Grow Into Your Potential

JESUS:  Peace be upon you, my children. I embrace you. I come to sit with you awhile, to draw you near to me, in answer to your prayer, your heartfelt yearning, to be closer to the Shepherd. Come, flock, and gather around me that I might enfold you and assure you of Father's overcare. You are indeed escorted as you frolic among the hills. As you rejoice in the harbingers of spring. You will not be led astray nor will you be left overlong to become mischief makers or lost from the firm embrace of Him Who sends me and who now sends you. What do you do as you remember me? As you remember me, you remember to call upon My Father for your counsel -- that Father Whom in all things is Our First Source and Center of our being.

Do not set me aside in order to take care of the affairs of the day, no. I am the affair of the day. I am not limited. By your faith you shall know me and you shall do many great works in my name. Yea, even though you walk through lives which are troubled and downtrodden, in despair and discouraged, fear-filled and remorseful, angry and embittered, you will bring to them the cup of living water, the fruits of the spirit, the sweet taste of truth upon your lips, to feed my little sheep, my little ones who have forgotten whence they come. I bid them return to me. I ask you to carry your staff into the meadow and call out with ringing voices your proximity to the Shepherd. Call far and wide for those who have fallen into the shadows and lost their way. Embrace them and lift them up and bring them home to me and we will return once again as a family to Our Father in heaven.

You are endowed now in your realm with the gift of potential. When you walk or journey through your season upon us, behold the signs of spring in view and prepare yourselves for the bounty. This foretaste of perfection is to savor and reflect upon the foretaste of other perfections yet to come in your future adventures within my universe. The palette of life is beginning to sweep across the canvas of Urantia, giving rise to its own potential.

Go forth, young ones, and be born into your own potential as the season embraces us and the new shoots sprout forth. Indeed, feed my sheep. Go in peace.

MERIUM:  Hello, my friends and playmates. I am Merium. I am here to assure you of your mentors who will not forsake you, your local family members who have the assignment of overseeing your cosmic citizenship.

I am not going to give a lesson. I am going to bring in a visitor who is passing by, inasmuch as Tomas is gone and we can alter our agenda somewhat. In a moment I will return.

SOLITARY MESSENGER:  Greetings. I am here to convey greetings and salutations from your fellow gardeners, the many orders of beings throughout the universe who enjoy with you the exhilarating thrill of enabling art, living art, to become a part of the environment. As you mulch and seed and cultivate and fertilize and trim and mow your environments, your gardens, so too do the beings who are far above you and far transcend you in your development and experience.

The concept of the garden is a supreme concept. It connotes an area of perfection wherein you may live and have your being. These environments are architectural spheres which are everywhere throughout the known universe, including Paradise itself, and so always will you be comforted and enthralled by the aesthetics of your gardens. Horticulture is a gift and an art form as much as any gift and art form.

You who enjoy visualizing or hearing angels, you who enjoy the healing arts of one sort or another, you who attend the teachers through your transmitting/receiving mechanisms, are all gift givers but none is more supreme than the gardener who has committed himself to beauty through the taking of the seed of life and nurturing it into perfect existence.

Take this greeting from the univitatia and other gardeners as an opportunity to allow yourself to experience the reflectivity of worship as you begin to fondle the fertile soils in preparation of your yearly abundance of seasonal offerings from mother earth and Mother Spirit.

MERIUM:  This is Merium again. It was a pleasure to hear from the Solitary Messenger as to the far away univitatia.

Elyssia: It was wonderful to hear from a Solitary Messenger. And it's great that you're here, Merium.

MERIUM:  It is an opportunity for me to be vocal. I am, even so, somewhat handicapped without the vocal chords of Hunnah whose affinity with my prompts are such that we can quite readily clip along, whereas I am not given such a hiatus with our Gerdean, but again this is appropriate for our configuration and as you learned in your lessons today, the group effect is made more meaningful as we proceed down the pathway of morontia learning.

Elyssia: Have you ever met this Solitary Messenger before? This particular one?

MERIUM:  No, I have not. I hope you realize there are millions of creative personalities throughout the universes of time and space. It might be as if you were to have gone to the airport in New York City and then come home and I would ask you, "Did you see so-and-so at the airport? You know them, don't you?" Well, only if I were going to be assigned to the airport for a millennia or so. It is an opportunity for me, as it is for you, to get to meet many student visitors as they come by, come through to observe.

Elyssia: Well, even so, we that never saw Solitary Messengers well enough to be tremendously impressed by them.

MERIUM:  Then you will remember that they are a solitary lot and do not work well with others such as I do and you do in your much more sociable and gregarious nature. It was, however, very social and gregarious of the Messenger to bring the greetings from Edentia.

Elyssia: And did Tomas go to Salvington?

MERIUM:  He has not gone to Salvington, no. He is not that far away, but he felt it would be a good idea to allow you all to limber up somewhat from the rigidity of applying yourselves so consistently to his techniques, his tenor.

Celeste: But we love his techniques. I don't think that there was any rigidity when Tomas was here.

MERIUM:  It was more a concern that it become an habitual association. It is very much like when you have a partnership or a marriage and you are together night and day; it is good to now and again take a respite from one another, that you have an opportunity to stand back and reassess your self in terms of your own individuality. It is also an opportunity for Gerdean to work through some of her own soul growth without the constant rigors of a teacher at her mind.

Elyssia: Is Merium going to stay with us for awhile while Tomas is gone?

MERIUM:  I am Merium. I am here, and I'm not going anywhere. I have taken several mini-vacations with Hunnah. I have been aboard a ship and aboard a plane; I have been to several coastlines and shows, so I am having a great time and am not feeling any undue stress or treadmill. I am not saying Tomas felt as if he were on a treadmill, but I have a hunch anyone as serious as Gerdean must surely feel she has been trudging incessantly and so a vacation for her from Tomas is in order.

Elyssia: Could you comment just a little bit about the beautiful mansion worlds?

MERIUM:  Well, I suppose I could. I'm not that far up into the worlds myself, I confess, but I have certainly proceeded you by a degree, so what do you want to know?

Elyssia: I think I would love to see those babies in the probationary nursery.

MERIUM: What shall I say then?

Elyssia: You could describe them.

MERIUM: I couldn't begin to.

Elyssia: I mean, do they look like our babies here?

MERIUM:  Of course! Everyone loves babies. It doesn't matter what they look like, everyone loves babies. You love baby possum and baby chipmunks, baby rhinoceros and baby mice. Babies are babies and what makes them so delightful is the fact of their potential. They have not been wisened or sullied. They are pure potential.

This is the charm of sunrise. You have no idea what the day will bring but it's got to be good because "Look at that sunrise!" It is the same with the senses. The senses are the harbinger of feelings which, given a good mood, are indications of good auspices to come. As long as your mind is open and free to the adventure, you emote an attitude of undying hope that is akin to the charm of the infant, the cherubic child of destiny who has yet to realize his own moral choice.

Elyssia: Well, have you heard any of them say anything about missing the chance to go beyond the cosmos like the finaliters could? Do they talk about that at all?

MERIUM:  They have no frame of reference for disappointment in that context.

Elyssia:  I see. That's good. That's great. We like to do that for our own children, here. Protect them from disappointment.

MERIUM:  You do them a disservice. They must learn how to experience disappointment. It is a necessary part of your growth.

You do your children a great disservice when you protect them from life's vicissitudes. You must rather prepare them to grapple with the vicissitudes of life. Give them the confidence that they can stand up to the difficulties which will be presented; they have the inner strength and capability in their own moral constitution and/ or as a result of their relationship with Our Father and his agents, including the family they are born into -- which is you --that they can handle life's difficulties and grow in strength, enthuse upon disappointment.

Elyssia: Oh, that's great! I'm really glad that you mentioned this in passing about the children. We do tend to protect them when we can. Too much perhaps. Maybe the boys in Colorado were too protected and couldn't handle -- I've heard it said so often this week, "Well, if people are picking on you, handle it personally like that."

MERIUM:  I am not authorized to develop the theme arising out of the unfortunate school situation in Colorado. I am more or less grounded from your entertainment medias.

Elyssia: That's probably great.

Hester: You don't know how lucky you are.

MERIUM: Ah, but I do!

Elyssia: Did you spend some time in the nurseries yourself, Merium?

MERIUM:  Oh, yes, I did, in spite of my experience in my native sphere with many, many younger brothers and sisters in terms of my community. I enjoyed my time with the nurseries and volunteered often and was given the opportunity to extend my stay somewhat since I had become quite involved in the parenting experience, specifically regarding a personality or two, which gave me a great deal of experiential wisdom and I would not diffuse it or abort it prior to the learning completion.

Elyssia: Well then you were in the nurseries because you had been -- more or less your parenting experience was with younger brothers and sisters. Did I get that correct?

