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THE GREATER WORLD CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALIST CHURCH
THE ZODIAC MESSAGES
"HARVEST IN THE SPIRIT WORLD"
An Address given by the celestial messenger 'Zodiac',
(the unnamed scribe of the Bible and a teacher in the
Temple of Jerusalem at the time of Christ), at the
Co-operative Hall, York, under the auspices of the
Christian Spiritualist Church, 12, Ogleforth, York,
on Sunday, October I5th, 1944
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"SAVIOUR CHRIST, into Thy Hands I commend the
spirit of this Thy child...
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"Brothers and sisters, the sunshine of the earth is
but a pale reflection of the brightness gathered into
this hall of peace, and because you have undertaken
journeys, or have put aside material things, the blessing
is assured. There is so much hidden from your physical
consciousness that it is wise for those free from the
flesh to come back to encourage and to reassure, for
although it seems to you that you are sowing the seeds,
you feel there is so little coming up in the way of
compensation.
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"But to-day I have been sent into your presence
to speak to you upon HARVEST IN THE SPIRIT WORLD. Some
of you associate the Spirit World with a cessation
of effort; you are perhaps inclined to think that the
beautiful things there are there by the Will of God,
and man simply comes to enjoy. But I want to alter
that attitude of mind, because Harvest in the Spirit
World means so much to us. Again, beloved, some of
you, when you celebrate your Festivals upon the earth-plane,
are inclined to think that it is something that appertains
to the material world alone. There is Easter and Whitsuntide,
and the Day you commemorate the coming of the Christ
Child, and these times are special times for disembodied
souls. Why is this? Because at those times there are
always some who are trying to raise their thoughts
to God, remembering their early teaching, perchance,
or trying to contact with their loved ones in the World
of Spirit.
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"As you take your daily way do not join those
who are out to forget these old customs or to push
them aside because there are other things to distract,
but recall that at these special times of the year
greater power is given to disembodied souls to come
closer to those in the body, to minister unto them,
and to obtain a stronger hold upon their troubles and
cares.
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"But while we think of Harvest in the Spirit World
we must consider what it is that enables harvest to
be celebrated in the Spirit World. And always remember
this, beloved, that those many states before you came
to inhabit the earth body, as well as the many states
beyond the human experience, that all these states
bear a certain resemblance to each other and show CONSEQUENCES.
Consequences in this wise: that the Spirit World into
which you will pass is the result of the earth life
lived by you and many others, and the life you are
living to-day is a consequence of the life you lived
in another world, to which you had to die to be born
into the physical state.
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"I beg you to consider this point because it is
so helpful in understanding the so-called inequalities
of life as presented to you. You may ask as to the
working out of consequences, and I remind you that
the Law of Life is this: The strong souls take upon
themselves the heaviest burdens, and those burdens
are represented by physical disabilities, by suffering
in its many forms, by the great load of responsibility
which seems in some cases to be too much for the one
who has to grapple with it and to solve its many problems.
So never forget that if you are having a difficult
life to-day, this illustrates that you are a strong
soul, not a soul who has made grave mistakes in the
last state, but one who endeavoured to learn some of
the harder lessons.
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"As you look around you find that many good people
are heavily burdened, and that some of the selfish
ones seem to have a rose-lined path, and you do not
like it, it offends against your sense of justice.
So I am bidden to underline Reality, and to ask you,
as you pass those who are lame or blind or are suffering
from that awful disability of not being able to hear,
to remember that such as these will find a wonderful
harvest awaiting them in the Spirit World, for they
sowed their seeds in sorrow to reap their harvest in
joy.
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"But we must come back to the purely practical
side. You see to-day on all sides 'consequences'. There
are good consequences and those you could well do without,
and yet you have to remember this fact: if you found
rubble blocking your pathway into your home you would
take it as a matter of course that it must be removed;
you would call your friends and your neighbours and
between you you would open a way back into your own
possessions. Well, that law, which is a very practical
law, is worked out over your spiritual life as well
as your material life, and if you can accept those
adverse experiences from which sometimes you shrink,
you shall find that this law is worked out after physical
death.
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"There might be a beautiful condition awaiting
you, yet rocks and boulders barred your way. But if
you questioned, you would hear from the guides and
teachers that there were lessons shirked, burdens placed
upon another, the turning away from the bidding of
duty. You see at once that man is not parted for ever
from the love and joy and peace which he longs to make
his own; these are merely obstacles to be removed.
