In Lecture #15 Influence Between the Spiritual World and the Material World, you spoke about the many spirits who are around a human being, spirits of darkness and higher spirits. Is our calling for them mainly conscious? How do we go about fighting dark forces?
The Guide: No, it is not conscious. Indeed, it is mostly unconscious. It is very, very seldom that this is done consciously, at least as far as the spirits of darkness are concerned. If someone really does that, he must himself be a very evil spirit. As far as the spirits of truth and light are concerned, you should and can consciously call them to you.
Even if you do not do so, the moment you overcome a fault, you fight against your lower self, you desire above all else to fulfill the will of God and live in accordance with divine law, you emanate a certain substance that draws spirits of light toward you. By the same token, if you give in to your lower self, if you violate divine law, you emanate a quality that draws the spirits of darkness near you, like a magnet.
For instance, when you emanate anger, you draw a spirit of anger toward you. When you emanate selfishness, you draw such a specialist toward you who will encourage you further in this fault. And so on. What comes out of you is what you draw toward you. Like attracts like.
There is a mutual activity in this attraction, on both sides. And not only this kind of mutual activity, but also learning. You see, with the spirits of darkness it goes like this: they fulfill a task in their world of darkness when they win out over a person, particularly with the people who love God. They are very keen on drawing them away from God. They do not have to worry about criminals. They have access to them anyway.
But they are particularly keen on conquering people who love God, who seek God, so that they may give in to their weaknesses. The spirits earn special rewards in their world for such work. And they know very well that they cannot accomplish anything by trying to inspire people to do any type of wickedness that is foreign to them. But they can succeed with the seemingly harmless faults that draw such a person slowly but surely further into darkness, depression, self-despising moods, and thus into separation from God.
It is not so much the fault in itself that is damaging, but rather that they become disgusted with themselves and may thus give up the fight altogether. Stumbling into the same fault in itself is not bad, provided it is recognized and one learns from it by adopting the right and constructive attitude.
As a matter of fact, no progress is possible without stumbling. But when the stumbling is viewed with an attitude of hopelessness and self-disgust, then the clouds become bigger and bigger. Then a person gets more and more involved with the respective dark spirits, with the world of darkness altogether.
You do not have to commit a crime in order to live in the world of darkness. There are other vibrations that can accomplish this. If, however, a person refuses to be an instrument for the powers of darkness, if you fight – and you can only do this by knowing your own faults extremely well, for only through them can you be tempted by the dark spirits – do you know what happens?
The dark spirit will rise higher in its development – it will learn. Not directly, not immediately, because it is still so much in darkness that at first it will only know defeat. This defeat will cost it its position, so that it suffers, and only this suffering will bring it nearer to God. Because only then will it turn to God, as a last resort, in complete despair.
As long as it can claim victories in its world of darkness and has power there, it will never turn to God. So each victory, even the smallest one, of each human being, causes a tremendous chain reaction in the universe among beings of whom you are not even aware.
If you could know how much you accomplish by your victory, not only as far as you yourself and your immediate surroundings are concerned, but for so many spirits as well, you would really try much harder. And not only evil spirits are affected by your victory, but also erring spirits who do not belong anywhere. They are often around you and learn from your victory in a much more direct way than those dark spirits.
So when you conquer yourself, you are in fact a vital part of the great Plan of Salvation. You are then an active soldier in the fight. You are a front line soldier. And a front line soldier needs better weapons, more strength, and better protection than one who does not fight back or one who is in the hinterland. The weapons and the strength come to you from the Spirit World of God in guidance, enlightenment, recognition.
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When bad things happen in life, is that due to the presence of dark forces?
The Guide: A time of crisis can be a time of cleansing. Those who allow the process of inner cleansing through what is being stirred up, will emerge stronger, more purified, lighter, and so much more full of joy and peace. Those who ally themselves unwittingly with the Forces of Darkness, and fail to summon the inner will to be in truth, will have to come to this point again and again in their incarnatory cycle, until they learn to master this obstacle in their soul.