MERIUM:  I am speaking in the aesthetic sense not in the literal sense. I was an only child, and so I did NOT have brothers and sisters, but part of my "make-up work" was to some extent garnered in the nurseries.

It is very difficult to explain the many-faceted elements of any of the mansion worlds, even the most elementary. Perhaps ...

Elyssia: Well, to change the subject, they were talking last week on the radio about Swedenborgians and I was listening because I had had a brush with Swendenborg and I enjoyed it tremendously, but I found myself wishing that the interviewer, who was a ... (tape turned; some lost) answers and squelching these people who were trying to explain something about Swedenborg and I was wishing that we could be more open-minded here.

MERIUM:  It would seem, referring to your earlier dialog, that Swedenborg was a heretic.

Elyssia: Yes! [Laughing] I think he was, and probably still is considered such by some.

MERIUM: Advanced teachers often are, although not always, as some teach quietly and so subtly as to not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. Some become more visible, more vocal, and more vulnerable to public attack and opinion.

Elyssia: Oh yes. The public can certainly attack.

Hester: Especially when they don't know what they're talking about.

Elyssia: But they did bring up the fact that Swedenborg evidently did say a lot of the things that we read in the Book that Jesus said.

MERIUM: Swedenborg was a man of earnest and sincere in spiritual insight. He was one of those human beings who was "blessed" with a fortuitous electro-chemical system that allowed him to be vulnerable to we who would be influencing those that we might prior to the greater awakening.

Elyssia: It was more difficult, certainly, to read him than it was to read The Urantia Book. I'm so glad that The Urantia Book seemed to be written as simply as the midwayers could possibly do it.

MERIUM:  It is not written simply; however, it is written in modern phraseology for the most part. That is one of the elements of its presentation. It is intelligently put forth. It is exquisitely constructed and upheld throughout by the conspiratorial nature of the revelators (that affirmative)…

Elyssia: I feel close to those midwayers who arranged this for us.

MERIUM:  Indeed they are superb workers in the field and very close to you. As you allow yourself to know them and invite them into your life they will help you even more, and yet it is only fair to forewarn you that as you invite inspired assistants you will be given extra home work.

Hester:  True, true, true. But it's fun.

MERIUM:  And so prepare yourself essentially for greater stamina will be required. Perhaps you can work up some energy by working in the garden and/or dancing.

It's time for me to call it a day on behalf of your friends and mine. We will be with you this week as you observe the palette of springtime being painted across your visual canvas. Be enthralled with the Creators who reflect this divine perfection throughout all the realms On High as well as on your street.

Go in peace. See you next week. Bye-bye.

Group:  Bye.

*****

DATE: May 3, 1999

LOCATION: Pittsburgh, PA USA

T/R: Gerdean

TEACHERS: MERIUM, HAM, MAUGHAM, SPRING, DORIAN, TRIESTE

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:

Paper 47, THE SEVEN MANSION WORLDS

#6. The Fourth Mansion World

#7. The Fifth Mansion World

#8. The Sixth Mansion World

#9. The Seventh Mansion World #10. Jerusem Citizenship Paper 48, THE MORONTIA LIFE

#1. Morontia Materials

#2. Morontia Power Supervisors

TEACHER SESSION:

TOPIC:

Ham Counsels The Group

MERIUM:  Dear ones, good afternoon. I am Merium and I am delighted to be here with you to run and dance and play and sing and be joyous and free in our fraternity, our sorority, indeed. How are you lovely girls this afternoon?

Group: Greetings. Good. Glad you're here.

MERIUM:  I will not leave you without the student-teacher relationship, but I tell you there are times when we must have a staff meeting before we are quite determined what it is to bring before you. Your personal teachers are all here and all would enjoy an opportunity to have a moment with you in person on the record, as it were, and I am certain Gerdean can accommodate your teachers if you are inclined to want to hear from them, but Ham also is here and he would like to say a thing or two along a more adult and/or administrative line, and so in keeping with our sociability, I would like to ask Ham to come in and greet us and then perhaps we will have time to play among ourselves in our own personal growth. One moment.

HAM:  Good afternoon, loyal fellows. I am Ham. I am your friend and your teacher as well. How are you this afternoon?

Group: Urn-hum. Good. Welcome.

Celeste: You used to come here a lot, didn't you?

HAM:  I have been here on a number of occasions. I am an active participant in the Teaching Mission and I visit many groups periodically. It seemed appropriate that I come by and visit you today inasmuch as your Tomas is abstaining and I wanted to come to counsel with you in terms of your growth and development as a community, as a teacher base, and impart some assurances as far as assigning teachers are concerned.

Celeste: We're doing fine except that we got a little smaller. We lost a lot.

Elyssia: We haven't lost a lot; we've gained a lot.

Hester: I think we're stronger than we've ever been.

Elyssia: We gained a lot of what we needed.

Celeste: Well, that's good. I mean, that's true.

Elyssia: We needed more consolidation and I feel good about it. I feel this way was very satisfying.

Hester: Exceptionally.

Celeste: It was, really. Except, I'm sorry that more people aren't able to be here to join us.

Elyssia: But it seems that sometimes the -- I wonder what Ham's experience has been with other groups as they get bigger and smaller and sometimes they fluctuate and sometimes they stop and then they start and over the years he has probably seen ... would you comment on that, possibly, for us please?

HAM:  I can elaborate in some sense since I have been regarded as the grandfather of the Teaching Mission movement, but -- I was perhaps the first in the minds eye of many. When Rebecca became my mouthpiece in the Woods Cross group, we were a quiet and standard sized study group of readers, and as the brushfire of the Teacher Corps took hold, we swept the foothills in a blazing heat of excitement.

Eventually this settled down, much as you are experiencing in your evolution as a group. The wonder-seekers, the joy-seekers, thrill-seekers, will not be still enough to allow for the disciplines of soul growth, but their seeds are planted and in due course they will return renewed, eager again to experience meaningful soul development and share this experience with like-minded peers. As such, we have seen groups grow and diminish and grow and diminish.

The evolution of a group is, in large part, a saga of the evolution of the individuals comprising the group, and many times the entire congregation changes over, but in most cases there is a pillar of the community who holds fast at the gate and oversees those who enter into the inner garden of unearthly delights that the teachers bring.

How you comport yourself in your teacher base is your free will choice and obviously it is beneficial for you to do what is most compatible and beneficial for your particular group's needs; that is to say, the needs of they who comprise the bulwark of your community, for "upon this rock I will build my church."

Elyssia: I see. A wonderful description. It always seemed to me, Ham, that every time we meet there is some sort of wonderful, very -- I don't want to say magic, but -- very special meaning in the size of the group and it portends what the meeting will be like. There's a special feeling I get whether it's 4, 2, 3 or 10 or 7.

HAM:   Was that a question?

Elyssia:  It was something that I just wanted to tell you about it. I just wanted to tell you that over the years that I felt -- when I see the group gathering, as I do, then I say -- there's something special tonight in this four. There's something special tonight in these two. And it always seems to be that no matter how many there are, there's a very special kind of meeting, based partly on the number of people.

HAM:  I am not at ease completely with responding to your outpouring for I am not familiar with your history to that extent and the mind patterns that would evoke you to pre-determine certain dispositions coming from certain configurations; but, I will allow that in an anticipatory attitude such as you indicated, you are at least allowing for good things to come from the gathering no matter how many people are there. You have, in your way, given the group your sanction, your blessing, and it does not disappoint you.

It is perhaps a personal instance of applied prayer that it is the attitude that matters, and the Father within you responds to your own attitude of accepting whoever it is that is there as a party to the gathering.

Elyssia: It reminds me of the time that a famous educator said that there is a school every time there is a teacher and a log and the students sit on the log, and I forget who that educator was but I felt that it applied to our group and I remember when we first started here in Pittsburgh and there were two and sometimes three of us, it was just as exciting and wonderful as when we had many people, and there was perhaps even a deeper connection so -- I've been through that that long time.

It's so wonderful to have experienced the workings of the Father here in the group, and now it's just wonderful to greet you because we've cared about your having come and we greeted you with enthusiasm with Rebecca and we were always excited about getting those teacher lessons.

HAM:  Indeed we are all still industrious. In order to round out our conversation, as a teacher I would like to remind you then of the value of the mota that the shepherd will go out and look for the lost sheep in order to fill up his flock.

Celeste: I love that story.

HAM:  You mention the delight you experience no matter who arrives at the meeting, but it is sometimes interesting to see how you can alter the fundamental foundation by introducing an unknown element in the form of a guest, similar to when the bridegroom threw open the doors and invited in the man on the street to partake of the wedding feast when the guests would not attend because they had already too many things to do; they had previous engagements and more important things to do than to sit at the table that had been provided.

If you throw open your doors to those in the streets who would come, you would alter again your appreciation of the configuration of those who gather around your table for the supper.

