Is laughter contagious?

Godly Humor

the funny side of life

Volume 27

Laugh, let your mirth be as pure and innocent as that of a little child—or as that of a laughing, smiling young girl whose innocent heart knows no guile.

Do not say, Ah, I am growing old and death will soon be here. Death is a misnomer, translation is the better word. Do not worry about anything. Everything comes right after a short time.

Think about the time, which will come when everything will be right—

If you have made mistakes, and who has not, do not be ashamed to admit it. Do not stubbornly hold to the mistakes because you have made them, but give up your mistakes with a smiling face and hearty goodwill.

Mistake is the great teacher of wisdom.

Do not fall heedlessly and sink in the mire without effort to recover and retrieve your fall—

If you have made a mistake or met with a fall, rise as quickly as possible, shake off the dust as clean as you can and march onward with good cheer.

God is the brother of mankind.

—Coleridge in Spirit

Do you get anything to eat in your world? Don't be foolish.

—Jan Steen in Spirit

—

Train Wings

Here I am free.

You have no idea of the meaning of freedom unless you can remember when you were out here last and I doubt you can remember that yet. When I say romance, I mean the charm of existence, the magic touch, which turns the grey face of life into a rose colour. You know what I mean.

It is wonderful to have the leisure to dream and to realise one’s dream, for here, the realisation goes with the dream. Everything is so real, imagination is so potent and the power to link things is so great, so almost unlimited!

The dreamers here are really not idle, for our dreaming is a kind of building, and even if it were not, you have a right to do about as you please. 

You have earned your vacation. 

The labour will come again. You will reclothe yourself in gross matter and take on its burdens.

Why, it takes more energy on earth to put one heavy foot before another heavy foot and to propel the hundred or two hundred pound body a mile than it takes here to go around the world! That will give you an idea of the quantity of surplus energy that we have, for enjoying ourselves and for dream-building.

Perhaps on earth you work too much, more than is really necessary. 

The mass of needless things that you accumulate around you, the artificial wants that you create, the breakneck pace of your lives to provide all these things seem to us absurd and rather pitiful. Your political economy is mere child’s play, your governments are cumbrous machines for doing the unnecessary, most of your work is useless and your lives would be nearly futile if you did not suffer so much that your souls learn though unwillingly that most of their strivings are vain.

How I used to sweat and groan in the early days to make my little circle in the sand! 

And now I see that if I had taken more time to think, I might have recovered something of my past knowledge gained in other lives, and though I still had felt obliged to draw my circle in the sand, I might have done it with less difficulty and in half the time.

Here if I choose I can spend hours watching the changing colours of a cloud. 

Or better still, I can lie on my back and remember. It is wonderful to remember, to let the mind go back year after year, life after life, century after century, back and back until one finds oneself a turtle! But one can also look ahead, forward and forward, life after life, century after century, aeon after aeon, until one finds oneself an archangel. 

Looking back is memory, looking forward is creation.

Of course, you create your own future. Who else could do it? 

You are influenced and moved and shifted and helped or retarded by others, but it is you yourself who forge the chains every time. 

You tie knots that you will have to untie often with labour and perplexity.

In going back over my past lives, I realise the why and the wherefore of my last one. It was in a way the least satisfactory of many lives save one, but now I see its purpose and that I laid the plans for it when I was last out here. 

I even arranged to go back to earth at a definite time to be with certain friends who met me there.

But I have turned the corner now and I have begun the upward march again. Already, I am laying the lines for my next coming though there is no hurry. 

Bless you! I am not going back until I have had my fill of the freedom and enjoyment of this existence here.

Also, I have much studying to do. I want to review what I learned in those hitherto forgotten, but now remembered lives. Do you recall how when you went to school you had the occasion to review the lessons of the preceding weeks or months? 

That custom is based on a sound principle. 

I am now having my review lessons. 

By and by before I return to the world, I will review these reviews, fixing by will the memories, which I especially wish to carry over with me. 

It would be practically impossible to carry over intact the great panorama of experience, which now unrolls itself before the eyes of my memory, but there are several fundamental things, philosophical principles and illustrations, which I must not forget. 

Also, I want to take with me the knowledge of certain formulae and the habit of certain practices, which you would probably call occult by means of which when I am mature again in my new body, I can recall into memory this very pageant of experience, which now rolls before me whenever I will it. No, I am not going to tell you about your own past. 

You must and can recover it for yourself. 

So can anyone who knows the difference between memory and imagination. Yes, the difference is subtle, but as real as the difference between yesterday and tomorrow. I do not want you to be in any hurry about coming out here to stay. 

Remain where you are just as long as possible. 

Much that we do on this side you can do almost as well while still in the body. Of course, you have to use more energy, but that is what energy is for, to use. Even when you store it, you store it for future use. Do not forget that.

What is energy for? To use. Even when you store it, you store it for future use. Do not forget that.

One reason why I rest much now and dream and amuse myself is because I want to store as much energy as possible to come back with power. It is well that you have taken my advice to idle a little and to get acquainted with your own soul. 

There are surprises in store for the person who will deliberately set out on the quest for his soul. The soul is not a will-o’-the-wisp, it is a beacon of light to steer by and avoid the rocks of materialism and forgetfulness.

I have had much joy in going back over my Greek incarnations. What concentration they had those Greeks! They knew much. The waters of Lethe, for instance, what a conception! brought from this side by masterly memory.

If man would even try to remember, if he would only take time to consider all that he has been, there would be more hope of what he may become! Why, do you know that man may become a god?

Or that which compared with ordinary humanity has all the magnitude and grandeur of a god? Ye are gods was not said in a merely figurative sense.

I have met the Master of Galilee and have held communication with Him. There was a man and a god! The world has need of him now.

—The Judge

The well-performed, irksome, sordid duty is a milestone passed on the path of evolution if it is done in the spirit of cheerfulness.

With further light, all souls will realise the importance of doing all their humdrum daily duties in the best possible way―service to the Almighty God.

―The Witness

Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will someday be old. 

Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to try to straighten out everybody’s affairs.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless detail—give me wings to get to the point.

I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of others’ pains. Help me to endure them with patience. But seal my lips on my own aches and pains—they are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter, as the years go by.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet—I do not want to be a saint—some of them are so hard to live with—but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil.

Make me thoughtful, but not moody—helpful, but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all, but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.

—Old Nun’s Prayer