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The World Beyond (14) Progress in the world beyond
Frances Banks continues to talk about her rescuer work.
Frances Banks had other stories to tell about certain souls and their struggles both during their life on earth, and when they passed on into the spirit world, and they can be found in Helen Greaves’ book “The Challenging Light.” Neville Spearman, 1984.
Now here is a review of her further accounts of life in the spirit world beyond.
FRANCES - Robert Browning wrote ‘All service ranks the same with God.’ This truth is one which the new arrivals in this plane of consciousness sooner or later, and which they establish in their own understanding. Only by their own efforts and searchings into the value of their recent life on earth can this truth become clear to their assessment of their successes or failures…..a vast proportion of these released souls cannot face the bare evaluation of their material lives. And there is no persuasion by others to do so, whether they are loved ones, or past, despised and hated enemies. And the great souls, the masters of wisdom, never interfere, even though, with silent understanding, they seek to ignite the flame of the spirit in such dull souls or frightened souls, or complacent souls who refuse to face the inevitable.
The spirit of God the creator in mankind embraces all branches of the spirit, such as the spirit of beauty, which embraces art, music, poetry and progress, achievement, even sacrifice where such was for good, truth, love, wisdom, and such attributes which sometimes startle the world with their greatness, yet often seem to be ‘born to blush, unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.’
Here, in this consciousness, there is no line of differentiation between the earthly service of a President or a Prime Minister, or of the less triumphant service of a humble server, a worker among the poor, a humble priest, a nurse, a loving wife and a wise and gentle mother, devoting her life to encouraging the budding talents in her children, and the imparting to them the true values of life.
When the soul finally departs from the material body and renounces all desires and achievements longed for by the limited materialistic thinking of the human mind, it finds itself purged of the whole experience, as though it had been a dream. Desire evaporates within it; achievement, honour and power are seen in a completely different context.
This is the body’s first reaction after death. The soul is, as it were, naked in its new surroundings, exactly as the human child comes unclothed into earth consciousness. [All thoughts, motives and feelings are transparent, and cannot be hidden].
Death and birth are closely and inevitably related. Birth is the beginning of eventual death: and death is the advent into, as well as the return to, the [fuller] consciousness of the spirit. It depends on how deeply and utterly the spirit has descended into the restricted earth consciousness for the reality of the spirit to become recognised.
In the first stages of life here, the newly-arrived soul is often bewildered, and needs much care. Usually – there are naturally exceptions – the soul, after greeting its loved ones and revelling for the moment in its own recovery from pain and release from earth restrictions, feels the need for rest.
Then, it retires into itself to rest and recover. During this experience, in environments of great beauty and peace, it is tended by souls trained for such service. How long, in earth terms, they may extend their stay depends upon many factors – the usefulness or the wastefulness of their lives, their achievements or their failures, and the strength and purpose of the soul. Sometimes this rest is lengthy, sometimes a short period will eventuate in realisation, understanding, and the desire to learn more and to understand, even fractionally, the meaning, responsibility and attainment so far, of the soul.
As the children of earth learn to walk, talk and write and to live in this new and restricted consciousness, so the souls here learn to be, to know, and to grow into the wider realisation of the reality of life which never ends. Slowly, and with infinite wonder, our true selves realise and marvel at the divine experiment of soul essence descending into coarse matter, so as to evolve through experience back into the eternal from which they came.
This great experiment has already advanced, and been retarded by failure to advance again for millions of our light years. Mankind can visualize no end to it. Only the creator himself, the originator, the spirit itself can watch, and maybe monitor, as he evaluates progress with failures. This reality is realised here by all creeds and races alike. For all religions have a belief in a power, a spirit force which is all-embracing and eternal. In the halls of learning, of art, medicine and music, individuals of all races shed their differences and work together as teams. This is the world of the spirit, not the plane of differing nationalities.
For younger souls who have yet to experience much material existence, living here (now in the spirit world) either with their families, loved ones and friends, or in peaceful harmony, the soul is experiencing the essence of the spirit. When they are ready, they offer themselves for service in the many fields open to them, or they choose to learn and experience in the spirit of progress in the great halls.
Many souls have been here for hundreds of your earth years. But time does not matter. They will advance when they are ready. For this is the world of the spirit, not the limited experience of material existence. There is no untimely hurry, and no souls are allowed to proceed beyond the stature to which they have attained.
Even during periods of intense advancement and achievement in the universities of the spirit, souls contribute also to the charitable help with those of their brothers and sisters who have not advanced so far on the path. Learning, advancement and service here count for the life of the spirit. Here we learn that the spirit is the very force without which life has no meaning, either in the material world or here in the Thought World. It is, or should be, the cornerstone of our very existence. This spirit of God (Good) is always part of us, always the inner secret energy, whether we are aware of it or not. It does not leave us when the body dies. Indeed, with the freedom from restrictions of the material life, the spirit is released to greater understanding.
