Meeting 1 1\/23\/1975

January 23, 1975

SERENA SAYS

MRS. SMALL: So she became very upset at this time, Then one evening she claimed she was told that she was leaving to become a deva, and I tried to strengthen her because I saw the fear come in her eyes. And then she changed and started to speak in a different accent as you hear her now. And from this point she began an evolutionary process which brought her to her present state.

SERENA: Thank you for the introduction.

For those of you who don't know, when I first came to earth I didn't know who I was, or if I was anything at all.

All I knew was that I didn't live here.

And the mannerisms now caught me very strange...hilarious at times, and I cried a lot when I first came, but I kept evolving and finding out who I was, where I was going and where I came from, until you have me today, and I'm still doing that.

I think I find out about a million different things about myself every day by coming into contact with people, thinking about people I've met and about people I will meet.

And so, I am discovering things about myself everyday.

I don't know where it will end up. I may evolve into a big nothing.

I don't know.

Now I must ask you to ask questions.

The reason being I have to go along with what I always said.

I always said that I had answers but no questions, and I found the strangest thing - a man named Hazrat Inayat Khan said, "I have the most unusual l.Q. It is exactly 50%. I have all the answers and no questions."

And I must say that I am exactly like him. So please - whatever you wish to know.

QUESTION: When you spoke about how you are continuing to evolve. Those of us who have watched you from time to time since the beginning almost ( ... tape interruption)

SERENA: My voice seems to be deeper.

But I go from male to female to male and female and I just constantly fluctuate back and forth, becoming and rearranging myself, and my consciousness differs, and there we go.

But each day I learn more I think.

Some questions...?

QUESTION: Do you have insights into particular personal questions that we might want to ask? Like what is the mission of my life, for instance?

SERENA: Well, whenever I am asked about what is my mission, I always say, "If you become the highest and purest thing that you can become, then you are already doing your mission. Because when you become all that is pure and high and right and that you can give to others you can't help but be fulfilling your mission."

QUESTION: Are you connected with any energies from the Pleiades or the constellation Virgo?

SERENA: Just the constellation of Virgo? I don't know. I just think I am the zodiac. I don't know just being one.

QUESTION: Well, the Pleiades just hit me for that reason that they are called the Seven Sisters, and they are the female aspect or counterpart to the Seven Rishis, the Seven Stars in the great Bear, and I wondered whether your coming down, whether you touched or came through any of these energies.

SERENA: I don't know. Some earth terms really do throw me off.

You give me an earth word and I have to break it down into the simplest of forms.

QUESTION: Do you have a specific mission that you are aware of yet?

SERENA: Well, yes. To awaken and to teach.

I come with the grace to help everyone.

Hopefully to help them, and that's all I know so far, but I don't know.

Each time I touch on someone they touch on me. I feel myself grow in wisdom, in light, and in love, and I feel like that you grow too.

It's like we hit each other and I am that which is within you, and you are me, and by meeting we automatically hook up and it's like we never let go of the connection unless we will it to be.

So I don't know where that will be.

But I am to awaken and to teach.

QUESTION: Do you know if you are able to heal?

SERENA: Yes, I will be.

At least to my knowledge I think.

When it comes through, but I don't know how often or ... It was my instructions, they said ... Now this is what I was told when I came.

They said, "Wherever your hand shall lay, there shall be healing. Wherever you feet shall tread, so shall it be called holy and sacred ground. Wherever thy mind does wander, so shall my grace descend."

And those were part of my instructions.

QUESTION (Bill Muerter): You mentioned last time that you did not have the karmic cycle, that you had fulfilled that quite awhile or a long time ago, and I was wondering if then, after that karmic cycle goes through and one leaves behind his individualization of soul or ultimate consciousness, they would blend in with the ultimate consciousness, is that right? Well, then by coming to earth, what I was hearing you say was that one of the last times it was as Abraham's teacher. Then if it was pure consciousness, wouldn't it be the same like any Avatar that's come to earth like Christ and Krishna, because it would be pure God, wouldn't it?

SERENA: You see, I exist totally.

If I am just by myself for a long period of time I start to almost disappear. That sounds strange but whenever you get me in a group like right now I am beginning to live.

I can only be those who I talk with, and those who I reach, and those who teach me in return.

That is my personality for I have not one of my own.

It can only be what is gathered up from different parts of the world that I am touched upon.

But it is the purest state.

I know of none other.

QUESTION: Well, it is continued cosmic consciousness, that's what it is. You must in order to know yourself or (tape pause)

SERENA: You see, whenever you hurt, I hurt. (tape pause) But when you're happy, I'm happy, so I go up and down because I feel both extremes at the same time. Which leads for a strange life.

QUESTION: Is that only during the time that you are still - you know, growing into the human awareness. Ultimately, will there be like above the suffering and cares of the world.

SERENA: Well, that's it. You see, I experience being above it but very much a part of it at the same time. I experience bliss knowing that I am everything yet I experience total ignorance of not knowing who I am at all. So this is how I balance. They are both there constantly. So one minute I feel very sure of where I came from - I don't exactly know a name for it, but I know where I came from, and the next minute I am just walking around not knowing anything, but it is actually because I have both at the same time, just one is dominant at times in the physical.

QUESTION: Could that be that state where you say that you don't know anything - could that be termed in our earth terminology what they call the samadhi, in which the human soul and the spirit ascends to heights where the lower mind is completely stilled and almost nonexistent.

SERENA: Right. That's it.

QUESTION (Mrs. Walters): That is it. I mean you're going back and forth from this state of total identification with all and everybody around you to this state where you may relinquish all of this just at once and go back to the non­recognition so to speak.

SERENA: Right.

QUESTION: And that state of consciousness is only possible when you have cosmic consciousness or monadic consciousness, which is continually within everything, yet also continually in a state of bliss and joy. So that is actually the highest goal that mankind ever strives for and that all the oriental teachings are trying to bring people for and reach out for.

