Tomas Vol III - Pittsburgh, PA - Nov 19, 1998 thru Mar 28, 1999 - Part 12 of 13

 It is evident that the students are becoming satiated. But, like precocious children who are tired and well fed, they still don't want to go say good night and go to get some rest.

 

*****

 

PITTSBURGH, PA, USA

VOLUME III, Part 12 of 13

November 19, 1998 - March 28, 1998

 

C O N T E N T S

 

DATE:          November 19, 1998
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh PA USA
T/R:            Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MERIUM

Group:          Elyssia, Celeste, Leah, Rachel, Gerdean and Hester

Stillness and Prayer
Part 1
URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 39, THE SERAPHIC HOSTS, Cont'd.
#3. Supervisor Seraphim
#4. Administrator Seraphim
Paper 48, THE MORONTIA LIFE
#7. Morontia Mota, #21-28

TEACHER SESSION:
TOPIC:   
PUT ME IN, COACH!

TOMAS:     I am Tomas. Good evening.
Group:    Good evening, Tomas.

TOMAS:     How good it is to be with you. I am glad that you are all here and in such a celebratory humor. We are always joyed when we recognize your joy, in particular when it stems from your very substance and not necessarily from your external stimuli, for it is the internal value that will sustain you and see you through into yet more sustained joy. I would like to speak this evening for a moment about your inner life -- to his arena within you in which your soul grows, in which your Adjuster lives, in which you think and feel and have your very Being. Let's look at your internal aspects.

When you turn inward, you do more than contemplate your navel. You have an active and colorful existence within you. You have passed the days when you sought reality outside yourself, for in seeking stillness you have learned to trust your inner space, your relationship with yourself. You have discovered the joy in being. You have learned, to some extent, to follow the guidelines and direction of your Indwelling Spirit.

As you allow yourself to go inward and upward, it is possible for you to seek counsel and communion, indeed, with the Father Himself, with his myriad helpers, personalities, hosts of space that can assist you in your understandings of the cosmos and your place in it - physically, morontially, spiritually, socially, and so on. All of this is an "inside job". All of this is within you as a result of your understanding of who you are in your spiritual life.

Inside is where you have your perspective, where you have your creativity, where you have your individuality. Here you are your free will, your personality, your individuality. I am focusing on this aspect of you this evening for it is a good time to review your appreciation of your own existence. We, last week, talked about reviewing your life and seeing the silver lining on your experiences. In asking you to see the silver lining, we must assume there have been clouds, storms, and difficulties to overcome. This evening you read that adversity is even necessary, but for this upcoming period of time, I would like for you to realize the good stuff, that which has clarity, that reality in you which is an assurance of your own authority, your own viable and unique approach to your course in life.

Character is affirming. All of these many efforts toward developing character are not simply to eliminate negative character, no, but to accept and recognize and foster that which is good character. Each of you have good character. You have value. You have reality. And yet, you are somehow fearful of it. Perhaps you are reluctant to accept it. Much like when we first became your friends, we perforce spent much time reassuring you of your value because of your existence, and not because of anything you had done. You are loved because you are of the Father. You are his creations, and therefore worthy of being. Now you have come to appreciate and relish your being. You have done much inner work on aligning yourself with divine reality. You have discovered your clouds and silver linings and now we ask you to look at the sun within you, your own bright and shiny element, your actuality, which is of Creation.

This will be an interesting assignment for you, and I ask you to accept yourself in honesty and in sincerity and not in any assessment of pride or humility. Don't compare yourself, in other words. Just see yourself. See your own personal truth, your beauty and your goodness. See it as yours, as your inheritance as rightful heirs in the Kingdom.

It will be wonderful when you then pray on Thanksgiving, when you, in the stillness and quietude of your Heart, are given the gifts of awareness of your being in thanks and in gratitude of being, in this love-filled state, recognizing your place at the Father's table. You will surely rejoice and radiate your joy in thanksgiving to those with whom you share. I have finished my formal lesson. How are you this evening? Are you awake enough to converse? Are you curious or troubled? Are you anxious? Have you commentary? I am here for you.

Rachel:     Tomas.
TOMAS:     Rachel.
Rachel:     How are you?
TOMAS:     I am well, my dear. How are you?

Rachel:     Well, I'm feeling a little stagnant, of non-service lately, but I'm sure that will pass. I'm hoping.

TOMAS:     Before you proceed
Rachel:     Um-hum.

TOMAS:     In-as-much as I have asked you to look within to your value, perceive now, what's wrong with your inner space? Are you crowded in there? Are you not feeling you have enough light, and air in which to function?

Rachel:     (Sigh) I'm just feeling as if I need to be of service somewhere. I'm feeling bereft! And lost.

TOMAS:     It is now a matter of rearranging your interior furniture, perhaps, in order for you to extend yourself more fully. How wonderful that you are feeling a sense of expansiveness such that you are yet even more eager to be of service! Proceed then.

Rachel:     I seem to be having an increasing amount of what I call these little teaching dreams toward mornings. It's this deep level of teaching, and I can't really remember them

TOMAS:     Yes.

Rachel:     Maybe I'm not supposed to. It's almost like the fabric way down deep there is being re-woven.

TOMAS:     Yes.
Rachel:     Is it necessary to remember? Or is it somehow in preparation?

TOMAS:     You are being trained in your deep mind. You are being prepared. Perhaps this yearning to be of extended service is upon you and you are being made ready. I am glad for your testimony of your communion and your guidance through the night. Administrations of spirit upon your mind are evident w hen you awaken with your clear thoughts.

As your consciousness is required, in order for you to function in your world, you naturally will lose pure sight of these messages. But they are registered. They are in there. You are growing into your new clothes, so to speak. It is not to worry if you cannot specifically remember because the y are not necessarily conscious as of yet, but I will urge you to continue to prepare your mind before you sleep. By prayer and meditation allow yourself the psychic willingness to be adjusted in your sleep.

Rachel:     I like the idea of being, in fact, prepared for service. Thank you! I like to think this morning's little discourse was on overcoming adversity, and you mentioned that word. Interesting.

TOMAS:     It is a network of unheard of proportions. As you grasp a thread now and then you may be thrilled by the realization that the weaving is going on all the time. It is wonderful to behold you becoming aware - all of you - of your part in this tapestry.

Rachel:     You have helped us, Tomas. Thank you for that.

TOMAS:     Thank you, dear daughter and upcoming ongoing, co-worker. It is indeed a cooperative effort we engage in here. Yes, we rejoice in our mission works - these works we do with each other and for Michael.

Elyssia:     I love that think about Thanksgiving, Tomas! I hope I get that transcript before Thanksgiving. Will we?

TOMAS:     Perhaps it can be arranged.

Elyssia:     I'd like to pass it around the table! I don't force my religion on my family too much - because they wouldn't LET me! – but…

Hester:     This really isn't a religion.
Elyssia:     Well, I know, but I'm trying,
Hester:     To get along with the crew.
Elyssia:     Yeah. Not really.

Hester:     I'm finding if I just let go and let just like -- he came in today, my husband. I'm reading the Book and he says, "What's so fascinating in THAT thing?"

Elyssia:     Well, he has a good mind. If he were to take up the Book, he could probably go through it in zip time!

Hester:     Yeah. He was slow with religion; he's very smart.

Elyssia:     Well, men. It did say in the Book, because of our hormones, women are more naturally spiritual.

TOMAS:     I am afraid we will have much objection to that remark.
Elyssia:     Well, I mean until we get up to where you are, Tomas.

TOMAS:     I'm afraid I must interject on behalf of all spirit life, even your mortal life, which is hardly dependant upon hormones.

Elyssia:     I thought it said that in the Book! That women are just chemically, bio-chemically, electro-chemically slightly more devout in their attitude.

TOMAS:     Insofar as our Mother is concerned, it is true that her adjutant mind spirits are intimately interwoven with your instincts, but they are also affecting men.

Elyssia:     Well, John Guest was talking about how many men are down at Three River Stadium worshiping every Sunday and I thought it was a perfect description of what I see going on down there. Is that supercilious? Judgmental, maybe?

TOMAS:     I'm afraid, Elyssia, you will need to elaborate your prospectus somewhat for those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Guest and what goes on downtown.

Elyssia:     The football game! The Steelers football game. Where tons of men in this city go to worship on Sunday morning, and some of them start at dawn, like some people are religiously, right? And some of these guys start at dawn.

TOMAS:     You do the spirit realm a serious disservice when you elevate an appreciation for sport to the plateau of worship.

Elyssia:     Oh, I'm doing this with irony, Tomas! Total irony.
TOMAS:     It is impossible to read irony.
Hester:     But there are those who worship sports, Tomas.
Elyssia:     In our city, it's a plague.

TOMAS:     I am also a sports fan, but I distinguish between sportsmanship ON the field and sportsmanship IN the field.

Elyssia:     Well, I guess I wanted to say -- about my question -- I keep wishing that -- I keep struggling. The Book keeps saying, "sincere" and then it ca me up again tonight. The Book says this word sincere ALL the time. And I just can't figure it out. I've asked you before and you've tried to tell me I'd like to know more about that sincere business.

TOMAS:     We would too! We would like to see more sincerity reflected in terms of reality rather than sincere appreciation of unreality, and so you are the arbiter yourself of what sincerity might mean. What brand of sincerity do you feel will further your spirit? For it is in that context that you heard the word used. If you intend to be alive and well in the Kingdom, it is necessary that you manifest sincerity in your making of decisions. What kind of decisions are going to further your spiritual reality? Is it which team to root for? Is that the sincerity that is at issue? If you are going to look at the word "sincerity," you must look to see what it is modifying. I have said before that it is possible for the human being to be sincerely selfish and sincerely deceitful. This is not the sincerity that will further you into spirit reality. We look once more to your intent, to your motives. How have you rationalized and justified your human sincerity that it might be construed as spirit-motivated, or is it truly spirit-motivated?

Rachel:     At the clinic, we get children who ask questions. A little girl asked me, "How did you know that you were going to be doing this? How did you get your job?" and in all sincerity, I looked at her and told her, "God showed me what I was to do." And the looks on the faces! I mean, the eyes got very round! My comment was being sincere in my belief. And presenting that sincerity that resonates that truth that you really live it.

TOMAS:     You will find that children are more inclined to honor your sincerity in that context. Adults, alas, have heard many people say, "God told me to" and sometimes their motives fall short of the ideal.

Rachel:     There are so many clichés about God and Jesus that have got such bad connotations on this world.

TOMAS:     This is true.
Rachel:     It's hard to get around that!
Elyssia:     But you're getting through because you yourself said that you were!
Rachel:     That was a spirit-led comment. I felt that. I let that go.

TOMAS:     It is also a viable inquiry, if you will, Rachel, into your learning to be of further, deeper, greater service, for you are stating that you recognize that you have responded sincerely, but in using a cliché phrase, it is an affirmation -- of a dependence on spirit, certainly, and a phrase which is unlikely to frighten anyone, -- however, it is within you to be effective in your own right. It will require more courage perhaps, or greater command of yourself, however. You sense your capacities and you perceive the need, and so you will find yourself having yet more opportunities wherein you may stand more firmly upon the rock, the foundation of your faith, and speak those words which will come forth from Father in order to witness to His reality.

These value lessons are vital to those who see in you a spark of truth, beauty and goodness, and you are given the opportunity to be sincere in feeding his sheep. These morsels of spiritual food, they hunger for. If they have had in them a hunger and thirst for righteousness, for answers, and they have come to you in their sincerity for guidance go at once to your inner citadel and allow your spirit guide to speak for you and answer simply and purely in words hat are not clichés, the reality of your divine guidance -- that same guidance that is available to ALL children.

Rachel:    I rehashed the conversation in my mind of what I could have said differently.

TOMAS:     Yes.

Rachel:     Beautiful things flow through my mind. Such poetry! But at the given moment!

TOMAS:     You perhaps halt in fear.
Rachel:    Yeah.

TOMAS:     It is also possible that you have not given yourself credit for having the inner fortitude to manifest such reality. Perhaps this week's exercise will enable you to be courageous in allowing your very being to come forth with these flowing words from the Father for surely this is your Source and the Source of these concepts, these words that appear in your mind, in reflection. You are teetering on the brink of walking transmission.

Elyssia:     Frequently when you are working, there are children.

Rachel:     Sometimes children; sometimes adult. I like children better! They're so open. Adults just have shut down a lot.

Elyssia:     You are making an impact, I'm sure.
Rachel:     I don't know about that!
Elyssia:     You are talking about God to children. They don't hear it too often.
Rachel:     Well, you don't hear it seven days a week. You hear it one! So they are lucky.

TOMAS:     Elyssia has a flock of children in her care also, and herein is yet another opportunity to be of vital service to these young souls and to the Father in introducing one to the other.

Elyssia:     Well, I'd sure be open to a little lesson since you've given me one, and the ones you gave me lasted me for several weeks each.

TOMAS:    Perhaps, then, you might take our discourse of this evening into your classroom. And weave into the format of your lesson plan an element of sincerity and ask your children to sincerely share something from their life that gives them a sense of comfort in expressing their own perspective, their own real feelings, about what they think. Give them the opportunity to relish their own sincerity so that they have a feel for it. This is good practice, particularly before they become adept in the art of artificiality.

Elyssia:     Well, I like that very much. Can you say a few more words about it?
TOMAS:    I will let Merium address this. One moment.
MERIUM:      He is such a bore!
Elyssia:    Hi, Merium! I love you!

MERIUM:    I love you too. I also love dear Tomas, but it is almost inherent in his maleness that he affords me permission. I joke of this because we have discussed with you that men and women will be male and female throughout eternity and always will we differ and always will we stimulate and so on and so forth. And in His perspective, you see, his male perspective, he offers me the platform -- graciously -- but in MY perspective, you see, being a woman -- we think, "Who gave you permission to give me permission?" [Group chuckles] It is a peculiar difference in the genders that is more cause for delight than dismay, for I am indeed charmed to be "allowed" to speak to you regarding the exercise of bringing sincerity to your children in Sunday School.

There are two ways we can go about this Elyssia, -- obviously the human way and the divine way, and this human way will be for you -- very much the way I do when I address you sometimes, sit down as if I were your nanny and tell you a story. And this way, I get your attention, you see. This way, I gain your trust. This way I have put you at ease by appealing to your innocence, your childlikeness. I get you to like me, to trust me, by being harmless, by telling a fun thing, by giggling with you or being in such a way as to disarm you.

And then, if you've even noticed, I come in the other door and bring with me my troops, the army of the Lord, and we lay upon you then a blanket of reality and this is also a comfort for you, but you have been subdued and now you are willing to hear me out. And so I can give your open, eager minds something to truly savor and experience because I have very sincerely approached you as my dear and loving children. Now I can tell you about the Father. I can tell you about our Hero. I can tell you about the romance and about the adventure.

I can bring all the reality to bear upon these children that they can assimilate, and even more, for they will take what they can and hunger for more and yet they are going to be fed by our intercourse, and so I offer you this same teaching tool. If you incorporate them as your brethren in the flesh, it is easy then for you to incorporate them as your younger brethren in the spirit. And give them such lessons as the spirits give you, when you arrive on higher worlds.

Thank you, Tomas, for your gracious acceptance of my undying hope for our relationship.

Elyssia:     I have another question.
MERIUM:     Oh! Yes. For me?
Elyssia:     Either one of you, certainly.
MERIUM:     I see.

Elyssia:     It seems to me now I recall that when I was reading about techniques in drama they say just because you feel an emotion, doesn't mean that you will create it in another person. It's totally wrong. You have to think of a way to create the emotion in the person, not by having the emotion yourself, so when I'm trying to talk to my little friends about how much Jesus means or something, I really am struggling about how to get it across.

MERIUM:     Is it Machiavellian? Is that the word I'm looking for? Method acting perhaps? That technique that your actors use that puts them in the role entirely. If you are going to express the emotion, you become the emotion.

Therefore you present, you portray, what it is that you are trying to convey, and although they may not be experiencing it themselves, they can recognize the feeling because feelings are universal.

Elyssia:     But sometimes when you're talking about religion, you know these people who get real gushy about it? They turn me off, and that's the technique I'm talking about. Just because you feel something deeply and you gush about it doesn't mean you're going to get the point across at all. In fact, it works in the opposite direction.

MERIUM:     Oh, you are getting smart, Elyssia!

Elyssia:     And I'm trying to figure out to put it across about how much you find your faith a comfort to you and how much Jesus means to you and how he walks with you and he helps you.

MERIUM:     An elevated concept of love! How original!
Elyssia:     I don't know. I'd like some help on this.

MERIUM:     You have read in your text how Jesus employed the technique of capturing the attention of his hearers with an emotional thrust, right? But then he elevated the concept from the emotional realm into the spiritual realm, which is precisely what I have just outlined to you. You get them and then you lift them up. Your recitation there is about those who continue to harangue their hearers emotionally, and this is NOT the spirit, and indeed, this saccharine approach to religion is ineffectual in the long run.

Elyssia:     Yep. That's exactly what.

MERIUM:     You also remember that emotions are exhausting. It is one of the reasons why your races today are so tired. They have heard this before and they want something original and alive and they want their Jesus in it. (I speak to those of you who work in these realms. It is adaptable to different environments as you need to work with different fields, but the methodology is basically the same.) Lift them up into reality.

Elyssia:     I'm not sure I understand.
MERIUM:     Pray. I will pray also, for your understanding.
Elyssia:     I do I'm getting flashes here. Flashes of…
MERIUM:     Yes?
Elyssia:     And my friends here are going to help me.
MERIUM:     Of course! Your personal teacher Maugham is also adept at teaching.
Elyssia:     Yes. I'm looking forward to that.
Celeste:     Tomas.
TOMAS:     Yes, dear.

Celeste:     Today I got a letter from Jewish people in Israel who are starting to want to follow Jesus and now they are being overwhelmed with the other Jewish people who don't want this to happen in their country.

TOMAS:     Yes.

Celeste:     It's a very interesting letter. And the other Jewish group I have really been trying to help, because in Russia, the Russians won't help the Jews get out of Russia and they want to go to Israel, so I send money every once in awhile to help those people get to Israel. And now those are probably the very people who are very upset about the Jewish people who are now wanting to know more about Jesus and to follow him. It's very interesting. I felt really sad when I…

TOMAS:     It is political, what you have gotten yourself into, and it is also wonderful that you are finding people who are shared in a political situation who seek to rise above the trappings of politics and traditions in order to feel the freedom of the spirit. Remember Jesus came to free the spiritual captives and these people have been captives of traditional religion longer than Christianity has seen in existence.

It is a wonderful thing to see yearnings of this nature, and it is unfortunate that your sincere desire to be of service has become complicated by the vagaries of national situations. It is ultimately one reason why we will continue to press for one United World. I have no specific solutions for you there, Celeste.

Celeste:     Just pray for them.

TOMAS:     Certainly. For them ALL. Indeed. But you might also encourage, as the ultimate answer, the fostering of truth. Perhaps some of these real complications could be fruitful. There are many people of the Jewish faith who are seeking Jesus. They are not alone. Indeed, you know there are angelic orders that oversee and affect changes in these circumstances so they too are being of service in these unseen realms. Don't feel then that the burden is entirely on your shoulders. That is all.

Celeste:     It's just so very interesting that all these things are happening.

TOMAS:     It is, as we have said many times, a very exciting time to be alive on Urantia. It is even more exciting than your perspective allows. It will be even more interesting for you, I am certain, when you are given the opportunity to yield to the wisdom of the archives and see from that perspective the panorama of Urantia's unfolding. We are very happy for your participation, for your earnestness and your yearning. These sincere desires to further the peace that passes all understanding is our goal.

Leah:        Is this Tomas?
TOMAS:     Yes, it is Tomas. Merium has given me back the reigns.
Leah:        When you refer to the archives, are you referring to the temples?

TOMAS:     No. My inference was vague. It is really more like living records, which is why I used the word yield as compared to -- in your libraries you go look up words in a book; in our libraries, we yield to their information. It's a process.

Hester:     Do you mean the word the information conveys?

TOMAS:     It is sort of like, Hester, if you go into a tanning salon and get tanned. You don't go looking for the sun, you experience the process by yielding to the tanning salon.

Leah:        You spoke earlier, Elyssia, about a John Guest?
Elyssia:     Rector John Guest. He's an outstanding Christian.
TOMAS:     He does not play football?

Elyssia:     He likes sports a lot, so he speaks as one of the testosterone-poisoned people.

Hester:     It takes all kinds to make a world!

TOMAS:     He is engaging in his ministry by emotionally capturing his teammates and then, ideally, lifting them up to the Greater Game. Yes, I see his technique.

Elyssia:     I see that. Very good.

TOMAS:     I think we have saturated ourselves this evening once again with festivities in the range of operation available to us all. It has once again been an esteemed pleasure. I look forward to your upcoming assignment. I will stop in and visit with you throughout this next upcoming period of time in order that you may check in with us about your assignment, and that, again, is to look inward and find your greatness, for it is of God. Amen and Farewell.

Group:    Farewell, Tomas. Thank you.

*****

DATE:          November 26
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh, PA
T/R:            Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MERIUM, JACK

Stillness and Silent Prayer
URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 39.  THE SERAPHIC HOSTS, Cont'd.
5.    Planetary Helpers
1.    The Voices of the Garden
2.    The Spirits of Brotherhood
3.    The Souls of Peace
4.    The Spirits of Trust
5.    The Transporters
6.    The Recorders
7.    The Reserves
6.    Transition Ministers
7.    Seraphim of the Future
8.    Seraphic Destiny
9.    The Corps of Seraphic Completion

TEACHER SESSION
TOPIC:
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
TRUST & SINCERITY

TOMAS:     Good afternoon, dear friends. I am Tomas, your teacher.

Group (Elyssia, Rachel and Gerdean):     Good afternoon, Tomas. Great to see you.

TOMAS:     And indeed, my dear, it is also great to see you, to be with you all here in joyous assembly of our predilection to conjoin with spirit reality and to expand our appreciation for kinship in the spirit. May I begin our afternoon's visit by announcing that we are indeed in a celebration of anniversary. Today is our anniversary date of actual teaching in this base, as we have established it, both for myself and for my predecessors and so hooray for us and hooray for you who have participated and grown in these many ministries of mind and spirit reality.

Before I become engaged in our more substantial discourses -- And speaking of parties, I understand you wanted to talk to me and/or Merium about a party. Is this correct?

Elyssia: I wanted to ask you about a party for the Christmas holidays, which would have to be within the twelve days of Christmas but after the actual day of the 25th.

TOMAS:     And you seek my input? One moment.

MERIUM:    My friends, this is Merium. They have sent me in to represent the Teaching Corps in Charge of Holiday Festivities. What a Committee I have gotten myself into! Of course, but of course, we should always have parties. What mortal does not enjoy social festivity and communion in spirit revelry? What better opportunity indeed for you to convey your good wishes upon men of good will than by imbibing in holiday fashion. It gives you an occasion to get together to acknowledge the birth of Jesus.

Always are we delighted when people convene to acknowledge the reality of the Creator Son. Always are we gladdened when you join together in song and praise and acknowledgment of your existence because of his existence, for what are you, after all, but his children, the grand children of the Eternal Son, the great grand children of the Universal Father. What a family reunion you can have at this party.

It sounds like a fine idea. I would not get further involved in your plans such as menu or litanies or the musical scores, but you certainly may be assured that we will be in attendance and, as always, actively seeking an opening to plant further spiritual seeds of living love and on-going supreme reality. See you there!

TOMAS:     I am Tomas and we have another visitor this evening, if you will. One moment, please.

Rachel:    Our pleasure!
0802-AB:    Jack here.
Elyssia:    Oh, my goodness!

JACK:     I am an old friend. It is always a joy to be in your presence. I am indeed here.

Group:    Greetings

JACK:     It is on behalf of your efforts to amass together a history of our "movement" and your (Gerdean's) excruciating pains toward establishing the correct record, that I come to offer my assistance.  You are not alone in your integrity, my dear, in attempting to be as accurate in your portrayal as possible. It is to your credit that you seek to engage all facets of truth herein; however, Our Mother, Infinite Spirit, is already engaged in assimilating your various applications of truth in order that they may make sense. All you need to do is report your experience, and let the chips fall where they may. You are not asked to do an academic report or a scholastic undertaking but a testimonial, and if it needs editing embellishment, that can be done by those who are proficient in that art.

All of you who are engaged upon a revelation of expanded truth, beauty and goodness upon Urantia are only asked to do what you know to do based upon your personal experience as a child of God -- the God of your understanding, and ultimately that God which is over us all. We are not asked to be perfect for everyone, but only for our own relationship with divinity. Only Our Father is in a position to determine our value and He is Love. You are not judged by your understandings. Share from your heart. It is the heart that is the vehicle, the vessel, of love. The mind is that arena wherein you make decisions, not where you love. Love comes from the heart, the heart of Michael, our Sovereign.

