All posts by Lemfel

Astral Plane, Astral Pilot?

October 22, 2016 Lemfel 7 Comments

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Proverbs 17:22

Conversations About the Astral Plane

A good friend died suddenly while on vacation, which came as a shock. He was my first friend in my new profession, helping me immeasurably as I started my practice. So I kept busy trying to repay his kindness by helping his wife as much as I could.

After several days things settled down. At dinner one evening, I was suddenly struck with just how much I was going to miss Dan. We had talked often, gotten together for lunch every week and now, I realized, those times were gone. I started to cry.

My wife came around the table to give me a hug and some comfort. During all this, I was acutely aware that my four-year-old son, quietly eating and seeming to ignore us, was very much aware of what was going on. Knowing I needed to address the cause of my tears with him, I asked if he knew why I had been crying. He nodded. “Because Dr. Dan died.”

“Right,” I said. “But he didn’t really die, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Where did Dr. Dan go?” I asked, welcoming this teaching opportunity with my son.

“To the Astral Plane,” was his answer. (In the Lemurian Philosophy the Astral Plane corresponds to heaven.)

“Right. Good job!” My heart swelled with pride and gratitude as a myriad of thoughts flashed through my mind. How wonderful it was to be teaching universal principles to him at such an early age. How the truth of reincarnation would simply be part of his consciousness; how he’d grow up with an understanding of truth from the beginning of his childhood. He was a new Lemurian in the making!

My reflections were suddenly interrupted as he brought me back to reality. I could almost see his little mind churning as he asked the question he must have wondered about ever since we began teaching him about death and reincarnation:

“Dad. Who’s FLYING the Astral Plane?”

Happiness & Wellbeing

Extremes or Moderation and Balance?

October 15, 2016 Lemfel 8 Comments

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues. – Joseph Hall

Today’s keyword must be EXTREME! Extreme sports, politics, candy, drinks, flavors, electronics, escapes and more drown out the subtler tones like a rock concert makes it hard to hear life’s normal sounds for awhile. In all the noise there’s little space for the gentler peace of moderation and balance. Do these terms seem boring in the extreme to you? Or do the quieter vibrations of moderation and balance resonate at some deep level as you search unconsciously for the serenity these qualities promise?

How would you rate your personal balance? Is your schedule hectic, filled with too much to do? Do you gulp down fast food because you’re too busy or tired and just want to feel good, hoping those fries will do it? All of us crave exhilaration in meeting the day’s events and complementary times of peaceful rest. But how can we experience that if our calendar alarm launches us full tilt through our waking hours?

Counterintuitive as it seems, things begin to settle into place if we can get off the merry-go-round long enough to slow down, be still, and listen. At first the hectic pulse of life outside your door may seem to make this impossible. Your mind races off in seven directions. You may feel extremely uncomfortable being alone with your own thoughts at first. But on the other side of that discomfort beckons a sense of tranquility and self-control well worth the effort. Are you strong enough to calm your unruly thoughts, turn off your phone, TV, or computer and explore the wonders of quiet reflection?

In these precious moments, can you talk with God about yourself, your life, your fears and your gratitude, and trust He is listening? And as they tell us to do on a flight, put your oxygen mask on first, so you can help others with theirs.

Why make that effort? Because, if the most important requisites for human spiritual advancement could be summed up in two words, they would be moderation and balance.

A fanatic can’t be moderate because he closes his mind to everything that doesn’t agree with his view. He refuses to consider any except his own which gets narrower and narrower until it becomes a rut. Fanaticism, prejudice and intolerance bring so much human misery. Moderation, open-mindedness, and tolerance lead inevitably to balance, understanding, and inclusion.

To make important progress as human beings, our lives must be lived in a way that equalizes spirituality, mentality, and materiality. As we move closer to that beautiful balance, real advancement comes within reach. You can prove this for yourself. Pick one place where you know you go overboard. Maybe when you talk about something you’re deeply interested in, you over-embellish and say too much. You know how this affects you when you hear it. But how restful and interesting to listen to someone who is moderate in his voice and his words. Almost always, moderation is more convincing and reassuring than wild enthusiasm.

