Interview with Frida Waterhouse by Saadi Klotz and Zardusht vanWert on June 20, 1977.
Edited and published in Bismillah Magazine Summer 1978.
QUESTION: We’d like to talk about some things that you’ve already written about in your books, and maybe go on to some new things. Is there anything you’d particularly like to talk about?
FRIDA: Well, I feel my purpose basically is a nitty-gritty one, that of grounding the spiritual practices of a group and translating them into changes in what they’re doing on the stage of life. Of course, in my channeling work it’s a matter of confirming people who already have their own data, or else opening doors for them. However, I want to make it very clear at this point: I’m not attached to whether people change or they don’t, whether they use the material or not. I feel that’s entirely up to them. I used to be very subjectively, emotionally involve with what people did with it and why they weren’t making changes, but I’m not any more. So, in that sense, I seem to be in a very objectified, very unemotional place.
QUESTION: What do you see as the difference between a spiritual channel and a spiritual teacher?
FRIDA: I think that spiritual teachers are often spiritual channels if they’re advanced enough to get the direction from their High Selves and, through the High Self, from the various spiritual hierarchies and teachers on the Inner Planes. I think Wali Ali is definitely directed and influenced by the Murshid Samuel Lewis at times and perhaps even by Hazrat Inayat Khan. With a spiritual channel such as me, the difference lies in the fact that I don’t want disciples. That’s not my purpose for being here. Ultimately, I may even walk away from individual work, which is a part of a spiritual teacher’s whole trip, and get involved in more written communication, speaking to larger groups, where I can reach more people. I’m not sure that this will be so—perhaps.
QUESTION: What do you find is the most common problem that people bring when they come to you for advice? Is that possible to answer?
FRIDA: If we’re going to generalize I could say that primarily they want to know their spiritual purpose. Many of them, because the Murshid Samuel Lewis said so, come to check out their dharma, which I interpret to mean their daily challenges, and how they’re working out their spiritual blueprint. Actually the purposes for which people come are many. I think the second major reason is difficulties they’re having with other persons on this earth plane. Then they ask me to check to find out if there are any karmic debts accruing, and if there have been other relationships in other lifetimes with the same person. Many times I can point out to them that there have been different relationships with the same person or persons, and that they’re back here again simply to finish it up. Or to give up the game of one-upmanship and just walk away without having to “win.” Sometimes only one of the person who has that awareness level to do that, because you can’t change anybody else and you can’t force a change.
QUESTION: Do you find that people have expectations of what you should be like. Does this get in the way of your communicating?
FRIDA: Yes, both on verbal and non-verbal levels. Of course, there is grapevine gossip giving many interpretations of what I am and what I do. I’m sure I shock the hell out of a lot of people because I will not stay on a pedestal and I won’t act as a “teacher,” “saint,” or anything else they want to call me. Years ago, when I was unsure of myself, I used to be thrown somewhat and I liked a lot of adulation. Eventually I reached a stage where it disturbed me because I kept thinking of the injunction. “Lead me not into temptation,” but now I really don’t care that much. Of course, the opinion of people very close to me, like say a Joe Miller or a Wali Ali, could make a difference, but otherwise, regardless of where the chips fall, I’ve got to be me. I’m changing radically now, and I don’t know how I’m going to turn out, whether I’m going to be as fierce as I’m told I am, or whether or not I’m going to be a meek, little lamb! Possibly, I’ll come become totally devoid of all aspects of my persona, which I feel is the final step. I’m working on the final stages now. That means I’m not too much attached to what people say. Oh, it can come through the barrier for a moment, but I can’t live, move and have my being in what other people feel about me. My direction must come from the inner; I’m very stubborn about that. That’s the Taurus in me.
QUESTION: Isn’t there a problem in communicating advice that one hasn’t particularly realized in one’s life, that it won’t necessarily do anyone any good?
