Why do we suffer? How do we heal?

Dear Friends,
Before we launch into the main theme of this editorial, we’d first like to remind you how very much we would like you to:

Feel part of the Cygnus community.

As many of you know already, our aim at Cygnus is to be of help in your personal and spiritual journey, and an important role of the Cygnus community as a whole is to share your experiences so that they may help other members.

We ask you to picture yourself as part of a vast network, intertwined with hundreds of other supportive and healing matrices, groups and individuals. And so we love to hear from you, especially when you’ve been touched by something you’ve read in the Cygnus Review, or by one of the books you’ve bought through Cygnus. Please do keep writing to us, whether for the Chat Page, or just because you feel like sharing something with the editorial team.

Another new way you can share is to write your own reviews of books included on our website. Just visit the web page of the book you want to review and follow the instructions.

Participate in our Readers’ Survey

Now, because your experience and opinions are such a vital essence of our existence, we’d like to invite and encourage you to participate in our Readers’ Survey. So when you visit our website, please take a few moments to visit the following link and let us know your valuable insights into how Cygnus can be at its best for you: www.cygnus-books.co.uk/readersurvey

Why do we suffer?

It’s a human urge, isn’t it, to try to find reasons for the things we experience. And the ‘Law of Attraction’ has provided many people today with a ready explanation for just about everything. The books so popular with many of you are full of stories about people who, when disaster strikes, find the application of the Law of Attraction solves everything. But sometimes, when difficult things actually happen to us, and we start to observe more closely the patterns of events that led up to the experience, we cannot escape the conclusion that things are far more complex than we previously imagined.

We may come to recognise that ‘finding explanations for things’ falls unhealthily close to ‘blaming ourselves for things’. And that the reasons we may have latched onto as explanations for our misfortune are actually creating fear, which in turn limits the power of the infinitely compassionate Divine Source to heal us.

And finally we may realise, as Alice Bailey points out in Esoteric Healing [200312, £12.00], and as Caroline Myss explains in Defy Gravity (see p.4), that the true reasons for suffering and illness are often so complex that they are in fact beyond the understanding of our finite minds, and that it is only when we ‘bow our heads’ in awe of all that we do not, and cannot, know that a space arises within us in which true healing can be allowed to begin.

A new Cygnus publication

This idea brings us to our Editor’s Choice this month, which is Joe Vitale’s Zero Limits. We think you’ll find this book really helpful because it offers a healing method for something we’ve often observed when difficult or painful situations arise.

What we’ve noticed is that patterns of pain, suffering and conflict tend to repeat themselves, time and time again, sometimes throughout a single lifetime, sometimes over many lifetimes, sometimes in generation after generation of a bloodline, sometimes in humanity as a whole, until it is somehow possible to release the energy trapped in that painful pattern. It’s almost as though the pattern is a program that will keep on running until it is removed.

This understanding was recognised by the indigenous Hawaiian people, and they developed a method for removing these programs. Called Ho’oponopono, it is this method that Joe Vitale introduces us to in Zero Limits.
We’re sure you’ll be very enthusiastic about this book, so to make it as economical as possible, and to allow you to make even more savings when you buy extra copies to give to friends, family or even your local therapy centre, we’ve published our own edition of Zero Limits exclusively for Cygnus members.

Gathering in resonance

This month’s Book Circle Choice, is Jonathan Goldman’s The Divine Name (see p.9). We’ve chosen it not so much as a theme for discussion, but as something to practise, both individually and together.

We’ve chosen it as the focus for your forthcoming gatherings because we are excited by the prospect of groups of Cygnus members coming together in vocal resonance and accelerated consciousness. Collectively, intoning according to Jonathan’s fascinating instruction and example, which you’ll find on the accompanying CD, you can utilize the Divine Name to project sacred sound on a global level, for peace and harmony. We’d love to hear how you get on.

Do we choose to suffer?

A couple of years ago, Diana Cooper wrote an article for us in which she mentioned a book called Courageous Souls.At the time there was no way we could find to offer the book to you, so we had to save Diana’s message of enthusiasm for later. Well, the good news is that the book has at last found its way to us, newly entitled Your Soul’s Plan, so here is some of what Diana had to say about it, and you can read an extract from the book on p.6.

‘Robert Schwartz tells the stories of people who have extreme challenges, and asks, ‘Are these conditions and events pre-planned into their lives?’ He accesses their pre-birth planning sessions with extraordinarily interesting and detailed results. In many cases he records the entire pre-birth conversations between the person who chooses the challenge and all those who will incarnate as friends and family and whose lives would inevitably be affected.Some of these pre-birth negotiations touched my heart to the core, for the love was palpable between souls who would on Earth offer each other growth challenges.

This book truly expanded my understanding of pre-birth planning and karma. I felt a deeper sense of forgiveness and non-judgement developing in me as I read it. I could only wonder at the courage of the souls who plan difficult challenges, often for the greater good of many people.’

Transformation through adversity

I had a great conversation with Ann Napier recently, and we found ourselves talking about one of her favourite books, which she likes because it highlights a difficult truth: that if our deepest prayer is for inner transformation and spiritual growth, then there may be nothing that answers that prayer so rapidly as an experience of profound adversity.

Simply through the act of meeting such situations with as much authenticity and openness as we can muster, we are given opportunities to overcome all kinds of internal and external obstacles and gain as inner possessions qualities that before we could only long for.

So we are delighted that Findhorn Press have published a new edition of Anne Edwards’ ‘X7’ transcriptions first published in 1996 (see p.7). These are messages received telepathically in the 1950s by psychics known as the Network of Light, from a group of prisoners trapped in a Siberian salt mine, who entered into such an advanced stage of spiritual development that they began to refine the vibratory rate of their bodies and that of surrounding matter until they could experience themselves as beings of Light. These writings have great spiritual significance and can act as an important guide for anyone experiencing their own esoteric or spiritual transformation. Ann described them as some of the most influential words she has ever read, so, if you’re looking for a book to add to your core reading list, The Mysterious Story of X7 is prime.

Waves of gratitude

Thank you so much for all your kind messages for Ann, Geoff and the family as they continue their healing journey. We hope you understand that they cannot reply personally to you all, but that waves of gratitude find their way to you each month on our Cygnus swan’s wings.
As a thought to leave you with, then, we’d like to say this: whatever else healing may be, we believe that it is above all something we do with and for each other, each of us in our own unique way. In that sense we hope you will find in this Review insights that will broaden and deepen your understanding of why we suffer and how we can heal.
With many blessings and much love,
Sarah and Ann