Apprentice to Angels
Book Sampling
Part One

God

"For awhile I shed my mortal life. I flew unimpeded in perfect freedom as pure idea in the sunlight of indescribable Love, Life, and Truth, with no personal boundaries of fear or the need to be anything other than who and what I am—a child of God. Like the confining cocoon of a caterpillar limited to crawling, the hardened chrysalis of my false beliefs broke open and I knew only Love. I had returned home to Heaven—the Mind of God.”

With these words, enter into the mystical life of healer and shaman, Elijah Free. Apprentice to Angels, Elijah’s first book, is about his journey into the Mind of God, what he learned about the spiritual nature of pure Truth, healing, and his life as a healer—his triumphs, his human sorrows and the journey he took to become whole and joyful.

From Chapter One
A View of Heaven

I did not have a body. Like Arjuna, I had been brought into the mind of God as formless consciousness. I existed only as pure awareness in a limitless ocean of absolute light. This incomparable brilliance was the one infinite Self—God. It was an endless sea sweeping forever beyond the shores of mortal conception.

I had been translated with full awareness into the mind of God, while my physical body lay elsewhere back on the earth. This fact did not faze me. In this state of pure and perfect awareness, a body would be considered inconsequential.

In God’s timelessness, there was no beginning and no end. There was only the ever-present now, not bordered by matter, energy, time, or space.5 In subjective earth time, measured by the movement of night and day, this experience would last for hours—an entire afternoon.

This was the Nirvana, or God experience, that yogis and spiritual teachers sought; then, once achieved, taught to seekers of Truth. The exact term in Sanskrit is nirvikalpa samadhi, or great absorption.6 It was the consciousness of the Buddha—the entering into Heaven, where any individual awareness of the mortal self ceased to exist.

What was it like for me to be in the mind of God?
I felt like an explorer in a world that was new and unknown to me. Many years later the reason for this spiritual experience became clear. I was to be a reporter embedded in divine Consciousness for the purpose of reporting my findings.

One with God and still individual in the sense of self-awareness may sound paradoxical, but there is really no other way to express this. In the mind of God, I was pure spirit, without any mortal identification whatsoever—unadulterated being in an endless sea of absolute Being. Personal individuality never needed to be expressed again. There was no desire to be anything other than an emanation of Truth. Yet, simultaneously, my existence was still retained. What did not occur was the mortal fear of annihilation of personality or body.

The mortal conceptions of time and space could not imprison my awareness. My knowingness extended throughout Reality. It was an unending experience of true bliss. I never wanted to be the physical, mortal ‘me’ again locked in a shell of matter, alone and away from God. I wanted nothing more than to stay forever in this sea of joy.

And then I became aware of the angels.
Let me explain what is meant by the term—to become aware or to spiritually perceive. Since there was no material body, I did not have eyes. Awareness as an all-perceiving sight was all around me in a 360 degree circumference, and extended infinitely throughout the mind of God.

Within the ocean of eternal Love lives all the infinite thoughts of God, self-knowing and self-aware. It is like the poem by the great mystic poet, Kabir, who writes about the drop of water that first thinks it is lost in the great and endless sea.9 But after deep contemplation, the drop of water realizes that it is really one with this ocean and is not lost, but sharing in the seemingly infinite qualities of the ocean.

The angels existed as pure consciousness. I was mindful that they were angels or the idea of angels. The concept of space is unknown to heavenly Mind. Everywhere existed all at once and the notion of distance did not abide here. I myself did not have any limitations of consciousness.

It was New Year’s Day of 1999. My wife of that time, Shastina, and I were together on a farm in Northern California, close to the Oregon border. It was a nippy, cold, crystalline-clear day. No clouds dotted the winter sky and the brown vegetation hugged the frosted ground.

The end of our long relationship was fast closing in. We had been mildly arguing over something inconsequential. I turned away in a huff and without watching where my feet were headed, slammed with considerable force into the low, overhanging corrugated metal roof of an old chicken shed.

This was one of those moments frozen in time where I knew considerable damage had been done. And to make matters worse, if I hadn’t been acting like the tail end of a donkey, it would not have happened. My forehead had banged right into the sharpest part of the edge of the low roof. It looked like one of those devices to mince and dice onions that you see on the shopping channel with an assortment of steak knives.
Tentatively, I reached up and felt my forehead. It was badly gashed and painful, oozing blood where it had been whacked on that can-opener of a roof. And it hurt. My head was throbbing to the rapid beating of my heart.

