"INTRODUCTION"

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Before I start the lessons in this book I have a special message for you from a dear friend and powerful spirit guide known as Fedog. He has given me the words to write, none of them are mine so I take no responsibility for grammar. They are written just as they were given to me over eight years ago, waiting even then to be put into this book at the right time. The time is now and you will reap the benefit of his wisdom.

If you read them over and over until you fully understand his words I am sure you will find them invaluable during your journey. They will come back to remind you over and over again about what life is truly all about and our purpose here, as they have for me. I have found great inspiration in them and hope that you do also. Without further introduction I give to you:

FEDOG

I come to you today with a very important message that if taken in context will help each of you on your path. The art of listening has been all but lost on this planet. One of the reasons overall telepathy is out of the question here is due to this very simple reason. People don't truly listen to themselves, let alone to anyone else. I cannot start to tell you how frustrating it is to a spirit guide to be ignored, or worse yet misquoted.

One of the reasons channeling came about on this planet was because people refused to say exactly what the spirit guide said and opted to give their own interpretations to the message, rather than repeating the message verbatim. Think about it for a minute; if man would just repeat what the spirit guide was saying would there be a need to channel?

You can only imagine that if it is so hard to get those who are supposed to be enlightened to listen, then how hard must it be to get the unenlightened to even look up from their life for a brief moment, let alone listen to what is being said to them.

I beg of you to pay attention to my words and listen not with your ears but with your entire being. Don't let your mind wander as you are reading or lose your place. Truly listen so that you may be able to learn how to listen.

The simple things are often the hardest to attain, which could be one reason why most tend to ignore them. Do not be too busy to search. Always remember that your spirit is eternal, while your body may last eighty years. Physical realities must be dealt with to sustain life in your mortal body, but spiritual realities are just as important and must be dealt with to sustain life and spirituality.

The soul will continue whether in ignorance or understanding. The choice, as all others, is yours. Do not let others lull you into a false sense of security, but most important of all don't allow yourself the luxury of kicking back and thinking that you have arrived. At that point your journey has not even begun.

Once on the path get in touch with your spirit and listen. It is much wiser than your conscious mind and will always let you know who to listen to. Never follow anyone but your own spirit. On the same note never try to lead anyone. They must all find their way on their own. Answer any questions to the best of your ability, never saying more than you truly know. Do not try to impress or impose your learning on others. They may not be ready for what you have learned at the time that you are ready to tell them and you will only confuse and frustrate them. This is a simple lesson that needs only be taken in time, of which there is an endless amount, so do not try to hurry so, as your society seems to be leaning towards, but slow down.

Now we will discuss the different ways with which you will listen. First the obvious one; hearing through your ears. Do not take too seriously the things that come in through the canals called your ears. It is sure to confuse and frustrate you. For most of this you can do what we call half-listen. Most of you do this already so it should be easy. On a conscious level you do not take anything that you half-listen to very seriously, but instead file it in the back recesses of your mind and allow your spirit at a later more convenient date to discern the truth from the foolishness.

Remember that there is a grain of truth in everything you listen to, it just takes a whole bushel sometimes to find that truth. It can be a very tedious process of elimination if you try it on a mental basis, which is why you should just sit back and relax and allow it to flow later on.

Do not ever try to force anything, as it will just cause frustration, confusion and ultimately anger to you and will tend to slow your learning process down instead of speeding it up. There is no great hurry. Learning is not on a time schedule and the opportunity will always be there waiting for you when you are ready for it. Trying to rush things only causes pain and fear.

You do not bring enlightenment out of pain and fear, only more fear, pain and foolishness. No one can take your truth away from you. It will always be sitting on the sidelines waiting for you whenever you are ready to accept it. So you see, you truly cannot lose no matter how badly you screw up, or think you screw up. Give yourself all the time you need. You will find that others may go faster than you, or slower than you, take no offense or consolation in this. It is neither something to be proud of or ashamed of. When you allow pride or shame to enter into your learning process you have slowed yourself down and you will have to get past this in order to continue learning.

Try not to listen with your emotions. Emotions are not a stable thing. When situations change emotions change and learning cannot be based on emotions. You must achieve pure thought rather than emotion. Be advised that it is very easy to speak about controlling ones' feelings, but not nearly as easy when theory is put to work. Emotions are complex and at best unpredictable. Different factors contribute to these emotions. Through understanding we can learn to control our emotions. It is not an easy task, but certainly not impossible and one in which you will be glad many times that you learned control, rather than being controlled.

