Michael - Gods Gift of Life - Gods Mystery - Finding Yourself - Sep 10, 2007 - Marin TM

1. (God’s Gift of Life)
2. (The Choice of Eternal Life)
3. (God’s Mystery, Love, and Respect)
4. (Forgiveness, That Does So Much)
5. (Live Consciously in the Present)
6. (God’s Point of View, Your Point of View)
7. (Your Potential Is a Pure Gift)
8. (Finding Your Own Voice)

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, Welcome to your home-away-from-home with us--actually within us, from where your words of inspiration and insight emanate. Thank you for your help in our understanding the impulsive nature of bad habits, and how these unwanted impulses that come will pass and fade away in time, in the face of our determination to find a better use of our time. We do appreciate your willingness to tell it like it is, and lay the truth on the line for us. It’s a very direct manifestation, or proof--if you will, of your love for us. It encourages us to be the same kind of good friend to those we love as well. So thank you very much. Amen.

MICHAEL: Good evening. This is Michael, Creator Son of God and the Eternal Son, Father Spirit of the local universe of Nebadon. But as a one-time human being like you, my children, I tell you this is great. It is truly great to be with you, for as you parents know, and those of you without children can imagine, there is nothing like being with those to whom you have passed on life. To have passed on this marvelous gift from those who have gone before you, and then to hold your own children in your arms, is the living proof of the continuity of life itself. It brings you face to face with the marvelous humility of acknowledging we are but carriers of the life of God, who originated it in the beginning.

(God’s gift of life)

We are truly His children above all, and we can say with assurance, with confidence in His goodness: this is the way it should be--even though it may not always be the way it is--this love between parent and child, between the person who bequeaths life to the one who receives it. This is the story of generations, and not only of humans. Expand your imaginations and consider for a while the passing of the lamp of life as it has been going on for hundreds of billions of years.

It is interesting to us the way your scientists trace everything back to a Big Bang about thirteen or fourteen billion years ago. They have their own somewhat limited evidence for doing so, and they will revise their theories soon enough, but here we come telling you that life has been passed on for hundreds of billions of years to many millions of inhabited worlds just in our Local Universe alone.

Tonight I would like you to imagine and feel, if you can, this enormity of the living universe, and not only of your human type of life, my children, but think of the fantastic variety of living creatures just on your own planet. Then multiply this by millions upon millions of living worlds, every single one somewhat unique in its life development. You live in a veritable sea of cosmically evolving life.

We’ve mentioned how extremely, extremely rare it is for a planet such as Urantia to be isolated, to be cut off from the universal broadcasts that intimately tie all this life together, instantaneously, across the vast light-years of distance between these living spheres. In terms of age, Urantia is long past the stage where most worlds are connected to the universal broadcasts. Indeed, in your own planetary history it is just so recently--I’m talking only a few decades--that your international, world-wide telecommunications have been set up to where you can nonchalantly tune in within minutes to places all over the globe. Now extrapolate this, my children, to our whole Local Universe of nearly four million worlds. Imagine these inhabited worlds that comprise it being linked so instantaneously across these vast spaces, in time and other dimensions far, far beyond your imagination, communicating and sharing their life in ways only vaguely approached in your wildest science fiction.

Just let it blow your minds, my children. Rest secure for a moment, in your imagination, and imagine as you sit here hearing me, or reading these words, all this is actually going on out there. While your scientists eagerly look for evidence of even planetary existence elsewhere, let your imagination people your night sky with life. All the while, let your souls--fed by the presence of God within you--reassure you of the truth of what we say. We say those star-studded expanses out there are teeming with life.

(The choice of eternal life)

This should help you get over some of your parochial attitudes. (chuckles all around) Yet at the same time don’t feel like you personally are lost in some strange neighborhood of a vast city for all the estrangement and isolation of Urantia. We have assured you, however it may seem a contradiction, that while your world was deliberately spiritually quarantined several hundred thousand years ago, this fact has not interfered with the eternal destiny of a single human being. Every person who has ever lived on your world has had a clear and distinct, unequivocal choice of eternal life. No being subordinate to me, such as Lucifer or Caligastia, for all their megalomaniacal notions of being in control, ever had the power to cause a single human being to miss that choice.