It gives me great pleasure, children, to be a participant in this stage of your planetary development. We have, as you know, maintained a steadfast vigil at the wheel of your destiny course on Urantia and have seen some winding roads, some turbulent weather, some bizarre traveling conditions, but always have we been led forward by our faith in that which also leads you agondonters on in through the dark, always seeking just ahead for that light at the end of the tunnel.

Keep your eye on the light. Follow that gleam of perfection and you will in the course of time, stand in that radiant light, having come through your experience the better for it.

Elyssia:    Jack, I always wanted to experience your personality. After Gerdean first told me about you and told me how she had gotten so close to you and missed you when she had to have the time without associating without you, and so I thought maybe you would tell us just a little bit about yourself so that we can connect a little bit because we know Gerdean has tremendous affection for you.

JACK:     Gerdean has affection not because she has facts about my existence, no, but because of the truth lessons she has learned in her own personal spiritual experience in her life and that we have been able to share these experiences along the way. I am nothing unusual. I am a secondary midwayer. Many of us have been around here for a long time applying ourselves to these same efforts that you now apply yourselves to -- the unfolding of the light of truth on Urantia.

We are affectionate. We feel affection toward many of you as we observe your mortal struggles. Your difficulties are, in many ways, the same as ours but, of course, in many ways different, for we are not limited in the physicality such as yourselves. Of course, by the same token, we do not have the cheap thrills that you get to experience, either. Even so, we find you to be a noble bunch of beasts and have deep appreciation for those of you who conscientiously apply yourselves toward the rigors of ascension.

Elyssia:    We feel an affection for you because we know that you have been with our planet for a very long time, and you will be with our planet, if I understand it correctly, for a very long, long time into the future.

JACK:     I will be around a little while longer, yes. We just keep rolling along.

I am going to tell a tale. You were speaking earlier, Elyssia, about how little girls are inclined to look up to their mothers, and under ideal circumstances -- or even normal circumstances, depending upon your background -- adore the parent, and say, "My mommy is so beautiful" or "My daddy is so big and strong and handsome." This is a charming facet of children, and many of you have the same charming facet in regard to your teachers. You look up to your teachers and say, "My teacher is so beautiful!" "My teachers words are perfect." "My teacher is so strong and mature." And this is charming, but unnecessary. As you grow up, you will realize that you, too, have charm but it is as your mota reports, you truly have acquired no virtue until your acts make you worthy of it.

There was a time when I had to take Gerdean on my lap, if you will, and advise her that I was not to be adored, although I was her friend for a long time and I remain her friend. The point is that you must not allow yourselves, in your appreciation for spirit help, to put your teachers up so high as to worship them. Only the Father is worthy of your worship. The rest of us are all working toward the same goals, and the sooner you embark upon the journey as a team member, as one of the ranks, as a colleague in the Melchizedek University, and as a soldier of the circles in the Army of the Lord, will you begin to feel effective and be effective in this organism of divine love.

It has been a real joy to be able to converse with you. As you know, I have been in a foreign country, and although I do not have the barriers inherent in language differences as you do, inasmuch as I and my siblings in the United Corps of Midwayers do not depend so much upon language skills as on other communication skills, we enjoy this process of interchange of ideas and ideals in and with the human children of time and space, our cousins. I used to have this opportunity a lot and it's nice to have this time again. I look forward to more opportunities in the future, but be assured I have not been sitting around with my feet up or eating grapes.

Elyssia:    Well, you do float around some nice parts of the world, like Hawaii and places like that.

JACK:    Oh, yes. I've been around the world many times. It's a small neighborhood.
Rachel:    From YOUR perspective.

JACK:     Yes. I am not going to stay longer this afternoon. I am going to give the platform back to Tomas. I believe he would like to apply himself to his craft for a few moments, but I want to again thank you for this opportunity to be among you I and appreciate your focused attention to perspective. Thank you.

TOMAS:     I am Tomas, and I also thank you, my young friend Jack for your kind visit to my students, your cousins. You are wise in admonishing our peers here to reserve worship for the Father, but I am also inclined to add that a reverence for divinity is always in order, and to the extent that we are all related to divinity in one way or another, it would behoove us to develop an appreciation for one another that included respect and reverence for that which is of the Father within us all.

This afternoon, my friends, I would like to speak to you for a moment about trust. You read this afternoon about The Spirits of Trust. You read about their interest in promoting a level of operation which is a result of your ability to open up in faith of your destiny path and trust that which has been presented. Faith, you know, is a gift, and it is enlarged and expanded because of your trust. It therefore is your decision that expands your trust or curtails your trust. Trust is a result of your free will. (One moment )

Elyssia:    I have never thought of it that way before, that trust is a matter of my free will, but I can see the connection. Now those words have increased my understanding of it. I like what they said about God today, because they said even God trusted Himself to do these marvelous things for us, He puts trust in us. That was in our Paper.

TOMAS:    He gives a part of Himself, he entrusts Himself, to you in your God fragment, that it may work with you, to divine your thinking, trusting that you will seek communion with this Source of all good.

You earlier discussed the deer in the wood behind your house, and remarked upon the seeming trust these four-footed creatures had in their overt eye contact with you. The remark was made that they seem so vulnerable there. And the comparison was made that you children of earth are like the deer -- Vulnerable, to be frightened, or shot. These deer are ministered to by the Mother through the adjutant mind spirit of courage. Their little hearts tremble as they hear loud noises, as they see a human tromping nearby, slamming doors, wielding objects. But they have also a sense of safety and security in the moment of their being.

I ask you each, if you will, to look at your ability to trust as these deer must look at their environment and their life. What keeps them from turning on their heels and running into the wood? A sense of security and safety in their being. If you also could develop a sense of safety and security in your being, in your being indwelt by God himself -- not only through the Divine Minister's adjutant mind spirits or the Michael Son's Spirit of Truth -- but by the Father's very Self, you would know you can feel safe and secure -- as you are and where you are. And you can learn to trust also. Safety and security in the spirit is the only viable security you've got. It would behoove you to become acquainted with this reality to the extent that you trusted it implicitly.

Elyssia:    Why can't we trust more? It doesn't look, when you look around, like you can trust life here for things, or that kind of thing, but you can trust in the fact that you can turn to God, and that seems to be what I have discerned. I would like to ask you for your input.

TOMAS:    Go further.

Elyssia:    Well, I'm looking around me and I know that at my age I can't trust my body. And my husband, too. And so I'm having some sense of betrayal of the physical, so to speak.

TOMAS:    Vulnerability.

Elyssia:    Yes, but I just come up with that answer, that I can turn to the Father within for comfort and guidance, and He has proved this in the past to me so many times.

TOMAS:    He has proven himself to you. How do you prove yourself to him?
Elyssia:    By turning to him when I find myself caught up in fear.

TOMAS:    Good. Then you are doing what you can to establish and reinforce your trust in him.

Elyssia:    That's good to know.

Rachel:    This whole conversation's pretty interesting, Tomas, because I've just been running around the same old trust thing. I was having this conversation with God just yesterday, about trusting him! And I said, well, the bottom line was: Do you trust God? And I guess I have to! Because there's nothing really in this world that I CAN trust other than that Source!

TOMAS:    You have certainly intellectually resolved it!

Rachel:    Yeah, I've intellectually resolved it, but I'm being plagued by doubts and things these days.

TOMAS:    Perhaps what you need to do, all of you, who are troubled with distrust, troubled with distrust of the Father and His path for you, or your understanding of your path through Him, is remind yourself of what you have learned, what experiences you have experienced, what lessons you have attained, what wisdom you have assimilated, what accomplishments you have overcome. You sometimes become too focused on the moment, to the exclusion of perspective.

Rachel:    It's difficult, you know. I suppose in growing up in this world that there hasn't been one person I could trust not one, not even my own parents, to be there when I needed them, so it's kind of a difficult thing to adjust to.

TOMAS:    It is nothing to adjust to; it is something to embrace. It is a new reality entirely, reality. It is in fact upon your plate. If you say that you have been discovering that you have no choice, then you must now trust the choice that has been presented to you: The Father Himself.

Rachel:    You know, I feel like my soul trusts the Father explicitly, without a doubt. It's my mind.

TOMAS:    Yes. Give your mind, then, to Him.
Rachel:    Well I said that, but then He said, "But you always take it back!”

TOMAS:    Are these not those spiritual habits that are so troublesome until they are mastered?

Rachel:    I suppose, yes, they are.

TOMAS:    All right. So you have established that you have a working arrangement with God. You have a tennis match going. Let Him win.

Rachel:    Okay. Well, He always wins in the end anyway.
TOMAS:    But is that not The Way? Is it not true that as He wins, you also win?

Rachel:    Oh that's very true. I mean, I look back on my life and see so many things -- where I didn't even KNOW Him!

TOMAS:    Good. Now you're on the right track.

Rachel:    When I wasn't even fully conscious, so I say to myself, "How can you have doubts in trust when He was there before you even knew Him? And now that you know him!" It seems ridiculous. But it's going to a deeper level of trust.

TOMAS:    This is then a decent assignment for you for the next few days. Accept your trust in that which you know to be your perspective as a result of your quiet time with that God within you that gives you your very being.   Are there questions this evening?

Elyssia:    I do want to ask you, Tomas. I had my little Sunday School today, and I was disappointed in the effects and I was disappointed with what I did and disappointed with the result, and I wanted to ask you again to help me. That lesson that you started to tell me about, I didn't really understand it. It was something about asking the little ones to talk about what you really care about? Is that what that lesson was? I wanted to get it straight.

TOMAS:     The lesson is about sincerity. The exercise is to ask them to manifest their sincerity as compared to their superficiality. In order for them to manifest sincerity, it is necessary for them to speak intimately. There is a difference between intimacy and familiarity. Most people speak familiarly because this is how they learn it at home, but a new way, trusting the Father, you will learn through trusting him and trusting the God within your brethren that you can be intimate, and this is a more satisfying sort of relationship in which you can be sincere. The lesson was for sincerity. Practice sincerity until you recognize how it is intended to be used to promote your own relationship with divinity, and pass this on to those you teach.

Elyssia:    Can you put that into words that I can use for my children? Or do you want me to do that?

TOMAS:     Become as a little child and speak sincerely and intimately with them, engaging them in an intimate dialog about something meaningful, something of value. Allow them to experience this and to relish the flavor of this degree of reality so that they have been reinforced. It will be their duty to re turn to their environments and be exposed to lesser realities, and yet they will have had this feeding, this opportunity to enhance their taste of sincerity.

Elyssia:    What is a possible thing that is of value that we can talk about, for instance, in this intimate way?

TOMAS:    By and large you may take a Bible story and apply a feeling to it. I suggest this since you are talking about a Sunday School class. If you have a lesson or a parable or a scripture and Jesus is the focus, if you have his words to use as a backdrop, you can then sincerely discuss how he must have felt, and how you can share that feeling with each other. Bring the sincere truth of his mota to life. Allow these children to revel in the reality of Jesus' words and how they personally can attain that same sensation of value in themselves and in their extended relationship with others.

Elyssia:    Okay. Let's say, today we had the story of Jesus healing the blind man. I would talk about how Jesus felt deep concern - and these children always respond beautifully to that -- so caring.

TOMAS:    Perhaps then you could, for an example, blindfold a student, and rather than making light of it, as if it were a game, as if you were playing Blind Man's Bluff, instead of turning them around and making them dizzy and laughing at their blindness, allow them to feel the loss of vision, the deprivation and the sudden leaning toward acute development of the other senses to allow for a compensation of sorts. In other words, you become more acute in your hearing, or you become more aware of temperature or other external sensations in order to compensate for not being able to see.

And although there are always silver linings, you can surely share with the blindfolded youth, the deprivation of blindness. And once the game has gone beyond fun and into reality, release the blindfold with Michael's blessing and show how wonderful it is to be able to see the gift of sight. And if they are with you, if you have captured your students, if you have engaged them in their sincerity, and if you have time, you may be able to then analogize how it is to learn to see with eyes to see in the spirit.

It is always a challenge, Elyssia, to be a teacher and a preacher, but always when you ask Our Father for counsel and guidance, you will be given it. You must begin to develop your own curriculum, based on many of these teaching techniques you know I have used with you as well as the many, many opportunities for learning the exemplary methods of Our Master when he walked on Urantia and taught.

Elyssia:    Could you simplify one of Jesus' lessons for me that could also be useful for next Sunday, because really I don't think I have a feel for this. I can't believe it because I love my Lord and his words, but to teach my reactions is just teaching a lot of emotionality

TOMAS:     You do yourself a disservice, Elyssia. There is much more to you than an emotional appeal. If you short-change yourself like that, you will never be an effective teacher. There is in you One who can and will if you will work with that desire to give what you have received.

I cannot give you an effective example, inasmuch as it is necessary for you to be where the lesson is. And this in itself is a lesson. The Master was skilled at it. He would look at a circumstance and find within it the ingredients to create a lesson of lasting value, based upon the raw materials at hand.

Elyssia:    The only one that comes to my mind is the story when Jesus told the children to come to him and the people standing around didn't think that it was seemly, and how often these little ones have experienced that.

TOMAS:     Is it necessary for you to plan in advance how you will teach and preach? Can you not go with the mode-o-day? How do you suppose Jesus thought about his many lessons ahead of time?

Elyssia:    But that was our Creator Son!
TOMAS:     And did he not say that you would do wondrous works also? Even greater.

Rachel:    I agree with Tomas. Only because when I plan, it seems to fail more because I'm constantly thinking of the plan, but when we pray for the guidance, it seems to just flow naturally, without forethought.

TOMAS:     Here again we return to the citadel of the spirit wherein you attain your reality and learn to trust, whereupon you are entrusted.

Elyssia:    Well, I certainly feel that I know and love the stories of the life of Jesus. Now that's the one thing I think I really know. I know that I love the stores about Jesus.

TOMAS:     I know you are saying that you love the stories of Jesus, and I hear you with my ears to hear telling me that it is the stories that you love. Remember that the stories are representative of the value, and it is the value, Elyssia, that you want to impart as a reality to these humans. If they grasp the value of the lesson, the story itself becomes an embellishment of the reality, instead of the reality itself.

Elyssia:    I'm sure if I thought that through for a minute I would be able to find the value. Maybe I should.

TOMAS:     Aesop would call it fable with a moral.
Elyssia:    The moral to the fable. Okay. They are all so beautiful, these little children
TOMAS:    Yes, we are.
Elyssia:    I mean these little children in Sunday School are really beautiful.

TOMAS:     I can see you have a certain loyalty to your class and I can, to some extent, admire that and identify with it.

Elyssia:    Well, I think they are going to be incredibly wonderful in serving God! They are so I think very sensitive, imaginative and bright.

TOMAS:     Pray then that your faith in the Father and in their indwelling spirits will see them over the hurdles and that their trust in divine guidance will overrule the obstacles en route. I pray this for you also. I am going to depart now. I am with you always.

Rachel:    Thank you, Tomas
TOMAS:    Amen and farewell.

*****

DATE:          December 3 1998
LOCATION:      Pittsburgh, PA, USA
T/R:              Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MERIUM

TEXTUAL STUDY:
URANTIA BOOK,
Paper 40. The Ascending Sons of God
1.    .Evolutionary Seraphim
2.    Ascending Material Sons
3.    Translated Midwayers
4.    Personalized Adjusters
5.    Mortals of Time and Space
6.    The Faith Sons of God
7.    Father Fused Mortals

TEACHER SESSION:
TOPIC:   
YOUR OWN PERFECTION

TOMAS:    Blessings be upon you, good flock. I am Tomas.
GROUP:     Good evening. Good afternoon.

TOMAS:    This is one of the reasons we frequently offer "Greetings", so that we don't get convoluted by your amenities. As to the time of day, the time is now. The lesson at hand is one of your perfection.

We would like to discuss with you today your responsibility for assuming your degree of awareness of your own perfection. In assuming an understanding of your own perfection then you are assuming a certain responsibility for the manifestation of that perfection and the resultant effects upon your environment, your peers and, essentially, upon the evolving Supreme. Let us take a picture, for instance, of the process you are familiar with now, wherein you come together and study under the influence of these beings brought to you by and through the Teacher Corps. In this setting here, Gerdean is the person who gets up and turns on the "TV screen" but all of you are watching the movie. All of you are being affected by the program you are watching. What kind of program are you watching? We would have you watch Jack LaLaine and actually throw yourself into the program, rather than observe it as a divine comedy or a romance, and simply observe it as entertainment that you can turn off at the end of the designated time space. In observing truth, beauty and goodness, you are not assuming your responsibility in it; but by allowing truth, beauty and goodness to be passed through you, by and through your acknowledgment of your ability to cooperate with perfection, you have contributed yourself to perfection.

Let us look at your perfection. Let me ask you -- each -- give me an understanding of your appreciation of relative perfection within you by offering me, for example, a quality. Have we a volunteer?

Celeste:    I would like to be perfect in my love of God. I would like to know how to worship him with every part of my heart, my being, my soul.

TOMAS:     Your yearning makes me smile, Celeste. We would share your desire with you, for we too seek to worship our Father in perfection. The truth is, my dear, you do. You do honor the Father to the extent that you are capable. Do you not, for instance, surround yourself with beauty? And do you not assume this beauty to be your home? And in this environment of human perfection, material perfection, do you not honor Him who has created it all, including yourself?

I know that you do. And so you do worship the Father.

Celeste:    But you want to grow beyond where you are.
TOMAS:    Yes.
Celeste:    In worshiping.

TOMAS:     Yes, and you do well to qualify your ascension. It is perhaps a good place to make mention of the circles of attainment, and even at the pinnacle of your possible attainment you may have contact with your Thought Adjuster, that indwelling fragment of God that resides within. This will insure a greater degree, of course, of willingness to do his will and to walk there in, to trust the guidance you receive and to affect its influence upon your realm of operation.

And this indeed is an aspiration worthy of attaining. And even herein you are apprized that there will be further growth and further perfection as you ascend, but remember that the Father has said, "Be you perfect in your realm" and that is the key note of the sense of responsibility I call to your attention today, that recognition of your relative perfection. If you recognize that you will grow more, you are on course. It is, after all, existential and experiential.

Perhaps another of you has an element to offer as to an aspect of yourself which you perceive of as being perfect.

Hester:    Your use of the word "relative" struck me as Yes, I am related to God. I am his beloved child. Thank you.

TOMAS:    Absolutely, Hester, and from that divine relationship you can naturally assume that there is at least some element of you that is indeed perfect, and from that perfect point of contact, you can carry His association with you into your realm, manifesting Him thus as you go.

Hester:    Yea, verily. It is a job, though.
TOMAS:     I would like to commend you for holding up as well as you do.
Hester:     Thank you.

TOMAS:    I will also remind you all of the merits of community. It is said in your text that fellow religionists need each other. If you look around Urantia you will see that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of different kinds of religionists. The different sects, the different cultures, the different mind-sets, the different theorems -- these people believe alike, therefore they uphold one another, they reinforce each other; they have developed a camaraderie that establishes in them a sense of connectedness to a reality they hold dear. It is enervating, this practice of sharing your perceptions with others, your beliefs.

Your family of siblings under this Father in Heaven that is becoming more acquainted with you by and through your willingness to become more acquainted with Him, is giving you now a greater perspective on the relationship of creator and creature, of father and son/daughter -- this divine family. And even though your many mortal belief systems may vary, or your interpretations may differ, you are even so connected by this great God which oversees all of creation.

How do you manifest this great God in your own creation, Rachel?

Rachel:     My perfection? I see perfection in my love of nature, the mother, beautiful plants. I see perfection in the beauty in which I surround myself in my home. I see perfection in my ability to change and to manifest actions that I never could before.

TOMAS:     Your faith?

Rachel:    My faith? I see perfection in my manifestation of my faith every day. Every day. I see perfection in my desire to be more perfect.

TOMAS:    You are indicating to me a healthy perfection hunger.

Rachel:    It's been a long week of perfecting! Little tiny things have been coming to the surface that I -- it's like I'm learning it, but I don't know I'm learning. I see the little wheels turning, but not really the whole picture.

TOMAS:    It is more palatable to the child to be able to nibble on these truths rather than be force fed a large mouthful at once, upon which one might choke.

Rachel:    So true. Very true.

TOMAS:    It is better for your spiritual digestion to be able to assimilate a steady diet of growth.

Rachel:    I was saying to my sister that God has such grace in teaching us, such utter grace. It's so little-by-little; it's not overwhelming. It's satisfying.

TOMAS:    It is satisfying to our ears, to hear you praise Our Father thus. Your simple acknowledgment of his quality of grace, His gentle methods of allowing you to be born of the spirit, are what we long to hear. And herein is my motivation today, to call to your attention the privilege of being actively involved in disseminating perfection because of your commitment to the Source of perfection, and your acknowledged ability to manifest that which He has given you and can give by and through you.

Hester:    This came to me while I was gone. A couple of times when I was pretty deep in facing situations, all of a sudden one of you or two of you or three of you at this table would appear in my mind, and I could just reach out and touch.

Leah:        Thank you, Hester.

Hester:    And everything would resolve without my having to do anything except just accept it. And I want to tell you how much you do mean to me, in my physical life. You here particularly, and you others in this family, are very important.

TOMAS:    Yes, indeed, we are all important to one another. It is an opportunity now for me to advise you that there are throngs of other beings that you cannot see that are also integrally involved in your up-stepping and your advancement.

Hester:    I am sure.

TOMAS:    It is still, even so, good to hear that melody that we are loved and appreciated for our very being and for our relationship as offspring of this divine Parent.

Celeste:     Whenever I say, "I love you, God," the next thing I want to say is, "Help me love you more and more," and the more I say that, the more excitement I feel. It is just wonderful.

TOMAS:    I cannot speak for the Father, but I can surmise that He must be acknowledging your love for Him by returning the hug.

Celeste:    Oh, good.

TOMAS:    My fair daughter, Leah, you have not manifested your voice for me today. Speak and sing your song.

Leah:         Well, I wasn't entirely sure what the question was, but I guess my response, conditioned on what I believe it to be, is probably gratitude and service. I find myself wondering how I can serve, and also, I find a way of service is to let go of judgment and it happens quite frequently to me, that I find myself on the verge of judging something, when I have a light bulb of truth go on that says, "Why, this is a holy son of God you are encountering!" -- And that helps.

TOMAS:    It is an interesting observation, since you do engage in this practice of observation of your fellow beings. It could be construed as judgment, certainly, and sometimes it is -- even fatal judgment, but inasmuch as you are ascending in God-consciousness and awareness of a condition contingent upon a relative status, a relative perfection, you can then acknowledge that in your judgment an individual has been able to grow in the spirit because of their exposure to truth, beauty and goodness, as you yourself have been able to grow as a result of your exposures and your willingness to allow His will to be done in your life.

Celeste:    Tomas?
TOMAS:    Yes, Celeste.

Celeste:    Well, I was thinking that those who have not been exposed to truth, beauty and goodness in all their searching, and their searching and searching for God, for the love of God, and to love Him, they just don't have the words to express that. It hasn't been their experience to learn. I think every body is searching for God! Great Father.

TOMAS:    You will appreciate that each mortal who is indwelt by a Mystery Monitor is certainly working tirelessly to impart beauty, truth and goodness to the mortal of its association. But it is a challenge, in particular when the mortal mind is set against truth, beauty and goodness. Herein is a plethora of opportunity for you to bring this love of God that you have in to actuality for others to see. Not in your life, but in theirs! How can you engage them in an understanding of what divine beauty is or eternal truth or the goodness of divine love and even fraternal love?

These feelings, sensations, values are frequently overlooked as impossible of attainment in those who have been deprived of the joy of knowing Father in the ways that you here have been. But you can help to enervate the spirit life without by savoring the spirit life within, and guiding yourself into allowance of perfection manifestation. In other words, you yourself may turn on the "TV" or you may turn the channel. You may turn it off. You have will. Free will.

And your understanding of perfection is part of that which goes into the symphony. Allow your notes to practice. Allow your relative perfection the opportunity to warm up, to sing off key as necessary, because in due course your practice of relative perfection will allow you to attain a greater appreciation for your perfection and how you may manifest divine perfection through your willingness to do his will, but it requires a sense of commitment and responsibility. How else will you notice that you have grown, and how else can you rejoice in the growth of the spirit that you see when you look into the eyes of your fellow?

And what rejoicing we experience when we look into your eyes and realize that you are more perfect today than you were yesterday, and that as such you are more willing and able to be of effective service to the many. You radiate the fruit of the spirit more willingly, pray more effectively, rejoice more selflessly. Perfection is a part of your life. Enjoy it.

Are there questions this afternoon?

Rachel:    I had one. We were reading today about the Adjuster fusion. I was thinking about it this week. I mean, nobody around here does it! Not evolved enough. And I just can't picture how this could happen TO ME here on this planet. I mean, is there some sort of steps practice, stillness. Do you have to stay in the Stillness ALL DAY? I'd like to think that I could achieve this, instead of ending up in a nursing home somewhere.