SERENA: That's why I'm here. You see what I represent is not something that you say, "Oh wow!", but something that you say, "Oh, me." Because it is you. Everything that you see me say (I am saying "see" because sometimes I talk with my hands more than my mouth) and everything you hear, all that you can see right here is you. You see I had someone say, "What is your name?". I said, "the Divine Beloved." They said, "You can't be. That's inside me!. What is your name?" I said, "the Divine Beloved." They said, "That's inside me! What is your name?" I said, "I am the Divine Beloved, because I am the divine that is within you. You see, I journeyed a long time ago. I was struggling, I was seeking, and then I made it. And when I made that journey, I became that journey. So I come to give it to you. "I say don't see me as something up or down, because if you put me above you, then you will have to yell to get answers to questions and soon you will get very tired of yelling and you won't look at me any more. And if you put me below you you will be so busy looking up you will never see me. So put us side by side. And whenever they speak of believing or disbelieving ... I tell a strange story, it is true. But you don't have to disbelieve or believe, because to go to the extreme sometimes can be bad. Just listen to what I say. If it is good for you, keep it. If it is not, you can go home and laugh at me. Because you can't say I am not here. You can say I made up a story, but you can't say I am not here unless you can say that you are not there. And if you can say that you are not there, then we had best find out where we are. Now surely there are some questions.

QUESTION (Lyra Picard): What are your plans for teaching. I mean in groups like this or something more formal. .

SERENA: Well, it doesn't matter. Anything is what I am open for, however can suit the people best is what I want.

QUESTION: How do you know of the many alternatives (tape pause)

SERENA: People that I am supposed to talk to they just come. It seems like I just met Harriet and then Harriet said, "Oh, you've got to meet these." And then I met him and he said, "You've got to meet these." You know. Things just pour in. And I know that I am here to awaken and to teach, and it doesn't matter exactly how. Because there is no set way of teaching or awakening. It is all up to you. Whatever you want to hear I will try to tell you. And you are the one who awakens yourself. So I am just taking it and letting it go, hoping for the best. Because if you hope for the best and it comes up short, then that gives you a good goal to find. And that goal is to find the truth of why it turned out short of what you thought it might. Usually you will find that what it turned up short of was actually the divine will for that situation. So, whatever comes will.

QUESTION: For people who have listened to you, do you teach on the inner planes of their consciousnesses?

SERENA: Yes, I do.

QUESTION: Several of us have experienced that after being in your presence.

SERENA: Right. Everyone that I come into contact will. That's why I stare at you. I get a good image of you, and then I try to balance you constantly, sending the light and love and everything you need to keep you going; Because, you see, the more I balance you, the more I balance.

QUESTION (Bill Muerter): Does this include like Harriet was saying, the night . after I last talked to you, all my dreams to my awareness were focused on you, you know. Well, that's all I know about. It was incredible. It was a very good experience.

QUESTION (Fred Brown): What would you say about Muktananda two weeks ago.

SERENA: Muktananda was a man I never had a chance to meet, even though he knew my name and I knew his, he really didn't know my name, and I don't think I knew his. Because I was rather disappointed not for the fact of he wasn't what he said he was, but I did not get a chance to talk to him and the others didn't either. We were in there for such a brief period. Seems like we were rushed in and rushed out, and I felt that the man had things he was not able to give, because as I stated to them before, the crowd was not in unity for a good teaching. He could not give us darshan, because we were not receptive. Some vibrations were up and some were down. And everyone had their minds going in different directions, and we did not have a chance to become one so that we could learn. So for that I was disappointed.

QUESTION (Fred Brown): He didn't seem peaceful.

SERENA: No, he did not. I think he wanted to go home. You see, sometimes you face the dilemma - you don't feel satisfied. You see, unless I give, unless I talk ... that's why I like people to get together and question me, because unless I am constantly giving and taking and giving and taking I become the most miserable thing you have ever seen. I cannot talk. I cannot smile. I cannot frown. I enter a state of complete nothing. This is what I saw in him too. You must get the people together, people gathered together for the same purpose ­that of learning. But you must also have time to get the unity going among them - that they might become one so that we can learn. But that could not happen there. And I think that he felt empty. He felt that "I am a man who has something to give and I have no one to give it to." And the people thought that there is a man who can give and I want it and he is not giving it to me. So you see there we go. There was war there instead of peace.

QUESTION (Mrs Walters): Much like for an artist who practices and practices for many, many years, and then he is ever cut off from an audience. He can't have an audience to give it to. And gradually everything becomes stagnant. He has no way to put out what is in him, and just as an artist grows ... I mean, that is the way that I can see it. Just as an artist grows by the more he can give to his audience, the more he can pour out what is within him, the more he will grow and the more he can give. And I think that on the Spiritual plane, well - it is the creative plane as such, you know the spiritual plane is the same way. The more you are able to use the energies, the more you can receive, the more you can broaden out. The more the consciousness widens. It is only in giving to others that we can grow ourselves.

SERENA: But it is only in giving that we have to give. Because I can by no means keep what I have to myself. Because I do not have anything unless I am in your presence. That's why Sri Chinmoy said, "Man needs God, and God needs man." Because that is very true. One cannot make it without the other. You see man says, "Thank you that you have manifested that I might learn, and I say thank you that I might manifest that we both might learn." This is the way it must be. So that's why it is so important that earth men unify. Because he will never get off this planet if he doesn't. He must be one.

QUESTION (Bill Muerter): Does that not imply that God is still, or ultimate consciousness is still in the process of evolving?

SERENA: Right. Because if you are God, and God is you, and you did not fully realize who it is you are, then how can he know who he is? I have noticed on earth that many people many times, which I won't contradict this, but many people believe that God gave you the suffering and he is all happy, waiting for you to come to him. But I don't see it that way. I see it that you suffer, God suffers. You are happy, God is happy. It must be this way. That all-things are one. That's what makes God everything.