This is the life that came before you, that preceded you by hundreds of billions of years all across our galaxy and six other Super Universes, going back to the very beginning of the time/space realms. We’ve informed you of a universal cosmic expansion and evolution of not only sun systems and material worlds--all the stuff being presently created out there, but the personal beings as well. This is the true story of the Supreme Being, that evolving aspect of God the Father who is the soul of time and space, the repository of all the personal experience of all these personal beings: to a human being—an infinity of infinities.

Yet here you are, taking your next breath, feeling your next thought, hopefully realizing your completeness moment to moment, realizing the tenacity of the profound reality of this life you have, coming down all these billions of years to you right now. Each moment adds to all that has gone before something new, something that has never happened before. This is the marvel of God’s creation, the unfathomable and ungraspable nature of His infinity and His absoluteness of perfection.

(God’s mystery, love, and respect)

This is what constitutes Him mystery, not that He is hiding away somewhere. Rather, He is right in front of you, my children, jumping up and down, waving His arms with a universe. Realize further this is a universe that He did not even directly create Himself, but created all the living personal beings—the Architects of the Master Universe, the Primary Eventuated Master Force Organizers, the Creator Sons and Daughters, etc--who did, just to share His primal creativity with others.

He is right inside you, right now. Here inside, He’s not jumping up and down and waving His arms, but--in a way--being your servant, acquiescing to your will, honoring your choices, even His suggestions subject to your paying attention and welcoming them. This is the value and the respect with which He considers you. This is what makes us all His children, and gives us the prime example of how to relate with each other--with love and respect, and with the wonder that each of us is unique by His creative power alone.

This is what you are all a part of, my children, as well as me. Isn’t it great? Isn’t it great to be mothers, and fathers, and children, of such a Father? This is our worship this evening.

Do you have any questions or comments? I certainly do enjoy them as well. It lets me play my part.

Student: Father Michael, forgiveness has been on mind the last few days. I’m wondering, how I can forgive myself, and others? And how do I know when I’ve actually done it? How do I know that I’ve really forgiven somebody for something I think they did, or actually did; and also myself? How do I forgive myself for the things I’ve done and things I’ve not done?

(Forgiveness, that does so much))

MICHAEL: Yes, my son, this is at the heart of what you call attitude, is it not?--how you relate to yourself and to others? Forgiveness is not always a one time thing: sometimes it is a continuous process, for the quality of the forgiveness changes the nature of the forgiven. When you forgive yourself or someone else, it changes you or them in your mind.

It’s hard to talk about this comprehensively because it is so many-faceted, how you or others change with forgiveness. But with respect to you, there’s a quality of recognition, an acute ability to put things into proportion. To forgive yourself is to put back into proportion with the whole rest of your life that which you are forgiving, that was temporarily way out of proportion. You know it works when you can see this. The forgiven act or omission no longer sticks out, as you say, like a sore thumb. The forgiven act no longer has you; you’ve risen above it. Now you can see it in proportion to its causes and effects. You know you’ve forgiven yourself by the fact of understanding yourself: to understand clearly is to forgive. You are clearer now as to what came about, and why, and what the results were. And so, much of the fear, or contempt, or anger, or even loathing and despising of oneself is gone.

Often it’s creatively breaking out of an all-too-hasty re-action on a solely mental/physical level--what you call a knee-jerk reaction, by truly acting, by rising to a spiritual level. You are simultaneously deriving a great spiritual value out of this forgiveness. It’s recognizing the spiritual aspect of your soul that is so unbelievably and profoundly unaffected by what you’ve done or failed to do. You are no longer fragmented by some unforgivable act or omission, separated into before and after. Now you are continuous right through by this act of forgiveness. You are whole again, perhaps even more whole than before, than ever before, for what you’ve learned and now understand about life.

