BUTLER, PA, USA

VOLUME IV, Part 11 of 13

*****

DATE:                        October 20, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:              TOMAS, MERIUM

TOPIC:

Broken Home

TOMAS:        Daughters, it is I, Tomas, and I am with Merium.  We are here in obedience to your faithful attendance at our gathering.  It is always a joy to be with you and it makes our hearts swell with gladness when we see you come to attend to your spiritual growth and the furtherance of your fellowship in understanding of your need to know yourselves in the fullest extent possible. 

You have been outpouring your hearts and souls in confiding trust of one another this evening, in some areas of tenderness and human suffering.  We are glad when we can bring the truth to bear on these moments, poignant as they are, in order that some clarity may prevail in your hearts and minds as to what it is that you are experiencing.  Balance is the lesson here, based upon your dual nature, the human and the divine, and based also on the background you bring to bear on the situation.

Let us go back, all the way back to the Garden and the destruction of the family unit in which your homes would have had a proper origin.  It is in some ways easy to point the finger and say, "Look what they did.  Adam and Eve."  But we can no longer allow for that blanket condemnation, for it bespeaks an attitude of, "Look what they made me do!"

And although it is appropriate to take into account the deficiencies resulting, as a result of the Adamic Default and the fall of the Garden, it is also incumbent upon you now as children of God in contact with your divine Essence and in company with the Divine Minister as well as Michael, to bring into your awareness this sense of balance.  That which was, that which was not, balanced against that which will be and that which can be because of your balance today -- your balance between your two natures -- that in you which is your cultural inheritance as an evolving human being of the realm, as well as that in you which is of divinity and aspires to perfection. 

Somehow these words of mine this evening do not seem to reach all the way down into the depths of your emotional angst and concern, but it will enable you to bring a perspective to the poignancy to your pain and the dysfunction within you that gives rise to such pain. You cannot compare what is, with what you would like for it to be, without some distress. You cannot compare how it is, with how it would have been without regret.   What you must do is look at what is.  What is may not be what you want, but it is what is, and that is what you work with.  Within the parameters of what is, you will discover what is good. That which is good is that which you can work with.  As in any truth or any truth-seeking situation, and as the Master taught, if you add to what is real, true, beautiful and good, that which is unreal, that which has a lesser value, or even a destructive purpose will fall away by its own inertia and lack of reality. 

It is very difficult to keep your eye on the prize of the highest good when you meet with so much infidelity of purpose.  Rather than constantly attempt to understand the lesser purpose, utilize that energy to focus on your purpose, which is to know God and to learn to be like Him.  If you are truly focusing on your purpose, you will not have overmuch time for emotional conflict about whether or not others are following this same path.  And if you are in contact with Father, you will be guided as to how it will be appropriate for you to be of service to those you love, those you concern yourself about, and in ways which are appropriate to our Father's will.

Your concerns are very viable and important concerns, for you are discussing the framework of family, and even though human families are cultural dramas played upon the field of mortal existence, they bring to bear upon the human experience those values which are in fact eternal.  And so these things which you struggle with are things of lasting value.  If they were only material considerations, they would not hold such emotional fascination.

 

There is much work to be done in this realm of family, this appreciation of relationship.  It cannot be resolved in one evening, and yet we are glad of the occasion to bring into our working arena a topic which extends beyond the realm of male and female.  As we come into family, we come into group, and this throws a new light on the subject.  Are there questions this evening?  Joniel, it would seem you are spokesperson.

 

Joniel:             Well, concerning my daughter, I was just wondering if I should at this time be detaching from her or should I be there for her, supporting her.  We were reading about detachment and it seems like I couldn't just leave her in a jam, but I was just wondering what you would be suggesting.

 

TOMAS:        It is very hard for you to understand detachment, for you perceive the word as an un-involvement bordering on callousness.  Detachment is not a situation wherein you do not care.  Detachment is a condition which allows you to care more effectively because it does not provide those tentacles that envelop and choke the clarity so necessary for effective relationship.

 

And so perhaps in respect to your vocabulary, you could yet rummage around and find other descriptive words of the stance you need to take in order for you to ring your best efforts to the situation without allowing yourself to be "sucked in" to the quicksand, the emotional quagmire of the confusion of the immature personality. Perhaps "adult" is a good word.  And let us use the words I used earlier, that being an interpretation of the Master's technique of allowing for the value to be and allowing that which has less value to fall away.  In asking the Father to guide you in terms of what is of value in your daughter, it is necessary for you to see wherein your help is going to be most effective. 

 

When it is said that the parent brings children into the world as gifts for the Father, what do you suppose that means?  In bringing forth sons and daughters for the Father, to carry on the legacy of love into light and life, in order that they may share in the experience of the adventure of eternal ascension and mortal existence, this is the life, the true life, that they have been born for.  This is the legacy you, as a child of God, can bring to your children. 

 

It is, of course, important that they learn how to have a meaningful human existence, but it will never be a meaningful existence until they can associate their life with value and the highest value is in that relationship that exists between the child and the Eternal Parent, that indwelling God fragment that lives within you.  That is your primary function also, to introduce your children to their Parent in heaven.  That is the Parent that parents you both, and that will accompany you through out your eternal career into eternity, all the way to Paradise.  Herein you have a companion in your child or in your parent. 

 

As far as your responsibility to them as human beings, you have met your duty in doing that.  If they cannot or will not accept that awareness, then you must wait as patiently as their Thought Adjuster must wait for this day to arrive.  If you are asking how much should you give your child in terms of emotional support or financial support, I would have to refer you to our Parent for those guidelines.  I would only admonish you to be adult in your dealings with this young adult that you have brought into existence physically, and now awaits being brought into existence spiritually, by their decision to advance.

 

Establish, therefore, an example of one who has been born of the spirit, and manifest in your life those fruits of the spirit which speak of the vine and the branches.  This is not rhetoric; this is reality.  Has it been helpful?

 

Joniel:             Yes, very much.  Thank you.

 

TOMAS:        Our hearts enfold you in your efforts to understand ideals of family life.  In attempting to assimilate a sense of value into that which is temporary, I will, along those lines, admonish you that many of you deem your relationships as sanctified when they are merely functional.  The romantic nature is often inclined to raise relationship up into heights of grandeur unattainable by the human animal. 

 

Be therefore not unrealistic in your expectations of your human associates.  It is ever true, the ideal of home and family life is a mortal goal and on occasion it can be a fact.  When those factual occasions occur, rejoice in them, and indeed work toward your next "family reunion" but remember that it is a human institution, comprised of human beings, and even though you are all indwelt with divinity, you are also born of the flesh and your lives re thus complicated and also thus enriched by the nature of your very being, your dual nature, and so whereas our hearts go out to you, we can only help you forbear in your condition, your human condition, of attempting to integrate your animal nature with your spiritual aspirations.

 

Be kind to yourself and to those you find yourself associated with in these mortal conditions, in these human areas.  If you were all gods, it would be much easier, and when you were all animal, it was also much easier, but in this interim state of being, there is much conflict and much discernment and much wisdom required in order to live peaceably with one another.

 

Take time often to consult with the Father as to what he would have you do, if anything, and for consolation and comfort in his present and in the nurturing care of the Divine Minister, the Universal Mother Spirit.  The balance and harmony by and through these beings are sufficient to create in you a peace of mind, a peace that passes all understanding, even in the face of your mortal dysfunction and cultural distress.

 

Comfort one another, those of you who see and appreciate your plight.  Therein will you be given strength in order that you might prevail in those situations.

*****

 

DATE:                        November 3, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean

TEACHERS:             TOMAS, MERIUM, MICHAEL

TOPIC:

Your Souls Unfolding

MICHAEL:    This is Michael, your brother, your teacher.  My friends, my loyal friends, be with me for a moment while I spend a moment in time with you, you who have been called, you who have been chosen, you who have made the commitment to answer the call to serve in this army advancing in spirit reality.  Remember that many are called, few are chosen, only because they have not chosen.  Your assignment is to go among men as one who has been selected to serve me in my mission of saving souls, of finding lost sheep, of instilling in my children a realization of their place in our family, my Father's house.

