Saturday, 17 February, 1996
Michael: Hullo; I'm back again, after only a couple of hours.
Bivalia:[a] Hullo, Michael. I'm always ready to be with you, whenever you
want me. And I'm with you a good many other times, at times when you are not
thinking of me, always seeking to help you in whatever ways will best help you
come closer to Spirit, to God (which is the same thing in the end).
Michael: I don't know if I'll be here long; perhaps I might continue
tomorrow after some sleep, perhaps under the same date heading as written
above.
Just now, when I was calling on God and the Masters - Spirit in general -
I got these spasms of my muscles.
Bivalia: I see you've been receiving a little more spiritual energy than
perhaps you are used to in everyday life.
Michael: Well, I'm not sure of that. I didn't have the jerks before, and
now that I'm typing, I don't seem to have them now, either. I think it's just
when I sit still and close my eyes.
Bivalia: But that is when you are most likely to be receptive to divine
energy; it doesn't come blundering in heedlessly, while you are doing other
things. Or, to be more precise, when you are fully one with Spirit, it is just
there all the time, whatever you are doing; but until then, you have to dispose
yourself to receive it to some extent. And that is what you were just doing.
Actually, you always receive it to some degree, every second of your life. You
couldn't live if you didn't. But in normal times, it is at a lower level, and
increases when you request it, and focus upon it. Until you are one with Spirit,
you wouldn't be able to take it in full intensity 24 hours a day.
Michael: Well, perhaps. But I can't help thinking the real explanation
for my legs or arms jerking is much more prosaic. I think I've noticed such a
thing when I suddenly become still, even when I'm not thinking of anything
spiritual at all. It's probably something purely physical, or perhaps more
specifically physiological and psychological, to do with the interaction
between mind and body.
Bivalia: [CHUCKLES.] Well, an explanation of that sort is true also, on
that level. Things happen on various levels, and can be explained in terms of
any level that you choose to focus on. It's not a case of either this or that,
either a spiritual explanation or a physical explanation.
To some extent, when you become still but don't think of anything
spiritual, you still become slightly more receptive to spiritual energy, which
would account for the spasms you sometimes have at such times. This will pass as
you come closer to Spirit.
Michael: I'm trying to decide whether to get into anything interesting or
not, or go to bed first. I might be going rusty at this. This session, and
the one of a couple of hours ago, seem to be full of pauses.
Bivalia: A pause can be a very good thing at times; it can allow you to
clear yourself mentally, so long as you don't fret and worry about it.
Michael: I've just been at my parents' place, looking after Priscilla,
their cat.
Bivalia: I'm sure Priscilla was glad to see you again.
Michael: Perhaps. How do you tell with a cat?
Bivalia: With her, by the fact that she hasn't fled over 42 fences when you
arrive. As you know, she's not a very brave little pussy-cat. You are part of a
very select group, you know. You and your mother and father are probably the
only people in this world Priscilla trusts completely. She accepts you like she
accepts your parents; but she feels some degree of apprehension with everyone
else, even those she accepts to a degree.
Michael: Well, that's nice, isn't it? I guess she's quite a cute little
thing. I guess that sounds soppy to say, though.
Bivalia: I suppose you think it might please me better if you appeared all
tough and hard and unfeeling?!
Michael: No, I suppose not.
Bivalia: The day you lost all capacity for feeling, including the more
tender kinds of feelings, and adopted the stereotypical macho male image touted
in some sections of your society, would be a very sad day. I know you sometimes
hide or soft-pedal your feelings in front of certain other people; but I know you
better, and I would be disappointed if you felt the need to do that with me.
And, besides, if you did, I don't know who you'd be fooling. Certainly not me,
and I think not yourself, either.
Michael: Perhaps. Anyway, I seem to have been thinking about flowers
recently.
Bivalia: I'm sure that must be a pleasant subject to think about. What has
caused this?
Michael: Oh, a couple of things. I've been trying to write a set of
light piano pieces about flowers - you know, primulas, violas, pansies,
hydrangeas, ivy, and so on. I've been getting ideas for these for a year or
so, but somehow they haven't come together, and remain no more than
disconnected fragments. But I have added a little bit to the Pansies piece,
and it might be beginning to take shape.