Now you are complete, my son, you have this incident well within you, no longer denied, put off, rationalized, or made excuses for. You’ve forgiven and accepted another part of your true story. Now you have it; it no longer has you. This is usually accompanied by feelings of relief and openness, and a desire to get on with your life. It’s over: it’s done with: it’s past. You can strike out in a new direction. You are no longer tethered like some poor animal to a stake, endlessly revolving about something unforgiven that had you fixed in place.

So you see, my son, it is a complex thing, this forgiving. But that’s only because it does so much. Ultimately it allows you to regain, or even to know better than you’ve ever known before, your essential completeness. You’re beginning to approach the reality we call your soul--the totality of your life as God sees it. You are closer to your Father Fragment because of it.

All this applies as well to your forgiving someone else. You’re better able to see them in their wholeness in a non-judgmental way. Whenever you truly forgive someone for what they’ve done or failed to do, it’s with the deep humility of realizing you cannot even begin to know them as God does--but at least you are trying to. You are trying to open yourself up to all they are, all in and around and before and after the incident. As we have said before, it requires no forgetting, but if it’s complete, it changes everything: and this is how you know.

Student: I can relate to the part where you said it no longer has me, but I have it. That last thing I’m going to have to do a little study on. I’m driven by the fact you forgave a lot of people a lot of things back when you lived on this world, much, much worse than I’ve had to go through, or will ever have to go through. You forgave completely, and I can’t get that part out of my mind yet; so that’s all I have to say on that right at the moment.

MICHAEL: My son, I went into this at such depth partly because you can reread the transcripts and go through these different stages over and over again, if you wish, and let them sink in. See if you can’t feel every aspect of forgiveness I’ve mentioned.

(Live consciously in the present)

It is a way of staying present. Folks do get confused when we mention living in the here-and-now. They forget that all the past—not only your memories, but your soul—is present. Living fully in the present moment with all your understanding and foresight gives you the greatest power to predict and anticipate the future, however much it will be somewhat different because of the complexity of everything else involved.

So read the transcripts over and over and see if you can’t feel all these different aspects of forgiveness, and how they help you be here and now, and keep the past in its proper perspective.

Student: Yes, it’s a very interesting lesson to read and reread the transcripts, and learn more about forgiveness.

MICHAEL: I commend your willingness to let my words affect you. You do me great honor by doing so.

Student: Thank you, Father Michael.

MICHAEL: You are very welcome. You also touched upon what was for me the great glory of realizing, myself--as a human being, to be truly my Father’s son, in my forgiveness. I invite you to share that glory with me.

Student: I accept!

MICHAEL: Keep seeking my peace, my son.

Student: Yes, Michael, I was moved by your talk this evening because I have been contemplating how everything is moving around something else in the universe, and yet we get caught up in all our petty grievances and the mundane things that don’t seem so important when you consider the vastness we are a part of. It can be quite overwhelming. I know I alluded to this many years ago, that there is a sense of security and comfort in this vastness, that there is a Source creating all this. It makes my little life more meaningful and substantive.

Actually, as you were speaking, I was thinking, why did God intend me to exist at this time and place, and do I have a unique purpose? I get so…I feel so expansive, yet I also feel so constrained by my life. I know it’s a paradox, but it’s really uncomfortable to have a sense there’s more to who I am and how I can exist—that you portrayed to us as Jesus, yet I feel so limited by my own thoughts, my own limited acceptance of God within me. All I can do is go into stillness, because we talked about impatience too. I want to go charging ahead without fully experiencing now. Part of me is not happy with now. I better stop here because I know I’ve said a mouthful. But it all comes down to, why did God create me? How can I live from the place of where He wants me to be?

(God’s point of view, your point of view)

MICHAEL: Yes, my son, we’re back to the conundrum of, from God’s point of view there is no separation, and yet from yours, you are caught up in a multiplicity of viewpoints, and wondering, and anticipations that are often struggling against each other. You identify exclusively at times with spiritual ambitions and potentials that seem to make the material world about you constructive, giving rise to the impatience that takes you out of being fully here and now in the sense of not appreciating all that you do have, and are. From God’s point of view your life is your purpose. It is what we mean by your being an experiential being: being a nodule of all this experience is your purpose. True, you are, in a way, God experiencing you; but even more completely than the monists who believe everything is God—far beyond their conceptions, you are more completely than that--you. You are moment to moment completely you--as you--because you are a creation of God.

