Journey of Souls (15 page)

The recognition of these spiritual teachers brings people into the company of a warm, loving creative power. Through our guides, we become more acutely aware of the continuity of life and our identity as a soul. Guides are figures of grace in our existence because they are part of the fulfillment of our destiny.

Guides are complex entities, especially when they are master guides. The awareness level of the soul determines to some extent the degree of advancement of the guide assigned to them. In fact, the maturity of a particular guide also has a bearing on whether these teachers have only one student or many under their direction. Guides at the senior level of ability and above usually work with an entire group of souls in the spirit world and on earth. These guides have other entities who assist them. From what I can see, every soul group usually has one or more rather new teachers in training. As a result, some people may have more than one guide helping them.

The personal names my clients attach to their guides range from ordinary, whimsical, or quaint-sounding words, to the bizarre. Frequently, these names can be traced back to a specific past life a teacher spent with a student. Some clients are unable to verbalize their guide’s name because the sound cannot be duplicated, even when they see them clearly while under hypnosis. I tell these people it is much more important that they under stand the purpose of why certain guides are assigned to them, rather than possessing their names. A subject may simply use a general designation for their guide such as: director, advisor, instructor, or just “my friend.”

One has to be careful how the word friend is interpreted. Usually, when a person in trance talks about a spiritual friend, they are referring to a soulmate or peer group associate rather than a guide. Entities who are our friends exist on levels not much higher or lower than ourselves. These friends are able to offer mental encouragement from the spirit world while we are on Earth, and they can be with us as incarnated human companions while we walk the roads of life.

One of the most important aspects of my therapeutic work with clients is assisting them, on a conscious level, with appreciating the role their guides play in life. These teacher entities edify all of us with their skillful instruction techniques. Ideas we claim as our own may be generated by a concerned guide. Guides also comfort us during the trying periods in our lives, especially when we are children in need of solace. I remember a charming remark made by a subject after I asked when she began seeing her guide in this life. “Oh, when I was daydreaming,” she said. “I remember my guide was with me on my first day of school when I was really scared. She sat on top of my desk to keep me company and then showed me the way to the bathroom when I was too afraid to ask the teacher.”

The concept of personalized spiritual beings goes far back in antiquity to our earliest origins as thinking human beings. Anthropological studies at the sites of prehistoric people suggest their totemic symbols evoked individual protection. Later, some 5,000 years ago as city-states arose, official deities became identified with state religions. These gods were more remote and even generated fear. Thus, personal and family deities assumed great importance in the day-to-day life of people for protection. A personal soul deity served as a guardian angel to each person or family, and could be called upon for divine help during a crisis. This tradition has been carried down into our cultures of today.

We have two examples at opposite ends of the United States. Aumakua is a personal god to Hawaiians. The Polynesians believe one’s ancestors can assume a personal god relationship (as humans, animals, or fish) to living family members. In visions and dreams, Aumakua can either assist or reprimand an individual. In northeastern America, the Iroquois believe a human’s own inner spiritual power is called Orenda, which is connected to a higher personal Orenda spirit. This guardian is able to resist the powers of harm and evil directed at an individual. The concept of soul watchers who function as guides is part of the belief system of many Native American cultures. The Zuni tribes of the Southwest have oral traditions in their mythology of god-like beings with personal existences. They are called “the makers and holders of life paths” and are considered the caretakers of souls. There are other cultures around the world which also believe someone other than God is watching over them to personally intercede on their behalf. I think human beings have always needed anthropomorphic figures below a supreme God to portray the spiritual forces around them. When people pray or meditate, they want to reach out to an entity with whom they are acquainted for inspiration. It is easier to ask for aid from a figure which can be clearly identified in the human mind. There is a lack of imagery with a supreme God which hinders a direct connection for many people. Regardless of our diverse religious preferences and degrees of faith, people also feel if there is a supreme God, this divinity is too busy to bother about their individual problems. People often express an unworthiness for a direct association with God. As a result, the world’s major religions have used prophets who once lived on Earth to serve as our intermediaries with God.

Possibly because some of these prophets have been elevated to divine status themselves, they are not personal enough anymore. I say this without diminishing the vital spiritual influence all the great prophets have had on their followers. Millions of people derive benefit from the teachings of these powerful souls who incarnated on Earth as prophets in our historical past. And yet, people know in their hearts-as they have always known-that someone, some personal entity individual to them-is there, waiting to be reached.

I have the theory that guides appear to people who are very religious as figures of their faith. There was a case on a national television show where the child of a devout Christian family suffered a near-death experience and said she saw Jesus. When asked to draw with crayons what she saw, the little girl drew a featureless blue man standing within a halo of light.

My subjects have shown me how much they depend upon and make use of their spiritual guides during life. I have come to believe we are their direct responsibility-not God’s. These learned teachers remain with us over thousands of earth years to assist in our trials before, during, and after countless lives. I notice that, unlike people walking around in a conscious state, subjects in trance do not blame God for their misfortunes in life. More often than not, when we are in the soul state, it is our personal guide who takes the brunt of any dissatisfaction.

I am often asked if teacher-guides are matched to us or just picked at random. This is a difficult question to answer. Guides do appear to be assigned to us in the spirit world in an orderly fashion. I have come to believe their individual teaching styles and management techniques support and beautifully integrate with our permanent soul identity.

For instance, I have heard about younger guides, whose past lives included overcoming particularly difficult negative traits, being assigned to souls with the same behavior patterns. It seems these empathetic guides are graded on how well they do in their assignments to affect positive change.