We were many miles away from anywhere and it was New Year’s Day. Making a rapid beeline into the house, I looked in the mirror. Oh boy, what a mess. I had been a paramedic during the Vietnam conflict and knew my way around wounds. There was one deep and swollen gash I professionally estimated would take around fifteen stitches to close. At best it would leave a long scar. The second and smaller wound would take six sutures.
There would be permanent marks of this day for the rest of my life if a physical modality were used to help. Without any hesitation, I decided to rely on God for complete healing.
For awhile, I sat and prayed for healing. Nothing happened except that the wounds hurt more. Clearly a deep insight was needed—to understand that this accident never happened in Truth. I worked for this deep and complete comprehension.
The insight came.

A perfect trust in God’s goodness came over me, a knowing that I had never been out of His care and love, and that this accident truly had not occurred. Since God did not know about the accident, then God did not know about any effects from the accident. In the Absolute, there is only eternal perfection. As a truly spiritual thought, my very being was also eternal and unchangeable. God would have to be injured for me to be hurt. As a spiritual reflection of a divine idea, that perfect idea would first have to be compromised. In divine Principle, this can simply not occur. It is impossible.

Without any doubt or hesitation, I knew the healing was complete. There was a mild sensation on my forehead as the tissue returned to its original state. Looking in the bathroom mirror once again, I observed that the smaller cut had vanished, and the larger one was a thin line that completely disappeared in a few days.

From Chapter Two
God is Father/Mother

Notes from the Life of St. Francis
Francis wandered the beautiful hillsides, listening to the symphony of the winds blowing through the grasses of the ripening golden fields. He stopped to watch a family of foxes cavort through the meadow searching for dinner.

The mother and father fox kept a careful and wary eye upon the small ones who tended to stray off, darting to and fro. The natural wisdom of the parent foxes kept the young ones safe.

Later, Francis came upon a nest twined of small branches in a flowering tree full of hatchlings. The wide-open, searching mouths of the newly feathering birds were a comical delight to watch as the mother and father arrived with small tidbits in their beaks and fed the waiting babies. It seemed to Francis that it was a continual assembly line of love and care; the two highly industrious parents performed their appointed duty so perfectly.
Francis pondered this beautiful scene before him, and also that of the family of foxes. He equated this earthly care to the eternal care of God, how the divine Parent of all good supplies His/Her earthly children with all they need in every way—both material and spiritual.

He remembered how the beautiful 91st Psalm likened God to a mother bird caring for all of Her children beneath wings of pure love. “He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.”

In that special place in his heart where Truth is always known, Francis understood this principle of God. The divine Parent cares for all of His/Her creations without fail. Francis knew God is both Father and Mother, and God’s love upholds and sustains all divine thoughts and ideas in one glorious splendor of creation.
The two parent birds had gone off on another flight to seek more food for their newborns. One of the little birds leaned over too far and lost its precarious balance, falling from the nest. Francis, standing beneath the tree, spread his hands and caught the little bird before it could strike the ground. The diminutive creature sat in his hands and gazed up at him. It felt so tiny and vulnerable. Yet, God in His infinite mercy and love had placed Francis beneath this very tree and this very nest, instructing him to hold out his hands and catch this smallest of creatures.

Francis’s understanding of the infinite love and care of God deepened that moment. He understood better than ever how God provides for all of His/Her spiritual children in such a complete manner. God even cared for the newborn bird falling from the tree.
Francis climbed the tree and placed the baby bird back in its nest. Soon, the two parents returned and began anew to feed their brood.

Francis smiled. God had cared so deeply for this little bird.
Soon the sun would set. Francis began the walk home to his village. He would have a lot to say tonight about how he saw God as Father and Mother.

God, our divine Parent is both Father and Mother.
God is both spiritual cause and spiritual effect. God is the primal creative principle of all that exists that is true and real. All laws of God are infinite, all-encompassing, and all-knowing.

God knows all there is to know about God. God is the creator of all ideas that reside in supreme Mind. All thoughts of God were created as perfect, not awaiting completion, fruition, or evolution.
Evolution pertains only to matter and human concepts, not to God’s ideas. From the inception of God’s ideas an eternity ago, the collective idea called man/woman was created in the light of perfection, for God can only conceive of the pure and absolute.
God as Father/Mother is pure love in action. The care of the divine is to provide a spiritual atmosphere for His/Her children of love to dwell within. Love tenderly cares for all of Its mind creations.

