Oh, star of hope that shines to bless
The wanderer through life's wilderness!
Angels of love—say are ye come
To lead the weary wanderer home?
This is a quote from A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands. There is no author given, but it very much sums up this book and this talk.
Frances started this mini series last week with what if there was more than one God force?
This week I'm going to ask you to consider that there is more than one death.
I've referred to this book on more than one occasion; it's one of those books that is so full of information that each time you read it you get some new meaning from it. I believe that we are constantly changing and so does our understanding, which is why each time you read A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands you come away with even more to think about and even more curious about our development cycle.
We start out with the human death of our main character in this story, and, if I might refresh you on the story itself, the wanderer (we shall call him) believes that he is going to go to hell when he dies, because he has lead a very self-centered life of greed, and he took much of what he wanted and lead a life of selfishness until he met the love of his life.
Even that did not change him completely. The wanderer tells of waking up to total darkness and of being aware of others around him, but unable to see them; the total despair he felt, this was his hell.
But after a time of being so alone and so affected by the darkness he cried out for help.
Well, we all know help came immediately.
The wanderer tells of an organization called the Brotherhood of Hope
that came to help him find the light
he was searching for and to tell him how he could reach the goal that was spurring him on. The story continues by
him (the wanderer) telling the Brotherhood of Hope how he wanted very much to be able to see and talk to his
beloved wife, for you see he could hear his beloved wife weeping for him and missing him; still very much in love
with the wanderer.
He would try to go to her, but he was bound by a cord which was attached to his decaying human body. (You see he really was obsessed with pleasures of the body in life, and when he passed over, it was as if he were tied to that body because he did not want to give it up.)
As the sound of her voice drew him over and over again to her, his will to see her became stronger than his desire to stay with a body that no loner served a purpose.
He was able to see her and hear her now, and he saw her grief and felt such love for her that he wanted to talk with her.
He could also now see that standing around her were three forms, which he now knew were spirits. He also was now aware of how bright and radiant these spirits were as compared to him.
These spirits were her protectors, they would not let him, the wanderer, come near to her because of his dark aura.
He talked to the protectors of her and reminded them that she called out to him to come to her. The story goes on to tell of how she went to a medium to try to get through to her beloved wanderer.
Now our wanderer needs help again in his journey, so the Brotherhood of Hope comes to him. The Brotherhood told him that his beloved wife was on a much higher spiritual level and that for him to attain this he would need to do good deeds for others by helping them to see the light and to assist those who call out for help as he did.
As they begin to take him through different journeys that help him grow, he sees different types of hells. These places are so horrible that one just could not imagine them, but someone did.
The wanderer would be called to these areas by someone who was asking for help (enlightenment) just as he had once done. Sometimes in these situations battles would be fought over and over, spirits would be kicked over and over, but in their hatred they would come back each time thinking this time I'll kill them.
The hatred was so strong that it took sometimes thousands of years of killing and dying over and over again before the despair would set in and they wanted better; of course as soon as they asked a spirit who is more enlightened than they are comes to help.
In this case it is our friend the wanderer who comes to assist them.
It was during one of these times of trying to help another spirit that he was wounded and died again, but something was different this time. He no longer worried about his body; it was his desire to help others to become enlightened. Plus we know he has a goal to be as enlightened himself as he can be so he might be together with his beloved again.
By the wanderer not being concerned about material things as he once was, he was now ready to pass into a higher form. He was told by a spirit being of higher knowledge that he had overcome his earth attractions and had overcome his desire for earthly things and was now able to pass into the second sphere.
This passing much resembles the death-sleep, when the spirit passes from one sphere to another. The wanderer tells how he felt very drowsy and retired to his room where he laid down and fell into a dreamless slumber. The wanderer tells that this state of unconsciousness lasted for about two weeks of our earthly time and during this time his soul passed from the disfigured astral body and came forth a newborn child clothed in a brighter, purer spiritual envelope.
The wanderer goes on to tell how the discarded astral envelope (body) he left was dissolved by spirits that helped to attend to him, just as his earthy body would decay, so does this astral body, and he moved on to a higher spiritual level.
So once again I hope that I have opened your mind to explore a new thought, a different understanding of how we continue to evolve on the spirit side of our journey.