'I' and what is around me

We tend to think of 'I' as an identity on its own. This may be because we experience the center of ourselves as a continuum, or because we put too much emphasis on our ego. But in reality, the definition of 'I' cannot be given without considering what is around me.When i am alone i feel different than when i am among people. When i go over the street back to my safe home, i feel different than when i would be homeless. When we are surrounded by friends, we feel different than when attacked by enemies. I certainly believe that 'I' exist as an individual identity, but that identity cannot be understood without awareness of my surroundings. This is significant for the sake of our restoration. It is through reaching individual maturity that we should learn to be independent enough to know God's will for our lives under all circumstances. But even as a mature or perfected individual, we change continuously while engaging in relations, by getting married, getting children, relating to friends and taking care of our house and belongings and the earth, animals and plants around us and the spiritual world.In our lives we need to build up a reliable and good environment, in the form of good relations to God and people and human spirits and angels, and to the living beings and things of creation. It is by learning to do this in a good way that we can improve the well-being of ourselves and of others. We can live healthily both spiritually and physically only when we build a good relationship to all that is around us.How do we build such a good relationship? It is by learning to love, or by caring in the right way. This is a process that sets foundation upon foundation. We need to keep our good relationship to God and take care of friends (who could be called spiritual children or archangels in other terminology). We also need to build a safe home, a place of a secure and beautiful and harmonious environment around 'I' and my family. 'I' am not just I. I exist by my relations. My spiritual and physical health depends on how well i manage my relationships with God, other people, the creation, the spiritual world.

The energy reality of a garden

Image by lensa13.smugmug.com via Flickr

All that exists also exists on the level of energy.

Sometimes we tend to think that energy is just energy, but in fact, there are many types of energy. Each energy has a certain inner character and it has a special effect. For example, the sun gives off energy that we perceive as light and warmth. But the sun's energy is not just that. Some elements of the sun's energy color our skin, tans our bodies. The sun doesn't feel the same each day. Sometimes the sun feels pleasant and sometimes it doesn't.

It is on the level of energy that bridges are made between the spiritual and physical reality. All physical energies have a spiritual aspect and all spiritual energies affect the physical world.

We can learn more about the reality of energy by working with plants. Of course, there are many other methods to learn about energy, but plants and gardens give an easy access to learning about energies.

Each plant contains its own mix or composition of energies. Energy always radiates out, forms an aura. This aura can be seen around trees and plants. Healthy plants give a shining aura. When a tree is ill, the disease can be seen as a dark spot in the aura and the aura won't be strong.

When more plants of the same species grow together, the individual auras blend into one larger field. Different plants growing together in a garden form a composite aura that can be seen more easily. It needs repeated and long exercise to learn to see such auras and to interpret them better.

The energy aura of a plant gives information about its healing properties. The words 'medicine' and 'energy' are used as synonyms in some cultures that use herbs as medicines.

Rather than sowing and planting plants in straight lines in one field, i like to make compositions of several vegetables, herbs and flowers in a separate field. These fields can be smaller or bigger. In my garden most fields are between 15 and 30 m2. Each of these fields become a creation on their own, and together with the other fields they compose the garden as a whole.

Some plants like to grow together, thrive better when they are sown in one field. This has physical explanations but can also be understood in terms of energy. Some energies blend well together, others don't.

A method that i learned from a Native American tradition is to take very well care of one particular plant and to put this plant in the center of a field with other vegetables, herbs or flowers. The central plant makes a strong and healthy aura that protects all the other plants.

When you manage to make your garden into a strong energy reality, it will attract good spirits. They will like to be there, just like physical people enjoy being in a lovely garden.

When you eat the plants from such a garden, they fill your body with good energy. Even when you eat a small quantity, you feel well-nourished and full. You won't feel the craving to eat more and much. Many people become obese because they eat junk food that has no energy content. It's just physical food and it doesn't nourish your body's energy systems. You may get all the physical elements that your body needs but you still get sick easily as your immune system works to a large degree on good energy.

To learn to relate to the energy reality of a garden is a good method to nurture and maintain your garden. You don't always need to know the physical properties of fertilizers and your soil when you center on improving the energy in your garden. You will intuitively know what the soil and plants need.

Each living organism and therefore also each plant works as a receiver of energies. These energies come from various sources. For example, flowers take in much energy from the sun while plants with big roots take in energy from the earth. Other plants assimilate special energies that the cosmos provides. Plants process such energies and then transmit them to their environment. This is why plants growing together in a garden can mutually benefit each other.

Information about individual plants in my blog Research Topics

Training in the Home

The normal order of education is that we first grow up to a mature individual. It means that as an adult we know how to live life as an individual, without the need of supervision by parents and elders. In an internal sense, that maturity means that we do what is good, that we know how to follow God's will in each situation.

The next level is that mature individuals learn to live together as husband and wife getting children. The family structure is very much more demanding than life as an individual; it also is a great environment for learning to love and live together.

In that family environment it is possible to be trained in the care for all things, all things firstly meaning the living animals and plants. There are many elements to be harmonized and many factors to be taken into consideration. We live between heaven and earth, heaven meaning the environment of spirit world and earth meaning the environment in which we were born and are growing up.

The place for these levels of training is what we all know as the Home.

We tend to think of 'home' as the place where we grew up and where we live with our families. That, in practice, is our home, but the Home ideally is more than that. The Home is actually meant to be a Garden of Eden, a family living in a house and a garden where everything is under God, where people and angels live in harmony, where family members among each other have balanced relations, where the entire cosmos comes together in a focal point of attention and a center of past, present and future generations.

The Home is a mini-cosmos in the sense that we can find there all elements of life and creation. Above you are the sun, moon and stars and below you is the earth and around you are the birds, animals, trees and flowers. In the home you have access to all elements of physical creation and all beings in the spirit world. You will attract the entire spirit world to your place when you make it into a thriving and fulfilling home.

Most problems in the world are because leaders haven't passed the most fundamental training of all, the training in the Home. They learn about life at universities where professors teach from books written by scholars who also haven't completed the Home training.

The Home is the school or training environment for everyone to learn the implementation of God's Principles. It's where the Divine Principle from ideas and concepts become substantial bodies of truth.

The correct order needed for the Foundation of Faith

The fall meant that the universal order as created by God was turned upside down. Lucifer the angel, who should have been object to Adam the child of God, became subject to Adam.

Always fall means that the original subject-object order is turned upside down, and restoration of faith means that the original subject-object order is restored.

Peace under God is good. Peace is good as long as there are maintained the original positions of subject and object. But if peace means that Adam is obedient to an angel, and that Adam does not revolt against the angel, then that peace is evil peace.

Harmony is good when God’s side is subject. But when you in heavenly position are accepting to be object to someone who takes a worldly position, then that harmony will lead to trouble.

Fall always means that the position of original object dominates the position of original subject. Faith always means that the position of original subject can maintain or regain the dominating position in relation to the original object.

****

Let us try to understand what this means for an individual who is going the way of religion to restore his or her faith. An original person has a heart, mind and body relating to creation. The heart of the person relates to God.

If the mind dominates the heart, then fall takes place.

