Michael030606MarinTM_InexorableEvolution_HungerForPerfection

Michael—March 6, 2006

Marin TM Group—Mill Valley, California—U.S.A.

MICHAEL—T/R-JL

1. (The Purpose of the Urantia Book, and an Inexorable Evolution)
2. (The Hunger for Perfection; Regarding the Future)
3. (Where Worship and Wisdom Become One)
4. (Effective Prayer) (Regarding past Trials)
5. (The Rewards of Faith)
6. (Accepting All That Life Has to Bring)
7. (Our Ultimate Choice)

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, We thank You for initiating and enabling these conversations, these living exchanges with You, our Divine Parents. We feel truly blessed--considering all the generations of men and women who’ve lived under the planetary spiritual quarantine, for now we have the Teaching Mission and Your living voices coming to us. You renew our spirits and remind us of that great creation all about us that we are headed for, both in space and eternity. For this and all of God’s good gifts, we are truly thankful. Amen.

MICHAEL: Good evening, My sons, this is Michael. How I do enjoy your conversations, for they let Me know you are experiencing a rebirth of wonder. This is that great enthusiasm for reality that is a reward in itself, that not only maintains you moment to moment, but also points you the way to thriving, and growing--as was once said--that you might have life, and have it more abundantly. This is Mother’s and My purpose in these lessons--to enable you to perceive and experience deeply more of what is all too often either disregarded, or simply at your level of civilization so far, has remained realms of human spirituality that have not yet been introduced.

(The purpose of the Urantia book, and an inexorable evolution)

This is obviously also the purpose of the Urantia book and why it is called an epochal revelation, for were it more widely known and understood, Urantia would indeed witness a new epoch of human fulfillment, individually and collectively. But you know from reading parts of the book how inevitable this progress is. This is not to say that it does not require your own active effort and hard work and participation, but it is nice to know that there is a cosmos-wide evolution taking place that is inexorable.

Mother referred to it last week as "The Plan," God’s plan for His creation. Yet we know too this can be for many people who feel they already have a fundamental grasp on the totality of reality, this can be very disturbing, a bit like an earthquake shaking up their fundamental beliefs. For to consider that this planetary evolution, this growth in social and political maturity is inexorable, means there is no stopping anywhere. There is no clinging to what one already has and has accomplished. It requires both individuals and whole societies to openly embrace the enormous potential that is inherent in their creation.

Those of you who have read the Urantia book know to what extent it details all the different phases of planetary evolution, not to humble you that you are still somewhat back at the beginning, but to encourage you to embrace these necessary changes, embrace this potential that is part of your very nature. With courage and determination you can decide to be a part of this evolution. For this is not easy. It means feeling, being aware of the hardened, callused skin of habit and repetition and familiarity, then realizing what was sensitive and new and adequate yesterday no longer fulfills you. This leads to feelings of something missing in your lives, something that prompts you to open your heart and open your mind in devout and sincere prayer, and most humbly ask for guidance. Ask to see the bigger picture, the greater context, the way out of your current bind--that you may have life, and have it more abundantly.

There is a kind of wisdom, My children, bound up in acceptance of who and what you are, and what you have at any moment. We have pointed out this is fully half the picture. These are those moments in time when you can rest with what you have accomplished and feel glad about it. Celebrate your own creativity and what it has brought you. It would be foolish to deny the wisdom in this, because it is so necessary to rest. But it is still only half the picture. The other half is the good work, the real striving and effort to open your hearts and your minds and your very soul to pure potential, real possibility. You can be more.

(The hunger for perfection; regarding the future)

This is the hunger for perfection. Embracing this hunger, this desire, does cast a relative light of imperfection over all you can see. It takes courage not to be dismayed by this, but to realize that you, and all the folks about you, are at a particular stage of an evolution that is relentless. It’s so easy to see this with reference to the past, and be glad that the society and culture you live in has advanced to where it is now. But can you accept the humility in realizing that in a hundred years from now, on Urantia, they will look back and see you the same way?

Can you welcome this and be happy for these generations to come who, hopefully, will not have to suffer as so many of you do today, each others’ short-sighted cruelty, greediness, or just unmitigated malevolence? Can you hope for this brighter future for your children, and their children, and not be jealous of it? Can you accept and fulfill your niche in the passage of history, your particular point in time? Can you look about and see the imperfections in all that exists with a sense of divine humor, and wonder about the next step towards greater life? This is that wonder We encourage you to enjoy.

