The Lowest Grades

Dying does not necessarily end one's troubles or work. Some are so incapable, so childish, fearful and physical that they take the form of a child and have to begin in the lowest grades of the Spirit schools until they grow. 

Fate assigns the test

Do people choose what they will be and do?

No—Fate assigns the tests.

The Story of the Tree

The Story of the Tree by Luisa Rodrigues on Scribd

Reflections on a World of Thought

The Astral is a world of thought. We construct what we have and realise what we possess by our thoughts. Our thoughts produce things.

Everything we see is a reflection of our thoughts. Every object is a consequence of our thoughts, made manifest in form and each means something. In the Astral, we learn to distinguish what is best to bring out in the objective, for thoughts are things real—good or bad—according to the power we give them. They manifest themselves in many forms—they are our thoughts merely expressed in forms. We expect to see a room and we do. When we think of the room's furnishings, our thoughts form the kind of setting we like—furnishings to which we were accustomed in our physical life. Suppose you had been thrust from the physical body of the material into the astral and at that time had been living in cramped circumstances. When you came to the Astral, your thought would not have changed and immediately when you had overcome darkness and weakness, your mind would reach out and bring forth forms of your earthly existence. You would see again around you the furnishings and thought pictures of your earthly life. We bring from the earth plane, when we come here, our every thought of the material. Some are so filled with these thoughts that they believe for a long time that they are existing as they did upon the earth plane. 

The Story of the Tree (for Children)

A long time ago, there lived a Tree in a forest;

Its branches were stunted and gnarled, 

And all its leaves malformed and jagged. 

And the Tree said, 

“Why is this, 

Surely the One that planted me ought to have known better. 

I am of no good to man or beast.”





At that moment, a woodman came into the forest,

And passing by all the goodly, well-shaped trees, saying, 



“They will not serve my purpose,”

—came where the ragged, old Tree lifted up its misshapen branches to the sun.

Said he, “Why this is the very thing; this will serve my purpose well.” 

With that, he called his fellows and cut it down. 

Lo! when it had been sawn into pieces,  

The most gorgeous veins of beauty were found running through its heart, 

And the tracing was lovelier than any artist could have fashioned, 

And of it were made many beautiful articles of use 

And ornament for the King’s Palace.



THE END

© 2016 Luisa Rodrigues. All rights reserved.

Incomprehensible

There is little that we can learn about the spheres beyond the first one. 

After the rest and strengthening of the first unity sphere, the spirit passes into one of the duality and there conflict begins again on a higher plane. Those sides of his nature which have been dormant are now quickened into new life and the spirit struggles to manifest himself more perfectly in all ways where he has been deficient. Then, greatly strengthened and enlarged, he passes into the Sphere of Action. He then becomes the Creator rather than the creature; more resembling the Lord God, which the old Hebrews worshipped but without the blemishes and limitations they imputed to their ideal Creator.

The next conflict sphere is too remote for us to clearly comprehend. Then comes, finally, the Unity in Peace, the highest which we can even faintly imagine. Here we must leave the spirit, for, without some body, some manifested form, he is to us incomprehensible.

Do not fear

Do not fear Life or Death, for both are the breath of the Divine. Fear neither loss nor gain, for the gain shall be for your brother and the loss shall only lighten your burdens.

Do not fear the mysteries of life, for those mysteries are only the depths of your own being and the key to them all is Love.

Do not fear the thorns upon your pathway, for they only protect the blossoms of your heart.

Do not fear anguish, no conflict, for the cross is encircled with the crown of victory.

Fear nothing that enables you to understand and support your brethren but with your eyes ever fixed upon the Highest, press forward on the path of destiny until the outward becomes the inward and the discordant notes of nature blend in one great Amen.

A Message from the First Unity Sphere

A mother to her daughter on earth—

Beloved—

I am going to try and let you see what my life is like here and now, that you may be able to hold communion with me, as I can with you, and may understand better what your destiny is. For time is short, and the longest life on earth or in Hades will seem but as a dream when you look back.

I am not merely your mother physically; no, there was entrusted to me, as to all mothers, though I was unconscious of it, a power, an influence, a stream of tendencies to hand on to you which should shape your whole being and your life. Had I been more faithful to the highest that I knew of, it would have been happier for me and easier for you. But it is not of that earthly life that I would speak now, nor must I dwell on my second life—it was quietly, tranquilly happy, but I did not develop through suffering and conflict some sides of my nature which are now feeble.

But to pass at once to my entrance here.

There came to me just before I left that former state a sudden call, a summons to gather all my powers and see in what I was deficient. It was a voice within me that seemed to say—“Art thou ready to depart?” I looked round and examined myself to see how it was with me. The calm peace that had filled my soul for so long was broken up, and I was troubled as I looked in vain for many virtues which I thought I had truly possessed for a long time.

