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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH  ZEN TAO

Q:   As I look around the world today and see all the violence and bloodshed that is taking place, the daily evidence of Man’s inhumanity to Man, as I see Man’s destruction of Nature, of the Kingdoms over which he has been given dominion, it seems to me that our world is slipping into chaos, a time when God is no longer in control of events on the Earth.  What do you say to that?  If our God is indeed a God of Love, I cannot believe that He would impose such suffering upon us.

ZT:  When you use the word ‘chaos’ you are implying that this World exists in a state of total disorder, a place where no rules or laws apply at all, and this is most certainly not the case.  Your World is very ordered.  The Laws of the Cosmos are fixed and immutable and Man is subject to them at all times, whether he recognises that fact or not.   The truth of the matter is that human life is very ordered, even down to the minutest detail.   The Force of Destiny is all pervasive in this respect.  Now on many occasions in the past I have compared life on the Earth to a drama, and like a drama that you watch on the stage it appears to be real, but it is not.  That is the illusion of the drama.  It is only people acting.  A child, a young soul, may watch the drama and believe it to be real, but an adult, an old soul, can see through the drama and knows that it is simply actors playing roles, that no-one really suffers and no-one really dies.  Indeed, an actor that is murdered on the stage quickly rises again to play the same role at the very next performance!   So the great  drama of life is performed as a learning experience, both for the actors and for the audience.  You learn lessons about life, about yourself, from your observations of the drama that is being depicted on the stage.  It is only if you choose to identify with the roles that are being played on the stage that you are forced to experience the emotions associated with those roles.   You choose to experience all the emotions being expressed by the actors.  You choose to experience their joy and their suffering.  It is not a case of the actors forcing you.  It is your choice.  However if you clearly recognise yourself as being the observer of the drama and do not get sucked into it, if you stand back, so to speak, and choose not to identify with the emotions and the actions of the actors, then you will have learned the valuable lesson of detachment.  You will have recognised that you are not your physical body but are an eternal soul that is never born and never dies.

Q:  Well it’s all very well you saying that, but an awful lot of suffering is going on in the world, and unless you are totally indifferent to it, unless you are totally unfeeling and have no compassion at all, how can you just ignore it?

ZT:  What concerns us of the spiritual hierarchy at this time is the fact that so many of you, although old souls, have forgotten who you really are.  You are identifying with your physical bodies, your physical identities, of this life.   You are being sucked into the great drama that is now manifesting.   Truly, at this momentous time in Human evolution, as you enter the time that is known in the Bible as Armageddon, you will witness events taking place on the Earth that will test your faith in God and His creations to the very limit.   Let me assure you once again that the soul does not suffer.  What you are witnessing on the Earth right now is simply the balancing of human karma as the Age draws to a close.  It is an unfortunate fact of life that suffering draws a person closer to God, because it is only when they are truly suffering that an unspiritual person turns towards God.  There is nothing wrong in having compassion for another person’s suffering, for offering to help them in their hour of need, indeed it is your duty as a human being to do so, but what you must not do is to become one with their suffering, is to allow their suffering to become your suffering.  If, for example, there is a horrific train accident with dead and injured people everywhere, and you are a doctor, unless you stay detached from the suffering around you, unless you view the suffering as an observer, how will you be able to help those people in their hour of need? 

Q:  The trouble is that the number of people in the World today who are suffering is growing, the massacres are getting bigger, the droughts and famines are getting worse, everything seems to be accelerating.  I feel so helpless.

