Sophy Burnham's Blog, page 10

Love: The Only Way of Being

One of the joys of writing a blog is to discover that someone reads it. These past weeks I’ve received several reports of spiritual experiences—and I want to tell them all. But I pick only two– both concerning life after death: one came from “C.” (name withheld), whose husband died, and the other is about a dog. (Don’t you love Pope Francis, by the way, affirming that dogs and other pets may well go to heaven: Well, YES! Who wants to be in a heaven without our beloved dog, cat, horse, turtle, snake?)

Story # 1: Bill lay dying in hospice, his family gathered around. Earlier his daughter had asked him for a sign. “ If there is a heaven, and if you’re there, show me a sign. You’re so clever. If anyone can do it, you can!” And then a grandson reinforced it. “You have to give Mom a sign that you’re ok. She’s going to have a hard time with this, so it can’t be vague.”

Then he died. As he took his last breath, a flock of great Blue Herons on the marshes below, flew up and swung close to Bill’s window, sailing slowly by. His wife, “C.”,left Bill’s bed and said out loud : “Oh, come back please, so I can see you!” The herons were already out of sight, but a minute later they flew by again, slowly, slowly, and so close to the windows that she could see their black eyes glance at her. Again they turned and made still third pass, if to confirm that it was their flight was no accident but a deliberate action for the occasion.

The family stayed awhile with the body, and then, some thirty minutes later left: daughters, sons, husbands, grandchildren and a sister of Bill’s.

Outside, as they ran toward their cars, a thunderstorm broke loose, with rain pouring down in sheets, thunder pealing, lightning flashing. A feeling of release and ecstasy filled them. Two of the grown children started whooping and dancing in the rain, shouting: “It’s a good day to die!” Across the parking lot, “C.” watched from inside her car, when to her surprise a rainbow appeared, moved toward them, then into the car, playing on her lap! “Oh my God, there’s a rainbow in the car.” It danced off the grass to the right, and then they saw an enormous double rainbow arc over the hospice, one end pouring right into the window where Bill had died. They stood in awe, never doubting that their beloved father, husband and grandfather had manifested his sign.

“Thunder, lightning, sunshine, hail, and a rainbow in the CC’s lap: pretty weak sign,” one laughed. Then they went to have pizza. Here’s a shot of it on Youtube:

http://youtu.be/GfP_uKk5GuA

Story # 2 was told me by David Tucker in England about Jess, a chocolate lab with tender eyes, who lived only two years before dying of cancer. David was heartbroken. He can still weep to this day, he misses the dog so terribly. Then he told this:

“One day whilst alone, I came home and sat in my lounge, when I noticed a paw print on the sofa where she used to sit. It had suddenly appeared months after her passing.

A couple of days later I was asleep in bed when I heard a noise in my kitchen. I got up to investigate but, finding nothing, went back to bed.

I laid down, then all of a sudden from my left, Jess leapt up onto my bed. She was licking my face and wagging her tail excitedly, and I could feel her legs and warm body. She was not alone, but I could not see who was with her.

I was very excited. I could not believe it! Then she slowly vanished.

This was no dream. It was real, and I don’t care if I’m not believed, because I know what I saw and felt,” he concluded defensively.

What do we make of stories such as these? Imagination? Grief-groping? I know people who dismiss these things as fantasy. But I have heard so many such reports–and witnessed myself the Spirits of those who have passed over, (see my books, including, A Book of Angels, and the Art of Intuition) that I have only one conclusion:  that Life does not end; that the person or dog is not in “heaven” perhaps, but at least in love (is there a difference?), that our loved ones can and do come back, and often in other forms–as butterflies, birds, a majestic stag, a swirl of wind caressing you, an image, a kiss, a swell of your heart, a  sudden “knowing or showing,” and always, they are telling us of love, the only way of Being.