Another thing is that my mother's birthday was the day I arrived there,
before they went off to Port Fairy for a couple of days, but I forgot to get
her something on the day. My godmother Althea D. came to visit me on
Wednesday, and when she left about 3 p.m., I asked her to take me to Box Hill
shopping centre, as it's a bit of a walk, so I could get Mum something. I had
already decided to get her a plant of some sort, maybe two if they didn't cost
too much. I got her two different kinds of viola.
Bivalia: I'm sure she would have liked that.
Michael: Yes, she said she did. I got a dark bluish-purple one with some
of the petals having yellow with black lines radiating out in the yellow, and
a light bluish-mauve one also with yellow. The first was the closest I could
find to a type I first saw a year or two ago in North Croydon several doors up
from where my parents lived at the time. I had no idea what it was, but it
was such an exotic and fragile-looking little thing it quite fascinated me,
and I had to ask Mum to come up and tell me what it was. It really seemed to
evoke that sense of wonder, it was so unexpected and so attractive. I don't
remember, but that might have been one of the first things that induced me to
decide to write some flower pieces.
Bivalia: Well, I think it's a wonderful idea. Once again, we seem to have
you evoking nature in your music, and evoking that wonder and magic and the deep
longing that seems to be one of the themes of your life.
I'm sure you would be delighted if you were able to see the spirits of the
various flowers you wish to depict in the pieces.
Michael: Yes, nature spirits seem to be another thing I think about these
days. I can't see them, or even feel them, really. But sometimes, when I see
anything, especially a place with something natural in it, I am conscious that
the place seems to have a very distinctive atmosphere.
Bivalia: Well, that is because you are perceiving the spirit of the place,
or the spirits of the various plants or birds or animals there, which together
comprise the spirit of that place. It is the next thing to feeling the direct
presence of those spirits, which in turn is just as vivid a way of sensing them
as would seeing them with clairvoyant vision. It will come one day. You are
becoming attuned to the spirits of nature, to Spirit generally, of which those
spirits most definitely are a part.
It is because you have a link with the spirits of flowers that you feel a
desire to write music about them. That is why, although I know you are having
difficulty working out the exact notes, harmony, and other technical stuff, you
nevertheless have a quite distinct perception of the atmosphere you wish to put
into the music.
Michael: I guess so. "Pansies" is the piece that seems to have advanced
the most so far, although the beginning I wrote almost a year ago is not
right. It's too harsh and discordant. I was trying to give a rather piquant
effect with some use of dissonance, but I went too far, or perhaps not too
far, but just the wrong way.
I'm trying to make the opening theme extremely insolent and cheeky,
because when I look at pansies, the flowers with their coloured markings look
like tiny little faces staring impudently at you, poking out their tongues
rudely at you and chanting, "Nyahhh, nyahhh!" - perhaps even putting their
hands up to their ears and waggling the fingers cheekily at you.
Bivalia: [LAUGHS.] I know what you mean. You'd be amazed how close that
description is to the nature of the spirits of pansies. They are incredibly
lively, mischievous, and playful little beings, quite cheeky and insolent in a
completely likeable way. They may be outrageously cheeky, but there's not a bit
of malice in them. If you can write the piece as you just described your
intentions, you will be very close indeed to depicting the spirit of pansies.
Michael: The other night, while I was at my parents', I rang up Ra, and
she said that when I was writing my symphony in D minor, Indian Summer,
I could call upon the spirit of Indian summer, because I had been telling her
about how in a previous session we discussed the spirit of Indian summer.
Well, I suppose I could take this further, and call upon the spirit of pansies
when writing the piece about them, and so on with the other pieces.
Bivalia: Goodness me, yes. Of course you can, and should, do that. It
will help the music be even more effective, and true to its subject. I think the
flower spirits would love you to do that. I can just see those pansy spirits
really showing off in front of you. You wouldn't have to ask them twice.
Pansies love attention from humans, and love showing off to them. In fact,
they're quite outrageous little show-offs, really. Just look at the bright
colours they sport, and the number of different coloured varieties there are.
Even if you can't see their show-off antics, their showing-off will
influence your music, if you just let it, in a way that will please both you and
the pansies themselves.
Yes, do call upon the spirits of the flowers you are writing music about.
