Masters of the Spirit World

Q. Masters, I keep getting chain letters from my friends that promise rewards and riches if I send them to five or more additional people “in the next half hour.” They also promise disaster (or at least bad luck) if I don’t send them. I know that there have been reports on the news that these are all ridiculous and have absolutely no truth to them, but I feel compelled to comply. What can I do?

A. You are used to following the requests of others, particularly anyone you perceive as an authority figure, such as your mother or aunt. You are hard-wired to respond to these requests without thinking. Then, after you have complied with them, you realize what you have done and get mad at yourself for being such a puppet.

We call such feelings within you “belief systems.” They are the rules and regulations by which you are living your life because they were imprinted on your mind as you grew up. Peer pressure reinforces this early learning when those around you insist that you must continue to follow the rules. But, truthfully, it doesn’t mean that you have to continue to adhere to them. You have freedom of choice to make your own decisions and go with your inner feelings.

Most of your peers are motivated by a sense that things like these chain letters will allow them to get something for nothing, and that if you don’t go along you will break the chain and be responsible for their bad luck. They simply refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and want everything handed to them on a silver plate!

You may continue to follow the desires of others, or you can start thinking and feeling what is right for you alone. The choice is up to you. Good luck with your journey. 

Greetings, fellow souls. It’s the second month of your calendar in the new year. How are you doing with the resolutions that you made for 2008? Many people forced themselves into positions requiring diets, smoking cessation, increased exercise, and reduction of  alcohol consumption, with which they were not ready or truly willing to comply.

We observe that many of you—those who were ready for changes that you wanted to maintain—are doing very well with your projects. Others keep saying they will start tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. It is time to stop making yourself miserable and to be totally honest with yourself.

If you made these resolutions at the suggestion or insistence of another person, or just because you thought it was “the right thing to do,” you are not yet ready to change your lifestyle to accomplish them. Any major alteration in your living pattern takes a lot of commitment and dedication. If you are in the middle of stress from other sources, confused about your life plan, or not ready to assume responsibility for your life—erase those resolutions and forget them completely!

The time will come when you are ready to make a major change in your life. You will then be able to complete the change without difficulty. Wait until then.

With love, light, and laughter, we are

The Masters of the Spirit World 

Q. Masters, I know that I am in a relationship that is not good for me. Whenever I am with my boyfriend I can feel myself being drained of all my energy. He is a good person and I don’t want to hurt him by leaving him. I like him but I am not in love with him. I feel that I owe him for all he has done for me. The strange thing is that I had two previous boyfriends and this seems to be a carbon copy of those relationships as well. Can you help me?

A. The first thing we must say is that all souls incarnate to learn lessons, and you all have freedom of choice as to how you experience those lessons. One of your lessons in life is learning your own worth, and knowing that you cannot change another person in any way.

You have had a pattern of trying to please the men who show you attention. You feel an obligation to them if they have invested any time in you, and feel that your needs are secondary to theirs. After you have been in the relationship for a while you begin to realize that your companion does not have the same ideas about love and life that you have, and that he wants a dependent relationship rather than a sharing one. In dependent relationships, one partner is always sucking the energy out of the other. You first think he will change, but when he doesn’t, you want to withdraw.

Early in this current relationship you became aware of exactly what was happening and decided that you did not wish to stick around and be an energy food source. Your lack of self worth is making you hesitate to break off the relationship. “I must owe him something.” “I do like him so I have an obligation to stay.” It is now time to exercise your freedom of choice for your own benefit.

Whatever you do is neither right nor wrong because you are learning from these experiences. The repeated pattern has developed because you have not learned to honor your feelings about these issues. When you appreciate your own individuality and allow yourself to claim the right to your desires, you will have learned this lesson. You will no longer need to repeat all, or part, of it ever again.