Elyssia: If I see somebody standing around waiting to join this group, I am sure to invite them and believe me, we live in the City of Pittsburgh, and as Gerdean knows, it's very different from the west. We have a stable, conservative population and we have people who are fearful of our wonderful teachings and fearful of our wonderful spirit guides and so believe me if somebody is around, let me know. Let me know or let any one of us know, please, or have one of the teachers nudge us so that we're open to the possibility of uniting people.

Celeste is marvelous and she talks about the book and has encouraged people to look at it and I know we've all done that.

Celeste: But that's all they've done, is LOOK at it.

Hester: Sometimes that's all they can handle.

Celeste: I know that.

Hester: In time, as they think about it and as it has a chance to work inside of them, they'll start looking for the book.

Celeste: I'll say, "I've just been reading my Urantia Book" if they ask what I've been doing, and they never ask more about it.

Hester: It took me 10 years to get into the Book after I had it.

HAM:  It is very important that in learning how to be a teacher, you give lessons applicable to your student, to the person who is presented to you. As Merium is inclined to say, "This is whom the Lord has sent." If the Lord has sent this person to you, to say to him "follow me", you must then speak to him in language he can understand.

Have you sought to find his or her level of understanding? It is the most …

Elyssia:  I'm working on this. I talked to our teacher a long time ago about a young girl who wrote a letter to me and told me she didn't believe in God and I recently made a move to give her exactly a tape from my church that I think would help her, and made a move to get a book to her which sort of testifies, it's called "The Quest for Certainty" and you understand, Ham, why that would be helpful for her, and so I'm making that move for this young woman and I know Hester and Celeste are always spreading the word in their own wonderful words. Believe me, they are very super, and I think Gerdean, too. They are super, these people here.

Hester: Thank you for the trust.

Elyssia: I've heard you do it. Urn-hum. But to actually bring them to The Urantia Book as such is not, quite, probably, what we're talking about.

Hester: Well, I feel that when they're ready, The Urantia Book will be put in their hands.

HAM:  What you must do is become walking Urantia Books. You cannot expect everyone to read that book. You cannot expect every one of the Father's children to be able to consume such a volume. The concepts are staggering to many. The vocabulary alone is intimidating. It is all very well and good for those who take it upon themselves to look up the words and study the meaning of the concepts, but those who hunger and thirst for righteousness have not got to wait until they plow through 2,000-odd pages to find the truth that you, in your heart and in your faith, have in you that is in your power to propose to them and share with them and enliven their own spiritual reality without having uttered the name of the Book or having quoted from it or having made reference to any of it's cosmology or any of that.

The truth of the gospel is spiritual in nature; end of report. You don't need books. It is the living gospel that we are attempting to proclaim. It is, of course, important that those of you who can, gain an understanding of the nature of the universe, such that you yourselves can feel a certain intellectual satisfaction in understanding that the universe is upheld and that it is peopled by personalities that can assist you and will aide the universe in its organization.

Elyssia: This is great. I think you're giving us. Kind of a commission here, and I would like to say, maybe we should study ways of talking in a helpful way, in speaking in a helpful way. But one is always concerned about sounding sanctimonious or as if you know something these other poor souls don't know. You fear you're going to blow it completely if you come across that way, so I tend to…

HAM:  Blow what?

Elyssia: Blow the chance to be helpful, if you're too open. Now we need to study this.

HAM:  Serious work to do in this community. I am glad that Tomas has taken a hiatus. It is good for him to stand back and observe what his class has been doing. It is good for Gerdean to be given a break from his dependability factor. It is important for you all to learn how to make contact with your own divine guides. As long as you continue to put the responsibility off onto The Urantia Book or Tomas or something or someone else, the longer you can put off dealing with those issues that hold you back from being all that you can be in the mission of Michael to introduce anew the gospel of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

This is the nature of our mission. The same gospel that Jesus taught, we teach.

Elyssia: Well, maybe you can ... You've been in a lot of different groups, so maybe you can describe some things that some people are doing to be all that they can be and do all they can do in reaching out effectively to their fellows. Perhaps you can give us some examples. I've always been a person who requested examples and sometimes I got a response and sometimes I didn't. We love stories.

HAM:  Yes, you do. You love stories and vignettes and anecdotes and this is a very entertaining way of taking it off of yourself and putting it onto someone else. It is a very personal matter. I have and you have heard of the many group efforts that have been done. Your group here has been effective in the EXPO project and in hosting others who visited here, various and sundry service projects. Your support of the mission in terms of financial support and emotional support is of note and yet the examples that you might seek are those examples that are so personal as to be available only between you and your God fragment, and many times you yourself are not aware of how it is that you have been able to allow the Father to operate through you as you pass by.

This is the true nature of spontaneous and dynamic religious living. It is not to hold back and curtail yourself in fear of alienating a false belief system, but rather to instill and inspire such enthusiasm for the love of God that you are contagious. Love is contagious and if you gather your wits about you from the Father, you have nothing but seeds of joy to plant and what does it matter to you if they fall on barren soil or if the soil throws it back at you? It is not for you to take personally. It is not your kingdom. It is the Father's kingdom, and all you are asked to do is to feed his sheep.

Celeste: I think they have that love in their heart. People become open. They don't have to say anything and you don't have to say anything. It just is catchy. Contagious.

HAM:  Yes, infectious and contagious, is this benign virus, but it is also helpful when you can in fact follow it up with an acknow­ledgement of what is transpiring. It may be true that two individuals can experience the mota of a moment, one of those joyous instances in time wherein the world twinkles in acceptance and delight of its very gift of being, and rather than allow that moment to pass without acknowledgement, give voice to your sincere praise of the Creator and give God his due.

Celeste: I think that's a wonderful second thing that happens, when you have this joy in your heart and connect. The most exciting thing is that you DO start to talk about it and understand one another and pray together ... (tape turned)

HAM:  ... that you love God, both of you, acknowledging his divinity and goodness, then you have established between you a frame of reference that allows you to uphold that reality evermore. It is not left to chance, then, that you have another "magical moment" but that you can from then on manifest your loyalty to religious principles even when you are hard at work in the trenches of experiential living.

Hester: Ham, I have an example that just came to me last night. I just discovered that a niece of mine, who I had influenced (so she said) way back when she was a child, is to be ordained in one of the new age churches in the next two or three weeks. She's graduating and is to be ordained and she is going full time into the ministry and she is a couple of years younger than Max was, and she has two -- she had arthritis very badly as a child, and finally had to give up her own hands, and -- she has two synthetic hands, but you know something? You'd never know it. She acts just like I do with both my hands, and she is a fantastic girl and I am deeply grateful that she called me to say, well, "Aunt, I want you to know that I've made the grade." And I think this is what you have been trying to say. You don't have to plug at it; you just have to be it.

HAM:  That will suffice for this afternoon. I remember giving you earlier an admonition that it is necessary that you spoon feed your students and we have gobbled already large mouthfuls. I am going to go back to my teacher base and enjoy their configuration and yet I am ever pleased to have been able to come here and speak with you and encourage you and to fill in for Tomas while he is taking a break.

It in fact gives us all an opportunity to move around and shake things up a little and so, flock, thank you for your hospitality. I will return you to your gracious hostess, Merium. Shalom.

Elyssia: Thank you for coming.

Celeste: We're very grateful that you came to be with us today.

MERIUM:  Hello again, this is Merium. I do wish you could see us from this side and you would indeed see how wonderful these males are, these wonderful male companions in the mission. I know I tease Tomas and here is Ham and there is Daniel and LinEl and others, almost all sounding the same, but from the eyes of the spirit, they are so colorful and so loving, you would not find them dull at all. I don't know how to paint them in more cheerful colors.

For me it is easy. I talk about opening in the windows and letting in the fresh air and in fluffing the pillows to help you feel comfortable and these are symbolisms of your culture that enable you to see me as an adjunct of the Mother who would comfort and nurture you and we look at our male associates and teachers as educators and authority figures, again from the frame of reference of the mortal and it is a distortion of the comfort and wisdom that they reflect in their very being.

There is a great strength in these personalities that give me confidence in my dancing.

I am going to give the personal teachers an opportunity to make contact with you, if you like. I see that it is getting late and we cannot stay past their bedtime, but we can certainly touch base a little bit. Would anyone have a preference to ...?

Elyssia: I would love to hear from Maugham or any of my teachers.

MERIUM:  Yes, Maugham is eager to speak to you also. Let me shove over. Just a moment, please.

MAUGHAM:  Ah, Elyssia, how good it is to be able to open myself to you and allow you to enfold yourself to me in the embrace of our deep friendship. You have been busy, my dear, by far more busy than I would have commended you to. You are deeply conditioned, however, to persist into realms of concern which you have been culturally encouraged to take upon as your doing, and you obviously learned that lesson well, but it is difficult because I would help you undo it. It -- this conditioning, this tendency to give of yourself so much that you have caused your soul to bleed -- is a call above and beyond that which is needful or even good for you or those concerned.