TOMAS:    Aha! Let us look to your motives.
Rachel:    I knew you were going to say that.
TOMAS:    I jest.
Rachel:    But, it's the truth, too.
TOMAS:    I will take your question seriously.

I will take you back to the theory that the Father distributes Himself very freely throughout his grand universe and holds very few things for Himself to do, but allows others to do it. If he were to keep Himself contained with in Himself, soon the universe would shrivel up and die, for the key to life is the manifesting, the giving it away, the spreading it out into the nether regions of time and space, and so for you to suggest that the resolution might be to sit in stillness, in meditation 24 hours a day is not the answer, you can clearly see, because that is not truly Godlike.

Rachel:    Uh-hum.

TOMAS:    Our Father is always glad to embrace you and to take you to His heart and love you as His own, to reaffirm and to re-establish your divine connection and your place in His family, but He is also eager to send you forth. And there you may be assured of the ministries of the Infinite Spirit in your working in the field, for Her adjuncts are active in the realm. It is therefore a goal indeed that you become more Godlike, but not that you cease to exist! Service manifestation is an integral part of becoming.

I encountered a Sufi message not long ago. Let me see if I can find it in this memory bank. The question is, do you want to go to Paradise, or do you want to praise the Maker of Paradise? You can go to Paradise in Stillness, but the glory is to be found in the praise of the Maker. That is where the life is, becoming one with the life -- the radiant life of the Source of life.  Has that been helpful?

Rachel:    Yeah, very helpful. Because one of the things I was working on myself this week was manifestation. And if I sense all this in me, then I have to manifest it outwardly to those -- and I'll use Ethan as the example -- to those I live with. And I don't always do that. And I think I realized that this week, and it's keeping it IN that holds you back. It's practicing what you preach, right, that gets you there?

TOMAS:    You could say that it is practicing what you preach; it is certainly a mortal phrase.

Rachel:    It's a mortal phrase.

TOMAS:    But to allow yourself to be is more in keeping with the truth. Allow yourself to be in harmony with your indwelling Adjuster and allow your Adjuster to guide your personality such that It's manifestation is that grace you referenced earlier. Allow the Adjuster to do the work; all you have to do is believe -- and avail yourself.

Celeste:    And then you ARE in Paradise.

TOMAS:    You are in Paradise, and you are allowing the voice of God to speak, thereby bringing good cheer to those around you. Yet I would go one step further and, when you are given the opportunity, encourage those who hear the pied piper of your joy, assure them it is within them as well, and teach them to turn on the light within, that they may see the program the Father would have them see.

Celeste:    Well, you can get your home program started, but it's very hard for me to help my children to start theirs. They probably have, but they aren't quite willing to share or talk about it with me. It's not obvious to me, but I'll just wait. I just know it's going to happen to them.

TOMAS:     It is not impossible for mortal families to also share the joy of the spiritual family, but it is not common. Remember that Jesus had that difficulty with many of his family members. He even spoke to that point in his teachings that "the prophet is often unheard among his own people." It is almost as if you are so close to the forest, they cannot see you as a tree, and so you must trust the Father, the divine Mother, to find those ways which will stimulate their God-consciousness in their own way and time.

Herein your prayers can be your most effective work, but do not make them your clarion call. Set yourself up to be of service to those who will hear you gladly, and then you can feel the joy of knowing that all men are your children.

Celeste:    Um-hum. Thank you so much.
TOMAS:    Have we concluded for the afternoon?
Rachel:    I think so.
Hester:    I think we've had a very successful day.

TOMAS:    It is certainly a success for me any time I can be in your presence. It is a joy to know you and a privilege to work with you. Let us be about the Father's business. Farewell.

Group:    Thank you, Tomas.

*****

DATE:        December 13, 1998
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh, PA, USA
T/R:            Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MERIUM

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 40. The Ascending Sons of God
8.    Son-Fused Mortals
9.    Spirit-Fused Mortals
10.    Ascendent Destinies
Paper 155. Fleeing Through Northern Galilee
        1.  Excerpt from "Why Do The Heathen Rage?"

TEACHER SESSION:
TOPIC: 
FAITH  IN ACTION

TOMAS:    Good evening, my friends, I am Tomas your teacher.

Group:    Celeste, Rachel, Chase, Leah, Gerdean, Hester and Elyssia  Good evening, Tomas.

TOMAS:     In enjoyment of your gathering and your camaraderie, I, Merium and many, many other celestial hosts come to partake of your outpourings and to be amused by your antics. I am calling to your mind the tale told by Teacher Ham, that you could be equated to children in a sandbox, but I will alter your time of day somewhat and call to your mind somewhat how it is today you seem to me to be a passel of little ones approaching bedtime, and how it is that you must scurry and get a drink of water and you must remember to set this out for school tomorrow and you want to catch the last couple of minutes of the TV show, and all manner of items that require your immediate and urgent and delightful attention as we await the opportunity to settle down into our bedtime regime and prayer.

In that light, little flock, let me then tuck you into my association here and with Merium's ministrations as well, shall we conjoin with Our Father/Brother Michael in a moment of spiritual repast in appreciation of the events of this day, not only your 24-hour-day, but this day in the life.

MERIUM:    “My Friend Jesus, Whom I look up to as an elder brother, Who has known the experiences that we know today, Who has felt the feelings we feel, suffered and rejoiced as we also do, we thank You for the opportunity to experience all of these wonders of life and now, dear Father, that we have an understanding of our true filially with you. We are truly humbled and exalted to acknowledge our place with you in the Father's house.

"Gracious Creator, our gratitude is our very song today, and we would ask you to help us sing this song in and for your many scattered children throughout our many atmospheres, environments and arenas wherein we work and play. Rest with us a moment here, dear Jesus, as we companion with one another on our merry way home to you.”

TOMAS:    Thank you, Merium, for your gracious consultation on our behalf. My friends, I am very gladdened again to acknowledge our new-found associate. Chris it is a true joy to have you here in company with our teacher base. It is not a surprise that we find you here today, but indeed a delight, and I want to single you out as one to address because you are our guest and our newest member. It is as if to say we already know much of each other, but you are new to us and to our format. Let me then approach our lesson today in and through a value which you yourself have brought to the group and which you have shared with the group in your musical offering.

When you say that you in your art essay to reach the soul of your listener, you and I are co-workers; we are speaking the same language. It is my desire also that I attain access to the soul, for it is the soul that will translate into the next life. It is the soul which is your immortal self. It is the soul which will become one with your Indwelling Adjuster. If that soul is fertilized and stimulated, it will be in a position then to grow of its own accord, and so those of us who have come to teach truth, beauty and goodness, we who espouse the gospel of the Master, of the living legacy of love, will plant those seeds within the fertile soil of the soul. By nurturing the bed wherein the seed may be planted, you have helped to germinate a hunger and thirst for righteousness and a yearning for greater truth. No greater service can be provided than to foster living love.

I am going to cut my lesson short today because we are having such a good time and it is already growing late enough that you are getting weary, my little tousle-haired children. You, however, are playing possum. You have questions?

Elyssia:    I wanted to tell you that I tried out the suggestions about the Sunday School class and I'm feeling more comfortable with it; I just asked them to tell me what they felt sincerely about their faith today, so they each one told me what they felt sincerely about their faith, and then I asked them to next time we meet to bring a word from the hymn or a sentence from the Bible saying something about Jesus, and then I think we'll take off from there, and we just talked and I felt pretty much okay just winging it like that.

TOMAS:    Good.

Elyssia:    I prayed before I went, of course, and so I felt that we were getting into the heart of their faith much more than just doing the Sunday School lesson…

TOMAS:    Let me ask you something, Elyssia.
Elyssia:    Yeah.

TOMAS:    For clarification purposes for myself, for those assembled, for yourself and for your Sunday School students, elaborate for me, please, if you will, what you mean by the word "faith". When you ask these children to sincerely discuss their faith, what are you eliciting from them?

Elyssia:    Well, what they ended up telling me was that they really believe that they can depend upon Jesus to be there when they need Him and they can be safe when He is there. They talked about that and they talked about the fact that they have gone through -- one of our little girls has been in the middle of a divorce and she told us about it last year. She said it was very hard, so she said that she felt that she could always depend on Jesus so she said that's what she sincerely felt about her faith and that was the general trend of the interchange.

TOMAS:    It is good that you are instilling in them an idea of living faith rather than traditional approaches to faith. It is not uncommon for you to learn as children that faith is a religion. "What faith do you belong to?" rather than, a living value such as you noted of an ability to be able to depend upon Jesus, which requires faith.

Elyssia:    And they told me what they were afraid of. So that they could say a prayer and call on Jesus and one of them is afraid of getting into an accident when they travel back and forth during the holidays. One was afraid because a girl in her class hates her, she thinks; and I know I can't remember everything they said, but I felt really good. I felt that -- I even got so me more ideas about next time.  I mean, in other words, once I started to try and do it, it ended up being easier than I thought it would be.

TOMAS:    It is a truth indeed that when you set out on your faith path, even though you do not know where you are going, the way will open up for you. You know you have the guidance of the Spirit of Truth which will always say, in each crossroad, "This is the way." Even though you may not be having a crisis, it still will open up before you in faith of your desire to bring about a consciousness of Him who sent you.

Elyssia:    Thank you, I feel pretty good about this now. I feel like I might be able to go on and do a few more of these Sundays and they will be rewarding. I feel convinced.

TOMAS:    I am certain of it also, not only for them but for you as well because you get to experience your own capacities as a teacher of spirit truth. This is good experience for you, Elyssia, and I want you to be able to reflect upon your work and carry it into your adult children as well. They are a little more difficult because they have been further conditioned; they are more crusty, if you will, whereas little children are more open and available. Their soul is quite nice already and not poisoned by life's bitterness.

Elyssia:    It's funny how the little girl whose family was in the divorce always has this knowledge of having gone through something very difficult, and I did mention to them that they may have a lot of challenges coming at them in the next couple years, and I asked them why they thought that was going to happen, and several of them did say "so that they could learn a lot of lessons," so I thought that was really great and I was really happy.

TOMAS:    You might throw a morontia mota at them every now and again.
Elyssia:    Okay.
TOMAS:    Just to give them something to chew on.
Elyssia:    Okay.

TOMAS:    I am reminded of that because of the mota about affliction. "The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation." [Ed. TUB, pg. 556, #12.] If you were to say to that little girl that some truths are not felt except in adversity, you may be able to help her to understand what she can eternally benefit from as a result of this emotionally difficult experience.

Elyssia:    That's great. I certainly will do that.

TOMAS:    I will remind you once again, all of you who would be teachers, to refer to your text. It is great to have the spirit to guide you, and you know that as you seek to do His will, you will be able to plant seeds and go about His business as you pass by, but it is of great benefit to you when you have at your mental disposal the text of the fifth epochal revelation which is filled with resources and which are there for you to use in your ministry.

Don't depend upon your own knowledge but depend upon the knowledge and the wisdom of the universe of universes which has prepared for you a tremendous encyclopedia of cosmic wisdom which will help enable you to give many tidbits of wisdom, not for your glory, no, but for whetting their appetite for truth.

You read this evening in your text about how it is that the soul remembers even when the mind cannot recall, but when the mind is reminded, the soul responds to recognition. This is the same truth that occurs in individuals who have forgotten about their Indwelling Adjuster, or who have not thought to look therein for God-consciousness, spirit awareness. Help lead them inside to meet the Father through these methods of reminding them of their Divinington association.

Always is the Thought Adjuster waiting for an opportunity and working on opportunities to bring greater consciousness, spirit consciousness, to the mind of the mortal of it's indwelling, and you can greatly assist the Thought Adjusters of your comrades by stimulating their hunger and thirst. This becomes a feast of plenty, for it begins to accentuate your greater reality and your sonship then becomes dominant. More and more do you identify with the Father in heaven and His plan for you, your life in the spirit, and less and less do you look back upon the worries of the world. It is a way of attaining and securing vital perspective.

Well, I guess I got a little carried away there.

Elyssia:    Well, I've got another question.
TOMAS:    Please.

Elyssia:    I was looking over the fruits of the spirit and I was trying to find courage and I don't think I found that in there. Was there a mention of courage in the fruits of the spirit? Did I miss that?

TOMAS:    I'm afraid you've missed it, Elyssia.
Elyssia:    It was courageous something.
TOMAS:    Loyalty.
Elyssia:    Loyalty. Okay. Courageous loyalty.

TOMAS     You can take these wonderful fruits of the spirit into your Sunday School class with you and this assignment could occupy you for a minimum of twelve weeks. Courageous loyalty is something that even little children can get a handle on. It is courageous of this little girl to continue to love her parents in the face of her domestic devastation and it is courageous of her to remain loyal.

Elyssia:    She says she is trying to get her mother to have a faith. She lives with her father and the mother left all of them and I see them there with their step-mother every Sunday and I feel really good about that but she hasn't forgotten her mother at all! And she is very definitely involved with her mother and she has plans for her mother.

TOMAS:    You might help her to salve the wound between herself and her mother, then, by reminding her that her mother is a child of God also. It is not for us to say whether or not someone else has faith. "If you have faith, have it unto yourself." Perhaps she is mistaking faith for religious affiliation, and this is a lesson she is no doubt receiving from her society. As her teacher of spirit truth, you can remind her that it's very likely her mother does have some sort of faith, even though it may not conform to what others would have it be.

Have faith in your own Mother, the Mother in heaven Who looks over all of her children.
Yes, Celeste.

Celeste:    I was just going to say, this is a fourth grade class, I think. These children can't be, oh, they're in fifth grade. I was thinking they can't be older than twelve years.

Elyssia:    Oh, they're older than twelve, yes.
TOMAS:    What happened to Jesus when He was twelve?
Celeste:    Well, that was Jesus.
TOMAS:    What happened to you when you were twelve?

Celeste:    I can't remember. I just remember that from the time I can remember anything, I loved Jesus. That's all I can remember. My sister and I knelt by the side of the bed and say our prayers and we learned to love Jesus right there. I would say maybe we were five or six.

TOMAS:    Yes.

Celeste:    I think it's a lot to ask an eleven or twelve-year-old to handle their parents and their faith.

TOMAS:    Indeed. Indeed. But it is important that this child not buy into a judgment of her mother based upon a lack of understanding of what faith is. Perhaps her mother does not have faith. In which case the child's prayer assumes even greater maturity proportions than we give her credit for, but a child's heart is capable of tremendous love and longing.

Celeste:    That's true.

TOMAS:     It is also possible for young people to become enthralled with Our Father and with His way of life. I will bring to your mind an inspiration perhaps from other worlds, other worlds which are a little more advanced. In fact, my home sphere was further along in our evolution than Urantia and it was not at all uncommon for our little ones to be exceedingly mindful of the graciousness of spirit reality. You know we had a working arrangement with the midwayers and often communed with the Morontia Companions, often acknowledged the efforts of the angelic corp.

If a child is exposed to these realities at an early age, it is a natural thing for them to grasp. It is wrong, then, to encourage a child to set aside its innate faith in its Creator in order to take on, as a greater reality, the values of the people -- unless, of course, the people are acting in accordance with the Father's will. And that, in itself, is a situation that would require -- if not a value judgment, at least a wise assessment, one which would even require an amount of courageous loyalty!

Celeste:    I am just happy that when I was a little girl all I did was just love Jesus. I loved him with all my heart but I didn't know the word faith.

Hester:    Thank God.

TOMAS:     It is interesting indeed, because everyone has an individual experience, and yours is truly your own and precious to you. It has obviously contributed to your inherent make-up, but there are others who had not been led to pray or know Him, and I think perhaps they might have been benefited had someone sat with them and said, "What do you think faith is, child? What do you have faith in?" for that would have given the child, then, an opportunity to reach for faith, and in reaching for "faith is”

Chase:        … expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates." [Ed. TUB, 1114, 8. Faith and Belief]

Elyssia:    You can bring that down to a simple level if you take some time with it, I am sure. I'm sure that that's the work that I've been doing. I just chucked the material they gave me, and I'm trying to follow Tomas' suggestions on working with what is at hand.

Well, Chase, do you remember? Look where you are now. So maybe you could share, if you would, something meaningful that happened to you as a child?

Chase:        I think when we are children we learn to have faith through belief. I think belief attains to faith levels. That's when we are sure. Faith is a knowing, sublime knowing that surpasses all belief. It is no longer belief once you know, once you commune with your Adjuster. It's a growing up. Children, I believe, believe until they grow to have faith. When someone has a belief, they are maybe -- sure of them selves, but when they have faith they no longer are intolerant of other people's beliefs, knowing that it's simply a belief. Does that make sense?

I think having faith is a maturing in itself. I don't think children, per se, can have faith. They can certainly have faith in their parents, but I don't think they even know that it's faith until they realize for themselves from experience. Until then it's a belief because as Tomas said, society tells children so children believe that. That's not faith until they feel it in their soul in that awakening, so to speak, and then it becomes true faith. Not just merely belief.

TOMAS:    I will add to that very good commentary, my son, and talk for a moment about belief, which belief system may be totally shattered. Many times during a life what you believe today may fail you completely tomorrow because you have constructed it in your own mind, but faith is a living reality. It cannot be shattered. It is real. When you say you have "lost faith" it is only that you have lost a belief system that enshrouded your faith. Beliefs are man-made. Faith is living. And you develop both of these by and through your free will.

You will find how they serve you by trusting in them. If you trust in what you believe, you will be led to find out if it is a viable belief or a faulty belief. And if you trust your faith, your faith will expand and grow.

Chase:        Absolutely.
Celeste:    Well, I thought as you mature, your belief becomes a faith.
Chase:        That's right. But faith always grows. It's....
Rachel:    A continuance.
Chase:        …continually.

TOMAS:    It is sometimes necessary for the old scaffolding of a belief system to be pulled out from under you that you can then learn to stand on faith alone. Are we not agondonters? If you are constantly supporting yourself with the false props of one belief system after another, you are not developing the full potential of your immortal soul. You may not have developed yourself at all, but rather just have gone from one noble belief system after another, developing nothing of lasting value.

Celeste:    Right.

TOMAS:    But in the sincere faith child, even these faulty belief systems will yield some knowledge, some wisdom that can be incorporated into a greater reality and often it is a resource then to teach and preach others who rely upon those false props. It is an invigorating life, this life in the spirit. Never boring. Never dull.

Elyssia:    Well, I told them that Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me" when the apostles were annoyed, and I think that was something they enjoyed talking about today because it was like, "You're very important to Jesus."

Celeste:    It just makes you love him more.
Elyssia:    They all knew that they were, in fact, loved.

TOMAS:    Very well. Yes, it is important for children to realize that they are of value in and of themselves for many times your adults insist that they are lesser, and this …

Hester:    Seen and not heard.

TOMAS:    Yes. And this is damaging to an individual's self-esteem. Everyone has value. Everyone has something to say and something to give.

Chase:        That's who we are today, from growing up with people telling us.

TOMAS:    Yes, and isn't it wonderful now that Teacher Ham comes along and lets you play in the sandbox and I come along and help you with your prayers in the evening. We are truly your devoted elder brothers and sisters in this marvelous family of God.

It is time, little ones, for us to turn out the lights and allow Our Father to work on us as we rest, and to allow Our Mother to minister to our spirits as we sleep. Go in peace this week, in joy, and know that His will is being done in your life.

Celeste:    Thank you, Tomas.
TOMAS:    Amen and farewell.

*****

DATE:        December 20, 1998
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh PA USA
T/R:              Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MERIUM

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 41, Physical Aspects of the Local Universe
1.    The Nebadon Power Centers
2.    The Satania Physical Controllers
3.    Our Starry Associates
4.    Sun Density
5.    Solar Radiation
Paper 48.  The Morontia Life
     7.   Morontia Mota (again)
     8.   The Morontia Progressors

TEACHER SESSION:
TOPIC:
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

MERIUM:    Merry Christmas, everybody. This is Merium.

Group: (Celeste, Liana, Mr. B., Gerdean, Leah, Rachel and Hester. Hi Merium):  Merry Christmas.

MERIUM:    I am coming in, in your culture, and acknowledging the sounds of Christmas in your environment. Not because it's my holiday, no, but because it is a holiday that you celebrate in your culture here which gives you opportunity to be of good cheer and, even, in good cheer in the context of the birth of the Christ child, thereby bringing all manner of opportunities to you to teach and preach during this auspicious holiday occasion. Every opportunity is fodder for the teacher mill, and so it is opportunity again for us to extrapolate on how it is that you might be effective in your arenas as you maintain your consciousness of our Father and His bestowal here. The munchkins are always an opportunity to parallel children of God. Always, if you are, in your heart, a child, can you equate yourself to the little ones.

You can discuss the anticipation of St. Nick in terms of your own anticipation of when it is that He will return and how easily then that lends itself to an opportunity to testify that He is in fact here today and living among you. In the spirit. I am going to bow out and allow Tomas to carry on and yet before I go I am going to play the divine Miss M here and pretend I am your hostess so that I might embrace our Mr. B.  who has bestowed himself upon this gathering today.

Welcome, dear one.

Mr. B.:    Thank you.

MERIUM:     It is indeed a joy to have you in this fold. How much we all appreciate the joy you bring in your very presence.

Celeste:    That is so true, Merium.

MERIUM:    If you but take a moment to enjoy each other's presence, you will be in the appropriate circuit for Tomas' lesson of this afternoon. Therefore I will be quiet and let my colleague prevail.

Leah:        Thank you, Merium.
Mr. B.:    Merry Christmas.

TOMAS:     Good afternoon. This is Tomas, your teacher. It is good to be here and I am glad, as always, for your loyalty and for the assistance of Merium who always manages to brighten my corner of the universe, much as you brighten the corner of the universe in which you find yourself. In fact, in light of today's lesson and in light of the season, I will speak to you today about your light and bring it to your attention in the analogy of a string of Christmas lights. You here at the table, indeed, all of us here in this room, are on a circuit, a string of lights in honor of the light of truth. Each of us reflects a different colored light. We manifest the light that comes through the circuits. Each light that is lit creates greater illumination, so that your individual light becomes part of the twinkling of the environs. When you are asked to put your light upon a hill where it can be seen, you are being asked to tap into the energy of the greater light. These words are, of course, rudimentary but it is, even so, an opportunity for me to paint a picture so that you can look at all these Christmas lights with a new perspective, a perhaps greater perspective, on what is being attempted.

You read today about the different levels of energy, the various powers of energy. You have reasoned among yourselves that can die out and there are energies which are eternal. The light that you are developing inside your self by and through your association with your Indwelling Adjuster is a light that will never die. The pilot light is illuminated in your lives as you grasp greater phase truths. Are you aware of the light you give off? Are you aware of the color of Christmas that you represent this season? Each of you together, in union, as you connect with each other in this greater reality, can manifest then a light which supercedes the glitter of the perception of the lesser way.

Remain true to your true Source of energy, your power source on high. That way when all the tertiary lights flicker and fail, you will be able to rejoice in the foundation you have set by being at one with your pilot light which remains ever lit and ever focused. And thus, in keeping with your culture, I have delivered what might be called your Christmas sermon. I will, in light of your festive mood, and indeed in deference in part to our most honored guest, offer opportunity to enjoy your repartee and seek questions and/or commentary. The floor is open.

Rachel:    Do you have a question, Mr. B. ?
Mr. B.:    I just would like to say "Hi!" to Tomas. It's nice to meet you, Tomas.
TOMAS:    Gerdean, move over.  [Group laughter]

Leah:        Well, maybe you could make some commentary on the rush that we all seem to be immersed in. Is it just because we are so commercial here or -- Liana had said something about she felt that time had run out and I feel that way too. Just like there is a celestial speed-up of enormous proportions. Is such a thing happening? Or …

TOMAS:     We have had this discussion many times. [Group laughter] Perhaps you are going too fast to hear it.

Leah:        That's probably true.

TOMAS:     Yes, Mr. B. I would like also to greet you. It is a joy to know you and to see your loyalty in your own understanding of your agondonter status and to see you embrace the greater community. You are indeed one of the lights on this string of lights on the Christmas tree of creation. Your light is as clear and joyous as others in this participatory venture. How wonderful it is when we begin to embrace the greater community. You are an example of an individual who has known the benefits of God-consciousness and cherished that sacred relationship and held it in your heart, giving you great comfort, even when all things earthly crumbled, but in a reflection of other lights as your own, you can appreciate that even though you can see other lights reflected, you are still your own light and since you have your own power Source, they too could extinguish and fade but yours is true. It is part of the existential reality of humanity that each individual is responsible for his own light of truth. It is indeed perhaps in grasping the greater light that you begin to have your own sense of time and space.

When you say that time seems to be going by quicker, there are many factors involved in that. You will find that little children still think they have forever, and they are still unawares of how much time they have before they run out of daylight, but you who have become experientially aware of mortality and deadlines and limitations of mortal reality, have come to appreciate that there may be enough time in the universe, but there is still not enough time in the day to do what you want to do. As you have a rich life, as you enjoy your existence, as you have much to share, you want to cram even more into your life. The adage that "Life is but a days work; do it well" gives you an idea of how it is that in wanting to do well, you want to also have the opportunity to practice it and get proficient at it and you find time slipping away as the education of your very existence takes on so many levels of understanding and opportunity. It is then, my dears, a matter of establishing your priorities. I am finished.