Divine Intelligence does not progress. Divine Mind’s ideas temporarily clothed in the guise of man/woman seem to progress when individual identity as the mortal body, emotions, and mental apparatus are taken to be genuine. Then does the Real, falsely taken as matter, appear to advance and evolve from one state of material being to another.

Nature in its primal essence is heavenly Mind in motion, encompassing the splendor of an ordered kingdom, governed solely by Love. God is Father/Mother to all of nature and all that nature cares for in her kingdom.

Every star in the universe is governed by divine Mind. Supreme Intelligence holds the spinning orbits of every molecule and star system in perfect order for its allotted life span. The material universe is not intended to be eternal in duration.

Each leaf and verdant jungle is under the rulership of supreme Mind. Each individual life in the elemental wild knows their correct place in the perfect rhythms of the organic world. The breath of God is felt in the pristine places not touched by the hand of humanity. That is why so many people retreat to places of unadulterated beauty and splendor for renewal.

The woods and the jungles, the ice flows, the rivers and mountains all participate in uplifting the living soul of humankind. The heartbeat of nature is the same beat felt in the womb as each human body forms from the essence of its earthly mother. The song of nature that we hear is in the rushing waters of the earth, the movement of the winds through the leaves and grasses, the cry of the wolf, and the hum of the wings of a bird. All of nature mirrors the song of God in its endless chatter and rhythmic movement. It is the primal poetry of divine Mind.
Nature is both father and mother to the embodied form reflecting the combined beauty that is so native to the one Mind. The human intellect demands linear expression until it is subtle enough in thought to recognize the remarkably grand scale of Love expressed in creative activity.

A deep sleep had softly enveloped me. Before long I entered into a Dreamtime dream.5 This is where the fabric of the dream takes on a reality as rich as the waking world. And at times even more so.

I found myself walking in a field of tall flowers that were swaying rhythmically in the breeze to the pulse of the earth. In my everyday life it was more than twenty years before the writing of this book. The beautiful town of Mt. Shasta was my home, nestled in the southern base of the twin mountain. In the Dreamtime experience it was summer and in the real world it was the midst of cold winter.

Suddenly a large white horse appeared, with a rider dressed like a Viking Valkyrie, a woman I had never met before.

Since this was Dreamtime, nothing much surprised me. The horse moved with a liquid type of movement that is so akin to Dreamtime, like the special effects in movies when the action is slowed just a small bit so that movement appears so incredibly graceful. The rider’s long blond hair blew in an unseen breeze. Her features were chiseled and Nordic.

She reached down with her hand and said, “You must come with me.”

Our hands clasped and she pulled me up behind her on the horse. Of course I went. This was Dreamtime. For that matter, if she appeared in this world I would have gone with her.
“ I have come to bring you to save her,” she said over her shoulder as we swept along at a more than mortal pace.
The horse’s hooves barely touched the earth. Looking behind there was no evidence that we had passed. Flowers remained untouched and perfect. But after all, this was Dreamtime.
We rode on for awhile in silence, until she called out, “There!” She pointed and I rapidly dismounted.

Before me was a wall of brilliant white light. Part way through the shimmering wall was a woman, struggling against some unseen force that was pulling her into the luminescence. I ran over and without further thought grabbed her around the waist and began to yank hard. At first she seemed to be submerging deeper into the wall of light and taking me along with her. Little by little she disappeared into the effulgent barrier.

If nothing else, I am remarkably stubborn at times and was much more so when young. Renewing my grasp I pulled harder, but to no avail.

“ You must save her,” the woman on the horse told me again. “It is not her time.” I nodded in reply. “One more thing,” she added, “remember this word—Valhalla.”

So I dug in my heels deeper and hauled with all of my Dreamtime strength. She began to emerge from the white light. One more great tug and she appeared the rest of the way.
And I saw it was . . .

The phone ringing in this world woke me with a start.

“ Elijah, you’ve got to save her!” the frantic voice called. It was my good friend, Doug, an older man who was like a brother to me.
“ What!” I said. “Is it . . .”

“ It’s Josephine, old man. We found her a little while ago. She fell down the stairs and laid there unconscious all night. The doctor wanted to get her to the hospital right away. He said her vital signs were really bad. Then suddenly she just came out of it. She told the doctor to go home. She wouldn’t go to the hospital. She said she would die there if she did. She said to call you. You would know what to do. Can you come over right away? Please . . .”
I was not surprised. It was Josephine who had been pulled out of the white light.