FRIDA: I rarely give advice, because I don’t want to take on the karmic pattern and make decisions for other people. I might do that in a case where somebody’s hemorrhaging or have an acute problem, or in a place where they can’t do anything for themselves; then I might take steps to either save their lives or their reason, if I’m asked to do this. But I literally do not give advice as a rule. I have no illusion that people are hearing exactly what I say, even you right now, because you’re translating it into your own interpretation of what these words mean. It used to bother the heck out of me, but I don’t worry about that anymore because I know that’s the only way one can hear—through one’s own understanding, semantically, emotionally and in every other way. I’m not attached when I do special work for someone, or in my class work, whether people use what they are given. It’s been my experience, and I’ve been working at this since about 1953, that sometimes it takes six months, a year, two or maybe three years for people to understand what they were given, especially in the channelings where I go to their teachers and bring forth answers to their questions. Again I always ask them to take it through their own beings and have their own High Selves direct them to what’s useful, and to put anything else on the shelf for the time being.
QUESTION: In a lot of your work you talk about three bodies, the High Self, consciousness and basic self. Do you have an ideal of God that is useful to you in this work, aside from those three bodies?
FRIDA: First of all, when we’re talking about the three selves, we’re not talking about three bodies. We’re talking about three entities attached and/or inside one body. The subconsciousness (the basic self) may be two or more entities. There may be both a male and female, so sometimes it’s four rather than three selves. Subconsciousness has come in with its own karmic pattern, its own dharma, and its own spiritual plan to resolve through working in cooperation with you, the consciousness. The High Self is not you anyhow. That’s what we you are eventually going to be when you’re finished with the earth plane—you’re going to become a High Self! Incidentally the concept of the three selves comes from the Kahunas in the Hawaiian Islands. But there are other spiritual groups and people working both in psychology and in various therapies that also accept that concept.
Now the relationship of the Godhead is quite different, because this has to be Frida Waterhouse’s consciousness, or your own, open to and wishing to have this contact. Actually I didn’t until the age of 45. I was very much on the humanistic path, working in politics to try to ameliorate the difficulties of humanity, but having no religious belief—in fact, our family was anti-religious. But at the age of 45, when I was in tremendous anguish and was in very unorthodox therapy, I was lying on the couch when suddenly this tremendous light hit me. At first I was in a dark forest. Then I wandered out into a meadow where a shaft of light touched me and I heard “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me….” This experience changed me completely, even physically, so that some old friends didn’t recognize me. I wasn’t a bible student at that time. My family was anti-Christ because of the pogroms in Europe. I got up and I said: “I understand what Christ, Jesus meant!”
My relationship with the Godhead has nothing to do with teachings anybody gave me or any beliefs in me. It was, in a sense, concentrated and brought through me each time I was in so much anguish or difficulty that nothing else out there comforted me and held me. My relationship to the Godhead is a very personal one on different levels, and that which I ever believed in or thought existed became a fait accompli. The Lord and I have a very personal and an impersonal relationship when I work as His instrument. But I abide in it—it abides here. And it used to be more, I used to work more with channeling Master Jesus and the Divine Mother, but for me the personal thing is the masculine aspect of the Lord God of Israel, not the Hebraic Yaweh but the universal work and that’s what balances me out because I don’t have a male in the household.
QUESTION: You have both a men’s class and a women’s class and it seems as though they are concerned with sex and relationships. Why have you chosen that area in which to work?
FRIDA: The problems brought to me are primarily about sex and relationships, and sex has a lot to do with relationships, but that isn’t all that I do. If you’ve been in my class any length of time you would know what I’ve been really doing is yanking the roots of aberrant patterns. In my women’s class, we’ve gone through some pretty heavy stuff. What I’m really trying to get people to do is to live in the “here and now” and only use the past as a wisdom reference—not to be subjected to, or motivated by, all the past garbage. That, primarily, is my aim. My new book is called Tomorrow Never Comes. Tomorrow doesn’t ever come! You only have this moment in time, place and space, and that’s what I accent. For instance, in relationships I’m trying to get people to let each other be, to stop projecting changes on them by trying to make them in your own image and likeness and accept what you think is spiritual. That’s what I keep hammering on. That’s why we don’t have a Brotherhood of Man and the golden age is delayed. It is because we won’t accept ourselves with the imperfections, much less like and love ourselves, so we certainly can’t do it for our partners, groups, neighbors and our friends. Of course it affects all relationships because relationships are the catalysts that move us.
QUESTION: I believe that you mentioned once, and a number of other people have mentioned, that males and females are moving toward a more balanced state of sexuality or something akin to androgyny. Do you have anything to say about that, what life might be like?