 

When you remember your calling, as you go forth, I do go with you.  It is my wish that you begin to perceive the true reality of those who turn to know me personally and yet have been afraid to step out of their bondage of tradition and convention.  Let them know that I am able to comfort them and I will not require more of them than they are able to handle.  Remind my children that they are loved, as loving parents love their little ones.

 

I will not burden you with analogies you have heard many times, but encourage those who look to you as if they see in you a light, for indeed they do.  Many will not see your light at all; pass them by, in love.  And those who you are called to comfort in merciful ministry, do so in my name, but encourage and counsel those who would know me better.  You who are my ambassadors have established yourselves as ones who have been with me.  If you have been with me, you have been loved and accepted as the divine child you are becoming, and your mortal frailties are understood and are temporary.

 

As mortals, you may companion one another, comfort one another, be jovial and gay, but always open your arms to those who would appear to be outside, yearning to come in, for remember those who stand at the door and knock will be entered unto, and so, open your soul to the light of the Father that will embrace the new sheep into the fold.  Our family will grow. Like all families, we will find challenges.  Mortals are querulous, but when you have been with me, when you have felt my love for you and the kind of divine love that passes understanding and definition, it is enough to know that you have shared this Essence of Reality.

 

Even though in the course of time it will evolve and you as a group of people will also evolve accordingly, I am not so concerned at this point with the development of your social structures as brethren. [Long pause] My daughter Gerdean is reluctant to delve further, but Gabriel appoints .... [Another T/R block] We will let this go for now.  Practice, then, seeing what you have been taught to see.   Listen to what you have been taught to hear for, and rejoice in my bidding.  Good evening.

 

Group: (Joniel, Leah, Rachel and Gerdean):     Thank you, Michael.

 

TOMAS:        I am Tomas.   It is good to be here in the wake of the conscious presence of our Master, Michael, and in the atmosphere of stillness and appreciation.

 

Group:            Good evening, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        Yes, good evening indeed.  It is always a bit of an adaptation in re-configuring our arena, our format, when we have been in such lofty places, in the precious presence of our Prince's Prince.

 

There has been much excitement in your arena and in other arenas as well as we begin to see the fruition of many, many years efforts.  You are precious and dear, each of you.  It is so thrilling to behold this time of evolution on Urantia. You must trust our perspective that allows for you to see the lights that have come on in your personal lives as a result of this new era, this new dispensation, allowing for light and life in your very lives.

 

Isolation has indeed ended and we rejoice to see your connections being made.  It is our fervent hope that you will continue to maintain a connection with divinity, that you will continue to remain charged by the energy of reality, that you will not bask in the light of the sun and become complacent.   But it is such an opportunity to rejoice, at these peak times of accelerated growth and appreciation of awareness of the growth that gives this perspective its greatness.

 

It is so marvelous to behold your souls unfolding, your pilot lights becoming brighter, your yearning for fellowship reflected in your growing society of kingdom believers, your concerns about honesty, compassion, gentleness, spirit -- all these wonderful realities which are part of your true self.  We are encouraged, but even so, we are mindful of much work which will be required while we develop and while we withstand the whirlwinds of confusion and fear that await the environment of the doubtful, the skeptics the disbelievers. More and more it is necessary now for you to return to your citadel of the spirit, to base yourself in the Father's love and solid care.   In this, Michael's spirit of truth will be able to anchor you in reality and support you as you are pummeled with the materialistic viewpoints in their maelstrom.

 

My many ponderous words and our relative serious atmosphere must not be construed as anything less than divine joy, for we rejoice greatly in the turn of events, in the state of affairs, in the on-going and growing status of the brotherhood of man, under our Father.  In our rejoicing, may I pause then to inquire of you, my lovely friends, if you have any questions or any commentary to add to our format this evening.

 

Rachel:           I'll comment, just -- In my meditations it seems, whenever I ask what is going to be coming up for the millennium, the message seems to be "stay here, stay focused, stay grounded" so I guess you are running along the same lines here.  Be prepared?

 

TOMAS:        Yes.  Be prepared.  It is very easy to become embroiled in the energy currents of other realities, and in fairness this is not entirely discouraged, but you, in order to be effective, when he comes "like a thief in the night," to be prepared, and if you are caught up in other realities, you might miss those growth opportunities, for you and for others, that would be a disappointment to your soul's hunger and thirst for righteousness.

 

Many lesser realities are alluring and even have relative value, but there is also much hysteria with mass movements.  Be mindful of my admonition to be integrally inter-dependent upon our Father in stillness and in and through his agencies which you are familiar with and which you recognize by the nature of your own indwelling God fragment.   In other words: you will know reality when you see it, and you will be aware also of that which is intriguing and alluring but which is not of lasting value.  As you can ascertain the difference, then you can act accordingly and be effective for the Father and for his children at this time. You see.

 

RACHEL:      Um-hum.  There's a whole lot of mass hysteria bubbling.

TOMAS:        The pace is quite heady already.

Rachel:           Yes, it is.  Ethan's quite caught up in it.

TOMAS:        He is not alone in that.   It is virtually intoxicating.

 

Rachel:           I had a question.  Say, all right, there are predictions with a recession, a depression that will hit. I guess I'm back to the same old question: Does the Father provide for everything?  Do I have to worry about my food?

 

TOMAS:        The Father is in control and you have nothing to fear, and that, of course, is an idyllic statement to a human being who has also a human element to consider, and this human element is enabled to survive by and through certain instincts which call for certain securities, like food and shelter, safety, security. (One moment please)

 

[We interrupt the proceedings for the regular Tuesday-evening visitation by Hesch, our "homeless" friend]

 

Jesus was more familiar with the human condition, and he, knowing how cause and effect work, being more familiar with the laws of the universe and the out-workings thereof, warned you when he said that to follow him was the sure pathway to trouble, and so you may not assume that when "Armageddon" strikes you will not be affected, for this is precisely what we are discussing and already, you see, you are affected, but you also see that Michael is with you and has been with you even now, this evening, and this afternoon .

 

You may be assured of his loyal support and comforting presence at all times, even when life is difficult.  You may therefore anticipate adventures, but you may also realize you will be able to not only withstand them, you will be able to enjoy them with the appropriate perspective.  Again, this is why I am encouraging you this evening to remain focused, to continue to practice your stillness exercise of communion with Father, of the effects of worship.

 

Rachel:           They have been quite effective lately.

 

TOMAS:        It is indeed wonderful to see you being effective and to realize your reality.  It is part of why we are so jubilant as we see your souls unfold and behold your work in the field and your own rejoicing of the greater reality becoming more and more manifest in the lives of your fellows.

 

Rachel:           I wish we could see it from your perspective.  We don't get anything on the news of anything good happening.  We very seldom hear of anything good happening.

 

TOMAS:        You will be hearing more and more good news, but you will need to be apprised in advance of where you may hear this good news, for the old system continues to browbeat you with the trauma of life and the tragedy therein, and these sorts of broadcasts are only effective in creating anxiety and in establishing barriers around you that press out against the fear and the negativity.  Essentially they are tiring, exhausting and non­productive, and yet when you are brought into an awareness of those channels where the good news is being broadcast, you can let down your barriers somewhat and allow yourselves to bask in the trickle of the living waters.  You yourself are a broadcast.  And when you begin to realize where you can go to get good news, you will go there eagerly and readily and feed upon that channel, that Source which will provide you with the food and the stimuli that you crave.

 

Rachel:           Well I come here and I go to Pittsburgh and I have the Book and I have my daily meditations, so ....

 

TOMAS:        You have a good support system.

 

Rachel:           Yes, I am truly blessed. I wish my sister had a support system like this.  I'm hoping she will find one.

 

TOMAS:        Yes.  Earlier you and we discussed the growths of the spirit in these recent times. They have indeed accelerated in a fairly short period of time, and in-as-much as isolation has ended, the benign virus of love is spreading rapidly, and so whereas your sister may not have the precise, accurate support system which you enjoy, she will certainly be brought into contact with others of like mind and similar character at that level of understanding of spiritual reality.