But who was the woman on the horse—and why the word, Valhalla? Valhalla was the afterlife in the Viking tradition where brave warriors slain in battle ended up. It was like a big party place with feasts and battle and feasts and battle and so on. They wore a lot of leather and chains and painted their buffed up bodies with tattoos. Just like MTV.

Outside it had been snowing and my car was under a deep white blanket. Doug sent a friend to retrieve me. I arrived and ran into Josephine’s house on the double. My paramedic training always takes over. At that time, Josephine was in her mid-nineties and far from the typical person approaching one century. She was strong and bright and clear, brought up on a farm in the late eighteen hundreds, living through the world wars and the rise of technology.

In spiritual circles, Josephine was well known for decades. I loved her dearly and we had a very close relationship. Doug was her best friend and companion. He cared for her deeply as a son would for his mother. The two of them were as close as any two people could be, and their mock arguments were downright hilarious.

When I entered the room, Josephine opened her eyes. It was evident she was in great pain. Upon examining her, I found, much to my great relief, there were no breaks or fractures. Josephine had fallen down the stairs at night, jamming her left hand, arm, and entire side against the door frame and the wall. Nearly every bone on her left side was out of place or dislocated. As tall as I and much heavier structured, not a single bone was broken or fractured from the hard impact.

“ I wouldn’t let them take me away to the hospital,” she whispered. “I’ll die if I do. I’m hurt too bad for them to fix. But God told me you can do the job, Elijah. Just make sure you do a real good one. I have a lot more to do here before I go.”

The worst of the injuries was Josephine’s left arm, shoulder, wrist, and the bones of her hand. This took most of the first impact. Fortunately, Josephine had the bone density of a horse. Even still, it was a remarkable thing in itself that nothing was broken.

Her shoulder hung at a bad angle and she couldn’t lift it properly. That was the first thing restored. From there, I set her wrist, relieving the pressure.

“ Be careful there, young man,” she said. “I play the piano, you know.” Actually I never really did see her play the piano. I thought it was just something that the cats slept on.

I was very meticulous in my healing work as always, working in the soft tissue along with the bones, respacing all of the vertebra in her spine to their original placement. Along the way, Josephine’s hips were restructured, she had been using a cane for several years. The entire work took two days, and when completed, Josephine no longer needed a cane. For years thereafter, she walked without the aid of one.

Over dinner, I talked to Doug about my nearly forgotten Dreamtime experience with Josephine and the blond Valkyrie woman.

“ Why, that all makes sense to me,” Doug said.
“ Oh? You mean she was a real person?” I asked, very curious.
“ Oh yes. She and Josephine were great friends for many years.

She passed on some time ago. The word she told you to remember, Valhalla, does means something.”

“ You see,” Doug continued, “the woman you saw was once the mayor of Sausalito years ago, as the story goes. Years before she and Josephine met, she was in another business. A house of ill repute, you know what I mean.”

Well, yes I did.

“ And the name of the house was Valhalla. Many senators, police chiefs, politicians, and the like frequented her establishment. When she was young she was a stunning blonde and she rode horses. I’ve seen her pictures. That was who brought you to save Josephine. I’m sure of it.”

When Josephine was asked about this, she said, “Of course it was her.”

Josephine continued, “I did a big favor for her once, and she said that she would repay the favor someday no matter what. Well, she was a woman of her word. I saw her, too, you know. That’s why I asked for you. She said you would heal me. And you did. But you still cannot have my cane!”

I had asked Josephine for her cane as a momento of the experience. To my surprise she said, “No!” Oh well.

From Chapter Four
Finding God

God is ever-present and never away from His/Her beloved spiritual creation—humanity. Since God cannot ever be separated from His/Her children, then the divine Parent can only be eternally available.

God has never lost or severed the eternal thread of love that keeps us safe in our heavenly Parent’s keeping. Divine Mind’s children will find this supreme relationship is forever intact.
Divine Mind supplies to us an endless reservoir of inspiration, goodness, and love. We listen to God with open hearts, our true method of heavenly hearing. God is always speaking to us through His emissaries, angels.

Prayer is the means that divine Mind has created for His/Her creation, man/woman to draw themselves into harmonious relationship with the infinite thoughts of God. Prayer helps us to listen to the never-ending flow of God’s goodness and to bring us into the constant stream of life, creativity, supply, and all that our Father/Mother God has to bestow upon us.