Leah:        Well, we do show up here every week. Generally.
TOMAS:     Are you inferring that that is a priority?
Leah:        Oh, yes.

TOMAS:     I am fully aware of your devotion to your spiritual connection and the solid comfort and multi-layered stimuli that comes from your association with fellow-religionists. Indeed, it is my greatest joy to be a part of this community and to be a part, also, of your spiritual growth, your developing love and desire to be of creative service to each other and to the Master in your world at large. It is a good priority, Ah-Leah

Leah:         I just have to figure out the priority of other stuff in life.

TOMAS:     Yes. This is also one of the delights of life. When it is said that you have been given the gift of life, it behooves you to be able to regard each day as a gift and each moment in time also as a gift. And here we are again talking about Christmas, are we not, and yet more opportunities to plant the seeds; that, in the gift-giving, may I give you a piece of my heart and a piece of my hope? A little bit of faith? A lot of trust? These are the gifts that, according to Hallmark, keep on giving. Perhaps they are part of the greater Power Center.

Leah:        Well, you celestial beings certainly exude a kind of giving.

TOMAS:     We have had a lot of practice. We are also committed. When you commit yourself to doing a job, I know your integrity, and I know that if you have said you will do something, you approach it with a positive attitude. Only as you feel you are being taken advantage of or that your gift is being misused, do you find it necessary to reconsider and re-evaluate your circumstances. This is a growth lesson also.

Leah:        Well, I know I speak for all of us when I say we are grateful that you come and give us counsel. And you are so patient with us, too.

TOMAS:     I am told that I have great patience.
Rachel:    It's a virtue, Tomas.

TOMAS:     I need to prod you in your development and not sit here and soak up compliments. Although, of course, I enjoy your words of support and praise. Indeed, I am being reminded by Merium, that you are giving me Christmas presents and so I accept your gifts in the spirit in which they are intended.

Celeste:    Tomas, do you think I will ever learn to understand The Urantia Book? There are parts of it that are so hard!

TOMAS:     I am quite certain, Celeste, you will come to understand what is necessary. If you will recall, there are ages upon ages to come in which you can learn all that is necessary, even all the way into Paradise. There are parts of the Book which I don't understand. There are parts of the universe that I have not been to, and so do not be impatient with yourselves. It is important here, Celeste, that your understanding of the Book includes some elementary reality, some relationship realities based upon your relationship with Our Father and then with your siblings in the Kingdom. That's a good grounding place to begin. From there you feel love, you feel safe, you feel you want to give, and then you begin to give in service to others.

There is not much more to understand than that. That itself is a full time job. If you want facts, by all means exercise your mind and assimilate as many facts and insights as you can. But don't beat yourself up if you are incapable at this point of grasping certain information. All right, then. Let's think in terms of yourselves as a gift. A Christmas gift. Yes, Mr. B.  you are a gift to this gift and Gerdean is certainly appreciating the joys of the gift of your arrival in our midst, and you are being the recipient of the gifts of these women who are enchanted by your energy and your presence. Just by being in the presence of humanity, you are presenting humanity with a gift of the spirit. It is an indication of the new era that you don't think in these terms.

Only lately have we been put upon to put it to your attention that your pattern of reality affects people in more than a cursory or socially gracious way. You carry with you intent and purpose. You are motivated to bring the Father into your environment. You are geared and gearing yourself to display His fruits of the spirit in your lives and in your relationships. How can you not regard yourself as a gift? How? Well, I know your conditioning. Your conditioning would say, "I can not exalt myself in such a manner because I have seen how some people are and they are obnoxious to be around; they are egoistic and self-centered; they think the world revolves around them; they think their opinions are most important;" and on and on and on and I am not talking about that level of reality at all. I am talking about the manifestation of the love saturated soul.

This reality is a reality which your world hungers for. When it is out there shopping, what is it really looking for? It is looking for the light that will light the way, the gem, the jewel, the pearl of great price. These offerings of other are what is truly being sought, coveted, fought over, and they are not aware of it. Bring your gift of love into the environment and allow them to savor the reality of that gift, that gift which you yourself have been given.

Rachel:    Even if they reject it?
TOMAS:     Even if they reject it. That is not…

Rachel:     What I mean to say, Tomas, is I had an experience yesterday where I talked to my ex-husband and I was impassioned about something and -- he hasn't listened to me without hanging up the phone in two years. And I heard his soul listen to that yesterday, and I was just -- I wasn't aware of what was going on at the time, but I realized that he was listening! Even though he told me I was crazy and all kinds of other things, but for some reason or another he listened!

TOMAS:     And also, something in you realized he was listening, and so there is some kind of communication going on there. Attained. Appreciate the gift, then, that you have received in this breakthrough!

Rachel:    I did! It made me feel so good it made me cry.

TOMAS:     Bravo. Bravo to the Father who works incessantly to bring about such a harmonious relationship between his many-faceted children. Continue in your efforts to bring about good will. Not only will your children benefit, but all of humanity will benefit. It is a noble endeavor. If and when you find that your words are not falling on fertile soil and when your light is being unplugged, if you will, then remove yourself, but remember undying hope and don't give up.

Rachel:    I'm still having undying hope for me, Tomas, that I'll be saved in my 11th hour.

TOMAS:     I trust you jest.
Rachel:    No! I don't! Of course, I don't know when the 11th hour is.

TOMAS:     I see. You are discussing the lesser reality. I am glad that you are discussing your salvation in terms of your address and not in terms of your actuality. I would have felt dismayed that my lessons were not being effective, if you had.

Rachel:    No, Tomas. Understand too, that I'm coming into an awareness of a greater faith.

TOMAS:     Indeed, you are coming into an awareness of -- not just the faith itself, but a conscious awareness of it. I am glad of this, because when you become aware of your assets, you can also become aware of your liabilities. And as you are aware AT ALL, it is something you can work with and work on in order that you may be a more effective teacher and preacher. This goes to the heart of our recent lessons as to your acknowledgment of your own relative perfection. Indeed it goes to the heart of my preliminary remarks regarding the development of character, preceding the series of lessons on the Fruits of the Spirit. As you allow your mind to work with these concepts, they become a part of you consciously, allowing then for greater growth on other levels. You are advancing in your destiny path. This gives us great joy. We celestial hosts rejoice. The angels sing, as you accept your reality and act upon it.

Celeste:    And the fruits of the spirit, then, become so much more meaningful.

TOMAS:     They become more meaningful, Celeste, yes, they become downright critical. "By their fruits they shall be known", and they shall be known better, and they shall be known intimately, in and through the relationship with divinity, and thus we will move from the material existence into the realms of light and life, hauling the material existence with it.

Rachel:    I know I've said this before, but I was standing reflecting on the things I've learned this week and I -- it was like poetry. God is like poetry in motion because He -- it's like poetic the way you grasp these lessons? The way you become aware and you say, "Oh, how pretty! He's so easy on you!" even though I'm throwing my temper tantrum. You know?

TOMAS:     Indeed. Well said. It is wonderful, however, as you leave your childishness behind and become led in childlike faith, these portals into greater awareness are more easily assumed. You struggle less. Even when you have a difficult learning experience, you have a better faith grasp, understanding that something important is going to come form this lesson. It may not even be for you! It may be for one you can minister to, and that will have made it worth it, worthwhile. But the bottom line is your attitude.

Rachel        It needs adjusting
TOMAS:     It is incessantly adjusting, in order that you might have a wide- range education.

Rachel:     I had a dream last night or the night before that life and it's experiences was like a book, and this was my life, that every page, chapter I opened, out would flow the experiences in beautiful colors and scenes, and even the most devastating one had this beautiful message with it, so that everything WAS beautiful, even though you may not think it's beautiful at the time. Every unfolding.

TOMAS:     What I would like for you to do, Rachel, is to put those words on the wall in a frame, those words you just spoke, so that the next time you have a difficult passage to go through, you can remind yourself that you've done it before, you can do it again. And these are your very own words. These are your testimonies to truth. It is not something I have told you; it is not something that has even come from The Urantia Book or other prophetic tome. It has come from your own experiential reality. You can do this.

Liana:        It reminds me of that song, "Everything is beautiful, in it's own way." [Group sing]

TOMAS:     Christmas carols!

Mr. B. :    Does the reconnecting time, Tomas, mean that -- we look at everything being directed inward toward us from out of the universe as far as the reconnecting of the circuitry, but what about when we are showing our light to others? Is their circuitry more open now because of the reconnection?

TOMAS:     It is indeed, and far more amenable to activation. Let's say you are all on a light switch but many of the lights are not lit but just encircuited and aware of the surge of spiritual power and energy available to them. As you have your light lit, and as you urge them to turn on their switch, they will be more inclined to see what their own light looks like, and so you can encourage the fostering of greater global reality by your encouraging your fellows who remain in darkness to come into the light, to come into their own light.

Liana:        And this is what is meant by "they enter the ark two by two". It came from a book I was just reading. When you light another That's: Do you get it, Tomas? [Group laughter] I wish you'd acknowledge me so I didn't sit here struggling!

TOMAS:     I enjoy your teachings! [Group laughter] I suppose then you and I are an example of two and two there!

Liana:        Um-hum

TOMAS:     You lead me and I lead you and we find our way together. Sometimes you are in the dark; sometimes I am. Like just now. [Group laughter]

Hester:    It takes the light and the darkness because without the darkness, you would not recognize the light. And without the light you would not recognize the dark.

LIANA:     We read something today about that.
Mr. B.:    The dark holes in space.
Gerdean:    Not to mention page 51!
Leah:        Right.

TOMAS:     I am going to talk to you a moment more about this upcoming Christmas season in terms of your lights, even about the pace of your world, and about the importance of your knowing where your power and energy come from. As we approach this Christmas season, you will more and more discover those who are lost in a turmoil of non-reality. They have gotten caught up -- They? They -- have gotten caught up in something that is not giving them peace. They act erratic, perhaps lost, lonely, hostile, fearful, excitable, angry, depressed, belligerent, confused. In a word: emotional. Emotional in this case is the lesser energy, and it will exhaust.

Be for them the real Source. Connect yourself to the First Source and Center. Ground yourself in that greater energy and when they come by with their emotional eddy, hold firm. Hold firm not only for your own sanity, but in the long run for theirs as well. Great growth will come from these seasons of pitch. Merry Christmas.

Group:    Merry Christmas, Tomas.

*****

DATE:        January 24, 1999
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh PA USA
T/R:              Gerdean and Hunnah
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MERIUM
Group:         Elyssia, Celeste, Chase, Liana, Abram, Hunnah, Mr. B.  and Gerdean

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 41, PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF THE LOCAL UNIVERSE
6. Calcium - The Wanderer of Space
7. Sources of Solar Energy
8. Solar-Energy Reactions
A Review of Morontia Mota, page 556-7
An article read regarding Alice Bailey's work

Prayer, Sharing and Stillness
TEACHER SESSION:
TOPIC:
FAITH AND BELIEF
TOMAS AND MERIUM ON MOTA #7 AND DECISION MAKING

TOMAS:

"Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be together. We thank you for this living family, this bountiful grouping of striving, seeking believers. We rejoice, Father God, in the opportunity to know you in and through each other, even in those areas that remain a mystery, and in this we thank you and give praise."

TOMAS:    I am Tomas. Good afternoon.
Group:    Good afternoon, Tomas.
Elyssia:    Thank you for coming.

TOMAS:     The same to you, my dear, and thank you for opening your home so graciously to these travelers, these sojourners in the spirit and in the flesh who conjoin in the afternoons within your realm. We graciously respond to your need for that which we bring, that which is of The Father.

Indeed we have an abundant gathering this afternoon, and indeed the depth of perception goes down into, might I say, the ultimatums of yours souls [Group chortle], for whereas we perceive of God as being On High and in the exalted glorious pinnacles of Paradise far beyond your eye, you must remember He also dwells within, in the deepest part of you, in that Core which is also in the mystery.

Merium, you and I have a smorgasbord as always. Have you greetings for the group?

MERIUM:     Greetings. This afternoon with you is a great warmth, and I do welcome you all in the name of our heavenly, phenomenal creation. It is good, indeed, to see the configuration this afternoon. Good. Very good. Well, are we going to banter? Are we going to carry on? Or be knowledgeable?

Liana:        Let's do both.
Chase:        I always liked that word, "banter."
Liana:        Merium, your cheeks have engaged.

MERIUM:     My T/R is more comfortable now. It is, as she describes, like stepping out into the water and wondering if she is waist deep before something happens.

You have touched upon many subjects and you are becoming more comfortable within yourselves of the marvelous creation that you are. You have entered into what you might have thought, at one time, a dark hole! And now you find out that you are off in a brilliant cosmic configuration of exciting aliveness within yourself. It is a journey within and without, and you are allowed to make as many mistakes as you want because you are enriched by them as well. You are allowed to try every condiment and main course in society's configurations if you bring the application of wisdom and the attentiveness that we are to be shown, which you should take, and which you should not. This reminds me of a quick story before we return to Tomas.

A friend of Hunnah's went to a foreign land. Might I add that it was China. She had the most splendid guide who served as guard as well. She was adamant that her tourist students would pay attention and tell them what should be and what should not be tasted. It is said, in this journey in daily living, when you pay attention to this Guide/Guard, this blessed Journeyman, this Friend that you carry within yourself, you will not get a belly ache nor a headache and you will make friends more often than enemies.

I make light of this, but my quest, as you know, is to always pay attention and listen. Take that chance. Go deep as your waist if you must, as long as you have thrown out the lead of listening to your continuous Companion, this intelligent spiritual knowingness that you all contain. How's that for a starter, Tomas?

TOMAS:     You have led me on, my dear, and I will take it from here. Thank you very much. I will, in fact, stitch together your preliminary remarks, Merium, with the review of Morontia Mota that you indulged in afore-hand. I am going to look at one now that somewhat relates to your reading about these collisions in space, and it is the Mota that speaks of the fact that, "Blind and unforeseen accidents do not occur in the cosmos. Neither do the celestial beings assist the lower being who refuses to act upon his light of truth." [Mota #7, page 556] and herein is the point to ponder in your ministry:

As you pass by, in your daily experience, as you seek to do His will, as you seek to plant seeds, and you begin to perceive that perhaps there may be a more fertile soil, and your time/space limitations are such that you choose to be an EFFECTIVE sower of seeds, how can you tell? How can you tell if that situation, that circumstance, that individual is one that might give rise to a seed being taken into the soil of the soul of the individual and growing therein? How can you tell if one is going to act upon the light of truth?

If you allow it to be a matter of your own perceptions, you will likely judge your ability to determine and you will also likely be muddled in your planting process, but if you allow that which in you knows whereof It speaks, that part of you that is in the Heart of Divinity, It may know more keenly than your intellect, or even your sense, your perception of how to allow that seed to be planted, if at all.

And herein is an example of how it is that when you align yourself with divinity, when you allow that inner Force to field life's foibles for you, you will have saved yourself much time, for It is That which would seek to bring unto Itself, It's own reflection of It's own reality, and It would know. This Mystery Monitor would know beyond your understanding, beyond your perception, and in this, my children, you also are always amazed at the magnificence of Our Creator, our creators and our spirit helpers. The magnificence of this universe in perfecting process. Amazing it is, and astounding.

And this little message has been brought to you by the Efficiency Technicians.

How is everyone this afternoon?

Elyssia:    Great. We're great. We haven't had a chance to meet here for such a long time. I think we're feeling pretty happy that we finally got it together!

TOMAS:     We certainly are happy that you have finally gotten it together! It has been a long, cold season, and now we sit around the hearth of the Father's fire and draw comfort from His love and the companionability of one another. The Morontia Companions are indeed enjoying our afternoon, as well as many other celestial beings. Are there questions?

Elyssia:     I have a comment, and then I would like to have you enlarge on this because, to me, it was so beautiful and I want to hear more about it. In one of the papers that came from somewhere (I can't remember which of many papers I read, but), it said, why should you be surprised that you can KNOW, really know the mind of God, because your Thought Adjuster is part of Him and you can know your Thought Adjuster and therefore you can know the mind of God and the mind of Christ is open and available to you, and I thought it was a marvelous idea. Of course, it's rather self-evident, perhaps, but I had never quite thought of it before and I thought perhaps you could make a few more comments about it.

TOMAS:     I just did, but I will make some more.
Elyssia:    You just did? I guess I didn't hear it.
TOMAS:     Have you motivation, Merium, to fill in the gaps?

MERIUM:     I will comment. Having the mind of Christ is a long-term goal. In your words today you were talking about ambition, and this particular ambition is being available to the teachings of the hidden language which bring about action on your part. You are in a state of enlightened, reasoning man, and you are responsive to this that is in you, but you have a long way to go. Your every day routine is a blemished reminder that you are not continually connected to the beauty of this inner flow that would keep you on-line if you would stay focused, so you have a long-term goal here and you are having moments of this experience which encourage you to go and do as you should. I hope that helps. (T/R's "beeper" went off.)

Elyssia:    It does, very much.

Chase:        I would like to interject here. I believe having the mind of Christ, we can know the mind of Christ if we are understanding the rudiments of faith and we can have an eye on a certain goal, a standard of value. If we comply with … if we can understand that there is a higher standard and we learn the rudiments of faith, we can learn the mind of Christ. I think so many of us don't know the rudiments, and that most of us do believe without having faith. And if we can learn baby steps to what really is faith, then we begin to understand what it is to have the mind of Christ.

TOMAS:     Indeed you are correct, my son, and in certain ways we have developed this field of study by enabling you to ascertain what your beliefs are, for they are something that you can claim and get a handle on, therefore your belief is something that is structured around your faith, whatever you may have faith in, and as your understanding of your beliefs direct you / point you more and more toward faith, then your faith has an opportunity to experience itself because you understand that it is not a belief, not a system, not even comprehensible, but alive and active.

Chase:        Belief is limiting and binding, whereas faith is liberating and always progressive, and believing is merely scaffolding to actual faith.

TOMAS:     Indeed. We have even had this conversation before.

MERIUM:     I want to comment. My feeling that is reflected here among the many who have come to observe in this amphitheater of instruction, the pleasure that we have this afternoon of these eager hearts, especially in this young man, it is such a pleasure. We are witnesses. You take this beauty that rises in you and it penetrates your human personality and you go out into the community. This wonderful sweetening of the disposition that brings out the best you.

I have access to the software of my friend here who just saw the movie, "You've Got Mail!" and the divine element in this picture is that there is this core of beauty that is shocking to someone who is wakened from the preoccupation of a worldly life. It is as if you have found Moses in the bull rushes, have found a babe, and all of a sudden the call of acceptance is there and you reach down into yourself, when someone shows you, you do have this inner beauty, and you want to put your arms around it, and hold it like a babe in your bosom, and say, "Thank God, I have found you. I had forgotten!"

If you allow yourself to see such a show and you see the awakening people, the values that are allowed to be awakened and brought into your everyday living, it will warm your heart, and it is in this wonderful new personality that you will be able to harvest the fields. Now, that is a misleading statement. What you are doing is it will catch fire. You will be awakening the sweetness of others, germinating the seed, you might call it. It is a wonderful mission and it is effortless because when you embrace the inner Christ mind in yourself and let It incorporate Itself in your personality, there is nothing for you to do but be yourself, because those with you will be caught by the divine virus and you will have nothing to do but enjoy friends who will be spirit-led, spirit-linked and will allow you to live in this glorious experience.

I hope that you will enjoy your day, and remember to enjoy this so-called "nugget" of sparkling truth in yourself and let it bring joy to you. Thank you.

TOMAS:     I want to know, Merium, where you got your "beeper".
MERIUM:     You don't want one, Tomas. They are something they use here.

TOMAS:     I was going to draw an analogy that your receptor has a beeper and if you are listening to the circuitry, you can hear your beeper go off. You can dial up the circuitry and ascertain who it is who is trying to reach you.

In stillness you can draw upon the consciousness of divinity in order to be given a view of what it is that you need to do, or where you need to go, or who you need to contact. Now, I say this in great faith of your understanding that I am not suggesting that you will believe EVERYTHING your mind's eye reveals, but it is an act of faith for you to play the game and to go in and listen to the call and ascertain for yourself what it is you are being led to do or say or be, because this gives you a working communication with a higher, greater reality.

Indeed it will expand your appreciation for your social arena considerably, for you cannot always guarantee what your spiritual superiors will say, whereas you may begin to understand that you will always hear the same thing from your mortal associates, and so it gives you a new dimension in your communications and it really gives the spiritual realms an opportunity to play in the fields of the Lord, including yours!

Are there questions?

Elyssia:    In the Course in Miracles, it was so interesting to me that it always said that happiness is an indication of how we are growing spiritually and so I sometimes have a tendency to think that if I have a day in the week in which I'm feeling very, very happy, then that must be a more spiritual day. But I am curious about your possible remarks about that particular thing.

TOMAS:     I will play teacher and give you an assignment. There is a mota that speaks specifically to that issue. Can you recall in your mind's eye which one that is? Anyone?

[#8, page 556] "Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no happiness without intelligent effort." And so perhaps you have exerted some effort along the way that today has become existent in such a way as to afford you an uncommon happiness, even if you are not aware of your efforts and their results. You are entitled to the reward of your labors, and thus you may experience a happy day because you have worked in the fields for many days.

Elyssia:     Thank you very much.

MERIUM:     Joy will come upon you like a fragrance that is lifted from a flower and finds its way past your senses. It will move in on you when you least expect it and you will just feel good all over. It does not mean that it is going to continue with you for the next three months. It comes like an awakening, a pleasure. It comes and greets you, and tweaks you, to remind you that it is not of this world. It is a reminder, a very pleasant and light touch.

You have words. Words, words, words. And they are just weighted with definitions, and it so good for you to come out into the edge here and rest, where words are not necessary, just the lovely fragrances of good will. I am going to leave now. Thank you for inviting me.

Group:    Thank you, Merium. Thank you for coming.

Elyssia:    Well, are the angels who introduce people to each other, are they working on the internet, Tomas? I have that feeling that they are really busy there. Here we have two people who got to know each other through the Internet, so is this a place where these angels are busy?

Celeste:    That was Cupid!

TOMAS:     Oh, of course. It is a very active thoroughfare for spirit engagement. It is not as dense, you see, as … your mortal circuitry. I was going to say, "snail mail."

Elyssia:    Well, I've often wondered where those angels were because I see so many good people who are trapped in relationships that are so difficult, and I say, "Where were you? Where were you angels?"

TOMAS:     These people are not trapped in relationships. They are trapped in a perception. They cannot blame the relationship for where they are. That is a good excuse to hold someone else responsible for your own perfection attainment.

Elyssia:    I'm not sure that I can go along with that. I don't know, Tomas. I'm not sitting here accepting that.

TOMAS:     Then that is something that you might want to ask the angels to discuss with you throughout the week.

Hunnah:     "Guideposts" is full of miracles about relationships that have been turned around.

Chase:        I believe that there is no lack of avenue by way of the thoroughfare when it comes to goodness seeking out goodness. There will always be and ever shall be ways. Even if we create our own way, it will find its goal. It will attain that. However, I like the "thoroughfare". It's a good term.

Liana:        A magnetism?

Chase:        Yeah. When one seeks to reach out and enjoin others in the spirit, it will always find a way.

TOMAS:     This is the importance of making decisions. As you make your whole hearted decisions, then you have given the universe permission to act upon your will. This is how you advance yourself in your faith reality.

Chase:        I think that is a goal and a progressive thought. A lot of us don't realize the prominence of that thought. A decision. No one seems to want to make that decision.

Liana:        Well, give me an example of that. What do you mean?

Chase:        I'm thinking a definite decision of action. Like, "I am going to … stop drinking," knowing that that decision will lead to a supreme end. I believe through that great decision I can help people because from that decision I will have a clearer mind to know when to accept and … I'll be at the right place at the right time, ultimately. I'll be making a decision and know the end. There can't be anything better than that you will help somebody.

Hunnah:     You are going to make the conditions for your receptivity more complete. It's an act, like you were describing. It's an action on your part, and you have every right to accept the goodness that it will bring.

Chase:        I'm in the process of writing a song called "Great Decision" and I'm in the midst of the very aromatic thought of that. A bouquet of decision for me. What is it! Like you said, I'm allowing it to come in beyond the senses into the Heart of Hearts and in that way finding the great decision and like you said, goodness will never deny itself; it'll be progressive by its being fulfilled, and that alone is a great step to help others.

TOMAS:     And to help yourself! In your decision-making processes, it will, again, help you distinguish between your belief systems and your faith, for most people's decisions are based upon their belief systems and they don't think about these decisions. They do their decision-making by rote, and therefore they are not truly decisions at all, but habit, whereas when you walk in faith, when you walk with divinity as your partner, then you are given the opportunity to look at each decision you make as a live element in the greater organism.

