by Pam Sauer
There are many types of guides, serving many different functions. Master Teachers are usually self-realised, illumined beings. They were masters upon the earth and thus work as masters in the spiritual realms. Examples of master teachers are Abraham, Lao Tze, John the Baptist and White Eagle. Master teachers oversee the growth and development of a great many people. They do not limit themselves to just one individual.
Anyone who works to develop any form of healing will have a healing guide. Anyone who themselves develops illness or injury will also attract a healing guide. (S)he’s the small voice that tells you to rest when you’re sick, probably so they can treat you. A healing guide is usually someone who was involved in healing when (s)he walked the earth.
There are, of course, many other kinds of guides. There are teaching guides who assist us in all our studies. There are lifetime guides, beings who oversee us throughout our entire life. There are spiritual guides who may work with us for specific purposes only. We may have a guide for only a single day or for developing a single attribute. We have family guides, totem guides and even mythological guides.
We have what is commonly called an inner band and an outer band of guides. The inner band are those spirit guides that work most closely with us on a day-to-day basis. The outer band comes into play when we begin to work more consciously on our development. It is usually when this occurs that we meet our guides and become more conscious of the influence of the spirit realm.
Our body has subtle bands of energy around it which develop throughout pregnancy. These subtle bodies serve as a bridge by which we can extend our consciousness from the physical to the more subtle spiritual realms of life. What we can learn to do is to extend our consciousness through these spiritual bodies in a balanced, safe manner.
The subtle bodies comprise part of our auric field. When we learn to harmonise all of these subtle energies and attune to them, we open ourselves to those beings that live and operate in the spiritual realms around us. The stronger and more vibrant our auric field is, the easier it is for us to attune to the subtle realms. The weaker and more unbalanced our energy field is, the more likely we are to draw negative influences from the spirit realm.
Your spirit guides will make themselves known in a variety of ways. Some guides will use symbols – maybe a dove or a chalice or a stone. With others, you may feel a warmth or coldness, or a touch on a particular part of your body. Others may be more auditory. This can range from a simple buzzing or ringing to hearing actual whispers or voices, if you’re very lucky. Some guides will present themselves through colours or fragrances. Some may appear as animals. Others may simply show themselves as they once were in the physical. Most spirit guides are also distinctly male or female.
Most will give names, but some will not. Names are not as important as the information that comes through the spirit guide. Ask your guides for names anyway, as it helps to personalise the relationship. Trust the first name you get, even if it doesn’t seem to fit. I say that because many guides will give you a name that you can remember and relate to. It is not unusual for the name given not to be the true name of the guide. Guides, in whatever manner they appear, use an appearance that will be comfortable for you. I wonder, with the popularity of the native North American culture, whether that is why so many people’s guides present as members of that race i.e. it is comfortable and familiar.
Attitude is crucial to connecting with our spirit guides in a balanced, grounded manner. If we are serious and approach it with ‘head knowledge’ of what we are doing and with a common sense attitude, we will eventually succeed. Please note the need for patience. Fear or impatience can block, hinder or distort the connection. Our reasons for attempting communication in the first place need careful self-examination. If we use spirit guide contact for commercialisation or to demonstrate the ego, we are likely to encounter problems.
Contact with non-physical states has a tendency to draw our consciousness away from a physical life focus. This is why it is important to stay centred and grounded in all work with spirit guides. Our focus should be in the physical. We use contact with spirit guides to enhance physical life, not to escape from it.
By the way, although we have a number of guides assisting us, they are not watching and observing everything we do twenty-four hours a day. They are not voyeurs. You can and do go to the toilet in private! They have other tasks to perform for their own growth. Frankly, most would be bored stiff hanging around us all the time!
A spirit guide will always offer encouragement and build you up. (S)he will display great love and respect for you, just as you are. If the message you receive from a guide is even faintly disparaging, if it tells you what decision to make, or not to make, if it gives you private information about someone else, or runs anyone else down, then it is not a message from a spirit guide. It is either a product of your own, or the medium’s, mind or it is a genuine message from a spirit who is not a guide but another spirit who is not worth talking to.
Spirit guides always display the utmost love, wisdom and discretion. They encourage you to live your own life the best way you can and will guide your journey, but never direct it. That is where personal responsibility comes in.
There is a misconception about the psychic world and the path to higher spirituality today. Many assume that if they are not working actively in the psychic field and don’t know who their guides are, then they cannot be making progress. They feel that if they are not demonstrating psychic ability, they are not growing. It is not the demonstration of psychic ability, and a personal conscious communication with guides that unfolds our potential. It doesn’t even reflect it. Our potential and the reflection of it can be seen in the meeting of our daily trials and obligations in a creative manner that propels us along our individual paths.
The purpose of contact with the spirit realm is the ability to look beyond physical limitations so that we can see ourselves as spiritual beings of light with endless possibilities.
Pam Sauer, Minister