One of the things that formed part of the religious teachings of my youth was the fact that, when people died, they lost contact with their relatives and friends on earth. They waited around to be judged (at least, as I imagined it) in a sort of comatose state until the Last Day, when the sheep will be separated from the goats, as it were. I don’t know why the poor goats were selected as the symbolic representatives of those souls unfortunate enough to be consigned to eternal punishment.

I was musing on all that because Margaret Anna had mentioned that she would like to discuss further how souls in spirit continue to interact with people on earth.

She said, ‘As we’ve seen, there are different levels of contact. Guides, for example, have agreements with those whom they guide, and are always instantly available to them. The contact is more sporadic where other souls are concerned.’

She went on to tell me a story about continuing contact, concerning a woman called Jane who is another of Margaret Anna’s ‘charges’.

Jane is a woman in her 30s, happily married, with three children, aged six, four and two. The household revolves around her, and she looks after all the details of the domestic scene with superb efficiency.

She had launched a promising career as an interior designer, but she has put it on hold until the children are older. Her husband, Oliver, is a partner in a busy firm of accountants. Life is moving along smoothly and harmoniously for the family.

Jane has never suffered from anything other than minor illnesses, such as colds. When she begins to experience a nagging pain in her stomach, she ignores it for some time. She doesn’t even mention it to Oliver. But it’s not going away, so she decides to go to the family doctor. Because Jane trivialises the pain, the doctor doesn’t take it too seriously and gives her a prescription for painkillers. He suggests that she return for a further consultation if the pain continues.

Jane experiences only minimal relief from the tablets. She goes back to the doctor, who arranges for her to go to hospital for tests. At this stage she feels she has to tell Oliver. Not surprisingly, Oliver is worried, but he convinces himself that because Jane has always seemed indestructible, the tests won’t show anything serious.

Oliver’s optimism proves to be unfounded. Jane is riddled with cancer. The medical prognosis is that she has, at the most, three months to live. And so it proves. The grief of the family knows no bounds as Jane’s body gives up the struggle, and they’re left helplessly wondering how they’re going to manage without her.

Jane herself is devastated. She had tried to hold on, but even her powerful will had no chance against the cancer. When she leaves her body, she’s in a state of utter distress at being separated from her family. She also carries the burden of their overwhelming sadness. She’s around them all the time, but they’re so numbed by their grief that they’re not aware of her. She sees Oliver doing his best to organise things so that life can go on for the family in some fashion.

Margaret Anna knows that there’s no point in trying to reach Jane while she’s so enmeshed in her own grief and that of her family. In our time, there’s an interval of nearly a year before Jane is ready to come to terms, even to a minor extent, with her new state. She has begun to relax a little as she sees that Oliver and the children have found a way of coping. She’s had many bouts of exasperation because she’s not there to sort things out when they get into a muddle, as they often do. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t get through to any of them. However, they manage, somehow, to get by.

Margaret Anna has enlisted the help of Jane’s father, Daniel, who died when Jane was only 15. They had loved each other very much. As Jane begins to relax, she becomes aware of her father. She’s overjoyed to see him and they have a loving reunion. He talks to her and persuades her to go with him, constantly reassuring her that she’ll continue to be able to be around her family.

They have arrived at a minor breakthrough. With the help of Daniel and other souls, Margaret Anna is able to show Jane that she can mind her family much more effectively by letting them go a little. The guides illustrate to her that her unbroken connection with her family is confusing them, because it sets up a vibration around them that they don’t understand. It’s a heavy vibration caused by her distress at her separation from them, and her inability to be physically there to take care of both them and all the details involved in managing the household. The guides arrange for her to meet other parents who have had to leave their families in somewhat similar situations. They invite her to join them in a cooperative grouping, whose aim is to be able to help the families they have left on earth, while finding ways to make progress on their own evolution. Soon she realises that she has immediate access to experts in all sorts of fields.

We here on earth are usually full of grief when our loved ones pass on. But we often, maybe usually, don’t realise that the distress levels for the departed may be even greater than our own. In this case it was dreadful for Jane to be around her family and not to be able to connect with them or they with her.

In some cases the newly arrived soul in spirit connects immediately with family members who are already in spirit. It all depends on the states of mind people are in when they pass on. For instance if they don’t believe they’re dead or if, as in Jane’s case, they can’t bear to tear themselves away from their loved ones, then it will take longer.