Herein you find the value of the fruits of the spirit, for it doesn't always mean, "What will I do?" or "What will I say?" but "How will I go about my life? Am I going to have confiding trust in this person about this situation? Am I going to have undying hope in the face of that distressing situation? Am I going to apply merciful ministry here, or is that up to someone else? Or would I be interfering with that individual's opportunity to advance themselves if I were to make such a decision? Am I enabling or am I genuinely helping?"

And these are decisions that go on in your mind that refine your understanding of who you are, align you and give you clearer vision as to how you may make these decisions in and with the mind of Christ.

Group:    That's beautiful. That's great.

TOMAS:     I feel triumphant. I think that I will quit while I'm ahead. I am so glad, again, to be your friend and to be able to be your companion in your adventures in spiritual awareness.

I appreciate, Liana, your bringing your offering from your fellow believers in the dynamism of life. It is wonderful to share the spiritual precepts of others unfamiliar to you, for in this way you expand the kingdom. You break down barriers and you know it is true that if you can understand your brothers and sisters, then you are more able to love them.

Liana:        Thank you, Tomas, for the acknowledgment.

TOMAS:     It is very fine to see you here, Abram. It is a good collegiate thing for you to support your menfolk in the mission. There is a paucity of active male energy in our community as we have made a note of for many moons. Huh, girls? [Laughter] And so it is really an advantageous afternoon inasmuch as our energies are ever so much better balanced.

Mr. B., it is wonderful again to see you. How we enjoy your presence among us and look forward to your extended sojourn into this arena.

Mr. B.:    I'm looking forward also.

TOMAS:     And Chase, your enthusiasm and exuberance is indeed a pleasure. Having touched upon all you lads and lasses - Celeste, Elyssia, Hunnah and Gerdean - I take my leave and extend to you my and Merium's best wishes for a joyous week, and we shall see you soon.

Amen and Farewell.

Group:    Thank you! Bye!

*****

DATE:          January 31, 1999
LOCATION:      Pittsburgh, PA, USA
T/R:            Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS

URANTIA BOOK STUDY
Paper 41.  Physical Aspects of the Local Universe
Sun Stability
Origin of Inhabited Worlds
Paper 42.  Origin of Inhabited Worlds
Paradise Forces and Energies
Universal Non-spiritual Energy Systems (Physical Energies)
Space potency; 2. Primordial force; 3. Emergent energies (a) Puissant energy; (b) Gravity energy; 4. Universe power; 5. Havona energy; 6. Transcendental energy. 7. Monota.

TOPIC:
BE OF GOOD CHEER

TOMAS:     Good afternoon, students. I am Tomas, your teacher.
Group:    Good afternoon, Tomas.

TOMAS:     I am also your good friend and I am here today for a review of our Master's admonishment to "Be of good cheer" so I bring you good cheer and conjoin with you in good cheer.

I would like to discuss being of good cheer. Indeed your discourses this afternoon give rise to a tendency, on the part of you mortals, to take yourselves and your beliefs and your opinions so seriously as to preclude the possibility of genuine good cheer. Jesus also was known to be firm and to speak in strong tones on occasion, but even so, he was, as a rule, a man among men with uncommon grace and fortitude.

Let us look at your culture, at your place in your culture, in terms of good cheer. I am reminded of our early lessons long ago having to do with character, and how it is in your society that you perhaps comprehend character as being characteristics of a witty fellow ["What a character!"] instead of the more deep and genuine quality of true character which is developed as a result of your on-going efforts to spiritize your thinking and your way of life.

Now let us look at good cheer and ascertain what that means in terms of your culture and your society, and is it not true that, generally speaking, someone who is of good cheer has a constant and steady smile pasted upon their face and/or one who is filled with biting wit, a constant jokester, alleviating any hope of seriousness or of sincerity. In your culture many times he who is of good cheer is a bore, and yet you subscribe to the machinations of such a personality, indeed you pay him or her great sums to entertain you in the hope that you will feel as if you belong to this value level which has become skilled and adept at avoiding that which will in fact create bona fide good cheer.

There is the manifestation of joy that is contagious, and that embraces your fellows. This joy, this radiant good cheer is a result of a love-saturated soul and cannot cause dismay or chagrin to anyone. There is also a kind of good cheer which is artificial and "appropriate" but which is grating and activates a sense of irritation. When someone looks at you superiorly and suggests that you "Lighten up!" or that you "Don't worry. Be happy!" it is manifesting an attitude which is insensitive to the relative perfection attainment of that person with whom you would seek to conjoin in fraternity of spirit.

I would like for you all to think of an example or a situation that has occurred in your life that you are familiar with, wherein you have noticed an artificial good cheer. Perhaps employees who are ordered to smile cheerfully for "the customer is always right" even when they are dishing out abuse. Perhaps you'll think of the child who is unhappy and is admonished to "stop crying" and to get happy quickly or they'll "get something to cry about!"

It is no wonder that you on Urantia find it difficult to accept that Our Father is so loving, for how have you been able to discern this truth from your perspective? It is vital that your perspective be enhanced and enlarged to realize, from deep within you, the genuine good cheer of the association of that which is true and beautiful and good. In having that confidence of being a part of divinity, no matter how small, your immediate fruit is to feel enervated and exuberant and of genuine good cheer in your good fortune to be breathing the breath of life as it is inhaled in and through the fragrance of the divine and perfect Rose of Paradise.

In the aura of this Flower of Perfection, you can well afford to be loving, to be gracious, to spread beauty. In being a Rose in the Father's garden, in giving of a genuine fragrance of good will, you will always understand, as will they who know "a rose is a rose is a rose" also has a thorn, and there is a purpose therein. But you do not have to lead with your thorns, you do not have to threaten or demand that others look good and deny their own thorns. No, I am not talking politics. I am speaking of a quality of being of good cheer, knowing you are protected and loved and nourished and fostered by a loving God in a loving universe.

In that knowledge is great joy. And it is in that perspective that Jesus went around doing good and admonishing his followers to "Be of good cheer". When you are of good cheer, now, and when you are in a situation of being pricked by thorns, look to see if you have gotten too close to someone's rose. Withdraw into the fragrance of the Stillness and the sustaining power of creation, for your own poise and your own fragrant effervescent manifestation of Father's beauty, Mother's love, Michael's mercy.

My cheerful daughters, how are you all this afternoon?

Celeste:    Fine, thank you!
Hester:    Just top of the evening!
Rachel:    We are all of good cheer today!
TOMAS:     Indeed.
Hester:     We had a good day today.

TOMAS:     You had a good study, yes. It is amusing -- and I do not say that in a disparaging way, but it is appreciated when you apply yourself with earnestness to assimilate some of these difficult concepts which give rise to a big mental exertion. You must remember that you are students and that before you go to college you have to go to high school and before that you have to do elementary school and indeed you have to begin by learning your letters.

Celeste:    That's just about where I am.
Rachel:    Learning our letters!
Hester:    Today we were in the A-B-C's.

TOMAS:     Well, today I would say you were learning your numbers, but it's true, it is elemental, and yet these foundations are being laid in your thinking process such that when you next absorb another truth having to do with energy, matter, power and the like, you will have more to work with, more will stick to your ribs, and you will get these concepts one day. Your efforts are pleasing to behold and your tolerance of your own inadequacy as well as the ignorance of your peers is understood, appreciated and endearing.

Well, what shall we do today? Are there questions? Is there anything you would like to discuss? Where have you been in your development in this long dark hibernation of the winter season? My, my, how wonderful it is to become mobile again and to be privy to the rays of the sun! To be out into the glorious atmosphere of fellowship and commerce!

Rachel:    It's a breath of springtime in our winter.
TOMAS:     It is indeed.

Rachel:    I'll comment where I am. I guess I'm in a sort of state of acceptance, good cheer. I've digested a lot of things. I see some changes in myself. I haven't a worry in my little head. Well, not big ones, anyway. I feel good. I feel anticipatory for a change, of what I don't know, but that's sort of where I am!

TOMAS:     You have described good cheer very well! You have an attitude of a faith daughter that all will work out according to divine plan and you are part of that.

Rachel:    I was going to say -- I suppose it's a state that I moved out of an intellectual understanding that I was being taken care of into a more of a feeling that I am part of something.

TOMAS:    And this is a major step. A big leap of faith that will allow you to use a different perspective and appreciate a different set of ground rules.

Rachel:    Definitely. I've swallowed some things I haven't been able to swallow before! But good things!

TOMAS:     Part of the growing up process as spirit children into spirit adults, is learning how to chew a civilized mouthful, and children often think they can cram a whole concept in their mouth without choking, and as you become better mannered, you discover that one fork full is adequate to chew. Even when you are made to feel that you have to eat in a hurry, you will only give yourself spiritual indigestion if you attempt to assimilate too much too soon, but consider you have now gotten your molars and you are able to chew on some of these concepts, on some of these challenges, in order that you may break them down into something which is not so hard to swallow and which you know in fact to be good for you and which will help you become fat and sassy and of good cheer in your next phase of growth.

Rachel:    Well, I'm ready! That's all I can say.
TOMAS:     May your enthusiasm compensate for your naiveté.
Rachel:    Thank you.

Celeste:    Tomas, while you were talking, I was thinking about people who lose someone and you go to the funeral home and those very people who are suffering this terrible loss, are really trying to make everybody that comes into that funeral home, or wherever, feel better. I see that time after time and they are so nice and gracious and kind to the people that come and you almost can't see their own despair.

TOMAS:     It is a good example you have brought forward, Celeste, and again it makes my heart ache for the human condition, inasmuch as each death is an individual drama in the life of the livers and sometimes it may be a blessed relief that the loved one has gone on. Many times it is a travesty. Many, many, many, many reactions and responses are in the private recesses of the individual, but the conditioning is such as to be a hostess, and to withstand the loss with aplomb.

There are, in other circles, in other cultures, other situations, other scenarios such as the professional mourner who helps to bring about the grieving process, loudly and emotionally, so as to bring on the onslaught of grief that the mourner may come to grips with it quicker. There are as many ways of dealing with death as there are dealing with life. And finally, it is an attempt (these people who smile so radiantly), an attempt to manifest their faith that there is a hope of eternal life, that the Christ who died on the cross and was risen, indeed brought forth a message of hope.

And so all of these many Machiavellian performances of good cheer at the time of the death of a loved one may or may not represent the same thing. It is very difficult to look beyond a facade when you are comfortable with the facade, but those of you who search for the opportunity to see with eyes to see, will be shown ways to enter into that moment of truth, enabling our God to plant His seed of eternal love into the heart of that person who would be fed by the Eternal Light.

My words to you are simply a way of investigating your cultural response to death. In due course you will evolve, quietly at first, singly, and then more and more, into a people who will realize the truth of the resurrection and a faith that gives rise to a confidence of a hereafter, indeed, a loving God who is embracing His child in spiritual arms. These indications of a divine plan and a living God are en route, and it is a very important way in which you who are enlightened may be of service to your fellows in ascertaining the truth, beauty and goodness of the moment so that you may spread good cheer to the heart of those who remain on Urantia. There is tremendous good cheer in being released from this cocoon of an existence.

Celeste:    When you carry the love of God in your heart, you can't help but feel good. It's constant good cheer.

TOMAS:     It is indeed constant good cheer, as long as you remember to stay connected. You cannot presume upon the Father to such an extent as these become crystallized belief systems, for they will fail you when you find yourself being absorbed into the troubled waters of emotional turmoil and darkness of those who have yet to find the Father within.

Celeste:     I think we are learning how to stay connected just by being with you so often.

TOMAS:     It is very true I have helped to enable you to develop a couple of good practices, but it is incumbent upon you, my dear, as you well know, all of you, to develop your own spiritual discipline so that you can carry on and spread the word and be fishers of men whether I am here or not, whether I am manifested through these words or not. It would be error for me to allow you to become so dependent on me and my function here with you that it interfered with your own grasping for spirit reality. I would not be doing you a favor if I were to interject myself as some new kind of priesthood, for your relationship with Our Father is intact and encouraged. Do not let me become a substitute for your own spiritual experience!

Celeste:    Well, I think you have turned our motors on and I think that if you decide not to come any more that we would decide to keep …

Rachel:    … plugging away.

TOMAS:     If I felt otherwise, I would indeed go on a sabbatical in order for you to be, once again, enamored of the reality of your own personal religious experience, and your most blessed family ties in this grouping, these fellow religionists.

Celeste:    Do you feel that we've been maturing at all? Especially since you've been here with us?

TOMAS:     I see great growth in each of you individually and as a community, yes. I have said as much before and yet it is difficult for me to specify, but I want you to once again be made aware of your very real growth into morontia reality. It has made my work much easier. It has made your garden far more fragrant. There is less anxiety that you will err and more confidence that The Father will be able to work with you and through you. The loyalty that you have developed as sisters and as brothers is important and will never be reversed.

Celeste:    Oh, that's good.

TOMAS:     And so yes, indeed, you have contributed greatly to our work in the mission, your work in your own evolution, the development of our community and indeed the Evolving Supreme.

Rachel    :    We have to ask, Tomas, because it's so hard in this world to get any good news, of anything productive. It's working towards a better society, they give us bad news. Nobody ever wants to give us -- I suppose every now and then we want a progress report on how the world is and how we are doing in it.

TOMAS:     I have given you somewhat of an update then, but I will remind you that it behooves you to maintain a sense of balance. If you are out in the world, in the field, a lot, and being pelted with negative news and downdrafts, then you need to see to it that you balance yourself with purpose and poise, serenity and sublimity. You cannot work in the field without having fueled yourself or you'll run out of gas.

Rachel:    It's exhausting.
Hester:    Yep.
TOMAS:     You need to indeed take care of yourself -- that's the little s and the big S.
Rachel:    To go home and run to The Father.

TOMAS:     Do not ever feel too grown up and dignified to disallow yourself, indeed, from running home to Father, and to the lap of Him or the Mother and crying on their shoulder as to how some bully tried to beat you up, for He will and She will succor you and give you courage in order that you may go again to play in his fields on the morrow.

Celeste:    It's good to know that.
Rachel:    I'll never be too old to not want to sit on His lap.

TOMAS:     Children are automatically of good cheer. If they find that their environment is too difficult or too painful, they will lapse into their imagination and create a reality which enables them to withstand the temporary circumstances of their habitation, and you are invited to create for yourself also, in fact co-create with Father and His most loving agents, that which will give you an occasion to realize how well you are loved and how much you can do within your own framework to bring to yourself an environment wherein your own good cheer can be nourished and fostered. You don't have to subscribe to the dominant reality if it's not a good reality.

Celeste:    Just to know that you love the Lord lets you know that life is a joy.
TOMAS:     Yes, indeed. I sense that we have reached a saturation point.
Rachel:    I'm saturated anyway!

TOMAS:     I sense that you have been filled.
Hester:    I have a question, Tomas, but I don't have the words.
TOMAS:     Would you like to give it a try, my dear?

Hester:    (Distressed)
TOMAS:     I can see that you are NOT of good cheer.
Hester:    I am, but I'm not.

TOMAS:     You have been overtime in the field. You have subjected yourself to great abuse, and I say "subjected yourself" NOT in order to give you the responsibility, but to commend you for your ability to survive in the face of such tremendously difficult odds against good cheer. Indeed, you are such a soldier! You have fought the good fight of faith so long and so hard you are collapsing now into the arms of your spirit Mother and allowing her to take away some of this burden.

The understanding of Our Father/Mother in your life has been your sustaining force; it has been your power and your Rock of Gibraltar, but it has been your ONLY strength in many instances, and it has caused, for you, an uncommon burden of responsibility for finding joy in this mortal existence. Your blessing is that you have indeed led yourself into the lasting embrace of the Eternal Parents for your strength and the sad side of that is that you have received so LITTLE comfort and succor from your human existence, but even so, my child, your heart is full with the love of the Lord and He will make you ready to approach tomorrow with Him.

Your reward has been His loving embrace, and your stamina, your strength is a testimony to your most noble efforts, even to the point of debilitation, but you have gotten up courageously and loyally and battled on for your very life and for your spiritual life to boot. You will find rest, my child. This too shall pass, but your Source of good cheer remains that which bonds us and unites us in our purpose and in the joy of knowing Him.

How can I help, daughter?

Hester:    I'm dealing with Max being murdered.

TOMAS:     It is not your responsibility, Hester. It is not your cross to bear. It is a matter you must release. It is not for you to be the judge and jury nor the victim here. It is none of your concern. Our Father has His mansions under divine control and the souls of those who dwell therein. Let it go. It only contributes to anger and more resistance and more pain. Knowing that Our Father is at the helm is all you need to know to let go and let Him take control. Let it go.

Hester:    I've known this for three years now and I've got to face it.

TOMAS:     You've got to let it go. And I, my charming children, have got to let you go for the afternoon.

Celeste:    Thank you for coming. It is always wonderful when you're here.

TOMAS:     It is always wonderful to be with you. I hope those of you who are inclined will find great joy in the game that is being played this evening [Super Bowl Sunday] and that the victor and the vanquished will find good cheer in the experience.

Rachel:    We can only hope!
TOMAS:     See you next week. Amen and farewell.
Group:    Farewell, Tomas. Thank you so much.

*****

DATE:        February 7, 1999
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh, PA, USA
T/R’s            Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MINEARISA
Group:        Celeste, Liana, Alan, Gerdean and Hester

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 42. ENERGY - MIND AND MATTER
3. Classification of Matter
4. Energy and Matter Transmutations
5. Wave-Energy Manifestations
6. Ultimatons, Electrons, and Atoms
7. Atomic Matter
Paper 141. BEGINNING THE PUBLIC WORK
4. Teaching About the Father

TOPIC:
EXPERIENTIAL CO-CREATION

MINEARISA:     Greetings, my friends. This is Minearisa, a visitor, a Melchizedek on Urantia, and I am visiting today briefly today to greet you and bring you warm greetings from your peers in other realms, in other arenas, in our work toward uplifting our Master's natal sphere from the darkness inherent in its long isolation. Isolation is ended, and we are stepping out. We are venturing forth. We are stepping up. And today it gives me great pleasure to be able to be in your midst and give you myriad greetings from your neighbors in the flesh and in the spirit in other parts of this realm.

Celeste:    We welcome you! We're very glad you're here.

MINEARISA:     You are very gracious. I am well aware of your stable group and your untiring efforts at socializing group consciousness and developing community ties, community loyalty, in the framework of our gospel, this greater reality which rises above any former understanding of mere social graciousness, inasmuch as it has been augmented by the understanding that you are dignified sons and daughters of the living God, thereby adding a new dimension to your social graces, adding also a degree of complexity, for therein you must assimilate a lot more reality in your relationships than you did when it was merely form.

Accepting the entire personality, the human elements as well as the divine element, is a far more complicated undertaking for you as well as for your peers, and yet as you have been led to learn, the results are also greater, more lasting, more satisfying, almost mystical in its reality presentation.

Alan:        Are you resident on Urantia? Are you visiting?

MINEARISA:     I have been resident here now for some time. I am one of the Receivers that you hear of. I am part of the Melchizedek schools; part of what you call the Teaching Mission. I am a supporter of the efforts on-going in correcting (if you will understand the phrase) the abnormalities and aberrations of a world such as Urantia in its diseases as a result of the rebellion and the default. You are fully aware, as an advanced mortal of the realm, Alan, the circumstances as well as the vagaries inherent therein.

Alan:        I didn't catch your name, I'm sorry.

MINEARISA:     "Minearisa" is how it has been pronounced. You fully understand our challenges in terms of the human language. It has been invaluable for you to assign names to the faces, as it were, certainly an identifying nomenclature to an energy configuration in personality manifestation. And the personality manifestation of myself has been identified as Minearisa. I am a teacher with the greater effort, but I attend more regularly a Mission Base in Idaho.

In fact, as Tomas was assigned to the Pittsburgh area, I was assigned then to Pocatello. That may or may not have had any direct connection, but it was established that way and so I have been availing myself in these many months of morontia-izing as well as many others. I am not here particularly today to give a lesson, but to greet you. It is an exchange program, if you will.

Alan:        Great!
Hester:    Welcome to the group.

MINEARISA:     I will come again and I will convey your affections to those in the field at large in homage to your devotion to our purpose. Shalom.

Group:    Shalom.
TOMAS:     I am Tomas. Good afternoon.
Group:    Hello, Tomas.

TOMAS:     I am the regular, the host, and Merium is here as well and she would also like to say hello, inasmuch as I did not afford her a platform last week and you know Merium. She gets nervous if she cannot straighten the curtains on occasion. One moment, please.

MERIUM:     Here we go! How are you, my dears? It is so wonderful to be here with you and be given an occasion to voice my affections and attentions upon you, my little chicks.

Group:    Hi, Merium.

MERIUM:     I guess it's fair to say that girls and boys are chicks in this context and so I welcome you also, Adam, our new fledgling bird in the nest. It is wonderful to have you here. I am delighted with your spiritual entourage. We have been having many "fun and games", telling stories. I am enamored of your associate Jack and your guardian seraphim. Your personal teachers are more interesting, full of good stories about your sojourns, and so we have not been bored as you have been adjusting to your new environment.

Indeed all of us have been assimilating the new energies that you have brought with you in your invisible baggage and we are enjoying going through your parcels, finding what kind of treasures you have lugged in from the Orient. Many, many fun things in here Adam, and you must enlarge our lives by your exposure to these treasures, these values, that have been given to you as gems and jewels of understanding Our Father in many, many colors, many languages, many ways of life.

All of us are enjoying our life these days in this busy mission. There are so many things to do, so many places to go, so many people to contact, so many things to follow up on. It is a never-ending party for those of us who find this way of life joyous and enriching. I am far more into having fun that studying too hard or in thinking too hard but Tomas assures me it is good for your development to be able to use your brain.

I watched you as you attacked the Paper today on energy, mind and spirit and in my humble estimation you have already extended yourselves adequately; however, it is not my curriculum, and so I will fluff up your pillows and let you be comfortable, knowing that you are well loved, that you are eternally looked after, nurtured and enjoyed by all of us who have come to tend to you and care for you in your spiritual growing. Good afternoon.

Celeste:    Good afternoon. It's wonderful to know that we're cared for.

TOMAS:     All right then, here comes old professorial Tomas and bringing with him no fun. I am very surprised, Celeste, that you voice that it is good to know that you are looked after. Was there question in your mind, my child, that you might not be?

Celeste:    No. [Group laughter]. I just like to read about it. I've always felt looked after by our Lord.

TOMAS:     And indeed you are. It is indeed good to know that you are loved and looked after. In fact, every day is a good day to be reminded of how much you are loved and how well your needs are looked after, not only your physical needs but your emotional needs and your spiritual needs as well. The more, in fact, you can become aware of what your needs are, the more readily they can be filled by your own efforts and in harmony with the efforts of the whole.

Celeste:    Tomas, I feel as long as I'm having this great joy in my heart, that I'm healthy, and my surroundings must be graced. I always feel very joyful in life inside.

TOMAS:     That is your true home, Celeste, and this is the proper perspective. Your home begins within you, within your citadel of the spirit, that sanctuary wherein you abide with your indwelling God fragment. Your Thought Adjuster is your eternal home, even though it and you may wander throughout the vast realms of time and space. From that vantage point you are able to visit and sojourn into many environments, into spheres of varying degrees of density or light.

It is a limited perspective to perceive that the human being lives in the world, in a house, even in a body that focuses its reality on the physicality/ material realm disallowing for the wonders of the other side of the coin, the reality which will last you into eternity.

This afternoon in your lesson you read about energy and how in bringing into existence an idea, a plan, you can engage your available ultimatons of energy with assistance from power directors and so forth and bring into existence yet another reality, a plan. We have talked at great length in the past about how it is that you are a microcosm of the Paradise Trinity, and that you can create. You are an offspring of the Creator, and that as you work with divinity, you may be graced to bring into existence many good plans, schemes, ideas, projects, and organizations which can benefit your world and the worlds to come.

This evolving and revealing aspect of creation is yours for the making and you may make these things for evil or for good. We assume those of you who are learning how to be teachers, that you are also learning that good is the only true reality, that evil is mere shadow and will be overcome as mere error in time, and so we can proceed then to learn how to create beautiful true and good works for the Father.

This is an element of how it is that the Thought Adjuster is able to express itself in your life. If you seek guidance and say, "Father, it is my will that your will be done. How can I serve?" If you are sincere and if you honestly listen, if you know yourself and if you trust your own motives and intentions, if you listen well, you may hear that still, small voice divulge to you an action, dependent upon the Thought; and if you give yourself permission to think the thought, and create the Deed, then the Action can come into line and His will, will be done and you will have helped it come about.

