Light
God is often equated with Love, and equally often viewed as Light. This is reflected in the common expression “Love and Light” that two spiritual people might use to wish each other well. People returning from a Near Death Experience that has taken them into the Spirit World, very often speak of seeing a great Light, and sensing that Light as overwhelming love.
In common with people of most other faiths and spiritual traditions, Spiritualists understand God as both transcendent and immanent. God is transcendent means that God is an objective reality beyond ourselves, and beyond our present capacity to fully understand. God is immanent means that God is within us. We each of us carry a spark of the Light of God within ourselves. That spark is our consciousness, it is God’s gift to us. This is another aspect of the parenthood of God, which is our first principle.
According to how we use our consciousness, well or badly, in loving service to others, or self-centred promotion of ourselves, our own power and greed, our own desires and egos, so that Light within us grows or diminishes. As that Light grows within us, so will our understanding of who we really are, of what we need to do, and who and what God is.
As that Light diminishes, so will our understanding of God, and what is required of us. We each have the choice of how we use our conscious awareness, which is God’s gift of love to us. Exercising that choice in our daily lives is our personal responsibility, for which, Spiritualists believe, we are, and always will be, accountable.
Nature
Spiritualists, in common with people of other religions and spiritual pathways, draw great inspiration from nature. We often remember in our prayers the plant and animal kingdoms, that mankind so often takes for granted and abuses. In common with many others, we realise that there are natural laws and that they should be obeyed.
When a person thinks along the lines of nature, then he or she is thinking properly. In order for brotherhood and harmony to exist among men and women, we need to gain a clear understanding of our place in the natural order of things, and how all of nature, not just mankind, is intimately and intricately connected. Looking into this, we realise that we cannot build a kingdom of love, light, peace and harmony whilst we exploit, abuse and mistreat the natural world, upon which our lives here depends.
So we need to understand ourselves, our own nature, who we are, what we are doing here and where we are heading.
The great revelations of Spiritualism teach us that we all have a spiritual nature and a spiritual destiny. Unless we grasp this idea, that our lives here are just a short interlude in an eternal, spiritual existence, our spiritual progress will be hampered and more difficult. We are going to find it more difficult to understand why we should be our brother’s keeper, and why we should be good stewards of the earth, its nature and resources.
If we think that our lives here are all that there is, and that our conscious awareness, responsibilities and duties will be terminated with our death, the temptation will always be there to think that these things don’t matter too much. We may be tempted to overlook the excesses we have been able to get away with, because we will not know that there is divine justice, and there will be a price to pay for our misconduct.
Truth
The truth that Spiritualism proclaims is the truth of eternal life. We inhabit a body, but we are not the body. In time, we all know, our body will decay and eventually die, but that will not be the end of us. Who we essentially are: our consciousness, our mind, our thoughts, our personality, our character – all these will live on, undiminished. At death we will experience a seamless transition into another mode of being in another dimension. The vehicle that will carry us there will be our soul, an incorruptible spiritual body, a body of higher and finer energy than our material body. This soul is within us, here and now, in this world, and is what animates us and gives us life. In proclaiming this, Spiritualism is proclaiming the good news that is preached by all religions and spiritual disciplines the world over.
Spiritualism goes further than this. It does not assert these things because of mere faith, or because they have been written down in books we revere. It seeks to demonstrate, to all who would enquire, that those “dead”, who have moved on to the higher side of life, can communicate with us, and show their continuing awareness of how our lives are progressing, offer words of counsel and comfort, and show their continuing love. Spiritualists know that love never dies, that love is a story that has no end. This is the really good news that we love to share with all who will listen.
Just as we can have communion with our loved ones who have passed on, so we can communicate with higher souls who have advanced in the spiritual dimensions. Some will guide us on our spiritual pathway, some will inspire us in our acts of creativity and invention, some will work with us as healers and amplify our healing energies. Many people call these higher souls angels, but the name we give them does not matter. Spiritualism believes that these loving beings want to communicate with us and work with us, and that they speak to us and communicate with us inwardly.
They will communicate with all who will listen, who are willing to lay aside the haste and the clamour of daily life from time to time and go into the silence and stillness that our souls long for. The practice of meditation is very important to Spiritualists. So is the practice of attunement to the spirit world, which is similar to meditation, but distinct from it. The kingdom of God is within us; it is an eternal kingdom; and knowing that truth will set us free from fear and despondency.