Your compulsion to be a good girl is a life-time compulsion based upon your early, early training. You still want to be the perfect angel, the darling of the party, the delight of all and it causes you to squirm if you have offended anyone. You are so eager to please and to be well liked. Your conditioning is certainly not unfamiliar to us or to your peers, and so once again, my dear, it is not as if to say you were alone in your reactions to life's outpourings, but you as well as millions of others, would simplify your lives immeasurably, allowing for finer-tuned relationship with your indwelling God fragment, therefore being far more effectual in the long run, with much greater ease of operation, were you not to be so / remain so constrained by your conditioning.

Elyssia: Uh-huh. I have a feeling that I'm working on my computer skills and I have this feeling that once I get it in place, I'll enjoy it, because I did enjoy it previously. It think it was about a year ago that I really enjoyed the quiet of working and writing and it was exciting and I feel it's going to happen again.

MAUGHAM:  I would encourage you to come to talk to me once you have learned how to work your machine and we could learn to engage in an intimate dialog, one with the other, and I would be happy to be able to help you to see some things about yourself that you will be a delighted to relinquish, when you see it reflected back to you from the computer screen in black and white.

Elyssia: Thank you. I think it will happen pretty soon, and I am excited about it.

MAUGHAM:  I am going to have to leave you now, Elyssia, inasmuch as there are others. My kiss upon your brow, child. I love you very much.

Elyssia: Thank you.

SPRING:  I am Spring and I am here to see my little one and to; again wash the dust from your weary travels. My child known as! Hester, how are you, my friend?

Hester: Very well, thank you. How are you?

SPRING:  Yes, I have reason to be full and in good humor. I am also impatient to be about my Father's business, and peculiarly, much of my Father's business is you.

Hester: Thank you!

SPRING:  Yes. I cherish your personality and your invigoration. You are a plucky number.

Hester: Never saw myself thus.

Elyssia:  That's perfect!

SPRING:  You, too, however, would do well to spend more time with your personal teacher, that is to say me, because I am assigned to you to, among other things, enable you to let go of those things which, like an albatross, drag around your neck and hold you down from being the delightful child that you are capable of being when you allow yourself to soar freely in the arms of the Dove.

Hester: I like the analogy.

SPRING:  The language of the spirit is unfettered, and the human condition is too often fettered with those things, those shackles and chains, which hold you to the dense material existence, the aspect of the dense material existence which gloms and clogs your spiritual arteries. You would find greater freedom in the fields of the Lord if you were to walk unfettered in the light of the sun.

It is a wonderful life to live, even as a material being, when you can find reflected back to you the truth, beauty and goodness of the I AM. It is a goal of eternity to find reflected back to you that you might reflect out also, the perfection of divinity in every iota of ideation and upon everything you look -- butterflies and buttercups included.

Hester: True.

SPRING:  Little child, return to your youth without all of that which was thrust upon you. Return to those days when you first met your spirit nature, your indwelling Adjuster, allow yourself to go back to those innocent years and allow Him to bring you up without those discolorations, without those wounds. You are weary from them. You must one day let them go and it would do you well to let them go yesterday.

I did not come to nag you. I came to encourage you and to help lift you up into the living water which I try to represent. In my name Spring I come to you once again, child, and dribble upon you my sustenance in my tears of sorrow and of joy. I give .you my word I am an extension of the living water and you are the fruit. Let us grow to great height together.

Hester: I'm willing. Ready and able. Thank you very much.

DORIAN:  Oh, my pretty girl. You seem to avoid me, Celeste. Is it because of my handle?

Celeste:  I’m not avoiding you. I never want to do that. I would like to be closer to you.

DORIAN:  Yes, indeed.

Celeste: That's what I would like.

DORIAN:  Yes, indeed. You could borrow upon the concept then of Mike's Mystery Monitor. If you were to think of me, your spirit guide, your companion, as the associate of your mortal existence, a loyal friend, an undying associate, always eager to bring to you the best, the finest, the romantic and the good, then you will have some idea of how I would like to be regarded by you. I know, of course, I am not and can never be your spouse nor can I ever compare myself to your indwelling God fragment, for I am not God and I am not Mike, but I can convey to you, I have the same feelings for you, the same sentiments, the same wishes, hopes and desires. I would be your joyous companion, one which would walk with you when you go forth into your realms and keep you company in your path through your life to your morontia existence.

Yes, it is also my job, if you will, to help you to polish your personality gems such that you give off your priceless luminescent glow and I am able, in order to glorify our Creator, and this I cannot do without you.

I want to thank you for your companionship and for your ability to be so gracious. You are also very stubborn, my dear, but your graciousness almost compensates.

Celeste: I love you very much, especially for all that you just said to me. I'm willing to go with you anyplace, anytime. Thank you.

DORIAN:  Yes, it is such a peculiar "phenomenon" to have this relationship, this liaison, and it is augmented even more by our opportunity to converse. When you think to yourself in your mind many times you are conversing with your spirit guides but you are not aware of them as being other than your own ego-identification and this cheats yourself of the companionship of many creative personalities and energies which are gifts of the loving universe to you in order to make your pathway more free from things over which you might stub your toe or stumble.

Beautiful daughter, we relinquish you from our formal communication but assuredly, all of you, your guardian seraphim and spirit guides, as well as indwelling Adjusters, are engaged in a constant overcare of you who are all precious in his sight. On behalf of the personal teachers, I return you to Merium for her final remarks.

Elyssia: But Merium, what about our darling Gerdean? She should have the comfort of this -- oh, maybe she hears it all the time! I don't know.

TRIESTE:  I am Trieste and I will insert briefly that Gerdean is as guilty as everyone of ignoring me and yet we, even so, have developed a fine-tuned understanding of when things are right and when things are not so right. When things are right, I let her go and when things are not so right, I wait for her to come to talk it over with me, for somehow she has the feeling that I am going to yell at her. Now this is her conditioning, and perhaps it is one that you all also share, but I have time and again calmed her fears and assuaged her anxieties by simply wanting to be her friend and talking over with her what she would talk over with a good friend if one were so intimate and able to hear her thoughts as I can.

Yes, my child, girl child here is doing alright. She is going through her own soul struggles and growth throes. With the addition in her life of a mate of the stature and status of Mr. B., she has finally met her match indeed, and this has thrown her into a dimension of which she has not been a part and there are many things to savor and many lessons to learn, much adjustment of power centers and energy regulators, if you will, and so we've got lots to do. She is alright.

You are all alright. Let me bow out and give you to Merium.

MERIUM:  Well, I enjoyed my role today as emcee but I didn't get to talk very much myself. I am eager to get Hunnah back on-line and then we can catch up with some of our enthusiastic response to life's many adventures. It is good to be here with you here. On behalf of other teachers and celestials, I wish you a good week and we will see you soon.

*****

DATE:  May 10, 1999

LOCATION: Pittsburgh, PA, USA

T/R: Gerdean and Hunnah

TEACHERS: MERIUM

URANTIA BOOK STUDY:

Paper 48, THE MORONTIA LIFE

#3. Morontia Companions

#4. The Reversion Directors

#5. The Mansion World Teachers

TEACHER SESSION:

TOPIC:

Live By Your Own Standards

MERIUM:   Good evening.

Group: Good evening.

MERIUM:  Hunnah is sitting here wondering if Gerdean is going to open her mouth at the same time. It is sort of two that have a piano to share and have not rehearsed, and one might be wondering if the other is going to open up this chord, but it is indeed a pleasure to be here with you this evening, and you are all like you are deliciously ripe for picking. Gerdean?

Gerdean: Yes.

MERIUM: Trooper.

Gerdean: Yes.

MERIUM:  These are not human accolades. They are stars in a crown. You have served well, but you are NOT going to be allowed to retire.

Gerdean: I didn't think so.

MERIUM:  No, but I thought that I would utter the words so that we could get them on tape.

Gerdean: Thank you.

MERIUM:  So you are not even on a leave of absence. You are simply working in the back room with heaps of paper stacked around you, with new inspiration and a sense of what comes next well established in you. Good work.

Gerdean: Thank you. I'm glad you're here.

MERIUM: Are you going to share the platform?

Gerdean: I couldn't find anybody!

MERIUM:  Alright. Hunnah has a reservation about having too much to say, but it's no longer her say. She has been sent, you might say, to her room.

Gerdean: Not because she's been naughty.

MERIUM:  No. She is a beholder, as all of you are beholders in your own way. You have been stimulated sufficiently that you can scarcely leave the house or pick up a book or answer the phone without new inspiration moving in on you. You have new eyes to see and new ears to hear and your voice has been offered up to serve indeed.