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"And this relates to that which you regard as
Sin. Always remember that, first of all, comes motive;
and, secondly, that one sin does not bar your spiritual
progress, and many sins do not shut you off from the
Kingdom of God, because you are His child and the King
awaits your swift advance. It simply means that there
must be readjustment, and the only way to clear your
path of these serious obstacles is by being willing,
by suffering and effort, to put in that which you refused
to recognise while in the flesh.
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"I want to emphasise particularly that all the
good in a man's life or a woman's life is not tossed
on the rubbish heap because he or she in a time of
temptation may fall. Some may say that this is an unwise
teaching, that it encourages evil; but wait, beloved.
You cannot avoid consequences, and the results are
serious to a man or a woman who understands Divine
Law and has been brought up to walk in the way of duty,
for he or she cannot claim ignorance, and what is done
deliberately by the exercise of free-will means that
there is a black harvest to be reaped. The ground has
first to be cleared, much toil has to be expended upon
it before it is even ready to take the good seed which
in time shall spring up and obliterate the memory of
the mistakes of the past.
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"You look around and you see the workings of science,
you see also that there have been many trying to bring
different forms of beauty into your lives. There have
been the sweet singers, the musicians, the painters,
those who have used their skill to make your towns
and cities lovely for the eye to look upon. What is
all this but the working out of consequences, for they
had to give up much to release their creative gifts,
and when the gifts were released, only by much practice
were they brought to anything like earthly perfection.
And, again, in this there is a parable of spiritual
life. Within you are all those wonderful gifts. You
may not be able to believe it but you are all musicians,
all great painters, all sweet singers, all have the
capacity to take that which is rough and ugly and to
transform it into something that is beautiful and will
bring health to those who enjoy it.
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"But the reason why these wonderful seeds of talent
are entombed is because it was the Spirit's choice
that all your energies in this state were to be centred
upon helping your neighbour, on accomplishing the mundane
tasks. Are there not many women gathered in to-day
who would smile if I said unto them: You are a great
artist! They would reply: 'I am simply the mother in
the home working from morning to night, and I seem
to produce almost nothing at all!' But I will say that
such as these are great artists in the sight of God,
but they are working upon an unseen canvas, and that
is Spirit conditions; not necessarily Spirit conditions
in another sphere, but Spirit conditions in their own
home, and the consequences will be shown in their own
Spirit home after the body has passed away.
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"I come back, beloved, to comfort, to reassure
you who are really trying to do your duty and who are
growing tired, tired in body. Some would say unto me:
'The years are passing by! I used to be strong and
to have plenty of vitality, but now I am growing old
and everything is such an effort!' Yet they still must
keep on doing their best in the work of daily life.
What a harvest is built up for such as these, what
a future and what a power they will possess!
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"And I speak to the men, to those who through
circumstances are undertaking work they do not like.
They had once high ideals, they wanted to make something
that should show they were a great craftsman; and in
their spare time, if they have any, they still try
to make things, and that is a Divine instinct. However
simple or domestic the things they make, it is exercising
their creative powers, and when they pass over, in
the degree that they strove to make out of the rude
material at hand something useful, they shall be shown
to their infinite joy that they have the power to be
named as a great craftsman and they can create wonderful
things, first by borrowing the power, and then by practice
acquiring the power, and then by emancipation lending
the power to others who still have to learn.
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"That again is the Law of Life. Those on earth
who know have to teach those who do not know, and they
get very tired of it, for sometimes the pupils are
very ungrateful, and when they have learnt all they
can, they forget not only to thank the teacher, but
self-importance so rises up that they forget they had
to be taught at all. And you in the flesh are depressed
because so gladly you passed on to them your knowledge,
and you have only had ingratitude in return. But wait!
There are consequences for you and for the learner,
but oh how different they are. You, in teaching others
what you learnt, perchance by much suffering, are preparing
your own place in the Spirit World, and the harvest
of what you did is shown then in a totally different
form. You find that by the Divine within, you have
the capacity to understand by sight. What do I mean
by that?
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"The teachers of to-day are finding that physical
sight is an easy way of teaching the young. They show
them pictures of this and plans of that; they employ
their imagination to take them into other lands, and
by the very fact of the beauty there or of certain
points of importance, the remembrance of it does not
pass away as it would after taking a sentence out of
a book and learning it off by 'heart.'