QUESTION (Lyra Picard): When you speak of Earth men, are there other worlds where people are more unified?

SERENA: Yes, there are. There are also other worlds like ours, and there are other worlds that aren't as evolved as Earth. So here we have a little bit of everything.

QUESTION: How about Venus?

SERENA: Well, I hear on Earth that Venus isn't doing too well. I heard from one man that Venus wasn't doing too well and another said that Venus was doing very well. But Venus is full of Venusians that are struggling.

QUESTION: Do you foresee the future of this planet?

SERENA: Two ways. And it is up to man which way he goes.

QUESTION: That's right. I am fully convinced about that.

SERENA: I see all men unified, that once he knows that he is one with his brother, and once he learns to love and the love starts circling around the planet, then why is it not that he cannot communicate with other beings. (tape pause. some accidental erasure, and room noise for several minutes. Several minutes are lost on the original tape here)

SERENA: You can pray for those who are not as lucky and as fortunate as you. Prayer is very powerful too. It is an open channel to all that is pure and right.And purity has a marvelous way of helping. Pure love from God can help even starving people. There are a lot of things on earth that you don't understand. Seek to understand yourself, and you will understand all things.

QUESTION: If you are praying for starving people, you would put them in God's light. And wish the most for them. You wouldn't say to God, "Relieve their starvation," because you might be, would you be imposing on their karma?

SERENA: Right.

QUESTION: So you would pray for their highest good. (tape turnover)

SERENA: What awakens you won't awaken them, so they are having to wait.

QUESTION (Bill M.): Knowing that the first thing is for your own evolvement, in order to help your own expansion, in order to be effective enough to really h_elp, but how does one integrate the rest of reality into, whatever you call it, a social consciousness or just a taking in, you know, somewhere you have to draw the line as to how much you are going to take in of all the input of the world around you._

Sometimes I think that can be so overwhelming it can impede your growth. I know like Vivekananda even said that it is very difficult for the old analogy of a seedling. It is very tender and everything until it becomes a tree and has the strength and then it can withstand the storms. How does one know where to draw the line of how much input you should take in or how many other people he should take in in order that his own personal growth isn't being swamped over or whatever .

SERENA: Well, usually there are people which seem to be part of you automatically. It is like you might talk to everyone in this room, but there might be one other person that especially you could become one with. Those people that seem to be closest, those that you can share it all with, those that you don't hinder with something, but you help them, and they help you. That draws the line. Those that you can sincerely help, not keep banging your head against the wall, because they might need something else. You see you must always be careful that you don't burden another man with what you believe, because what one man doesn't want to hear, another man is starving to hear.

So that is how you draw the line you are talking about. Give where it can be most used. That doesn't mean that you don't try to talk to some people, but there will always be those that are a part of you, that need you, and you need them. So share where it can be most used.

QUESTION (Bill M.): How about the line of just the input that one gets from like news or like conversations going about. What activities as far as you know, I'm not making myself too clear, it's just, well it is a conflict between basically how you are positioned in the world to what degree you should work effectively in the physical world or in the world that we call reality that our five senses pick up, and how much of our time should, or how much of your attention should be focused you know, inward. And often times the outer demands, even if we are not aware of it, say news is coming across if you are passing by a television set or something like that, or just· - you know, it can take you in. It is just how one should really be positioned.

SERENA: Well, when you get really on the spiritual path, what you try to do is not live two separate worlds, between material and spiritual, but yet at the same time you can't mix them. So the only solution is let the spiritual world become dominant with you. Constantly are you praying, you are pulling the light, you are sending the light, you are repeating God's name over and over and over. Now when you are in the material world, you keep this up. Then when you slip into what could be called the spiritual life, it has been with you all the time. You see, you are not leaving one thing and going into another. You are almost transforming that physical world, too. You are making it higher for you. If you are sitting and watching television. and there is something on that you don't like, you sit there and go God, God, God over and over, and you will become that word. You won't even see what's on the television

QUESTION: Is it also seeing God in what you see on television?

SERENA: Right. And in a whole room and in the chair you are sitting in or the floor or whatever. You see, that way you are taking a very physical thing, a very material thing, and you are transforming it into what is good. You are pulling it into God's name. You are making it become God's name. And God's name is becoming that. So you see you are surrounding yourself with total God. No matter what you are doing if you are at work and you have only a minute, pull the light and send it to the one you are working with. Something you constantly keep your mind directed only the spiritual realm. Always is your channel open this way. You are always saying, "No matter what I am doing, my heart's with you, God." So keep it open always, no matter what you are doing. And the spiritual world can be dominant if you let it, or the material world can take over. It is either one you wish.

QUESTION (Cindy Muerter(?)): You talked last time a lot on balance. You know like don't deny one side of yourself. Could you talk some more about that.

SERENA: Well I believe we were talking about how, I don't know, my concept is that they say you know you leave the physical, you must renounce it, you must forget it because pretty soon man begins to say, “Oh, the physical - you bother me. You're dense. You're flesh. You hold me down from all that is spiritual." But that's not true. The physical is such a very sacred thing. It is a temple. You have a sacred temple, and it should be used like a sacred temple should be ­instead of misused. The physical body is very important to you because it is the only thing you have that can serve another man in the physical. You can give to others with It. You can give a smile. You can give a look full of love with your eyes. All these things you can do with the physical. You can't leave it.