Many of you resent disturbances of any sort, upheaval, crisis, and the pain and fear that are surfacing through them. There is an unrealistic picture about what life should be like. The attitude is that if all were really right with the Path – and/or their leaders and/or themselves – upheaval would not happen. This is a severe misunderstanding of life.
You live on this earth, which expresses both good and evil, truth and untruth, joy and suffering, because your own inner beings still express both these sides. Therefore, it is inevitable that you must attract both kinds of events – joyous and painful. You need to learn from both.
Both are not only a result of your inner states, but also an opportunity for your liberation and transformation. Human beings who are not yet ready to undertake purification work such as this Path gives, will experience the same alternation of pleasurable or unpleasurable events. Often these events are experienced without understanding.
Many of you believe that you who work in this deeply intense way should be exempt from painful experiences. In fact you feel that the Path betrays you when they still occur. You fail to realize that the more your commitment to truth, to the love for Jesus Christ, is expressed and acted on, the more the forces of evil try to influence you so as to desist from this commitment.
They are threatened precisely when you mean and live the truth. It is a covenant between the heavenly forces and the Forces of Darkness to allow their emergence at times, to a certain degree. I have said this a long time ago. As long as there remains the slightest lesson to be learned, you must be somehow affected by the forces of evil.
It is up to you what you make of it. And even if there should remain no further lesson to be learned for any one specific individual, painful incidents must still occur. The forces of evil can still attempt to rage among you and stir up what finally needs to be met anyway. Assumption that this should not happen is dangerous and leads to erroneous doubts. This is exactly what the satanic forces want.
It will always happen that someone you loved and trusted, sometimes one you least expect it from, will suddenly leave this Path, in terror of their own lower self and the exaggerated meaning they attach to it in terms of self-value in the ultimate sense. You have to learn to go through this pain. You have to learn to realistically expect it, as part of your life. And you will, of course, learn whatever lesson each of you, as individuals, as well as the community as a whole, has to learn. You are given all the blessings, all the guidance and help, you need to do this.
The reality of evil on your sphere of consciousness is discussed in Lecture #248 Three Principles of the Forces of Evil – Personification of Evil. Yes, try to learn whatever lesson there may be contained in challenging events. But beware of the danger of overdramatizing, of investing too much energy into the event. You may become too attached to an event and its ramifications, which again plays right into the hands of the evil spirits who try to distract you from the course you take. Let go and continue with your work, with your tasks, with your lives.
Never forget that we are always there with you, no matter how close the dark spirits are allowed to come to you at certain times. We watch over you and see to it that they can never overstep their line. The last word is always you! Do you permit yourself to know where your thoughts and decisions come from? Do you wish to listen to these voices, or perhaps to turn to the voice that is at times more removed and harder to discern?
At such times you need to assert your will to remain with God and serve him even stronger. You need to question the easiest way that comes to you. When you do this, you will always triumph, as God must finally triumph over Satan. The light of Christ is the strongest there is, and with it, you must be safe.
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Let us imagine that all humanity, meaning each individual, would follow the line of least resistance and give in to the lower self, and nurse it instead of fighting it. What would happen from your point of view?
The Guide: The overlapping spheres I have described would change in appearance. Humankind would strengthen and enlarge the disharmonious spheres, which would completely overcast the harmonious spheres of light, truth, love and happiness, and push them into the background so that they could affect humans less and less.
As a result, only the influence of the disharmonious forces would have an effect. Humanity would thus constantly furnish material to the world of darkness, and its influence in turn would be that much greater on you.
On the other hand, let us again imagine that all humankind – each individual person – would walk the path of perfection. This path would be different for each individual, because what may be necessary for one person may be much too difficult for another. Yet if all children of God, on whatever level of development, would try their best, the spheres of darkness and disharmony, evil and envy, hatred and prejudice, war and greed, would be cast off and gradually dissolve.
Divine Creation, however, can never dissolve; it can only be pushed into the background so that it cannot affect the material world as long as the negative attitude remains in control there. Disharmony, with all its facets, can and must ultimately be destroyed and dissolved. So you can see very well not only how the Spirit World affects you, but also how you affect it.
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