No one accused me; I was my own judge and my own examiner. I found that love was too narrow, pity too self-centred, truth but partial. Then the inner voice said, “Go forward; the weak shall be strengthened and the evil cut away and cast into outer darkness; go forward into the light of a new day.”

My soul then seemed to expand, to rise; or rather my spirit to break through my soul body like a conscious birth, and then instead of light I found myself in utter darkness—darkness such as I had never known before. This darkness seemed to be empty (if I may so express it), there was no sound, nothing, no being. I tried to speak but could not; to reach out after something, no matter what; all was empty space. But this was only for a moment. I had been trying to hear and see with the old psychic powers which I no longer possessed, and my newborn (not new created) spirit had not learned to use its new ones.

Then what a glorious change; light, life, music, beauty everywhere, a constant overflowing stream. I had been seeking outside what was within me; it was in my own breast that this new universe was lying, not away and apart from me.

You may think from what I say about looking within that we have no bodies here, but are pure spirit. That is not so; we have spirit bodies which are as much superior to our psychic bodies as they were to the physical. I cannot describe them to you at all clearly, but they are a real manifestation, a part of our being, and not mere clothing. We used to speak on earth of the three kingdoms of nature, and if you can, imagine our forms as embodying the strength and durability of the mineral, the beauty of the petals of a rose, and the conscious life of the animal, all combined. Or if you could unite the lily and the rainbow with the soul looking forth as from the eye of a man, you may get some idea.

Then next I would say that our life is not a mingling of joy and grief, of work and rest, as the last was. I have known no sorrow, no weariness, no inactivity of spirit since I have been here, nor have I been conscious of any such state of feeling in those around me.

When we were in the psychic world we were conscious of being separated both from your world and from this; seeing only in vision or broken fragments; now the universe is always open and undivided to us. We see all. (Not, of course, material things). By all I mean, that the soul-life back to its manifestation in earthly bodies and forward to the “ now” in which we live is open to us.

My children, for instance, are here with me from their birth to the moment in which you read this; they are fully revealed and ever living before me. Your past and your present are all one, so that I know no difference between your childhood and your youth, for the life is seen by us as a perfect circle, and who shall say where it begins or ends. The only difference is where the pure gold of the circle is sometimes bright and sometimes dull and tarnished with the clouds of passing failure or sin.

In the other life we first willed and then acted; we desired and then accomplished; the inner preceded the outer. Here there are not two but one—we seem neither to think nor act—we are. I do not wish and then perform—I am; there is no need to desire anything and then to obtain it; it is all within me and I have only to breathe it out; I have only just to be and all things are included.

I do not know if this will be at all clear to you, or seem only words without meaning. Perhaps if you will try to imagine me as more like in nature what you believe God to be, then you will get an impression which is as close to the reality as is possible.

I believe, beloved, that in this sphere no sadness, no unsatisfied desire is possible, but I also believe that there will come a time when we shall pass on, or when life will be different, and conflict may begin again in new forms.

One thing which I lacked when I passed over was love for others who were not near to me on earth. So I still am somewhat shut in with regard to many here, but I live in the life of my dear ones, making myself one with them, and seeking ever to draw their spirits towards the great fount of life, towards their Father and my Father.

We have but little sense of time here, nor do we realise the difference between far and near; there are no stops to our life in any way, but a great sense of infinite power, joy and blessedness which we are, rather than which we experience.

I have said that I did not have the outgoing love to others not connected with my earthly life that I should have had. For this reason my union with those here is not complete, and they seem outside of myself, apart, rather than within. This restriction will last while I am in this sphere.

I would gladly tell you, if I could, how it is with my relationship with God and Christ. I know you have had some deep teaching from your friends as to the being of God, but I must speak as my own experience has taught me. In the psychic world Christ was to me a teacher, a friend, a God, all united, and from Him my life and happiness seemed to spring. Here I see Him as still in the psychic world, with a body such as we all had there, and yet I am conscious that He is also here, and that from Him there goes out to me a constant stream of life, without which I feel I could not exist. I know that He is truly Man, only much further on in the great stream of existence than I; but yet he is to me as I have said, all that I need to raise me from that lowness of nature which is death to the highest life. It may be that God is to Christ what Christ is to me; I do not know.

There is but little more that it would be possible for me to explain to you. We see all soul-forms, and that continuously—there is no darkness or emptiness.

We hear all soul-thoughts united in one grand harmony.

We know all soul-realities without forgetfulness and without mistake. Do not then imagine that I could ever be separated from you; your true being lies open before me, as mine will do to you when you have passed into this sphere.

Finally, beloved, remember that though your mother in some ways, I am your child, your sister in others—all relationships are included in one, so that you are mine and I am yours forever.