An example of this could be when someone wants to give a speech to pass on God’s principles. If you teach God’s Word from a heart united with God, then it is good to teach God’s Word. But if you teach God’s Word with your mind while your heart is not with God, then your teaching promotes fall.

Your heart is created to be subject to your mind. Any activities of your mind that are not under control of your heart centered on God, are evil. All activities of your mind under the control of your heart centered on God are good.

If you speak to other people, for example by giving a speech explaining God’s Word, and your heart is not with God, then your speaking can only be to take people away from God.

Only when your own heart is united in love with God you can speak words of truth in which God’s love is actually conveyed.

What does this mean in the life of practice for a teacher?

A teacher of God’s Word should never speak to people if he or she did not make an acceptable Foundation of Faith. Each person has to daily bring offerings to God. If you brought a good offering to God today, then on that foundation you can speak God’s Word in a truthful manner. But if you failed to bring a good offering to God today, then you should not speak to so-called pass on God’s Word to people. Because if you did not make an acceptable offering to God, then you were egoistic. Your heart is not with God, but with yourself. And then it is impossible for you to give a speech in which you pass on God’s love.

In God’s world, everything has to be whole and completed. Words should not be spoken if they are not coming from a loving heart. Actions should not be done if they don’t come from a truthful mind.

*****

Suppose that you want to do a task as given to you by a central figure under God. This task has to be done with your body. If your body is operating under a truthful mind, then the actions of your body will be acceptable to God. But if your body is operating under a mind that has feelings against God, then your offerings are not acceptable.

Cain brought an offering to God that he had prepared with his body. But God could not accept Cain’s offering, because Cain’s mind was not truthful and Cain’s heart was not desiring to give to God. Cain had feelings against God, even though Cain had prepared an offering.

If Cain had really only wanted to please God with his offering, then Cain would not have gotten angry when his offering could not be accepted. If Cain really had loved God, Cain would just have thought that he still wanted to give something to God, and he would have figured out how to change his offering in such a way that it would please God. But when God did not like Cain’s offering, Cain’s concerns were not for God, but they were against his brother Abel. Cain was just wanting to get blessings by making offerings to God, and when Cain thought that Abel would get the blessings that Cain wanted for himself, then Cain got jealous and angry at Abel and he murdered Abel.

****

What is important in religious life is that we accept the positions as God created them. God made love to be higher than intellect and emotions. Good love should reign our thoughts and feelings. If your thoughts are so-called good and original and principled, but your heart is not united in real love with God, then your thoughts will not be acceptable to God.

In practical daily religious life, this means that we should always keep the good order as installed by God. We should only act from good thoughts and feelings, and we should think and feel only out of love for God.

How can we assure ourselves that we are acting from the right order?

It is possible to check ourselves by demanding that we make a Foundation of Faith before we make a Foundation of Substance. Or: bring an acceptable offering to God before you speak and act. In any situation of life, our relation to God has to be in order.

The standard that is demanded for us is really very high. If you have a good relation to God today, then based on that you could do all kind of things. That is the same as saying: before you can make a good Foundation of Substance you have to make a Foundation of Faith.

If your relation to God is not in order, you cannot really act in any good way. You cannot make offerings, you cannot speak God’s Word, you cannot go out to prepare financial offerings to God.

Before you can make a Foundation of Substance, you have to make a Foundation of Faith. That means that you have to make your relation to God in order first.

If your relation to God broke down, then what you have to do?

You cannot make offerings to God as long as your relation to God is not in order.

****

There is one fundamental rule for life under God: You cannot deal with God as long as you are having love for and connections to evil. Before you can make a Foundation to receive the Messiah, you must have made a Foundation of Substance. Before you can make a Foundation of Substance, you must have made a Foundation of Faith. Before you can make a Foundation of Faith, you must separate yourself from evil.

The catchword for Foundation to receive the Messiah is: LOVE FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR

The catchword for Foundation of Substance is: PRACTICE OF TRUTH

The catchword for Foundation of Faith is: OFFERING TO GOD.

The catchword for separation from evil is: SEPARATION FROM EVIL.

Religious life is the life in which you each day practice the following four demands:

1. SEPARATION FROM EVIL

2. OFFERING TO GOD

3. PRACTICE OF TRUTH

4. LOVE FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR.

When you do really practice to live your life in this way, then you will surely grow. But if you try to offer to God without having separated from evil, you will be in trouble. If you try to practice the truth without having made your relation to God in order, you will be in trouble. If you try to love your neighbor without having practiced the truth, you will be in trouble.

God’s world is a world of exact order.

April 15, 2001

Reading books and spiritual life

Image by EyalNow via Flickr

Sometimes people ask me which books to read or not to read for good spiritual development.

This question is very difficult to answer. I have always kept some principles for myself, but will first give a comparison that has helped me.

We can compare spiritual food with physical food. In the physical world our body needs love and light and warmth and water and substantial food. We also breathe in air. Our body also needs enough rest in sleep and relaxation.

In the spiritual realm we also need love and we need the light of inspiration which we can receive through meditation and prayer. We need the spiritual warmth of a loving and caring environment. There also is advantage of living in a pure spiritual atmosphere, which could be compared with air. Food and water in a spiritual sense can be compared to reading and hearing truth.

The physical body should not just consume. It also has to act and do exercises or workouts. The same is true for our spiritual life. We cannot just read books and meditate or pray because in a spiritual sense we would become very weak or even fat and unhealthy. In a spiritual sense we must give out to others and fulfill the mission we received.

We cannot just always give out in spiritual life. Just like it is true for the physical life, the spirit can only build up its muscles in times of rest.

For the physical body it is true that we need different food in different stages of life. Food that is good for adults could be detrimental or even deathly for small children. When we eat the wrong kind of food we could get ill and eventually die from it.

Very much the same is true for spiritual food contained in books or expressed through spoken word or in films.

Unlike it was for our ancestors, we have easy access to practically all that once has been written. There is a certain danger here lurking around the corner. Even if the content of a text is entirely trustworthy, it could still give us a spiritual food indigestion because we are not ready to understand it.

Still much more danger is in words in which truth and untruth have been mixed. This is like when we eat processed food to which all kind of harmful ingredients have been added. In the beginning you don’t notice how this affects the body, but eating such food for many years gradually can weaken the body and make it ill.

Some books are written with the purpose to make you believe lies. They are almost always wrapped as an attractive package.

How to deal with this in such a way that your spiritual life will prosper and not suffer? I don’t think it is possible to give strict rules for this. It is very personal and of course also always an individual decision.

When you read something you might try to pay attention to how this affects your thoughts, feelings and life. When you feel getting inspired and moved to give out love, chances are that what you read is good for you. If however you feel getting darker, depressed and negative and more doubts come in you, you may decide that these books are not a good choice for you at this stage of your life.

Some people need to read books that spread lies, not to digest those lies but to expose them. This is only advisable when you have advanced far enough to really distinguish between true and untrue. There is a danger of getting too much involved with this. Then your outlook on life might be to always criticize what is not good while you yourself don’t prosper as you don’t receive enough good spiritual food.

Enjoy your carefully selected and prepared meal of good spiritual food!

March 1, 2008

Right after an experience with God

There is a danger lurking for each of us who want to come closer to the Creator. This hazard does not wait for us in our struggles of initial deepening our relationship with God, it arises right after we made a breakthrough.