All guides have compassion for their students, but teaching approaches vary. I find some guides constantly helping their students on Earth, while others demand their charges work out lessons with little overt encouragement. The maturity of the soul is, of course, a factor. Certainly graduate students get less help than freshmen. Aside from the developmental level, I look at the intensity of individual desire as another consideration in the frequency of appearance and form of assistance one receives from his or her guide during a life.

As to gender assignments, I find no consistent correlation of male and female subjects to masculine or feminine appearing guides. On the whole, people accept the gender portrayed by their guide as quite natural. It could be argued that this is because they have become used to them over eons of relative time as males or females rather than the assumption that one sex IS more effective than another between specific students and teachers. Some guides appear as mixed genders, which lends support to souls being truly androgynous. One client told me, “My guide is sometimes Alexis or Alex, dropping in and out of both sexes, depending on my need for male or female advice.”

From what I can determine, the procedure for teacher selection is carefully managed in the spirit world. Every human being has at least one senior, or a higher master guide, assigned to their soul since the soul was first created. Many of us inherit a newer, secondary guide later in our existence, such as Karla, in the previous chapter. For want of a better term, I have called these student teachers junior guides.

Aspiring junior guides can anticipate the beginning of their training near the end of Level III, as they progress into the upper intermediate stages of development. Actually, we begin our training as subordinate guides long before attaining Level IV. In the lower stages of development we help others in life as friends and between lives assist our peer group associates with counseling. Junior and senior teaching assignments appear to reflect the will of master guides, who form a kind of governing body, similar to a trusteeship, over the younger guides of the spirit world. We will see examples of how the process of guide development works in Chapters Ten and Eleven, which cover cases of more advanced souls.

Do all guides have the same teaching abilities, and does this affect the size of the group to which we are assigned in the spirit world? The following passage is from the case file of an experienced soul who discussed this question with me.

Case 17

Dr. N: I’m curious about teacher assignments in the spirit world in relation to their abilities to help undeveloped souls. When souls progress as guides, are they given quite a few souls to work with?

S: Only the more practiced ones.

Dr. N; I would imagine large groups of souls needing guides could become quite a responsibility for one advanced guide-even with an assistant.

S: They can handle it. Size doesn’t matter.

Dr. N: Why not?

S: Once you attain competency and success as a teacher, the number of souls you are given doesn’t matter. Some sections (clusters) have lots of souls and others don’t.

Dr. N: So, if you are a senior in the blue light aura, class size has no relation to assignments, because you have the ability to handle large numbers of souls?

S: I didn’t exactly say that. Much depends upon the types of souls in a section and the experience of the leaders. In the larger sections they have help too, you know.

Dr. N: Who does?

S: The guides you are calling seniors.

Dr. N: Well, who helps them?

S: The overseers. Now, they are the real pros.

Dr. N: I have heard them also called master teachers.

S: That’s not a bad description for them.

Dr. N: What energy color do they project to you?

S: It’s … purplish.

Note: As signified in Figure 3 in the last chapter, the lower ranges of a Level V radiate a sky-blue energy. With advancing maturity this aura grows more dense, first to a muted midnight blue and finally to deep purple, representing the total integration of a Level VI ascended master.

Dr. N: Since guides seem to have different approaches to teaching, what do they all have in common?

S: They wouldn’t be teachers if they didn’t have a love of training and a desire to help us join them.

Dr. N: Then define for me why souls are selected as guides. Take a typical guide and tell me what qualities that advanced soul possesses.

S: They must be compassionate without being too easy on you. They aren’t judgmental. You don’t have to do things their way. They don’t restrain by imposing their values on you.

Dr. N: Okay, those are things guides don’t do. If they don’t over-direct souls, what are the important things they do, as you see it?

S: Uh … they build morale in their sections and instill confidence-we all know they have been through a lot themselves. We are accepted for who we are as individuals with the right to make our own mistakes.

Dr. N: I must say, I have found souls very loyal to their guides.

S: That’s why-because they never give up on you.

Dr. N: What would you say is the most important attribute of any guide?

S: (without hesitation) The ability to motivate you and instill courage.

My next case provides an example of the actions of a still-incarnating guide. This guide is called Owa, and he represents the qualities of a devoted teacher reported by the last case. Evidently, his early assignments as a guide involved looking after the subject in Case 18 in a direct fashion, and his methods apparently have not changed. My client was stunned once she recognized her guide’s latest incarnation.

Owa made his first appearance as a guide in my client’s past about 50 BC. He was described as an old man living in a Judean village which had been overrun by Roman soldiers. Case 18 was then a young girl, orphaned by a Roman raid against local dissidents. In the opening scene Of this past life, she spoke about working in a tavern as a virtual slave. As a serving girl, she was constantly beaten by the owner and occasionally raped by Roman customers. She died at age twenty-six of overwork, mistreatment, and despair. This subject made the following statement from her subconscious mind about an old man in her village: “I worked day and night and felt numb with pain and humiliation. He was the only person who was kind to me-who taught me to trust in myself-to have faith in something higher and finer than the cruel people around me.”

Later in the superconscious state, this client detailed parts of other difficult lives where Owa appeared as a trusted friend, and once as a brother. In this state she saw these people were all the same entity and was able to name this soul as Owa, her guide. There were many lives when Owa did not appear, and sometimes his physical contact was only fleeting when he came to help her. Abruptly, I asked if Owa might possibly be in her life now? After a moment of hesitation, my subject began to shake uncontrollably. Tears came to her eyes and she cried out from the vision in her mind.