I enjoy listening to people debate many different ideas here on the forum. It's very interesting and exposes me to so many points of view.  I also enjoy the different personalities here quite a lot.  

It is definitely unnecessary to allow differences of opinion to become personal, or to appear that way, but it does happen from time to time.    

And, very often, it is difficult to judge a person's intentions and emotions purely from their written words. I have found myself in occasionally uncomfortable situations unintentionally, for example, on the phone, because I could not see a person's face and the person's words sounded harsher when using that particular communication method.

Shirley, you have such a clear and forthright way of communicating that I enjoy so much, and I have very much appreciated your prominent presence here lately.  Augo, what you share here is often fascinating and always heartfelt, and I am also glad you are here.

much love to you both, blink

OMG, here we go again. I refuse to be drawn into this again. What I object to is Augo's laughing and making fun of Shirley. I see nothing funny in that at all or in making fun of anyone. We all have our beliefs and some of us will die with those beliefs. So be it.

Love, Mairlyn

It seems possibly useful to  point out that  a "soul retrieval" is not at all the same as a "redemption".  The idea of redemption is that Godhead manifests in our lives in a dynamic and guiding manner through which we are led from ignorance to true wisdom, to awareness of our true nature, and ultimately to return to the God feom whom our initial spark of existence emerged. There are probably lots of other (and doubtless better) ways to express this, but the general idea is this kind of thing.

Soul retrievals are a specific act of rescuing someone who is literally hung up in some kind of personal tangle that makes it difficult to make the transition fromwhere we are as the body falls off, in a bedroom or hospital bed for example, and the next phase of spiritual evolution, commonly called "the light", which is one of the levels in which spiritual growth occurs in between lifetimes. In a sense we who do retrievals are "helpers", assisting the stuck souls, and ion some small way taking up the burden that otherwise would be totally left to God. (Kinda like medicine helps sick people, so that they don't require miraculous interventions.)

As an example, last week a woman came into my clinic with a depression and unhappy outlook. While looking  for causes and inquiring about feelings etc, she mentioned that at times she didn't feel like herself.  So I asked who she felt like. The response was a boy named Ahn. She said that she would speak his words so that he could talk to me. It seems that Ahn was from somewhere in Souteast Asia, and he had lost both arms. Evidently he was frightened, and in his fright he grabbed the first stable thing he could, which happened to be my patient. This is the essence of a "stuck soul". He was not an "unholy person", but simply had emotional issues that prevented him from releasing the everyday world.

First I asked if Ahn was angry at the person who removed his arms. He said, "No. That was his job." Next I asked Ahn if he knew where the light was. He said, "Yes." Then I asked if he would like to go there - especially since he could have a new set of arms. Again he said, "Yes." So finally I told him to let go, and to allow himself to go into the light, and asked the woman to take a deep breath and allow him to go. And off he went.

That is a "soul retrieval". It is definitely NOT a "redemption", nor do I have any illusions about being some kind of holy man. I'm a clinical technician who helps pry stuck people loose from their sticking places. That's all. That's all any of us who do this work can claim. We have a few natural mediums ("channels" if you prefer the word) who get interesting images etc, but most of us are simply plain old folks who simply love our fellow beings enough to help them out. It's about as holy as patching a flat tire on someone else's car.

As far as "Redeemers" go, it seems that God, in the infinity of all wisdom, has provided a Redeemer appropriate for each kind of person. The Christ is the God-Spirit in the man-body of Jesus, sent for those who are true Christians. For the Hindu there was Krishna, and for the Muslim there was Mohammed. Sikhs recall their guru Nanak. Vedanta brings us Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj - and there are many others - all personifications of the same Godhead in the role of redemption through abandonment of personal life for the good of the universe.

These people carry the Christ in the sense that they bring God to their fellows. They are not Jesus, nor is there any need for such a comparison. They also do a sort of rescue work on stuck souls, but their work is with the lives in which some of thse people are stuck. They offer a better path by bringing a new awareness, and by bringing a direct contact with Godhead, which is a lot more than we do with our individual soul retrieval efforts.

It's funny how we argue about words, especially when we ultimately are in agreement about the truths. Maybe we need someone to come and rescue us from being stuck in this emotional bind. Or, perhaps what we nedd is simply to realize that everyone is right, i at least one way, and in that one way (if not more) everyone is worthy of our love. And worthy without our requiring them to say what we say, think as we think, or to do as we do. If we are willing to wait until everyone and everything is in overt agreement, we'll be waiting here a very long time indeed! But if we see others as worthy of love without conditions, we can PUL our own wait.

(do I need to apologize for the pun?)

PUL
dave

As always, beautifully said, Dave.

PUL
Irene

AUGODIEN AND SHIRLEY PLEASE BE FRIENDS AGAIN LOVE YOU BOTH DEANNA