What is Enlightenment

Years ago I interviewed the Dalai Lama for my book, The Ecstatic Journey, Walking the Mystical Path in Everyday Life. The book is about what happens when you have a spiritual experience and what happens afterwards, and it was written out of my own need for such a guide after having had some dramatic spiritual experiences. (We all have them; why don’t people talk about it?) The interview took place in Dharmashala, India, and it was life-transforming. Yet now, years later, I think of questions I didn’t ask. I wish I had the chance to do it over again. And yet, it was extraordinary. First, I was bowled over by his greeting. He saw me walking down the colonnade of his office and living quarters, turned and strode forward, hands out, his face wrinkling with smiles. Holding my hand, he led me into his office, directed me to a couch. “Sit here,” he said, “What can I do to help you?” Wow! That’s how I want to be greeted. What’s with this English reserve I learned while growing up? Why didn’t I ever express such joy at seeing someone? Why didn’t I make them comfortable like that? Right there, my trip to India paid for itself! Second was the depth of the interview. “When I was young,” he told me, “I used to think I could attain enlightenment.Now I know I have only this much.” He illustrated with thumb and forefinger only ¼ inch apart.

I left and went to lunch with the friend who had accompanied me on this trip. And then (sitting in a sweet Tibetan restaurant with its laminated tables and straight-backed chairs), I began to shake with energy that rippled up my spine and out my fingertips, inchoate whirling and swirling through me. Tears poured down my face, and all I wanted with all my heart and humbled soul was to bring enlightenment—surcease of suffering— to all sentient beings, everywhere, in every age, right down to the ants and spiders skittering in the dust. I was filled with exquisite agony. My friend was shocked. “Stop it,” he hissed. “Get control of yourself.” I did. To this day I regret it. What would have happened if I had sent him off to hike while I integrated whatever the Dalai Lama had given me? What if? If only! I know enough to know that the experience itself is not the important event but rather how it affects your life. It is not the moment but the fruits that indicate the depth of spirituality. Did your epiphany make you kinder, more tolerant, peaceful, loving, caring, compassionate, generous, good-hearted, more aware, awake? In the words of Micah, did you“ love mercy, walk humbly with your god?” Or did you revert after a while to old behavior and critical ways? Which brings me to a young guru I read about recently who claims to have reached enlightenment at such and such a date and time. He is now teaching over the internet, and I wonder again about this word enlightenment or awakening.   All the wisdom texts indicate that enlightenment is an incremental process, not an event, but a life-long deepening. True, the Shakyamuni Buddha, having rejected ascetic practices, sat meditating under the pipal tree and attained three vidhya or insights:

into his past lives
into the workings of karma and reincarnation
into the Four Noble Truths. These are that:

. All life is suffering . Suffering is caused by desire or craving (either for pleasure or release from pain) . The cessation of suffering comes through the release of craving . Release is achieved through the noble eightfold path: right thoughts, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.   These insights brought the Buddha straight to enlightenment or “awakening.” But was that all? It seems not. We are told that the Buddha, already fully awakened, spent two hours a day practicing the Metta prayer of forgiveness. Two hours daily he spent forgiving himself for any offenses caused accidentally or deliberately and praying for all beings, visible and invisible, to forgive and be forgiven for offenses they had committed by thought word and deed. Maybe it’s a simple as that: not a state or ecstasy, not a single spiritual Revelation or Epiphany, but just a continual opening of the heart more and more, the constant practice of detaching from desire while simultaneously feeling the suffering of others: It is a limitless endeavor, and probably never fully attained. But how do you eliminate all desire? The Buddha, poisoned by a mushroom at the age of eighty, is said on his deathbed to have said, “The unconditioned consciousness has been attained, and every kind of craving has been uprooted and destroyed.” I’m not enlightened. I have a friend grieving at the death of his beloved wife. It seems appropriate. Even the Tibetan sage Mileropa wept on the death of his son. The tears of grief and desire in such conditions—not quiet detachment—seem to me to BE “right thought,” “right action.” I’d like to ask the Dalai Lama more about enlightenment.

The Meaning of Life

I’ve been thinking about the meaning of life. It’s the kind of monumental question I used to worry like a terrier with a toy when I was young and that I don’t have time for now that I’m older. But occasionally the question arises: Do we make meaning out of a human need for order and control, or is there an underlying Force working things out in Its own way? I‘ve experienced moments (so many!) when it seems that something–spirit guides, angels, some invisible energy–must be crimping Time deliberately to formulate coincidences.