Originally we each are creations or children of God. Normally the relationship between each of us and the Creator is very close. It is a love relationship. But the world as a whole is not very close to the Creator. There is much misery and pain and egoism and misuse of power. All this does not come from God.

Also in ourselves there are barriers that prevent us from deeply feeling God all the time. In order to overcome these barriers we do all kind of things. We pray, meditate, do cleansing ceremonies, go in therapy, study religious texts and so forth and so forth.

The barriers are not only in the physical world around us and in our selves, they also are kept up in the spiritual world. In fact, here lie the main causes of why man got separated from God.

I have seen this happening to many people who made much effort to deepen their relationship to God. They struggled for long with themselves and finally reached a most welcomed and inspired result. And soon after that they fell in deep darkness once again. Some people realize the darkness, others get sidetracked there and believe they still have this relationship to God while in fact it is more in their imagination than real.

How and why does such a thing happen?

I believe that it mainly has to do with a misunderstanding of God’s love. When you try to come more in God’s love and you believe God’s love is mainly for you to feel good and elevated, then you certainly will be trapped several times.

God’s love as I understand and feel it is not only for us to enjoy it and indulge in it. God’s love is for me, it is for you, and it is for everyone. This means that from the moment that we feel more deeply God’s love, a new task is waiting, the task to spread on this love to others. This task can only be accomplished by keeping our own inner relationship to the Creator. The love we pass on is not our own, it is given to us by God and only when we give it out in real life, this love becomes part of us.

I have seen people who once had a deep experience with God and after this they set out for their life’s journey and mission and never even really attempted to go back to their initial deep connection with God. They fill out the details of their mission themselves and believe that the task once given to them can be fulfilled in such a way. Some of such people are well-known worldwide public figures.

Other people who are more sincere lose the light they found as they failed to act from it. They enjoyed the love and light they felt but did not right away begin to pass it on to others.

To gain a deep feeling of connection to God is something very precious. It is also something that is much resented by those forces of darkness that try to keep the world under their control. When light shines somewhere in the darkness, it is seen immediately by such spiritual dark forces and they go to it and try to extinguish it, as this light hurts their eyes. This means that when we make a breakthrough in our relationship to God we must expect life to get harder after that, not easier. It is the beginning of a lifelong new and difficult responsibility. Such a life is profoundly rewarding, but it will never be easy.

March 20, 2008

Diving deeper into the self

Image via Wikipedia

The way to our deepest self is the same as the way to God. We cannot describe the Creator by giving names. When we say ‘the Creator’ we refer to a function of God. When we call God ‘The Great Spirit’ we speak about the invisible aspect of God which reveals through spirit.

When you give a name to someone or something, it means you can somewhere locate that person or thing and then say, this is this person or thing. With God this is impossible. God is always bigger than what we can comprehend and to give God a name is to make God small. It means to put ourselves above God as if God would be a theological concept that we studied.

There is no other way than to find God deep in ourselves. Here we cannot discover the ‘entire God,’ because all we can do is to meet God, and meeting doesn’t yet mean to fully comprehend.

When we search God deep inside of us, we must penetrate deeply, all the way to where we have put off our clothing, our habits, our studied knowledge. On the way to the Creator in ourselves, we also must pass by and overcome the energies of self-centeredness. Self-centeredness means that we make ourselves to the center. But we are not the center of the cosmos. God is the center of the cosmos and I understand God to be the always-giving one and giving to all and everything. We can also be like that, at least for certain moments. We need to give up all attachments, because each attachment also causes a restriction in our giving. We need to give up all desires that are centered on the self.

When someone prays to God for blessings, this can hardly be called unselfish. When we pray to God like that we cannot meet the real God. The real God will not make you the center of the cosmos when you have ego-centered desires. The cosmos would soon crumble.

Still we can be the center of the cosmos in a certain way. When we meet God we can receive from God the love to be unselfish and in that unity with God we unite with the center of the cosmos. This is not to be the center in the sense of being able to create or control like God, it is a unity in love. Being in that state of love, we can feel God in us and we can feel ourselves to be in the centre of the cosmos, not centred on the ego, but centred on the Creator and on loving all that is.

We cannot be unselfish unless we find God. Love that is not self-centred has a source. That source is God. When you try to be giving but you are disconnected from the Source, your giving will have a double layer. On the surface this may look like giving, but deeper under the surface you find again ego-centeredness.

Words are just words and are limited. The truth is in the spirit behind the words.

Love to you my friends.

February 12, 2008

Testing the spirits

Adam and Eve fell because they did not know how to judge an angel who deceived them. Since that time the spirit world has become a veiled place for almost everyone. Even for those with their spiritual senses more open, temporarily or always, the spirit world is a mysterious and hidden reality.

When spirits contact us, be they angels, ancestors or any other spirit, we want to be sure that we can trust them. It is for that reason that we may have to test the spirits. But there is a shadow side to this too. For example, imagine that you are in spirit world and you wish to visit your beloved grandchild, and that beloved grandchild is not open to you but suspicious and fearing that you may be a fraud. What feelings would you get?

Just like it is a good tradition to approach physical people in trust and good faith, we need to maintain this attitude towards our friends in the spirit world. But we should also not be stupid! Many people have been deceived by spirit world because they were too gullible and eager to hear something they like from the other world.

I think that a main principle for all our relations, spiritual or physical, is that we firstly should be able to trust ourselves. If a person is all the time desiring to become rich by winning the jackpot, he or she may easily be fooled with temptations of money. We need to be confident of our own good motivation and of our own good relation to God.

Even then, it is sometimes difficult to discern between good and evil spirits. Lucifer is also known as the angel of light and he or any evil spirit can appear to us as lightworkers. They could even heal us from diseases, may make us wealthy and influential, as long as they see benefit from it.

The spirit world influences the physical world. Confused spirits bring confusion. Hateful spirits make people around to hate us. Spirits who tend to blame others bring strife and conflict. Whenever troubles afflict us we do good to check if everything is alright with the spirits that are attending us.

Good spirits bring truth to us, but deceiving angels and spirits may also give us information that is new and sometimes amazing. We can feel deep emotions when we come closer to God, but certain angels who are not under God can also give us strong emotions to make us believe in them as agents of goodness.

Can we guarantee to be protected against evil spirits by making difficult conditions, such as cold showers, working hard, making many bows, even offering long prayers? All these conditions can help but they are no guarantee. Don't we also know of evil dictators who sleep little and work hard and invest everything to 'serve' their followers? Motivation, intention cannot be easily deducted from such external acts.

Can we test the spirits by asking them information that only they should have access to, like personal information? This kind of test can be helpful but again, it is not a guarantee for reliability. Sometimes i get information from a spirit who gives me a complex code, for example a url of a website to direct me to information that i need. That tells me only one thing, that this spirit knows the web address of that particular website. It tells me that there is a real entity in the spirit world who knows things, but it doesn't tell me yet who that spirit is. Even in the case of personal information, such information could have been stolen through spying in the spirit world. Some angels know even how to read the minds of other spirits.

