Hi Øyvind,

You're right in your description with this exception:

"To progress from the lower spheres, you would have to be forgiven by the people you've hurt."

I've never heard a speaker from the other side of the veil suggest that. I rely on their actual statements for everything I believe about the afterlife. We have hundreds of seances with recordings of people in the next plane of life. None I've listened to have suggested people need to be forgiven by those who have taken offense to advance spiritually. However, everyone does experience the feelings of the other person, and that results in spiritual understanding and growth.

Imagine all the people who have offended you or whom you've offended. Some may be offended by your not inviting them to your house or your not acting in a manner they expect. They are offended, but you haven't done anything offensive. You're taking care of your needs and that happens to conflict with their needs. How could we separate those people offended by things we do that are simply different from what they expect to happen?

And as far as what grave offenses are, we would say it's wrong to kill, but nations wage war. States kill criminals. People kill animals and eat them.

As to violence and cruelty, if someone is violent or cruel, that person has either a physical problem or chemical imbalance, or has been reared in an environment that results in violence and cruelty. Conditions beyond their control molded them. Who then is to be forgiven? If a man abuses his spouse, must his father who abused his mother and gave the man the model he followed required to be forgiven for the man to advance spiritually? Is the producer who created a violent film the man watched that inspired him required to be forgiven? Are all of us who permit a violent, bigoted, cruel culture to exist and participate in it required to be forgiven because our culture has created this violent man?

Every person judges himself; no one else judges him. For the requirement that a person must be forgiven by all those who felt offense from something he did to exist, someone outside of the person must be doing the judging. That makes a vengeful, judgmental God part of the universe. No such God exists. God is unconditional love, with no judgment or condemnation.

And so, when we cross over, we do learn how our spiritual attitude on Earth resulted in behavior that someone might have been offended by. We will then grow spiritually to understand other people and how our behavior might have caused them pain. As a result, we will grow spiritually to be more compassionate and love. And as we grow, we will advance into higher planes of being. That we know to be true.

But an impersonal, judging, condemning condition in which someone judges us and requires us to perform acts of contrition is not part of the universe.

Love and peace, Craig