I remember once being invited to have lunch in Manhattan on the same day that I had agreed to take the children to the beach. Of course I refused the lunch and went on making sandwiches for our picnic, when my anxiety grew so intense I thought I would be sick. I cancelled the beach (for myself but not the kids) and accepted the unimportant lunch. It made no sense: we could have had lunch any day! But entering the busy restaurant a few hours later, I saw a man whom I had not seen in twenty years and with whom I had unfinished business. He was in New York from the Midwest for only that one day. We exchanged phone numbers and later had a chance to heal old wounds. What adjustments to Time and Space are needed to bring two people together unexpectedly from across the country?And it’s not always with people who are living still.

Once I was walking down the street, wishing with all my heart that I could talk to my dead father, I missed him so much. I wondered what he would think of my divorce, my books, his granddaughters, all the events that had happened since he died. I wondered if he’d loved me, or whether he’d been preoccupied with his own energetic, creative work. At home I found a letter from my sister in France, enclosing a letter that my father had written to her thirty years earlier expressing his concern and caring for me, every sentence an indication of his love. I burst into tears.

Now I’ve written many books; and now I’m older and wonder sometimes what is the most important thing I’d like to tell my own grandchildren. What can I pass on to others that I’ve learnt: joyful acceptance, gratitude, laughter, resilience, how to look for the good in every one and in every happening. . . . for life is good and it will bring you what is best. There’s more than we imagine going on. I think of Steve Jobs rising up on his deathbed and saying, “Wow! Oh Wow!” before he fell back dead. Or the Japanese friend who told me of a Buddhist priest he knew, whose family gathered at his deathbed, waiting to hear his last words—hoping for the meaning of life. The old man opened his eyes, and broke out laughing, peals of laughter, ringing out, before he, like Mr. Jobs, collapsed and died.

These days I can reduce my thinking to one paragraph that I wrote in A BOOK OF ANGELS. I was telling about the mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, who saw angels all the time, and this is probably the most important sentence in that book, and probably the one thing I’d like to pass on to my little ones if it could only be one.“Swedenborg’s angels stayed with him always, whispering and singing to him. He writes of their communicating spiritually—by thoughts flashing into his mind, and in one of these instructions he learned that angels look on all events as proceeding from God—not as men or evil spirits do, who want everything to come out their way, and when it doesn’t give way to doubt or even deny the existence of God, but rather in an outpouring of faith. His angels repeated again and again that we poor beings should not worry about the future but only trust to providence. For Providence will being all things that we desire—not necessarily while we desire them, ‘but yet if it be for their good, they obtain them afterwards, when not thinking of them.’“ It’s true.

Most people don’t think of the things that happen to them as gifts, but everything is—all of it—the light shining through the brilliant yellow of a maple tree, the unexpected save-your-ass check that suddenly arrives, the loved one who left you, the disaster that unfolds a blessing. . . . What we thought desirable has such thorns we can hardly grasp it; while what we thought terrible turns out to wear a crown. Everything is a miracle. And we are being guided through this miraculous journey of our lives, shown beauty and terror, panic, joy, laughter, music, sorrow, foolishness, anger, horror, forgiveness: It is so good. In the midst of anguish, Love bursts forth like green shoots in springtime. Goethe, the German writer, said it best:

The Gods the Eternal Ones, /Give all things to their Darlings, /All joys, all sorrows. /To their darlings, Everything.

Oh, I have so much I’d like to tell my little ones, and yet in the face of life I fall silent, overcome by beauty, wisdom, foolishness, love, struggles, despair and mistakes, the magnificence of being given first and foremost this gift of life. And then the gift of passing on, of death.

Ghosts, goblins and spirits

It’s almost Hallowe’en again, when we scare ourselves with witches, demons, ghosts and goblins, vampires and zombies, laughing in the face of frightening death; and it seems appropriate to tell a (woooo!) ghost story. I’m a psychic and medium, and like many people I have seen a lot of spirits, some strangers and some familiar, and I’m sorry to report that I have yet to meet a scary one.