Michael: I hadn't quite thought of doing that before Ra mentioned it in
connection with Indian summer.
Bivalia: She's absolutely right, and you are right to generalize that to
the spirit of anything you want to write music about, or write stories about too,
for that matter.
You might be interested to know that your mental conception of Indian
summer music is very close to the spirit of Indian summer, too. Although you
haven't experienced a real Indian summer (because you don't live in a part of the
world that has Indian summer), you have, over the years you've been fascinated by
the idea, tuned into the spirit of Indian summer remarkably well.
The spirit of Indian summer is very peaceful, with a certain grave dignity,
and just a touch of sadness to it, because it signifies the approaching end of
autumn, and is the calm before the storms of winter. It is somewhat allied to
the spirit of endings of anything generally, and in fact overlaps with that
spirit a bit. (You realize now, of course, that spirits need not be discrete
entities, that they can overlap, so that certain areas of Spirit belong to two or
more different spiritual entities. In fact, I think that is one of the most
important insights your channelling of me has helped you to understand over the
last three or four sessions.)
The spirit of Indian summer seems to be aligned with the elements earth,
air, and water, and has rather muted colours, including greens and browns, with
touches of red, orange, and yellow, and a bit of blue and blue-grey forming a
general background. All these colours tend to have a misty sheen over them. The
colours appear in distinct patches, and merge into each other in a misty kind of
way. It would do you much good to associate with this spirit all the more; it
would have a calming effect on you which would be beneficial.
Perhaps you are not quite ready to write large-scale symphonies at this
moment. Meanwhile, writing the flower pieces would be very good for you, and
associating with the flower spirits will do a great deal towards lightening you,
giving you a sense of fun, especially with the pansies, who are lovely little
beings. If you aren't offended by their outrageous cheek, they are endlessly
affectionate little spirits.
Michael: Hey, you're good at describing these spirits. You seem to know
a lot about the denizens of the spirit world.
Bivalia: Well, I should. I live amongst them, and associate with them a
lot. It's no more unusual for me than for you to be familiar with human beings
in their physical aspect. In the higher realms, spirits of anything are to us
what bodies or physical forms are to you, and are just as obvious. In the higher
dimensions, there are no barriers of vision, or of any other sense, between
beings or entities of different types.
Michael: Anyway, I will remember to call on the spirits of whatever
beings or phenomena I am writing music about.
Bivalia: Even without explicitly calling on them, you often attract the
attention of spirits just by thinking about them and focusing your attention on
depicting them. But it might be helpful at times to sharpen that focus by
explicitly calling on them. They would love you to do that, and will help you
all they can.
Michael: Actually, I've read that, in most instances, nature spirits
dislike humans, and run away from them. I think Bishop C. W. Leadbeater, who
was clairvoyant, said that in one of his books.
Bivalia: Well, perhaps it's a bit of a generalization, and, like most
generalizations, it is not always so. It depends on what the humans are like.
If a sensitive kind person walked into a forest or a field, they would not be
repelled, and might even be attracted, especially if that person liked the nature
spirits, and was trying to feel their presence, and genuinely wanted to get in
touch with them. But if the human was a land developer thinking about
how much money he could make by razing all the plants on that land and building
units, or something like that, I think they would in that case shrink away in
distaste. It just depends on what the human in question is like.
I don't expect there would be any problems with you. You would be more
receptive to these spirits than 99.9 percent of people in your society, I would
think.
The smaller spirits of this sort are a bit like children: totally open and
honest, quite spontaneous, and loving any attention given to them. If you try to
open yourself to them, I am sure you will attract their attention in quite a
favourable way. And even if you can't see them, or feel their presence, it
doesn't mean that you are not succeeding in reaching them. But the ability to
sense them directly will come, in time, as you grow more accustomed to them.
Michael: I've never thought of violas as being closely related to pansies
until recently, but when I looked at one of the violas I got Mum, I noticed
that a few of the flowers looked very similar to tiny little pansies, smaller
than the usual pansies.
Bivalia: Yes, they are related. The spirits of violas are slightly quieter
than pansies, a little more timid, not so cheeky; but they do have something of
those same qualities that pansies have.
Michael: Perhaps it is no coincidence that before I ever thought of
violas as being related to pansies I cast the pieces of music for both pansies
and violas in the key of A major.