Let us look at the many factors that contribute to emotions for a moment. We will just touch on emotions for now in order to give you a better understanding of listening. Emotions are totally susceptible to; Physical changes; this includes hormones, both male and female, illness, outside stimulus to the brain; i.e. drugs, alcohol or other abuses to the body. Emotions are also caused by conditions outside of your control, i.e. you are not responsible for someone else's actions, only your own.

Circumstances are one of the biggest offenders when it comes to emotions. Do not think that when you transform to spiritual energy on another plane that you will escape these emotions; for you won't. It is for this reason that you learn to control them now while you have a body and can reason with them. In pure spiritual energy they are much more intense. They do not, however, have any influence from physical feelings of the body.

Always remember that as easily as night turns to day and day to night so do the circumstances of your life change and so do your emotions. Always remember that as bad as you might feel now, if the circumstances were changed your feelings would immediately change, including that of suicide to extreme happiness; that quickly and with just that much impact.

Consider if a man wants to commit suicide because his girlfriend has dumped him and all of a sudden he learns that she has changed her mind and is waiting for him at the ministers' house to marry him. Consider he was jumping off of a building and learned this on the way down. His emotions have done an abrupt turn three times over in the short jump from the building which ends in a matter of seconds. He goes from deep depression,to the heights of happiness and completely into depression again.

When things seem to be too much emotionally hang on and remember that they are liable to change just as quickly as they appeared. The key word to this is control and patience. Patience is not just a virtue but a very important key in the learning process. The most important person to have patience with is yourself. Sometimes we forget this and give others the benefit of the doubt before we will give it to ourselves. It is good to be tough on yourself, but make sure that you are being just in the process.

Thus again we come to the importance of controlling your emotions. To control emotions start by analyzing them. Again, here we tend to just rush along in our existence without stopping to see what we are rushing towards or from.

That is enough about emotions for now, other than to remind you that emotions uncontrolled can affect our listening, which stops us from learning and advancing. I will now give you some practical applications and exercises for listening that will start you off on your road to truth and understanding.

START BY LISTENING ON A PHYSICAL PLANE!

This sounds easy, but it is not. You will find that you are not really interested in what the majority of people have to say. You will also discover very quickly for yourself that most people are totally self-absorbed and have very little interest in your existence, other than how your life's circumstances relate to their own. You will find that people revel in others' miseries because it makes their own misery seem so much less and, therefore, in a very unfortunate way seems to help them along their own path. How many times have you heard comment from those who gossip "I thought we had it bad, but did you hear about so and so, I just don't think I could make it if I were in their shoes". This kind of behavior is not an exception to the rule, but rather the rule itself.

Be aware of not only everything you hear, but everything you say in response. In effect you are not just listening to what others say, but what you have to say in response to their circumstances. Spend time doing this, it does not all come overnight. However, you will even after only one day of total physical listening come to some very startling awareness. When you listen to others talk do not listen as to how it will affect your existence, and you must learn to control the urge to let your mind wander to similar instances that happened to you. Listen without emotion; no criticism, sympathy, anger, frustration, fear, disbelief, cynicism or joy. This may sound very simple, and so I wish it were, but you will quickly discover a whole new reality; one that was there all the time, but that few ever notice.

When you listen at first do not look at the person talking. This will help you to concentrate on the words and their voice rather than their body language or animation. It will also help you to pick out the true meanings and feelings in their words, which sometimes people tend to try and hide, by confusing you with conflicting body movements and facies. When you have gotten the art of this exercise down then use their body movements as your next step and you will be able to look directly past the conscious mind and into the spirit of the person.

I am sure that at one time or another someone has mentioned getting inside ones head to see what makes them tick. Well, in reality this is what you will be doing. You will probably be surprised at what you find in their head, as most people keep a very messy house when it comes to their way of thinking. Do not let this put you off, as you must remember the reason you are there, which is not to straighten out their messy house, but have a better understanding of your own messy house. With this in mind do not be afraid to probe around. This is done by mainly being silent and letting them do the talking. Do not try at the time to analyze what they are saying, as there will be time for this later and will only confuse you if you stop and try to put things together now, not to mention the fact that you will probably lose something.

Do not be too obvious or you will make the subject nervous and not get a true reading. Remember that this exercise is a learning process and not meant to make one feel uncomfortable. It should flow like a river and if it doesn't then the time is not right. When you have left the person and are in private; meditate on all that you have heard.