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"Beloved, this scheme of using the eyes in order
to hasten learning comes from the Spirit World, because
that always has been the method of teaching there.
Speech to us is of secondary importance; indeed, in
true Spirit spheres it seems a very cumbersome tool
to use at all.
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"Now, how do we teach the wilful, and how do we
show the reward for the faithful? It is all done in
that which you name picture-form, but instead of being
merely a picture, what is seen is a reality. You see
a rose portrayed by an instrument (cinematograph), but in the Spirit World that beautiful rose would
have its own life, its own fragrance; it would be part
of the Household of the Lord! Keep that thought in
mind and then carry on the idea to the teacher and
the ungrateful pupil. The teacher who has tried so
hard by love and effort to give his knowledge to others,
finds himself in a world that seems to him bearing
resemblance to Fairy Land.
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"Fairy Land is associated in your minds with imagination,
but that is simply because you do not understand what
imagination represents. It is impossible to imagine
something that never existed, remember that. If you
conjure upon your minds scenes of beauty and of power
and of love, you can be certain, beloved, that in the
sleep state you have been there. And if you find those
who use their imagination to bring scenes that are
repugnant before mankind, who abuse the gift of music
or of art or of song, then you can be certain that
in the sleep state that individual has been to one
of the hells of man's own making. Always hold that
thought in mind in regard to that which you call imagination.
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"So the teacher finds in the Spirit World something
which he is given to understand is his own, and also
that he can start upon his journey of adventure; and,
through the Divine within, he has the ability to understand
the law that governs the life of the fern, the daisy,
or of that which you regard as the wind. Take into
your imagination the whole of Nature, the life imprisoned
within the tiniest seed and the secret that is beyond
the human mind to grasp.
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"I give but an outline, but surely you can read
between the lines how wise it is to pass on what you
know which is good, to others, irrespective of the
fact of their ingratitude, because the consequences
in the World of Spirit will be so amazing, so generous,
because given by God Himself, that your hearts will
be filled with joy and your minds with peace.
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"Beloved, as you look out upon what has been created
upon the earth plane, the toil given to the fields
for the food that man must have, the machinery brought
into being for his use, as you think of all these things,
try to carry on that thought and to imagine the consequences
in the Spirit World, and how the toilers will benefit
and how the shirkers will feel; they will want to scourge
themselves because of their ignorant folly in the time
that has passed.
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"Here again you have your comfort. It is easy
to shirk, it is easy to evade under certain conditions;
no one seems to notice or no one seems to know, but
there are consequences; and for the one who patiently
works on, finishing the task at hand, going home weary
and perhaps disheartened because there has been no
word of appreciation, there are consequences which
surpass the highest hopes of any sorrowing soul.
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"To-day I want to emphasise still more Harvest
in the Spirit World in regard to opening man's mind
to spiritual truth, separating man from his baser desires,
turning his thoughts from the things which will pollute
to those which will show him a fitting citizen for
that lovely next stage, where all the past is uncovered
and something of the future is revealed.
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"Then we come back to personal sin, to the falling
into temptation, and here again there is the dividing
line between those who repent and those who, out of
bravado, think that it does not matter, that nobody
knows and God Himself will judge by earthly standards.
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"In the first place, beloved, God does not judge
His own creation at all; it is the Divine within us
that sits in judgement upon us, because the Divine
is Perfect, and when we pass out of the flesh and we
see the record of the past - all the help provided
by the unseen, all the opportunities we allowed to
slip by, all the warnings to which we turned a deaf
ear - we judge ourselves and we hate ourselves. But
that must pass away, and the only way to bring the
Divine into harmony with the casket that holds it,
and the Divine within in harmony with God the Father,
is by using our efforts to help others, to prevent
them from slipping in turn, to send out thoughts of
mercy, of peace, of hope and of strength, and in this
wise many who made a mistake while in the flesh, when
they pass out fearing to see what lies before them,
search in vain for it, for not even a scar remains.
The good seed was sown, and the golden harvest to be
used for others has taken its place.