It is peculiarly sad to see how many of you have divine ideals, truly noble of stature, and yet when you come up with an idea that is do-able, you say, "No, it's not good enough. It doesn't attain the heights of glory and grandeur that I would have for the Father. I want to do GREAT words. I don't want to do these little, silly things." How sad it is indeed for us because you have deprived yourself of the exercise of the experiential opportunity to see that you can put your Thoughts, your Deed in to Action, and bring about an altered state of mind and being for yourself and for others, for the greater good.

And so when these things come to your mind, and you feel that you are being led to experiment, to create, allow yourself the opportunity to go forward in faith that it is experiential (remember too, this is a decimal planet and these kinds of things are encouraged) and allow yourself to experience the scientific aspects of discovery. See if your ultimatons are not brought into a joint effort with the efforts of others to create life, to create life! I am not saying you are creating life such as the Life Carriers, but you can bring into being greater impetus, greater expression, greater opportunity.

Be entrepreneurial about your ministry, and this is one of the advantages of reading a paper such as you read today. It brings it into a concrete realm, a "What can I do about it? Am I hopeless and helpless? Or can I actually do something about something?" Working in the field.

Well, I have spent enough time on my soapbox for the afternoon. I am eager to engage with you if you are inclined in a discourse. Have you commentary or questions regarding my "lesson", our visitor, or anything on your mind. The floor is open.

Celeste:    At this point in time, I'm not too sure how to serve the rest of the world or the people around me, or my family. I guess I feel that if I'm joyous ….

TOMAS:     Having an affirmative attitude and a living faith is a very viable testimony of your good cheer in the spirit. I am not certain that it is adequate to portray the entire message, inasmuch as there are a full range of interpretations as to your attitude of good cheer. How can you know if they regard that as your spiritual state of mind or merely a creature comfort frame of mind.

Celeste:    Well, if really make contact with them, then they soon know, because I tell them. This is -- I feel very foolish talking like this.

TOMAS:     Please do not feel foolish in expressing yourself and in expressing your desire to expand your ability to reach out and effectively touch your brothers and sisters in ways that will add meaning to your life and to theirs. In reaching out, in learning how, in realizing you want to, you are engaging upon a new course of study. It is difficult to attend the first day of school. It is hard to know what classes you want to sign up for. Many of them you will already feel you have a degree in.

You will say, "I already know all about that. What shall I do in this university? I don't even know what I'm doing here." And these are fears that are natural to one who embarks upon a new adventure such as you are embarking upon. I urge you not to allow these fears to stop you in your pursuit of your studies of your investigation of the Father's universe. And how you may grow and learn in order to be of optimum use to yourself, to God, and your fellows.

It is important to be gracious, and this is a manner which the Master used, and yet as you desire to be of further service, you will be taught. I commend your seeking. I encourage you to pursue and not feel silly. Even if you do, so what?

The faith path is a very thrilling adventure, and when you step off the main thoroughfare of that which all of humanity seems to be doing, you feel self-conscious, you feel you are going to stray, you may be heading for trouble, you may be in danger, you may be lost, you may be crazy and all of these feelings arise in the mind because your ego identity does not want you to go away from that which is comfortable for it. But I urge you to take your ego in hand, befriend it, assure it that you are not going to abandon it but are going to put it to good use. It will learn new things also. Actually the only real difficult part is to master the animal nature which is surely something you have mastered long ago.

It, for you, is now a matter of making your mind behave, and your spirit is sufficiently strong and your desire is sufficiently great that you will be able to figure out how to allow your mind to be at peace as you set out. Indeed, I encourage you in stillness to allow your mind to recognize the rest inherent in the spiritual experience, for soon the mind will begin to assume the mind of Christ, the mind of the Infinite Spirit, and this divine mind will enable you to make great strides, will enable you to ace all your courses in the Father's university.

Celeste:    I think that's one ambition we all have.

TOMAS:     And so we are all going to the same school. I hear a deafening quiet this afternoon. Have you all gone brain dead on me?

Celeste:    No. I think we are all so thrilled and amazed always when you comment and feel sometimes the things we are involved in are so trite.

TOMAS:     But you don't understand. I am telling you that if you have God in your life, there is nothing trite. You will recall that Jesus said to the Alpheus twins that no matter what you do, if you do it for the Father, it is not common. It is exalted work. Now, perhaps you may want to question how much integrity you have in that which you do; if you are doing something simple, is it for the Father or is it simply busy work?

How are your intentions affecting what you do? Are you embarrassed by how little you do with God-consciousness? Is that what you are saying? Because otherwise, tending to your elders, or your loved ones, your working realm, all of these things are noble and good. They bespeak certain loyalties, certain disciplines, that when taken in perspective are representative of values which are important. Relative importance. But important nonetheless. Are you belittling yourselves?

Liana:        Not me! Are you?
Celeste:    No, I hope not!
TOMAS:     Well, alright then.

Alan:        Well, I personally don't feel that anyone is doing any belittling. I feel nothing but positive.

Celeste:    We really want to talk with you and sometimes just getting a conversation going seems so simple, but it's … that's what I meant by … (indistinguishable).

TOMAS:     I don't think so either. Otherwise, how could your companionship be so satisfying. You are all a reflection of Father. As you work with your indwelling Adjuster and allow it to express itself in your environment, you are expressing divinity; you are manifesting a light, an illumination, a luminosity of spirit reality just because of your acknowledgment of your association with divinity as a child of God. In giving your God permission to BE within your reality, you have given Him permission to shine upon your arena. You radiate His light simply by Being.

Your lights are like that parable of the light on the hillside that draws people. If you don't hide your light, if you light it so shine as to let them know you're there, they'll come. Those that you give off that beacon to will come. In the meanwhile, it behooves you to keep busy while you wait for your hour to come, and in those moments of being busy, perhaps you could consider being co-creative in a God project.

That's something to cogitate. Ask your Father to guide you in terms of whether or not, first, this is a thought you should be thinking. And next, is it something you can do something about? And ultimately if this is something you should/would/could want to do. It's just an exercise, but if you can be a creator, then why not look to see how it is that you can help to create, and what can you create. Otherwise, dear ones, continue to create your own faith by walking in it and recognizing Our Father as He leads you from one day to the next into the light of His love and understanding.

Are there any questions? I and my peers will take conscious leave of you this afternoon, but understand we are with you always. We watch you in your work and in your play, in your efforts and in your rest; we observe you, we hope for you and pray with you, and we rejoice in you.

Celeste:    Thank you for all of that!
TOMAS:     Amen and farewell.

*****

DATE:        February 14,1999
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh, PA USA
T/R’s            Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS, MERIUM
Group:        Celeste, Gerdean, Rachel and Leah

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 42. ENERGY - MIND AND MATTER
#8. Atomic Cohesion
#9. Natural Philosophy
#10. Universal Nonspiritual Energy Systems (Material Mind Systems)
#11. Universe Mechanisms
#12. Pattern and Form - Mind Dominance Paper 113. SERAPHIC GUARDIANS OF DESTINY
#5. Seraphic Ministry to Mortals

TEACHER SESSION:
TOPIC:
VALENTINE'S DAY-LESSON ON LOVE

Group:    Happy Anniversary, Tomas, and Happy Valentine's Day to all of our loved ones and those we are loved by.

TOMAS:    I am Tomas, good afternoon.
Group:    Good afternoon, Tomas.
TOMAS:    Happy holiday to you all in recognition of love.

I am myself celebrating an anniversary of sorts in your realm. I have been ministering to you in your tune frame now for six years, and it is to me a joy, a privilege, and a constant challenge to address you in your needs, ever encouraging you to advance in confidence and in reality of your true nature, your true purpose, while allowing for the wonders of your natural state of existence. It is a delicate balance and one which I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to apply myself in conjunction, overcontrol, the guidance of Machiventa and Michael, immaterial of our will and wishes.

Celeste:    Tomas, thank you so much for coming and for wanting to help us in that way, in every way.

TOMAS:     Of course you are welcome. It is an honor for me, and it is a part of my own education and evolution. It is beneficial to us all, my dear Celeste. I assure you. I gain as much as I give, and I take heart in that for I have gained much and I therefore trust that you have as well.

Rachel:    Yes.
Celeste:    We have.

TOMAS:    And now we meet the true criteria of our purpose and that is to become ever more actual in our reality-izing. We have seen the potential and nurtured it into reality, thereby bringing our Creator into a greater realization of Himself as well.

Your Book sets forth a selection and sampling of prayers from various parts of the local universe which give voice to the many supplications and psalms of thanksgiving that have been expressed and experienced by God's kids hither and yon, asking that we be led beside the still waters, that we be raised up on high to be a glory to Him, and indeed all of our noble attempts, our purpose, is to shine forth acknowledgement upon He who has brought us into being.

In effect, children, this is, in large part, what the brotherhood is about. It is adoring that within you which is of the Father, and so I can turn to Rachel and be grateful for her gifts of God as she bestows them upon me, enabling me to see Our Father within her. She has expanded The Father's universe by representing Him in her being, and you, Celeste, as you view your world through the eyes of a believer, you reflect to those you know and testify to by your belief the appreciation you have for Our Father and as it is perceived by those you meet, you have reflected His love into their life.

This incredible networking, this connecting of the heart threads, is enlarging the spirit reality in and through the universe. All that is necessary is to honor love, and today we honor love in your culture, in your understanding of what love is. It is interesting to us to see that your essential comprehension of love is of a romantic nature, and it is typically childlike for you to opt for the sweetness of love and conveniently set aside its more sinewy aspects, that part of love which is enduring and tough, steadfast and firm. Your understanding of love is much like puppy love in terms of how it will develop.

I will not disdain your appreciation of love as you understand it, except to urge you to appreciate that love is far more than a romantic presentation such as is depicted on Hallmark cards, and although the sentiment of romantic love is wonderful, as is the expression of parental love and sweetheart love, the love of God is able to be revealed in all manner of ways: in work, in creation, in expression of wisdom and insight and all manner of things.

Indeed, when you begin to appreciate how it is that The Father and His love touches all, all things, in His world, in His universe, you will begin to look at even difficult situations as a manifestation of love, even situations that may appear to be mortally painful, psychically difficult, emotionally devastating, financially catastrophic, politically unfortunate, geologically disastrous, you can begin to see the greater picture, the end of evolution and revelation working and thus I am asking you today, as perhaps a gift of love to Our Father, to Michael and Nebadonia, that you give the gift of expanding your appreciation for what love is.

We enjoyed your sharing this afternoon, and in the large, were mindful of many of your life experiences which are of an order to provoke question or concern that leave you feeling insecure or insignificant, that would want you to worry or wonder about what will come about tomorrow or as a result of the peculiar vagaries of today's events. Each of these situations is an expression of love, and an opportunity for you to revel in the love

All experience is fraught with learning, and learning is love. All darkness that leads to the light is love. And so it behooves you to learn to love the darkness. It does not hurt to enjoy the rain, knowing that the rain is cleansing and that when the rain ends, the sun will come out and shine upon a clean soil. There is purpose to the universe. There is divine purpose and divine love throughout. It is only your limited perspective on love that causes you to feel that love is not.

Father in heaven says, "Be my valentine." Be mine. Be mine. Be faithful unto Him and He will abundantly supply you with all you needs in the most efficient and effusive expression of love there is. The life you live, the breath you take, the thoughts you think, the song you sing, the life you live, the love you love, all is of the Father above and within in love.

I was glad to see you forge ahead in your studies today and indeed am going to remind you that my prodding you last week to think about how it is that you may begin to create was yet again elucidated in today's Paper. Have any of you thought about how you may bring into being material reality as a result of your thought?

Rachel:    I missed last week's. But interestingly enough, I've been on that wave length of being creative again, because I sort of got uncreated there for awhile. I sort of stagnated or something. My creative juices are wanting to flow again. I feel like doing artwork and new brochures and things of that nature.

TOMAS:    You are going to try a more scientific approach?
Rachel:    No. What do you mean by that.
TOMAS:    Just a guess.
Rachel:    I don't know. I just feel the need to be creative in that.
TOMAS:    I am perhaps teasing you.
Rachel:    Perhaps you are, urn-hum.
TOMAS:    You introduce the idea of brochure as creative.
Rachel:    Well, yes, creative ideas on selling my ... who I am.

TOMAS:    Of course. And I suggested it was also scientific. I am only asking you to see that your thinking is confectionary, that in creating a brochure you are thinking of creating ruffles and bows and it is also mechanical and sound. I am asking you to enlarge your appreciation of love.

Rachel:    Hum.
TOMAS:    Perhaps by being more scientific, you will gather more momentum.

Rachel:    Well, I have to admit I'm in a roadblock about this, because I just don't know what to say on it. I don't know how to convey the message of who I am.

TOMAS:    You are forging a new path into medicine.
Rachel:    Yeah.

TOMAS:    Healing. Homeopathic, kinetic energies, and the like. There are any number of examples of forerunners out there. I am more interested in your experience having to do with the tremendous surge that would give you pause to feel the similarity between yourself, that being your very being as a radio broadcasting station.

Rachel:    Are you asking me something or only making a comment.
TOMAS:    I was only making an observation that I found your recitation interesting.

Rachel:    Is it accurate? I mean, that's what I felt. I was in the midst of a broadcast. I was receiving, even though there was really nothing to receive.

TOMAS:    The experience itself was interesting and it was your experience, so I cannot validate your experience but I can honor your authority in expressing your experience, and it is that authority in your broadcast of your experience that gives your experience authenticity, and it is that very assurance that you need to put into a brochure. Not that you are a radio broadcast station, no, but the authority that you have in your own experience. Do not apologize for your gifts. Do you suppose, -- oh, shall we say Edison -- do we suppose Edison was apologetic for his invention? (No) All you need to do is act in good faith.

Rachel:    Which I do.
TOMAS:    Carry on.
Rachel:    I'll have to ponder this some more.
TOMAS:    One moment.
MERIUM:    This is Merium.
Rachel:    Hi, Merium.

MERIUM:    I am coming in here to tell you Don't Ponder Anything. Ponder, ponder, ponder.

Rachel:    [Laughing] I know! And I don't get anything done!

MERIUM:      Because you get locked up in your Pondercycle, Ponderville, Ponderovia. Ponder, ponder, ponder. Forget ponder!

Rachel:    Okay. Forget ponder.

MERIUM:    You don't need to ponder things that ought to be academic and/or creative and/or scientific. Only ponder those things which are meaningful in terms of your soul. Your understanding of who you truly are. That which you do is a manifestation of that which you are. Don't worry about that which you are going to do. That is a creation that you can create -- getting back to the original assignment, which never was very clearly laid out, Tomas. [Group twitter]

If you are going to create something, you are going to use a different set of mental muscle than if you are pondering something. Even I know that. So don't ponder your brochure. Ponder perhaps who you are, but once you know who you are, then create your brochure.

Rachel:    Okay.

MERIUM:    But I remember your being asked to think and to think “Is this something I should, could, would want to do? Is this something Father would have me do? Is this something He will help me do? Is this something I ought to do according to His will? Is this a manifestation of His will that I can do in my life? Is this something He would have me do?"

Rachel:    I've said all that. Yes! That's what I say.

MERIUM:     Then ask Him how to follow through. But you don't have to ponder it, dear. You already have pondered the issue and that is that you would choose to do His will.   You have set aside your ego driven purpose to bring truth, beauty and goodness to His children, to His creations. You are going to have to learn, however, a greater degree of finesse in dealing with the administrators of the beasts.

Rachel:    Yes.

MERIUM:    It is idyllic of you to think that you and the horse can, like the elf and the unicorn, la-la off into the pasture forever, but these people are serious about their possessions and their money, and that is why Tomas is asking you to become scientific in your brochure. Leave the unicorn at home.

Rachel:     Okay.

MERIUM:     Or, when you get out into the field with your unicorn, then you can turn into the fairy and you can enjoy it all the more, but if you are dealing with non-believers, you must approach them where they are, as you have them in the palm of your hand, then, because you have been able to produce your gift, given to you by and through the creative auspices of your Eternal Parents. You can praise God and give Him thanks and acknowledgement for the work that has been able to be done in His creatures, and you can thus edify and educate these administrators as to how to conform to pattern as established by Our Mother, by creation.

It is a formidable task, educating the rich, the willful, (yes) but it falls upon you delightful children to do that. You have Our Father behind you and beside you, but you must pull together all of your wit and your cunning in order to deal with these heathen whose goals are short term and whose glory is short lived. These are indeed challenging times. Again, check your motives. Check your intentions, and ascertain how you may serve in His vineyard.

Rachel:    I feel so terrible about letting that horse out. I guess I have to chalk it up to experience

Celeste:    I thought it was wonderful you let it run.
Rachel:    Well, it wasn't wonderful to the owner.

MERIUM:     You did not err so much in letting the horse free, but in allowing it to stay free, you abandoned your post.

Rachel:    That's what I thought.
MERIUM:    You must follow through with your responsibilities.
Rachel:    I won't abandon my post but I think she's going to make me abandon it.

MERIUM:     It is perhaps why I have led us this way down the path. In order for you to retain your gift and your affinity with your beloved creatures, you must also honor the framework within which the creature has been maintained thus far. It doesn't mean you have to ultimately respect it and certainly not as much as you respect the authority given to you by the Father to implant your cue, but it you expect to make inroads into your audience, it is necessary for you to apply those same skills and admissions that are used in a gospel arena. You must use the same tools. You must have tact and tolerance. You must spread good cheer, but you must be wise as a serpent and peaceful as a dove. All of the adages apply.

You are like the grade school child who comes in with a bag full of valentines for every child in the classroom and actually what you want is a good bag of oats for one horse. You have to be focused on your purpose and apply yourself to the purpose, which is not only to nurture, to minister to the horse but to educate, edify, enlighten and enliven the spirit capability of its owner. The horse is the mere medium for you. If you love the creature, you must love the owner more. The owner is a child of God, your brother, your mutual caretaker of this creature that you love. I have outdone myself in fluffing up the straw.

Celeste:    I want to talk about Rachel, or her former husband, because, Tomas, would it be possible that an arrow of love could be shot into his heart so that he can learn to respect and care for the mother of their children, and speak to her of love? Unless he can learn to love Jesus, and really grasps the love, I don't think he's going to change.   Is there something we can do? If he could feel loved for himself, by the Father.

TOMAS:     Well, my dear, what you have done is offered up a prayer, and that is perhaps the most effective thing you can do under the circumstances, in-as-much as you are not working intimately with these difficult peoples. It is not possible for Our Father to zap this human being as cupid would zap a human being with an arrow and they would suddenly know love. The love is available to everyone, but if they are in fear of it or in awe of it to the extent that they cannot let it into their life, there is nothing that you nor I nor the Father can do. The man, the woman, the individual must find within itself a hollow yearning to know that which it yearns for. All beings truly long to be held in the embrace of the divine Lover, but if they are so fearful and disdainful of that experience, they make it difficult for themselves.

Celeste:    If we all prayed all the time for them to ...
Rachel:    I do. Everyday!
Celeste:    I mean all your friends and everybody. You can't do it by yourself.

TOMAS:    It is, of course, more effective if the one being prayed for knows they are being prayed for, but again, there, too, it is the case that when the person knows they are being prayed for, they simply get their dander up higher and begin to resist even more the blessing of love. We are here to do what we can when we can in appreciation of the truth of the benign virus. When and where it can be caught is when and where we want it to catch because it will carry the tide over the hump of those who are more difficult, making it more difficult for them, then, to resist the pull and believe me there are many who are resisting the pull of love because they have such fear of it. Imagine the paucity of the world wherein your understanding of love is such that you have shunned it all your life as something that was for fools or weaklings.

There is a lot of work to be done on Urantia. The more diligently and even scientifically you can apply yourself at hand, to the love that is necessary, the more effective you can be. I am not saying that hearts and flowers don't have their place, or that valentines are not wonderful, but I am suggesting, as I did before, that true love is far bigger and you are able to expand our understanding of love into your arena by your reactions to life's situations that give rise to a new understanding of what love is. Instead of automatically buying into the grief and complaint and despair and expense and inconvenience and distress of life's vicissitudes, insist upon finding the value therein.

Celeste:    I think that when somebody is that hateful, that they feel no love within themselves.

TOMAS:    Indeed. And this is a sad commentary, indeed. And it is regrettable that your planet suffers this so widely.

Celeste:    Actually he is to be pitied.
TOMAS:    Certainly.
Celeste:    But our prayers for him should bring changes.
Rachel:    I've been praying for two years and he only gets worse!
Celeste:    If you had a lot more help.
Rachel:    He gets worse.

TOMAS:     It is important then to try to take the farther view and pray for the strength of the children, that they are able, in part, to have mercy on their own parent.  It is very difficult to expect so much from children, but they are far more adaptable and compliant to life's circumstances than we give them credit for. Adaptability is a mainstay and particularly in youth, and the ability of these young people to have and maintain a good opinion about themselves, about their world, and about their individual parents, even with their peculiar vagaries of personality, is experiential fodder for their eventual wisdom in dealing with the afflictions of life on such a planet.

Celeste:    And it will be a good day when they can say to him, "Do not speak to my mother that way."

TOMAS:    I appreciate your interpretation. It will be a good day indeed when we can all express ourselves as fragrant personalities in God's garden, in understanding that the many varieties of flower can grow harmoniously, given enough time and space. There are many things that conspire to create difficult circumstances. Expectations are one. Societal expectations, gender expectations. All of these superimposed values create a pressure upon the male (and similarly upon the female) that make it difficult to appreciate the refinement of sentiment understood as love. It well may be from his vantage point, that he is as romantic as anyone. It is a matter of perspective. His vantage point is what is for him a way to live by. If it is difficult and if you are allergic to one another at this point, then stay away from the situation as much as possible.

Celeste:    Well, romantic love is very nice, but it's the love of God, deep within the soul, that would keep him from being so cold. If he could just warm up and recognize God within.

TOMAS:     Certainly. But this would require essentially a rebirth, and these may not come except through some kind of tumult, and perhaps what he is going through now is part of the tumult necessary to bring him to the point wherein he will in fact crack open so that the nutmeat of his mind can be tasted by the fruits of the spirit.

Rachel:    I'll keep praying.
Celeste:    What is his first name?
Rachel:    David.
Celeste:    A beautiful name.

Rachel:    He's a beautiful person, in there, where to the good is. The uglies are just outweighing the good right now.

TOMAS:    Then let us offer up, in our afternoon's session, a prayer for all who are beautiful persons underneath all the uglies out there, and help us all to remember that underneath the uglies is a potential heart of darkness reaching for the light of the Son. Help us to have undying hope in the potential inherent in the circumstance and allow Our Father to germinate that seed and to bring it to fruition. Not so that we can stand back and say, 'I knew you were in there!" but that you can stand back and say, "Hello. I love you."

Celeste:    That was a very beautiful prayer.
TOMAS:    I will pause now to ask if there are questions.

Rachel:    One question. I was re-reading the life of Jesus and it said in there that -- How do I want to phrase this so I don't get in trouble for not saying it right? -- that when God views, and we'll use the example of our Earth, and He sees only the children of light and those who have, those who do not know him are ranked among the animals of the realm?

TOMAS:      Was that a question mark?
Rachel:    Yeah, that was a question mark. Would you care to comment?

TOMAS:    I cannot speak for how God sees. I can discuss, to some extent, how I see, and that is that the pilot light of the Thought Adjuster is an illumination. It is like a little flame, and as your decisions enlarge your flame, as your soul begins to take off, your light becomes brighter. There are many human beings in whom the Thought Adjuster is but a pilot light and has not risen to the level of giving off real heat. They are potential. They are above the animal, if only in potential, but in actuality, they are the same as the animal except for the long-standing loyalty of the Thought Adjuster which, in many cases, must await deliverance from the flesh, and yet it will remain loyal to the potential of the human being it indwells.

And so there is, perhaps, some truth to what you said, but not entirely because of the fact of the untiring efforts of the Thought Adjuster. Now, if the Thought Adjuster is not indwelling an individual who has substandard qualifications, they indeed are on a level of animal and it is in this context that it behooves you to remember that we all begin as animals of the realm in one way or another, those of us from animal origin planets, and all animals respond to kindliness, including two legged ones, and it is better to err on the side of mercy than to presume that your more dense cousins are not indwelt. Did that answer?

Rachel:    Yeah. It just kind of bothered me because I'm thinking about all these people that are indwelt by Thought Adjusters whose light's not really turned on.

TOMAS:     It is indeed something to be bothered about.
Rachel:    Yes.

TOMAS:     That's why we are here, to activate their wick, to allow it to be encouraged to come on, to step out from the limitations of fear and tradition into the light of Being, but as you know, it takes courage to Be, and to stay out there even when you are being pelted with tomatoes.

Rachel:    I sure wish I could preach like the Master. He's my hero.

TOMAS:     He is the hero of all of us. Each of you have your own skills. If you will Look at the apostles in their ministry, you will see that each of them had their own personality and their own ability and you are also gifted in your own unique way of going about the Father's business. You cannot be Jesus.

Rachel:    I know.