 

Rachel:           I had forgotten about that: co-incidental meetings with others. That's good.

 

TOMAS:        The new baby must sometimes be spoon fed pablum before it graduates to mashed potatoes and then eventually to string beans.  We will have her munching salad very soon.

 

Rachel:           Oh, goodie.  She will have to share that with me.

 

TOMAS:        Be patient and remind yourself on her behalf and on behalf of the others that you teach and preach to, that you also remain the student, and therefore what can you and they learn together. Let us pray! And in your mutual prayer, you conjoin in the thrilling acknowledgement of your fraternity, and this gives credence, living reality to your divine family association.

 

We are hoping, in OUR social circles, to start a fad of more prayer, in particular among those of you who know the Master.  Speaking intimately with the Great Friend is a way of bringing your spiritual life to the fore, much like your fad of appreciating angels has been.  And it is easy enough, having shared a moment of prayer with someone, to revert graciously to food or joking like humans do, and this takes the onerous off of a religious life.  Sacred is one thing; somber is quite another.  Rejoice in the Lord!

 

Leah:              Tomas, every week a personality shows up downstairs while we are having this meeting. Just briefly, a short while ago, Michael was talking about those who stand outside yearning.   I keep on feeling the impulse that there is something we are supposed to act on here, but I don't really know.

 

TOMAS:        You are witnessing the response of the man's indwelling spirit. His Adjuster is active, alert, alive and well and responsive.  His mind is not what it once was, but he is aware enough of himself to be led to your gatherings.   It is the human condition that denies him access, but he is also psychically resistant, and so you have "the Adjuster's problem" personified in this neighbor who visits you every Tuesday evening.

 

He is an emissary of our Father to you, child.  Every Tuesday he comes to acknowledge your spirituality.  He can feel and sense and see the light of truth that emanates from the personality of Leah, Gerdean, Rachel, and Joniel, as well as those others who apply themselves to development of their spiritual reality, and so an acknowledgement of his indwelling Reality and respect for him as a human being is all that is required.

 

If he yearns further, and enters the door that you have opened, then it will be appropriate, but do not feel remiss in your relations here.  You are sensitive and have not denied him access, and so be at peace and watch the unfolding as it comes.

 

Rachel:           Tomas, were you saying you would like us to pray more as a group?

 

TOMAS:        I am not adverse to your praying more as a group, but I would like to see you praying more individually, and allowing for prayer to become an integral part of your social life, as a way of bringing God into your social arena.  It has been a custom for a long time in Christianity to say, "God willing" "God bless you" and the like. "Thanks to God!" "Via Con Dios". These kinds of phrases.  But they have not been developed.

 

I am not suggesting you become offensive; I am suggesting that as you can, with those you know, be at ease and feel free to include Michael in your discourses.   Remember that prayer is not always a formal petition. Prayer can be a cry for help, a song of praise, a testament, an affirmation, a grace.   Prayer can take many forms, but it is nice when you can acknowledge Michael and our Father in all aspects of your life, as naturally with others as you do, assumedly, with yourselves.

 

If you are developing a practice of including Jesus in your commentaries, you will be less likely to become cynical or vulgar, and this is another way of allowing yourself to abstain from getting caught up in the arena around you.  Do you see?

 

Rachel:           Um-hum.  I see.

 

TOMAS:        It is also a testimony of faith and for some reason you mortals are uncomfortable in manifesting your faith.  Perhaps it is because of those of you who have an understanding of it are aghast at the seemingly hollow manifestations of faith on the part of others.   It is immaterial as to why you are not more overt in your manifestations of your spiritual reality; it is worth looking at. Is it perhaps because you have fear of spiritual pride? Or comfort in false humility? At any rate, let's drag it out and look at it because it will make you more effective in your social arena.

 

Rachel:           Bring it out of the closet, so to speak.

TOMAS:        So to speak.

Rachel:           Bring your religion into your daily life.

 

TOMAS:        Yes.

Rachel:           Rather than just occasional topics here and there.

TOMAS:        Yes.

 

Rachel:           Yeah, I was thinking about bringing prayer, today, into the school.   It would be so nice if the children could pray again in school.

 

TOMAS:        Yes.

Rachel:           Publicly.

 

TOMAS:        It would indeed. It would be nice also if your society were to offer respites into worship as many other cultures do.  You do not make religion a part of your lifestyle in America, except, of course, on Sundays, Easter, and Christmas.

 

Rachel:           They go in droves, to make up for the entire year.

 

TOMAS:        It must become, and will become, a way of life -- a constant and steady rejoicing of walking with the Master.   If we all begin to walk with the Master, then he will be able to show us what steps we can take as a people after we have learned how to work together and not resist and fight each other in our faith.   Prayer is effective, and love is more contagious than hate.

 

You, who have been called, have within you the capacity to courageously forge ahead.  "Even the stones will sing out" and your voices are not held down by the solid mass of mortality, for you have been born again, born of the spirit, raised up.

 

It is a joy to be with you, my children, my friends.  It is a joy to see you working in the field, ministering to your flock, and nurturing your siblings.

 

Rachel:           Tomas, before you go ....

TOMAS:        Yes.

 

Rachel:           I am still struggling with having patience, waiting upon the Father.  For my employment.   I'm feeling out of service now, and a little bereft. Adrift.

 

TOMAS:        Why don't you then, in conscious faith of his attendance and loving overcare, take the bull by the horns and go do something about it? If you attempt to aid the Father in aiding you, it may give him then an opportunity to open a door, and yet it is necessary for you to make the decision.

 

Rachel:           I'm just not sure where to go with this.

TOMAS:        And have you asked him in stillness?

Rachel:           Not in that way.  Alright.   I'll keep pondering.  Asking.

 

TOMAS:        Ask him how you might serve.  What university would he have you attend? What warehouse would he have you go to? What camel would he have you ride? What adventure would he have you experience in order that you may continue to be of service to him and to his children?

 

Rachel:           Okay.  Thank you.

TOMAS:        Thank you, daughter, for your very being.

Rachel:           Oh, thank you for your very being, Tomas.  This is great encouragement.

 

TOMAS:        I am grateful to Michael for the opportunity to become your friend at this point in your ascension, for we will now be comrades eternally. What a bounty!  Are there other questions or concerns? You are very quiet, Leah and Joniel.

 

Leah:              Well, I just went on a long trip and I was wondering why I did it, particularly, and maybe I needed to do to prove to myself that I could do something by myself.   I don't know.  Would you care to comment on this?

 

TOMAS:        Yes, as an armchair psychiatrist, I can see that you are learning to enjoy your freedom.  You are no longer tethered to your marital constraints and you are discovering that life is an adventure and the road before you is inviting.  You are able to follow your instincts and incorporate your own identity into your own destiny.   It is an exhilarating liberation, Leah, and you are growing immeasurably as a result of your decisions, and your confidence is also developing.   It will also reflect, in due course, in your faith as well, for you will see clearly how well overseen you are.  Your world is blossoming; you are blossoming. Be the blooming flower of perfection that you are designed to be, beautiful girl.

 

Leah:              Thank you so much.

TOMAS:        Praise to God for the highway of life.

 

Leah:              Yes. I say -- when I go -- I kind of say, "Bless everyone I pass everywhere." I hope that works.  I don't know.

 

TOMAS:        Yes, it does.  Now you must tell them personally.

Leah:              I'll be stopping and going forever!

Rachel:           You're on a mission!

 

Leah:              I enjoyed it.  I know that I was guided and protected on this recent trip and I am very appreciative of that. There's no doubt in my mind.

 

TOMAS:        This is a very difficult lesson for mortals to learn and you have a decent handle on it.  You can sincerely teach this truth to many.

 

Leah:              I hope I can. Thank you.  Praise God and God bless you too, Tomas!