Testing the spirits is no easy task. Although we can get many clues from testing spirits, the ultimate standard has to be in yourself, in your own good relation to God, in your own conviction that you want to go the right way. That won't provide you with easy answers concerning the reliability of spirits, but it guarantees that you want to know what is true and what is good. It brings you to checking again and again, praying again and again to know whether you are going the right road and whether you can accept help from certain beings in the spirit world.

Death and the shroud

When you are born, to you is given your first clothing. Clothing always means that what you wear to perform certain functions or tasks. People with special positions in society do also wear special clothing. Sometimes you wear working clothing and sometimes clothing for going out.

When Jesus was born, there was no clothing prepared for him. This shows that there was nothing prepared for his mission on earth. Only some towels were put over him. The same happened with his birth into spirit world. After his crucifixion, Jesus was wrapped in towels. Jesus had not completed his mission on earth. Therefore, in spirit world he got the same mission that he had left uncompleted on earth.

But Christians made betrayal with the meaning of Jesus’ death. They made it look as if it had been the highest fulfillment. Also with the clothing that Jesus wore when he died was made betrayal. For long time, the shroud of Turin that shows an image of the face of a person who was said to be Jesus, was told to be the shroud of Jesus. Not long ago the cloth was investigated and modern time-measuring methods proved that the shroud is not even 1000 years old and therefore is a fraud.

****

Many people are afraid for death because they don’t know what spirit world really means. The normal way of looking is that one dies and disappears or that a new life in spirit world begins. But even this latter way of looking is not entirely correct. We do not really begin a new life in spirit world because we are now already living in spirit world.

Often the spirit body is depicted as next to the physical body, in the following way:

But this way of depicting it is not so right. This way of showing is more like one sees when a person is dying but the spirit has not left the body yet. In such moments the spirit body of the person hangs above the physical body and is only connected to it through the life cord.

A more correct picture of the spirit body connected to the physical body shows the next figure:

The black inner form is the physical body. The red outer form is the spirit body, that shines out (yellow stripes). The spirit body is not in the physical body but is actually larger than the physical body and, for a healthy person, is dominating the physical body.

Both the spirit and the physic of a person are expressions of energy, like are all elements of creation.

How should we see the function of the body in relation to everything outside of us and in relation to the deeper part of ourselves?

Energy comes to us from outside. There comes energy in spiritual form, there comes energy in physical form. Our body acts like an organism full with senses equipped to receive impressions from this energy.

Compare it to a radio. A radio receives energy in the form of radio waves. There is equipment in the radio that enables it to receive such radio waves. There are all kind of other waves floating around in the air, but the radio can only receive those waves for which it was made fit. The radio also has equipment that transforms those radio waves into audible sound.

Like a radio transmitter our body has senses that pick up energies in all kind of forms. The physical body has senses that pick up physical energies, the spirit body has senses that pick up spiritual energies. Those energies are in all kind of frequencies and therefore we have different kind of senses to pick up those different waves. Eyes pick up light waves, ears pick up sound waves, and so forth.

We also have organs that express energy in all kind of ways. A radio can only pass on the waves that it picked up without changing them. But we are living and responsible beings who can determine ourselves what kind of output we give.

With our mouths we can speak and with our arms we can move things. On the way through our bodies, the energy is influenced by God in our Heart and Mind. I am giving you a very schematic and simple depiction of how energy goes through our bodies and what role the body plays in it.

What we should not forget is that each impulse of energy has a content. I can give you a slap on your shoulder with a feeling of love for you, or i can do it with the same force but i am angry at you. Externally there is no difference, but there is a large difference in content. Each energy expression has a content. The content is that of love or hatred, and certain thoughts and feelings that are conveyed through the energy.

What is also important is that each energy impulse has both spiritual and physical aspects. Always energy is both spiritual and physical. But there is a lot of spiritual energy of which the physical influences are not experienced or not right away visible. There also is a lot of physical energy of which almost nobody feels the spiritual content.

For example, God let angels work with spiritual energy and out from that there came physical creations. But sometimes such a process took millions of years and therefore nobody could witness a direct relation between the spiritual and physical aspects of that energy.

When we feel the sun beams we feel warmth and see light. There is also a very big spiritual content of the energy of the sun. Through the energy of the sun, God gives to us very much of His love. When we make effort, we can feel that there is such a content of love in the sun beams.

****

People are the only creations of God that have both an independent spirit body and a physical body. No other creations do have this. Angels can relate to the physical world but they have no independent physical body through which they stand in direct contact to the physical world. Animals do have spiritual aspects but those spiritual aspects do not automatically live on after the physical body of the animal dies.

Only man is able to relate to both the spiritual world and the physical world at the same time. This shows the special position of man in the cosmos.

How can we call the spiritual? The spiritual is energy that has a certain content expressing itself in a very fine frequency. When we say ‘energy’ just like that, then this corresponds mostly to the aspect of man that is called mind. When we say ‘content of energy’ we are referring to mainly the aspects of energy to which the heart of man does relate. And when we say ‘expression of energy’ we are talking about that aspect of energy with which bodies can deal.

For the physical aspects of energy we could say exactly the same. But the difference between spiritual and physical is that spiritual energy is less condensed and physical energy is more condensed. It is the same energy but appearing to us in a different state. You can compare energy to water. Water can be frozen and then you could use a chunk of ice to throw it to someone and hurt the person. That same water can also be damp and then we usually hardly notice it.

Spiritual and physical are expressions of energy, of the same energy. Why is it that energy appears in such different forms?

The physical life is connected to a stage of development for man. All of creation was made for the purpose that man would exist and grow. And the whole physical world was created by God so that man could use physical life for a stage in man’s own development.

Man, in his or her life, goes through three main stages. This brings us back to the topic of the beginning of this guidance. Before man is born, man is a fetus in the womb of the mother. In that stage of life, both physical body and spiritual body are in the process of being formed. Compare that to the process of making a car. Before you have the bodywork of the car, you cannot put the motor in it. And if you have no motor, the car would not drive. Bodywork and motor are constructed in separate processes and are put together once they both are functioning well. In the same way, spirit and physic of an unborn child are growing to a stage that they can be connected. The process of connecting happens at birth.

In the second stage of life, that is life in the physical world, spirit and physic are closely knit together. You can compare this to when someone has to learn to drive a car. You are compulsorily put into a car and you have to drive for one hour even though you might feel very awkward about it. But once you are able to drive cars, you can go in and out cars and use many cars to drive in. You have become free.

In a similar way, the spirit must learn to drive the physic during life on earth. Once the spirit self has learned to have complete control over the physical self and over life on earth, it is time for beginning the third stage of life in spirit world.

In that phase, the spirit self is free from the physical self, but the spirit self will still relate to the physical world. Like God can live in the bodies of Adam and Eve, God’s children, so parents in spirit world can make use of all the bodies of their children and grandchildren to come into their bodies and experience and guide life on earth.

We could say that God created spirit world for our experience and for our real life, while God created the physical world for our development, for our growth.

Death seen in the right way is actually the victory of a fulfilled second stage of life, that of life in the physical world, and it also is our birth into spirit world.

