Animals in Paradise

"(Life) ... a majestic, unceasing, unhurried, forward movement

brings things stage by stage to the condition we know them by now."

~ Thomas Troward ~

[First posted 6/22/13]

Risen reader Debbie shares:

August, Tim, finding The Risen came at just the right time for me. I feel the light and truth emanate forth from all of you, and your writing is exquisite. I cannot fathom how you put everything you did into words, and did so beautifully. I felt that I was carried along by soft, gentle waves, and even what portions of material felt intense to me - and some I do not yet fully comprehend, I admit - I know that in time I will.

Your love for your cherished animal friends I share with you, and to know they are safe in the arms of The Risen gives me great comfort.

I wish to ask you something that has been on my mind for some time now, even before I got your book: I would like to know if there is a special prayer you might recommend or suggest, or a Risen team I can call on in prayer to help animals on Earth who are unloved and who do not experience a dignified passing. Do they receive help immediately upon passing, animals such as those in factory farms and shelters? I think of them almost constantly and want to know if you may have suggestions for prayers. Or do I rest in the knowledge that The Risen gather these sweet souls into their arms and I am worrying and fretting for nothing. Any perspective you might have I am grateful for. Animals are so precious, so close to The Risen world, and it pains me that a single one suffers in any way.

 Debbie, we are grateful for your kind and beautiful words about your experience with the Risen material, and we rejoice that you have found something of value in our book. We know that many find it daunting in its density, but as we have noted before, it's not meant to be "Metaphysics 101" or "Mediumship for Dummies." In many ways, it was written out of time for those not yet in it, which is another way of saying "for the future." Like you, those who view their life with a posture of open and conscious awareness, and with lack of fear and worry, are able to face living with a forward perspective, knowing with total trust that "my good goes before me and prepares the way."

Our furry, feathery and leathery fellow creatures occupy much of our lives. Whenever I look into the eyes of an animal, I see the gaze of Creator Source looking back. Thus have I come to understand what "love" is, through the indeterminable depths of their souls. They have never lost their innocence, and unlike us, never will. They can lead us back to Risen pastures, where life is always good, and grazing and water as perfect as the calm and peaceful skies overhead. Many of us will be met first by our beloved animals as we step from the terrestrial to the Risen lands, for each and every one has as divine a purpose as we do. I have met many animals in the Risen geographies whose intelligence and understanding far passes my own, and at whose feet I sit in wonder, a grateful disciple.

We share your sadness about the unconscionable injustices done to animals on this planet. Pray ... always pray. It might gladden you to know that all the profits from our book (plus a good deal more) go to a special organization in our city that provides free veterinary services to those who can't afford them. This is one concrete and immediate way in which we can help. Other friends volunteer at a special hospital and sanctuary for the wild birds that stray into the city and become injured. Still others, like our friends at The Forever Family Foundation, are directly involved with rescuing feral cats, spaying them, and finding homes for the kittens. There is no lack of work to do, is there?

You may recall from your reading of The Risen what Tim revealed about our "dwelling places" that await us in The Summerlands—

“You know of the mind’s powers, August, as you’ve been creatively manifesting your own dwelling places all along. It’s similar to how living spaces are manifested on earth. The place you live in now did not exist until you decided to find it, and then your mind began to conceive of possibilities—from there your inner vision proceeded to externalize them. Your entire world experience is one immense, complex manifestation on the material plane. Cities, towns, and houses on earth previously existed only in people’s minds. Granted, the external manifestation process is much slower and tedious on your material plane than it is in the Risen states, but the principal is the same—mind manifests reality. All the fantasies about places where you would love to dwell not only become possible once you transition into Risen life, but they can begin to manifest even before your transition. It depends on one’s mental and emotional clarity, one’s will, and especially one’s self-evolution, which together bring enlightened understanding of Mind and its unlimited abundance.

     “While you’re dreaming of that cozy little cottage or even a castle tucked away in some hidden glen, the strength of your desires will cause the building elements to come together in the realm of the Higher Mind, which is your mind, my mind, our Mind—it is all One—and particular elements of light will coalesce into an actuality that reflects those desires. The more it becomes real to you in your mind, the more it becomes ‘real–ized’ on the higher planes where such things are meant to occur. The Risen are capable of manifesting realized wonders of landscape and architecture, which are their dwelling places and are far beyond the physical possibilities of the earth plane.