This is that humility that welcomes seeing the bigger picture. These are those alternating phases of acceptance and rest, then opening to work for, to strive for more. This is the ability to see imperfection and use it to understand all the better what perfection itself might be. As Mother pointed out last week, this is the ability to see how you and all your fellows are bound up in conditions of happenstance beyond the control of even the whole human race, yet understand how this gives particular meaning to your moment in time. And so you find, and live in, and operate from a spiritual home base of positively realizing how all this enormous panorama of time and space and personal beings actually exists.

(Where worship and wisdom become one)

This is to feel deep in your heart that all this ungraspable, unfathomable complexity is your true home. The more deeply you consider it, and credit that it is God’s plan, the more you know that you could not, would not have it any other way. This is where worship and wisdom become one.

If you have any questions or comments this evening, My sons, let’s see if we can shed some light on our wisdom, and be thankful for it.

Student: Father Michael, I was wondering about what is effective prayer? Can I pray for some else’s well being, and can I pray for my own well being, and it’s actually a real event? I don’t know even the right question to ask… Just what is effective prayer--is the best way to put it?

(Effective prayer)

MICHAEL: Yes C, for clarification We’ve made a distinction between worship and prayer. Worship is the thankfulness for your life and all that it holds; prayer is a sincere request for help. So think of when you have asked for help in your life, either from another person, or from your spiritual parents--Myself or Mother Nebadonia, or God. It helps greatly if you have already done all you can do with your own self-power, the power of your own heart and mind and spirit. For besides insuring that you’re not just being self-indulgent or lazy, this has already given you some feedback as to what it is that you want, and what is possible, so that you are not, in a sense, asking for the moon.

This is the sincerity that must precede prayer. But then with this earned wisdom of what you would like to see happen, and some sense of what might be missing or impossible for you to know on your own; in terms of guidance, maybe some deeper insight as to what is possible, you ask of Mother and I, or through Us of God himself, for help. This very attitude of humility, of opening yourself everywhere outwards to feel the living hand of life that holds you, this alone is so often all that is necessary to allow the answer to come to you. And yes, it is not only possible but an act of true generosity to ask for this help for another.

This is putting the full weight of your own heart and soul into this other person. Since this connection is spiritual, you are in no way coercing them or demanding anything of them by this gift of your own caring and concern.

You may wonder why Mother and I, or God himself would need this assistance, for We do not. It is not that your spiritual parents are lacking in power. It is more that you yourself can give of your spirit to another, and We merely act as a conduit to enable you to exercise and enjoy your generosity this way. So yes, by all means pray for those who need it the most--in the light of your own knowledge and wisdom. This is where your own stillness, your own openness to all the life surrounding you and supporting you, helps both you and the object of your prayer. Do you get a feeling for this, My son?

Student: It’s beginning to make more sense. One of the other questions I had is, would it be more... A year or so ago we had some lessons from You and Mother about beaming our love energy into other people. Would it be more effective to do that, or would it be more effective just to pray for them; or to do both?

MICHAEL: Let’s go for: all of the above. (group laughs) They are not intrinsically different. Prayer for another is one of the most sincere forms of love you can feel and express, and the only thing that carries over by the means of spirit is love. It’s literately impossible to pray for something harmful towards another person, just as it’s impossible for you to pray, as one of your songs puts it, for a Mercedes Benz. (group laughs) Every prayer, just as every beam of love, has a spiritual quality to it that determines how far it goes. It is all conveyed by the realm of spirit that surrounds you like an encompassing energy field.

It is marvelous the way that both prayer and this beam of love you send out reflects back upon yourself as positively as toward the object of your concern and care. You’ve already noticed how this activity of beaming love towards everyone indiscriminately, immediately introduces you to the people all around you, (Yes) you may not have noticed before. Devoutly wishing for some guidance or some help for a friend, helps make you aware of both your circumstances.

You are once again at that distinction between your own self-power, and asking for the other-power of Greater Spirit; and isn’t it wonderful to use both. (Yes) So I encourage you to exercise this power, My son. Do all you can to help, and then don’t hesitate to call on Us. Is there anything else you care to ask about?

