INSIGHTS
JULY 2015

Dear Friend:  

I'm sure you know (because I've been telling you so for the past several years) that we are offered Universal Lessons that seem to be intended to improve the quality of our beings. For instance, I've told you for the last few months that we were being given opportunities to learn compassion and to overcome judgmentalism and condemnation. We receive these lessons - these opportunities for personal growth - through life experiences. I'm sure you have noticed that events seem to come in groups. For instance, at a given time the events in the news seem to be about automobile accidents or drunk driving. Then at another time, the news-making events may be all about integrity. When we have lessons in honesty, all of a sudden there are major scandals in the news about people who are being prosecuted for dishonesty. These are so many different lessons. Any intuitive or any adept astrologer can tell you what the "lessons" are at any given time simply by seeing what kinds of events are being spotlighted.

So as I write these newsletters from month to month, I will continue to tell you that we are being given the opportunity to learn a particular lesson in that time. I want you to realize that learning compassion (which means we will be dealing with our prejudices, judgmentalisms and condemnations, all of which are the same thing) is the predominant life lesson for the entire world during this time and continues for as far-forward as I have read (which is to mid-July of 2016). However, in the months of July through mid-August, we will also be experiencing opportunities for forgiveness.

I love coincidences. In fact, I don't really believe that there is such a thing as a "coincidence", but I do love the events that appear to be coincidental, and I always pay a lot of attention to them because I have found they are often very important. But even when they aren't very important (meaning that they don't signify some dramatic event), they are always for me a reminder that Spirit is actively involved in my life. You see, my dear friend Gayle had written me an email several months ago, asking if I would please write about forgiveness in an upcoming newsletter. I had decided that this month would be a good month to do so, and then as I began to focus into the energies and events of this month to be able to predict upcoming events for you, I realized that an interim Universal Lesson for the next six weeks is forgiveness. (You realize, I'm sure, that when I tell you that we are being given a lesson in something like forgiveness, what I'm really saying is that we'll be given lots of opportunities in which to practice forgiveness.)

There are many evolved people who say that they do practice forgiveness and that they don't have any prejudices nor do they condemn. I'll bet you that if I asked them what their pet peeves were, they could come up with a whole bunch of them. I liken a Spiritually evolved person to a person who lives in an absolutely "clean house"; I'm using the house to symbolize the person's being. So if I am a person who can honestly say that I hold no prejudices against any person of another race, religion, political ideology, etc., then my house is pretty clean.

However, if I still have pet peeves (and I do), then I still am holding prejudice, resentment, condemnation against another person. I am not fully accepting another person. I am not considering what they might be experiencing that might cause them to act in a particular way. I am only responding to my discomfort. And so I have a few "fingerprints on my wall" in the form of my pet peeves that I still need to clean up so that I can live in a totally clean house. This has been a long way around telling you that the more evolved soul is called upon to assess their prejudices that are experienced as pet peeves and work to eliminate as many as possible.

I think I've probably said this to you before, but since we're talking about forgiveness at this time, I feel a need to stress this. It's really hard for me to talk about forgiveness, because I don't believe that we have the right or the responsibility to forgive. Now wait a minute, before you gasp loudly and reach for the phone to tell me I'm totally wrong about this, you see, I don't believe that we have the right to condemn another person. I believe that our task is to assess the quality and integrity of our own beings, to live our own lives as cleanly as possible. I believe that holding on to resentment, anger, shame, desire for revenge, etc., etc. is simply holding an attachment to the other person. We are as much attached to a person who may have acted in a manner that has been hurtful to us as we would be if we deeply loved them and yearned for their presence. Remember, where attention goes, energy follows. If we are seething with resentment against another person, we are directing our energy to that person and thereby giving them our life-force energy. When we give our life force energy to someone, we belong to them - just as we would belong to them if we gave them our heart in love. Our hatred of them doesn't hurt them - it hurts us. I'm speaking here also of self-loathing, shame and guilt. As we direct those kinds of emotions towards ourselves, we are attaching to the lowest or most negative part of our being, thereby limiting our ability to succeed and accomplish. And as we fill ourselves with these negative emotions, we become unpleasant to others, causing those whom we wish to love us to distance from us.

When most people say, "I forgive them," what they really mean is "I have decided to not allow myself to hold on to resentment or hatred for that person." So you see, what they are really saying is that they have decided to release their attachments to that person.

It's actually quite easy to release our attachments to pain, whether that pain be from a recent hurtful situation or the result of something that happened in the past. (And I have to say that's not quite accurate because I believe that all events occur simultaneously, that there is, in fact, no such thing as past or future but rather dimensions existing in the same time or space.) All we have to do to release our attachments to the past is come to the absolute realization that every event we experience brings with it an opportunity to improve the quality of our existence. All that we need to do to release our attachment to any pain that experience may have caused us is to seek to discover how that event has improved the quality of our beings. I know with absolute certainty that every painful thing I have experienced, including the loss of my child, the divorce from a husband I loved, being attacked and shot, etc., etc. has made me a stronger and better person. All of those experiences have made me a better counselor. There is very little a person can tell me they've experienced that I don't understand; I've been there.

The one thing that has most benefitted me throughout my life has been the absolute knowing that all the experiences that have been offered into my life - sometimes thrust into my life - have been given to me for my own good. Although they may have hurt like hell at the time, they made me a better person. They helped me to become more compassionate. They helped me to become more aware. They improved the quality of my being in so many ways that I couldn't count them all. The very moment that we recognize the gift that is hidden within our painful experience and accept that gift, the pain dissolves. The pain immediately just goes away, because when we realize that the situation, regardless of the amount of pain it might have caused us, has been truly beneficial for us, then we no longer have a desire in ourselves for any other person, including ourselves, to be punished for that event having happened. We no longer hate or resent or want vengeance because we know that it was given by Spirit and intended to improve the quality of our beings.

I know that most religions and many Spiritual teachings give great importance to the concept of forgiveness. I give equal importance to the concept of releasing attachments. The concept of forgiveness implies that we have the right or even the responsibility to condemn. Since I can't accept that concept, it naturally follows that I don't feel that we actually have it within us to forgive. It is our place to live with our own thoughts, attitudes, ideas - everything within us to be clean as possible - and we can't be clean if we are holding on to nasty, hateful thoughts and feelings. We have to release them in order to be able to move forward in our lives - to live joyfully and to be loving. How can we be loving if we're filled with hatred? How can we be joyful, compassionate, or giving if we're filled with toxic emotions? How can we be lovable and receive the love we need if we are exuding the energy of hatred and contempt? We can't. Those emotions, those thoughts, those beliefs push away from us all that we most want.

We are basically weeding our garden, realizing that there are weeds growing there and we are required to pull them out. So I guess I'd better get busy with my weed-pulling. Hope you get some pulled too. Be careful. Don't let yourself get into any heated arguments. Strive to release attachments to past pain and to others whom you believe may have been the cause of your pain.....and

Stay Focused on the Light....          

Dixie Yeterian