I told this story in my book, The Art of Intuition, but it’s worth repeating for those of you who are afraid of dying, who think you snuff out like a candle (sorry, kids, you don’t get off so easy). Often, being in a light trance, I don’t remember what happens in a reading, but this one was so dramatic, unusual and beautiful I can’t forget. And neither will you. I dare you. Try to forget it. And if you do, write and tell me you’ve forgot. . . .

One day when a woman came for a reading, she brought her husband who stayed in the next room. I no sooner began her reading than I was felled by a headache so violent that I thought, “I won’t be able to do this; I’m going to be sick.” Then it came to me that the headache wasn’t mine. “Do you have a headache?” I asked. “No,” she answered. Just then a spirit appeared at me side.

“Oh, there’s a spirit here that wants to speak to you,” I said, realizing the headache had disappeared. “She is calling you Mother. She says you’re her mother.”

“I don’t have a daughter,” she responded stiffly.

“Well, she’s calling you her mother. Oh, and there’s a baby with her, a toddler, about knee high. Maybe a year old.”

“What’s she wearing?” she asked, eyes narrowed skeptically.

“It’s some sort of brown pants suit, not very attractive.”

“Can my husband come in? I think it’s his daughter.” I agreed. Her husband was called in, and the moment he sat down, the spirit flew into his lap and flung her arms around his neck, kissing and hugging him.

To make the story short, the now-deceased daughter had been in the army. A year earlier she had been walking from one barrack to another when she was struck by lightning and killed. She was pregnant. Now she appeared from the Other Side with an infant toddling at her side, and here she was holding her father, hugging and loving him, so happy to see him! He could feel her presence. We all could. We were all three in tears. She stayed only a few minutes, and then she had to leave, return to the Other Side. She took the baby’s hand and disappeared.

What happens on the Other Side of the Great Black Wall? I do not know. There are many mansions in our Father’s House, as Jesus said; and physicists posit not four but 12 dimensions. I think some spirits go to one place and some to another, but we will all have work to do on the Other Side, and much joy. I know that the colors are brighter than on this plane or planet, that music is sweeter and beauty even more beautiful (if that’s possible). I have seen grieving spirits, and wandering, lost ones, and some that are happy and others that are ashamed and regretful (begging forgiveness) of their behavior during their living life, for in those other dimensions, we gain greater understanding, as we develop more empathy, more love, more compassion, until I think there may be nothing but utter and incomprehensible energy, indescribable love. Happy Hallowe’en. Joy on All Soul’s Day.

Sophy Burnham, author of The Art of Intuition, A Book of Angels, Angel Letters, The Path of Prayer, The Ecstatic Journey, For Writers Only, and more.

To Trust

In Anne of Green Gables (usually considered a children’s book) the heroine knows what to do by seeing a flash of light—meaning “yes!” I write of such things in The Art of Intuition and also in A Book of Angels, but I want to empathize here that we all have the ability to discern with deep listening, “What am I to do next?” and “What do you have to tell me?”

I think the greatest hindrance to intuition (and telepathy, ESP, animal communication, etc.) is your own mind. Reason logic, critical analysis tells us intuition can’t be trusted. And this brings me to something I’ve only recently learned.

Believe, and all things are possible! We are admonished. It’s in the Bible. Everything is possible for one who believes, Jesus warns the man who wanted healing for his ailing child. (Mark 9:3) “I believe,” cries the poor father, and then in anguish, “Help thou my unbelief.”

It gets worse.

“Do you believe in me?” Christ asks Mary and Martha, just before raising their brother Lazarus from the dead. What an odd thing to ask. He’s standing right in front of them. But, “I believe!” trumpets Martha. Believes what? In some translations, she lays it out so heavily that we assume the early Church Fathers shoveled their dogma on top of the vague eye-witness reports: “I believe you are the Christ, the Messiah!”

I worry at the word like a terrier. What does believing that have anything to do with easing Martha’s grief at her brother’s death or her anger at Jesus for having stayed away when Lazarus was ill?

But recently I’ve come across some wondrous information.

When the Bible was translated from Greek into English under the reign of King James I, the Greek verb pisteuo, was translated as to believe or have faith or even in some cases, to be righteous. But in Greek pisteuo carries echoes of trust.

