If someone is harming you and making your life difficult, it may seem natural to hate them and be unforgiving and want revenge, but all these things are bad for you and will hold back your progress. Once you realize that the person who is behaving so badly is in need of help, you will also realize that the only way to give that help is to love them. That is the most effective way of changing their behaviour and it also frees you from hate and bitterness.
If someone has done something terrible to you, they will suffer the consequences. Whether you forgive them or not has no bearing on what will happen to them. Come what may, they will have to learn the lesson. So holding on to resentment only harms you. Forgiveness, on the other hand, releases you. It gives you freedom. Learning to forgive is one of the great lessons.
Basically, what we need to do is really quite simple – we need to find peace in ourselves and radiate love. This is the answer to everything. When we give off anger and other forms of negative energy, it just pollutes the world and at some point it has to be cleansed. Love is like a disinfectant – it cleans it all up. If every human being on this planet could get peace in their heart and radiate love, in an instant all the hate and violence would disappear and the Earth would be a paradise. In fact, there would be no point coming here – we wouldn’t learn from it!
We are learning, though, and more people than ever before are understanding the spiritual nature of life and love and service. Ahead of us there lies a glorious new age, but we won’t get there easily. There is a cleansing process to go through first. We’ve been through it before. Thousands of years ago, during the civilizations of Lemuria and Atlantis, we reached a point where the world was so clogged up with bad thinking that all that energy had to burst like a big boil and the Earth had to be renewed and reborn. Everything comes in great cycles like this, including human epochs.
We can see now that we’re approaching the end of one era and the birth of another. How that transition is managed is to a large extent up to how we behave. If enough people become good and pure and send out positive thoughts, it will be easier for us all. There may well be major climate change to contend with and the Earth may even shift on its axis, but it will not be destroyed. It is an important school and it will be renewed. There will be local devastation, but humanity will continue to exist.
This may sound alarming, but by making peace in our hearts and sending out prayers to Mother Earth and to all of humanity, we can modify these events. If we realize that every human being is a spiritual being and should be loved as a brother or a sister, we can bring peace to the planet and give humanity a greater chance of survival.
The Earth is known to be the planet of sorrow. It’s a schoolroom, and it’s a tough schoolroom, but it has to be. You can’t have all the exams made easy for you. That won’t help you to learn. You will only improve if you go through some pretty tough training now and then. In a way, we’re in a spiritual boot camp. But just as army training is really tough, yet later, when you look back, you respect and understand the process, so life on Earth is of great benefit to us all. And we chose to be here.
Everything is moving forward in the way that it should. Nothing is accidental. Everything is meant to be.
Epilogue
‘Love solves everything. In the end there is only love.’
I have been on a journey of spiritual discovery for over 35 years. It has been a steep and rocky path. It is only by looking back that I am aware of any progress, and there is always the next mountain to climb, so there is never time for any complacency. However, when I think back to the self-indulgent days of the ’60s, I am aware of some improvement. I only wish it had been greater and quicker. But this is a journey that cannot be rushed. Truths are revealed as the consciousness is raised, and then comes the ability to accept them. This takes time, but the journey is eternal.
Along the way we may ask for direct guidance from our soul and eagerly await this contact, but when we do receive it, we must let ourselves be guided by it. We can no longer do what we want, because this will coarsen and break the relationship. It is a life of total devotion. Of course it brings tremendous joy, love, helping and healing, and after a while we have no desire to go back to our earlier ways. But initially we must sacrifice those parts of our life that are not in line with love and service, and this can be hard. Nevertheless, it is the way we must all go eventually, and we can either climb the slow and winding or the steep and stony path. Don’t despair, you travel at the pace that suits you.
I am trying to climb the steep path, but it isn’t easy. I still have my weaknesses, and my indulgences – I can sob at a sad movie (who didn’t watch Greyfriars Bobby and shed bucketfuls when the old hobo’s dog was saved from being put down and instead given the freedom of the city of Edinburgh?) and I am a terrible chocoholic. I still enjoy my own company a bit too much for some of those around me – as I’ve said, I hardly ever socialize with the Coronation Street cast; indeed, I don’t even know where most of them live.
But I’ve learned that as we progress, we become more sensitive, and life in many respects seems harder. The thought of animals being slaughtered for you to eat becomes unbearable; the sight of people suffering rips you apart. Anger and hate seem like major illnesses. But it is only by going through all this that you will find out how strong you are. The spirit is stronger than anything on Earth and there is no power greater than the power of love.
I started out feeling afraid of death and infinity. Now I know there is no reason for either to be feared. Death is a change of environment, that’s all. It is something to look forward to because it is a process that leads to a better life. And the fact that infinity goes on forever gives me a great feeling of peace and security. In fact, I love it. We are all infinite. We exist forever and ever and we are growing in love all the time. It’s wonderful. Sadly, of course, that doesn’t apply to Ken Barlow – his end will come, although I hope he will live in people’s memories for a while. But for William Roache and you, dear reader, life will go on, albeit it in a different place.