FRIDA: I don’t think it’s going to happen in our time. Most of you are still working on trying to balance out your male and female polarities. Very few men totally accept themselves and feel secure in your male hood; much less are they able to handle their feminine principle. Of course, many men have been given more of the feminine principle so as to move away from violence and competitiveness. This is not to emasculate men, but to bring them more into balance. The women have been given more of the masculine principle, and they are having a difficult time handling the masculine polarity without emulating the negative aspects of this male aggressiveness. They are learning how to be forceful and how to stand up for themselves. Men and women, then, are still struggling for inner balance.
The androgynous whole is said to be symbolically, theoretically, and actually the state that we were in before we had physical bodies. But coming down to the earth plane, there has to be another type of vehicle. As I understand it, when we were in the etheric body we created all that was necessary through thought forms. I don’t know whether we’re going to have an earth plane made up entirely of androgynous beings. I think before we do that, we’re going to have to learn to use the masculine-feminine principle in balance, using love and sex without separating one from the other. We need to reach the point where sexuality is a cleansing process, bringing up the negative patterns and transmuting them, using sex as a sacrament on the altar with love for a purpose higher than your own desires. That process can promote higher states of consciousness. Tantra yoga can do it to a certain extent, but I think the use of sex can go beyond that technique also.
QUESTION: How can one use the concept of Tantra Yoga or sex as a sacrament if one isn’t in the place where one is able to do that?
FRIDA: It could only be a tentative goal or an ideal, but if you use that ideal to flagellate yourself because you’re not ready, it’s destructive. Both partners have to be in a receptive place where they can be directed through their High Selves under the aegis of the proper hierarchy. It’s a very powerful energy and unless the couple is hearing the directions and following them, it’s not going to work. If the technique is used as a model that downgrades whatever’s happening at your present level or awareness, it’s the wrong concept for you. You have to be realistic and operate where you are, not pretending that you can do or be something that you’re not, feeling unhappy that you’re not at that point in your evolution. That’s not what it’s all about. You’re here to experience, you’re here to be, to develop from stage to stage in your growth process. To try to compel or propel yourself beyond that is only going to cause imbalance and a great deal of unhappiness, if not a psychosis.
QUESTION: If one receives direction from one’s High Self, will that High Self give one choices or will that lead one unerringly to ones purpose in life?
FRIDA: I’ve never heard of High Selves giving choices other than to follow or to not follow directions—you still can dig in your heels and say, “No!” The High Self is a wisdom source, a funnel, so to speak, for the teachers to come through. There are those of us who can reach the planetary akasha (what Jung calls the “collective unconscious”) and pull through anything we need in practical knowledge, whether it has to do with mathematics, or the creative arts such as music and painting, or efficient bookkeeping systems and organizational plans, anything that is need-ed. The point is that you can use the High Self by having an agreement with it, and it can constantly supply your needs. It will keep your feet firmly on your spiritual pathway, if you will listen. In addition, if you feed it as you would a computer with the details of what you need to know, that knowledge will be given you at a time of need. The High self will not interfere with your human will in any way whatsoever. It’s an objectified wisdom source, and not attached on a persona or subjective level to you. It’s there as a very impersonal instrument.
QUESTION: Is it the same as what one would call intuition?
FRIDA: No. The intuition, the hunch and flash, comes from the basic self or selves (subconsciousness) and has more to do with survival on the earth plane, keeping your vehicle safe, warning you about places to go or not to go, etc. If it’s properly used, the basic self will tell you about your body, what to feed it and what not to feed it, and it’s very accurate but it’s not the same as the High Self. The High Self is primarily a wisdom and guidance source on the spiritual path to open doors for you. It can lead you to books, to a group of persons, to a teacher or whatever is necessary. It will give you this data over and over again if necessary. It’s not the hunch and flash factor that comes and goes. The High Self makes itself known in a very objectified, quiet way.
QUESTION: So a High Self can still direct a person who is not looking for direction. It can still bring you into a situation….
FRIDA: No, it can’t! It can’t force its knowledge upon you. The High self can only wait, like the sub-consciousness, for you to accept what’s given and use it. It can’t force you to do anything. That would be contrary to the fiat of God on man’s will as man’s law. I sometimes screamed and hollered when I heard what I had to do, but I did it!