It makes a difference.

What if Jesus was asking not, “Do you believe in me,” but “Do you trust me?” It changes everything!

Everything is possible for one who trusts!

Trust, and all things are possible.

Belief is a matter of intellect, and the business of the brain is to analyze, worry, question, doubt. But trust comes from the heart, arising with the simplicity of a child.

“Throw your heart over the fence,” goes the horseman’s adage, “and the horse will follow.”

Trust, and the Universe will bring you your desires!

No sooner do I write this than Intellect and Reason intervene, reminding me of the suffering in this world. Surely those unhappy people trusted too, and look at wars, poverty, degradation, migrations, illness, death—loss piled on loss.

Do I understand this pretty world, the suffering, the purpose of life? No. Do I trust that a Guiding Hand is at my side? Yes, and here’s a by-product: when I trust, I’m happy. It’s that simple—I’m liberated from doubt, anger, fear, desire, hatred, self-dislike. And yet I’s as natural for the Mind to doubt as for a horse to run.

When in my doubting mind, it takes an act of will to trust. Then in my imagination, I turn myself over to Something Greater. I put my hand in His, because even if my mind is full of doubt, my heart knows Something “out there,” is loving me, is loving all of us. We aren’t promised that nothing bad will happen in our lives. We are promised that when it does, we’re not alone.

So what exactly do I trust? I trust in love, beauty, in the miracle of creativity and in the innate compassion of people, the indominable urge to kindness. I trust that the Universe is on my side, caring, guiding us with angels and intuition and flashes of light. I trust that in the words of St. Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well. “

Sophy Burnham

Author of A BOOK OF ANGELS, THE ECSTATIC JOURNEY, THE PATH OF PRAYER, THE ART OF INTUITION, FOR WRITERS ONLY, REVELATIONS, THE TREASURE OF MONTSEGUR

Summertime

It’s summertime when we allow ourselves to relax. Work less. Today I offer one of my favorite quotations that I used in my book, FOR WRITERS ONLY – a few words by Arthur Rubinstein on how to be lucky, happy, angel-blessed.

“Yes,” I said, suddenly becoming serious. “I am very lucky, but I have a little theory about this. I have noticed through experience and through my own observations that Providence, Nature, God, or what I would call the power of Creation seems to favor human beings who accept and love life unconditionally. And I am certainly one who does, with all my heart. So I have discovered as a result of what I can only call miracles that whenever my inner self desires something subconsciously, life will somehow grant it to me.”

~Arthur Rubinstein

Sophy’s 10 Rules of the Universe

I don’t write much about angels anymore. To me, they are so commonplace that I might as well write about the air and trees: sometimes I see them shimmering just at the corner of my eye, or as an energy field standing behind a particular person, and sometimes the trick is to recognize them through moments of supernatural generosity.

Not long ago I remembered a story that still makes me burst out laughing with gratitude and joy. Patrick was a high school drop out, unemployed and unemployable. His father had just died, and walking down the street in Providence, Rhode Island, he was grieving the loss and sense of isolation that attends even the death of someone who has been brutal in the past. He was young, hurt, angry, frightened, penniless, alone and inwardly lost, far from his coal mining roots. What was he to do? Where to go?

Railing against the Fates and a God he didn’t believe in, he felt a piece of paper blown up in the wind stick onto his leg. He pulled it off and started to throw it away when his hand was stayed. He read it. It was an application form for admission to renowned Brown University.

His first thought was to toss it in a bin: Brown was too renowned, too swell, for the likes of him, and then on a whim (why not?) he filled in the form and sent off, knowing that without a high school degree admission was hopeless.

He was accepted on full scholarship, graduated from Brown, went on to law school and is now a successful attorney in Washington D. C., owner of a beautiful house in a upscale neighborhood, married and with a daughter about to go off to college herself.

He thinks of that sometimes – the accident of a piece of paper catching on his leg. Coincidence? Luck? Synchronicity? Angels? Is something Out There watching over us, intervening in our lives? And if so, how do we connect with it – for our good and in the service of others?