Yet, this is not an easy change for new arrivals in this world. Indeed, more than one of these have remarked ‘I wish I had known more about this new world. It is very difficult to understand,’ or ‘I have been over here for twenty-five years, and it has been difficult, but I am happy now.’
Because our beliefs in heaven or hell have been based on material conceptions, those souls who have arrived and are just arriving, have difficulty in understanding or assessing their new conditions without having previously recognised the inner spirit within them. [This is often called the Christ within, the Cosmic Christ, or awakened consciousness, the risen Kundalini, or the Higher Self. Some of these terms are confusing for members of other religions, or to Spiritualists, thinking they refer to Jesus, or the Christian religion exclusively, or to some Eastern tradition, or a New Age cult. Even the use of the word God disturbs some people. But they are not being used in a theological context, but rather refer to an awakening to higher, spiritual levels of thought, and are not specifically religious terms. However, they have connotations which some wish to avoid, so in transcribing and condensing some of these accounts, I try to avoid using religious terminology which might lead to controversy. Richard R.]
Thus, the surprise and probable consternation that all service ranks the same with God, hinders their advancement. On earth, men and women are raised [positions of] honour for their devotion to duty and service. Wealth is earned by good service and ease of living, responsibility and fame. In the next world, such honours, just as the money fortunes built up on earth, are discarded along with the human physical faculties. They, and fame and status, rank equally, no more and no less, than the successes of a good mother, a painstaking loyal servant, or a humble curate serving his God in obscurity and dull routine. An understanding of the purpose behind such a law is, no doubt, difficult and slow to observe. But, so, too, must be the realisation of the fact that we are there to learn, to discover who and what we are, and thus to assess our lives and our experiences as in the life of the spirit. To quote Browning again, ‘All service ranks the same with God….there is not last or first.’
The soul of a person is its judge and its jury. Our earth lives are not just moments of experience, but inevitable patterns in eternity. Earth life reveals the progress of a soul in years of happy successful service or in failure to fulfil its own spiritual pattern. When death occurs and life ends, the soul passes on to further experience. The darkness of earth consciousness, which has not been penetrated by the light of the spirit, clings to the soul newly released from the human body. Jesus spoke of the next life quite clearly:- ‘In my Father’s house,’ he taught, places were prepared for everyone and we would each go to the place prepared for us. The word ‘place’ in this connection is difficult. For the next world is not a place, but rather a state of consciousness.
Thus, the higher, the wider, the more compassionate, self-effacing and spiritually advanced the soul, the more beautiful is the place, or the consciousness, to which it is drawn. Surely, if we think this fact through, we arrive at its truth and heaven is our destination.
In the material world, soul level has been blocked and blackened by what we term as sin, which we recognise as cruelty, greed, jealousy, licentiousness, and perversion of the truth.
Souls at all stages of growth [after they leave the physical plane] pass through this Thought World. Whether they choose to stay here in the dark shadows of the lower worlds, or in the uplands of peace and rest and opportunities for growth, is a matter of their own choice.
As you know, I, Frances Banks, longed to enter the halls of learning and, in my ignorance, found myself dwindling back safely to my own level. There are no rules or regulations, or compulsions. The growing spirits are taken by their thought processes to their true places, according to the record they have brought with them. In simple language, bringing in the sheaves [of their own harvest] illustrates the process of direction to the place prepared for them.
The souls who offer their services [as rescuers and helpers] in that lower world, essay to show these prisoners the light ahead. Yet their task is difficult. The soul so reduced, and enslaved by sin, cannot bear the light. In their poor minds they believe that the darkness hides them.
Helen Greaves once visited these low regions in her sleep, as did Harold Sherman, and Lord Dowding. Stephen Ward, after his death, gives an account of a journey to the ‘nether’ regions, which can be heard in the Direct voice version through Leslie Flint, freely available on his Educational Trust website. Helen, however was not ready for the experience as a rescuer, and was turned back by Frances. Helen writes:
I found myself in a horrible place where there were creatures whose ugliness appalled me. I was frightened by the brutality that seemed to emanate from them. How I had managed to penetrate this dark, unpleasant world I did not know. But there I was, shrinking from any contact, terrified and trembling at their approach to me. Inwardly, I was calling out for help, and I was aware of Frances, in the nun’s robes she had worn on the earthly plane. To my intense surprise, she turned on me sharply. ‘Helen, what are you doing here? Go away. You are not ready for this – you must not come here! Go away.’ She did not have spiritual protection, and was so upset and terrified that she woke up as if from a nightmare.
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