QUESTION: Is it possible to receive direction from the High Self that is beyond one’s actual physical capability to carry out on the earth plane?
FRIDA: I’ve never had that experience. I’ve worked with many people in my time and I’ve never heard any one of them complain of such a lack. You are never given anything beyond your capacity. If you look at the diagram in Why Me?, you will see a spiral over the High Self. That is called the super-conscious mind or Jacob’s ladder—the angelic host. Now you can only reach Allah or God by rising through the High Self, through that spiral, going straight to the throne of the Most High. Your divine teachers can only reach you through the High Self. They can come through the High self and go down to subconscious mind or basic self. But if you get a real connection with your High Self, then the teachers can come directly through the High Self to you. The law obtains that they cannot force you to listen to them or to obey their instructions. What has been said to me over and over again through the years is that there are no more sacrificial lambs. This sacrificial aspect existed during the Piscean age. Now, if you cannot lay your offering as a sacrament on the altar lovingly and willingly, They don’t want it!
QUESTION: Do you have any remembrances about Murshid Sam that you’d like to relate?
FRIDA: I met Murshid Sam through a friend of mine who had met one of the Sufi disciples. Kabira, under another name, was part of the Murshid Samuel Lewis’s household. She had come to me for help and I worked with her. She told Sam about me. He suggested that she bring me to the Mentorgarten for dinner. As usual, Kabira was late, so when we arrived it was at the tail end of the feast.
The Murshid Samuel Lewis started giving me a sort of third degree to check me out. Being a stubborn Taurus, I thought, “If you’re that advanced, you can find out who I am without going through all that,” so I sort of stalled him just to be ornery. Then he went upstairs for a nap and he left me in the kitchen with Wali Ali and a few others. Of course, they continued exploring and they wanted to discuss some very abstruse, abstract subjects. I said “No, I don’t want to discuss them. I’m a very practical person who prefers earth things,” so we had a real talk.
About an hour later Sam came down and asked the others, “Well?” They said “She can talk to us any time.” I pretended I didn’t know what they were doing but I was pretty aware. At the class that evening, I sat next to the Murshid. We had a real rapport. Then he asked me very bluntly, “Do you want disciples?” I said “No, I don’t want disciples—I don’t want any part of it. All I want to do is put a torch in their hand and open the door. If they want to run through, fine. If they don’t, fine; but I don’t want any disciples.” He really wanted to know if I’d come there to compete with him and, of course, I hadn’t. I had difficulty with his personality because it was contradictory to everything I was taught to be as an instrument. Then I was shown the quality of his soul force so after that I felt very much Divine Mother-ish about him, trying to protect him.
Afterwards, many of his disciples came for their personal problems. Since he didn’t have to be involved with their garbage, he was free to do other things. In that sense, I considered myself a giant garbage disposal for the Sufi Order, and that was okay at that time. I was blind at the time, incidentally, so I never saw him. The last time I talked to him was the Christmas Eve before he took his fall. I only knew him from May to December of 1970. In January 1971 he was dead. I do want to add this comment: that we both recognized who each one of us was as spiritual instruments before his death.
QUESTION: On the subject of pain—it seems as though one can take the point of view that pain helps one to grow, and that’s true, of course. On the other hand, it seems that one should be aiming for a point where one’s life has more clarity and one doesn’t go through old pains again and again.
FRIDA: Of course, I’m not trying to advertise the book, but Why Me? gives the subject of pain as completely as I can give it. As far as old pains are concerned, one of the problems is that if you haven’t really gone through the process of recall, and released the pattern, it keeps coming back. That’s why, although many spiritual groups don’t believe in working with your hang-ups, it is vital for some people who are really hung up at certain points in their lives (even the past lives) because the pain keeps bleeding through. It’s much healthier for them to go through it because, as I said before, pain or past events should be a reference point—not a button pusher. Our whole civilization (probably not in Asia, but in most of Europe and at least in North America) has the concept that pain is the enemy. It’s to be dreaded and, above all, it’s to be eliminated. For me, it’s a discipline because I have it almost constantly in some form. I could feel a lot of self-pity, I could choose to become a semi-invalid or use it as a discipline in its proper perspective and go about my business.