Bivalia: Well, you were subconsciously tuning in to a certain similarity
between the two plants there. And, as you know very well, the choice of key to
write a piece in is closely related to the atmosphere you want to evoke.
Michael: So, what with thinking about my music, and getting those flowers
for Mum, I have been thinking about flowers a little.
For some reason, I seem to have been thinking about morning glory, too.
I don't know why. I decided a while ago, perhaps several weeks ago, to write
a morning glory piece, even though I couldn't remember ever having seen a
morning glory. But I'd read or heard descriptions of them, and they seemed to
appeal. I think even the name appealed to me somehow. I heard or read
somewhere that morning glory has its blue flowers open only in the morning,
and apparently this is not so, but the idea seems to appeal somehow, and I
still think of them in connection with the morning.
Bivalia: It is true that the flowers are displayed all day, but the spirits
of morning glory are especially active in the early morning.
Michael: Just today, Mum showed me a morning glory a couple of blocks
away from her place, when she took me home after looking after Priscilla. I
had walked along the same street a couple of days before, trying to look for
the morning glory Mum had told me was there, but somehow I missed it. As we
drove past in the car, I didn't get much of a look, but it looked attractive
all the same.
Also, Mum had told me some days earlier that there is a lot of morning
glory at Sorrento, where our family used to have a holiday house we used much
in my school days (the house was sold a few years ago, however); Mum said
morning glory grows wild all over the place there, in back yards, and escaping
out into open areas, alongside paths, on fences, and the like. She said there
was some along the dirt lane-way we used to follow from the Sorrento house
down the hill to the front beach (in Port Philip Bay), and I had a dim,
half-forgotten image of rickety fences covered with a blue-flowered creeper,
drenched in early morning sunlight as we went down to the beach early on a
summer morning, and the memory suddenly seemed so vivid and evocative that it
seemed to bring on that sense of wonder. It seemed so exotic and colourful,
and I seemed to long for something great and wonderful that I couldn't pin
down.
It's as if that whole scene, with its combination of various things - the
blue creeper, the sun-bleached fences, the grey dirt trail with a grassy ridge
in the middle, the early morning sunlight, the sparkling water ahead - just
had a totally distinct spirit or atmosphere, not quite like anything else, not
even any other beach-side scene. And it all seemed so beautiful and
attractive and somehow larger than life, more real than real - like a glimpse
of heaven, almost.
Bivalia: You speak more truly than you realize. You have always been
sensitive to the spirit of places, and the memory of this one is no exception.
Your perception of the spirit of this place, as well as of many other places,
arouses in you deep memories from long ago, before you came into this world.
They are memories of some place outside Earth which is in some deep sense home
to you, which you long to return to. These memories get transplanted to earthly
scenes which remind you of the unearthly places in one way or another.
And the spirits of many earthly places also have their own Higher Selves,
just as humans do, and some of these spirits might be ones you knew intimately in
those higher realms where you have been in the past. All sorts of connections
exist between this world and the next, and when one is sensitive to the world of
spirit, to things beyond the physical (as you are, despite your real doubts about
the reality of realms beyond the physical), one gets reminders of the higher
realms just about anywhere one goes, especially if one is in a receptive mood.
That is one of the reasons for those tantalizing hints of longing you get,
seemingly inexplicably, which the physical place or thing which suggested it
cannot satisfy.
Michael: Yes, there is something I have been longing for all my life,
even since early childhood. I think I used to believe that something was in
this world, but I'm not so sure now. Even when I get something in this world
that I've long wanted, I may enjoy it, but the deep longing for
something-or-other is still just as strong, and just as unsatisfied.
Bivalia: Yes, I know. It is something spiritual that you are longing for.
And while it is possible to partially satisfy it in this world by developing
spiritual awareness, full satisfaction of that desire is for another world than
the one you now live in. As the Earth evolves, this will change, and that
longing will be satisfied right here on Earth; but that is for the future. You
are right that the desire cannot be fully satisfied in the present order of your
world.
Michael: And yet I think by doing the spiritual things I have been doing
since the Crea workshop - the Crea workshop itself, the channellings, the
books I've read, communing with the Masters, and with Spirit, channelling you,
and so on - by doing all that, I think I am simply intensifying that desire.