So start today to use moderation and balance in all you say and do. Consciously reach toward that peaceful, controlled outlook so characteristic of those like the Masters, who are really advanced, knowing the nearer we come to balance, the closer we are to earning a place in the better world of tomorrow, and the more we can help those around us.

Why not try it for a week? Let us know what happens. We would be most interested.

Personal Development

Battling a Hoogwar at Home

October 8, 2016 Lemfel 13 Comments

[Dr. Stelle’s history of early Mukulian civilization, The Sun Rises, describes an attack by a hoogwar, the ancestor of our modern jaguar, on two young men of that time. For today’s Lemurians “battling a hoogwar” has come to mean grappling with one of the difficult challenges in our lives.]

One Sunday morning after the housework was done, I sat down at the computer to work on a task I thought would take about fifteen minutes. An hour and a half later I was still correcting, rewriting, and feeling pitiful because I was still such a klutz on the computer. (At 75, I don’t pretend to be computer savvy, but I keep trying.) Several times I was sure my document was just as I wanted it, but every time I printed a copy, there was another glitch I had missed. To add exasperation to impatience, the printer gobbled up one page and refused to do any more.

Realizing I was slipping into terminal “poor me” mode, I shut off the computer, went outside and walked around the house admiring the sunshine and the fact that the dogs, at least, were behaving themselves, then went back in to try again. That in itself was a minor victory.

I am not computer friendly, and they are not friendly to me either. We have a longstanding adversarial relationship. All I ask is that they perform as I want them to, but they, with little less than fiendish persistence, continue to be extremely picky about how they insist I am supposed to give them my instructions. So doing anything on a computer has pretty much become my Waterloo. I would rather handwrite a letter upside down under water than go through the agonies of composing one in front of that disapproving screen.

As I worked up the courage to try again, I thought of something I’d read about Albert Einstein. While working on his Unified Field Theory, which absorbed him for over thirty years, he studied quietly for hours at a time – which, for a scientist, may be much like meditating.

When blocked with a problem, Einstein stayed calm and serene, moving down different mental paths until he found a way around the roadblock.

I went back to the computer more focused and aware of the pitfalls I’d fallen into earlier. Maybe battling a hoogwar was an overly dramatic way of thinking about this, and made it seem harder than it needed to be. Hurrying hadn’t worked, so slow and steady was the plan, checking and rechecking along the way. During the period I was gone, the computer and printer seem to have talked things over, tossed out whatever I’d fed them that they didn’t like, and now were uncharacteristically eager to get the thing done the way I wanted it.

In a very small way, I had triumphed by establishing my own calm serenity, as our philosophy tells us we’ll need to do often with the many upsetting incidents that can arise in our daily lives. I may not be as far along as Dr. Einstein, but I sure felt much better as I finished my job and turned off the computer that morning.

Help - Receiving & Giving

Lemurian Advice About Advice

October 1, 2016 Lemfel 10 Comments

Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most like it least. – Johnson

Lemurian Advice About Advice — Advice is often needed in the shop

In his history of the Lemurian civilization, Dr. Stelle tells of Rhu, the greatest archer of that age, trying to help his brother make a more effective bow. But in the competitive spirit of brothers, Grut would rebel. In time, Grut became interested enough to actually ask Rhu about this. And then he followed his directions to the letter! This story highlights an important Lemurian principle about advice and a well-loved saying from those days,

Advice unasked for is much like salt. A little of it goes a long way. – Lithargos

Lemurians believe every adult has a divine right of self-determination, the right to accept help (advice) from others, or not. There’s a delicate balance to be observed, and giving advice when it is neither asked nor wanted can be a serious intrusion into others’ lives.

How do you feel about advice? Do people listen to your efforts to help, and do they seem to benefit from your words of wisdom? Turning this around, do you listen to and benefit from advice others direct your way?