ZT:  It is a fact that the world population is rapidly expanding.  The number of actors on the stage of life is rapidly increasing but this is because we are approaching the finale, the final act of a great drama.   Everyone wants to be present on the Earth for this great moment in human evolution.   The karma of the Earth and of Humanity on it is speeding up as there is a desire to wipe clean the karmic slate before the beginning of the New Age.  It was just the same with the ancient civilisation of Atlantis fifteen thousand years ago.  That is why disasters seem to be greater and more frequent than in the past.  Take faith in the certain knowledge that no-one suffers unjustly, no-one suffers without due cause.  The Law of Karma is a just law and everyone draws to themselves the karma that they have created by their actions not just in this life but in many past lives.  If you feel helpless in the face of this suffering it is because you are trying to take the karma  of the world on your shoulders.  Your God is a just and loving God.  Your God does not give you a karmic burden that you cannot carry.  Concern yourself only with your karmic burden, not the World’s.

Q:  It seems to me that some young people here in the Western World have a death wish where drugs and alcohol are concerned.  Is this all part of God’s plan for Humanity?  

ZT:  Many of the souls that are now incarnating on the Earth are very young souls, some of whom are incarnating for the very first time.  As such they have a relatively low point of spiritual consciousness and their physical needs and desires are very different from those of an evolved soul.  They are attracted to the glamour and the illusion of the physical world.   They worship the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification, no matter at what the personal cost.  They create in their own image rather than in God’s image, they create for self-satisfaction rather than for soul-satisfaction.   Their thought-forms are creating vast clouds of energy around the world to which an unaware soul can be easily drawn.   So it is imperative that all evolved souls listen to and follow their inner voice, their conscience, and seek always to align themselves with the Force of God that pulsates within them.   God has given you the gift of discrimination and you should use it wisely to ensure that you stay on the spiritual path and do not get distracted by the illusory glamour of the physical world.  Recognise that life today is a test for everyone, each according to the degree of their spiritual point of consciousness.

Q:  The trouble is that life is so real to us.  Human suffering is so real.   When someone dies you feel the loss.  When your son becomes a drug addict you feel the pain.  It is hard to see life as a drama, as an illusion, no matter what its purpose, and to become an impartial observer.

ZT:  No-one ever said that life was easy!  A test is a test is a test!  Only Truth, the Ageless Wisdom, has the power to set you free from the bondage of physical life.  Unfortunately the drama has to appear real in order to present a test for all those who need to believe in the drama.   When you go to the theatre and you see a tragedy being enacted on the stage you must realise, on one level, that the actors have gone through a lot of rehearsals in order to achieve this reality.   Nothing is left to chance, as an act of random fate.   The director of the play strives to ensure that the scene is totally real.  How much more so does the great director in the sky, your Creator, plan and stage the great Drama of Life.  Nothing is left to chance, to random fate.  Your Creator knows the nature and capabilities of every human soul, knows the degree of its karma and the lessons it needs to learn.  The drama is planned meticulously, without error, for the benefit of all who take part in it, for every level of consciousness.  Many souls will watch the same drama and yet will all learn very different lessons from it.   

Q:  It seems to me that the best way to avoid all the distractions of the world, if you are a fairly evolved soul that is, is to withdraw from the world and is to live alone.   Become a monk!  What do you say to that?

ZT:   Very few souls have the capacity to live in isolation, to withdraw to the  mountain top, so to speak, and to spend all their time in meditation and contemplation.   You should certainly not do this as a form of escape, to avoid all the distractions of the world because you cannot handle them.  It is only those few rare souls who recognise the drama for what it is, who are no longer attached to the world and who, in fact, have risen above the world, that should withdraw from the world.  Such beings, through the power of their minds, through prayer and meditation, can contribute greatly to the well-being of the World.  For most souls it is simply a case of balancing the inner and the outer worlds, of inbreath and outbreath, of tapping into their soul knowledge within and then manifesting it in the outer world.  If you are not spiritually grounded, how can you even begin to understand the drama of life around you, to see reason and purpose in human suffering.   You have to look at life not with your physical eye but with your spiritual or third eye, for it is this third eye that sees the true nature of physical events, that can look with compassion and yet not be attached to what it sees.

Q:  So all suffering is a lesson?  Every brutal rape or murder has reason and purpose?  I find that very hard to believe.