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"Oh, I pray you listen unto my words because you
can do so much, however great your limitations, however
restricted your lives; you can do as well as any great
preacher or teacher because of the many unseen souls
who still need to be taught, who refused to learn their
lessons when in the flesh, but are allowed by God's
mercy to come back and mingle amongst you upon the
earth plane and to see how physically weak people can
be spiritually strong, how the tired, worn out mothers
forget themselves in tending their children, how the
fathers refuse to burden the mothers with their troubles,
knowing that they have enough of their own to grapple
with. And as these unseen, wayward children of God
watch what is being done in your homes, all the effort
given forth, the prayers you say, and the protection
you send to your own so far away, they learn; they
are touched over all you are going through, and repentance
sets in, and henceforth they are on the way to full
redemption, to retrieving the past and ensuring the
future.
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"So, beloved, I ask you who hear my words and
those many who will read my words, to try to get a
truer idea of Harvest in the Spirit World. For instance,
there are some people who think that Nature, which
they love so well, may not find its place in the next
life. Is there one watching the wind as it plays upon
the ripe corn who could feel anything but regret that,
with the passing of the body, there would be the passing
of that beautiful scene as well?
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"Oh, beloved, everything that you love, everything
that raises a feeling of thankfulness to God, all these
things will be found in the life to come. The good
craftsmen will indeed be able to create as they desire,
the good husbandmen will find that they, too, can translate
that which they wish into a sure reality. So widen
the borders of your imagination and every day, yes,
as you awaken, try to visualise what the day to come
will show you in, the World of Spirit, the consequences
for you and the results produced for others. And I
can assure you that if you undertake to do this, the
weight of the burden of the day will be halved, it
will not seem just something which has to be done over
and over again. No! you will realise that every task
is producing its own beauty and its own power, there
is nothing wasted, nothing that is common in the sight
of God. The minds of many are filled with thoughts
of the earthly harvest, and you thank God with grateful
hearts that year by year Nature does her part. Thank
God, in turn, beloved, that this is but a symbol of
the sweet by-and-by, but an illustration of that which
shall gladden your future, and indeed recharge you
with a deeper love for God, the great Creator of all
things.
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"Beloved, I ask you to answer unto yourselves
what is it that you value in life, what is it that
you hope to see in the Spirit World? There is no one
here who would not answer: 'My loved ones!' Yes, but
how do you wish to find them placed? That is a grave
question, for remember this: you cannot hide the things
that are past when in the World of Reality. You cannot
make excuses for them, because it is all there, as
it were, in picture-form, and it has to be faced. Think
of a beloved child who thought mother or father was
wonderful, and you when you are free having to see
how closely you lived up to the ideal in your child's
mind, who passed to the Spirit World before your own
call came.
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"But there are many here who can be glad at heart
because they are indeed among the triers, those who
if they make mistakes do not make them deliberately,
those who if they fall into so-called sin quickly extricate
themselves and pray for strength to do better in time
to come. Yes, all who are gathered in surely can say
to me: 'I want to be closer to God!' And as the days
go on is it not indeed one march nearer Home? And in
that Home will you not find everything that you love
the most? It lies within your own hand, it becomes
your own choice. That which you tried to do, that which
you accomplished, the teaching of others, the bringing
together of the masses, hoping when the physical mind
cried out in despair, cheering those who must travel
a dark road - oh, all these things are ensuring the
harvest which you long to make your own in the World
to come, in that condition where sorrow as sorrow no
longer can enter in and pain can be forgotten. And
those who strive so hard, the warriors who are willing
to make the full surrender, all these, by doing their
part to the best of their ability, why, they never
see death; they pass into health and strength and a
life of spiritual adventure; and there is not one soul,
one warrior, who truthfully could say: 'I wish I were
back in the flesh again!' For now they see: then they
were looking through a glass darkly!
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"So I bless you, bless you with greater courage,
but still more do I bless you by the Power of God with
a clearer vision, with the power to see things in a
more spiritual proportion, to take up that which you
once despised and to find it is a tool beyond all price
placed within your hands. And then, beloved, all the
sorrowing, all the grieving over loss and trouble and
pain and sickness will seem waste of time; it is something
that you have taken on to ensure a golden harvest in
the World to come.
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"May the great Christ-light shine upon you, may
the workers increase their efforts. Place your banner
still higher in preparation for the cleansing of the
earth plane, which shall show the consequences in the
World of Spirit - greater power and wider opportunities
for service.
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"Peace be with you all, but when sleep holds you
this night many of us will meet again. Farewell, beloved,
and Christ and His Cross go with you!"
©GWCSA
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