Continued above ->

Prayer is the active undertaking of reaching out to God who is in an eternal state of broadcasting repose. In other words, God is ‘on’ at all times and we work to harmonize ourselves to this divine transmission of the nature of Reality. The more we attune ourselves, the more receptive we become to the word of Truth and the less receptive we become to the impulse of fear, which is the basis of so much of the mortal experience.

Communication always proceeds from God to man/woman. God is all-knowing of everything and nothing can inform or advise heavenly Mind that this infinite Consciousness does not already know. Prayer is not a passive experience. Prayer is dynamic, demanding of the material universe that God’s laws are active and govern all that is seen and unseen.

“And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”2 These are the words of our supreme Parent beckoning all to listen to the ever-present good eternally spoken to us from God’s beautiful and glorious thoughts—angels.

Spiritual listening is learned through deep inner prayer, contemplation, and obedience to spiritual law, which is the unfolding of God’s principle of Love. The more we live within the safety of the Law of Love, the more we prepare ourselves to listen to God and to receive His instructions.

From Chapter Five
Free Will

Notes from the Life of Gautama Buddha
The Buddha sat by the stream.

His thoughts were focused upon the eternal truth of the One Self. A mother deer and her two fawns came upon the Enlightened One. They all stopped in the midst of foraging to gaze upon the Buddha’s fathomless serenity. He sat with legs crossed, hands folded palms up in his lap.

After some time, the mother deer and her fawns returned to their eating. But they did not stray very far. Soon, they came back, after sipping from the stream. They lay down to one side of the Buddha, lost in the permeating tranquility of his divine presence.

A little later, a raccoon appeared. He had come to the stream to wash the nuts he had gathered for dinner. Spying the mother deer and her fawns, he too stopped to turn his gaze upon the figure sitting so still, submerged in heavenly contemplation. The raccoon ate half of the wild nuts. The other half he lay at the feet of this unusual human. By the end of the day, many other animals and birds had come upon the scene by the stream. One by one and in pairs, they gathered peacefully together. An ancient turtle had climbed out of the stream, sitting with legs and head extended—his old eyes closed. A great tiger sat quietly next to a young goat. An eagle perched beside a rabbit and a scaled python lay upon the ground with two small mice reclining in his coils. Many other animals, birds, and lizards were also present.

Late in the afternoon, the Buddha’s favorite student—Ananda, arrived with a wooden bowl, filled with rice.3 He came upon the Buddha sitting in nirvikalpa samadhi—complete absorption into the mind of God.

Ananda looked for a space to sit, which wasn’t easy at this point. Finally, he sat down next to the tiger. The great beast turned towards the faithful disciple, emerald green eyes flashing in the late afternoon sun like jewels. Ananda patted the tiger on the head.

The Buddha opened his eyes and smiled. Ananda handed him the bowl of rice. Piled up in front of the holy man were many other tidbits brought to him by the animals. There were nuts, berries, seeds, different fruits—all borne as gifts of love and devotion to the Buddha.

Nowhere was their any disharmony among the animals. They were all naturally following the will of God.

“ What do you see here, Ananda?” the Buddha asked his disciple.

“ I see what appears to be many different beings in many different forms, all giving praise to you, Enlightened One,” Ananda said.
“ They do not praise me,” the Buddha replied. “They praise the One Self that is the same Self in all. This is what they feel and acknowledge. When peace and love reign in the heart of the Buddha, then so will peace and love reign in the hearts of all who come upon him. This is truly free will.”

The Buddha continued. “Free will is following the will of God. Even the animals who dwell in the deep forest know this. They gather here to listen in that special place in their hearts where Truth is always known. For awhile they can lay down the burden of the world and cease to regard each other as killer or prey, and immerse themselves in the peace and tranquility of the One Self.”

Ananda nodded. From the Buddha’s discourses, he understood more deeply about the eternal Truth of his being.

Human will is the way of man. Free will is the will of God.

Free will is living under the government of God. Human will is following the extraneous urges of the personal self.

Free will is living within divine Principle. Human will is ignoring the laws of our eternal Parent.

Free will is living the Law of Love. Human will is selfish and leads to separation from Heaven. Free will is the knowing that all children of God are perfect ideas and are subject only to the good that God has already given. Human will is suffering. Free will is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Human will is subject to change at any moment. Divine will is freedom. Human will is fear. Divine will is love.