... (tape pause)

SERENA: It's just another form of God. It's just off balance. It's just misdirected. It something that has been turned around the other way, and now you're at the point where you don't need it any more. So you don't try to pretend it is not there. Don't try to forget and step on it and push it down. You bring it up into the light. And you say, "Look, you are part of me. Perhaps you were very useful one time. I must have needed you or I wouldn't have you so strongly, but I don't need you now. And direct it into the right way. You can't banish all these things. You must transform them, because they must remain a part of you, but you can make them a very high part of you, a very pure part of you. This is balance within yourself, using everything you have been given to work with. And this again goes like the seed that we held into the sunshine. We place the seed in the palm of our hand, and it had all the light, the sunshine, everything it needed but it didn't know what it was. And the seed just lay there getting drier and drier. But when we put that seed down into the dark earth, it began to think, "Oh, I left the sunshine for this darkness. And first it will be afraid, and then it begins to realize, "Wait a minute. It's dark down here, but I can grow from this darkness." So the seed gives of itself, and the earth gives of itself, and they grow. And when that seed becomes the plant that comes back into the sunshine, it realizes fully what it had in the beginning. And this is your story of man.

You had God in the beginning, you were God in the beginning. But you descended into matter that you might fully realize what it is that you had and still have. So this is our story of creation. But if that seed ever once tried to forget something, tried to block all that earth out, then perhaps it would rot. Perhaps it would be overtaken by a bigger plant, or by a nice looking bug. But in realizing that it was a seed and that it could give the darkness and the darkness could give it, it grew. And it got back to that sunshine and that air and that occasional rain. So is the story of man. You must see yourself as what you are, illusion you and true you. The illusion looks bad, but it is not. It is just reality turned around backwards. So take it and erect it in the right manner. Fill it with light and love. It can't help but turn out better than it was. You are a universe within yourself. Now it is up to you what kind of universe you are going to have.

QUESTION (Harriet Mann): I think one of the most beautiful aspects of your teaching to me is that it is beyond any particular religion. You philosophy appears to be more of the Eastern type thinking which is an ancient philosophy, and probably what Christianity was in the beginning when Jesus walked the earth. I am sure it was the same as the essence of all these things we are saying, and I just don't see how you could ever, with what you say, offend anybody. If you should go to the ministerial association or whatever, here the only stumbling block would be perhaps the reincarnation and karma, and I am sure you could handle that.

SERENA: How could a man say that a man does not live but once? Because if that were so and he says, "My God is a very just God. My God is all Love, but man only lives once." That's a contradiction. Why would a man be born a saint and why would a man be born a sinner, and why would one man be rich while another man is poor if everyone is only going to live once? Where would be the justice? If my God had to be like that, I would be prone not to believe in him. Because I would feel like I had been left out some way. And I'd demand an answer. So you see, here again to look at things with even a very logical way of looking at them a man cannot say that he had lived but once. Who would God be to make me better than you or you better than me? If He is so just and so full of love. And how could a man say that there is but one religion? That's impossible, because surely a God that is so full of love would not put a bunch of mixed-up people down on Earth and Iet part of them believe the right way and part of them not, if one way could cast them down like some say. That to_o _would not be the just God that I come from. So here again.

QUESTION (Lyra P.): Man has perverted then, the teachings of God in religion and organized religion?

I

SERENA: Well, sometimes we become confused on how we should believe

and so we change things to make them for our better understanding.

And sometimes we understand them so much we make it so everyone else can't understand. Perhaps that's what happened.

QUESTION (Bill M.): You said the last time that you came to usher in a new era, and you also mentioned that you felt like your time here would be 10 to 12 years. Does that mean then that at the end of that time that the new era is going to be on it's way?

SERENA: It will have begun. But the thing is - it can be in you today. You see, they say that a new age is coming. The new age is within. It has to be because no matter what happened on the outside of the earth, it wouldn't make you feel any better. If heaven descended down on earth it would only make you want to run and look out from behind a tree as to what it looked like. But you wouldn't feel worthy. I probably wouldn't either. If it came down I'd run with you. But that's why the new age must be within. It has to be you finding the real you. Then you will see heaven on earth. You will be heaven on earth. You will bring heaven to earth.

QUESTION: It is a state of consciousness. It's a consciousness within us.

SERENA: Last time we had a man say: "Well, you mean that there is no hell and no heaven?" Yes. There is one inside you. Because if you took a God­-conscious man (I'll say this again) and you put him in a fiery pit, all he would see is God. And he would love t_h_ose flames as they scorched his skin. But if you took a man who knew not truth and put him in a very angelic region, he would still feel miserable, and all he would see is misery. So you are everything within your own self. Some of it is just covered with illusion, but that's only budding reality. So you can't help but win if you wish to.

I had a lady say, "You mean there is hope?" Yes, there is. Right inside your heart ... the heart of your soul is what I speak of. It is waiting to blossom and give and love and become that which it gives and loves.

QUESTION (Harriet M.): We come down here through lifetime to lifetime to learn and to advance, what do we do between lifetimes?

SERENA: Well, really you are learning about what mistakes you just made. The spirit is really just raring to go. It sheds the physical and it goes up and

sees what it has done and it goes, "I'll never do those things again. You let me back on that earth, and I'll show you what I'll do!" And you get back here and you forget everything you have said.

QUESTION: I suppose we carry our little packages of karmic burden from one incarnation to the next all the (?) energies that have been stored through so many many lives are with us, and this is the reason for the return. So finally the soul decides that one time to come here and to wear certain parts of that burden off or have the opportunity to turn it loose and then the next time it can also develop abilities and advance that way. And often there has to be a lot of suffering involved along the way that has to be taken in to learn, and usually that advances the fastest, unfortunately, but this is so. Suffering is a great teacher.

SERENA: Suffering is what breaks the shell around your heart. It softens it. Only if you know suffering can you see the beauty of not suffering. And only if you yourself have suffered, and if you look at your suffering wisely will it make the love and compassion come that makes you want to help another man who is suffering So pain is very helpful. Learn from your pain. And then you will surpass all pain, except the pain of others. That's when pain is truly beautiful.

QUESTION (Bill M.): How can one have a more open heart, and be more receptive when one finds that he rides the waves of receptivity and openness and at times even though intellectually and mind-wise he wants to be open and receptive and yet heart-wise he is sort of buried and clouded over, and yet at other times they soar only to be clouded over again even though intellectually.