God created your personality to perfectly coincide with your physical/mental potential, and whether you like it or not, you are experiencing being you. Whether you like it or not is up to you. That’s your job, your part of the equation, and essential to an understanding of, and being able to delineate and appreciate the different levels of personality manifestation. If you want your metaphysics unified, and your philosophy and understanding comprehensive and consistent of all these, at times, seemingly disparate elements, this is also your job. Experience as much as you can.

And so we’ve tried to get you to be friends with your impatience, and welcome it as a kind of motivation. But I realize too, my son, this is not something taken all in one gulp. You cannot yet take all of yourself in because you are—from our point of view—still so much pure potential. You are just starting out. As Mother Spirit said last week, you are planting a lot of seeds that will not reach fruition for a long time. Just be thankful you are aware of this process, and that there are so many unanswerable imponderables (Michael chuckles) buzzing about your head, for your consideration. Your life is richer for them, and you are spared the fundamentalist illusion you have somehow or another gotten, or been given, a wrap on Reality itself.

Student: My life as it is now, is it as it ought to be?

MICHAEL: My son, this "ought to be" is such a tiny fragment of "is." It is only a wondering. You are. Your life is. What it ought to be is only a tiny fragment for you to wonder about. Keep these things in their proper proportion, if you can.

And you are learning to. This is part of what you sit down in your stillness to experience and realize, that you are an infinity to yourself in your very existence. For only God can fully realize all that you are. The potential that you are only unfolds, for you, one moment at a time, and cannot be hurried. That is something else you have to learn. (everyone laughs)

Student: But is that my choice? Is it my enlightened intent to live my potential? When I feel constrained by the circumstances of my life—how I earn a living—I don’t even know how to ask the question. I want more! I want to live!—freely!—without the constraints.

I don’t feel so constrained about living in this body as I used to, because I see it as a temple. I see it as a way to express love, and joy. But I don’t know how my life can look.

MICHAEL: Which is why, my son, I say that your reality, your being, is so much more than any particular idea you can have at the moment. This is also why you cannot recreate yourself from ideas of who you are. You have to still your notions, or fears, of who you are to let your real, larger self re-emerge.

Student: There are times when I just want to stop. I don’t want to work any more. I just want to stop and take time off. But responsibilities and my sense of duty and loyalty override that desire. Even a week off… It’s why I feel I’m not allowing myself to accept my potential, although I am participating is a number of teachings… (heavy sighs and much decompression…)

MICHAEL (after a very long pause): This is why you just stop, from time to time. You enjoy being still, not as a duty or a necessity, but just to stop… to rest… to regain your here-and-now. And so, rest. Rest assured that God lays no specific intention upon you, my son.

Student: What does that mean?

(Your potential is a pure gift)

MICHAEL: It means that your potential is a pure gift to you, to use as you choose. You have to actively seek His will. I think when you read the transcript, you’ll see you may not now appreciate the fact of your own acceptance of your responsibility—your need to respond to others. You have a notion of some other demand, some other—even God’s--obligation put upon you, and I tell you it is in your moment-to-moment existence—that you can only try to be as fully aware of as you can—that is your responsibility to Him: to experience as much of everything as you can. And that’s it! There’s no more required of you. Your seeking to know and live His will is your free-will gift back to Him.

Here again, there are so many systems you’ve encountered in the past that are much confused in their philosophy and metaphysics, and present their followers with a incomprehensible jumble of conflicting viewpoints, ideals, ambitions, notions of life being an illusion, or God or the Universe having some requirement for you--other than you being you. When we say you are about ninety-five percent potential, we mean you are just starting out in eternity. The nature of personality is its ability of infinite, endless growth; and the way you fulfill your life is by accepting it as fully as you can, moment by moment. If you are experiencing frustration, impatience, feelings of incompleteness; these too need to be accepted; they are not illusions. Seek to understand them. This—from our point of view—is what you are involved in. This is what you are expressing to me.

