Relatives as guides

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 11 Jul 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Red Emma	11 Jul 2003
I frequently read, here on AT as well as in spiritual books, about how much help relatives can be as guides. Especially, grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles who have been important in one's life. Here is my question. My grandparents raised me (in the 1930's) and I especially loved my grandfather. In fact, when he died, he appeared to me several hundred miles away. But I'm wondering about his effectiveness as a guide. He was a person of his time, that is, racist, sexist, kind of unable to understand the world beyond his little farming community. He and my grandmother attended a right-wing church, and could see no good in anyone who believed differently. They both were, however, kind, generous, and very good to me. Although I think that neither would have understood the person I have become. Especially as I'm a long way from their Baptist teachings. As I type this I realize that I'm greatly confused, and am not making a very clear statement. I suspect my real question might be, "do people learn more understanding and compassion for others after they leave this life and as they prepare for another?" Any thoughts on these things? Red Emma

zorya	11 Jul 2003
i believe that we are very much connected to all of our ancestors and descendants. as we 'evolve', we assist them in their evolution. in a way, they have a lot to be gained by helping us and us helping them. i think that when we die, we get to review our lives. we see ourselves much more clearly. we don't become instantly perfect, but the ego stuff doesn't matter anymore. we get to see the big picture. i don't think ancestors necessarily make the best primary spirit guides, but they can and do give us their loving guidance, if we both choose. all this is another reason to learn to forgive (not forget) any pain they have caused us.

Wisp Wings	11 Jul 2003
LOL, Zorya beat me to it! I was going to write much of the same as she has. Some psychic mediums hold different beliefs on this matter of our close relatives as being our guides. Seeing them, communicating with them after they've passed on and even the occasional time that they stirred you in a safe path, doesn't neccessarily make them your spirit guide. It is just spirit communication. Although in these examples they are acting just as that guides. I am meaning that you have others as your guides and a guardian angel given to you at birth. Most hold to the belief that our main spirit guides (of which we have many and at various times change in our life) have lived long, long ago. Even to the point of believing that the most recent had died at least 100 to 200 years ago. I am talking of like the Major Guides. Read on and you will see people as guides that passed relatively recent. As you wrote that your Grandfather was a man of his time and also how that he came to you hundreds of miles away after he died.... you know full well this is not something that in his "just having past" existence would have, nor his church would hold to believing in it or approve of. They would certainly see this as the work of the Devil. YOU know and I know that this is no such thing! It was from a genuinely love for you that he came to you. It was something just hours before his passing, being the man that he was, he most likely would believed impossible. Probably all such things as ghost, haunts and all were considered forbidden and evil to your grandparents. They were and tried to be a good people (in their minds) and they were spiritual. Even though you've come far from where they were in their up-bringing, you both are living as to the way you best see to be and see this from a spiritual viewpoint. Like Zorya said the ego isn't as it is on this plane. Mudane things, things that people fight over doesn't matter on that side. There are levels to pass through and there is work to help others with. What work that I was speaking of before and also accounts for why we have some guides that are with us for a short time span is this... The experiences lived that the person dealt with, much as counselling here is, is there too. They will come to a person living, helping as a guide to that one dealing with the same issues. When work done in this life can help in work of the hereafter this is done too. Like a teacher of children while living, will help serve as a guide to child. Also to help with a child's time is to cross. So as we have different problems and situations that are strong in our life, we have temporial guides to help with that. Now you may wonder how can a guide that has lived even a 100 years ago, let alone one that lived 800 years ago possibly help with my life today. Doesn't it boggle the mind to think of all the advancements that has been made even in the last 100 years? Did you know that music has been wrote exactly the same in different parts of the world at the same time? If you notice often many people will all of a sudden search out a particular book that had a lull in its sales. Why? I believe as we here on this side have a connection to a Collection Consciousness, that there is a Universal Consciousness. We are all passed, living, animal, stone whatever connected. We in this connection advance united. So no one is left in being at the same place as when lived eons ago. They may appear as dressed as this and identify with that time, but they do know this times in which is today... and the tomorrows as well.

Wisp Wings	11 Jul 2003
In reincarnation thinking, we do pick a group of people that we keep coming back with not in every life time, not again time after time, after time. So family and ancestory this certain does involve. Another thing, in the example I gave of a family member that had passed coming to you or hearing their voice keeping you from harm's path.... isn't it more comforting to have this to be a person you knew and loved? So how much the better an older, loving family member that you knew to be the one saving you from a bad situation than some spirit you've never felt or known?

jmd	11 Jul 2003
As guide, a person between incarnations also has the benefit of reflecting on their own prejudices during their own past incarnated life. What they carry is not the prejudices and pain they may have caused - and which will need to be re-worked in different ways at another time, but the very warmth they may also have for the individual for which they care. The bond between yourself and your grandfather is something I can reflect on too, for I too experienced my own grandfather's birth into the spiritual realms days before we were informed by more conventional means - and from the other side of the Earth. In my view, they may very well form the best guides, if they are available for such, for their understanding would also transcend the limited reflections manifesting in their former life, and yet be close enough to properly understand some of what their relative may experience.

Trogon	12 Jul 2003
Red Emma... I definitely agree with what others have said here. Don't automatically discount a passed relative because of the way they were when they were in our plane of existance. Many of the things they experienced and many of what we perceive as their faults will cease to be important to them once they've "crossed over" (thanks John Edward for the phrase). They will percieve things differently now... they will be different... those old prejudices will be seen for the fallacies they were. At least I believe this to be the case...

amyel	12 Jul 2003
Red Emma, maybe their effectiveness as a guide to you is in what you remember as their love, support and generosity to you in your time of need. Maybe that's the important lesson they - or your grandfather specifically, since you mention him - is there to remind you of.

Sayonaran	14 Jul 2003
After discussing this topic with some people I know, I got the same answer. The person in question may become a guide, but usually under unusal circumstances. I recently found out from my mother that her neice that died back in the early/mid 70's (?) is one of my guides. As a kid, I was always in some kind of trouble and she'd worry about me. My mother never dreams of relatives, (espically those who have passed away). She told me that she would see her niece, who'd say 'don't you worry. I'm looking after him. ' and my mother would wake up. Until I got back out of trouble, she'd keep having the same 'dream'. Now my mother's neice never met me before, since she died before I was born. She wanted to be a professional dancer and volunteered at the YMCA, to work with the inner city children. She died when trying to open an automatic gate in her apartment complex. It was a sticky gate, a way you had to wriggle it before it swung open. She ended up being struck, since it swung too quickly, dying instantly. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that, depending on the person, they can become a guide for someone they care about or someone in the family. (aside from some random guides you're stuck with after you're born, but that's another topic, eh?) ... So that's my input for that.

The Relatives as guides thread was originally posted on 11 Jul 2003 in the Spirituality board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Spirituality, or read more archived threads.