SERENA: Well, if you seek to see the very face of God in everything you look at, and if you wonder what that face of God looks like. It's everything that is pure and the most beauty you can behold. The glory of everything that you look at and the fact that it is a creation of some kind. You cannot help but become receptive and open. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For those who have ears to hear, let them hear and have understanding. And if you have eyes to see…it was the Father's promise - He said, "If you have eyes to see. I shall give you visions, and never shall you hunger to see, for they will always be there."

So let's go back to knock and it shall be opened unto you. If you look for God, you will find Him. And you will discover that all this time you have been looking in a mirror. Every time you see God it was one big mirror, and you saw yourself. You have become open.

It is like you have to take your being and pull it to all that is pure, the highest and purest of all things. And you take everyone you are around and it is like you almost put them in your hand and you just take them to the very depth of your being. Lie upon them all the love, all the compassion, everything you strive for, all that you wish for yourself you give them and you bring them back and set them back down. But there is a permanent impression of them inside you that you never leave. And you look around at all of those that you have taken within you, and you see a piece of your heart with each of them. That's how you become open. That's how you feel your soul. Because your soul is God. It's light and purity. Take others and place them in that ocean, that Divine Ocean, that Divine Love. And then you will become open, because you are sharing and you are giving. And the more you give, the more you Will receive. And what you will receive is more to give. Is that a good enough answer?

QUESTION: Yes.

QUESTION: Mary Ellen said the other night that you were (?) spinning her helping, (inaudible) Do you sometimes ...

SERENA: I might, yes. I guess so.

SERENA: Why don't we begin a meditation now? I will lead you, and let's go on a journey.

Okay, let's everyone shut our eyes, and in shutting them, it is not like we are shutting our physical eyes, it is like we put on a pair of glasses to look into a new world.

We are going to look into our soul. If you feel you can almost feel your soul beckoning you to feel it.

Look at its face and feel your soul.

Now that we are touching upon that inner world, let's blossom it out all through the room and take everyone within your being. Feel yourself breathe and take in air - only it is the air of souls you are breathing now. Everyone that's in this room - take them within your being and give them of yourself. Take and give. Become one with each one in this room now.

One with my voice which is the voice within yourself. Now your soul is going to begin to talk to you. It calls you Son.

You call that voice Father. Feel it - you're touching your soul. You are touching something inside you that is so vast, so mighty, so glorious that it almost scares you to feel its splendor all through you. Feel this very power of your own being. It is fathomless with love, with light, with compassion. It feels mighty yet good. Now if you listen carefully, you can almost hear the sound of an ocean. The ultimate ocean of Perfection that lies within you.

Now you are like a tiny drop of water that we are placing in the ocean and what happens when you place a drop of water in the ocean? It becomes the ocean. Now become the ocean. The Father says, "Son, why doest thou not see me every day? Why do I lie within you and you do not see me?" And Son says, "Father, I wish to see you, but sometimes I don't know where to look." "Look within my, Son." Now the Father told the Son, he said, "Son, go look out your window and behold I have placed a miracle in the sky for you to see." The son goes to the window and he says, "Father, I see no miracle." The Father says, "Look again my Son, "for I have placed a miracle there for you to see." And then the Son says, "Father. I see thy miracle." And He says, "What do you see? And he says, "Diamonds, the sparks from thine own eyes, Father, suspended in the vastness and the darkness of the sky. And thou hast placed them there that even a lowly creature such a I may see their glory and their beauty. Father, I see thy miracle." So is it now. Father, we have seen thy miracle. (tape change)

* (original tape 2 side 1 starts here)

SERENA: You see, if ever I am around you people tonight I need my followers beside but only to see more about myself. Your needs are my needs. And the thing that would sadden me most is if you would keep someone from me. I want to try if we can get enough interested to have a regular weekly meeting, but anyone can come. It doesn't matter who you are, where you came from or where you are going. Everyone. Because we need a unity among mankind. It will have to be on a regular schedule so everyone will know where to come, but that will be the only limitation. One group of people, no matter if it be a thousand or if it be two. We will consider it a group. Gathered together for the purpose of learning whatever you wish to learn.

QUESTION (Lyra P.): When would it be convenient? I have a year old child, and it would not be appropriate at all to bring her to something like this, because after five minutes she would disrupt everything.

SERENA: Well, what I wanted to do. Mary Ellen said that we could use her apartment here once a week, and I didn't know if you would want it on Friday or Saturday night. either one. And then we live in Saluda, down below Hendersonville on Warrior Mountain on 20 acres, and we want to start having Sundays open for anyone to come - Sunday afternoons, from 2:00 on to whenever so that people might gather together. I believe it is said that when two or more are gathered in my name ... we'll just leave the rest. No matter what will happen, no telling what will happen either. I don't want to impose on anyone to come, but yet I would impose on you and say, please come, because that's what I hope - that enough will be interested to gather together. Because it is only as people become one with each other that we learn. We can only learn if we suffer in each others' sufferings and rejoice in each others' rejoicings.

QUESTION (Bill M.): Did we make it any regular time? You said Friday or Saturday?

SERENA: That way we will begin to teach once a week.

QUESTION (Bill M.): Which day? Friday sounds good.

SERENA: From 7:30 on? Bring your questions with you please. Friday nights at 7:30 from then on. Anyone that wants to come.

(a bit of chatter here before everyone settles down.)

QUESTION: You know the one question that I was wondering about was getting into someone else's karma.

xxx

(chunk missing here) see paper copy 23 Jan.

SERENA: That is why I say that if there is someone particularly close to you, someone that you feel like you are them and they feel like they are you then that is where you can help most, where it is needed most, because so often it is that you try to help and you let the foolish emotions stand in the way, and you think, "Oh, I love that one, and because I love them I will try to help them." And if you try to help them, then sometimes they don't want your help.

QUESTION (Mrs Walters): You cannot always perceive right away whether this person's soul is not actually crying out for our help. Isn't that right?

