I AM HERE. Your grandmother. (Ann Rollins, Celestial spirit)
Well, my son, I come tonight, as I promised, for the purpose of writing you a letter, telling you of a certain spiritual Truth that I desire you to know.
I am now in the Third Celestial Sphere, as I already told you, and am now in a much more exalted condition in my knowledge of spiritual Truths than I have ever been, and have had opened up to me a spiritual view that increases my understanding of Truth and of the Father’s Provisions for the happiness and salvation of His children.
I know now more than ever that He is a real, existing God of Love and Power and Wisdom, and that wrath, such as is taught in the Bible, is no part of His Nature; and that He has only Love and Solicitude and Sympathy for His children on earth as well as in the spirit world.
He is not a God that is afar off waiting for the arrival of the “great judgment day” in order to approve or condemn His children according to the deeds done on earth, but He is with all men and spirits in a way that His Influence of Love and Beneficence may be felt by them, if they will only place themselves in that condition of receptivity of soul that such Influence may be felt; for, as we have said before, the relationship and nearness of God to man depends upon the will and desires of man himself to a very large extent.
God is not with men in what may be called His Personality, as has been taught by the teachers of the Bible and the religions of the world. And men do not live, move, and have their being in Him, as Paul wrote, for His Personality has a location which is not everywhere, but is in the high Heavens.
I know that this will appear startling to many persons, orthodox and otherwise, and that it apparently takes from them the consolation of believing and feeling that God is with and in them; but, nevertheless, what I say is true.
He is not in them or in nature, as some of the scientists say who believe in God. He is not in every flower or tree or other manifestation of His Creation. And, as regards His Personality, He is not omnipresent, though He has a knowledge of all things which He has created. I say “which He has created” because there are some things which appear to man as a part of the realities of the universe which He did not create, but which man alone created. And, for these things, He has no Love and does not approve of or favor their existence; in the end, they will be destroyed from the face of His Universe.
And when I say that God, in His Personality, is not everywhere and not with men at all times, forming a part of their being, I do not mean that it shall be understood that He is not the Loving, Watchful Father, trying to make them happy and save them from the results of their own many wrongdoings, for such inference would not be true.
And, as I say, while He is not with men in this Personality, yet, He is with them in the sense and Truth that His Attributes of Love and Wisdom and Knowledge and Power are with them always.
Life emanates from God, but life is not God; it is only one of His Attributes that is conferred upon the objects of His Creation so that they may live and grow and fulfill the designs of their creation. And when that purpose has been accomplished, He withdraws this Attribute of Life from them, and men can realize that fact. God, Himself, has not ceased to be a part of that object, for He never was a part of it; but only this Attribute of Life has ceased to be a part of that object.
God is the Source and Origin of all life. But that life is merely one of His creatures, as we say, as is man or other things which mortals call matter.
Man does not live and move and have his being in God, but merely in the Attributes of God. So, you see, not all these Attributes together constitute God, for He is a Personality from which all these Attributes flow.
I know that it is difficult for you to comprehend the full purport of what I intend to convey, but you may grasp my meaning in part.
Love is a greater Attribute than even Life. But Love is not God, just as Love is not man, though it is his greatest possession when it exists in its purity. And as man has many attributes which all together do not make the man, so God has many Attributes, yet they are only part of His Nature and not His Entity.
Man has a physical body and a mind. Yet they do not constitute man, for he may lose them both and still be man, or spirit; that is, the ego or the soul is the real man-the personality. And all the wonderful parts of man, such as the mind and affections and desires and will, are merely of him. And if he were deprived of any of them, he would still be man, though not the perfect man as when they are all with him performing their proper functionings. Man is so created that, unless he has these qualities which were made parts of him in his creation, and which were necessary to make him the perfect creature that he was, then he is not the perfect man that God decreed him to be. And until these qualities are fully restored or regained by him, he will not be the man that was the greatest Handiwork of the Almighty.
God is not God by reason of having Qualities, but these Qualities exist because they are the Attributes of God. He never loses them, nor do they become hidden or cease to do their functioning, but they are always existing and working and obedient to His Being.
God is soul, and soul is God. And in this soul is God’s Personality and Life, without form but real and existing, and from which flow all these attributes of life and Love, etc., of which I have spoken. God is spirit, but spirit is not God. Spirit is only one of God’s qualities.
I write this to give you some additional conception of Who and What God is, and to show you that He is not in man, nor does man have his being in God. To further show you that God does not, and could not, exist in the same place with those things which are not in accord with His Nature and Qualities, were He in man or man in Him, then no sin or error or things which violate his laws would exist.
I must stop now, but will come soon to finish my message.
With all my Love, I am
Your Grandmother.