Transcript from a speech given on December 27, 2001

The purpose of life or a house full of chairs

Image via Wikipedia

All of us want to become happy and there is nothing wrong about that. What we need to understand is that nobody can be happy by being alone, by just taking care of yourself. You cannot make yourself happy. You are happy when you are being loved. Other people also feel happy when they are being loved. Therefore, my happiness depends on whether others are loving me.

To understand how we can become happy, we must take the viewpoint of God who created us. God created us to have objects to whom God could give His love. God wants us to become happy. That is also the reason that all of us carry this desire in us to want to become happy.

We are creations in the likeness of God and because God’s only desire is to make us happy, we should also only have the desire to make God happy and to make others happy. You cannot force someone else to love you. The more you try to do this, the more that this other person will dislike you.

All what we can do in life is to begin giving love. Even then, we cannot be sure that our love is returned to us right away. But if we continue to give out love, then bit by bit there will come people who will return this love to us.

Surely, when we give love to God and make God happy by doing God’s will, we will receive God’s love in return.

When you want to make someone else happy, then you have to be able to give something. A little baby can give its smile but it cannot yet make something. Children want to learn to make something so they can make the parents happy.

Suppose that a friend of mine is a cabinet maker who wants to give something to me and he gives me a chair for my birthday. He can only do this because he has learned to make chairs. Suppose i get a chair from him on my birthday, and because he did not develop himself in the year after it, i get another chair on my next birthday. At the end of my life i have a house full with chairs because he never developed himself any further and he can only give chairs.

The example shows us clearly that when the purpose of life is to become happy by giving joy to others, we have to develop ourselves. By developing ourselves we also develop our ability to give love. And in order to develop ourselves we need to receive training.

The purpose of life is that we give out love and make others happy. Our own joy comes from that. To learn to give out more love, we need daily training and development. In that way, there comes about the build-up of a good world.

We should be careful that we are not going to wait for love to come to us. Love does never come in that way. Each of us has to start giving out love. It is only then that love will come back to us.

Don’t become like a machine that just does what it is being asked. When people do that, they begin to count how much food and energy and money were required to get enough profit. This is not the way to live. In that way we never will get happy.

When we go out selling a product, like for example in fundraising, the purpose is that we learn to give love in each of those short relations that we have with people. Some people are used to get love only by asking for it. Now we must learn to give out love, first only in a rather simple way by giving love to the people while selling a product on the street or from door to door. That is the central meaning of the training of going out to sell a product.

From notes of my speech on December 12, 2001

Differences between true and false realities in the spirit world

Here is a way of thinking that leads to many misunderstandings: 'The physical world is the world of illusion, of 'Maya' (a concept from Hinduism meaning the limited, purely physical and mental reality in which our everyday consciousness has become entangled.)' In one breath there is then added the notion that the spiritual reality, the 'above,' is what really determines the physical reality, the 'below', and this spiritual reality is described as a world that is caused by the workings of your mind only.

When we think this through, reflect on what it really means, we must conclude that in this way of thinking the physical world would entirely be an instrument in the hands of the spirit world, and the spiritual reality is made entirely by the working of your mind.

But, the spirit world is a substantial world and a creation of God. So is the physical world. Although we may have a hard time understanding the physical world in relation to the spiritual reality, the physical world is not just illusion. Everything in the physical world of God's creation has a purpose given by God.

Many angels in the spirit world have made illusionary realities there. They created their own worlds; and indeed, to make things in the spirit world, the workings by the mind are essential. But also the spiritual world originally is a substantial world, be it of another dimension than the physical world. The spirit world does really exist and isn't only a product of the minds of those residing there.

People in the physical world can make a movie, or a computer game, or a virtual reality on the internet. Some people get entangled in the nets of such fantasy realities. They lose connection to the real world. For example, i read about a couple that was so addicted to going online and playing internet games that they neglected their own baby who starved to death.

Similar problems exist in the spirit world. Some groups of angels and human spirits who have learned to create their own realities there have managed to convince themselves and many others that this would be the real reality. They also inspire philosophies that anyone is free to do what they wish, can master to do such things and that the real spirit world is just a product of whatever they wish to think or believe.

It isn't like that. God created the worlds of spiritual and physical reality in such a way that we are free to make these worlds good. We can only do this when we adhere to God's principles, learn to apply them and grow in such a way that we mature in our ability to do this in the right way.

World of harmony

Image via Wikipedia

All of us people of the world have lost the balance and harmony between different elements of our lives. In my life i have made it a goal to try to discover how to live in an original, that is harmonious way.

Some examples are needed to make clear what i mean. When people produce goods in a minimum of time and the manufacturers have no feeling anymore for what they make, then such products can be sold cheap but the whole process is not one of harmony between different aspects of life. There is little or no love in the things that are made. The products therefore don’t have much original value and can hardly contribute to a meaningful life.

Some people in this world get very rich. Many others are dying from hunger each day. How can rich people be happy with their money, knowing about the unequal distribution of food and property all over the world? God created all people together as one large family under God. How can some people think to become happy if other people are suffering? It doesn’t help if such rich people are spending much money for charities. That may temporarily ease their conscience, but it doesn't help to find a real solution.

Some people have much power, while others have nothing to say. Those with much power often do not excel in wisdom and love. There is a imbalance of power in the world. There is imbalance everywhere, in every aspect of life.

Farmers drive over their land with huge machines. In countries like America, farmers cannot anymore make ends meet if they have fewer than 250 acres of land. Those 250 acres are usually not at all taken well care of. Many farmers are daily destroying the nature from which they also want to get profit. Those farmers who can still financially make it must work many boring hours each day, driving in big machines over their land without having much relation to the world of nature around them.

It is my conviction that all problems of human society can only be solved if we are able to find out how to live in good harmony. First of all, we must learn to live in harmony with God Who created us. We also must learn to live in good harmony with the world of creation, the animals, the plants and the earth. We also must learn to live in good harmony with the world of angels and with our many ancestors who are living in spirit world. We have to learn to live in good harmony with the members of our own family, and we must learn to have good relations to all people whom we meet. We must learn to understand that the value of physical things is very much determined by the good love that was put into those things.

*****

Sometimes people ask me why i spend so much time with working on the land, growing vegetables, milking the goats, etc. In financial terms this hardly brings good profit.

Let me try to give you an example from my own recent life to explain you what i mean. I have been cultivating land my whole life. Usually i worked in smaller gardens. Since some years i have been growing crops on almost 15 acres of land. Ask yourself some simple questions.

If a farmer wants to make enough money for his living, how little time can he spend for really taking care of his land? How quick should his machines do the work for him? How much love could a farmer put into a field of many acres of grain? How much good energy? If the farmer did not put enough love and energy into a field of cabbage, is he not failing in relation to the people who eat his food? Is the farmer not harming his customers by selling products with residues of herbicides and sinning toward his own descendants if he destroys the land by putting poison into it?

There are so many questions to be answered and i feel that my own life is just one big experiment, but an experiment as serious as life and death, to find out how to do it right.

Can we be happy if we are not growing our own food for our own children? Would you allow your children to grow up in the love of anything less than your own good parental love? Our food that we have grown ourselves is full with good love and good energy. Our children develop from this. It is and should be a big question to all parents how they can give enough good love and good energy to their own children. Growing your own food is just one terrific way of investing your own parental love in your own children.