There is a teaching about physical pain and it could apply to emotional, mental and spiritual pain, too, I would think; i.e., if you can focus your mind elsewhere, for the time being the pain abates and the healing process can take place. But if one concentrates on the pain, then the only safe way that I know of is to let it come to its crescendo and then “walk” through it. Not many people have the courage to do this, but if you can, the pain does diminish. As for the ideal of getting into a space where pain no longer works as a pusher, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way for most human beings. If we are comfortable, if we can be cocooned, if we can reach a stasis, we like to hang on to it. That means we don’t move. We make the great steps when we’re absolutely falling apart at the seams. Then, unless we land in a mental hospital, we do something about it. It’s too bad it had to be this way, but that’s the way we are. My answer to severe pain on the physical level, or any other, is that I’ve simply cried out and gotten help—that is possible. You can just release the burden to the very sturdy strong shoulders of God (Allah, call him whatever you wish). Unfortunately, most of us have to hang on to pain, either to punish ourselves or for some other reason, but it can be used as a pusher.
QUESTION: Can you say anything about the book you’re working on now?
FRIDA: Actually it covers what I’ve been preaching and teaching in my classes and in my individual work. It’s a nitty-gritty grounding of spiritual practices put in print, following up Why Me?, and perhaps repeating a few ideas from some of the booklets. There was a booklet put out in September 1977, titled Life/Death Motifs, which again un-romanticizes pregnancy, the period after the birth of the baby, how we really feel about death and what it takes to make a spiritual, healing instrument. In the next book, I’m going to do a chapter on psychism—what it really is according to direct, inner teaching. I’m going to pick up on what the Murshid Samuel Lewis in one of his writings, that man has never been his animal body. Of course the title Tomorrow Never Comes tells you something. It will be very practical and down-to-earth. I could say it in more elegantly or more abstruse ways, but basically, as I said originally, I’m one that grounds the spiritual practices on the spiritual path so that people who don’t know much about them, and even those already on the path, can begin to be more practical and apply what they’re getting on a daily level. My premise is that if all the dancing, the mantras, the breaths, the walks and the teachings are not applied and do not eventually show in your changes (how you handle every day), then it’s still a mind/emotional trip and a space-out. That’s what I’m against. I’m very hard on space- outs or cop-outs, whatever technique is used to get high in order to escape reality. This is not the answer. It has to be brought through by changing your consciousness, or else you’re not likely to complete the blueprint for which you entered. What I keep saying over and over again is that this is an animal body with special programming of survival and reproductive motifs found only on this earth plane. It’s a very rough schoolhouse, but you’re here primarily to learn your lessons, pass the tests and be graduated. Service is secondary to this—important for some, but secondary. Primarily you are here to add to the wisdom and experience of your soul force, and that’s what your commitment’s all about. If all your practices are not leading to that goal, then they’ve missed their mark.
I have found in my classes and with people I talk to, that there’s a great deal of misunderstanding of ideals, spiritual illumination, etc. First of all, they bring up the dichotomy of, I want to get there “first-est with the most-est.” You help me achieve this and to hell with everybody else. Or, as in your communal situation, you’re not serving wholeheartedly because there’s a part of you that wants to go on your own trip. That’s the dichotomy on which most of you are operating. Disciples hear Wali Ali, for instance, give a lecture about this saint, dervish or holy person, and feel guilty because they’re not like them, because they’ve taken the “holy” ones for an ideal. You’re wasting a lot of energy and actually interfering with your progress by refusing to accept yourselves as you are. I’m trying to shatter all such false “ideals” for the time being, unless those ideals are concomitant with your own blueprint, your individual spiritual path. If you select an abstract ideal because it is beautiful, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what you’re here to learn, then you’re just building blocks with what you have to do on a very practical, everyday level. If you can accept the fact that the spiritual path is this and every moment in time, place and space, you will recognize that it’s not your practices, it’s not your breaths, it’s not your mantras, it’s not your ideals. Your spiritual path is what you’re manifesting on the stage every moment of every day. That’s why I insist that if you’re not using your practices to change what you’re doing here then there’s a schism, a split. Your spiritual path is not the saint out there. The saint is there to prove that this is possible—that others have made it. But for you to insist that you instantly become that saint can be very destructive and devastating, and may interfere completely with your purpose for being on the earth plane.