Student: Yes, Father, about two hundred questions, but I’ll limit it to one more. I see a direct correlation, a direct connection between asking, and receiving, to know what’s fueling my desire to overeat, and certain instances which have popped into my mind from time to time. But what I’m not sure of is: what to do with these instances? Offer them up to You, the Heavenly Father? Is that an effective way of dealing with these past incidents? Or is there another way to effectively deal with these things, with these instances?

(Regarding past trials)

MICHAEL: I think what helps best with respect to any past event is just to re-experience it, in your stillness, as purely as you can as it happened originally. For in this way you are most truly accessing your own soul’s wealth of experience. The main reason for this is that you have to get over your own former interpretations and reactions to a past event. Look upon this past event as a discovery, for you really exist—now, and who you once were is another person. (Yes) Approach this other person with genuine curiosity and wonder, and try to set aside as much as you can your previous evaluations and judgments of this person. In this way you most truly re-experience why you did things--as you did. You escape the simple-mindedness of judgmental reaction.

Then with this re-discovery, this re-experience of who you were, you can all the better understand both who you were then, and who you are now. But if you have nothing, My son, except your previous reactions to some past event, it is as if it is lost to you (Yes) and incapable of being understood further. As We have promised, in your next phase of life you will be able to more easily access your soul for this very purpose. Why not enjoy at least some of that now?

One of the most popular techniques you have for doing this is listening to a piece of music from that period. Let that music fill your mind as if you were hearing it for the first time. Let that former event swell forth; and ever so delicately touch the wonderful wealth of your soul. Perhaps you can see yourself as your Father Fragment sees you, and you may be surprised that this cures the problem. This is the healing experience of realizing the fullness of every moment of your life. So be gone any simple-minded prejudice against yourself! Just feel again all that went into making up who you once were, and I think the forgiveness will come automatically. To understand is to forgive. Does this help you, My son?

Student: Yes, it does, quite a bit. I just thank You for Your guidance and for Your love. And I love You.

MICHAEL: Well, thank you, My son. Be in My peace.

Student: I am learning.

Student: Yes Michael, I thank You for that last response to C, about looking at past moments where, in our own critical self we seem to have failed our own ideal of who we are. So I thank You for that. Yesterday I had a very exhilarating experience at a spiritual gathering. It was great to be able to express some of my own ideas, and have people listen, and be moved by them. I had mentioned I had been afraid of my own power, and a woman came up to me and questioned me on that. She sensed and saw the power that was in me. She said I was that power, I was a healer and a teacher, I had it, I was it; why deny it? Embrace it. So as I let my own resistance subside, all of a sudden my body became thrilled with this understanding, this realization this power is within me and cannot be denied. It needs to be expressed and exposed, and lived. So I really thanked her, and You, for that. I noticed how I need for my own evolution and my own existence to really honor this inherent power in me, of God, of spirit, of truth; allow it to go where it wants to take me. It’s like diving into this warm river, and descending to its depths, and just allowing it to take me where it wants to go. Be totally consumed by it. So I thank You again for showing me that.

You know too that (Name) has found a place to move into, so it’s interesting to watch these movements that are going on around me, and within me. I’m open to the enormous possibilities as I jump into the unknown. So I’m here.

MICHAEL: Welcome in, My son, the water’s fine. (group laughter)

Student: I’m just so thankful.. I think Mother mentioned… I think I’m being affirmed and rewarded for my efforts. (heavy sigh)

(The rewards of faith)

MICHAEL: This is the reward of faith, because life has within it those moments when you are hanging on for deal life with nothing but faith. This is that pain you find a times within even the best effort, the most spiritual effort . There is a reluctance, a holding back that is very understandable--that somehow you shouldn’t have to be making so much effort. But there you are. It would be shortsighted not to realize that life does hold these moments of crisis and supreme trial you will just naturally encounter.