 

TOMAS:        Speaking of smiling, Merium has not jumped ship.  She has been with me most of the time this evening and we are still in cahoots.  We are working the turf.

 

Leah:              Could she say a word or two?

TOMAS:        Let me see.  One moment.

 

MERIUM:     Divine little girls, this is your big sister, Maid Merium.  How wonderful you are and how good it is to be with you in this little soiree.

 

Rachel:           Welcome.  So nice to feel you again.

 

MERIUM:     I have been VERY active.  My friend Hunnah has been dragging me all over the countryside.  We have been, however, intent upon interests of a spiritual nature that do not, as a rule, enter into such a formal configuration as we have enjoyed in this parlor and in our pumpkin patch, but this is no anxiety on my part, for I, like you, am content to be about our Father's business in whatever way he sees fit to allow me to serve. What a generous Creator we have, who give us such diverse personalities and then gives us permission to BE that personality!

 

It is not my intention to stay long.  I will however be here a moment. Perhaps I can have some time with Joniel this evening since she has been so quiet here.  Shall I tell you a story, little girl?

 

Joniel:             I'd love to hear one.

MERIUM:     Would you like to hear a story about a car?

Joniel:             Sure!

 

MERIUM:     I know nothing about cars.  [Group laughter]

Joniel:             You tricked me!

Leah:              That's alright. We don't really know much about them either!

 

MERIUM:     I don't know why I suggested such a thing.   Perhaps you have "car" on your mind.   I am glad, however, to have gotten a chuckle out of you.  It is always good to hear my babies laugh. There is nothing more thrilling to me than to hear your happiness emitting in a warble of joy. Most of you are deprived of warbling joy, and it is also a form of prayer. To emit happiness as a loved child, faith child, free from fear and in radiant light, is a reflection of the Father and the Mother, and you are invited to attain that state of mind and being as often as is possible for you to remember.

 

Group:            Thank you, Merium.

MERIUM:     Good night, little birds.

*****

 

DATE:                        November 10, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:             TOMAS, MERIUM

Group:                        Hunnah, Gerdean, Leah, Joniel and Rachel

 

TEACHER SESSION:

TOPIC:

Loyal Companions

 

TOMAS:        We are your loyal companions. Think a moment what that means — loyal companions.

 

In the beginning, Our Father was the original I AM, the First Source and Center of all things ... and beings. And there was none ... beside him -- the existential I AM of infinity.

 

That which is of the original I AM is apportioned accordingly throughout the universes of time and space. Therein, you live and breathe and have your very being; thus, we may each say, "I AM of the I AM" - perfect and eternal. And yet, in order to have relationship, there needs to be another, and thus is born a loyal companion.

 

You each here are the loyal companion of one another, in truth ... in-as-much as you are all indwelt by a portion of the original I AM, thus connecting you ... in the spirit... and the extension of you, the material physicality of you, the dense aspect, the actual physical part of you, you of animal origin -- are, even so, associated and related by the grace of Our Father and by the fact of your physicality, your human experience, your mortality, your life in the flesh, your emotional composition, your frame of reference for your origin also.

 

Within that framework of the human and the divine, lay all the potential of eternity, and so within you each is a seed which gives rise to infinity and an infinity of infinities, in being and in creation.

 

Loyal companions, indeed. How we embrace you. How we yearn for the greater embrace. It is good to be in your midst. All of us who attend to you in your growth ... in the spirit... in the universe ... rejoice to recognize you in our customary configuration in the berry patch of Butler, Pennsylvania, America, Urantia, Satania, Norlatiadek, Nebadon, Orvonton, the Father's House.

 

I have enjoyed stretching myself... into further realms of time and space by and through your computer network. It fascinates me to behold this perspective through the mind of Gerdean and others who are beginning to perceive this vast network with yet more vision. Forward-thinking men and women who will indeed lead us into the early age of light and life. I am finished.

 

MERIUM:     Good evening, everyone. It is good to be with you again. You had your worldly lesson taken care of before we joined you, in "girl talk." Hunnah told me this evening she came to pay honor to the teachers. We appreciate that. A great deal is going on. A solidifying of many lessons, new awareness, less urgency. You will go in and out of these experiences.

 

Once I asked you each without asking for a report: "Why do you gather" If I ask that question in May, you will have one answer.   If I ask it again this evening, perhaps your reasons would have changed. You understand, of course, that one of our guidelines was to get you all in contact with your appropriate guidance. There is guidance for so many levels of awareness. Guidance for your daily routine, guidance that will bring you into the deep mind that we have discussed.   We want you to develop this -- not dependency -- this awareness that you have the capacity to check in with the tightness of the moment. The appropriate decision. And many times when you are faced with a decision, any one of your choices would be all right because you will carry with you the ability to discern what is best in that particular scenario.

 

I heard you discussing "What doctor will I go to?" If you go to a doctor and you acknowledge the truth of his being, he will serve you in a way -- unconsciously -- that perhaps even surprised himself with his dialog of the visit. You will be tapping in on his refined awareness; it will be married to his worldly knowledge and his decisions will come forth in a manner that will be in your best interests, so you do not have to worry. If you were to try to make the decision at this point, in trying to go in the wrong direction, you would be led away. So therefore, allow yourself to say, "This is whom the Father has sent." We have to assist you in this business of the good guys and the bad guys. When you are serving the Christ and being guided through the Christ, how can there be any choice except the right choice? There are many right ways to do something. You tire yourselves and sap your strength with your many decisions.

 

I heard it said this evening that you have been slack in going into the quiet. Hunnah joins you in her agreement. We will join you in this agreement. This is the way it IS here. You know very well that the best day is the day when you consult your inner pilot frequently.

 

You are never left begging, stressed, and when you consult this quiet stillness, when you allow your house to be put in order from within, everything you need is there: humor, release -- no need to go at your day like it had some sort of a finishing line. Like many people, Hunnah keeps a list of things she wants to do that day and often sits and looks at it in dismay and thinks of how busy she was but the list is scarcely touched; she is busy doing other things. A list is allowed to be elastic -- unless you know there is a deadline, but it is all right. The most important thing on your list should be that you have a joyous day, that you really do, thoroughly, allow yourself to allow yourself to enjoy yourself. You have heard that expression that usually comes from having applied "effortless effort".

 

My chit chat is not new, but I hope I have woven a new design so that I might keep your attention. I have not asked for questions for some time. Questions are something humans like to have because they can procrastinate with them. They keep them very busy asking questions and we know that many of these questions are superficial. They are dawdling. I would rather have you come and just be quiet. Quiet and comfortable together, and then your whole being would be like the thousand eyes that would be alert to show you what you need, where you need it, when you need it and amusement and delight would also be focused upon you.

 

Imagine yourselves this week as being tattooed invisibly with little eyes that keep an eye on things for you. Hunnah had an amusing experience today. She was to drop a paper off to a friend, and as she approached the door, her friend said to her, "I just paged you!" and she called it The Angelic Service that brought Hunnah to her door so promptly -- that serendipitous timing that you deny yourselves too often. It creates what you call "fun" amusement at this wonderful Secret Service, you might call it. SO if you have not been having serendipity in your life, then say, "Tsk tsk, What can I do to bring my friend, Serendipity, back into my day." It is allowed.

 

I think I have hogged the floor, but it feels good to speak again, as I am the bringer of good news.

 

Rachel:           Yes, it is nice to have you back around.

 

MERIUM:     You fall asleep when we say, "We love you, we love you, and we love you." You hear so much of that.

Leah:              Not enough.

MERIUM:     But, what we bring when we come is the reality that you and we are one. Only we don't have traffic lights and hungry bellies. Tomas?

TOMAS:        Yes, Merium.

MERIUM:     How's it going?

TOMAS:        Well. Are there questions this evening?

 

Rachel:           My mind's a blank.

MERIUM:     That is very good!

Rachel:           [Laughter]
TOMAS:        We will resolve that situation by taking a brief intermission.

 

[Intermission]

 

MERIUM:     Happy birthday, Gerdean.

Gerdean:        Well, thank you, Merium!