Confidence will be upon you as never before. Hunnah's friend Erata has astounded people because this has become incorporated into her natural personality. She is no longer dealing with two -- on and off. She is ON and is learning what to do with doubt. It is recognized and treated in the moment, and you have already, among yourselves, learned to do the same. You hear the error and immediately pull it out like a weed, mentally perhaps, or redesign your statement to be clearer unto what you are trying to say.

Hunnah had a teacher one time who made a very interesting statement but it applies here: "You will no longer have likes and dislikes, but you may have preferences." You will simply know what the better choice is to be and you will be comfortable with it and it will be rather effortless for you to do so. It will show itself in you as a subtle poise, and it does not really matter if anyone else notices or compliments you. It's sort of like learning to sit in your saddle comfortably, or run the machine. You sort of become so familiar with it that it doesn't seem as if it's any more than an extension of yourself into another way of doing things. Are there questions this evening?

Gerdean: I can't think, off the top of my head, of a question, not academically, but I did want to thank you for the lessons I've learned from you. I just wanted to take this opportunity.

Most poignantly, recently, you would have spoken through me at one of the meetings but I resisted what you wanted to teach, in the way you wanted to teach it, and rather than making me feel uncomfortable in any way, you said, "Well, that's fine. That's your standard. I'll find another way to get the message across." and you found another way, but it was very interesting to me, in reflection, that you just simply said, "Well, that's your standard," and it was like -- I never had noticed anyone ever before accepting that that was my standard and that that was okay. I guess what I'm suggesting is that one of the human tendencies is -- I don't know if it's competitive or what it is, but -- it seems like we always have to argue with somebody's point of view, like it's not good enough, it's the wrong one, it reminds them of their Aunt Gertrude who they didn't like, I don't know what it is, but -- maybe I'm just in appreciation of the simple grace that you manifested, but it rally wonderful and I'm still relishing that facet that ... "that's my standard."

I mean, that's such a valuable lesson to take into myself, because when I look at other people whose ideas are, to me, totally ludicrous, or completely out in left field somewhere, or their taste in clothes or food or companionship,... I can simply let it go and say: "That’s their standard." They have a right to change it if and when they want to someday, but it's not for me to say that it's wrong for them to have today -- if they're not projecting on me. Anyway, it was a value lesson that I learned in a very, very simple sentence fragment which I am eternally grateful for. I just wanted you to know that.

MERIUM:  I'm glad you shared that with us, Gerdean, because what you have said is that you have demonstrated in words what happens with this process of growth. That in the right environment there are issues that can be dealt with painlessly and everyone here that has ever been at this table has had probably a similar experience only you were able to really pick it up and look it over and see it with greater appreciation.

This is also a type of maturity. Maturity is a very abused word, but previously I said that you were all ripe, deliciously ripe, and this is an indication of your fruitfulness and when you are able to receive and use a situation as a lesson for yourself, which is sometimes like an anesthesia to make it forever easy, when you see parts of your old self showing and the new self, the new way, and how wonderfully gentle it can be, you are in this wonderful state of observation where you are utilizing the lessons and it is really interesting how you have been nearly marinated in them because you work with the transcripts by yourself and these words are almost tapped into your DNA now.

It's like -- Oh, there is a line of scripture here. Goodie, goodie. Here comes another one. "Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh." When the words are yours, they become you, you become them.

There is integration and when you use them appropriately, they are alive; you bring new life to them when you understand and have accepted this, absorbed it into your beingness, and so these lessons that you embrace -- others may completely miss it -- but as a transmitter/receiver you have a strong advantage and also a disadvantage that others do not have. And one is that there is a part of you that is listening to all this with a muzzle, or you might say a gag, and it keeps that knee-jerk reaction at bay, but on the other hand it can prick you in such a way that it will throw you out of the T/R frequency briefly, like falling off your bicycle, and you get back on.

All of you have sat around this table and witnessed various members of the group who have managed to allow transmitter/receiving, and it is not the virtue that you think it is. Part of this reason is because the configuration of their electrical impulses in their body, and it is easier for some than for others, and when this happens it is does bring indeed a sense of satisfaction to be able to deliver the mail, but on the other hand, it can create for some others, human unworthiness or it might put them in a position of criticism out of self-defense, because as Hunnah's transcript this evening pointed out, that the human authority does not want to share the line with anyone, and to have two transmitter/receivers speaking or a third party, is really similar to being in a chorus. Everyone is paying attention so completely, and enjoying themselves, and feeling satisfied with the expression of the choral composition that they are willing to be totally directed as to when to come in on cue, and so when Merium and Tomas were together, there was this development -- not a challenge but there had to be a development of poise and timing between the two. And I am mentioning this because it can reflect on into your daily life. Those of you who have a lot to say as a part of your normal personality will be tempered and you won't need the attention and you won't need to speak.

Hunnah received some beautiful words, just as you had mentioned accepting that moment, with her friend Margaret, who was advising her about writing poetry. She said, "You must honor the reader. You must give them credit for knowing something." Now this is very, very important, because when you speak of this enrichment to others, you talk to them because -- and you have moved into a new place of discourse here -- because they have a Thought Adjuster and you know it. This is your new term, and when you learned about what a Thought Adjuster was, you have been forever committed to knowing who the other fellow is and what they contain.

There is no longer any margin of error permissible because when you do miss it, you will feel the discomfort immediately, so that when you speak you don't have to spell out -- just like -- we have teachers here. They know that they do not have to teach every word. A good teacher leaves room for having a response because they have stimulated the knowledge in that individual, and when that individual can deliver what has been learned back to that, the teacher has the confidence that they're coming along. And teaching is what this is about. Once again, you have appeared to come to a place that entertains you. It is social. It is awesome. You don't know any other friends who are friendly with celestial teachers. I mean, this is a very classy group! But it is something you hesitate to talk about because they want to put you on the funny farm, but in the meantime you have been brought to a point of knowing that you are indeed whom the Lord has sent, and if you have been sent, then you better know equally that the one whom you are with has been put into a state of receptivity and that the tables can be turned and that you will be receiving through them.

This is what we call "feeding my sheep" and it's a literal interpretation. It sounds so humble and so trite, but on the other hand, it was an appropriate term at the time.

Today we would say, as you were indicating earlier, these people that you meet know they are so close and all you have to do is get closer and assist them -- and it will look as if you're not -- but it will suddenly find out that they have walked on water. They have gone where they really wanted to be simply because someone who understood and accepted them and let them know they were worthy and welcome into a new realm of life experience.

I think it is wonderful that we have met this evening. I will not keep you late unless you decide that you want to get going here and talk more, but I am really pleased that Gerdean brought this example up and allowed me to run with the ball, so to speak.

Group: Thank you.

Elyssia: That was a beautiful lesson.

Gerdean: When Tomas left he said he was going to put in for vacation. The other night the message was conveyed that he could be reached on the circuits but that he was still not around and you said earlier that, no, he had not gone to Salvington, so ... what's he up to? Do you know?

MERIUM:  Well, one of the things that he is up to is giving you a change of pace. It is very easy to get used to the way someone does something, and if all goes well, Hunnah will branch out and we will be allowed to have guests here, or you may surprise yourself. There may be guests. I am not going to reply as to where Tomas is because that will put my T/R into a spasm and we have been doing well this evening.

Gerdean: Okay.

MERIUM:  But we'll get ... how does that go? That grape song. Heard it on the grapevine. If you have access to the grapevine, we'll bring in a report later.

Gerdean: Well, if you see him, tell him I said hello.

MERIUM:  Hello is understood. Indeed I will because he will be checking with me.

Gerdean: Yes, I'm sure he will.

Celeste: I want to say hello to him too!

MERIUM: Well, thank you very much, and it was good to be back.

Group: Thank you so much, Merium. It was grand. Just grand.

*****

DATE: May 20, 1999

LOCATION: Pittsburgh, PA, USA

T/R’s: Gerdean and Hunnah

TEACHERS: Unidentified

TOPIC:

The Good Earth

TEACHER (Hunnah):  I hope each of you is enjoying your good earth and of course each of you are left to discern what that means. The good earth. And take advantage of it. I hope that each of you will take time today and will take time in the near future, to acknowledge the earth. When you are a child, it doesn't occur to you to acknowledge anything in particular. You are too busy relating to it and just accepting it as it is. So I hope that you will be able to be childlike in your acknowledgement.

Are you all sitting around with an empty bowl for me to fill? Did you bring a spoon? I would like to have someone say a word to me please, to trip the lever, so to speak. Is there a word among you?

Celeste: I don't know but at my house we've been turning the good earth, trying to plant greenery and stuff, but it really is wonderful when you start working with the earth. It's wonderful! It's such a pleasure! It wears you out but it's such a pleasure to do that for awhile.

Elyssia: We have purple flowers outside the house now and that would be the same color, or close to it, that are the color of the flowers of the mansion worlds and I was just thinking how much I like purple and then Abram and Hunnah brought me some purple flowers on a cake.

TEACHER: It's as if Elyssia's mind is almost always in heaven. And we know, of course, that our friend Abram is always thinking about food.