As we move forward, our aim should be to make ourselves little beacons of light and illuminate the area we’re in. That way we make things better both for ourselves and for those around us. And when we reach a certain point, all we are interested in, all we want to do, is to help others.
I remember someone said to me once that an intensive course of self-development was selfish. That rocked me back a bit. He was absolutely right. It is selfish, but only in the initial stages. Later on, as you move forward, all you want to do is love and serve.
Unfortunately, we often need shocks and difficulties to wake us up. It’s only by overcoming some form of suffering that we get the strength and the wisdom to move forward. The Earth is a hard school and it may seem a horrible place at times, but more and more people are now gaining a spiritual understanding and I feel sure that ultimately we will discharge all the darkness and move into a very beautiful age of peace and harmony.
I’ve already seen a big shift in people’s attitudes in my own lifetime. In my younger days most people didn’t think, for instance, about whether it was right to go to war or not. Your country was at war, so you went. You were a coward or a traitor if you thought otherwise. And if you had a nervous breakdown in the front line, you were shot. That attitude has totally changed now. People don’t just blindly follow governments because they decide to go to war. Look at the opposition to the war in Iraq, for example.
So I’m very hopeful. There is still a lot of evil in the world, but there is also a wonderful enlightenment going on. Even films and television programmes have more of a spiritual side than they used to. Overall there’s a swing in the right direction. We’re breaking down national barriers and learning to live together. We’re all brothers and sisters, after all; we’re all equal in a spiritual sense, equal in love and equal in honour. We are all part of God.
So all you have to do is to tune in to your own soul. Let go and marvellous things will happen.
A Gift of Understanding
You are very special. There is only one of you. God loves you and has appointed a guardian angel to be with you at all times.
You are a spiritual being first and foremost and as such you are immortal and indestructible. The essence of your spiritual being is divine love.
Temporarily you are incarnated in a physical vehicle or body and have left your real home in the spiritual realms so that you can learn and grow through the experience of the material world.
You are also given a mind and desires and it is up to you whether, through the mind, you control the body and desires or you let them control you. The first labour is to become the master of yourself.
So you are a wonderful creation of spirit, mind, emotions and body, and you are free to do whatever you want – free to make choices, to discriminate between the polarities of this material world; love and hate, good and evil, reason and intuition, fear and trust, spiritual and physical.
You have free will but it is subject to a law – one law that applies throughout the entire universe, in the spiritual as well as the physical realms. It is inevitable, invariable and stands no abrogation. It is the law of cause and effect.
For good or ill you get back what you give out in thought, word and deed. You reap what you sow. Hate and you will attract hate, love and you will be loved.
The human condition is one of fallibility and imperfection and all the evil in the world has been created by man’s free will serving his baser self.
On the road through your destiny there will be problems and suffering; remember these are but lessons and you will never be given more than you can bear; and your guardian angel will always hear your call for help. You will come through wiser and stronger as steel is tempered in the furnace.
You evolve on your journeys through many lives to a state of spiritual maturity that no longer requires the Earth school.
Your spirit is a passenger and will not intrude. But when the mind, emotions and body have been quietened and the spirit, or true self, is invited to take over, then you will be filled with a wonderful golden glow and know a joy like you have never known.
That is when you and your spirit have become one: the purpose of life.
Afterword
On meeting Bill for the first time, I was immediately attracted to his charismatic nature and genuine understanding of life. It can very often be difficult to describe a person whose mind is so open and expanded, but I would have to say that Bill has a magnetism that comes from the very highest part of his being.
I have been fortunate to share a platform with Bill, where we both spoke about our thoughts and beliefs of this life. I still remember being almost spellbound when I heard Bill describe his own understanding of life in the universe. All that he expressed could have come out of my own mind, but not with such eloquence.
Bill Roache, I believe, is a very compassionate man who knows where he fits in in the grand scale of life. His spiritual nature is such that – for all his great achievements and success in this life – he is very understated and genuinely humble. I feel honoured to have met a true gentleman of spirit.