QUESTION: Is it a part of peoples’ paths or purposes to do that, these days, to be saints or masters?
FRIDA: Do you want my feeling about it? Many times it’s inadvertent—you don’t even know you’re going to become anything. At least this is my personal experience and I’ve seen it with others. All you know is that you want to get off this whole yo-yo trip, and that you want to release the tremendous attachment to what other people think of you, which mirrors back to your self- worth. If by doing this you change in consciousness and become an instrument, it can be a big fat surprise. I never knew I’d become what I am, and I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me. I’ve never had any goal personally other than to achieve the full purpose for which I’ve come. I didn’t want to get hung up into coming back for another lifetime, so this is a go-for-broke lifetime. However, I don’t recommend this to anybody because it can destroy you—I’ve almost died several times because of that resolution. That means working through all your karmic patterns and paying all your karmic debts. There may be some who have envisioned becoming a saint or a pope or whatever. My reality is this: when we set up programs for ourselves without consulting our High Selves, we’re on the same willful path that destroyed us many times before. We are trying to play God by trying to direct His plan ourselves instead of letting Him direct us.
QUESTION: A lot of the disciples on spiritual paths here are married and have children, and most are sincerely concerned with raising their children differently. Alternative schools, alternative lifestyles, the spiritual community, etc. There are all kinds of ideas about how it’s going to be so different when we raise our children. Do you have anything you’d like to say about that?
FRIDA: Again I’m going to be nitty-gritty about children. They’re going to push every button, both in the parents and the group—the un-grownup or immature parts of you. That’s why I talk of this in my booklet Life/Death Motifs. Theoretically you see all these wonderful things in children and resolve that you’re not going to do what your parents did to you. It works two ways. Either you unconsciously follow the same pattern, even though you rebelled against them, or else you don’t consistently structure your children. They become wild animals so nobody can abide them. When they get out into society they’re going to be crushed, because no one’s going to put up with their nonsense, their belief that they’re the be-all and end-all. Nobody’s going to worship or adore them when they’re being selfish and self-involved. I don’t think you can raise children theoretically and not be influenced by your own hang-ups. You may not repeat all the mistakes that your parents made, but you’ll make your own unless you can reach a point where you’re following your highest guidance only. That’s difficult to do 24 hours a day with one or more children screaming at you, the loss of sleep, fatigue and so on. They’re going to be button pushing you all over the place. You may not have as many battered children on the physical level with spiritual oriented parents, but you may batter them on other levels.
Many of the children I’ve seen raised by spiritual people are insufficiently structured, lacking the discipline that recognizes and respects your space. They are rarely trained to respect your possessions, yet they expect you to give them space and to respect their things. They’re pretty predatory and some of them are not a joy to have around some of the time. When the Murshid Samuel Lewis was around (I used to go to Sausalito to the dances), I heard them interrupt prayers and meditations. They’ve interrupted some very special events by running around screaming, with parents not taking responsible for what’s going on. I’ve attended weddings that were pure hell with the kids running loose, and at one, they could scarcely keep them from messing up the wedding cake and grabbing everything in sight. These are children brought up by “spiritual” Sufis! It is obvious they haven’t been given a consistent discipline. Sometimes I channel for babies and am shown negative patterns they have brought in to work through. Many babies are highly sensitized, so they have to be cocooned, but at the same time they have to be structured. This is necessary for their own sake, for their own self-respect, for their own eventual discipline. There are exceptions of course, but as a rule it’s not pleasant to be around them.
QUESTION: In a situation where children live in an atmosphere like a spiritual ashram or a Khankah where a lot of people are working through a lot of garbage, what effect does this have on children?
FRIDA: They pick it up through osmosis, and of course it’s very hard on them. Not only that, but they don’t have just one set of parents that give discipline. They have all sorts of people with different ideas telling them what they can and cannot do. When these people are in charge, or if they happen to push somebody’s button and that person gets angry, it’s very confusing for them.
