakthrough in proving the existence of life after death? What evidence will be presented?
“The evidence that science, material science, has been looking for will never be presented, for it does not exist. The spirit, the spiritual body, is not composed of material substance. The day, however, will come when science will open its eyes to higher levels of consciousness in order that it may perceive spiritual substance or so-called Divine Energy or Light. When this happens and takes place, then science will declare the truth of spiritual communication, of life after so-called death, for they will be able to view the energy fields. And, viewing the energy fields, they will be able to perceive the spirit. But what they are looking for at the present is a material substance that does not exist in a spiritual body. And therefore it will be a number of years before they perceive the scientific fact of the continuity of so-called life.” AWF 11
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What is freedom?
“Freedom is to be without bondage, to feel the expression of the Divinity within us.” CL 2
“Freedom, of course, is a full expression of the soul faculties in perfect harmony or balance. “ CC 53
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How can I start on the path to freedom?
“My good students, you have received over these many years several affirmations. These affirmations are a declaration and an establishment of divine law in consciousness. But the law cannot be established unless you direct the energy through your own attention and effort to the law that is infallible. When you make this greater effort to affirm the truth in your consciousness, to affirm it again, again and again, “Nothing happens to me that is not caused by me,” you will start on the path of freedom and success.” CC 160
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How does the “Healing Prayer” work?
“How does your “Healing Prayer” work? It’s so simple: it’s totally free from judgment. Think what the words really mean: “I”—you immediately identify with you, the true you. Not the thought of I, but the true I. “I accept that the Divine Healing Power is removing all obstructions from my mind and body and is restoring me to perfect health, wealth and happiness.” Think of those words. When you feel them, then you will be them. It takes more that thought: it takes your feeling. That is what places us in the spiritual realms of consciousness. When your spoken word is united with your feelings, then you experience that which is the goodness of your own heart.” CC 214
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How does one educate a desire?
“The education of desire by the faculty of reason is a very simple process. We have said, a moment before, not to try to annihilate or to suppress it, but to educate it. Well, how do you really educate a desire? We’ve discussed this before. If you tell a desire, your desires, “Now, you will be fulfilled. You will be fulfilled under the guiding light of patience. It shall come to pass,” then you are introducing into the form of the desire a spiritual substance, known to this world as plain old common sense.
“That’s one thing we do need, is common sense. Just plain common sense. When you speak to your desires that plague and bombard you, be reasonable with your desires. They are your own creations. Use some degree of intelligence. If your desire is not contaminated with the dictates that say it is dependent upon what someone else does or does not, then it is an uncontaminated desire: it is yours. The birth, then, is a clean birth. It’s not filled with judgments. It’s not filled with dependence on others for its growth. Now, that’s putting light and reason over desires. Then you will move on through evolution and you will see, “Ah, yes, that came to pass and that came to past pass. And that desire was so long ago I even forgot I had it, but, look, here it is. It has come to pass.”“ CC 190
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How are young babies cared for in the spirit world?
“Thank you very, very much. In reference to babies—an interest, I’m sure, to all people, because we’re all babies in some level of consciousness—the moment that the negative and positive poles are joined in creation, that spark of divinity, known as the individualized soul, enters. Now, those souls, once having entered creation, whether or not they’re carried in the womb a day, a week, a month, or a year or nine months—it makes no difference—that soul is impulsed into being and it grows in what is called a spirit world. Now, the care of those children—and what is very, very interesting, because these souls here on the Earth realm who, for some reason or other, have not been able to have their own children, many of those people are the ones who become the teachers and the parents in the spirit world of these little babies that are born and grow up there. It is the responsibility and the duty of the foster parents in the spirit world to bring those children back to the Earth realm that they may learn something about their Earth parents.” CC 79
Back To The Question List | What is a law?
“Life here and hereafter is a continuous school. We have a golden opportunity at any moment to choose which ever path we wish to trod. Now, once we set a law into motion, we will follow that law to its fulfillment. For example, How does man set a law into motion and what is a law? A law is the effect of directed energy. How does man direct energy? Man directs energy through the vehicle called thought; therefore, in keeping with the ancient teachings, as a man thinketh in his heart, so he becometh. Now, why is that teaching, as a man thinketh in his heart he becometh? Because, my friends, it is not just the thinking of the conscious mind that sets laws into motion for us. It is the thinking of the patterns of mind in the depths of our own subconscious. However, we have never been left without choice and at any moment we may choose which experience we care to have in life.” SC 3
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How many laws are there?