As we talked about several weeks ago, with respect to your teaching ambitions, you’re feeling the need to start making decisions about which of your beliefs are true and consistent with each other. And you can best do this in terms of your day to day life. It keeps them from becoming just so many abstractions pondered off in some intellectual ivory tower, or mere toys—playthings. This is your search for meaning and value. This is being open to experience all aspects of life, not only the spiritual, but also the nitty-gritty necessities, duties, obligations, and commitments. There is no avoiding these if you want to have a full life. Some teachings profess the ability to live in a state of continuous bliss. It’s absurd! It’s like trying to paint a landscape with one color.

There is no one thing you can cling to or hold onto and say, This is it! I’ve finally done it! I’ve achieved some final enlightenment, or realization, and it’s all downhill from now on. But some systems of religious thought present that. Some so-called teachers pretend they’ve achieved that.

Student: That’s why I’ve sometimes voiced my desire to come from my own experience, my own inner teachings. We all have access to our own voice.

(Finding your own voice)

MICHAEL: But no one is spared the hard work of discovering it, and unifying it, making it comprehensive and complete, and internally consistent. That is the hard part so many folks simply dodge.

Student: But what if we find our voice and it suggests we do something different than what we’re doing? But we’re afraid—I’m afraid. And so I disregard my own voice. I don’t want to do that.

MICHAEL: Then comes the hard work of working out those alternatives--to the best of your ability, the best of your growing wisdom of what is possible—what you cannot always know is possible until you try.

Student: I remember when you answered someone who asked about Martin Luther King, that it was his choice to take the path he did. That was so important to hear. Like it was Gandhi’s choice… It was your choice! It wasn’t God telling you, or them, they had to. It was their choice.

MICHAEL: And because it was their choice, that very element played such an enormous part in their relative success. I say relative, for even I, my son, did not anticipate, and am not in any way responsible for, everything that has been done in my name. But if you’ve studied their lives, you know there was no one single moment from which everything was downhill for them. As a matter of fact, it was pretty much uphill all the way. True character is not forged any other way.

Student: Thank you for all this—it’s really helpful. It makes me wonder if I should continue being a part of these other teachings because they all seem to say the same things. But that’s my choice.

MICHAEL: Go toward flexibility. Keep reaching toward that inclusiveness that is parallel to what I mentioned before about forgiveness. Keep gong toward an understanding of how all these different pieces fit, or don’t fit, together. That’s the way out, always—to grow. Grow in your understanding of everything that comes your way. As you know, neither Mother Spirit nor I require any kind of blind belief. Rather, put everything we say to the test.

Student: You know I do. (much laughter) Thank you very much.

MICHAEL: You are very welcome. Again, I appreciate the sincerity with which you approach these things. I try to give you some comfort from the fact all these men you venerate lived their lives too day to day right in the middle of the same quandaries. And they often had hundreds, even thousands, hanging on their decisions.

Student: And so many were either assassinated, or executed.

MICHAEL: And very consciously realized that was possible. I know my own followers were so distraught at my final days, and wondered why I went back to Jerusalem and through that whole trial and execution. Why didn’t I just wander about some more and keep living and teaching? That too is an extraordinarily complex answer I must leave for another time.

Student: But you did have that choice?

MICHAEL: Very much. Which was why I prepared, as best I could, my apostles and disciples for what was coming, and the particular destiny that was mine to fulfill, both as Michael, and as Jesus.

So carry on, my children. I think that exhortation takes on a slightly different meaning each time. Rest assured I do know the times it is a glorious exaltation, and the times it is a heavy burden—to just carry on, to accept those responsibilities that are the price for the glory—to be able to respond. It is all truly single-knit, more evidence—if you will—of God’s handiwork in the meaning of our lives. We have our lives together to show for it. So be in my peace. Good evening.

END