Contemporary Cayce. Henry Reed

ideal would respond to life, and I begin acting in that same manner, I am truly choosing and working with a spiritual ideal.

      One practical approach suggested by the Cayce material for exploring your ideals is to create a chart. Take a piece of paper and draw three columns. Label the first column, “My spiritual ideal.” Label the middle column, “My mental attitudes,” and label the third, “My physical activities.” Using a previous example, if your spiritual ideal was “harmony” then what attitudes could you hold in mind that might best exemplify harmony? Certainly, harmony would be one, compassion might be another, understanding a third, personal surrender another, love another, and perhaps also oneness. The key is then to pick activities you can do for yourself and others that equate to each of the attitudes on your chart. For example, for the attitude of oneness, you might choose (for self) meditating on oneness. Conversely, for the attitude of understanding, you might choose trying to discover all of the things you have in common with someone with whom you are having challenges. Ultimately, you bring the spiritual ideal into manifestation by choosing attitudes and activities that can practice that ideal in daily life. For each person in your life, for each circumstance you face, you can create a row in your ideals chart to indicate as your ideal the spirit in which you wish to meet that area of life, the attitude such an ideal implies, and the desired behavior you plan to follow—behaviors for self and behaviors in response to others.

      Creating an ideals chart not only is valuable because of the thoughtful work it requires, but also because it can become an object of contemplation. Repeatedly, the Cayce readings emphasized the power of the mind in creating the substance of an individual’s life. The oft-repeated quote, “Mind is the Builder” is especially important in working with ideals. You can readily survey the life you are building for yourself by the ideals you hold and the attitudes and behaviors they generate. Along the same lines, you can come to understand the type of person you are (and the life you are creating) in the process of becoming cognizant of the ideals that inspire you, the attitudes that are empowered by your ideals and your values, and the actions and activities that fill your day’s events. Taken together, it becomes clear why setting a spiritual ideal is the most important tool for growth and transformation that we have at our disposal.

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      Reincarnation and Everyday Life

      THE EDGAR CAYCE READINGS PRESENT THE UNIQUE PREMISE THAT THE principal purpose for life in the earth is to bring spirit into the third dimension. Rather than escaping the earth, our job is to collectively bring divinity into the physical dimension. On a personal level, that goal is accomplished by undergoing a series of lifetimes in which each person eventually awakens to the individuality of the soul-self, comes to recognize the spirit within, and ultimately manifests unconditional love and enlightenment—just as the Creator intended. The universal laws of reincarnation and karma are the process through which each of us are able to experience “cause and effect” and the ramifications of each of our choices until the soul realizes that ultimately its desire is simply to manifest the soul’s oneness with God. From the premise of the Cayce material rather than being a “belief,” reincarnation is instead a verifiable process that enables the soul to come to know its true self and its ultimate relationship with God.