In my experimenting with all this and trying to find a better way, i have put away the bigger machines and began using smaller ones. Sometimes i also put away the smaller machines to employ hand tools to cultivate the land. And often i am inclined to take a smaller hand tool instead of a bigger one. All this comes from my desire to put as much as possible good love and energy into the work that i am doing. When i race over the land with a big tractor, it is rather difficult to put my mind on bringing good love and energy into the earth. I am not saying that it is impossible, but it is much more difficult. I like it very much to have my hands move through the soil. It is the best and most direct way to put love and energy into the soil. But i think it is not wrong to use machines as well. It is a matter of what the earth needs.

If money dictates that you use big machines, then that surely cannot be right. Money means creation. In our world, does money still really have any meaningful relation to the original world of creation made by God? I believe that there is not much relation left.

In the original world, God created love. Out of God’s love, there came energy in a certain form. There came about certain creations made by God. Beautiful creations, full with God’s love and full of life. Even the so-called dead creation, stones and sand and water, were all filled with God’s love and God’s life. A stone or a piece of land or a certain plant derived its value from the love and energy that God had put into it. There was no contradiction, no discrepancy between God’s love and efforts and the singular creation.

But how is it in today’s world? Worldly money has little anymore to do with love put into it. Things of creation get less and less value. And if we are living surrounded by such things, by a world void of love and life, then we can only feel that our life has no meaning anymore.

*****

In these days i have been working to make a connection between the energy of our house and of wild nature to the gardens. God’s love and energy that is present in nature, and that is flowing from our own house into the land, must come into the plants. Instead of destroying God’s love and energy in nature, we are trying to make it flow and thrive.

We are experiencing many smaller and bigger miracles. Some days ago, God sent big lightning over our land. Three times massive lightning exploded above us and loads of cleansing energy were put into our land. Our beds in the greenhouse were shaking for several minutes while God cleansed the land from the bad energies of past mistreatment. That is how it felt to me.

When i plant a tree or a seed, i put it in a flow of already existing energy. It is necessary to know and feel where those energy channels are running in the earth. And it is necessary to consciously connect the tree or the seed with that flow of energy. Otherwise it doesn’t work. You have to make a conscious action if you want such things to work. One cannot just plant trees or sow seeds. Each plant and seed must be put into the soil with awareness. Then there are made new creations, new creations of seeds and plants but actually love and energy growing in our beautiful earth.

There are so many great things to discover in God’s world. A few days ago i had the inspiration to make an extract of the leaves of three different plants, plants that grow in my garden, nothing so special i thought. I took three drops from this extract and a shock went through my body. For several hours, my ability to see the auras of energy radiated by all beings and things was enhanced extremely. Without making any effort i could see the auras of each plant and each person.

We are not at all finished in finding out how God wants our world to be. It may be that not even God knows exactly how the ideal world will be. There is such a great world lying ahead of us. If only we can have faith in God. If only we can give up that foolish greed for money, for sex and for power.

May 5, 2001

How does the spirit world look like?

Image via Wikipedia

Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean

Note that this article was written in 1999 and is about the spiritual world of that time. Since then many changes have taken place in the spirit world.

Practically each religion tells you about how life after death will be. Many of these reports or views are very different and yet, most of them will be true more or less.

An essential characteristic of spirit world is that it is mostly made by angels and man and that to a large degree it is made in the way that man believes that it is made. When people in a certain religion believe in something like purgatory or Valhalla or Heaven or Paradise then such realms are actually created by them in some way or another.

Many religious adherents however believe that only their view on spirit world is right. For instance, Christians believe that they go to their heaven and that Muslims will probably go to the Christian hell. But the truth is that Christians likely go to one of the realms in that Christians believe and that Muslims go to one of the realms in that Muslims believe.

Yet at the same time, most religions have a very limited and often even false view on how spirit world looks like. Most religions know little or nothing about how spirit world actually works. They usually speak of heaven and hell and something in-between. But there are many, many more possibilities in spirit world, also for adherents of one particular religion.

Usually heaven is seen as the place where the founder of the religion is living. For Christians it were heaven when they met Jesus in spirit world. In reality, many of such Christians were sometimes allowed to attend a meeting in which Jesus gave a speech. For the rest of the time these spirits were somewhere stuck with people living on earth, because they had a restoration course to go with their descendants.

Roman Catholic believers think that sinners temporarily go to purgatory in spirit world, to suffer for their sins. Also this view is based on reality. A problem is that spirits may have to be in purgatories for thousands of years before there is chance for them to come out.

Spirits will be stuck to certain places in spirit world as a result of the life that he or she lived. Purgatory therefore must not be seen as one particular place in spirit world, but each person comes in his or her own purgatory. The same is true for realms of heaven or hell. There is not one particular heaven or one particular hell, but there are as many heavens and hells as there are groups of people.

Each person determines his or her own spiritual situation. This is true in life on earth and it is true in life after death. Yet besides that, there are realms in spirit world made by angels, or by certain central figures of religions, and also by many kinds of evil central figures.

I give you some examples of situations in spirit world. These examples are given without names but are descriptions of what really was built in spirit world. The examples are from historical situations in spirit world and do not necessarily still exist today.

A priest who had some thousand followers while he lived on earth built an altar in spirit world. This altar looked like the one that the priest had built on earth. The priest lived in a tribe and when people of that tribe died, the spirits were received by those who had passed away earlier. Those spirits were led to the priest and the altar and were told that they had come to heaven. In that way the priest built his tribe in spirit world. That tribe always worked to control the situation of the tribe on earth. The members of the tribe on earth could not escape the spiritual power of the priest and his followers in spirit world. If a tribe member on earth tried to change the traditions as installed by the priests, the spirits would chastise and punish him or her.

Such kind of situation existed or exists for thousands of tribes all around the earth.

A political and ideological leader built a school for spirits. Spirits were brought to that school to be trained there. Then the trained spirits could become teachers themselves and they again trained many new spirits. The trained spirits were sent to people on earth to give many revelations based on the teaching of the leader. People on earth were also inspired to write books and to buy books with this ideology.

Much of communism was spread all around the earth in this way. Such a school existed until worldwide communism broke down.

One more example. A evil angel built a throne for himself and made other angels and spirits to work for him. The evil angel controlled the ones under him by installing fear in them. The spirits were punished if they did not obey the leader. There was an extensive system of spiritual cells and doors. No one could come to the leader who had not passed many doors and cells that were guarded by servants of the leader. People in the physical world were controlled in the same way. They were put in spiritual prisons and if they tried to do something that the leader didn’t like those people on earth were severely punished. There also was built a system of repression on earth. A leader was chosen who was a real and evil dictator over his people.

Countless of similar examples could be given because spirit world has more diversity than the earth. For nations it is is true that connected to foundations on earth there always were spiritual organizations that controlled what was visible on earth.

When there is an organization on earth, there also is some corresponding and often controlling organization in spirit world. When there is a family on earth, there is a typical family-spiritual situation.

God intended spirit world to be one united Kingdom of Heaven but man made of spirit world a place totally split into millions of bigger and smaller units that each have the character of a restricted space or cell.