Free will is a principle of God that can never be changed. It is not subject to revision or upgrade. It is already perfect, and that which is perfect cannot be further perfected. All that God created has been complete forever and will be so throughout eternity.
Divine will is immortal and can never be harmed or lost. Not all of the bombs and weapons of mortal ignorance can alter one strand of the beautiful fabric of our Parent of all good.

The heavenly principle of uplifting thought is a powerful driving force of humanity. This grand principle aids in shedding the last remaining scraps of individual identity. Free at last, we dwell forever more in the infinite ocean of divine Mind.

During my conscious journey in the mind of God, there was never a time that I ceased to exist, to become nothing. Since you, I, and everyone else, are a perfect reflection of God, not in quantity but in quality, then the Parent of this reflection in principle cannot absorb back Its creation—us—and nullify our existence.

When human will and ego finally stop striving to achieve, when personal and small differences are allowed to dissolve into their original nothingness, and when Truth and the upholding of Truth are first and foremost, it will be found that the last barrier to divine intimacy is fear. This fear is the terror of complete and final dissolution and/or annihilation of the individual consciousness, often mistaken as personality.

From Chapter Seven
Relationship

There are two types of relationships.
The first is the relationship with our heavenly Parent.
This is immutable, unchangeable, and eternal. This relationship can never be changed, limited, diminished, or eradicated.
The second is mortal relationship, wherein there is the human attempt to imitate—not divinely reflect—on earth what is in Heaven.

Our relationship to God is through the eternal principle of reflection. Divine Intelligence has created all things that are good by way of His own image and likeness—reflecting—not duplicating.

In human relationship based upon gain and loss, the natural compulsion is to add or subtract something to change the quantity and/or the quality of something. There is the supposition that the current state is not complete and therein lies the necessity to work toward a greater wholeness.

Completeness is a quality of reflection since all goodness is from God, and that goodness is full and undivided at all times. “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” God cannot give more than what He has already given. All goodness, all supply, all love is eternally present.

When relationship is seen from the human side, there is the perpetual feeling that something is missing. There is the bottomless, consuming desire that an element must be added, accumulated, or increased. Human misunderstanding tries to inform us that we will now be whole—this missing ingredient will complete us and our lives will be different, better, and fulfilled.
This absent part may take the form of a personal relationship, a job relationship, a monetary relationship, a material object relationship, an accomplishment relationship, or other classification of relationship. Whichever mold it may fall into, it has as much possibility of genuine and lasting fulfillment as a rainbow has of holding up the weight of the world on its refracted curve of prismatic light.

In our relationship to God, we are forever held in the deepest Love, in the womb of creation from where we can never emerge. Our lives are lived in pure Love at all times, without cessation or diminishment.

Attention directed toward worldly things which shuffle between gain and loss shroud the Truth. They are illegitimate shadows obscuring the light, shadows that attempt to fool by projecting desirable shapes and experiences onto the senses in a never-ending play of phenomena and objects that are taken to be true. Obtaining an object of desire gives momentary feeling of false completeness—that all is well and for that moment nothing further needs to be gained. The moment does not last very long at all.

These sense objects are incorrectly recognized by the sensory apparatus as real. The rational mind, encompassed by the human brain, collects these feeling experiences and stores them as personal memory in two basic categories: good or bad. The division into good or bad is subjective to the individual. What is good for one person is not necessarily considered good for another. For the most part, human experience is subjective, judgmental, and whimsical—based upon personal desire, need, and fears—and not on Love, Principle, and Truth.

Most everyone is seeking something or someone to complete them. A song bears the lyrics, “I complete you, you can complete me.”4 That about sums up the basis for most personal relationships. Someone desires someone else so the two of them can add up to the sum of one—a complete one. In this misunderstanding of their already divine state, the seekers do not comprehend what they already have been given. God’s Love is full and complete at all times.

Mortal love is subject to loss. The constant friction of earthly life wears away all that is impermanent. The human experience of love works to accumulate experiences which attempt to staunch the leak of human life that is allowing the moments allotted to the relationship to constantly diminish until its time comes to an end.

Time is the destroyer of all earthly experiences. Within the confines of time, one grows old, changes, leaves this life, or undergoes other permutations. The effect of time upon human life causes it to grow like a flower. Life begins as a newly-born bud, sprung fresh from the seed, opening to the sun. The bud unfolds its petals and the flower ripens into the fullness of maturity. It releases its seeds to propagate and wander on their own. And then it grows tired, withers, complete in its cycle, vanishing from the memory of the earth as if it had never been.