      “Of course I’m speaking of the positive, spiritually inspired powers of the individual use of Mind. To the extent that one’s thoughts, dreams and fantasies are able to manifest in ways that are beautiful and meaningful evidences the degree of spiritual evolution, of the self-love and self-esteem that enable and support the love and esteem of other individuals, and the level of understanding that Mind is a shared experience as well as an individual one. There are those on the earth, who, for whatever reasons unique to their experience, understanding, and individual evolution, are unable to manifest much more than a Risen tar-paper shack—if even that. While they might be able to fantasize about a sumptuous Hollywood mansion, more than likely the nature of that image is of the earth-bound, ego-mind’s desires and so could not in any real way be imaginally expressed in the higher astral realms.”

So what this mean, dear friend, is that by your good works here, you have been laying up treasures for yourself in The Summerland, which await your arrival and habitation.  "My good goes before me and prepares the way."

I have been aware of my own "Risen estate"—which is rather vast, and indescribably beautiful, for many years, and visit it all the time when my body sleeps. It is rare I can remember much, for such Risen realms do not translate well, if at all, into the meager brain thoughts of a human body; there simply is little for terrestrial memory to grasp and hold for us.

The very special thing about this estate is that it has always been open as a sanctuary for any and all animals that I have had some kind of relationship with—directly or indirectly—and to whom I extend the invitation to go there and dwell, and bid them to enhance it and their own lives with the complete peace needed for recovery from their earthly sufferings. Not only all the dogs and cats I've ever lived with are there, but every little bird that I've come upon that has transitioned or will soon; every squirrel, mouse, snake; every belabored horse I see drawing its heavy load of tourists through Central Park receives my invitation to advance there at any time of their choosing. When I see or learn of the suffering or loss of an elephant, dolphin in the news or on TV, any and all animals receive my prayers for healing and the invitation to go live on my estate. It is good it is so vast, for herds of elephants need a lot of room!

You can do this, too. Simple, isn't it? Yes, always strive to remember that you can ask for help, for there really are Risen teams of healers waiting to hear such requests. They will assist and guide, as well as teach and even themselves learn in the process, for Life—"majestic, unceasing, and unhurried"—is also Learning, Discovery, Celebration.

I close with these words of Tim from our book—his response to Eternity—

"Perfection is not something to be attained; it is something to be realized, to awaken to. Oh, the incredible ecstasy of awakening to the realization that there is no end to awakening! There is no end to Heaven, continually unfolding and revealing itself as we awaken to ever-increasing awareness of having our being in and as paradise.”

Risen Geographies and Dwelling Places

[First Posted 5/18/13]

Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist and founder of Lab of Misfits, gave a TedTalk in 2009 that used optical illusions to demonstrate how we perceive the world.  He investigates "how the human mind makes sense from the senseless." Underlying the fact that we can never truly see what's "out there" but only what's in our head, shaped by how our brain has learned to interpret various signals, are these ideas Beau offers:

"No one is an outside observer of nature ...each of us is defined by our ecology ... ecology is necessarily relative, historical and empirical."

These ideas come startlingly close in some ways to how one may begin to imagine how life is experienced as Risen; especially poignant for me is his demonstration as to how sights can be converted to sounds, using the example of a 6 year old's painting, converted to music. On earth, we have the physical body, acting as a filter for the incoming information from the Universe around us; the ego-mind, generally uncontrolled by Authentic Self and given free reign, makes judgmental choices for our emotional and psychological behavior, according to its own hidden agenda. Without the terrestrial body, which (usually) ends the ego-mind's dominance, our world is revealed to us on a very different level of perceived truth, indeed, many different levels.

Tim shares in The Risen:

"... light is also sound and therefore music is light. Each and every single unit of life is a light-filled tone and tone-filled light. Every thing vibrates and all movement produces light and sound. All universes are an ongoing symphony of infinite drama. Your life on earth and beyond it is a melody. This is less apparent on the earth due to its great density and lower vibration, which dulls and deadens the spirit, greatly lessening the connection every thing has with everything. It becomes more obvious on those planes beyond the Earth as we become more refined and of greater vibration.”

"Ecology" is highly resonant to the concept of "geography" which the Risen directed me to use in our book. It means not only our surroundings, but because we are inextricably immersed in it, it also means our worlds: the climate, the weather, the air, the light, the sounds, its history(ies), its feelings. One of my brothers is a wildlife technologiest (a fancy name for a park ranger) and he once explained to me about the ecology — or world – of a tree. We can see the tree, rising out of the ground, spreading its branches and leaves up and into the world around it, touching other trees, and their worlds, merging into a collective of worlds within worlds. Each tree is breathing, taking in elements through its roots and leaves, and then releasing others back into the air. Each tree gives off heat in the form of energy and reflective light. Every cell is alive with non-stop activity. Every tree gives harbor to many other life forms.