Bivalia: This does tend to happen when one grows spiritually.
Michael: And yet is it a wise thing to do if that desire cannot be
satisfied properly in this life? Isn't that asking for trouble, or at least
for a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction?
Bivalia: Well, from a limited perspective, that might be quite a sensible
consideration to follow. If this world were all there is, and death is the end
of everything, or if you completely believed that, yes it might be sensible to
try to extinguish that desire, not to make it stronger. But things are different
if you believe in a world to come after this. I think C. S. Lewis pointed out
this distinction quite well in his book Mere Christianity, where he
mentions the same kind of longing you have been speaking of.
Yes, you are likely to intensify a longing that cannot be satisfied for the
time being, or satisfied fully, at any rate. But by so doing, you make it all
the more likely that the desire can be satisfied in the relatively near future,
even if after your time in the world as it presently operates. In other words,
you have to grow through that unsatisfied feeling. If you repress or smother it,
you may cease to be nagged by it, but you will retard your spiritual growth,
since that longing is one of the main pointers to a spiritual life. And if you
retard your spiritual growth, you delay yet further the final satisfaction of
that longing, you delay yet further your eternal approach to God.
Also, remember that I said that although the desire cannot be fully
satisfied in your world, it can be partially satisfied, and although in one sense
that will merely intensify the longing, at the same time the partial satisfaction
of the desire is progressive, even in your world, so it does give a degree of
satisfaction, even if your desire for more satisfaction is sharpened. But the
partial satisfaction is enough to urge you on in your spiritual growth.
And, besides, implicit in your question is the idea that spiritual growth
is a drag, a bore, and full of pain, and therefore you might wonder if it's worth
putting up with all of that in order to satisfy the longing partially, or even
fully. But this is not an accurate picture.
It is true that there can be pain and difficulty in spiritual growth, but
the worst part is actually at the beginning. As you get going, it gets easier
and more enjoyable all the time, even in its moment-by-moment aspects, not merely
in terms of the degree to which it satisfies some inner longing. It never again
gets as bad as those early torments and doubts that tend to afflict the very
beginning of the spiritual path.
So, in summary, I have to say, yes, it is worthwhile to continue on your
spiritual path, even if it does cause a nagging sense of dissatisfaction with
reference to unfulfilled desires for that wonderful whatever-it-is that you've
been longing for as long as you can remember. That phase will pass one day; and
in the end, there is everything to gain.
Michael: I see. You seem to understand this matter very well.
Bivalia: Yes. I think it is an important matter. I agree with you that
the sense of wonder you speak of is a very important part of one's spiritual
life, the essence of it in a sense. Do you accept or agree with my explanation
for it.
Michael: I'm not sure. I can't think of a better explanation myself, so
I suppose it's as good as any that I've heard from other sources, which aren't
many, because so few people talk or write about this matter.
Bivalia: Well, that makes it all the more important for you to channel
information about it from me, or from Spirit. Perhaps, if the opportunity
arises, you might like to channel something from me on this subject in a format
suitable for publication, or perhaps you might like to re-edit some of what
you've already channelled from me on the subject. I could help you with that.
Michael: Well, I don't know. I've already got my hands full coping with
Mal publishing the extracts from the Bivalia letter I began in March, 1994,
and dealing with alterations he wants to make, most of which I'm unwilling to
accept. We've already dumped one long extract forming a complete proposed
article because I wouldn't agree to cuts he wanted to make, where he would not
give way to my opposition; and even when he lets me have my way, I dislike
this whole business of debating proposed changes, and it's rather putting me
off the idea of publishing at all, at least in this particular newsletter.
But we've slowly been slogging through the treadmill, and two extracts have
been published so far, and a third is in fairly early stages of consideration
as of now. And one or two of those extracts do make some mention of the topic
- that is, the sense of wonder as a pointer to Spirit.
Bivalia: Yes. But I don't imagine that is your last word on the subject.
Michael: No, of course not. But to go deeper into it, I cannot separate
it from personal memories, and they may not be of interest to readers.
Bivalia: Some of them might be, even if only as examples of the sort of
thing you're talking about.