Margaret Anna said that Jane’s case was quite common. If she could only have seen that she wasn’t helping her family at all by staying around them in her state of distress and exasperation, things would have been so much easier for both them and herself. She would still have had all the sadness of separation (as would they); however, she would have been helped to realise very quickly that detaching from them to some extent didn’t mean that she was abandoning them. The others in the group showed her very convincingly how well the liaising arrangements with their families’ guides worked in practice.

I found it very interesting and helpful to hear how guides interact with souls who are in similar situations to Jane’s and I wanted to know how usual that was.

Margaret Anna replied that it was becoming more so. She thinks it’s an ideal arrangement. For example, Jane is introduced to the broad evolutionary picture involving herself and her family. She sees the purpose of the human tragedy in the context of what each family member set out to achieve through their lives on earth. Jane realises that she can meet them regularly while their bodies are asleep, and talk to them and listen to them and hold them close. Her children and her husband don’t usually remember when they wake up – or, if they do, they’ll probably convince themselves that they were dreaming. Still, they’re likely to find that things that were bothering them before they went to sleep seem to have sorted themselves out – if only because they have a different way of looking at them – and they feel much better.

Jane sometimes wishes that they would be more aware of her. At the same time, she understands that it’s best that they get on with their lives. She also knows that, in due course, she’ll be able to meet them again in a more conscious way for all of them. In the meantime, because she’s looking down from her ‘helicopter’, as it were, and has a panoramic view, she’s able to mind them in ways that wouldn’t have been open to her on earth. And by getting on with her own life and releasing herself to the joy of her changed state, she’s spreading a loving vibration around her that includes her family in its embrace.

The power of dreams

In her story, Margaret Anna explained that Jane meets the members of her family regularly when they are asleep. Are we more conducive to visits from spirits when we are sleeping, I wondered?

I remember once listening to a radio programme, during which a psychologist was talking about dreams and their interpretation. A listener telephoned and said that his young daughter had died recently. Shortly after her death he had a vivid dream in which he met her. They had a wonderfully happy reunion and when he woke up he felt as if a huge weight of sadness had been lifted from him. He felt that he had really been with his daughter, but could he trust that feeling? The dream analyst’s interpretation was to the effect that the man’s subconscious had created the dream to help him deal with his grief, and that his daughter in the dream represented a healing aspect of himself. I had no doubt that the analyst’s interpretation was not simply totally mistaken, but it very likely destroyed what had been for the distraught father a beautifully joyful, real experience. In my view he had experienced a meeting between himself and his daughter on the astral plane, a common description of where we go while our bodies are asleep (there’s more about this in Chapter 12).

Throughout the ages, dreams have always provided a source of guidance for people. In my own case, one dream stands out vividly. I dreamt I was standing beside a gate, which Buddha was holding open. There were thousands and thousands of people coming towards the gate, but only small numbers going through it. Even though Buddha was looking at everybody with great love – and was obviously inviting them all to go through the gate, if they wished to do so – most of the people were ignoring him. They passed by the gate as if he wasn’t there. After observing all that for a while, I asked Buddha how could he continue to project so much love towards everybody when he was being rejected by so many. He said to me, ‘That’s the way I am. The only way I can be.’ He indicated that he was going to continue to hold the gate open until everybody came through it.

At the time I had that dream, I was newly into individual consultations. I thought that I’d be letting my guides down if I couldn’t come up with a solution for every problem, no matter how intractable it seemed to be. I felt a huge sense of failure if no immediate solution emerged during the session, and I sometimes endured sleepless nights afterwards. The dream was as timely as it was helpful. Apart from the all-embracing love flowing from Buddha, which was relevant to every aspect of what I was doing, it showed me that the very best I could ever do would be to present myself as I was – with whatever I received from my guides – and then to allow the outcome to be whatever it would be.

Incidentally, while I had known about Buddha, I hadn’t previously had any particular interest in him or Buddhism, nor have I developed any since. I have, however, always felt deeply grateful for that experience.

Letting go

It is not just souls who find it difficult to let go of their physical existence on earth, lost in feelings of bereavement. Humans, too, can continue to grieve for a lost child, lover, parent or friend, and find it difficult to let go.

Margaret Anna commented, ‘Partings are an inevitable consequence of the temporary nature of the human condition, with death being seen as the final one. As we know, it’s not (or what am I at?). There are always good reasons for them in overall evolutionary patterns.

Bepul matn qismi tugadi. Ko'proq o'qishini xohlaysizmi?