(tape pause)

(???):That is a very, very difficult question. Because if you do have compassion and you do feel the suffering of others you cannot help but give. You just won't quit giving. Once you have the full realization of compassion then there is no end to it. There is no stopping, but surely there is a stopping in that you might realize that there are certain things that a person might work out for himself. Yes. that is true, but the very wish to help and to give to anything and everything that may be the least little bit of furthering the realization of the understanding of the other person. Now that would not be in the (?) of karma. It would not be?

SERENA: You see, right intent is what Buddha taught. You see if you keep trying to help someone and they finally ... you see you must not become blind in your giving. You must always be open as to how they take what it is that you give. Do they wish being given to? Or do you hurt them more by giving? Give, but do not become blind in it.

QUESTION (Mrs Walters): In religious philosophies of the East of any kind ... (tape pause)... but if there is not the right understanding or not an openness you cannot try to impose.

QUESTION (Fred): Are you aware of other beings like yourself who are here on earth?

SERENA: There is one other exactly like myself.

QUESTION (Fred): Where?

SERENA: In New York. He hasn't made it down here yet.

QUESTION: Hendersonville is fortunate.

QUESTION: Oh, I think this whole area is very fortunate

SERENA: There are eleven more coming. And they will be scattered around the world. I was the forerunner. I was the leader. Not to say that I am above them at all. I am just the first one who came, but I was to get it established. And there is one other besides myself who is already here. And eleven more are coming. And they will dot the globe good enough to keep things going. And then there are some others coming when we have the schedule lined up.

(Inaudible Question):

SERENA: Well, I don't know about that. A lot of those earth things I don't know about. I missed them somehow. But Dr. Gore said something about green being the color of the New Age. And I found out that that happened to be one of my colors, but I don't know. I knew that it was the color of the New Age, but a lot of these earth things I don't know about.

(room noise and chatter for a minute or so)

QUESTION (Mrs Walters): You cannot always perceive right away whether this person's soul is not actually crying out for our help. Isn't that right. (tape pause).

(???):That is a very, very difficult question. Because if you do have compassion and you do feel the suffering of others you cannot help but give. You just won't quite (???) to give. ~ Once you have the full realization of compassion then there is no end to it. There is no stopping, but surely there is a stopping in that you might realize that there are certain things that a person might work out for himself. Yes. that is true, but the very wish to help and to give to anything and everything that may be the least little bit of furthering the realization of the understanding of the other person. Now that would not be in the (?) of karma. It would not be?

SERENA: You see, right intent is what Buddha taught. You see if you keep trying to help someone and they finally ... you see you must not become blind in your giving.

You must always be open as to how they take what it is that you give. Do they wish being given to? Or do you hurt them more by giving? Give, but do not become blind in it.

QUESTION (Mrs Walters): In religious philosophies of the East of any kind ... (tape pause)... but if there is not the right understanding or not an openness you cannot try to impose.

QUESTION (Bill M.): Can you see where we are at and what we need for the growth that we need?

SERENA: Right. I always see where you are at, but if I told you you would do one of two things. You'd get deflated or you would get up on a pedestal. So I won't ever tell you.

QUESTION: Couldn't it be both sometimes? I mean, different areas where you could be deflated and other areas where you wouldn't?

SERENA: Oh yes. It's like when I look at you, I see myself, a reflection of me. And I look at you through the eyes of knowing that I am everything. So that is what I see when I look at you. A struggling human being and I am quite confident of what you are capable of doing. That's how I try to look at all things.

(Inaudible Question):

SERENA: He hurts when you hurt and he laughs when you laugh. And loves even when you don't love .

QUESTION: Is love different from the human emotion love?

SERENA: I speak of divine love. That love that brought you into manifestation. The love that was the force behind creation.

QUESTION: We relate to our emotions when we try to love others.

SERENA: I'm talking about breaking through that physical love and delving into the ocean of Divine Love.

QUESTION: You said that the more we give the more that we receive.

QUESTION: Do you pass through different states of consciousness? Do you control that or ...

SERENA: It just goes. You see I am aware that there is another part of me that helps me to function here, but I realize that my existence to humans is very interesting and exciting, but most of the time it has become quite common to me. I never know how I am going to wake up, or if I am going to wake up at all, or if I wake up, am I really woke up or is this just a manifestation of something else. It gives me something to work on. Where am I? Where am I most?

SERENA: I absorb. When I meditate it is still absorption. I can't just meditate.

QUESTION: What would happen? Would you just go away?

SERENA: I don't know. I just can't. I just have to absorb. I have experienced pulling myself into the center of the cosmos and standing there with all the vastness. But whenever that happened I would just completely lose contact with the world here. Just completely forget it.

QUESTION: I don't understand exactly what you mean when you say you don't meditate, you just absorb.

SERENA: I cannot meditate. I have no being to delve into. I absorb from you that I might meditate upon myself, that I might learn of myself through what I have seen in you.

QUESTION: Do you realize the different forms of the deities such as Brahman (sp?) or Ram or Vishnu?

SERENA: I see them all as sparks in the eternal flame.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

SERENA: I see it as a preliminary period in seeking the truth. Because it is like you must go through that in order to prepare you for another way of thinking, not exactly another way, just a broader way of thinking of what you have done. I see them as very struggling people because they are with a few truths, yet a lot of the things that they know they look at with such tiny viewpoints that it hides the truth.

For in order to find truth you must have no limitations. One reason that I have come to earth with such a strange story. You can only see me - you can only see yourself - if you take away the limitations. Don't say that it is or that it is not, say it could be, and let your mind go from there. Keep going. Always say that it is possible. Always say that with God all things are possible and it keeps taking you and taking you to the depths of your own being.

That's what is lacking in some religions. They don't venture out enough within their own beings. They would rather close it so that it doesn't seem so strange. Let it be strange.

QUESTION (Lyra): Well, do you think organized religion will rise up and fight in any way enlightenment?