 

MERIUM:     I like the way you describe your earthly number. I will not repeat it on the tape because it's no one's business.

 

Gerdean:        Oh, well, everybody knows!

Rachel:           (laughter)

MERIUM:      Well, if you type it, everyone will know!

 

Gerdean:        I've already told everybody. For a week I've announced it. I'm going to be

nifty-for.

 

MERIUM:      Years ago Hunnah said in a poem what it was like to be 50-something, but it was a very nice report of what it was like to be that age. Perhaps you might try that yourself. Write down the virtues of having been here this long. That will amuse you.

 

Rachel:           That's a good one.

MERIUM:     You will say funny things like, "I still like peanut butter." (If you do.)

Gerdean:        Of course!

 

MERIUM:     It is interesting how much of your appreciation will be ageless in the human sense.

 

Gerdean:        Well, as long as I'm still in the flesh and as long as I'm still a child ...

MERIUM:     A girl. A girl! A girl, or if you say, "I am a girl," you become ageless.

Gerdean:        I also become a gender!

 

MERIUM:     And if you say you are a boy, it means that you are youthful. That's all.

Gerdean:        Child.

MERIUM:     No. No, no, no. Youthful. Youthful is an attitude. It contains enthusiasm.

 

Gerdean:        Yes! I am! Childlike.

MERIUM:     Absolutely. No, you are youthful.

Gerdean:        Okay.

 

MERIUM:     Unless you are ... Never mind.

Rachel:           Aw, come on, Merium.

 

MERIUM:      A child has a bandage on its knee, hair has fallen lose out of the braid or whatever, shirt is hanging out, and usually making a great deal of noise. Are you a child?

 

Gerdean:        Sometimes. Childlike.

 

MERIUM:     Childlike means that their mind is not contaminated with the weighty distractions of programming. They see and savor and delight. That is the child that is not hungry. Your world is reeking with despair.

 

Gerdean:        I know!

MERIUM:      Just pathetic!

Gerdean:        It is!

 

MERIUM:     Your chances of getting wet are great.

Gerdean          Damp. Dense.

MERIUM:      You can be washed away.

Gerdean:        If you're not careful.

 

MERIUM:      If you do not... Oh! The story of the "Three Little Pigs"! It is true, if you build a house of sticks or hay that it will take very little to level it. Materially, mentally. If you are poorly constructed, you will not weather. You will be rebuilding again and again until wisdom has its way and you make better choices.

 

Rachel:           That's a very good analogy.

 

MERIUM:      Your societies, your generations of societies, have been storytellers. The truth has been woven into them repeatedly. The human has to hear it constantly to retain it, and to profit from it. It is too easily distracted by its senses and its senses are indeed a taskmaster, a possessive taskmaster. And here we have a message that the Christ would be glad to accept the use of your senses and show you how beautiful your life can be. Fragrant. Tactile. A lovely life.

 

Gerdean:        I like it.

Rachel:           Um-hum.

 

MERIUM:     That is enough from me for now. Unless, of course, I have to be challenged.

 

[Break]

 

Hunnah:          I had a question while I was away. Something came to my attention. I thought I'd ask Tomas about that. I don't have any argument about the hierarchy, and deep mind. If I had an argument it would come from my humanness. I have felt as if I -- Tomas might use this as part of a lesson, but -- I feel as if I am incomplete and I guess I'm going through a period that's called, "the absence of striving". Striving makes my humanness feel like it has something to do. It wants to be involved with the act. And I have been reading some things by a teacher called Adi Da and I've finally gotten to the part of the book where he condenses, sort of, what he has discovered. I've been enjoying his company.

 

Leah:              What did he discover?

 

Hunnah:          Reality. And understanding. He refers to the cosmic creator as All That Is. And he has different words and what it helped me realize was that we absolutely have to individually discover what he has done. He has been to the teachers. They can only take you so far. And that you have to bring it all together and let it be known in yourself, and that we spend a lot of our time reading about the other fellow's experience because we like to be entertained.

 

Rachel:           Instead of doing it.

 

Hunnah:          And in reality, we are hooked on the experience and what happens is we're allowed to -- it will remain an experience because you are conscious, but -- we will realize that we have to take whatever it is that we've been taught and just go ahead and watch it work in ourselves. It's interesting, though, whenever you meet someone else's writing, how it makes you ponder and you start seeing the commonality of all these teachings.

 

Leah:              Oh, yeah.

Hunnah:          Because when you're into the truth, there's nothing But It.

Rachel:           In every way, shape and form.

 

Hunnah:          Yeah, so we can use up one whole day if we want to be taught but we need long recesses because we're not used to it.

Leah:              But even you were inferring that we read because we are lazy or we don't want to do it, but my feeling is that we read so that we can find the drummer that we want

to march with.

 

Hunnah:          Or to remind us that there is -- It's like a coach, it gets you going.

Rachel:           Somewhere along the same thinking lines, you are not alone.

 

Leah:              Sometimes in the beginning you think -- This stuff is really crazy! It's all nuts! And then you read something and you say, Oh, yeah!

 

Hunnah:          That's okay.

 

Leah:              Yeah, and you say I know somebody else who had that experience and this seems similar to something I have felt within myself and I think it just helps you continue.

 

Hunnah:          There are so many experiences that are not written.

Leah:              Well, we're not reading those! Are we?

 

Hunnah:          No, you can't. There are just some things you feel are so sacred you don't want to share them?

 

Leah:              Oh, yeah. Yeah.

 

Hunnah:          And sometimes when you talk about these inner experiences, you don't want to make somebody feel like they're not "with it" when they need to be enjoying where they're at, because, like he said, the good here is to be living vibrantly in Reality. Big R. And there isn't any work involved when that love starts to -- Oh! And we talked about Jesus. We talked about the heart. And when this heart starts to release love and the Christ-consciousness through the heart, it's just all that you want and that's all that is. All that matters.

 

I almost lost it in the beginning of his book. I thought, "I am SICK of this intellectual --Ugh! -- endless ...! But, the drive in it, with his search, and then he talked about No. More. Search. It isn't necessary to go dig-dig-dig-dig-digging. It's allowing the truth of our being to express itself.

 

Gerdean:        Who is "he" you're talking about?

Hunnah:          Adi Da.

Gerdean:        Could you spell that?

 

Hunnah:          A-d-i D-a, the Da being God, the Father. Yeah. Adi Da. And when I first heard the name I was amused. In my humanness it sound....

 

Leah:              Like "la-de-DA"

 

Hunnah:          Like la-de-DA, that's right. And I would look at the picture and I would not want to be sitting with a sheet around me in a lotus position al the time, but...

 

Leah:              Different strokes for different folks!

 

Hunnah:          That's exactly right, and he's following his star, and .... Oh! One other thing I found was interesting -- and Tomas might want to comment on this -- is that when you get a human teacher, a guru, you are going to be allowed to release yourself from that teacher because you've got to get out and become a teacher!

 

We were talking about teachers tonight. You gotta get out and live it. You don't.... They don't .... What's the point of this? ....

 

Rachel:           It's right here, isn't it!

 

Hunnah:          But a good teacher also knows when you're ready to go and it's individual for everyone.

 

TOMAS:        It is a universal law that you must pass on what you have learned, and if you are learning every day, then you are passing on your truth, beauty and goodness every day, thus keeping your spiritual experience alive.

 

Hunnah:          Oh! I'm going to contaminate the message, but this is one of the things that -- you know, we are all so individual, and he had returned to the east to see the Indian guru, his teacher, and there he was in the ashram having a most profound and shocking encounter with Mary! She appeared before him in the ashram. He is in this ashram with his guru. The guru was not present, but they seem to know what all is going on. But anyway, she manifests before him and speaks to him and just as we would be blown over if we were in our private area and she -- because we are not practicing ... I see her as Divine Mother now -- but he said something that I thought was so interesting and we could relate to this that it's in your consciousness that you need the symbols. It will appear to you.   And he had been in the ministry.

 

Rachel:           What symbols?