For those of you that are unaware of meditation (which will be covered at a later time); it is basically getting to the quiet place in your existence where you can listen to your subconscious mind rather than your conscious mind. This is best done in a room where you are alone without any noises to distract you. Closing the eyes is best so that you have no visual distractions. Now; concentrate on the conversation you had with the other person; not about the physical realities of it. In other words don't muddle things wondering what will happen in their lives tomorrow or as a result of what they have told you. Only concentrate on the meanings behind their words, rather than the words themselves. It is sort of like reading between the lines, as it were. Understand what motivates that person, as it will lead you to understand yourself.

People are all motivated by certain basic principles. To find out what motivates others also leads to understanding of what motivates you. The reason that we look into others rather than ourselves is that man tends to be more honest about someone else's motivations, whether good or bad, than about himself. Therefore, if we learn to understand our brother first, then we are on the road to understanding ourselves.

After you have gone over thoroughly, and to your satisfaction, everything that was said, whether painful or not,compare these things to your own motivation. Is their physical realities the same as yours? You will find that in most cases it is. There are basic needs and insecurities that all of mankind share. Some are easy to come to terms with, others are not. Now is the time to listen to yourself. Where are you at? Where are you going? What are your goals? What do you have to share with others? What are you willing to give up? How far are you ready to go in your learning processes? These are all basic questions. You might come up with many more, so use these only as a guideline. No one needs to know any of these answers but you, so be honest with yourself. It is better to be able to face yourself, no matter how good or bad you think you are, than not to be able to face yourself at all.

Do not run from yourself, because there is no escape. You can escape my words in print by closing the book and refusing to open it again, but you cannot escape yourself. Even in physical death you have to get through these things on a spiritual level before you can advance. People think that death is a way out, but it is just another door to go through with different rules to learn before you can proceed. Most times it takes a lot longer to grow once you have left the physical plane, so do all the growing and learning you can while you have a body to do it with.

Do not be mistaken into thinking that just because you are listening to someone and are sympathetic to their problems that you will always be able to help them through their dilemma. You can not lead anyone but yourself.

YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYONE BUT YOURSELF!; this is not to say that you are not responsible to help if you are able. The trick is that you must let the person find the way through gentle leading. The old parable that you can lead a horse to water but cannot make them drink is directly applicable in this situation. Do not be discouraged or disappointed by this, but look at the situation unemotionally and walk away when you have done all that you can without letting it affect your own life. You must be able to do this, even though it sounds as if you are being cruel or hard hearted.

Remember one very important thing,emotions have no place in learning and understanding. Emotions must be controlled and unless you are able to control your emotions you will be of no help to the person with the problem, in fact, you may do that person more harm; as you can not look at the situation objectively when you are looking through emotional eyes.

Most situations you will be powerless in, therefore, remember that planting a seed may not bring fruit immediately, but then there are very rarely any immediate or quick solutions to any real problem. The fruit will take time to mature and ripen and if picked too soon will only make the person who eats it sick.

Lead with a gentle hand and do not become too dramatic, whatever the circumstances. Do not try to scare someone into listening to you; on the other hand do not coat the truth with honey; as the first sign of heat the honey will melt away and leave a mess. Be careful who you advise. This is a very big problem in your learning experience, because you will find that the more you learn, the more you will want to share with others. This is only natural, but be careful what you do share.

Try to find an individual to use as a mentor, you will be surprised how easily this is done. It is called putting out a spiritual call for a leader. When you do this you will meet someone, and you will know right away who the right person is who will lead you and show you the way. If this person is wise they will mainly let you do the talking, corroborating what they have learned with what you are learning at the time as it applies.

Beware of those who would lead you into their way of thinking, rather than letting you continue to discover the path on your own. If you pay heed to them you will find yourself on a side road and it will take that much more effort and trouble to get back to the main road.

You have been reading the words of Fedog one of my first spirit guides. Since these words were written Fedog has reincarnated. I miss him, but know that we shall meet up again and time is of no consequence.

The following book you are about to read was written by me, not Fedog. I say this because there seems to be some confusion. The above introduction by Fedog was not channeled, but he spoke the words to me and I typed them. The rest of the book is written by my higher self, as the connection was made and maintained during all writing.

FOUNDATIONS AN INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the knowledge of the Progressive Spirit. The journey has been a long winding road which started for me in 1954. I was three years old at the time and that is my first recollection of a psychic experience. Most of my life since that time has been a collection of study by books, tapes, videos, other people's perspectives and my own very personal experiences. I have also learned by the experiences of others. I will not get into all the twists and turns of my particular journey, as that is another book altogether, which I am still too young to write; (maybe next year).

