Masters of the Spirit World

QUESTION: Masters, on a number of occasions you have spoken of the lengths we go to in order to choose the families into which we incarnate. As I understand your messages, we are setting a stage upon which to perform our various lessons. Is there a way to know how much of the stage is necessary for our task? In other words, do we have to continue to interact with and be responsible for our biological families? Do we owe an allegiance to them? Why do we feel so obligated to them?

ANSWER: What we have spoken of even more than “setting the stage” for your experiences, is our tutoring about freedom of choice and honoring yourself. When planning an Earth lifetime the desired lessons are selected first. Next is discussed the best way to ensure those lessons get brought to you.

These parameters are all set in generalities, not specifically. You don’t say, “I am going to have a beloved Uncle Joe who is going to sexually molest me when I am five years and ten months old.” You decide instead that during your formative years you want to experience betrayal which will also have sexual and trust issues entwined.

Overlaid on the stage you have set up are belief systems that surround your stage. Your family, the community, your religion all have delineated rules that they insist you should obey. At first you don’t even know that you have a choice not to obey them so you unconsciously accept.

If you never become aware that you have choices, you will continue to live by these rules. But you can see choices if you go inside yourself and allow your feelings to show you the alternatives to blind obedience. When you begin to recognize a freedom of choice, you must then decide whether you wish to continue being a puppet or will take the reins and drive your own experience.

Because families form our first and strongest awareness in life, behavioral beliefs surrounding your interaction with them are the strongest to break. Beginning in earliest childhood they set the controls to manipulate your whole existence. It takes people who have become firm in their knowledge of their self-worth to buck the trend and go against this societal pressure.

We have merely explained the origin of your feelings toward family members. Examine those feelings now. Stay or go depending on what you feel you need to learn.

QUESTION: Masters, I wish first to thank you for the teachings and messages that you bring to us. I have studied the teaching of Buddha and have a question about “anatta” (or no soul). How does the concept fit into the idea of a soul that carries on (reincarnation)? Is it just my concept of what I perceive a soul to be that is getting in the way of my understanding this question?

ANSWER: Buddha provided many ponderings for the mind as well as disciplines for the body. All the modern compilations that have brought his words to the current age have suffered a little in translation. He was a master not only at stimulating spiritual growth but also affording a complete understanding of the bodily experience that allows us to use his teachings.

Each age, race, creed, and religion has a series of core beliefs called its belief system. These common understandings define the opinions, practices, feelings, and yearnings with which people may identify to be a part of the desired group. Similarly, all human beings have a belief system by which to conduct their individual life.

Unless you blindly accept the entire package of a group, your belief system comes from many sources: your upbringing, community, schooling, reading, and religious affiliation. Your confusion arises because your belief system has become complicated by semantics.

Buddha spoke of the essence deep inside with which you seek to connect to reach enlightenment. Organized religions refer to this essence as the soul. They speak of the soul as being indestructible and the aspect of you that is the recipient of reward and punishment for your decisions made during each lifetime. This is a mixture of Buddha’s “essence” and the chain (reward and punishment) that religions use to control their flocks.

The physical ego that exists solely for judging each aspect of life prevents an understanding of Buddha’s words. We Masters use the term “soul” to speak of the essence within the human body that is part of Source and never ends. To understand the full meaning of “soul” you must divorce yourself from the hold of ego and go inside to the place of evaluation where there is only knowledge and wisdom; it is the place of “no soul” to religions.

QUESTION: Masters, I have become obsessed with and addicted to reality television. I can’t seem to get enough of shows like Survivor, Wife Swap, Supernanny, Biggest Loser, Big Brother, and The Amazing Race. I identify with contestants on The Bachelor, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I will watch them in their time slots and record them if they conflict with something. What is my problem?

ANSWER: Your problem is that you do not like to face reality, at least your own reality. The time you spend glued to your television takes you into someone else’s life and away from the trials and tribulations of your own.

It is very easy to sit and identify with or criticize what the contestants do in reaction to the so-called “life situations” the programming throws at them. To the losers you say, “I wouldn’t have done that, you stupid idiot.” And to the winners you say, “You were just lucky; I knew all those answers or could have done that task even better.”

You use the various situations to pass judgment both on what you have done in the past and the comments that others have made concerning your behavior. You have not learned the lessons that have come to you in this life. You ignore them and don’t see them as having any effect upon you.

When you watch the shows, some of those hidden tests come and face you, but you still cannot see them as applying to you. You can evaluate the performance of others facing the same tasks.

Until you can connect these reactions you are experiencing during your television watching to your own life, play a “what if” game. What if that were me in there—why would I do what I see myself doing? How does the entire situation make me feel? After viewing the episode, what have I learned about myself?

Life presents you with innumerable ways of learning the lessons you chose before you incarnated. Use your compulsion to learn yours.