 

Hunnah:          Anything that speaks to you and lets you know that you are -- "I am with you." And it can be any one of the precious experiences. It can be when you're out with your journal and you are describing a breeze. He is saying that God is all. All-all-all. But when this happened to him, she taught him about Mary. He was just dumbfounded that this could be happening to him because he had been into these explosions of awareness and bliss like the eastern teachings can deliver, then to have this total turnaround and find out that he is speaking to Jesus and he is speaking to Mary and he is filled with love of Jesus and he said later... and I'm looking forward to reviewing some of this because he said, "this was dormant" the need for this was dormant in his heart and in his spiritual development, and he had cut it off when he was -- through a Lutheran school, he was going into the ministry -- and something happened there and he thought, "This is not it," and he left.

 

So here was all this development of beliefs for him on hold and it popped up, just like a flower popping up out of a vine, and said "It's time!" Boom! And there it was. Dynamically! And probably more effectively than it might have been -- who can say?

 

So there are so many things down the pike for all of us that we cannot even fathom and we have brought these teachers in to help us and they are hindered by our sense of --absence of knowing what to ask. Absence of our willingness to meditate, so that they can really get us, because they can really use our circuitry and fill our mailbox, you might say. Tomas, how was that? Got something you want to add to that? Or have I stimulated you?

 

TOMAS:        I think we had better add you to the roster of members of the teaching corps, Hunnah, for you have become quite fluid in your exposing truths in your discourses of the many mortal beings who teach divine truth. Many of you living men and women are the torchbearers of truth for the Evolving Supreme. Many of you are sufficiently open to the promptings of your Adjusters such that you allow yourselves to be led and as you are led you are constrained to deliver your saving truths to those you would reach for the sublime I AM reality.

 

Hunnah:          Oh, Tomas. I've just had a flash, if I'm not interrupting. I got this flash about the Internet, the computer. It's such a popular diversion and teaching tool and even to the point that a title of a new movie is called "You've Got Mail!" and I was thinking about our computer, our body, our mind, and how we have mail, but we don't read it! And when we go into the quiet, all of a sudden one of these messages that are in our mailbox will download like a bluebird and we'll go, "Oh, eureka!"

 

I had this joyous revelation. Something has popped like a light bulb for you. So there's this new awareness, this new interpretation and if we allow ourselves to go to the celestial Internet, we will always have mail and we will never be lonely or without a companion. And our world will come into new focus and a new purpose for us, so I was sort of pleased that "You've Got Mail." Someone will see that title in a movie and on their spiritual journey and they'll see that title and a light bulb will go off.

 

TOMAS:        You can analogize in describing the precept of this film, the very fundamental aspect of broadcasting. Remember the universal broadcasts. Your Thought Adjusters broadcast to each other and to others throughout the vast inter workings of the universes of time and space. It is only natural that you should have an abundance of mail for you are connected to the great Post Office in the sky. The Postmaster himself is sending you postcards on a regular basis and love notes and interoffice memoranda and party announcements and oral exams and any number of communications, for in fact there is a relationship that goes on between the Father and his creations. A relationship is in existence and I now return to my original premise that we are loyal companions. The Father himself is the Father of loyal companionship for he has created you to be his companions on this infinite adventure/journey into extended perfection.

 

Are there questions?

 

Rachel:           No questions, but I have a comment concerning Internet and reading other people's posts on the Internet in the Teaching Mission and how there seems to be an agreement that we are all being urged to get it together, so to speak, to go out to teach and preach. There seems to be an underlying current of excitement, readiness, important messages, if you will. It's sort of interesting. Poised for the moment.

 

TOMAS:        Kind of interesting, yes.

 

Hunnah:          It's nice if you're where receptive people are because you can have teachers teaching at a particular level but frequently when you want to teach, you're not ready to teach.

 

Rachel:           True, but I find it interesting that, there is incredible moral support on the team list to support everybody, to say, "Yeah, you can do it." There's an incredible interchanging of faith there.   It's like a web support system for all these people who want to be teachers and preachers. Which is what is so nice about it, it supports itself, so we can all go out one day and go about our business.

 

Hunnah:          And when you're together in your chat room in your Urantia mode, you become weavers and you all have teacher ability and as it comes in appropriately, you make a fabric that has a message just like our gathering, they told us they are our loyal companions. "I will never leave you." That perfection, that one life, is constantly allowing you to see itself in a chalice of constant support. A support system that's always coming around you, whether its a new person, a new statement, whether it's the way a flower looks, the proper timing, a serendipitous day that you have received because you are connected in on that frequency, so when you get on the Internet you're all bringing your energies in and you're creating this visible fabric of enlightenment on the screen.

 

Rachel:           It's wonderful!

 

Hunnah:          But! You've got to be careful you don't become a junky! Is this conversation -- because you're allowed fellowship like you are in a church -- we joke about them being social clubs ... but when you're on track, you're going to have both ... You're going to have the lesson and he companionship, just like we do with the celestials here.

 

Rachel:           That's about what happens on the Internet. There's badger and humor and it extends this living room far, far out. Sort of gets you connected with what other people are doing within the teaching mission and what they are learning what their lessons are, how they are being prepared. It's nice.

 

TOMAS:        The Morontia Companions are very pleased with the communal visitations ongoing.

 

Hunnah:          On the Internet?

TOMAS:        And throughout the larger Net of the Kingdom-at-large.

Rachel:           I can see this as advancing army of... weaving the fabric ... believers!

Hunnah:          Well, it's wake-up call.

Rachel:           Yeah. But, it's so lovely, really.

 

TOMAS:        There is nothing quite like a loyal companion, even if it is occasionally Our Father alone. Indeed, from that primary relationship, all others are possible. But what joy to extend the fatherhood of God into the brotherhood of man, the sisterhood of women, and the family of humankind.

 

Rachel:           It would be nice if it got a little bolder.

 

Hunnah:          This is sitting next to me: "Oneness has been a favorite theme with every teacher of spiritual wisdom. It is the key that unlocks the door to a satisfactory life in a world of many-ness." And then it goes on, on the back of the book called "The Realization of Oneness."

 

TOMAS:        Yes, daughter. This is because you have not cluttered up your association with divinity by socialization, cultures, genders, or religious tenets. You have allowed your souls the freedom to be. This is existential and eternal, unencumbered by the separation of individuality.

 

We have discussed the difficulties inherent in individuality and yet the individual is as important in its own right and in its own realm as is pure divinity in its divine realm. And so it is necessary that we all learn to be our own manifestation of personality by and through the gift of the Father. But if we remember that the I AM is what joins us in our organic association, it is possible for us then to transcend even vast chasms of difference in order to have that coveted condition of spiritual unity in individual diversity.

 

It is indeed a challenge and a worthy goal and it is also of great value when each of you can stop and appreciate that you are in and through the great I AM the all is One aspect in order that you may rest in the arms of the spirit as siblings together. [Long Pause]

 

Rachel:           Did everybody fall asleep?

 

TOMAS:        Let us go have a party and eat lots of sugar. Have fun. Happy birthday, Gerdean.  Good night everybody.  Amen and farewell.

 

Rachel:           We should have a prayer before we sign off tonight.

Hunnah:          A celebration prayer!

 

Rachel:

 

“Father, Mother, Brother Michael, thank you for a lovely T/R session and our sisters in the spirit here once again. Thank you for leading us through another day, for teaching us things we never knew before, for being with us, for holding our hand and showing us the glory of life. Thank you for being here to celebrate our sister Gerdean's nifty-forth birthday today. May you be here with her to help her celebrate it and show her the joy in the years to come. We thank you for all your blessings Amen.”