Important to understand is that spirit world was originally inhabited by angels only. Angels had the first birthright in spirit world. Man who entered spirit world was dependent from angels. Everything that was built in spirit world was more or less initiated or controlled by angels.

Angels had made all roads in spirit world. Angels taught man how to live in spirit world. Angels had made themselves to the masters of spirit world.

But the angels were not united. There were black evil angels, and occult gray angels, and white angels who still sometimes prayed to God. Yet also the black angels and the gray angels and the white angels were not united among themselves. There have been countless divisions among the angels of all these groups. Many of them tried and actually managed to put themselves as a leading angel in some culture. Sometimes such an angel became known as a certain so-called god in that culture. Such a pagan god could really have been a black angel who kept power for thousands of years.

The situation for white angels was not very different. Also white angels built all kind of religions or cults centered upon themselves. In the religions that were inspired by God, white angels still played a role to lead and guide individuals. Human founders of those religions could not always escape the dominion of angels over them.

What is important for your life of faith to find out about spirit world for yourself? What kind of experiences should you make in relation to spirit world?

1. Become aware of your individual spiritual situation. That means, you should know by what kind of spirits you are influenced.

2. Have some understanding of the spiritual situation of the places where you live and work.

3. Get some experiences with the cosmic spiritual situation as God has begun to build an entirely new spirit world.

EXERCISE In order to become aware of the spirits influencing you directly you need to pray much. Make yourself aware of feelings and thoughts coming to you from spirit world. Learn to distinguish feelings of spirits from feelings of yourself. If you find out that a spirit has bad influence on you then try to get rid of that spirit. Don’t honor things in the physical world that are connected to that spirit. Keep your body and clothing clean and pure. Don’t do evil things because that attracts evil spirits.

You must do the same for spirits that connect to your house and your working environment. Many evil spirits can less easily come in a place that is clean and orderly. Make your environment into a heavenly one and you will attract spirits of higher levels.

To find out about what God is doing in spirit world now, pray to God and ask God to give you experiences with it. There is no other way to find out about this. Build up your faith by going your individual course under God.

Nothing in spiritual life should be disconnected from God. Only by living a life truly centered on God you can elevate your spirit.

July 1999

Meetings of minds

Image by qthomasbower via Flickr

Floral auras

We can take different views on the mind. The materialist notion is that what takes place in the mind is caused by chemical and electrical reactions in the brain. The word ‘mind’ is then just an abstraction, not something that really exists as you cannot see the mind or dissect it or take it out from a person.

This viewpoint, which usually is taken by materialistically thinking scientists, explains what I would call the hardware of the mind, the mind being the software. It is like you try to understand a computer by looking at its hardware but you have no idea of the software running on it.

Another, also scientific view, is that taken in psychology. Now the mind is more accepted as a reality, but still it is a concept that only explains something hidden in a black box. For psychologists it is in principle possible that one day someone invents a better concept than the mind and this will explain more eloquently the functions of the mind.

I want to elaborate here a on a third approach, that which is based on energy and energy fields. This third set of ideas does by no means deny the validity of the first two viewpoints, it adds another way of understanding.

The mind can then be seen as a construction of energies inside a person. The mind energies are stored in chakras and are connected to one another through energy channels. Just like energy in the physical world also does, the energies of the mind beam out fields of energy. The fields of energy radiated out from the mind of a person can be seen by some as the aura of a person.

Let’s take this third viewpoint of the mind to understand more about how the minds of people could influence each other. When we speak with another person, when we read a book, or even when we only think of another person, there is an exchange of mind energies. More and other energies than those of the mind could be interchanged but here I want to speak about the mind.

Imagine energies in channels and fields to flow like water. When two water flows meet, they will mingle. Suppose one water flow is colored red and the other blue. There are several possibilities of how the waters merge. One possibility is that one flow is extremely strong and washes away all the water in the other flow. At the end all water in both water streams will be colored red or blue. Another possibility is that they mix entirely and at the end they both will be colored purple. Still another outcome could be that they don’t mix well and the result is that the colors red and blue can be seen distinctly in both waters.

I imagine the minds of people to behave like this when two people speak to each other or relate in another way.

Sometimes we think that we have a clear set of ideas but after speaking to a person, our ideas may have changed and sometimes we don’t even notice it.

How does love relate to this?

I imagine love to work like doors in the energy channels of the mind. When we love someone we open those doors. When there is no love the doors stay closed. When there is hatred, also a form of love but distorted, also the doors open widely. Once the doors are opened, a process similar as described for the converging red and blue water streams occurs.

Love does not only work as doors, it also is a propelling force behind the energies of the mind. When you have much love for someone, you desire to share more of your thoughts and feelings with that person.

February 25, 2008

Memory on five levels

Image via WikipediaA scientific model for memory in humans

First i want to give a definition of memory. I define memory as “the maintenance of information.” This is a rather broad definition. It includes the maintenance of information in people and in things such as books and computers. There are also memories in things that we normally don’t see as vessels for information. For example, people cherish relics for the memories that are stored in it. To fetishes are attributed magic powers because of information stored in such things. In all things, not only in fetishes and relics, information is stored. Some people are very sensitive to this. They don't want to touch spiritually polluted things because they feel that their bodies get dirty.

What is the goal or function of memory? It is to keep for the future the useful information that was acquired in the past. For example, you remember your own experiences to use them in your later life.

Before we come to a deeper insight in what is memory, i want to give some examples connected to the topic of memory.

It is known that when people get older, their ability to memorize weakens. Though often this loss of memory capacity could be a result of diseases or of having lived a life of sin and confusion, it is also very normal and desirable that older people lose some abilities of memory.

For example, i myself often put my keys somewhere and later i forgot where. Why does such a thing happen? It is because i am so busy thinking about certain things that i don’t have concentration on where i put my keys. There is a trick that you can learn to prevent it. The trick is that when you put down your keys, you make a photo in your mind of the place where the keys were laid down. Later you can then remember that picture in your mind.

You can remember where the keys are because you concentrated on this with a special department of your memory, the kind of memory that is connected to your senses.

Children are very much centered on the experiences they get through their senses. When you get older, you don’t need anymore all the experiences that you had in your youth. Older people turn their attention more inwardly. When you forgot where you put your keys, you can probably still remember what you were thinking about when you put your keys away.

Children can play for hours with a few wooden blocks. For them, this playing makes many new experiences. They try to put a big block on a smaller one and find out that this doesn’t go well. From their experiences children deduct certain kind of ideas or thoughts, for example that you can’t easily put larger things on smaller things.

Smaller children can very easily learn a new language. When you get older, it gets more difficult to learn new words. But why should you? Normally, once you learned to speak, you don’t need to learn a language anymore. It is logical that the ability to memorize a language decreases when one gets older.

Is the ability to memorize of a child better than that of an older person? I would say that children can better remember the experiences they are having, but older people have a better memory that is connected to logical thoughts.

You can train your ability to memorize. For example, you can train to retain the images of what you saw. I already spoke about how you can make a picture in your mind of a certain situation. You can train this ability. You have to learn to not think when you make such a picture. As soon as you begin to have thoughts about what you see, you will remember your thoughts but not the picture.

You also should not look at details in the picture, because then you will be tempted to think about that detail and you cannot remember the rest.