I cannot sign this, for my new name is unspeakable.

— I AWOKE! Conditions of Life on the other Side, Author Unknown, David Stott, London, 1895

Unity in Spirit

“There is one God,

I and my Father are one.”

Hail to thee, my brother!

Friend of heart and soul—

Father, sister, mother,

Part and yet the whole.

In the past I knew thee,

When thou wast a flower

On my stem I bore thee,

Blossom of an hour.

In the “Now” behold me

Hidden in thy breast;

In the life around thee,

Both as host and guest.

I and thou transfigured,

Thou and I become;

Unity prefigured,

For we two are one.

We have already explained why the unity spheres are so-called. The unity consists in the reconcilement of man with himself and in the first unfoldings of the true oneness of his nature.

Man in his earthly stage is often if not always conscious of warring elements in himself, of opposing forces which are sometimes so evenly balanced that he cannot control one by the other but is torn by the conflicting powers. Paul has stated this experience so fully and clearly that his words must always be the textbook on this subject. It is not the power of thinking of ourselves as of a separate entity that now passes away but it is the discord that is merged in harmony and the sense of impotency that vanishes, being replaced by the strength that comes from this true unity. The consciousness that we cannot do the good we wish, nor refrain from the weakness that we despise—this it is that saddens our earthly life and makes us at times think we are only mortal and human, instead of immortal and divine. All such discords pass away in the unity spheres—the spirit was being prepared for it in the Hades state, for there it found the “will ” could do much, now it can do all things. “United to me ye can do all things, severed from me ye can do nothing.” Be at one with true manhood and all things are possible but severed from the true and living vine ye can do nothing.

It is true that the man, though at peace with himself, is not yet perfect—there are still many traits to be developed and perchance some evil yet to be burned away—how, then, can there be this concord; does light have any agreement with darkness? The imperfect and undeveloped parts of his being are in abeyance and remain so for awhile until he passes into the next sphere; while those parts that are “ripe ” are strengthened and brought into play. So the words of John or rather of Jesus to John may be understood. “He that is holy, he that is righteous and he that is filthy, let him be so still.” That is if I am not yet thoroughly clean or true or again, if I am holy but not yet truly loving I do not become so here, in this sphere, but other qualities are being tested and strengthened and the fire of deep experience will burn away the dross in good time. All that is evil is left without the gates of the city and the man, perhaps bereft of his right hand or his right eye (for a time) enters into the city where nothing can defile and where all tears are wiped away.

This is the time or rather this is the point in the soul’s history spoken of in John’s revelation when evil is bound for a thousand years and when the redeemed part of the man enters the perfect state (typified by the 144,000 who wear white robes)—while that part, which is yet imperfect remains in abeyance and is spoken of as cast into the fire or left without the gates of the city. The perfection, you will understand, is partial, though complete as far as it goes. There comes a pause in the conflict with the evil and discordant elements and in the calm and sunlight of this peace he grows and is strengthened rapidly.

Though he is no longer out of harmony with his surroundings, this is not to imply that there is no conflict or growth—his powers may be taxed to their utmost but not beyond; the strength is always sufficient to the day and he grows as a plant might, the surroundings of which were perfectly suited to its needs. All his powers are living, in motion, not intermittently but constantly—this is a very high development of life.

In the “spheres” action as outward or in the least degree differentiated from the being has no place. The spirit does not need to help his brother; he is help. He does not love his neighbour, he is love. He does not show mercy; he is mercy. No sun of benevolence shines in the city of his spirit; he himself, the Lamb, the Man is the light thereof. No sea of cleansing pity breaks on the shore of his being, for he himself is pity. From his spirit’s centre, all rays go forth; yet they are not cut off from him—the rays are himself and he is the rays. One does not say to his brother I and thou; for thou and I are one and there is no difference.

Yet there is nothing vague, hazy, passionless in this state; the man as he grows more and more into the God is not less alive but more—the infinite contains in itself the finite and the God has the man in his bosom.

This new being is well typified by the Seer who, when he wants to illustrate the vision speaks of the spirit as all eyes within and without and when he speaks of motion and activity speaks of him as all wheels within wheels; that perfect circle of life whose centre is absolute rest.

Further, the pneuma does not make his environment, he and it are one. He does not make anything, he creates and he is at once the creature and the creator—“I and my Father are one.”

Spirit Ears

Hearing is vision looked at from a slightly different point of view. When any faculty is in motion, is being exercised, the spirit hears it and it is to him the highest and truest form of music when the faculty is at rest, then the eye sees it and it is to him the highest form of Art; true painting and true sculpture.

Hearing is also not confined to the present—the past, back to the soul’s first dwelling in flesh is ‘audible’ to the spirit ear. Further back than that in the soul’s history remains to be unfolded in the higher spheres; the seventh chiefly.