ZT:  Nothing ever happens by chance, there is no such thing as an accident.  You all draw events to yourself according to what you have created in thought, word and deed either in this or in past lives.  No-one ever suffers unjustly.  The rape or the murder of a person is not an act of random chance, a fact that they just happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.   You are all magnetic beings.  You draw unto yourselves according to the deeds that you have done either in this or in past lives.  As you sow, so shall you reap.  You inherit the harvest of the seeds that you have sown.   The very life that you are living right now is determining the destiny of your next life.  Truly the innocent are always protected by God.  Only the guilty suffer.  A righteous Godly person can walk through the Valley of Death and need fear nothing.  This World is not in chaos.  It is well ordered by God.  Have faith in this fact.      

 May I remind you, once again, that you have come to lead your life and to learn your lessons.  Do not concern yourselves with the lives and the lessons of the millions of other souls in incarnation on the Earth at this time, or you will be swamped.  Do not take into your being all the suffering of the world.   If you look with an aware eye, with your third eye, you will often be able to discern the reason for the suffering.  For example, you can look at the conflict in Palestine, between Jew and Muslim, a conflict that has been going on for generations between people who purport to worship the same God, a God of Love.  Although you, as an outside observer, can see a simple solution to the problem, can the people who are involved in the conflict see or even accept that solution?  Can children who are being raised in an atmosphere of hatred and division ever hope to find that solution?  You cannot solve their problems for them.  Only they can do that when they embrace the power of Divine Love and recognise that all is one.  All that you can do is to send them your positive thoughts, to remain non-judgmental and to pray for them.  You may have learned the spiritual lesson that they still have to learn, but you cannot learn their lesson for them. 

Q:  Is not such an attitude a little self centred, only thinking of yourself and of your problems?  Should we not always be striving to help our fellow human beings?

ZT:  Of course you should always help your fellow human beings when help is asked for and when you are in a position to help.  That is the very essence of being human.  But with some conflicts that is simply not possible.  The very nature of a drama involves conflict, for it is that which creates momentary conflict in your mind that leads to spiritual growth and evolution.   So it is not within your power to end most conflicts and the problems that come from them.  Even a great being like the Master Jesus, even though he sacrificed his life and brought about a major shift in human consciousness, was not able to end human conflicts.  In this Age conflicts will always be with us.  It is the nature of the times in which you live.  So you have to search for the meaning and purpose of a conflict, to become aware of what is the lesson in it for you.  The lesson of any conflict is in how you view it, how you resolve it and what divine perspective you place upon it.  You learn from the drama either through awareness or experience.   If you can see clearly what is happening, view it as the observer, then you don’t have to participate in it.  This is the more pleasant way of learning.  But if you cannot do this then you will have to actually participate in and experience the drama, which is a much more painful experience!  If you watch someone put their hand in a fire and burn themselves and you are fully aware of what they have done and what are the results of such an action, then you don’t have to put your hand in the fire to learn the same lesson.  It is the wise soul that chooses awareness over experience!

 It is only when you choose to separate yourself from the Source of All Life that you enter the world of chaos and confusion, a world of your own making.  If you are at one with the God Force within you, then you can see clearly that life is but a passing dream, an illusion, and that your physical body is just an instrument to help you to experience that dream.  If you are centred on your divine spirit within and view life through the eyes of spirit then you will see only order and purpose, but if you are centred on the physical world without and allow it to control your being then you will see only conflict and chaos.  One day, just as you tire of watching a drama on the television, because you have seen it all before, so you will tire of the drama of life and have no further need to experience it.  You will then be a realised being, for you will know that life is but a dream and when you open your true eyes after death and look back on that dream you will place it in its correct perspective.   Indeed, you will thank your Creator for the dream because it will have brought you closer to Him.  Of course, for some that dream will have been a nightmare from which they are glad to be free, but for others it will have been a meaningful event.  The choice is yours.