Have you tried to correlate your giving and receiving of advice? If your hackles rise when anyone tries to suggest a tip or show you a better way of doing something, how does this affect your own efforts to advise others? If you think about advice from others as a pain in the neck, does this deter you from giving advice?

On the other hand, if you look for and find the good in the help people offer you, does this make you a wiser and more competent advisor?

Benjamin Franklin wrote:

Those who cannot be counseled, cannot be helped…there is nothing to be done but wait until experience comes forth to teach its lessons. We can give advice, but we cannot give conduct.

So while we have the right to disregard all help from others – the natural tendency of every two-year-old – we find it pretty slow going if we insist on meeting every experience entirely on our own without guidance or assistance. Yet, as the quotation admits, experience is the best teacher. An experienced swimmer can give us all the best pointers, but until we get in the water and try it, there’s a lot we still have to learn for ourselves.

There’s a problem with advice: to the receiver, it’s only information, not experience. It may work for the person who tells us about it, like a health remedy Aunt Sheila swears by but doesn’t do a thing for us. So we have reason to be skeptical about advice, and careful about offering it. We don’t want to seem less intelligent or like we need advice, of course. But don’t you admire people who listen to and value others’ input?

Sometimes our best help is simple, unspoken support. But what if we have a sound, provable bit of information we very much want to offer a struggling friend who seems deserving and could surely benefit from the counsel we could so easily give him? How can we offer this in a way that will be most acceptable and least offensive? Coleridge offers this poetic suggestion we could all benefit from considering:

Advice is like snow; the softer it falls and the longer it dwells, the deeper it sinks into the mind.

Ancient Wisdom

What I See in You

September 24, 2016 Lemfel 9 Comments

We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are. – Robert D. Stelle

A man drove up to the Lemurian Fellowship and asked, “Will what I see in you convince me to study Lemurian Philosophy?” I didn’t feel I could answer that since we all look for different things in life. But we have a common need to feel secure, to be loved, and to be working toward meaningful goals. Obviously, this complete stranger could see no such things in me, and I understood his desire for some kind of proof. We’re sure people who talk to us often wonder, “Will what I see in you make a real difference to me?”

Even to try something that seems only good takes a leap of faith, and often we trust only our physical senses. Yet even this may not be enough. Many saw Christ heal the sick and the blind and raise a man from the dead, but didn’t go on to follow His word or His example. There is something deep within each of us we must get in touch with before we feel the driving urge to pursue the truth of God’s goodness and His help.

I tried to explain this sense of longing in those who are truly searching for the spiritual path that will fill their need. I felt that kind of longing when a friend suggested I could benefit from this study and I asked myself, “Will what I see in you lead me to the Lemurian study? What does this philosophy have that I need?” I decided it was at least worth trying, and how glad I am that I took that risk! I have been richly rewarded with peace, security, and the most worthwhile goals a person could hope for. Still, most people would probably not see or sense this about me, or my Lemurian friends, at a glance.

Lemurian students spend our lives striving to become ever better human beings, so of course we hope some of the worthy qualities we are trying to develop and express will become increasingly apparent to people. We hope you will find us friendly, helpful, and interested in you, for starters. And I hope that what I see in you is an earnest desire to explore the Lemurian path.

We sincerely want to answer your questions about what we do, how we live, and why you may want to look into this training in how to live more successfully. But answering these questions is often not easy, since people come to us from so many backgrounds and approaches and no one answer can satisfy everyone. But even if our answers raise more questions in your mind, that may be a good thing. You may not yet have come around to asking some of the questions the Lemurian Philosophy can help you answer.

We hope you will be patient with us if our first attempt to answer your question misses the mark. Because one of the truths taught in our Philosophy is that there is no such thing as an accident. There is a reason you have driven up the Fellowship driveway, taken the road to Gateway, struck up a conversation with a Lemurian student, or found us on Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest or Reddit. It’s one of those rare times of unusual opportunity, when your life could change in surprising and beneficial ways, as ours have. If we can give you a hint of that possibility, we will have accomplished what we hoped to do in talking with you, and the rest, of course, is up to you.