We are taught that life is an endless drama of striving and dissolution. Children are conditioned to collect experiences or accumulations of human ideas called possessions to fruitlessly attempt to hoard enough to outweigh what will eventually be absent. Life becomes a totally futile race to neutralize the inevitability of loss.

In a popular film, the hero at the end is about to ascend to the movie representation of heaven. He states, “It’s amazing. All the love inside, you take it with you.”

How very true.
However, you also take with you all of the accumulated reactions of the unloving experiences. These combined experiences, both of God and of mortality, are judged only by you and no one else.
Heaven on earth is here and now. We live in a constant state of unchanging grace. Grace is knowing the love of God that affords protection from the alluring wiles of suppositional evil. Grace is accepting what is already here and not seeking greener pastures elsewhere. When this blessing is realized there ensues a relaxing of the incessant, internal pressure.

From Chapter Eight
The Chimayo Angel

God created angels to speak to His children. They are the soft whispers that we hear as we fall asleep at night. Angels are the first thing we hear upon awakening, and are present at our birth and death.

Angels do not have a form as we think of it. They do not have feathery wings and shining halos, but are pure thought with a nucleus of absolute love. Our eternal Parent’s angels are grace in action and bestow heavenly gifts whether we know it or not. Angels carry God’s thoughts of universal Love and Its manifest expression to all until we are able to hear God ourselves.
Angels are the soft whisperings to eternally do good. They lead us to the light and are the antithesis of darkness. Since angels are pure thought, and thought cannot be confined to any location, they are always with us. Believe it or not, but at these times they are the closest, in our greatest times of need

I have met an angel on this earth. For literary ease, the angel will be called by the male pronoun—he. Here is the story. It was many years ago from the time of this writing. My prior wife and I were on a trip to one of my most favorite locales—New Mexico. Our journey led us to a special place called Chimayo.

I think of all New Mexico as spectacular, with its sweeping vistas of mesas, deserts, pueblos, colors, and sunsets. But there is something even more special about Chimayo. On this land is a church built by a river, and in this holy place, healing miracles occur on a regular basis.

It is not an impressive church such as you might see with huge arches and spires that point to the heavens, but rather a very humble structure of adobe and exposed beams. Yet, there is present an element of heaven.

The church, El Santuario de Chimayo, was built long ago near the river. Spanish missionaries came to teach their religious beliefs to the local indigenous tribes, and discovered through the native people that healing miracles occurred on this land. So, the missionaries claimed this beautiful gift in the name of their god and called it their own.

The land at Chimayo is one of those rare places that is a true coincidence of mortal and holy thought. An angel has anchored a portion—a very small portion, of course—of his consciousness in this location. The consciousness of an angel may be in many places simultaneously.

There are very special places on the earth where God’s thoughts are close to His children. They are beacons that point the way home to our Father/Mother God. Within the protective confines of the aura of the great angels, a sample of heaven resides—a glimpse into divine Mind.

Where such an angelic consciousness resides, human thought must be uplifted. The lower ideas of humanity are nullified—they cease to exist. Disease, infirmity, and illness are all manifestations of thought mirrored forth on the body from the human mind. When a petitioner came humbly into contact with the higher consciousness of the angel, often the problem would be eliminated. The difficulty had all of the substantiality of a mist evaporating before the morning sun. It just simply faded away, like the old memory that it never was.

We walked together quietly, through the wooden doors of the church into the cool confines of the adobe mission. Inside everything was painted with great care and love. Sound seemed to lessen. In the air hung the sweet taste of the earth.
In front of me, above the church’s altar, resided an angel, resplendent with huge pure white wings, long hair, robe gently moving from an unseen wind, and a face unlike any I have ever seen before—the epitome of peaceful beauty and love. There was a reason the angel appeared as an archetypal image. The projected hopes and wishes of centuries had created a thought form that cloaked him like a mentally projected mirage. When anyone caught a rare glimpse of the angel, he appeared as, well, an angel that one would expect in a movie with really great special effects. Beyond this image, I could sense the foreverness of the angel, extending into other realms beyond human under
standing. Tears began to sweep down my face. Our eyes met and I thought my heart would cease to beat from all of the years of abuse and pain that still dwelt within me.