There was an article in one of the Third World papers about that very subject. An older child stated how difficult it was for him and his confreres to handle all this because there were contradictory views. Some people believe in a lot of discipline, are very strict, and some people don’t want to take responsibility for any discipline because they’re not sure of it themselves. They’re not self-disciplined and they don’t want to make the same mistakes their parents made. It makes it difficult because what a child craves is the kind of love that will give it a consistent structure without variables just because somebody’s in one mood or another, or somebody else is taking over. Let me say two things: One is that grownups have difficulty handling all the garbage that’s coming out, too, so you pretty well know the child is getting a share of it. Secondly, the thing that comforts me, that only makes it bearable about the way children are treated, is that they selected these particular parents with these situations for their growth and lesson learning. Evidently they’ve come to work out some heavy stuff. But they haven’t on a conscious level accepted being battered on so many levels.
QUESTION: Do you see a consistent line more in terms of a heart feeling, or in terms of a set of guidelines that one can set up?
FRIDA: Some parents, of course, have very special things they want said and done or not said and done. If they will explicitly give these instructions to their baby-sitters, and the baby-sitters agree to follow this to the best of their ability, that’s one way. In handling a child, if you follow your highest guidance your emotions and hang-ups don’t get in the way—it flows. Not everybody is able to do this, especially when children are being ornery and obstreperous and you’re just about to tear your hair out. We’re human after all and we’ve all been where we reached the “point of no return.”
QUESTION: Many people one encounters these days who are interested in the spiritual path are so young. They’re still growing up, you know. Why do so many of us seem to be so young or so immature?
FRIDA: I think it’s a gift of grace if you’re aware of such things as a “spiritual path” as young as many of you are, because I wasn’t until I was 45. That gives you a much longer time and opportunity to work at it. However many of you left home as an act of rebellion, when you were still immature. As a result, you often got into situations that usually more mature people get into, such as sexual intercourse, other relationships, whatever. Many of you were still seeking the security of papa and mama in your relationships. Naturally, when each person is seeking security from the other and no one has it, eventually the relationship folds up. Then because many young people, especially males, won’t take responsibility for using contraceptives, or are either indifferent or lazy, it’s resulted in some young women having a series of abortions. Some women have had as many as three or five, which is not only very rough on the physical body, but can have very harmful, karmic consequences if done with self-indulgence. One or two “accidents” can be understood. Some women who completed the pregnancies are still babies themselves, so to speak. That’s where some of the child battering was done—the young women simply went out of their cotton- picking minds, because they were, or felt, trapped. I suggested to some in my classes that they organize a baby-sitting exchange within a block or two of their homes. At the very least, they could get together to break up the monotony and release the pressure.
I’ve had someone recently come to me who is a very attractive young woman, also very talented. She and her husband were both on hard drugs, and when on drugs the man’s violence erupted. Of course, she, in her way, inadvertently triggered it also. It was their little-8-year old boy who was the one that had to make peace and restore balance. The mother thought it was so wonderful of the child, but I said, “No eight-year-old should have the responsibility of keeping peace between adults. That’s too heavy a responsibility for him. He is the one who needs the security of having adults around him. He should not have to help keep the marriage together and have to take the brunt of neutralizing the violence around him.
In another one of my classes, there was a young woman who had a four-your-old daughter. When the mother was on the verge of violence, her daughter would go up to her, pat her and say, “It’s alright mommy, it’s alright.” I thought that was very pathetic. That’s what’s happening to a certain extent. These sensitive children are the ones who are trying to keep things peaceful, so it’s not surprising when they fall apart later on. It’s a miracle that they can keep it together right now.
We were told, and it seems to be true, that all the ugliness, the excrescences are going to come to the surface. It’s a time of rampant up-down and black-white with very little of the nuances in between. That means that people are either in a very good place, or it’s very heavy. The stuff is coming up in great gobs, and it’s going to increase each year, so this is something we have to deal with. Things are being brought out that will have to be resolved. Joe Miller said that Uranus will be in Scorpio through 1982, which means that everything in the sex and family departments will hit the fan.
This seems to be happening to all of us—very radical changes taking place. We have to watch ourselves by being disciplined (not suppressive), by being very careful as to what we put out. We must try not to add to that negative energy now existing on planet earth. Try to counter it with light and love. This is not being said to make anybody feel guilty. But I do feel that if you are conscious of what you are manifesting, even if you are in a dark place yourself, hopefully you’ll ask for help to neutralize your feelings. If you do the best you can, no matter what, no one can fault you.