Michael: Well, we'll see. Even in talking with you, I can scarcely
describe the sense of wonder to my own satisfaction, I can scarcely convey the
real essence of it in words, let alone describe it clearly and vividly to
readers who know nothing about the way my mind works. I hardly feel competent
to write on the subject at all except to you, where I make use of the fact
that you really understand what I'm talking about quite intimately.
Bivalia: I think you undersell yourself. Perhaps no-one understands you
personally as well as I do, but I think you are able to convey the feeling of
that wonder to other readers at least well enough so that they can apply it to
parallel situations in their own lives. They don't have to understand the exact
inner way your own life goes, any more than you have to understand their inner
life.
Michael: Well, once again, I think we've reached a pausing point. I
think this might be a good place to stop now, because dawn is here now, and I
want to go to sleep. But I might continue later today, and if I keep going in
this same document, under the same date heading, perhaps I could ask you to
keep the channels of communication open in a sense, just resting for a few
hours. But I don't want to lose the thread of thought.
Bivalia: Certainly I can do that.
Michael: Okay, thanks, Bivalia. Well, I think I'll hit the sack now.
You're lucky you don't need to go to sleep.
Bivalia: Your sleep times are a valuable time for you to make spiritual
connections which at present you aren't able to do when awake. I wouldn't regard
them as a nuisance if I were you.
Michael: Well, they seem like it at times, when I want to keep on with
something I'm involved in.
Bivalia: The need for sleep will pass one day, but I would make the most of
it while it is still a part of your way of life.
Michael: Quite apart from the issue of continuity of thought, there is a
purely practical reason why if I do more later on today I want to continue in
the same document. Each session I do with you has a separate computer file,
and each file is named after the year (4 digits), month (2), and date (2) of
the session, in that order. That makes 8 digits, and a file name has a
maximum of 8 characters, so they are all used up. Two files cannot have
exactly the same name, so it would be a bit awkward if I had two separate
sessions on the same day. It's never happened so far, so I haven't decided
what I'll do if it does happen. I would have to make the file-names different
somehow, but I couldn't do that without altering the date in some way.
========================================
[Due to a computer error, one page of text was lost at this point;
unfortunately it is too late to properly reconstruct it now, but the following
notes are my tentative attempt soon after I discovered the error to summarize
what that page was about. It does not fully distinguish what was said by
Bivalia from what was spoken by my everyday self, but I hope it gives at least a
hint of the continuity of the discussion. Fortunately the page does not seem to
cover any topics that I consider of central importance to this dialogue or
indeed to my spiritual life, even.]
========================================
Bivalia: Well, in any case, there is no reason why you can't continue in
the same document, especially if you want to continue some of the same lines of
thought that have prompted what you've already written.
Michael:
Bivalia:
Michael:
[NEARLY 24 HOURS LATER.]
Michael: Hullo Bivalia; I'm back again. I seem to have a number of
things I want to share with you, although I can only spend about an hour or so
now, because I have to get up at 9 in the morning, because I'm going to the
Church of Antioch, where I play the organ every few weeks.
Bivalia: Fire away.
Michael: Well, now that it actually comes to the point, I'm not sure if I
can think of the things I wanted to say.
Ra coming because she seemed interested. When I telephoned her a few
nights ago, I mentioned the Church of Antioch, and told her a bit about their
spiritual outlook. I told her reservations I had about their approach, but
she seemed interested to come. Possibly she may share same reservations.
Something happened on Wednesday when Althea took me to the Box Hill shopping
centre to buy those plants for my mother. After getting the plants, I went into
the main part of the shopping centre because I had to get something else. As
walked along a mall, I saw two posters on one of the fixtures, and stopped to
read them.
appeared to be religious pluggery, the usual kind of fundamentalist scare stuff.
Posters set next to each other, parts one and two of a continuing story.
It appeared to be an interpretation of the Book of Revelation, which seems to be
one of the favourite parts of the Bible fundamentalists like to use for deriving
their scare stuff. It appeared to depict the world as being controlled by the
Beast, or Satan, and made predictions about the near future.
It said that the world's financial and political systems were under the
control of the Antichrist,
world leader, would bring about peace, and appear to be benevolent, and it would
be tempting to support him; but later on he would then demand that people worship
him, and eliminate anyone who refuses.