“There are as many laws as there is thought or imagination. Whatever your mind can imagine, it establishes a law of that imagining and that is how man is a law unto himself and this is why they teach, As you believeth, you becometh. For each thing that you entertain in thought is a law that you and you alone set into motion.” CC 9
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What is the difference between reincarnation and evolutionary incarnation?
“In reference to the teachings in the Living Light philosophy of the evolutionary incarnation of the soul, it is our basic understanding and teachings that the soul evolves through the universes and that whatever form that it enters, it has merited that on its evolutionary unfolding path. Now that does not mean to imply that these teachings are referring to a transmigration on this earth planet of evolving from, perhaps, a blade of grass to a human. I believe we spoke in our last class in reference to there is no difference, in truth, between an ant and an angel, because it is the same Divine Intelligence that expresses through both forms. There is no separation, you see, in truth.
“However, I believe you wanted some explanation or expansion upon that basic teaching of evolutionary incarnation, and in reference to what is commonly referred to in the world of return or reincarnation. Now the basic difference is that we do not teach that the soul leaves the physical body and then waits in some limbo or some other state of consciousness to return into an Earth body in a specified number of years. We do teach that the souls that have entered this Earth realm have entered this earth realm on their evolutionary path; that this is the fifth planet in the solar system; that the souls that have entered this planet have entered this planet to learn to demonstrate what is commonly referred to as faith.” CC 23
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What is a soul mate?“
Now in regards to beginnings, we have spoken before on soul, soul mates or guardian angels. And when we speak of guardian angels or soul mates, we are speaking in truth of the so-called other half of ourselves. It is a law of creation that division is the law of form; and the soul is the covering of form, of spirit, intelligence. And so it is that as this Divine Power enters encased in form or soul—what you understand to be individualized soul—the Law of Division applies as it does in all creation.” Discourse 50
“When the soul enters the Earth realm, simultaneously, what you call soul mate or twin flame is expressing in that instant in another realm of consciousness. Now, man calls this a guardian angel. Some people call it a soul mate. Unfortunately, because of the thinking of the masses, the Serenity Church has refrained from public discussion on that particular matter, because so many people use it as a grand cop out for their domestic problems: that they didn’t quite get their soul mate this time around and that foolishness, which totally denies the Law of Personal Responsibility.
“Now, this guardian angel is not limited by sex. Therefore, people who are thinking of soul mates as their eternal partner and etc., will waken up some day. They’ve got a real surprise for them. It is simply a part, you understand—here your soul is expressing through physical matter. A part of it is expressing through spiritual matter. And if you wish to call that a twin flame or you wish to call that a soul mate, it doesn’t matter, you see?
“What does matter is that, as you awaken within your consciousness, through a little daily effort of self-control, there’s the amalgamation of the spiritual with the so-called material. There is an amalgamation. There is a unity. And therefore the result or effect thereof is an awakening of the consciousness: that you are what you are. You have always been and, therefore, you will always be. It is not dependent on form. It is not dependent on anything that is beyond you Thank you very much..” CQA 49
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What is the relationship of unity, self-control, and concentration to organization?
“Thank you very much. In reference to our understanding of the word's organization and self-control and unity, first we must consider, when we are striving to organize ourselves in any area, in any endeavor, we must first consider how high the desire for organizing in a particular level, a particular area, is on our priority desire list.
Now, for the benefit of the new students, I would like to share with you what we call the priority desire list. All form desires. And so it is in the depths of our own subconscious, we have a list of desires. When we go to organize in any area, we have to look at the desires and what priority, they have for us as individuals. Some people have great problems in organizing in certain areas simply because they are not yet consciously aware of their subconscious desire priorities. And so, our teaching is, self-control to organization. But we cannot have self-control until we have gained awareness, because we cannot control what we are not aware of.
And so, it is with organization. First, we step upon the inward journey through our own levels of consciousness in our own subconscious and we look clearly- that's called awareness- at what our priorities truly are. Knowing our priorities, we then step into control, that we may keep them in the priorities, that we now choose to have them. Once having done that, my friends, we will step forward into organization. Because you cannot organize what you're not aware of and you cannot control what you are not aware of. And so, organization is the effect of awareness and self-control, which will bring unity of purpose, and organization will be its manifestation. Does that help with your question?" CC 69
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After death, as we move through the realms, what do we say to the forms that will try to tempt us to their levels?
“I am responsible for you for I have, in my days of ignorance, created you. I have created you as an effect of denying what I am. I no longer deny what I am. Therefore, you know longer exist in my consciousness.” That declaration of truth is an instrument through which man frees himself from the old baggage of creation. ” A/V Special Seminar 8
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