My companion observed that something was going on that she could not see. She asked me in a whisper. I told her about the angel. She could not see him. At that time I had not come to the awareness that others could not always experience what was common to my enhanced senses. In surprise, I thought to the angel, “I can see you.”

The angel thought back, “You can see me.”

Angels do not talk with human words—even in thought.
Intercommunication is a vast collection of information that instantly occurs within the mind. There was the recognition that I could see him, and that no one else usually did. A lot of other pertinent data along with the history of the angel at Chimayo was also transmitted to me. Together with my companion, we walked to the front bench and sat down. Tears ran down my face. I just sat looking at the beatific countenance and thought how good it would be to die right there and then and put an end to my suffering life. The angel and I had been gazing at each other for some time. He lifted a hand, beckoning me to come toward him. At first, I thought he intended for my physical self to rise and go forth—but that wasn’t what he meant at all.

Instead, a shadowlike portion of me rose up. Its back towards me, the apparition slowly moved, walking with some difficulty towards the angel. The splendid snowy wings began to open, spreading across the altar of the church.

My shadow-self reached the angel. It briefly hesitated. Then it turned to look back at me.

On that face, the exact image of mine, was every bruise, wound, and pain ever suffered from the ravages of abuse while growing up. They were not just physical injuries, but the marks of the emotional and spiritual beatings that had occurred.

My tears began to flow even harder, and the breath caught in my throat.

Silently, I stared at this pitiable part of me. The angel’s wings spread, and the poor shadowy twin stepped closer. One last time our eyes met. I was horrified at the pain that dwelt in the lingering image of my own eyes. The same pain no longer lodged like a large splinter in my own heart.

The magnificent wings closed about the replicant, enfolding the image of misery within a womb of love. I softly waved farewell. It nodded to me and turned away forever.

When the wings unfolded again, it was gone. I wept with gratitude.

Something in me began to come alive. My heart took a deep breath and I stepped more expansively into life.

A little later we left, the angel still steadfast above the altar of El Santuario de Chimayo, and in a thousand other places as well. After this beautiful experience, I called him the Chimayo Angel. Another step in the path of a long healing had been surmounted.
Angels are always here when we need them. It is a matter of listening when the heart stills enough and the mind quiets. Between the droplets of pain that seem to rain down from the skies and the icy, dangerous highways of life, there is a haven of safety for everyone.

Angels are the beloved thoughts of God that never cease streaming forth from our divine Parent. Everyone can listen. No one is exempt.

Divine Love cares for all of Its creations, from the smallest to the greatest. We are angels ourselves. We are God’s beautiful thoughts of love, when we care for others in their times of need, putting our own small motives aside to give freely when love is called upon to deliver someone from the torrents of pain and isolation. In God, we are perfect images of truth and love already. In this world we are all apprentices to angels, learning the lessons of selflessness and sacrifice that are the milestones on the path back to our heavenly Parent’s home—divine Mind.
When the call comes to aid someone in their darkest hour of need, do not turn aside. With open heart and welcoming arms, forge ahead, a beacon of light and salvation. March into the valley of the shadow of death, and lead that loved one safely out. Do not tarry there, but with God’s speed, take their weary hand and carry them when they are too tired to endure another step. The strength we need is there, for God has already given it to us. With each step that we take, carrying that precious burden of love in the nest of our arms, is another step out of a world of suffering and closer to the one of heavenly Mind.

God gives His angels a special duty on the earth. It is to harvest new angels to take up the call of eternity to guard the children of Heaven from the dark of the night, until their human souls have found their way back to the Father/Mother of all. Being an angel is a great job. It has excellent benefits, good hours, and a salary worth working very hard for. The apprenticeship could be long and means that you may need to grow up more than you might originally care to. But in the end, it will all have been worthwhile. One day you will pause in your duties and look back at all of the good that you have been privileged to be a small part of. The feeling is wondrous.

When your time here on the earth has come to an end for awhile, you will continue to learn this exalted occupation. You have an eternity to do so and forever to labor at it. Advancement is rapid for the hard worker, for the ranks of God’s angelic ideas can always make room for another apprentice angel.

Applications are in your heart. You may fill them out anytime you wish with the good deeds that you have accomplished. Letters of recommendation have already been filed from everyone to whom you have ever selflessly given your love, putting aside personal motives, and caring for those who were in need of angelic aid.
Personally, I have found being an apprentice to angels a good career move.

I hope that you do, too.