The poster made the whole world seem to be in the grip of malign forces, and
The Book of Revelation mentions the Mark of the Beast, which would be
placed either upon the forehead or the palm of the hand of everyone, and the
poster said we now have the technology to do this, in the form of silicon chips,
which could be surgically implanted in those locations. It would be a cashless
society, and all financial transactions would be conducted by means of these
chips, and anyone who didn't have one implanted would not be able to buy or sell
anything.
Apparently almost everyone would eventually have the chip implanted, and it
would give the Antichrist complete control over them. The posters urged you to
resist having the chip implanted, but seemed to imply that only those who
understood the
========================================
[The original text resumes now.]
========================================
Bible's message would end up not having the chip implanted, and apparently to
have it implanted would mean death, spiritual as well as physical. The poster
wasn't absolutely clear on whether people would be forced to have the chip
implanted, or whether you would merely be put under pressure to do so, but it
appeared that some people would successfully resist the chip if they had
enough incentive to do so.
Bivalia: I see. It sounds like the usual kind of scare stuff you read or
heard many times before. Do you really believe all this?
Michael: No, I don't think so. But I haven't finished yet. Anyway, the
point I'm making is not whether I literally believe all this or not, but the
way it makes the whole world seem to be in the grip of terrible forces playing
out power games, and how almost nobody can be trusted, and it just makes the
whole world seem unbearably sinister.
Bivalia: Well, I would be wary of believing this sort of thing too
literally; but as a matter of fact, there are dark forces active in your world at
present, and they are quite sinister. It is possible some of those ideas could
have some basis in fact. But I disagree completely with the idea that only
people with a "proper understanding" of the Bible (meaning Christian
fundamentalists only, no doubt) will be safe. I would say that earthly
oppression could conceivably happen to anyone on Earth at all, although if your
heart and conscience are in the right place, you would minimize that danger.
But, more importantly, if the ultimate happens, and you (for instance) were
to die at the Antichrist's hands (I won't question the appropriateness of the
name "Antichrist" for the moment, although this could be questioned), what would
happen then? You would die, and what would happen would then just be the same as
what would happen if you were to die by any other cause. And what would happen
then would not be at all a bad or dangerous or tragic thing if your heart was in
the right place. So even if you were to die because of the Antichrist's
activities, the consequences could not be regarded as completely dire for someone
aligned with Spirit.
If a person were seriously misaligned with Spirit, and was given to murder
or violence or cruelty, it might be a different thing. Such people can have a
hard time in the next world, because, however much love their teachers in the
next world give them, they have difficulty coming to terms with the fact that
they mustn't behave the way they've been doing, and it causes them anguish to
learn the true nature and horror of what they have been doing, without any veils
of illusion hiding this, as so often happens while those people are in your
world. But as far as you are concerned, I really don't think you need be worried
about that, whether your death is at the hands of some "Antichrist" figure, or
for any other reason.
That is, of course, if you die in the usual sense. Of course, there is the
possibility of your evolving into higher dimensions along with Mother Earth, and
if that happens during your present physical life-time, you may even not die at
all in the usual sense. But your spiritual future is secure, and it doesn't even
really matter whether you die, or evolve to higher dimensions. It's a secondary
matter, the exact way you depart from this physical dimension you are presently
in.
Michael: Well, about the poster - well, no, I wasn't concerned about the
things you've just been saying, but reading the poster did make the world seem
a fearful place. Well, I think it's that anyway, but this seemed to add yet
another dimension of fear, and made humans seem the playthings of terrible
forces of fate, and all that.
Bivalia: I wouldn't worry about that. Dire things may happen in your near
future, or things that appear dire, but I wouldn't be too quick to judge those
events by their outward appearance. People may die, dictatorships may arise, but
even those whose physical lives are disrupted by those events may be spiritually
quite secure. And those less spiritually secure, who have a few difficult
lessons they must face up to sooner or later, will have to face what is ahead of
them, regardless of whether they are affected by the dire events that poster
spoke of.