TOMAS:    And you cannot really even fairly compare yourself to Him and have appreciation for what you can do within the framework of what you can do. Remember too that you are admonished to live your lives, not to live his. You would be a disservice to your own personality and to the potential personality expression of your Thought Adjuster to try to be Jesus. Jesus has already done it and you haven't done it yet, so get on with living your life.

Rachel:    Yeah, because I read that John the Baptist was trying to be the prophet that came before him. He dressed like him, he talked like him.

TOMAS:     He was inspired by Elijah.
Rachel:    Yeah.

TOMAS:     And it is wonderful to be inspired by those who have gone before, as we have been inspired by Jesus, and others, and it is great to take the lessons that they have to offer us, their skills, their abilities, as examples of how we can apply ourselves cleverly to the ministry of man. But the challenge and the exhilaration is in discovering for yourself the plan that the Father has outlined for you. That is your original life pattern, the pattern perfectly designed for your personality. That is your thrilling adventure that only you can accomplish perfectly.

And assuredly, when you have begun to make your mark in your realm, in your faith steps, there will be those who, coming up, will say, "I wish I could do it like Rachel. I want to do it like she does," and you will be able to teach them to be themselves, that it's very nice of them to admire your ability, but your challenge for them is that they should learn how to do it themselves in cooperation with God who has outlined for them the perfect pattern for their life and their ministry and their ascension.

Celeste:    What a wonderful day with you, Tomas.
TOMAS:    I have done a lot of talking; I don't know if I've said anything.
Rachel:    You have. Not to worry.

TOMAS:    Leah, my daughter, how are you? How have you been? How have you survived your many travels?

Leah:        I've survived my many travels with lots of guidance and protection. And I'm good. And, in regard to what we were reading today and a statement that came about earlier, we made the statement about a horse being a high-spirited animal. I said I was going to find that; well, I didn't find that but I did find something quite interesting that I think relates to what we read today.

TOMAS:    Would you like to share it with us?

Leah:        Yes, I would. It was about the Sojourn at Cypress. The Discourse on the Mind. And this was Ganid. "During Ganid's convalescence of three weeks Jesus told him many interesting things about nature and her various moods. What fun they had as they wandered over the mountains. The boy asked him many questions, Jesus answering him, and the father marveling at the whole performance. The last week of their sojourn in the mountains, Jesus and Ganid had a long talk on the function of the human mind.

After several hours of discussion, the lad asked this question, "But teacher, what do you mean when you say that man experiences a higher form of self consciousness than do the higher animals?" and, as stated in modem phraseology, Jesus answered, "My son, I have already told you much about the mind of man and the divine spirit that lives therein, but now let me emphasize that self-consciousness is a reality." And here's the sentence that I have a hard time with, but it's pretty interesting. It says, 'When any animal becomes self- conscious, it becomes a primitive man." Now, am I not to take that literally?

TOMAS:    You are an animal, Leah. You are a man. Homo sapiens. It is not referring to four legged animals or chimpanzees. All of these belong to the animal realm, but only the homo sapiens is endowed with the gift of reason which will open the mind to spirit reception and self-consciousness, which allows it to know that it is. As your philosopher says, "I think therefore I am." I think. And this is self-consciousness.

Leah:        I think I'm hearing you, but just let me go on a little more. "When any animal becomes self conscious, it becomes a primitive man. Such an attainment results from a coordination of function between impersonal energy and spirit conceiving mind, and it is this phenomenon which warrants the bestowal of an absolute focal point for the human personality, the spirit of the Father in heaven. Ideas are not simply a record of sensations. Ideas are sensations plus the reflective interpretations of the personal self and the self is more than the sum of one's sensations. There begins to be something of an approach to unity in an evolving selfhood and that unity is derived from the indwelling presence of a part of absolute unity which spiritually activates such a self-conscious animal mind." I guess all I want to say is that stuff we didn't seem to be able to understand, it's explained in these couple of paragraphs about the energy and spiritual energy.

TOMAS:    It is very interesting how our Master, in a few simple sentences to a young mind, can explain so personably the same truths that were academically and scientifically enlarged upon by the ministry of the mighty messenger who prepared the Paper on Energy -- Mind and Matter. And thus the personalizing effect of the teacher has given meaning to the truth that cuts through academics and intelligencia to reach the reasonable heart and soul of the listener.

Leah:        Okay, now I feel rather foolish with your telling me that a high-spirited animal isn't going to become a man because he is self-conscious. That's how I took it. Literally.  In the evolutionary process.

TOMAS:    No.

Leah:        Okay. Okay. The only other thing I found about the horse is that it was close to the elephant. It's next in animal quality to the elephant, but in one respect decidedly inferior because the horse never fully overcame the deep seated propensity to flee when frightened.

TOMAS:    A propensity shared by many mortals!
Rachel:    Yes!
Celeste:    That's what I would do, too!
Rachel:    That’s our animal legacy to flee.

TOMAS:    This is true, but you have developed sufficient self-consciousness to have other alternatives and the ability to realize, even if you have fled, that perhaps you could take a different course.

Leah:        Just for the recording, the Papers we were looking at were 697 about the elephant and the horse and 1479 is about "when any animal becomes self-conscious, it becomes a primitive man."

TOMAS:    I appreciate your studies, Leah, and the integrity with which you brought your learnings to share with others. We all grow when this is done and you need not feel overly self-conscious about your being willing to learn in a class setting such as this.

Celeste:    Oh, I love it!
Leah:        I do feel rather foolish, but I would like to be self-conscious enough to become a primitive woman! [Group laughter]

TOMAS:    You are already rapidly advancing up the ranks of soldier of the circles, or is that soldier-ette?

I will prepare to take my leave. You have all been wonderful this afternoon. I want to once again embrace you in the light of love and to bless your brow with my kisses of affection for being perfect students. You are a joy to me and to Merium. You are the delight of Michael of Nebadon, as well, of course, as his other children, and we all delight in being of service to you as you choose to be of service to him and to each other. Carry on, boys and girls, until we meet again in the spirit and in the flesh. Farewell.

Group:    Thank you, and Merium, and everybody else. We love you.

*****

DATE:        February 20, 1999
LOCATION:        Cape San Blas, Florida
T/R:            Gerdean (for Merium)
TEACHERS:        MERIUM, AARON, WILL

TOPIC:
CELESTIAL NIGHTS RETREAT
TEACHER MERIUM TELLS A BEDTIME STORY.

MERIUM:      I heard someone ask for a bedtime story. I am Merium. I am your big sister, and I am the storyteller.

Rachel & Group:    Hi, Merium.

MERIUM:      All my lovely children, how you delight us. I have been sitting here with my peers, other teachers, enjoying your party. We have been observing your mortal behavior.

Group:    [Uproarious laughter] Please bring us to a higher level!
Rachel:    Sorry, Merium.
MERIUM:    That is quite alright. We are long accustomed to you children.
Group:    [(Uproarious laughter]

MERIUM:     Many times we wait not just moments, not just hours, but lifetimes. And so we are bemused by your delight in one another and it is indeed a delight to us to acknowledge your revelry in good faith and in good will of your fellowship through Christ Michael. It is altogether seemly that you should frolic as joyous children. I had observed some of my elders here observing how hedonistic your behaviors can be ...

Group:    [Loud chuckles]
MERIUM:    ... and someone brought up the subject of the golden calf, but...
Group:    [Loud dismayed laughter] None of us!

MERIUM:    ... I reminded them that these delightful children are Father's children and I am accustomed to playing on the floor with my children, as I have said many times, and so they have sent me out to greet you, for I understand you. I am a child myself. I am perhaps a little older, but truly not much wiser. But at any rate, your shenanigans have been very much like healthy children scampering after a big family picnic, excited on spirits of one sort or another ...

Group:    [Laughter] Whoops!

MERIUM:     ... and reluctant to settle down to hear your bedtime story and to say your prayers, but we have come now at your invitation to address you and to help you get tucked in so that you will be able to sleep peacefully, knowing that on the morrow your Son will rise again and you will bask again in the gaiety and the peace that is yours because we are loved by our Eternal Parents.

You are delightful children. I am glad to be your friend. I will move aside and allow another, perhaps elder teacher, to address you.

AARON:        Greetings, friends. I am Aaron. It is my pleasure to be present among your pleasantries this evening. You have been moving to the harmonies this evening and in this light I would like to direct your thoughts to a different sort of harmony, that harmony which is the interaction of two personalities with each other. Each interaction you face is an opportunity to play the instruments you have been given and we have been pleased to recognize that you are willing to face each other with high intent, even amidst your human activities.

The lifting of your will into alignment with God's will is the tuning of your instrument so that you may someday play in an orchestra that tours the universe. Recognize that your opportunities are endless, that no one moment can identify your eternity, and that your moments of purely human pleasure, while being rudimentary to the eyes of spirit beings, bring you into a grounding place such that you recognize your roots, only do we like to point out that you are capable of rising from the material to the spiritual progressively, so please do not see our wording as being disciplinary so much as to point out our own efforts at understanding human behavior.

You are here for a purpose, to fellowship with God's family and to enjoy one another and you have been doing this admirably. Simply keep in mind that the transition forward can be aided by your moments of reversion. Your energy is wonderfully vibrant this evening. That is all.

Group:    Good night, Aaron. Thank you.

Lucinda:     Were we going to have a bedtime story? Tell us a story. Merium is the storyteller.

MERIUM:    How demanding you are, child!
Group:    [Laughter]

MERIUM:    Have you not heard that we tell the same story again and again?
Group:    [Mocking laughter]

MERIUM:      The fascination of the bedtime story is not the story but the ritual of telling the story. I will tell you this story, Princess, and that is that you have shown us in your behaviors this evening, in coming together around this hearth, this fire, that you know how to lift up Urantia. By your group purpose this evening, you have mastered yourselves sufficiently, you have given in to your spirit hunger, and you have brought yourselves encouragement by your music, by your psalms. You have joined hands and done a ring-around-the-rosy that has enabled you to be still sufficiently to hear again the greatest story ever told. You are our children and you are greatly loved.

Now, as you go off into dreamland, as you think about your hopes for tomorrow, as you think about your regrets of yesterday, think about these things in a magnified fashion and joys? Do they have the assurance of sonship? Are they privy to the same bedtime story that you savor, that you discard as having heard before?

This story has saving grace, and you have in you the ability to bring this story to other children who cry themselves to sleep at night for they feel they are alone. How our heart wrings for these babies who sit on the doorstep of humanity not even knowing to knock, not even knowing they can come in if they but knock.

The Master has called you to go out and find his lost sheep. Find his babies, and welcome them into your hearth, your home, the home that Michael has provided and that we are provided and that we are happy to play in and to serve in, that we belong to as his children.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who longed for a blue dress.

Someone:    [Something about] a red dress.
MERIUM:     That is all.

WILL:    Yes, I am Will, your friend and teacher. I have few words tonight, but did want to extend my greetings to you. Thank you for your journey to this place of union. Keep singly in your mind this evening before you go and lose consciousness, if you would, the union of spirit with soul. Your embrace with one another is reflective of degrees of spirit development that has been aided by your eye upon the Father, your internal Guide, and your truest Companion. If you would spend a few moments in stillness this evening, remembering the ultimate Source of your unity, I would be grateful, as this is our purpose in coming to you, and thus my evening's mission is fulfilled. Welcome to Florida.

Group:    Thank you, Will. Goodnight.

*****

DATE:        March 14
LOCATION:        Pittsburgh PA Teacher Base
T/R:            Gerdean
TEACHERS:     Tomas and Merium
Group:         Elyssia, Claireesa, Liana, Mr. B., Gerdean, Hester

TOPIC:
CONFUSION

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 43, THE CONSTELLATIONS
1. The Constellation Headquarters
2. The Constellation Government
3. The Most Highs of Norlatiadek
4. Mount Assembly - The Faithful of Days

Sharing and Stillness
TEACHER SESSION:

TOMAS:     I am Tomas. Good afternoon.
Group:    Good afternoon, Tomas. Welcome.

TOMAS:     We have a busy schedule and a full house this afternoon. We are gathered here in honor of your reconvening of your long-standing and loyal association and the coming together of even more sojourners in the flesh and in the spirit. How busy are our realms these days! As host of this Teacher Base, I am glad to welcome you, Claireesa, to our shores and to voice with gladness the perennial addition of Mr. B., the sisterly connection with your peers in Buffalo by and through your own duplicate of a messenger in Leah. Congratulations to the Hamilton group. Indeed our checklist is unending.

Each of you is an important part of our unfolding. Each of you is a thread in the tapestry being woven which will carry Urantia forward into first stages of light and life. You sometimes think this is a fairy tale indeed, and yet I assure your morontia reality has more substance to it than the table you sit at. I am going to speak to day about confusion.

In your growth, as you well know, it is in the mind where you make those choices which either further you or retard you in your actualizing process, and any time you are dealing with the mind in terms of change and growth into unknown realms, you are bound to encounter certain confusions. Being confused, as you know, is not going to stop your growth nor will it seriously curtail your development, but is an opportunity for you to sit down and take your own threads of thought and crochet them into a pattern of perfection understood by you so that this piece can be understood in fullness and in time.

When you attempt to see the farther view from the plateaus of experiential accomplishment, your vista may ring true and your perception may seem clear and you may assume a certain confidence, and yet as you embark upon a new field of learning, a new step on the ladder of ascension experientially, you may experience a temporary not knowing, not seeing, not understanding, and so your faith must see you through, but do not be chagrined when you find yourself facing certain confusions as to how to comport yourself, how to believe, how to proceed.

I will take this opportunity to remind you, in fact, that over-rapid growth can be suicidal. It is good to have a slow and steady growth, and so if you become thwarted by your own urgencies, your own desire to develop pell mell, even when slow growth would be indicated as the preferred method, be content to accept a piece of confusion for a time, for in time the piece of the puzzle will fall into place and/or be discarded to reveal the greater reality which has been hidden behind a veil of confusion awaiting the appropriate time for its exposure.

I and Merium are and have been busy and yet it is always a celebration and a solidarity for us to resume our format following the sundry sojourns of the season into hope for warmer days. Even as the snow continues to fall and the deer continue to muzzle deep in search of green grass shoots, we also hold fast and establish ourselves in anticipation of the emergence of new growth immediately around the corner, new warmth, new growth of ideas and ideals, new associations and an infinite variety of new personalities to be revealed as flowers in the Father's garden.

Indeed we like the idea of new beginnings, of new seasons of growth, fertility, and the warmth of the Son. Dear ones, are the questions this afternoon, or any commentary?

Elyssia:    I had a comment. I've been wanting to tell you, Tomas, that I had my little Sunday School today again and you told me to rely on just inspiration and we did study a bit, but then for the first time, and maybe because I've been away from these children, but for the first time I felt that I was in synch with their thinking, if that could explain what happened. I felt that I was looking at them and I was aware of their response to what I was saying and I kind of was able to guide my remarks a good bit, more than I ever was before, and I really had a good feeling about it because I felt that there was a lot of inner action, and I was really feeling that it was kind of a watermark, kind of a benchmark for me because this never happened before and it was partly due to the fact that I had a rest and it was also in great part due to the fact that you gave me confidence to rely upon my own thinking and my own concerns for them and I could voice them and I had the confidence to do it. Thank you.

TOMAS:     Thank you for your testimonial, my friend and co-worker, as you have begun to taste the effects of being a teacher, effectively being with your students. This is wonderful feedback for me and for you and for those who have begun to recognize the reflection of reality.

Elyssia:    If you recall, Rachel was very encouraging a couple of months ago, perhaps because of her interaction with her children.

TOMAS:     I think perhaps I could give Merium some well-earned credit here, for Merium has … Excuse me. I feel her asking for the floor. One moment, please.

MERIUM:     I am so glad to be invited out to share in the praise of my own teaching skills. I humbly bow to your gracious flattery and will augment Tomas' intent and yield to the truth that I am in fact a child like you are a child and it is that quality of childlikeness that allows us to be such close friends. You can trust me because I am capable of being foolish and of being fluffy. I am not a scholastic type, although of course I am an experienced being and so I have garnered some wisdom along the way, which can be substantiated and/or documented by certain research if necessary; however, my value, as I see my value, is in my life itself as a child of God, and how many times have I said, like an old record, I play with my children.

You have acquiesced, Elyssia, to play with your children in such a way as you can understand how their little minds are operating. You have begun to connect with them in a way that is effective and meaningful; you are no longer speaking down to them or patronizing, as is a classic tendency of teachers. I myself try not to act like a teacher. I try to be as mortal and sentimental as possible, knowing that's what you respond to. I will not wallow in your misery because you like it, but I will enjoy the refreshment of your childlike nature because you like it and so do I.

Now you will work with your children in Sunday School on a new level, and you will become comfortable there to the extent that you will see in reflection how you and the Father have been working together and even beyond you will begin to appreciate how the Father in and through His fragment of Himself in you, has been enabling you to lift up into a greater reality of being also. You will be brought to a new level of appreciation of your relationship with the Great Teacher that will border on worship, a new degree of worship for you Elyssia, all because you have allowed yourself to experience the experience of connecting as a fellow with your students.

Elyssia:    Wow! That is great!
MERIUM:     And thus we serve, and so, shall we dance? Thank you, Tomas, and thank you all.
Elyssia:    We shall dance.

TOMAS:     I have returned. I have nothing on my curriculum to add without your input.

Elyssia:    We did wonder how we were involved in that Paper about the Most Highs.

TOMAS:     All right, then, let's get out our eyeglasses and dictionaries. I say that because this will require a contentious reiteration for the record so that years hence when you are reading the transcript of March 14, 1999, it will make sense, and so who would like to construct the query?

While you are applying yourself thus, Mr. B., I will comment briefly that we had a very nice meeting of late with a very experienced sojourner on Urantia, an active worker in the field known as Jack, and he spoke of disciplines in a way that would behoove you to make note of. If you are going to be good students, you would do well to develop certain disciplines in order to garner greater joy from your learning. You may or may not agree, Merium, but it is compatible with my training. Alright, then.

Mr. B.:     The sentence we had in question, from page 488d, "But Daniel fully understood these matters. He said, 'The Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomsoever he will.'" That sentence seemed to have caused confusion.

TOMAS:     Let me equate it this way. In your own lives, you have felt called. You have felt stimulated by some impelling force. At first it was not clear as to its divinity stature and yet as you allowed yourself to investigate and be swayed by the prompts and leadings, you were brought to a revelation which confirmed for you in your deep recesses that which you knew to be true. In your heart of hearts you knew and found the fifth epochal revelation to be a confirmation of that which was already true for you, and thus you came into a greater awareness of yourself through this confirmation. This is a personalization of how it is the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men and gives it to whomsoever they will give it to.

Liana:        Are you speaking of awareness? Is that what they give to?

TOMAS:     Of course. You cannot begin to govern until you are in existence and you must come into existence in order that one day you may learn to govern and or be self-governing. All of this experience for you on Urantia is focused around the issue of your soul birth. Having been born of the spirit you can begin to consciously be developed by and through your experiences and your decisions. You thus begin to become citizens of your System and eventually you will contribute greatly to your Constellation and it is in that context that the Most Highs rule, for there are those who would not respond. Many are called but few are chosen. And they send out the call.

Liana:        Tomas, to help me understand what you are saying, I'd like to have an analogy, so when you say Constellation, if I think of here -- we look up into the sky and we see groups of stars, so when you say Constellation, are you saying -- is that analogy similar? Like we are stars within a constellation?

TOMAS:     Yes, you could think in terms of a jar of bubbles, and in your blowing air, you can create a mass of bubbles like suds, and the entire mass of suds can fall within one large bubble which encases and encloses the many bubbles. The many bubbles are your many worlds of time and space within the larger bubble of the Constellation, and so you in your tiny bubble can look out into the realms of space and see far beyond and assume that out there somewhere is a film, a demarcation, an architectural sphere allowing for the existence of a "geographic area" earmarked as the Constellation of Norlatiadek which neighbors the bubble of a Constellation afar.

It is also a level of functioning, for whereas you here on your world, your sphere, are geographically located, you are also a level of reality, and the same holds true for your Constellation and its purpose. It also represents an actual level of functioning.

Liana:        So could I use another word? Could I say "plan"?

TOMAS:     In your dissertation, you may, yes, as long as you flesh it out to include that it is a place as well, just like heaven is a state of mind, perhaps, to many, it is a physical area also. It is multi-dimensional, my dear.

Liana:        Yes. What I am trying to do is hear this in a more simplistic way, so that's why I'm asking you these questions. So, it's just like when we say that there's a physical body, an emotional body and a mental body, you are saying to me that there's a consciousness that's heaven, but there's also a physical place that's heaven.

TOMAS:     That's correct.

Liana:        That's what I'm saying, and you can correct me. The Christ consciousness is a plan that is evolving on earth.

TOMAS:     Absolutely! And you are now touching upon the morontia reality and the greater dimension which we like to bring you to, and so I thank you for pursuing and persisting in this way. As we have discussed in earlier lessons and which we will touch upon for time immemorial, you yourselves are a microcosm of the Paradise reality, inasmuch as you have within you the Father, the Infinite Spirit and the Eternal Son as manifested through the Thought Adjuster, the Spirit of Truth and the adjutant mind spirits of the Mother, and so all these factors are your building blocks toward your ultimate perfection, and so even within you is the potential of the architectural sphere of the Constellation wherein you live, for all those values you will learn as you ascend will be revealed to you from within, from within your own microcosm, as you are exposed to these realities in your ascension. You will learn how to be self-governing; you will learn how to co-govern; you will learn how to function in legislative capacities and so forth in order to govern your realm.

These values are an essential part of your education throughout your ascent in and through your local universe. The realm of study of the Constellation occurs prior to your further studies of the local universe which allows you to rise to the level of awareness that will put you in Michael and Nebadonia in their sphere, their home sphere, and then you will embark upon the true spirit journey and ultimately return to the Father in Paradise, and so as you ascend your development and understanding of the order of function and organization of life and its organismal factors of intelligent beings is part of the education of the Constellation Fathers and their associates.

Liana:        Tomas, I was just reading a book by a man named Ken Wilbur and he was talking about -- and this just brought it home to me and made it easier for me to understand it better -- "the one and the many" that we are always a part of -- I don't want to say higher or lower, so … we are not divorced from the other kingdoms. I mean the animal kingdom, the mineral kingdom? I mean when you even think in the physical reality we are just an atom, we are just a seed within the womb of our mothers and then, you know, it's almost like a plant. We're a seed in there and then we are a plant and then we are a human being, but then in consciousness, every time we are born we can't differentiate ourselves as little babies, so we keep growing and growing and that's how we individuate. It's like every time a child is born, it's like a universe that's unfolding. I mean, it has its history and its future. And so, I just had to share that.

TOMAS:     I am glad you did, and I will hoe the soil with you and call to mind that when a radish seed is planted, it knows it is a radish. It always grows up to be a radish. It is never a spinach or a carrot, and each of you who are born are born with your own unique characteristics that can be developed as you allow for your own growth.

Mr. B.:    Basically, the descriptions that we have in what's going on at the level of Edentia all the way down to a lot of things that are going on inside us all the time.

TOMAS:     Right. As this microcosm philosophy allows, yes, and so you are correct, you cannot completely divorce yourself from your physical cousins, your trees and rocks and water and so forth. In fact you read today that there is living water, real water, on Edentia and so forth, mountains, rivers, etc., that are recognizable and material in the sense that material is appropriate for that sphere. Always will you be part of the material universe in that context. It just will not be as dense as you understand it in your most dense material existence as a mortal in this cocoon existence of your own soul birth.

Once your soul has begun to soar, your world automatically is enlighted and enlived and I will come around now to wind this up for this afternoon, that when you are being enlightened and enlivened, if you go through periods, phases, wherein one reality is peeled away as a new reality is added unto you, do not be dismayed or delayed unduly by any confusion which may come to your mind. Trust that you are being led in faith to your next plateau of awareness and of service.

The clarity of the Son is just around the corner, even as the sun of spring is right behind this gentle snow.

Liana:        That's beautiful, Tomas.

TOMAS:     As are you, my dear, and my dears. I will look forward to your approach to spring and see you on the morrow.

Group:    Thank you, Tomas.
TOMAS:     Amen and farewell.

*****

DATE:        March 21, 1999
LOCATION”        Pittsburgh PA, USA
T/R:            Gerdean
TEACHERS:        TOMAS
Group:        Elyssia, Iyana, Hunnah, Leah, Evangel, Rachel, Claireesa, Mr. B. , Gerdean and Hester.

TOPIC:
FALSE PROPHETS AMONG YOU

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 43, THE CONSTELLATIONS
#5. The Edentia Fathers Since the Lucifer Rebellion
#6. The Gardens of God
#7. The Univitatia
#8. The Edentia Training Worlds
#9. Citizenship on Edentia   
Paper 130, ON THE WAY TO ROME
#4. Discourse on Reality
Paper 118, SUPREME AND ULTIMATE - TIME AND SPACE
#7. Omniscience and Predestination
Paper 148, TRAINING THE EVANGELISTS
#4. Evil, Sin, and Iniquity

TOMAS:     I am going to say a prayer. I will bring you children in distress to the attention of the Father through a sincere proposal that He look down upon you who seek His aid, who seek His comfort, who seek His assurance of a smooth and merciful transition from one day to the next, for yourselves and for those you love, in the context of an informal chat on behalf of you who join with us in this configuration of believers.