*****

 

DATE:                        November 17, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:             TOMAS, MERIUM

TOPIC

On Self-consciousness

 

MERIUM:     Greetings, daughters. I am Merium. I have come to dance with you for awhile before we become more thoughtful. Let us waltz around the room with one another for a few spins. It is so good to feel your presences.  It is wonderful to feel the energies of your beings. Allow your energies, your presences, and the freedom to stretch, to expand themselves within the parameters of your interior. Express your soul by allowing it to extend out into your environment. Go ahead and reach out into your arena and, yes, embrace each other in the spirit. I suggest we even play your game of ring around the rosy. Why don't you all in your mind's eye hold hands and skip around like little girls and get yourselves limbered up? There! Can't you see yourself frolicking? Shall we go around to your left then? And skip. Let's see you skipping in your mind's eye. Oh, yes. I can see it now. Your little frocks all bouncing and your little shoes all scuffed. How delightful. And we all fall down!

 

Well, let's pull ourselves together somewhat and hush your giggling now so that we can sit still. Uncle Tomas is going to tell you a story. But before he comes along in his demeanor, I am going to let you know that we have done this exercise for a purpose. You know that we are not eternally silly, but it is an opportunity for you to realize that in your conservative conditioning and in your behavioral training, you disallow your soul freedom, as if it, too, were under the jurisdiction of your social mores.  Your soul falls under the jurisdiction of the Most Highs and they, even though they are indeed evolved and mature by universe standards compared to your level of comprehension of reality, they are even so, quite liberal in their freedom of expression. Your vocabulary lacks.

 

Yes I will use an analogy of creativity. Creativity is something that children can appreciate. When you take your crayolas on a large news sheet of paper, you can "let er rip" with bold strokes, bright yellow sunshine, black checkmarks, red flowers, green bugs and so forth and feel completely uninhibited in your process of creation. And this is along the lines of what we have suggested in this exercise this evening to allow your inner life to express itself. I would like to come back later and pull you onto my laps in a sisterly fashion but for now I will turn you over to Tomas who awaits your affections. One moment.

 

TOMAS:        Ladies, it is lovely to see you this evening and to feel your approach to your greater awareness of your greater reality. How wonderful it is to feel the wholeness of you, the fullness of yourselves, the entirety of you, and when this entirety of your being is allowed to express itself in full manifestation of the love of God yet within your realm, you have brought great joy and I am going to speak to you this evening about self-consciousness, for as you can see by the flavor of our direction so far this evening, when you are self-conscious of your self to an extent wherein you feel held back from being, you limit your expression of Our Father freely. You judge yourselves by some standard other than that which is within you. Within you is freedom and no one expresses this more clearly than the children.

 

In the Teaching Mission you have seen our sister Olfana who has also overcome self-consciousness. In her personality manifestation she radiates the joy of being. Merium reflects her good cheer in her smile, and many other personalities familiar to you bespeak their personality by and through their mannerisms. What are your mannerisms? How do you comport yourself so as to be a reflection of divinity? How has self-consciousness interfered with your expression of your most innermost joyous nature?

 

When you become aware at all, you become conscious, and part of consciousness is also an ability to look at yourself, and many times you are indeed able to see yourself as others see you, and if you study your own personality manifestation, it is possible to see yourself as the Father sees you. In this way you can begin to perfect your personality manifestation by observing its effects upon your realm. This is just another way of saying what you have already heard many times, but it is yet another and interesting approach because it provides you an opportunity to see yourself from the outside. And so I ask you to investigate, in terms of self-consciousness, your expression of yourself in the course of this upcoming week.

 

Are you with me? What do you think you will encounter? Do you have any inkling in advance, given your already acute awareness of yourselves, how you might allow yourself to feel less self-conscious and more Father-directed? It is not to invoke additional self-consciousness that I ask this question. It is to prophesy to you that you will indeed reflect upon your personality manifestation and how it might impact on your work in the field.

 

Leah:              I noticed in the last couple of weeks when I was inclined to do something, ask somebody something, I felt sort of shy about it, having an attitude of, "Well, I really don't want to bother this person for this or that," and then I'd give myself a little pep talk and say, "Hundreds of people do this everyday! You can do this!" And actually, as far as being Father-directed, I noticed a girl in the Post Office trying to put an envelope inside another envelope that didn't fit, and I was telling her about the types of envelopes
she could get from the Postmaster, and she struck up a conversation with me about how she was buying a house and she had two little girls.

 

Tonight when I was visiting with Gerdean, I showed her an article that had to do with random acts of kindness and sometimes it just feels good to talk to somebody, instead of just, you know, getting your gas and leaving, is to have a little exchange with the attendant while he's putting the gas in, or the cashier. Ideally it would be looking for the Christ within each person, but don't think I've gotten to that point yet. Sometimes I don't feel inclined to speak with somebody. There is something that... there would be a little spontaneous sense that a conversation is about to take place. I like that I don't know if that's Father-directed. Is that okay?

 

TOMAS:        Yes, Leah.  It is okay. It is not everyone that you will feel led to engage in any discourse with. Allow your God-fragment to guide you. You have revealed to us, however, the point that you are willing to engage UN-self-consciously with folk as you go about your business which avails you then to be sensitive to those opportunities to be about the Father's business. Only as you can be perceived as genuinely fragrant, only as you are able to "prevail with men" are you going to be effective as a teacher, as a preacher. And so it is well to not over-judge your encounters. You are open and childlike, indeed, and it is, indeed, invigorating to see some of your patterns opening up, such as these random acts of kindness, and social interactions such as you mentioned.

 

In-as-much as you are aware of these processes, it will be all the easier then to remember throughout the course of the week to note what is transpiring in these exchanges. You will find them an interesting study, in-as-much as you are allowing them to take place. You are off to a good start in your assignment.

 

Leah :             Thank you.

 

TOMAS:        Liana has her feet on the ground now, and so she, too, will be barreling through life encountering one scenario after the other of potential. You can see that perhaps, Liana, where this lesson might become engaging for you as well in observing how it is that you are constrained by self-consciousness.

 

Liana:             Constrained by self-consciousness?

 

TOMAS:        Withheld from manifesting all that you can be, out of some sense of proprietary restraint or social strata interference.

 

Liana:             You want me to just - bust out?

TOMAS:        You bet.

Liana:             You want me raw, open and vulnerable!

 

TOMAS:        Unselfconscious. You are, of course, to be aware of who you are and whom it is that you are engaging with. Indeed, it is still possible to be childlike and yet masterful at the same tune.

 

Liana:             Yes. I like to keep undefended, open.

TOMAS:        Yes. What, after all, can they damage?

 

Liana:             I think that a lot of that has to do with being in the now. When I am defending, I worry about setting myself up because I have an expectation of the way that somebody is going to respond.

 

TOMAS:        Or the way that you should respond to them.

Liana:             Yes.

 

TOMAS:        These are based on societal conditionings and expectations unrelated to your more celebrated reality of actuality.   Sometimes they are co-ordinate. I hope I am not implying by my words that what your society finds of value is not also of value to the spirit. But it is, rather, a matter of loyalty to the highest value, while maintaining a friendship with those intermediate realities and values that serve the worlds of time and space.

 

Leah:              What did you mean when you said sometimes they are co-ordinate?

 

TOMAS:        Family values are important values. Employment in a temporal situation is and represents a value. These kinds of literal realms are of value and they often parallel the greater reality, but not always. Sometimes your evolved realities fall short of the ideal. Those of you who are striving for a greater reality are in a position to plant seeds for a greater appreciation of value. Indeed as you live your life, you cannot help but plant these seeds. Allow yourself to be UN-self-conscious in your spreading your seeds. In other words, don't weigh too much on whether or not your seeds are falling on rock or not. You will be guided in this, no doubt.

 

Leah:              It just seems like it's a lot easier to speak about God with people who are like-minded

 

TOMAS:        Indeed, it is difficult because you have the barrier of language, the difficulty of beliefs that can separate you, but there are some beliefs that rise above all these barriers. Many of the doors that open you to them, many of these barriers are reduced, when you find common ground such as a feeling. If you can find something upon which to agree in your feelings, you have found a connecting point. If you can agree on some kind of social value, so much the better, because this gives you a starting point too for engaging in an expansion of social consciousness and potential spirit awareness.