Michael: Well, there were a few details in the poster that seemed to add
credibility to the whole story. One of these concerned bar-codes - you know,
those parallel bars on a wide range of products that carry computerized
information about the product: the price, stock number, and so on. I don't
know how you decode the information, but apparently there's a standardized way
of translating the bars into numbers, going by their thickness, spacing, and
so on. Well, most of the bars are of the same length, but according to the
poster, spread at intervals through the bar-code are three pairs of lines that
stick out a bit further than all the rest. (And a look at some bar-codes
confirmed to me that this is so. It appear to be so on almost all bar-codes I
have seen.) The poster said that according to the usual method of translating
those lines, the three pairs of lines each translate to "6". In other words,
the longer lines mean "666", which has always been associated with the Mark of
the Beast. This does seem to lend a bit of authenticity to the story the
poster was telling.
Another thing was that in the Bankcard logo, the "B" of "Bankcard" has
parallel lines in it which also signify "666". (I don't have a Bankcard, and
don't use credit cards at all, so I can't check whether the "B" of "Bankcard"
has similar parallel lines to the bar-codes.)
The whole implication seems to be that the financial system is under the
control of the Beast, or Satan. It's a little bit scary to see what appears
to be corroborating evidence for this kind of interpretation of today's
world. It at least makes you wonder if perhaps there might be something to
all this scare stuff.
Bivalia: I wouldn't worry if I were you. It may be that the dark forces do
have some control over the world's political and financial systems, and, who
knows, they may have caused occult symbols of darkness to be incorporated into
bar-codes, Bankcard logos, or whatever. Just because the poster is right in some
details doesn't prove that its whole story is correct, though. I suppose your
concern might be that if the entire story were true, you might be destined for
hell, because you are not a Christian in the fundamentalist mould.
Michael: Well, I wouldn't put it as strongly as that. I'm not saying I
was seriously worried about that; but in a more subtle way, reading this did
seem to cast a pall of fear over the whole world, and possibly on the role we
as individuals might play in that world. I found myself wonder whether, if
all the forecast events came to pass, I would successfully resist the
Antichrist, and whether I would suffer badly for it.
Bivalia: Yes, you do have a bit of a fear of suffering, don't you? You've
had enough of it in your own past, much of it directly because of your stand for
truth, and your seeming immunity to corrupt influences that tried to bend you.
Michael: So I've been told; I have no memory of any of that, however.
Bivalia: You don't need it. Your whole life speaks it, though.
Michael: Well, I don't know. But, yes, in a subtle way, I suppose
reading that poster did (for a short while) induce a degree of fear in me.
Bivalia: I think you would be well advised not to read that kind of
literature. It is riddled with fear. It may have portions of truth in it, but
the overall picture is unlikely to be true, and the fact that it is based so much
on fear, and so little on love, is proof that the spiritual vision the message
conveyed is badly distorted (however many factual details may possibly be true).
Spirit works through love and all-inclusiveness, not fear and exclusiveness of
those who don't believe an orthodoxy.
Michael: Yes, I know. I just felt like sharing this with you, but I
don't suppose I seriously needed guidance from you on it. But as I walked
home with my plants, I thought about it a little, and it made me wonder if
anything at all in this world is what it appears to be, whether anything at
all is innocent and benign, or whether everything is under the control of dark
forces, and totally snared up in corruption and lies and oppression. I had
the rather strange thought that at any rate, the fragile plants I was taking
back home seemed innocent and free of corruption; but could I be sure about
whether anything human was free of corruption?
Bivalia: Yes, I understand your thoughts. I agree it is not always easy to
tell what is really pure in spirit, and what only gives that appearance. But I
can assure you that there is much in your world that is pure in spirit, and if
you remain pure in spirit, you will tend to be attracted to other people, and to
things or ideas, which are similarly pure in spirit, without you even having to
strive to detect whether someone or something is pure. I really don't think you
have anything to worry about there.
Michael: I hope you are right. But I think at this point I must finish
up. I have probably already spent more time here than I should have.
Bivalia: All right then. Come back some time, won't you?
Michael: I'm not sure if I have more to say or not. It seems over the
last few days I have wanted to say various things to you, and I don't know if
I'm through yet. And what I talked about this time wasn't the most important
thing amongst those; but it was the most obvious thing I could think of now,
and one that could be dealt with fairly quickly.
Anyway, good-night for now. I'll see you later.
Bivalia: Yes, good-night, Michael. I will probably see you tonight when
you are asleep.
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