Celeste: Is there good earth in heaven?

TEACHER: Oh, yes, in a sense there is.

Hester: And there's a good heaven in earth, too!

TEACHER: Yes, there is, and it is up to you to develop this understanding, that it might be understood by others; and not in a teaching or preaching manner, but in a natural interaction of appreciation. But we're not going to talk about farming or horticulture this evening, but I will direct our attention to the fact that it is your springtime, a new beginning, of a new crop and the seeds that have been planted in your consciousness will be showing themselves and it is not unlike farming in this sense that you have been seeded every year and every year you have different ranges of growth within yourself.

There are some things that have not germinated and there are others that are well on their way and you are very comfortable with the area, but no matter what you have learned, each lesson can develop branches, or you might say expand and become a crop unto itself of enrichment for you. I don't want to be too vague, but you were talking about the fruits of the spirit, and all of these have been cultivated as you have entered your own personal prayer and as you have communal gathering here with us, and you have brought yourself to this refined energy pattern where you are released into a more compliant and receptive state. The argument in many areas of your understanding has left you and you are going to break ground into new interpretations and new understandings of facets of what you have learned, and many of you are living and consciously aware that you are being challenged in a particular area and you can rely on the fruits of the spirit to come forth. 

You can identify what the experience is relating to in yourself and you can apply your lessons. You are indeed in a state, all of you, of applying what you have learned. Being a student is not being a bird with your mouth open, being fed by the teacher. It is the digestion of this word and then your going out and your applying it in your daily life, whether it's the observation and appreciation of justice in your courts or if it’s the considerations that have shown themselves in your personal family life.

I am not here this evening to tell you something brand new. I am here to stir and stimulate that which is in you that it might help you to utilize your daily experiences more fully, and I must say that I am going to take advantage of my T/R and tell you that she hit the wall just recently with some things that she has been unable to identify, and when you find yourself restless and you cannot put your finger on it, it does help if you will sit down and write because a word will come up that will identify. Use it, and the first thing you know, out will pop the area of unease. It will help you target and see what wants to be released, and in this case -- and I am not hesitant to use it because you can all be enriched by it -- is an area of commitment.

What frame of mind were you in when you made the commitment? Were you just being agreeable with someone that you committed yourself to someone that you don't want to do but you don't know how to handle it, or have you taken an oath, or have you put yourself in a compromising position and you do not know how to deal with it. When you have this discomfort develop, it indeed turns out that you have chopped a pile of wood and you are about to have a home fire because you need to utilize this opportunity and burn things down until you see what is hiding or what you are to pay attention to and see and pay attention to in yourself, and your teachers and counselors are with you at all times so that you may deal with it.

If there is an area in your body that is hurting you, there are many to direct you to the supporting structure in that body that helps you, if you are this type of person, to identify an area in your life where you are not being supported, or cannot swallow, or you cannot reason with something. All of this helps you to give root to these fruits of the spirit. We call them fruits and give them names, but before they have been fruits, they have been seeds in you, seeds of righteousness, seeds of intelligent living, tools to work with that become part of you.

It says in scripture that when you learn these truths it becomes bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, and that's what happens. When you are connected with your counsel, when you are connected with your Christ mission and you are involved in exercising the blessings that you have been shown, you are successful as they become bone of your bone. You can share them with others. You know. You have lived that truth. It is yours forever and it is your mota. So I am wanting to direct you into your challenges in your daily lives, for when you find something new on the docket, so to speak, consider it a doorway, saying, "Obviously there is something going on here and I plan on picking it up and going through the door successfully because I will use this to help me know what I am to know and to be strong."

These challenges are not punishment. It isn't that you don't experience some of them weeping, but not out of punishment, but out of opportunity you need to apply what you have learned. This is your arena. This is your earth experience and we want you to be in and connecting with all the aspects of your lives. I am also going to encourage you to distinguish the difference between someone else's challenge and your own.

My friend here read an article years ago about living with someone who is depressed, and in the article it helped the reader to realize that they had only one true responsibility and it was to keep themselves strong. Therefore if they were strong, then they would be of use to that person and they would not be feeding the weakness of that individual but would be able to support the strength in them.

If any of you are familiar with Al Anon, this is something that is taught. It is presented through that medium. So whether you are dealing with a weakness of your own or with others, there is only one lesson that is always consistent and that is you remain faithful to the Christ of your being, to the quiet times, to your inner receptivity to the Thought Adjuster in you, and when you make this your primary discipline, it becomes the backbone of your daily living. It will support your legs, your back, your mind, your heart, your hands, and you must constantly remind yourself who you are serving - the man, the fleshly senses of yourself or the direction of the Christ spirit and the purpose of its mission. 

I am doing all the talking but I am here to fan you all, to billow the flames, to help you to burn away the error in your judgment and to help you become selfless and purposeful and joyfully directed. I heard you say, "Oh, I enjoy it because Merium is coming," but Merium is always, hopefully, bringing you down on your knees, to sit down next to the Christ to listen, and then when you rise, you can join the Martha, the working force aspect of your experience, with joy and with renewed vision and purpose.

Celeste: Thank you so much.

TEACHER: I cannot tell you often enough and my friend here knows herself that she is not been able to practiced what I preach the way she would like, but when you are grappling with anything, when you have gotten off the rail, gotten off track because of the human conditioning, loves a scrap, loves the frustration, loves the excitement, can hardly wait for the fire whistle, it comes forth very easily. It changes the TV station. It makes you out doing things that you don't really know why you are doing them, but while you have this partner, it seems, for a while it seems there are two of you, in time you become so unified, you must, I guess, consider the truth of your being your true partner, for you still have this sense of two-ness, and we're talking about one. 

I cannot quote the part of the bible that talks about being able to imprison this lesser way. These are my words, now. When you become absorbed for the purpose of your strength of purpose and your character and your relationships.

Leah:  I think its Romans 7.

TEACHER: If you have a background of scripture and you have read it enough and familiarized yourself with it and you find it in your inner pondering, it will slip in like a guest at an appropriate time and will strengthen you in whatever is going on. This is a very common practice of Christians who remain in the fold of the church. 

So are any of you heavy laden? Have you left your myriad concerns? You know yourself if you have gone out shopping -- and you men will not relate to this very much but -- a woman's purse can get very heavy, and she is apt to carry even more than one, and sometimes they will take the purse and dump it out and wonder, "What is this doing in there? I don't need this, that and the other thing." You take these things out and you pick up your purse and you say, "Oh, this is much, much better." This is what you need to do more often with your heart-mind, is to go in and say, "What are you carrying that around for!?" 

Elyssia:  I'm always doing that. Every other day! My husband says that my purse frightens him.

TEACHER: Does it frighten him because it becomes too empty in one particular place?

Elyssia: No. "What could possibly be in this thing?" When he carries it for me.

TEACHER: Perhaps you can surprise him. It is known among social workers that when women get older their purses get heavier because they have insurance policies and rings and things in them because they don't want to lose them, and that is a bad/scary sign, so spring cleaning is in order.

Elyssia: It's more like make-up.

Hester: Mine are keys. They're hard to get rid of.

Elyssia: Keys. To doors. That's sort of a symbol, isn't it?

TEACHER: That's a good one. Our friend has many keys to many doors.

Celeste: I don't think your purse matters quite so much as your mind.

TEACHER: Well, that's what I'm trying to get you to think a parallel is.

Elyssia: Our minds are cluttered up, I guess.

TEACHER: So you must take the scrub brush to your mind even now and then, too, but it is a discipline and you have all day to continually says, "Do I really need to be thinking about that?" In the Buddhist tradition, they have many suggestions of what to do with this itchy mind, this restless monkey. It has to have something to do, and sometimes when Hunnah is minding other people's business when she drives the car, she mentally gives herself a yellow balloon to hold. She tells herself, "Here is the balloon, take hold of it and pay attention to it." It is a way of giving that equipment something to do.

Elyssia: That's great.

TEACHER: I am not going to burden you with a lengthy chat here. I am here to refresh you on what you already know. I stimulate, and I pack a lunch when I speak to you. You go home with that proverbial shopping bag but you don't know it because it weighs very little. I fill your pockets and leave this room that you are in and when you are lifted up into it, you literally leave LOADED. Your lunch is packed and there is money in your purse and there are things that you have in your home and in your mind and it's as if we will need a program to open up on schedule.

Just as our friend opened the Book this evening to the subject of humility, doesn't it fascinate you that you can, "Voila!" There is a topic from a page that you did not plan to open to that is appropriately chosen to go with the subject that you had. So plan on this serendipitous experience. It keeps you bright and light and keeps you from getting too serious.