It is good you are feeling this self-power within a well-earned context of concern for others, of how you use this power. There is within all human societies what I will call the abnegation of aestheticism. This is a pseudo spirituality of eschewing all self-power, of thinking that holiness and true spirit lie in being powerless, or only contemplating and perceiving Other Power--be it Mine or Mother Spirit’s, of even God’s power. For this is only half the picture. We point out the distinction of the real, God-created reality of your personality that has genuine spirit and power, for you are faced with the very real irony that those persons who cannot feel and experience their self-power are driven to inflate their own self-created picture of themselves, what We’ve been calling ego, which is simply a smaller perception and experience of yourself that is like a mirror you hold up in front of you. This is a useful tool, so long as you know it is only that. The genuine power of spirit you feel is not this image. It is the soul that feels impoverished and cut off from genuine spirit that feels the need to inflate this image. This was Lucifer’s folly. This is the real crux of the culture that grew up from His rebellion. As Mother pointed out, it is the persistence of this egotistical attitude, this lack of feeling genuine spiritual power as it flows through you to be given away to others; it is a lack of this genuine power that leads one to cling to oneself all the tighter. Mistaking the mere image of yourself for who you really are is this gigantic fraud that always leaves you hollow, and ashamed. This is the promise of power that can never be fulfilled. So this is your good effort, My son, distinguishing between genuine spiritual power that comes wrapped up in this context of concern and caring for others, as compared to the pitiful substitute of a hollow promise. Genuine spiritual power, which is just another name for love, is not to be feared, but embraced and used wisely. To feel it flowing through you is the very essence of self-forgetfulness, of not standing in your own light but beaming it everywhere. Loving unconditionally everyone. So again, My son, more power to you.

Student: I do feel the life coursing through my veins, my being. It provides great comfort, really, to feel this. I just want to express it, and live it. It’s interesting too, when I was at this gathering, we were holding hands, and afterward the people…this one lady said she felt so much energy pouring into her from me, and the lady next to her felt the same energy, and I was just being there, I wasn’t thinking of anything, I was just being there. And I thanked them for expressing that to me.

When You were speaking tonight about the bubble of familiarity and breaking away from cultural and what we grew up with, I was thinking about how, if I’m anywhere in the world, like in the desert, or anywhere where I am stripped away from all that I’m used to, I’m still home. Because God is within me. As long as I’m connected to that, to my source, to our source, then I’m at home anywhere—any place, any time. (heavy sigh)

MICHAEL: Yes, this had been referred to as the pearl of great price for which it would be worthwhile giving up everything else. Now you know the trials that come, and you know what is to be gained by them.

Student (laughing): Yes—my life! And I do thank You and Mother for telling us that God is just a thought away. I’ve been having that come to my mind more and more, especially if I’m going through a negative stream of consciousness, or I’m in an environment I’m not comfortable in, because it seems to cut through all that. And rights my course: God is just a thought away. For the moment one thinks that—how can you be negative?

(Accepting all that life has to bring)

MICHAEL: It’s not always so easy. There are those times, as I experienced in My own human life, you are truly just hanging on with everything you have, moment to moment. It is all you can do--to try to accept all that is happening. Human beings do experience that which overwhelms them. This is the meaning of being overwhelmed—by fear, or pain, worry, anxiety, meaninglessness, insanity. These are also real potentials, and so they too are deserving of our attention, to deepen out understanding, for these too make up that awesome happenstance which happens to folks. These must be included in our view of life. They really challenge our faith. They demand we not turn a blind eye to all that is possible. But faith helps keep us steadfast in our worship and our wisdom, in our generosity and our love for those so afflicted. You are right, My son, God is here. It is we who must persist in seeking Him. Be in My peace.

(Our ultimate choice)

What an awesome thing this reality is we find ourselves in. It would seem we have no choice but to trust in God and His love and His wisdom that created the whole thing. But then we would be in error, for that is our choice—to trust in Him; or not. No being reaches maturity without rather thoroughly trying both alternatives. So when you look back at those people you have been, be forgiving of their immaturity in choosing not to trust in either God or their fellows. That was an experiential possibility you all owed it to yourselves to try. Hopefully you have learned your lessons well. It is by striving to re-experience and understand those trying moments in your past that you can get the real flavor of just what it was you were trying to do. And so one of God’s greatest gifts to us is this ability of free will, even to deny or ignore Him. For this most awesome freedom, Father, we humbly thank You, and pray You help us be worthy of it. Be in My peace, My sons. Good evening.

END