Concentration is the most important asset for memorizing well. Your concentration should be deep and on the right topic. You could concentrate on what you think, but to remember the picture you must concentrate on that picture.

While you concentrate, you should be also relaxed. To feel relaxed means that all your energy can go to that one topic, that picture that you are taking.

The ability to memorize what we see and hear or what we felt is a memory that is connected to our senses. Animals also have such a kind or level of memory. With the same kind of memory you also can remember movements that you learned. It is a special kind of memory to remember how you learned skills with your body. When you learned swimming, but didn’t do it for 30 years, your body will still remember how to do it even after such a long time.

Interesting is that when you haven’t swum for so long and you do it again, also the memories of the situation in that you learned to swim might come back to you. All the experiences connected to learning to swim were apparently stored in your body and those memories come back as a whole when you repeat the movements.

The ability to memorize what you sensed and the ability to memorize what you once did or learned with your body are both connected to the level of memory of your body.

God created the cosmos on five different levels: God, Heart, Mind, Body, Creation. These five levels on that we and the whole cosmos do exist are actually five different levels on which God has created everything. God created the whole cosmos with love and energy and from internal to external, the whole cosmos was created on the five distinct levels that i just mentioned.

For example, bodies of living beings are constitutions of energy on a very specific level. Bodies move by themselves, have life in them. Dead things cannot move by themselves. The energy that made them has been expressed in an entirely different way than God expressed energy on the level of bodies. The mind is again very different from a body. A body you can see, but a mind is invisible. The Heart is the carrier of love. In each human being and in each animal and in all what God created, there also should be God present. God is an expression of energy as well, on a most internal level and of a most particular energy. When you live a good life, you can feel God in yourself. Then God does exist in you.

*****

What is a memory? A memory, when we look at it in a more technical way, is nothing else than a certain constellation of energy. For example, memory in a computer is stored in simple constellations of “energy-yes” and “energy-no”. When energy-yes is depicted as 1 and energy-no is depicted as 0, than we could draw up a combination of 1’s and 0’s and with this we can symbolize meaningful letters. With these letters we make words and with words we can write a meaningful content. The deepest thoughts can be expressed in words, and these words can be stored in the memory of a computer as a constellation of energy-yes’s and energy-no’s.

Likewise, all our genetic information is stored in DNA. DNA is nothing else than molecules that, again, are put in a certain order. The information is not in these molecules, but in the order that these molecules make when they were stored in a long chain.

From these examples we can understand that all memories are nothing else than constellations of energy. Because energy was expressed on five distinct levels of creation, also memories are stored in these same five levels.

Like you can store computer memory on a disk, so memories of the body are stored in the body and memories of the mind are stored in the mind.

Where exactly are the memories of your body stored? Many people think that memories are only stored in the brain, but in reality memories of the body are stored everywhere in the body. When you give a person a massage it could be that you loosen up certain muscle tensions that have been there for very long. At the moment that these muscles relax, the energy that was stuck in it comes free and with it the memories. Such a person could suddenly begin to cry because he or she remembers something emotional that had been forgotten. The memory was stored as energy in those muscles. Releasing that energy, the whole body responds and memories connected to that muscle tension also come free. These other memories were stored in other parts of the body.

*****

Let us try to understand more about the five levels of memory.

Memory that is stored in things has a more impersonal level. When information is written in a book, it is accessible to many people.

Memories stored in a body have the function that a person, or also an animal, is able to act right. You learned to walk and this enables you to walk whenever you need it. The memories of your own experiences also help you to get ideas about the world in that you live. When you once burned yourself when you touched a hot furnace, your memory of it helps you to not touch that hot furnace again.

The lower and more external levels of memory serve the higher ones. When you have collected many memories in your mind, you have gotten many ideas and you will organize these ideas to come to understand principles. This is not only based on your own experiences, but also on those of others, for example by your reading books. Principles of order are understood and organized and kept in the memory of the level of your heart.

Finally, you also have a memory on the level of you having God in you. On this level, you can feel God’s love in yourself and you instinctively know what is good and what is wrong.

There are five levels of memory. The memory on the level of God is a kind of religious or moral memory. When you don’t have a relation to God, you don’t really have access to this moral memory.

The memory on the level of Heart is for making order and to apply principles.

The memory on the level of Mind is one of thoughts, feelings and plans.

The memory on the level of Body is one of sensory and motor experiences.

The memory on the level of Things is in the things and when we use or connect to those things, those things will tell us what they experienced. For example, when i come here in this place, i usually can feel a lot about what you did and thought and felt during the time i was absent. The energies of what you did went into this room and the things here and other people can pick it up.

*****

Let us think of a human being who is growing up. A little child is very much still functioning on the level of body. The child experiences everything through its body and plays, plays, plays with things. This is very necessary, because the child must build up a memory of experiences on the level of the body that plays with things. Children should have enough time in their life to play with things so that the child naturally learns about the properties of the world in that it lives.

Bit by bit, the memory of experiences builds up and the child begins to get ideas, develops a memory on the level of the mind. It is good when you don’t teach too many principles directly to children. Tell children all kind of stories and through this, children get an idea of higher principles. From ideas contained in stories, children make up their own memory on the level of principles. That is the level of memory of the heart. When people get older, they come to understand more of God, at least in the original world. They get an understanding of God and in that way a memory is built on the highest level, that of God living in you.

When people get older and ripen in an original way, they get more and more access to a memory built up on the level of God and Heart. Such a person can get the task to prepare the foundations for a good future. Because such a person has a memory on the level of God, that person will be directed by his or her sense of morality and love. Then, with the help of the memory on the level of the Heart, the person develops strategies for the future. Based on such strategies, that person can make concrete plans, because the person has a memory, a build-up of information on the level of the mind. From plans, good actions come that make the person act and work upon the things. The actions can be made because the person has a memory of actions and experiences on the level of the body. Finally, there also is made use of a memory in the things. Books and computer files, and things that were made in a holy way serve the good life of generations of the future.

We should pay attention that we save for the future all the good that we built up. We should work on a memory on all levels that can be useful for our children, grandchildren and all coming generations.

Stradivarius was able to make excellent violins. His craftsmanship was based on many abilities and very much knowledge. If Stradivarius had thought of passing on his abilities and knowledge to future generations, violin builders would today still be able to make such good violins.

*****

I want to come to a summary of this teaching.

Memory serves the good development of the future.

Memories are stored on five different levels. These levels go from very external to very internal.

We can train our ability to memorize on each of these levels. The key word for this is concentration. You should be concentrated on a particular level of information if you want to train the memory on that level. You can’t be concentrated on both your sensory experiences of your body and the thoughts in your mind you are having about it. You must learn to make a choice to concentrate on either one of them.

The development of the memory goes parallel and serves the good education of a child and the development of a person.

Here i still propose names for the memories of the five different levels:

1. Memory on the level of God: DIRECTIONAL MEMORY

2. Memory on the level of Heart: MEMORY OF ORDER

3. Memory on the level of Mind: MEMORY OF IDEAS

4. Memory on the level of Body: MEMORY OF EXPERIENCE

5. Memory on the level of Things: EXTERNAL MEMORY.

May 20, 2003; transcript from a speech