Elyssia: Lately I've had some success, just a little more, in connecting with people that I just sort of run up against in the outside world and I've had just a little more success because I might deliberately pause and this has been working for me a little bit. To pause at any transaction and deliberately look at this person and look very much, hopefully, into their eyes, and when I do it, there is an answer in theirs, too, and I realize that slowing down the pace of this transaction makes them notice, "Well, wait a minute. Something's going on!" and something IS going on. I'm trying to reach out and touch them, as a person, and so I've had a tiny amount of success with doing this particular thing. I want to say it makes me feel pretty good!

TEACHER: I want to thank you for sharing this because what you have just done is that you have set this pattern out for others to consider, but the magic word here is "slowing down." When you slow down, this opportunity can take place, so think about how interesting that will make an experience if you allow yourself to slow down so that the goodness that has been prepared for that exchange can enter and reveal itself, and of course you've told your side of the story, but that individual who talked to you would probably tell you, "I was talking with this woman and we received eye contact and it made such a difference." So you do not know what the repercussions are or the rewards are of slowing down.

Elyssia: You did a beautiful job of describing the way it was, and I was sitting next to a person at a big dinner. Another thing happened this weekend. I had such a feeling of compassion and love for him because of his great struggle with his genetics, his alcoholism, and I just looked at him and in my heart I said, "God bless you for trying so hard," and just let him know I prayed for him. And I felt that there was some sort of a meeting of hearts there and I think he was grateful and he knew that I was thinking about his very rough, rough road. And so it was a very pleasurable experience that stayed with me for awhile.

TEACHER: I have an analogy here and I will blend it with this sharing that you have given which is perfect for me and I appreciate it, but if you are going to set a nail in place, you have to bring down the hammer and hit it square in order for it to sit up straight so that you can repeat the procedure until the nail is all the way where you want to send it. When you are on this path consciously, there have been many looks upon you who have already wakened. There is a great deal of perturbation that is never identified because of the state of the consciousness of that individual, and then finally comes the moment when this activity appears to be picking up, but it's actually been going on for a long time. When you experience this compassion or when you receive an uplifting awareness, it is because that stroke of purpose has come down on you one more time to a point where it’s well into its mission of where it's going. Every time you allow yourself to make a generous gesture to someone of appreciation or patience or you bite your tongue, you are, in a sense, bringing down a stroke that is going to hold them upright and let them bed on their way in better shape, going along further without wilting or taking a wrong turn.

In order to get going, you need repeated strokes of confidence in order to get you there, because there are so many buffeting errors that are coming at you, whether it's a weak constitution, no self-confidence, all these things influencing, but then comes that moment when the person says, "and then I suddenly realized…" and that person becomes awake enough that they can be consciously fed.

Elyssia: That is going to be a helpful image to take along with me.

TEACHER: Watch your hands, in your daily work. Pay attention to your hands. It is so fascinating to see that you are really operating this body and there is so much going on with the body that is programmed, is pre-conditioned, but let yourself watch your hand or your whole arm doing something -- whether it is washing dishes, starting the car, putting the key in and turning -- there is a muscle of appreciation that can be developed in everything you do. I want you to be more aware of your physicality so that your spirit and your body are coming together and orchestrating better consciously. This is not a must. I am bringing it to your attention as a sort of a fun thing to do but when you do it, I hope it is because all of a sudden you look down and then you see and you will be able to come back and say, "Guess what happened!" You can watch your hands doing things and it's a very nice connecting experience.

Well, I think we have touched upon enough suggestions to stimulate you into finding your own Geiger-counter for wonderment. I wish you blessings and may you offer up your spirit at night to be taught. Do not hesitate to call each other, to keep in touch with someone who speaks your language. Thank you.

Group: Thank you.

Civilization In Flux

MERIUM:   Good evening, everybody.

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

MERIUM:  How I enjoy your parties. I wouldn't miss it. Indeed, it is always fun to be here and today is no exception. I have a guest speaker, if you will, who will entertain you in a manner ala Tomas who remains away on sabbatical. But I am here and I get to play hostess and I am most pleased to be part of your lives and this wonderful group of devoted followers of truth, beauty and goodness. One moment please.

JUBAL:  Good evening. I am Jubal. I am a teacher.

Group: Good evening.

JUBAL:  It is good to be here. I appreciate your profound patience as you await your teacher. I am inexperienced, and yet I have been around enough to remember my manners. How are you, Evangel and Ah Leah?

Evangel:  Fine. Thank you.

Leah:  Good. Getting better.

JUBAL:  We all strive, and it is the striving that matters. If we strive, we cannot help but get better. Happy Birthday, my dear Celeste. I understand it is an annual festival you undergo here.

Celeste: Thank you so much.

JUBAL:  And gracious Elyssia, it is a pleasure to meet here in your sphere. It is a loyalty you have steadfastly maintained for millennia, as it were, and the stability provided by your base here is supremely appreciated. My dear Hester, child, it is a delight to be in your presence.

Hester: Thank you!

JUBAL: You are a charming personality. Your light is very clear. It is apparent that your journey is soon to begin in earnest, and won't it be divine! All of you are on a journey. I am going to discuss, to some extent, your -- Oh, I am very sorry, Gerdean! I am overlooking your presence while I am dependant upon it. I am glad for your vocal skills and for your obedience to our yearning to be heard. As a voice on the circuits of improving fidelity.

Yes, we are going to discuss your work in the field. Your little reading this evening that touched upon the Master (but barely) indicates the job of a teacher and/or preacher is to provide the service of revealing Father God to your fellows. Some people have an understanding already of Father God. Some think they do. They are more difficult because they are lost in their intellect and it is your job to go out and find the lost sheep, even though they are supposedly found within the value system that has been their shield and armor. It is also true that if their waters are not stirred, they can become stagnant; they may have, in fact, been longing for you to come along to give them a swirl, so to speak, so that they can glimmer a new glimpse of greater reality.

You of course can be respectful of timid souls, but it is not necessary to respect them to such an extent that you give them more of your obedience than you do to Our Father who has instructed you to reveal Him in your lives, and to present Him in such a living way as to enliven the reality of your peers, your hearers.

This is a tricky business. Many of you have a tendency to see someone who is altogether, that is to say they present a good image. They drive a nice car, they have a nice home, their kids are not in trouble with the law, and therefore they bespeak a certain image, they bespeak certain "Christian values" and so you say, "Well, those people I don't need to bother with because they are fine."

What kind of a judgement is that on your part that you should look at your fellowman and say, "I will not talk to that person's God Fragment. I will not enliven them with Our Father's reality, for they are fine." Even if they are fine, the striving for perfection and the ability to share the conjoint appreciation for your association with divinity is such that you should want to embrace your fellow with all of your spiritual power and experience the same supreme love as He gives you.

This is the nature of the spiritual life. It is born of love, the desire to give love. It is not based on anything less. It is a very difficult, very, very difficult thing for you here to be always mindful of love. You are not surrounded by it. You are not encouraged in it. You are creatures of habit who have become well versed in social graces and in survival techniques, but your under­standing of divine love has only begun to glimmer as a possibility in your souls.

This flame must be fanned; it must be emblazoned upon your heart in such a way that your bonfire is able to be the torch that lights the eternal flame of those around you. In order for you to feel and promote this benign virus of love, this immortal inflammation, you must be intimate with your Source. Only the Father can feed you the coals that will stoke your fire. As you are filled with divine love, then, you will be filled with energy and you will be shown ways in which to infuse others with your passion for the dynamic life as it is lived in the spirit.

I am going to urge you all to think about how you carry the flame of the reality of the Father into your life. The Spirit of Truth that is depicted as a flame is steadily burning and ready to ignite the tiniest spark of recognition and this can grow into a mighty fire that will eventually burn away all the roughage of non-life.

And I add. And I don't mean to discourage you by such an addition, but I add, I encourage you to learn to love one another as Jesus loves you. This may not appear to be a crackling fire but a steady warm glow, the kind of fire that makes you want to pull up a chair and sit mesmerized and fascinated by its very existence. Consider pulling up a chair and looking at your neighbor with the same intent, enrapt fascination as Jesus found in his contemporaries and as he finds in you today.

Thank you for your attention. I have enjoyed my visit. I will bow out and invite our hostess Merium to engage you with any questions there may be. I will return another time.

Leah: Thank you, Jubal.

Hester: Thank you for coming.

MERIUM:  Well, that was nice. I am so much the party animal that I would like to say Thank you, Jubal, for the campfire. Now we can roast marshmallows. I am mindful of your appetites and there is cake, so I won't go into a long dissertation of my own but if there are questions it would please me to either answer them or direct them to where they might be best served. Anyone?

Elyssia: I was thinking that it would be so nice if Celeste's teacher could come in because of the fact that it's a wonderful birthday week-end for her. I know that you said that she was very stubborn.

Celeste: Who said that?

Elyssia: But he also said a lot of other beautiful things about her.