Gordon Smith
August 2007
Index
This index is in word by word order. Major spiritualist topics can be found as both main headings and under the heading ‘spiritualism’
acting
benefits of 254
mother’s interest in 14, 43–4, 110
acting ambitions 48–9, 108, 109, 250
acting career
school roles 13–14, 43–4
getting into profession 111–22
films 114, 116
theatre 119–22, 136, 181–2
TV drama 115–16, 123–4, 125
Coronation Street 124–35, 204, 205–7, 247–9, 253–4
and spiritual development 250–1
actors/actresses
Violet Carson 126
Eileen Derbyshire 181
Graham Haberfield 130–1
Jack Howarth 17–18, 129
Roger Moore 115
Sara Mottram 172–3, 181–2, 239, 245, 255–6
Laurence Olivier 116–17, 129, 182, 204–5
Frank Pemberton 127
Pat Phoenix 126, 131–2
Linus Roache 224, 252
Alan Rothwell 133
afterlife 193–7, 197–8, 200
agents 118, 123, 124–5
alcoholism, in family 8–9
Ancient Order of Druids 150–1
Arabia, army posting 95–104
Arabs, commanding 96–7, 103
army
basic training 54–7
officer training 58, 60–2, 63–6
commission 67–8, 69–70
mortar training 88–9
postings 89, 90–104
promotions 59, 95
return home 107–8
Asquith, Anthony 111
astral plane
conscious memory 35
lower beings 137
and psychic experience 33
and pyramids 92
and sleep 193
astrological charts 165–7
astrology 164–9, 256–7
Atlantis 93, 94
attitudes, spiritual shift 269–70
audience 254, 255
Baker, Douglas 225–6
‘Barlow, Ken’ see ‘Ken
Barlow’
barrage balloons 26
Bedouins, commanding 96–7, 103
bedwetting 20
Behind the Mask 114
beliefs
as hindrance to truth 161–2
religious 219–20
see also spiritualism, beliefs
bereavement, loss of daughter 189–92, 197, 203
Bermuda, Big Three Conference 81
birth, writer’s 3
Blair, Cherie 187
Blessed, Brian 121
boarding school 16–22, 23–5, 28–9, 41–5, 47, 49
breathing, for meditation 153–4
British Guyana, support for governor 81–2
Buraimi oasis battle 98
career
acting
school roles 13–14, 43–4
getting into profession 111–22
films 114, 116
theatre 119–22, 136, 181–2
TV drama 115–16, 123–4, 125
Coronation Street 124–35, 204, 205–7, 247–9, 253–4
and spiritualism 250–1
army
training 54–7, 58, 60–2, 63–6, 88–9
commission 67–8, 69–70
postings 89, 90–104
promotions 59, 95
return home 107–8
MBE xi
persian carpet job 108–10
production company 181–3
as writer for magazines 256
Caribbean posting 70, 71–83
Carson, Violet 126
Charter Theatre 181
chat shows, production 182
childhood
death of aunt 36–7
frugal upbringing 7
home life 5–6, 11–12, 16, 27
schooldays 12–14, 16–22, 23–5, 28–9
wartime memories 15–16, 22–6
children
Edwina xii–xiii, 185, 189–92
Linus 224, 252
Verity xi, 183, 211, 223, 252
William 211, 223, 251–2
Chilwell House school 12–13
Christ 149–50, 220–1
Christianity
failure 221–2
and spiritualism 85–6, 198, 222–3
Christmas memories 83–4
Church of England 86, 221–2
Cinema-going 47–8
civilizations, destruction and renewal 93–4, 265–6
Clacton-on-Sea, summer season 119–20
claustrophobia 234
; commission, army 67–8, 69–70
communication with spirit world 34, 149
conflict resolution 243–4
contracts 174
Coronation Street
advantages of working in 253, 254
article by Ken Irwin 235
character of Ken Barlow 134–5, 185, 205–6, 235, 253–4
emotional scenes 205–7, 248–9
family atmosphere 129–30
filming schedules 247–8
name 124, 125
new characters 255
pilot episodes 124–5
quality of drama 126, 204
relationships between cast 131–2, 238, 249
scriptwriting 126–7, 133–4
transmission 127–9
court martial, participation in judgement of 91–2
cricket 21, 79–80
crocodile shoot, British Guyana 82–3
deafness 88–9
death
of aunt 36–7
of Edwina 189–92, 203
fear of xv, 35–6, 41, 87, 176–7
of friend’s son 200
of pet 6
spiritual attitude towards 192–3, 268
deity 218–20, 261–2
dens (hideaways) 21, 27, 128
dependence on spiritualists 147, 230
Derbyshire, Eileen 181
desires 215
destiny 34
difficulties, as opportunities for development 21
digs, living in 119–20
directors
Brian Desmond Hurst 111–13
Brian Mills 206
drama, see also acting
drama prize, school 43
drama roles
television 115–16, 123–4, 125
theatre 119–22, 136, 181–2
see also Coronation Street
dream, of Thomas Maugham 141
drinking 80, 136
druid philosophy 150–1
Duffissey, Sergeant 76, 78
dyslexia 19
early life see childhood
Earth, spiritual view of 93–4, 195, 265–6
Soul on the Street Page 21