SERENA: Perhaps they do. But they fight that which is within their own selves. That is the enlightenment which they fight. They cannot harm yours unless you let them. Once a man sets himself upon a path. - don't be swayed by what another man might say, unless it strikes something within you that says, "That is truth." That is then for you to follow.

But another man cannot fight what you believe. Because it is like (?) said. "You cannot fight me, for if you take your sword and you know, you start to put it into me, I'll become that sword and it will hurl off into the air." That's what you must do too. Therefore no man can fight you. If he wants to fight, tell him he has won - his fight, but you've never begun a battle.

QUESTION: No, I wasn't worried about it on a personal basis, maybe I should be, but what I was thinking about for some reason for instance the Christians at one time being thrown to the lions and this sort of thing. Will we ever go through anything like that?

SERENA: Not if we don't burden another one with our beliefs. It's like what you believe, you must believe And what they believe we should let them believe also. If we speak wrongly or if we speak harshly about that which they believe, that could cause conflict within them, towards us, and perhaps it is only justified that they would strike us.

But that will not happen if each man keeps his own place (peace?) and it remains sacred to him, then there will be no war - not among religions. Only a foolish man would fight about God.

QUESTION: You talked last time about our tendency to mar the divine by bringing it down to earthly plane, this is meaning: "I am God." How can we ... are there any techniques or whatever to keep it pure? There are so many ways that we can throw up something like this for being superior to someone else ... feeling that I am so good. It is so easy to use it in that way and abuse it.

SERENA: Perhaps we should go into detail what she is speaking about. I was listening to a lot of people that I met over here in the U.S., and I realized that they were taking a concept, and this was not through bad intentions, it was just something that took place.

They took the concept that: "I am God, I am everything, I must worship my own being,”

And I am speaking of these human individuals. They took that and it was their intent to believe it and to put it in the purest of light, but all that glory and that purity and that light and that love that they used to give to that deity so far away they brought it to earth and marred its beauty.

So the man says, "Aha, that's more like it. I am everything." It is very important that those who believe that way, which is true. That is how it can be looked upon. But that you don't mar what it is that is within you.

That Purity and all that which you wish to display upon God so far in the heavens, don't lose that because it lies within your own self. That's why I continue to call him Father, always feeling that there is some other deity somewhere pulling me, becoming me to know more about me. Don't ever lose that. Keep the name of God holy.

If you say, "I am God," mean it with all the purity and sacredness. (inaudible) To worship your own being, be careful that you worship only the truest and the Purest within yourself.

(inaudible...break in continuity)

SERENA: But yet they are one. There was the Father, the Mother, and the Son. I say Father and Mother. And they were created and never were they different than as one. But yet the Mother said I am going to be called 'Mother'." And the Father said, "I shall be called, 'Father'." We are one, but I shall be Father and I shall be Mother." So it was in the beginning when you were first created. I'll do anything you wish me to do, anything. You see it was the soul, the entity, all from that same humble love that the mother and the father had when the Mother said, "Father, I knew and down on earth there are going to be a lot of people praying to Father God. I'll be called Mother, but I am you." And Father goes, "Well, I'll be Father." They took their positions, yet they are one. One is not less than another. Neither is one above the other. But they very humbly took their positions. So it is with man down here, with what he has done" The Mother says- "I shall be called Mother, but she forgets not the greatness of the Father. The Father says, "I shall be the powerful Father; but I will forget not my Mother, for she is me." This is how it must be down here too. We must remember the glory and the love and the compassion that if it weren't for that deity whom we call God.

Don't mar its beauty, look at it for what it truly is within you. Seek to see the beauty of your own being and the beauty of all others and everything you see, and know that it is God. But it is not making God simpler as to make Him ugly, but to make God simple as He is in truth. For there is a difference. Don't pretend you are something that you are not, and don't pretend God isn't something that He is. That way we will all keep our places, and we'll know that although we are one, it is the Purest and the highest that is within us that we seek to reach.

(inaudible question)

SERENA: Well, you can do all things at once. If you are at home all alone and you'd like to be doing something for someone, send them the Light. Love them within your own self. Pray for them and you can't help but help them. Because the more you include others in your thoughts as to help them, then the more you increase your own susceptibility to giving. They go together. Let us not separate anything except for just a moment in order to understand it and then let's put it back together like it should be. That's how the whole universe runs. There is separation that we might better understand them, but the second that we get the realization, put them together because you will see that the realization is that they are one. All things must work in accordance that we might have balance. This is the harmony of life.

QUESTION: Should you pray for those who have died?

SERENA: If they are heavy upon your heart, then it would be best that you include them in your prayers. Prayers are heavenly thoughts from within your own self.

QUESTION: Some religions of course are quite ritualistic about that, and some aren't.

SERENA: Well, the thing is, you can do anything spiritually. All the laws of all the different religions, Christianity, or this, or that, they are not different, you justcannot be bound to any one thing so as to close your mind to another. That's the important thing.

What you believe and what is true for you, then let not another man down it for us, but what he believes let him believe. But don't become so bound to your own ideals that you lose your mind to something that the Divine Will would have you think or know or become. You see you are taking away the limitations: "I believe this but I would like to hear what you believe." And not be bound to anything so as to cause harm to anything.

Leaving the mind open while upon your path. See all things, hear all things, and become all things. It is the only way. Include everything as part of your being. What you believe I would not tell you is wrong, and don't you tell me that what I believe is wrong, but together we can share our ideas and perhaps there is something that you might say that would strike something in me that I would say, "I believe that." And perhaps I would say something that would do the same to you. But as it is we are not bound to our ideals. That is why we can share.

(inaudible question)

QUESTION: When you came thousands of years ago, you said that you have always taught men universal truths, did people accept? It seems that their religion was a lot more ... (inaudible)

SERENA: Some did and some did not. I taught the same truths spoken in a different manner. The truths are the same, they don't change, man does.