UNIDENTIFIED: It is necessary for Celeste to ask for her teacher. Perhaps it is because she is so stubborn, but it is a lesson, none the less, that must sooner or later be learned -- all of you -- and that is to address your own issues. A teacher cannot answer questions for you on behalf of another who can ask themselves. That is a matter for prayer, perhaps, but for example for someone to ask to know someone's spiritual name is incorrect.

It is necessary that the individual become an active participant in his own destiny. It is the reason for free will. If free will is not exercised on behalf of one's own faith and soul growth, what's the point of having it? Someone cannot carry you into Paradise. You must carry yourself by and through your decisions.

Now perhaps we can say that you would like to offer a gift to your friend Celeste and you know that a true treasure is a personal teacher, and so I am looking at your gentle nature, your gentle spirit, and seeing how perhaps it is that you would take it upon yourself to offer someone's personal teacher to himself.

Elyssia: That's pretty funny when you think about it. I can see that it really doesn't work that way.

Celeste: Well, I am perfectly willing to talk to my personal teacher. Always have been, always will be. I'm not stubborn at all.

DORCAS:  Indeed, you are headstrong. This is Dorcas. I am half of your home team. It is indeed a pleasure to be able to address you and to have an opportunity to bite into a bit of mota, a little mini lesson in life's mysteries and wonders.

You mistake us when we lovingly refer to you as stubborn. That is a mortal word implying mulishness and balking, both referencing the animal nature of not only yourself but of all your fellow creatures. On the other hand, my daughter, you are a strong woman who has made great decisions of a high mindal nature, and therein you indeed are wise to be headstrong, for you will not be rent asunder when some trifling wind would blow you away from your faith path which is firmly under foot. When you are given a piece of news or a portion of an insight, always turn it around and look at the other side of the coin. There is almost nothing that cannot be seen in light of the human and the divine. It is the nature of the personal teacher to work with your personality and to help it to be as well balanced and effective as possible, thus rendering you most happy, and so while the animal may be stubborn, the higher mind is firm. This is good balance, to recognize the dual nature and to appreciate the tendencies and the value of both.

Celeste: I pray that I will never resist the help of my personal teacher. Never.

DORCAS:  We join you in your sincere prayer. The resistance that we encounter is more often unconscious than conscious, but with the help of your Indwelling God Fragment and your own willingness to be brought into closer conformity with its will for you, you will be made aware of those subtleties which stand in the way of your being your most effective and honored self. It is not necessary for us to stir you up, for you are a willing branch on the living vine.

We are, Dorian and I, very pleased with our assignment, our association. You have always -- always -- proven to be companionable and integral. Many happy returns of the day.

Celeste: Thank you.

Elyssia: If we were to -- I was visualizing the teachers and remember a book I loved which was written by a little minister and he said he saw Gabriel. Gabriel materialized for him. He was materializing for him being very tall and brawny and had a gold belt. A big gold belt. And I really loved that.

And I've also been listening to these people on television who say, well, I can contact the people that passed on that cared about you and then they ask a question, "How did my son die?" or something. Very, very difficult. And they get seeming help. And I just wondered if you view that as being okay. Is that just a ruse?

MERIUM:  This is Merium. Who are you asking? Shall I find someone to address that for you?

Elyssia: If there is somebody that answers that kind of question.

MERIUM: Let me see who's here. Just a moment.

Elyssia: All right.

ROM:  Rom is here. This is Rom. I'm not a very high teacher but I've been around awhile. I'd be happy to address the subject but I'm not going to be very lofty about it. I'm a secondary midwayer, cousin, and I am able to talk about this because I have been able to see the effects of these evolving behaviors over the many hundreds of years that I've been around. Did I say "evolving behaviors"?

Group: Urn-hum. Yes, you did.

ROM:  Well, I think I will erase that word. It's not necessarily an evolution, because people have been seeing the spirits for as long as I can remember and that's a long time. The part in your textbook I will bring to your mind is the part about the wise men, and in there you might recall it talks about how it is that you have these great imaginations and how you love myths and even fantasies and it comes as no surprise to you, I am sure, to realize that your imaginations and your evolving -- yes, evolving -- spiritual realities -- are going to converge all along the way, thus your impression of your attainment in spiritual understanding is going to be visibly manifested to you by whatever means is available to your mental contraption that will give you the validation of that reality which you have found to suffice for you as a spiritual experience.

Now. I am not debunking these experiences. Some of you have seen angels. Gerdean has seen the morontia form of Michael, or Jesus as she describes the picture. This man you were talking about, this minister, has seen Gabriel with his gold belt. Now what do you suppose Gabriel has need of a gold belt for? Even, so, it was important that this minister should see him with a gold belt and therefore it meant something to him, as did Jesus in the morontia form for Gerdean, as have many, many -- I don't want to say hallucinations. These are not hallucinations -- these are manifestations of faith. They are picturizations of a confidence in a belief system.

It is like the Medjegori, when the sun is affected. These people are actually seeing the power centers do things to the sky such that, were they not caught up in their profound faith, they would be blind. But faith can move mountains. It can cover the sun. It can present images, believable images, representations of all manner of wonderful projections. This is one of the gifts of the Divine Minister, through the auspices of the mind. Error will pass away in the light of truth.

What were you listening to that radio program for, Elyssia?

Elyssia: Well, I guess I just found it quite intriguing because the people were asking questions seemed to be quite well satisfied with these answers, which I thought was amazing.

ROM:  They were looking for answers that they thought could be found in this medium. Perhaps you were looking for the Spirit of Truth.

Elyssia: Yes, certainly. I hope that I was. And yet I think I was trying to find out if there's help for these people in these terribly difficult things so many of them are connected with -- the loss of one's children, and there's so much of that now. Our society is in such disconnecting state that you just know that there are a lot of parents out there who are in difficult circum­stances and you yourself feel there is only little, thin ice. I think that. We parents are on thin ice in this world of today. The stability of our culture ... I compare it to my mother in law who lived in a little village and there was stability, and they guarded the stability of their family fiercely, and we have carelessly given it away.

ROM: No, no, no, no, no, no. We have not. You are looking at the world from the vantage point of the grandmother in the remote village with stable values and not fully appreciating that that value was indeed appropriate for that time. I was there! I knew her! I knew the neighbors! I saw the chickens. I saw the cows! I know the village! These values are and were good and necessary, but the changes that are coming about today are also necessary for the new level of stability that is to come cannot come based upon the old reality. It must be renewed.

You read about it this evening in your text. The scripture might reflect the story about new wine in old vessels. You have to appreciate the turmoil of today is an evolutionary state that is thrusting the way of life as it was last century, into the way it is going to be in the next century, and it is going to be up in the air for quite some time.

Yes, we can all long for those wonderful quiet, stable, neighborhoods and villages. The great era of tribal loyalty and clan security. But if we are to become one world, if we are going to begin to recognize each other as connected and interdependent, it is necessary that we expand our view from the village to the global and this is a large step. It will not settle down overnight.

You have to fully understand (and I will not discuss economics and sociology) but I know you understand the family is undergoing tremendous change because of the women's liberation which has been so recently bestowed and which has been so tardily given. If women had been liberated generations, had your evolution been different, your families would have experienced a different kind of stabilization. It may not have been the nuclear family that you all seem to look back on with such nostalgia, but it is en route to the greater family of man which will allow for you to love your children and your grandchildren even when they are the offspring of your neighbor or your neighboring country.

It is a far vaster outlook, and so I will say too that the young people are looking at the elders and they are as dismayed and confused about what the elders have been doing as what the elders are looking at the young people and saying, "What are they doing?" It is a dreadful communication gap which is born of the fact that each of you is saying, "My way is right and your way is wrong."

Now that can be overcome through communication skills. All communication should be not only to convey information but to seek communion with one another's soul -- ideally with and through an acknowledgement of communion with the Father of us all. These kids cannot grow up to be who their parents were. They cannot. It's not the same world. Nor is it meant to be.

I am not going to sit around this planet for another thousand upon thousand years waiting for you to evolve because you are enjoying the village life. We really must get on with our advanced spiritual strides.

Celeste: Bravo.

Elyssia: It gives one pause when you look at these things in Kosovo and the things you see, all these civilizations in flux.

ROM: Yes.

Hester: Including us.

ROM: Ours as well.

Elyssia: The world isn't quite so painful for us, although it is painful, I'm sure, but ...

ROM:  You keep yourselves sufficiently anesthetized and your self-induced programming is such that you have all rather brain­washed yourselves into believing that you are fine. And we go back to what Jubal was talking about.

Well, I think I have stayed long enough. Merium, I appreciate your flagging me and waving me over here. It is such entertainment to deal with mortals. I enjoy mortals, you know. I’ve been around them for so long. I, however, don’t want to take away from your job as teacher and take over your soapbox so I will bow out and wave you goodbye. I’ll be back later. Thanks! Have a piece of cake for me. Happy birthday!

*****

[End of Vol. III, Part 13 of 13]