I am an old woman now, and I have communed with angels and The Universe, for most of my life. I say “angels,” plural, but perhaps they are all a singular, for who was it who said, “That’s all an angel is, an idea of God”? (I give this quote in A Book of Angels, and while I’m at it, I’ll mention also Angel Letters, and The President’s Angel, and Art of Intuition, and Revelations, and the Path of Prayer, and the Treasure of Montsegur, all talking about the mystery and generosity of the Spiritual Dimension. (Go to my website: http://www.sophyburnham.com for more.)

OK, you want to see angels?

Here are Sophy’s 10 Rules of the Universe

Practice gratitude: if something nice happens, let your heart lift with delight. Give thanks. Most of us walk around blind and half-asleep, never noticing the blessings poured upon us. All day, every day, send out energy waves of thanks. Angels—the Universe—this energy—loves to be noticed. It loves being thanked. It will turn itself (themselves) inside out to give you more!

Be happy. This is not as hard as one would think. Happiness is an inside job, and not dependent on having or getting or buying. It comes instead by avoiding resentment, anger, hatred, bitterness, envy. Everyone experiences the “dark emotions,” but they don’t make us happy. Therefore, don’t let yourself dwell on them (don’t spend time “eating worms,” as my mother used to say). What does everyone want? To be happy. The Universe wants that for you too. It loves happiness. The angels are attracted to compassion, happiness, peace, joy. If you cannot be happy, smile anyway. Just smiling will lift your spirits. Thought follows action.

Forgive yourself, over and over, again and again, even when you think you have nothing to forgive (“it’s all someone else’s fault,” right?). Forgiving yourself is one of the finest and most healthy things that you can ever do. Love yourself as you might love a little child, a baby stumbling as it tries to walk.

Forgive those who have offended you. Everyone fails us. Everyone stumbles, makes mistakes, is struggling to survive with what poor tools lie in their emotional and mental tool box. Forgive them all. You don’t have to hang around with someone who has deeply harmed you. You forgive but don’t forget. Stay out of that person’s orbit, but don’t keep replaying the bad times or the story of yourself, a victim. (I am not saying this is easy, just essential. It takes attention.)

Be kind, especially to yourself. If you are hungry, eat; if you are tired, sleep; if you are angry, tell someone (but only twice! Then let it go); if lonely, pick up the phone and call a friend. Care for yourself. It’s part of the practice of loving-kindness.

Do something nice every day for someone else. Even if it is only to smile and say “Good Morning,” to the bus driver. Even if it takes effort or inconvenience..

Shantideva, an 8th century Buddhist monk, wrote that our motivation, whether good or bad, determines our happiness:

                    Whatever joy there is in this world

                    All comes from desiring others to be happy

                    And whatever suffering there is in this world,

                    All comes from desiring myself to be happy

The next rule is hard to express for it is a way of being, rather than an action.

Have wonder. Like a little child, marvel at the world around you – trees, sidewalks, people, air, sky, stars, the works of God and humankind. Observe with awe and gratitude and joy, as if seeing for the first time, as if seeing for the last moment of your life. Imagine that you will never have your senses again and make this minute last. It’s all so good. Marvel at it. Wonder.

Find beauty. “Beauty is reality seen with the eyes of love,” wrote Evelyn Underhill, the English mystic. It is love that draws the angels to your side. Remember that angels can express ONLY love. Anger, Rage, Fury, Resentment, Violence, Malice and Vicousness blow them away like birds in a windstorm.

Trust. Trust that the Universe is on your side, that when one door closes, another opens, that “they” – the angels, your guardians, guides, manes, spirits—are working to your advantage even when things look bleak. Keep a light heart. It all works out for the OK – and sometimes even for the BEST.

And still, I have not answered your question: How do you see and personally commune with angels? I think, if you want to see them with your own physical and spiritual eye, you have one last, and most important thing to do:

ASK. Which is to say, PRAY. Ask for them to reveal themselves. They WILL, I promise you. Ask and then sit back and hold onto your hat. For they won’t come as you imagine, but they will be revealed.

Everything I’m saying here can be distilled into one simple, overworked, mysterious word: love. Only love. With all your mind and heart and soul and strength, and you will be happy. And you will commune with angels every day.