QUESTION: In th_e _book, Seth Speaks, somewhere it is said that a fragment of his soul was in a dog somewhere in the United States. And I just couldn't quite …

SERENA: You see, what Seth is doing now, Seth is living in a realm where there works pure intelligence. Now all worlds are included within each other and the same handful of energy is contained within all things and all their vastness, and one handful of energy is running it, holding it together,

composing it, it is all things. Now we have Earth, we have Venus, two different worlds inhabited by different beings. The energy which might be very abundant down here, you see all the energies are passing through and around this world, but what might collect more here on Earth and be used by earthlings, perhaps they do not use it on Venus. The energy that you must use to survive, Venusians do not use as much of it, therefore that which you need is abundant upon Venus. and we only have enough here to go around. So if beings upon Venus need a certain type of energy more so than another. Therefore they would attract it the moment it came. It is more abundant upon Earth.

Seth lives in a realm of pure intelligence, and it is that the energy which he needs to learn from, to live from, to become from, is very abundant upon Earth. Now in his realm there is a certain aspect of energy which strikes them, their being able to create within themselves the knowledge that they need to seek and to learn. It is very abundant upon earth, but there all the beings snap it up as soon as it comes.So they say:“We will trade. Earth needs our wisdom and we need that energy which we derive from earthlings. It's a bargain, a very good one.

_Seth drops down, he inhabits a dog so that he might have a place upon Earth. He gives you his._wisdom, he absorbs from earth his ability to learn. That energy which enables him to learn gives you the energy which enables you to absorb intelligence from him. So it is a trading back and forth.

QUESTION: So what happens to.the dog's evolving consciousness?

SERENA: Well, if it is (?) which inhabits it is the fragment of Seth's consciousness which is within that dog yet he might only live as a dog would too.

(inaudible exchange)

SERENA: Well, there is such a thing as a group soul, I believe, in which more than one soul can inhabit a body.

QUESTION: Another thing that intrigued me in Seth's book was that oftentimes a very adept, very wise entity, in order to rest temporarily would go into an old, old tree for a long time. Oftentimes when you go into a really ancient forest you get the feeling of the power there. Is that very common?

SERENA: I wouldn't say that it is very common.

QUESTION: Why would he pick a tree?

SERENA: Maybe he likes ths deva who lives near there. You never know.

QUESTION: I have a question that is a little bit off the subject. I have been thinking about for ths last little while - that every day for the last little while more or less we have been practicing vegetarians but at times it has occurred to us that no matter what we eat we are taking life - if we eat a seed, we are taking life. What's the difference?

SERENA: I see none. Except if you felt that you should not eat meat, then it is that you should not eat it.

QUESTION: Right. Of course, that is the way we are doing it, but still we then say, "Well, still and all, what's the difference?"

SERENA: That's why I see no difference.

QUESTION: Do plants have souls?

SERENA: They have evolving consiousneses too. So there you see.

QUESTION: Is an animal, like a cow, more evolved than a plant?

SERENA: He comes with the intention of giving his life.

QUESTION: The plant or the cow?

SERENA: Both.

QUESTION: If you knew that you were going to be a cow, then you might expect that you would give your life so that a human might eat.

QUESTION: Well, do you know if there is any harm in eating meat?

SERENA: Only if you feel that it is within yourself. When you begin to see all things, you see a vegetable and you put it on the same level as the animal. And you put the animal on the exact same level as the human. And you put the human on the exact same level as the God-conscious human. So here it is. What is within yourself if you do not agree then you should not.

QUESTION: I am not a vegetarian, but I have never understood it because to me plants are just as alive as a cow, and so I was just wondering what you thought.

QUESTION: Would it then be that all we are supposed to eat is humans?

SERENA: If you want to.

QUESTION: Couldn't it just be customs. We would be horrified at that, but it's alright to go out and maim and kill an animal and then eat it.

SERENA: So you see. We are just forever going around in circles. But it is still whatever you feel within your own self. I imagine that cannibals feel that they are very good to eat humans.

QUESTION: Well, cannibals are brought up to believe that it is very good to eat humans. When a man has been born into a cannibal family he would sort of feel like his turn might be next in the pot.

SERENA: But perhaps if you had been born a vegetarian, perhaps you would not eat meat. But perhaps it would be only because you were brought up to be a vegetarian.

.

QUESTION: But if you want to live harmlessly, you just can't eat, you've got to die.

SERENA: And then you are doing harm to your own physical body so what kind of a man would you be then?

QUESTION: It seems like there is no way out.

SERENA: It goes back to everything is one. So it is the intent in your heart that is what is important. Right intent the Buddha taught.

QUESTION Does the fact that I don't eat meat be something in relation the karma of my soul?

SERENA: Yes (inaudible)

QUESTION: Can you be mistaken in your beliefs?

SERENA: The mistake is not a mistake until you know it. If you believe something is true for you, then it must be true for you at that time. But if you stay on the right path, and that right path can just be keeping your mind open to all things, then if you hear something that contradicts that which you did believe, but your insides say that you better listen, that sounds right, then you will know that it is time to go on to stage two of your development.

(inaudible question)

SERENA: Right. It comes to a point when you see all things, and you no longer see that microscopic view that a human has sometimes. You see the whole view, and that sometimes gives you insight as to what will happen, and make the things that seem so understandable less understandable, and so cruel, not cruel at all. Everything is one.

COMMENT (FWB '88): re: Venus - She spoke quite often of Venus. One of her stories described the Venusian surgical technique of reaching inside the body, interpenetrating and manipulating the ailing part. The same as the reputed "psychic surgeons" of the Phillipines. (Is this story on one of the other tapes?)

COMMENT (FWB '88): When I heard the sage Yoda in (the second?) "Starwars" movie speak, I was instantly reminded of some of Serena's habits of speech. The phrasing in her answer to the question of the 'practicing vegetarian' is an example.