Beneath each tree, if one observes with patience, are other plants -- grasses and baby trees, fungi, each with its own ecology exactly like the Mother Tree above them, and all immersed in Mother's world, and merging into one another's. These worlds interpenetrate, interact, teach, learn, implant, extract, love. "Worlds within worlds", as the oft-repeated phrase in our book goes.

In the recent posting "Return to Summerland" I attempt to share what it's like being in a Risen geography while not yet Risen -- not easy! Here are some interesting excerpts from the book that Tim shares in his attempts to describe his own ecological experience:

The word ‘live’ is not quite correct in connection with the way dwelling spaces exist here—actually, ‘dwell’ works much better. And the word ‘time’ isn’t exactly right either. I don’t dwell there all the time—hardly ever, actually, for there is far too much beyond it. Infinooty! There are never-ending environments for me to explore or manifest and occupy for as long as I want. 

I see you are wondering what lies beyond this tiny apartment where Bigfoot and I sometimes rest. Nothing and yet everything lies beyond it. When I go for walks through the old neighborhood, it’s the same, yet so much more. Each and every thing is alive, suffused by glowing, pulsating, prismatic lights, filled with life and energy as the sun-filled trees in the parks, effervescent as the fountains which give forth music, their waters welling up and cascading down pieces of sculpture that are never the same. Birds, animals, butterflies, and flowers of exquisite and dramatic beauty populate this geography. It is all a manifestation of my mind, yet infinitely more. 

We are of the same Mind, and so wherever or whenever we are, Mind Is. There is no place or time Mind can’t be. If we move ‘outward,’ that movement can continue without ceasing, manifesting environments within which to dwell. The very movement of Mind is manifestation. If we move in a way that we desire to be ‘inward,’ the result is the same. If I desire to dwell in light or darkness, or seasons and weather, there are no limitations imposed upon my desires except those I place upon them. (1)

Of course I’m speaking of the positive, spiritually inspired powers of the individual use of Mind. To the extent that one’s thoughts, dreams and fantasies are able to manifest in ways that are beautiful and meaningful evidences the degree of spiritual evolution, of the self-love and self-esteem that enable and support the love and esteem of other individuals, and the level of understanding that Mind is a shared experience as well as an individual one. There are those on the earth, who, for whatever reasons unique to their experience, understanding, and individual evolution, are unable to manifest much more than a Risen tar-paper shack—if even that. While they might be able to fantasize about a sumptuous Hollywood mansion, more than likely the nature of that image is of the earth-bound, ego-mind’s desires and so could not in any real way be imaginally expressed in the higher astral realms.

For example, the nature of greed appears to manifest in the earthly realm as an energy that is able to acquire, accumulate, and manifest imagined wealth in all its forms of ego-mind desire. In the Risen Worlds, however, the nature of greed, having been individualized and nurtured through belief and habit on the earth, but now accepted into the infinite capacity of Authentic Self, is no longer a toy in the hands of the limited and now dissolved ego-mind. Instead, through the greater and unlimited power of the Higher Mind, the emptiness of greed is like dry air blowing over a parched landscape. And that is what most likely will manifest—landscapes of vast, empty expanses of dead and dying vegetation, unable to grow or revive from lack of the energy of a loving, serene spirit that is connected to Original Source, whence outpours all sustenance.

I see the greatest gift we have been given by Original Creator Source as the ability to change our mind. Many, many souls, upon coming to a stagnated state of mind, become trapped by their ignorance of their true nature, which is that the Mind of the Highest Self is also their own mind and is shared by all individualized minds. The illusion of ignorance further manifests as an illusion of fear, and thus seems to result in a trap or as ‘hell.’ Many of our spirit rescues here involve the answering of mental and emotional cries for help from souls imprisoned in the illusion of their fears. Others never seem to feel the need to ask for help, and some even knowingly resist it.

It’s greatly comforting and invigorating to know that Nature—that is, flowers, trees, gardens and forests, animals, birds, and people, are awaiting us when we leave this terrestrial experience and transition to the next.



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(1) Tim’s experiences sound very similar to the currently developing theory of biocentrism, which posits that life and biology are central to being, reality, and the cosmos — life creates the universe rather than the other way around.