Claireesa, it has been a joy to have you as part of our family. Always are you welcome and always are you a part of this Teacher Base, you who are an extended ambassador of our brother Abraham and his flock. Evangel, my sojourner and friend, it is always a pleasure to embrace you and to renew our connection as siblings and kindred spirits in our goals of eternity.

All of you here today are jewels, indeed, and Michael looks upon you all with deep affection. I can speak for him in this context for he is here and he is indeed embracing each and healing your wounds and comforting your sorrows, even as you now focus your attention on the Master, our elder brother, and as he elevates us into the presence of the Father himself.

Our Father smiles on all His children, even the curmudgeons among you, for as you know, you are only partially responsible for your life's experiences, inasmuch as much of life's experiences are beyond your control. Many of the vicissitudes of this life have had long-range effects upon your unfurled souls. Many of the fears and conditions of your childhood and your forebearers have brought restrictions and locks upon your doors of perception that are without divine grace, too heavy, too difficult to open.

"It is our sublime prayer, Father in heaven, that You will help us to life within the circumference of the life You have given us without those undue restraints and locks upon our perception of Your love for us. Your son Michael came to us as Jesus to remove the shackles and chains that bind us, to release the spiritual captives. It is our earnest intent and hope, Father God, that we can be of service to Your children, in allowing Your loving light and ministry to unfurl itself upon our world, that they may see the glory of You and know the personal love that You hold for them and for all of us indeed. Be with us now, dear Father, as we begin to understand yet more of Your ways, that we may better serve, that we may learn to love one another as Jesus has loved us. Amen.”

Group:    Amen.
TOMAS:     And good afternoon, my loyal flock.
Group:    Good afternoon.

TOMAS:     We have a gargantuan group indeed. We are growing exponentially as you grow also, and as you grow, we are justified in having yet more attendees in the spirit realm as they come to observe your inner workings. How fortuitous for you this afternoon in this new season of renewal, to read about the groupings of social entities in your ascent, indeed, in clusters of ten and behold, you are ten in number today and you are experiencing in fact a living organismal growth, you who have learned how to accept each other in terms of your spirit reality and your sense of soul worth because of your relationship with Father and with each other as His living legacies, His heirs in this kingdom of men.

I would like to deliver a few words this afternoon on a subject which may sound like a left fielder for you in the face of this afternoon's bounty, but it has to do with something you have often wondered about and not acted upon in terms of questions, and so I would like to discuss "false prophets among you."

Elyssia:    There probably are a lot of them around right now, are there not?

TOMAS:     Before I answer yes or no, Elyssia, which you all realize we are not good at –[Group chuckle] I would like to expound somewhat and perhaps, in essence, answer your question, for since you say, "are there not?" indicates to me the value of these words.

Your Master, when he was here, discussed briefly the concept of false prophets when he spoke of those who would profess to be followers of him but whom he knew not. Our arenas, yes, worlds from rebellion and darkness, even elemental evolutionary worlds, are often inundated with those who like the sound of their own voice and who, like the pied piper, like to have a mass following of the unknowing, that they may pump up their sense of self.

Now, I know this evening you read at length about error, imperfection, evil, potential evil, even about sin and about iniquity, and so these relativity levels have much to do with an understanding of what might be called "false prophets" for you can easily discern, in your spirit perception, where their motives lie if you listen closely to their message. Are they bringing attention to themselves through their own authority and intellect or are they helping you to gain a greater understanding of reality that is divinity that might be understood through truth, beauty and goodness?

You also studied today about knowledge, and there are many who have much knowledge. Scholars, academics, intellectuals -- and I am not disclaiming their merits, for in order to have a good understanding of everything, knowledge is as important as anything, -- but if there is no soulful quality, no spiritual substance, no genuine evolutionary soul growth, then what is the use of a lot of knowledge? It is necessary for you to grow in the spirit. Your greatest goal, in terms of your life here on Urantia, is not to observe the mountains or the rivers or any of those other things, but to begin to consciously work with your Thought Adjuster, to become familiar with your own resident Divinity, the status of sonship/daughtership with God is the ultimate status, the foundation of all of your relationships, and the ultimate purpose of your very being. As a child of God you are in faith allowing yourself to grow through His good will into a spiritual adult. You are being raised by the Father through your experiential lessons to become a being who glorifies Him who has brought you into being.

The difference between one who sees with eyes to see and shares that vision of God consciousness as a living reality through the morontia-izing process in the marriage between the mind and the spirit, is a seer indeed, a prophet in the true sense. A false prophet will give you stories and wonders, but the Master Himself chose not to become King in that kind of a kingdom. He chose to be a humble and dutiful son of the living God and thereby have the greatest gift of power possible, the gift of being able to bring men to God and God to men.

It is in this sense that Michael will call you his friends. Not just his children, but his friends and fellows. Even though you may never use the scriptures of the words of the prophets of old, if you bring the Father to life in your life that it may be seen by others to their own enthusiastic acceptance of their own relationship with divinity, you have found a lost sheep, you have given breadth to the kingdom, and you have served Our Father by expanding and ennobling His reality in your realm. Thus, humble prophets, go forth and sing of Him who is germane to all.

Are there any questions?

Leah:        Well, I noticed today in the reading there's a statement that says, "The meaning of life is in its adaptability; the value of life is its progressability, even to the heights of God consciousness." That just kind of struck me when we read that. We come together and talk about our circumstances -- as they call them in the Book "the vicissitudes of life" -- whether we're complaining or rejoicing, it is an adaptive process. That just struck me. Also that the highest level to which a finite creature can progress is the recognition of the Universal Father, and the knowing of the Supreme. I was wondering, how do you know the Supreme? I mean, I do know that we are part of the evolutionary Supreme, but could you put that sentence into better context for me?

TOMAS:     No, I could not.

Leah:        Oh, thank you anyway. [Group laughter] You were really good at saying "no" that time!

TOMAS:     The best thing that I can do with that at this juncture is to drag out the jigsaw puzzle again and indicate that the pieces of the puzzle will one day all fit and it is not the kind of linear actual puzzle that your rational mind sees, but a hologram of reality, a living actuality.

The evolving Supreme is your gift to God. When you create reality, through God, you have enlarged His universe. When you can enable another to recognize the God Fragment within, by and through your sharing with them the fruits of the divine spirit, you have contributed to the Supreme. As you might understand it, when you offer an insight and you feel and see and sense their eyes awaken with an understanding of the concept that you brought to their mind and enabled them to grasp, you have given light to their minds and this concept is similar; indeed, it is part of the evolving Supreme, for as men and women begin to think, they begin to activate the mind arena of choice which then enables them to make those decisions which will advance or retard their own development in their own spiritual reality, and so this is all part of the growing, actualizing substance of a new god, the Supreme God, which is part of your undertaking as an active cooperative in co-creation of higher reality, divine reality.

I could not possibly say that in one short sentence in order for you to grasp the concept, and that is why I said, "No, I could not" you see. But, I can discuss it at length. "Have you a better understanding of what it means?" however, is the question.

Leah:        I believe so. Relating to what was said earlier about "when the words are given to you" so if you experience that, I would think that you would have knowledge of the evolving Supreme.

TOMAS:     Yes, and I will say here that it is a critical juncture and it bespeaks the mature human being as compared to the one who is an accidental beneficiary of gifts of time and space when you recognize that your Self-acting adjuster has enabled you to spill forth pearls of wisdom that have enlightened and enlivened the spirit reality of your peer and you give instant credit to the Creator rather than assuming credit for yourself. That is the true earmark of how far you have come in being conscious of your appropriate sonship status. It is the instant that determines your true prophet or false prophet standing.

That was a simple parenthetic in relation to my earlier words, and not something to stumble upon, for if you are engaged, in fact, in being about the Father's business -- and I know you are -- you will not stop to wonder if you have fallen short, but will rejoice in the opportunity to serve in order that you may give glory to our Creator and Our Father, for that, then, residually allows you to also bask in the glow of divine love and be part of this great illumination which will one day consume the entire grand universe in purpose and perfection.

Leah:        Thank you.

TOMAS:     Well, workers, let us commence then with the balance of this Sabbath day and enjoy the heralds of spring which are even now making their way into your environment. Have any of you stopped to notice the fertile earth and the emergence of the mighty worms? Have you studied the shrubbery to notice the new nodules which will be bursting forth in green flames of chlorophyll soon? What a wondrous time of year! Throw off the doldrums of the winter season now and embrace the springtime.

Nature is a great impetus to worship and I have offered you an afternoon to go do just such, and so thank group, and thank you all, visitors and overseers in this extremely exhilarating adventure. Amen and farewell.

*****

DATE:            March 28, 1999
LOCATION:            Pittsburgh, PA, USA
T/R's:                 Hunnah and Gerdean
TEACHER MERIUM:    "Whistle While You Work"
TEACHER TOMAS:     Intro, Q & A
Group:     Celeste, Leah, Evangel, Hunnah, Mr. B., Gerdean, Hester and Elyssia

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
Paper 44, THE CELESTIAL ARTISANS
#1. The Celestial Musicians
#2. The Heavenly Reproducers

TOPIC:
WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK

TOMAS:     Glorious day to you all. I am Tomas.
Group:    Greetings, Tomas.

TOMAS:     Today is the day we acknowledge Jesus riding upon the ass, and also today is a day, the day that we begin a new season, and as in any new season and new beginnings, it will take a while to get into the flow, the harmony. Your session today is very much like the new season of the orchestra -- new players, new energies, and new expectations of what to play. Your instruments are rusty and your capacity is nearly deleterious, so now that we are all here in the orchestra pit, we are going to focus our attention on The Master Conductor and allow Him to introduce to us some new music.

What a wonderful Paper you have been studying, learning about the music of the spheres and about harmony and the like. Wonderful lessons to take to heart, for now you know that true music is not limited to notes and noise, but is in fact also a configuration of energy, and in this new season I will remind you again of the merits of beginning your sessions with a moment of stillness in which you may harmonize your own soul with the chords of Paradise, for it is in this solemnity of trust that you will play your notes when you are given your cue; we will be able to practice and become perfect in making music and singing songs for The Master; in giving forth our music we will become a siren song for those who hear with ears to hear our melodies.

I would like to give Merium an opportunity to exercise you somewhat with a piece. I will play second fiddle today. Merium, I know you are ready to go. I await your baton.

MERIUM:    My baton this afternoon is a daffodil, and I do greet you all and appreciate your coming because the temptation to go out and run, play with the dog, and wipe down the windows is very strong. I would like to captivate -- I almost have a butterfly net here -- the word "peace" and Tomas said I would produce a piece. P-i-e-c-e or p-e-a-c-e? I would like to bring you a piece that will allude to peace.

This piece that I plan to perform will be one that I hope will incubate in you and produce a young, intelligent chick of sorts, a flower of sorts, or whatever is appropriately necessary for the activation of bringing you forward and outward and to be your best. The juices are up! I want you to be alert to your own environment, to watch the color of the bark of the tree. It will change and it will fascinate you. I want you to be aware of the change in the willows.

Not only will this parameter of amusement be with you, I want you also to be aware of the changes within yourself. This change that has been coming along when you least expected it. You have been so busy with your worldly concerns and relationships that you are not really aware of the stretch that you are about to be receiving. The jackets of protection and distraction are about to be brought back, like the shutters of a house that has been boarded up for the winter. The sun is going to stream in and you are going to see some dust and cobwebs because you have been playing.

It is time for spring cleaning, and in that will not be drudgery. It will be joyous. I understand that we have both male and female at the table so do not be fooled. The male's interpretation of this joy and responsibility will be upon him and his words will find/ his mind will find the definition of this expression that I am offering you this afternoon.

I am talking to you but there is no tangible nugget of any particular statement. I am moving among you as energy, as I am going to touch your creative juices and waken all the sleeping places that you are not aware of. You may even find yourself looking in the refrigerator with a smile on your face, and if you see that it needs cleaning, you won't even think about it; you will pick up the cloth and start wiping up, and perhaps break into tune.

"Whistle while you work!" will be the new state of affairs and work will be plentiful but also meaningful. Everyone you know will benefit from the changes in you. This group will resonate, vibrate and jazzercize because it is Spring and the juices are up. I must tell you, whether you have to journey or whether you are in a cell of drudgery, the light and the play that is naturally yours is going to come forth, and it is going to be "recess" right in the presence of duty.

I have come to be as true to my form as possible. I am a four star encourager. I have chosen my young lady here because this is what gives her great pleasure; she is a tune of encouragement. It is a part of her work and she knows the price of resistance. She knows when she eyeballs something humanly as drudgery and labor, that it weakens her and destroys the music in her soul, so if you have any reluctance to go forth and whistle, come back. Come back into the silence. Call me. I will be there, and I will breathe this holy breath of mine upon your soul, and it will be invigorated. I want you not to dawdle, but perhaps if you wander off to smell the flowers, that will be a plus. This report card is going to be entirely different. This is indeed "Whistle while you work!" and it gives me great pleasure to bring you this message from this station here. Thank you very much.

TOMAS:     Thank you, Merium, for the concertina. Inasmuch as all of you are light-hearted this afternoon, we are then in a pliant position and would entertain your questions or your commentary.

Elyssia:    I hope you don't mind, but I was going to ask you. Did you see Jesus when he was coming down from Bethany and going down into Jerusalem? Were you able to see him on the planet then, Tomas, or did you see the movie about him that was really real?

TOMAS:     I was not here, Elyssia. I have not been resident on Urantia. I don't come from Urantia, but I will certainly never forget it! I am assigned here now of a certainty and yet inasmuch as Michael is the Master Son and, as a child of his universe, I, as well as everyone, have taken a keen interest in his life here. When it was determined that I would be selected to this assignment, I was given many picturizations, pageantries if you will, depicting the evolution of your world and included was a re-enactment of the life of Jesus of Nazareth as well as his morontia ascent, and so I was not here at the moment, no, but as you were present in your being when you read the words and as you review it at times in your church services, I was certainly there when the stones themselves sang out to greet the Son. I felt the same feelings you felt, and so yes, I can say "I have seen."

Elyssia:    Okay. When you talked with him, have you talked with him about it?

TOMAS:     No, Elyssia, I have not. I suspect others have, but I have not utilized my time with Michael to discuss his personal bestowal here, outside of how it influences my work with you.

Elyssia:     Did you ever ask him anything about his bestowal here that you could possibly relay to us?

TOMAS:     Again, I have not conversed with The Master as to his personal life. I have limited my dealings with him -- or more correctly -- he has limited his dealings with me in terms of my assignment.

Elyssia:    Thank you very much.

MERIUM:     I would like to speak because I heard the words from Mr. B.  that have tweaked my friend here, so I have accepted this as an opportunity to speak and, of course, it's going to be in the realm of my specialty. He said to Evangel, "I feel well." He said "I feel" and in the terms of your socialization, to say that "I am fine" and "I feel well" can represent or be mistaken for just a social answer, but he said, "I feel" and there was an intelligent acceptance about who he was.

And when you carry forth this understanding of who you are, why you are and how you are, this developing reality, you are truly able to see it from, "I'm fine; how are you?" and not only will you say, "How are you?" you can know in your heart that they are much better than they think they are but it has not resonated to that part of their development to tell them, "It is time to celebrate!"

I want you to also think about something else, because this holiday is a mixed bag. It is of agony and ecstasy, an agony of misunderstanding and the ecstasy of the truth of one's being. The agony. There is scripture that states: "You visited me when I was in prison." How? How could we know if we were visiting you? How did we visit you when you were in prison?" Let me tell you, and let me have you all be very alert because I don't ever want you to forget this, everyone is in Christ. The fact that they are masked in garb and in intelligence and in health will constantly be nailing another bar into the truth of their being. Who else is going to be able to burst the prison doors if it is not you sitting at this table?

This is indeed, not a responsibility of yours, but a natural expression of warmth that will create a melt-down as never before. You are going to connect -- whether it be by eyes or mouth -- and you are going to be able to allow yourself to do the Father's work. "Knowest thou Me." I am moving that statement into a New Age statement. "Who do people say I am?" A politician? A teacher? A laborer? A school drop-out? A naughty child? Who am I? Who is anyone here who is throwing balm at each other? Who lives here at the rightful, divine, inherited Prince of Peace's among you all? You are as the great one who came to you and lived a life of agony and ecstasy. He did not have journals or artisans to leave you; he did not leave his words on every little piece of paper or have his picture taken so that you would never forget the look on his face. It is up to you to find the face looking out at you from the bars. This sounds very theatrical, but in essence, it is possible, it is true and it is appropriate because you are living between two worlds -- the agony and the ecstasy. How do you feel? Ah, who is going to answer that question? "Oh, I had a terrible night. I didn't get any sleep." How do you feel? An opportunity to reply, "I am fine, thank you. It's going to be a good day" and if you've done your homework, if you have prepared, filled your cup with resilience, you will be able to go forth and have a better day for everyone, because you will carry the living truth in you -- your look, your smile, your very gesture, the movement of your hands. Everyday will have magic in it, whether you have a mundane job or whether you have the potential of being distracted beyond belief, you will catch the moment of refreshment. Thank you. Thank you Mr. B. , thank you Hunnah for paying attention, thank you Evangel for questioning. Thank you, all of you, for being open and receptive and willing. Do not be distracted. Keep your priority. It is of utmost importance. It is the Father's will that you celebrate the ecstasy. Thank you.

Celeste:    There is a song in the church. "There is a joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart." Really, I think that no matter what happens to you, you have that joy.

Elyssia:    Tomas, you told us last week about new beginnings and so I was going to tell that to my little class but they were dispersed today so I thought I would save that until next week, but I was thinking about that for my own sake, that you can face new beginnings, so I guess I'll be talking about that as the months go on. I was ready for that, thanks to you. You don't have to fear plunging ahead into new things when you have the kind of grounding that you have given us.

TOMAS:    I am heartened. Indeed this is true. And you do well to take these lessons that you will teach your children and wear them for yourself, for in wearing them and in experiencing them, in realizing the value of them, then you are sharing your value with your students. You come across more as a companion and a friend than an instructor, and they will respond more fully to the truth of your being than they will to mere academic words.

The new beginnings are, of course, in honor of spring, a season you have long awaited, but these fresh days also depict newness within in your faith path, in your housecleaning, in your ministry, in your adventures, in your celebrating, in your meditations and in your efforts. Each day is a new beginning if you keep it fresh. Specifically, however, this spring has been a long time coming and it promises to be a most fascinating year, so indeed, throw off your jackets and throw open the windows and let the fresh air pour in, into your hearts, into your minds, into your souls, even into your very beings, that new seeds may be planted, new growth may come into existence, that will help feed you through next winter and its incredible celebration.

Elyssia:    [Indistinguishable] and certainly with faith we can do that.

TOMAS:     With faith, you dare not do otherwise, for you will become stagnant, crystallize, and die.

Elyssia:    But our culture doesn't teach us how to struggle on in confidence or to have the faith to do it.

TOMAS: This upsurge of faith is just now getting under way. Your religions of tradition have long held fast to what was. They have not been forerunners like we are seeing these days. For many generations your evolved religions plodded on, maintaining a civilization that enabled these times to come into being.

Celeste:    That was good, wasn't it?

TOMAS:     It was appropriate, yes. Your scriptures would indicate something to the effect of that there is a time for this and a time for that. There is a time to be still and a time to shoot forward. The quiet dormancy of winter is a way of letting everything know that when conditions are ripe, the change is appropriate, and so now we see Merium's daffodil and we see the dawn of the new age, because we have known the long, dark winter. It is time to emerge from this long germination. You are going to be taking a giant step forward in evolution. It is going to make the traditionalists very nervous.

Celeste:    But it will happen anyway.

TOMAS:    Like a child, it cannot help but grow. You cannot keep a child an infant; it will soon be crawling, walking and running, needing new shoes every time you turn around, eating voraciously. The same is true of this new era. Your toddler status is well upon us, and you are having a great deal of fun in the sandbox, playing with your toys and amusing each other, making friends.

Elyssia:    [Indistinguishable] -- struggle, spiritual struggle, according to the accounts.

TOMAS:     I assume you are talking about the Garden of Gethsemane.

Elyssia:    Yes, it is a normal wrestle when you consider giving up that which you have known, and in particular when you know it's going to be agonizing. No one likes pain. The human spirit does not want to die. And so even though he was, of course, aware that his time here was brief and that he needed to move on to attain sovereignty of his universe and all the wonderful things that were due him as a result of his accomplishments, even so, it is not easy to lay down your life.

I have a sense that he was not so much lured by the glory of the resurrection at that point as he was in clinging to Our Father for comfort and strength to withstand the moment at hand. One of the things about the toddler in the sandbox is that it doesn't think about pain, and you young souls don't like to think about pain either, but often pain is a part of the growing. Many times it requires affliction to learn wisdom. It is a mark of wisdom when you have attained a level of operation that allows you to experience difficult, painful, irksome and worrisome situations without becoming debilitated or depleted.

Much like Merium said, if you can learn to take them in stride -- not to deny that they happen! -- But to approach them with such an attitude that you know you will get through it, you will learn something from it. You will have accomplished something by it. When Jesus in the garden grappled with this question of death, of dying, when he allowed himself to accept the cup, he was made to feel that peace which passes all understanding. He had committed himself. Once he had made the decision, he was at peace, and he had all the strength of all the superuniverses to see him through. It is therefore that moment where you face the difficulty in fear that is the hardest part, for once you accept that it will be difficult, it becomes easy. Well, not easy, but do-able, because you don't have to do it alone. The decision you have to make alone, but the action provides accompaniment. Agony and ecstasy, indeed!

Elyssia:    When he took on, I guess it was Satan, early in his career -- he knew that he was going to have to do that, and -- I guess he prepared for that by being alone with the Father in the mountains before he took that particular task on; is that correct?

TOMAS:     More or less. Jesus was in constant contact with the Father. In fact, he had been blessed by the Father, by his decisions and his actions in accepting his divinity status. He was even at that point fully authorized to deal with Lucifer, which he did, and in part reserved judgment to others, for even in this situation the Master Son, who created Lucifer, could not condemn him to death, could not judge him, but gave him to the Father for the Father's judgment. I point that out as a footnote to our recent lessons on mercy.

Elyssia:    Well the way the Book portrays it, it was a tremendous struggle. I've always been interested in that. I wish you could talk to us about what kind of a struggle it was because I really didn't quite understand that part of the Book.

TOMAS:     I will tell you what. Let's have a real assignment. I would like for you all to do a comparative analysis, a scholarly approach. Very vital material. Read from the Bible the biblical account, or accounts, of the scene and read also from the Urantia Book of the scene wherein Jesus allegedly says, "Get thee behind me" when Satan allegedly offers all of the kingdoms of earth if Jesus will bow down before him. I want you to study this.

Elyssia:    Didn't I remember that the Urantia Book said that was an erroneous description of that? But there's another account where Lucifer comes and they struggle.

TOMAS:     That's why I want you to do a study, so that we can all intelligently understand our resources. The Teaching Mission is a wonderful vehicle and the relationship that you have in the spirit with the Father and with his agents, indeed with each other as brothers and sisters in this living kingdom is a very fine accomplishment and on-going endeavor, and we are extremely pleased by its contagion and progress-ability, but I don't want you to overlook your academics.

If you are going to be engaging intelligently with people in conversation about belief systems, about theology, about philosophy, then you need to have your wits about you. You need to have both sides of your brain engaged. You need to be able to stand up to the scrutiny of your detractors by being well-versed in what you believe to be true. We will begin our new season, then, with this assignment. It's a good one.

Hester:    Tomas, can I ask something?
TOMAS:     Yes, Hester.

Hester:    For the last few weeks, I've been noticing the curves of the branches of bare trees, and it is amazing how smooth they are against the sky. Here it's very pronounced, but at my place, as I drive along the roads I see it, and I'm wondering -- is the wind the real artist in this carving?

TOMAS:     The wind is not the only artist in this carving, Hester. The trees themselves are taught to grow. They know how high to reach.

Hester:    They are so graceful.
TOMAS:     Indeed.   Dear ones, I am going to sign off. Merium, would you like to round out our day?

Hunnah:     I'm off the air.

TOMAS:     Very well. Be mindful of your flock when you go out to meet with them this week, this Holy Week. Remember all of the influence that is coming into the minds eye of humanity -- all of the aesthetic influences of the Easter season. Please try to pole vault over the Easter bunny and remember the true meaning behind this holiday: the resurrection, the eternal life that can be had and will be known by sons and daughters of Our Father. Rejoice in the life. Amen and farewell.

Group:     Thank you, Tomas. Farewell.