My name is Lorri and together with my husband Stan we started a group back in 1986 in California. Our goal then and now was to help people become enlightened and once enlightened they in turn help to enlighten others. In this way enlightenment is a never ending cycle with all of humanity benefiting from the process.

To give you a little background as to our belief structure I will give you a short synopsis of our goals. We are dedicated to the enrichment and growth of the spirit. We are not a religion, nor do we have any dogma attached to our association. Each person makes their own rules, so to speak, in their personal quest for enlightenment.

The purpose of the book you are about to read is to guide you along the path of your enlightenment. You see there are certain things that each person must do in their quest in order to attain the ultimate goal. Some areas will be easy for some and harder for others. Do not worry if yours seems more difficult than another's; it only means that you have more to deal with in one area and they in another. After you have read the book the conclusions you will come to will be your own and very personal.

Your journey started before you picked up this book, or you would not be reading it at this time. This means that you have started on one of the most rewarding and exciting journeys of your lifetime. This book is meant to help you and be a light leading you along that journey. Take what you need for now, let go of what you don't and refer back to it along the way to pick up what you left behind. None of us ever stop learning and as I learn more I will share it with you. The learning you will get from this book comes from 23 years of intense study on my part along with another 23 years of study on my husband's part. I have definitely learned from him and picked his brain along the way..

There are a series of lessons that I go through called the Foundations Lessons. I start all of my students here, because no matter how aware you are there are valuable insights that you can use. These lessons deal with very simple ideas about everyday reality, but don't be fooled we all have the ability to make the most simple things complicated. Although they appear simple on the surface once you delve into them you will see how truly complex the lessons are. Always remember that seeing things through someone else's' eyes changes the whole outlook. Nothing ever stays the same, if it does it is not growing but stagnating.

There are several lessons and at the end of each one there will be homework. Please do not send the homework to me, it is only for you to see and work out. You will be the one evaluating it. Spending about a week on each lesson is normal, some will need more time, some less. There is no right or wrong, but be sure you don't short change yourself and skip over things because you think you have a handle on it.

Do the homework, if you don't you rob yourself of the experience, which is the best way to learn any lesson. The amazing part is that once you do the homework for a week you will find the lesson cropping up more and more until you are able to control each situation. Once truly learned it will disappear because you have mastered it. (Mastery doesn't usually come within a week so don't give up).

If you do not succeed in controlling your emotions during every test don't worry because you will definitely have another chance. Just remember that we learn a lot more from our failures than from our successes. Usually by the time we have success we are ready to move on (at least I know I am).

You do not have to agree with everything that you read in this book, just take what feels right for you, because that is what you are ready for. If there are parts you don't understand or have a problem with skip over them. Do not dwell on things that are confusing to you, it just means that you aren't ready for the words at this time. When the time is right you will be able to pick up the book and read the same words and they will make perfect sense. That is one reason why it is so important to learn each lesson in sequence. You are building a very important foundation block by block. Skipping blocks can cause the whole foundation to crumble.

Sometimes you will feel like skipping because you are sure you understand the lesson. Beware most of the time the need to skip is really due to the fact that you don't want to deal with the lesson because it is precisely what you need.

All I ask is that you read the words with an open mind. Do not be impatient, learning cannot be forced. Also, do not be discouraged if when you learn a lesson you tend to still go back to the old way of handling a situation. Old habits are hard to break, but if you take one step at a time, one circumstance at a time, one situation at a time you cannot fail. You have only failed if you give up.

When learning things on a physical plane you start in kindergarten and work your way up to college. This takes many years, much study and many lessons. Why should you expect more of yourself on a spiritual level. I realize that our society today wants instant gratification, however, nothing attained easily maintains satisfaction and appeal. Just remember these lessons will serve you through eternity, so learn them slowly and well.

With this I want to close my lengthy introduction (my husband is always telling me that my introductions are too long and I guess I proved him right again). To all my old friends and family (Stanley, John and Julie who would have never let me live it down if I had not mentioned them at least once),this book is dedicated to you for the encouragement and nagging to write it. To my dear friend Tiffany, may you find the encouragement you need, and to all my new friends who are reading my words and those of my spirit guides welcome to the path I hope to meet each of you at some juncture.

I wish you an exciting journey with the wind at your back and the sun shining warmly on your face. If you have questions or problems you will find a number to call or an address to write to at the back of the book.

Love and Peace until we meet again,

Lorri