2022-07-18
Reprinted from "Your Guardian Angel and You" by Denny Sargent, with permission of Red Wheel/Weiser LLC.

Encountering your Guardian Angel can change your life. This powerful relationship has reenergized people, added depth to friendships and marriages, encouraged people to leave abusive relationships, and helped alcoholics stay sober. It has brought people to a deeper understanding of their faith and to more compassionate and empathetic actions in their daily lives. It has, in every instance, helped people discover their true wills, the actions that they should be taking on this Earth, and the hidden talents they have within them that have gone undeveloped. However, before you can make this connection with your angel, you must come to terms with ideas and expectations concerning it.

Different accounts from different cultures portray angels as superhuman beings with powers and abilities that can be called divine or supernatural. When angels appear, they are always accompanied by amazing waves of pure love and power. They almost always appear as beings of light. Sometimes they come as balls of light, sometimes as glowing bands of light. When they appear in human form, they are often seen with large sweeping wings and beautiful faces and bodies. Sometimes they are naked, but more often they are clothed in flowing robes of light. White is the color most often attributed to them, although many different colors are also mentioned in various historical accounts.

There are basically two types of angels explained in holy books and legends. The Greater Angels, or Archangels like Gabriel who announced the birth of Jesus and is said to have given the Koran to Mohammed, have great power. They are said to guide the planets, the stars, and the course of cosmic events. Archangels guide the Jewish tribes (Israel is an angel!) and guard the gates of Buddhist paradise. These Greater Angels do the work of the ultimate power, or God. They appear at cosmic events and as participants in the past creation and the future destruction of the world. These Archangels, according to all the religions mentioned here, are beyond the reach of most humans. They appear in the mundane world only when God sends them forth to act, and it is unlikely that anyone reading this book will receive a divine visitation from one of these great beings—although you never know!

It is Lesser Angels, also called Guardian Angels, with which we wish to concern ourselves, however. In many traditions these angels are said to guard, protect, and guide all living things. Although plants, animals, cities, and nations are also reported to have Guardian Angels, the most important are those assigned to human beings. When I refer to Guardian Angels, I mean the divine spirits who help and protect each of us from the moment of birth until the day we leave this Earth.

Guardian Angels, even in ancient texts, are described as divine beings assigned to each person at birth. They embody the will and true understanding of their charge and their job is to protect and help that person through the dangers and transitions of life. They represent, in essence, each person’s direct connection to God. The function of the Guardian Angel is the same today as it has been throughout history.

Angels are different from us in important ways, however, and there is a tremendous gap between us. We can bridge this gap through love and will. Traditionally, your angel will make the loving effort to bridge this gap and reveal itself to you, usually at a time of extreme need. Yet there are many ways that you can expand your awareness and bridge the gap if you have the love and the will, and use the right techniques. You have only very limited senses with which to perceive the world, so you can’t normally see angels who may be around you. These beings are as real as you, but they are formed of a different kind of energy, an energy that is usually beyond your perception. You can see only a small part of the light spectrum. You can’t, for example, see ultraviolet light, but you know it exists nonetheless. Anyone who has been around pets knows that people usually feel, smell, and hear only a fraction of what many animals can. I’ve seen fish jumping and birds screeching just before a minor earthquake, and it is obvious that most pets have a sense of smell that far surpasses ours. Though this may seem to indicate that we are limited creatures, it merely shows that most of us don’t seek to enlarge the scope of our experience, of our senses. But we could see and hear more if we wanted to.

Preparing to communicate with angels
Read more on page 2 >>

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Just because you cannot immediately perceive something does not mean it is not real. Your mind "tunes out" many things around you all the time, but if you really pay attention, you’ll be amazed by what you are missing. One of the keys to connecting with your angel is to increase your ability to perceive. If you are not listening for something, you won’t hear it, but if you concentrate with real focus on your senses, it is remarkable what you will pick up. In this way, you can signal your angel that you are ready and willing to communicate, that you are reaching toward its higher level of perception and awareness. Your angel is waiting for such a signal.

Angels are beings of pure spirit and energy that have a higher level of consciousness. It therefore makes sense that your angel can be near you at all times without you sensing its presence in your day-to-day life. You have accepted your limited sense as the norm of your existence. But you can change your expectations so that you can bridge the gap between you and your angel. With effort you can sense and accomplish things that some would call miracles. Witness the stories of holy men and women around the world who have connected with the divine through love and dedication. The key is to expand your awareness, both of what is around you and what is within you. By using effective visualization techniques, meditations, mental exercises, and prayers, you can see and communicate with your Guardian Angel.

Preparing to Communicate With Your Guardian Angel


Before you begin to communicate with your Guardian Angel, you must prepare yourself by opening your senses and your mind. It generally requires both mental and emotional preparation before you are ready to meet and form a lasting relationship with your angel.

Mental preparation is perhaps the most important task. Before you can deal with something or communicate with it, you have to accept that it exists. How many times have you walked past a new picture on the wall or a book out of place on a shelf and not seen it? You missed seeing it because your mind did not expect to see it! I often lose my keys. Sometimes they are right in front of me, but if they are out of place I often just don’t "see" them until my wife points them out. She can see them because she doesn’t expect them to be elsewhere, I can’t see them because I don’t expect to see them there.

What does this have to do with your angel? You need to realize that your angel can be next to you without you always being aware of it. All it takes is a simple shift in perception to reveal this divine being to you! It’s not that your angel appears or disappears; it is simply that you change your viewpoint. The other day, I sat next to a friend on a bus without even noticing her. She didn’t notice me either! After a few minutes, of course, we both recognized each other and laughed. We hadn’t expected to see each other on that bus, and so we simply didn’t. One minute she was just a nameless person; a second later, she "appeared" as my friend! In just this way, you don’t expect to meet your Guardian Angel, so you don’t. So, the first step in preparing yourself to meet your Guardian Angel is to change your expectations—change what you think you will experience. Cultivate a belief that your angel exists and that you will meet it if you simply shift your perceptions. When you do, you’ll be halfway down the path to connecting with your Guardian Angel. 

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