 

But even if all you do is open the door adequate enough to make a contact of friendliness, such as in these random acts of kindness, you have furthered the cause of brotherly love. Remember that God is love and love is the desire to do good to others. If you are able to share good, you have shared God in some extent. And in-as-much as each individual has a separate understanding of God, until such time as a rebirth breaks down your barriers and you can speak freely in the realms of the spirit, you must perforce work carefully in your field, albeit you are encouraged none-the-less to UN-self-consciously apply yourself to that which you know you can do, and that is to be of good cheer, to be your own radiant self as a child of Our Eternal Parents. This private joy is contagious. It leaks into your environment and allows the Son to shine.

 

Leah:              That was beautiful.

 

TOMAS:        Your challenge then is to allow yourself to go where you can express yourself. You cannot hide your light under a bushel. Your light is available to many because Our Father has made it so. And he will provide you those fields in which to work and play.

 

You are quiet this evening. Are you self-conscious?

 

Leah:              Yep!

Liana:             The question is: are we conscious!

 

Leah:              My creative imagination is wandering here. I'm wondering if I should go down to the Salvation Army and ring a bell. Where I'll have an opportunity to encounter a lot of people!

 

TOMAS:        You are literal minded, indeed. I admire your industry, Leah. I truly do appreciate your intent, your yearning to serve, your willingness to go to any length, your desire to be of service. You are an enchanting child. You may be assured that your light burns steady. You do not need to go down to sign up for anything in particular in order to manifest this value lesson. You just need to remember to not stay indoors all the time.

 

And I now am going to have to assuage Gerdean's anxiety, for she spends most of her
life these days indoors, indeed, in this one building. And again I say, Gerdean, do not be so literal minded as to think that your light is hid under a bushel for you are radiantly beaming out through your efforts on­ line and in the shoppe. Fear not, literal minded ones.

 

You become anxious in your teachers' presence. It is perhaps an unconscious self-consciousness that is brought about when you begin to think in terms of Our Father and our Master, and in your reverence for the greatness of their reality, you feel inadequate or ineffectual, and therefore humbled to the point of self-consciousness. Rise up! Radiate! Spread out! Spread your wings! And fly. Let it be known that you live in the joy of Our Father, in whatever ways you choose, in whatever words you find, that can express creatively Our Father's infinite love, divine mercy, incredible beauty. It is a gift from you to the Supreme to do so, and you may do this in and through your own inner life, your own creative font by and through your relationship Our Father. It is a direct and personal expression of His reality in you and your reality in Him that reaches out to be a reality in your world. As your reality becomes lodged in the planet Urantia, you have plugged in a sod of lawn for growing the fertile green grass of Light and Life. One day we will walk upon Urantia as civilized beings. Indeed, perhaps we shall even play croquet.

 

Leah:              [Giggle]

 

MERIUM:     Oh, I want to play! I want to play, Tomas! Can I play, too?

 

TOMAS:        Merium, I am not in any position to say you cannot! Shall we play? (Yes) Well, I can see that Merium does not suffer from over-much self-consciousness, and I encourage you also to be yourselves. Being your own delightful selves is all that can be expected.   It is indeed quite a challenge.

 

Leah:              Well, you give us a lot of incentive by coming every week.

 

TOMAS:        I appreciate your saying so, Leah, but it is in fact the other way around. It is you who come every week. I am here. You open up to us. Otherwise we could not say a thing. Isn't it wonderful?

 

LEAH:            Yes, it is.

 

TOMAS:        Let us then play ring-around-the-rosy, and while we're holding hands, one more time I would like to share with you our joyous appreciation of our sonship with divinity, our daughtership in this flowering, blossoming Kingdom of infinite perfection potential. Divine little girls, are there questions this evening?

 

Leah:              My son is very angry, and when I'm around him I can feel his anger. He told me the Jehovah's Witnesses came to visit him, that he told them that God was just a mental construct that man invented to blame things on. They told him they would pray for him. I would like to be able to have a better conversation with my son. I didn't argue with him; I didn't say anything, hardly. I almost feel guilty because I didn't say anything.

 

Prior to this I had said something like, "Well, Jon, there's always prayer,"
but I just don't know how to handle this. Maybe I shouldn't handle it at all!

 

TOMAS:        Indeed, you may pray as the most effective thing you can do, Leah, but in the meantime it would not hurt to have an understanding of the man's anger, for in understanding his philosophy at the moment you are better prepared then to observe the unfolding of his emotional condition, which has lodged a complaint against Our Father for these experiences in his growing that have kept him from attaining what he would construe as his ideal of a life plan.

 

We have talked about the condition wherein man becomes angry at God, and there is not much anyone can do about that. You cannot convince anyone to love the Father or anything else for that matter. This is a private matter between your son and his Father in heaven. The anecdote that you tell, however, that he was visited by the Witnesses and was advised that they would pray for him, will give you another clue to his anger as to being prayed for. When one is in such a state of mind, the fact that someone volunteers to pray for them is yet another example of the ineffectiveness and unreality of the spirit, for it speaks of spiritual superiority; it adds fuel to the flame. Herein you might be effective in applying prayerful energies without letting him know that he is being prayed for.

 

Leah:              I understand. The implication being almost that he's not good enough or something, when you say that you are going to pray for him.

 

TOMAS:        Yes.
Leah:              I understand.

 

TOMAS:        He is angry about his life, and since his life is not turning out the way he wanted it to, he is angry at God. It is good that he is angry at God, in a way, because it is directed, essentially, at the only force that can ultimately fix it, you see. If he were to be directing his anger, for instance, at you or at his dad, or at his boss or at his girlfriend, it would be an entirely different matter, but the fact that he is angry at God, indicates that it is a real matter of life and death you are beholding, and his soul is in the process of
being born. Be patient with him as he goes through these birth pangs. Be tender of him, and allow him space.

 

Leah:              He was involved in this accident where a member of the clergy was the offender, someone who fell asleep at the wheel and pushed him across this traffic where now he is in these physical difficulties, and somehow I can't help wondering if he is associating the fact that somebody in the clergy did this, that -- he's never said he's mad at God! He's made the statement that there really isn't a God as far as he's concerned. But I really think he's just mad at God. He's mad about a lot of things right now.

 

TOMAS:        He is angry!

Leah:              Yes.

 

TOMAS:        And the situation regarding being rear-ended by a priest exacerbates his anger, as, in many respects, the priesthood represents the hierarchy of divinity. Apparently the symbolism is not apparent to you, but it is to me, and it is no wonder he is angry. God himself has "kicked him in the butt" according to a perverse attitude of expectation from the priesthood. It is a complicated situation. It would not hurt him to have appropriate therapy, however, I'm not certain that your schools are able to address this effectively as yet. It, therefore, will require Our Mother in heaven to intercede on his behalf and for this you may make your petitions.

 

Leah:              I'll do that. Thank you. (Long moment) I suppose there's a little hope in the fact that he spoke to the Witnesses.

 

TOMAS:        He is not hiding, but his light is not truly reflecting as it might and so, yes, you are correct. If he is still engaging in discourse with religionists at all, he is obviously still open to some extent, even if it is just to argue their existence. All religions at this point will meet with his disapproval in-as-much as all of them are unreal as far as he is concerned. It gives him now a large battlefield upon which to play out his conflict.

 

Leah:              Yeah.

 

TOMAS:        Let us exercise our faith in him and in Our Father by focusing our understanding of Our Father's love on him, even now. Wash him with white light. Allow him to know a moment's peace, so that in the stillness of his angry mind he can be ministered to by the Spirit, and soothed in his soul. These balms on the troubled mind will bring surcease from his anger and in due course he will have resolved his
dilemma. His courage will come forth. Nurture his courage through association with the spirit, even that spirit which he denies.

 

Leah:              Thank you for your counsel.   (Another long moment)

 

TOMAS:        It is wonderful to be in the spirit with you, daughters. It is truly a privilege to be able to share with you priceless moments of intimacy in the spirit. It is invigorating to perceive your spirit hunger, your thirst for righteousness, and your need for greater spirit reality in your realm and in your fellows, for your sake, for their sake, and for the sake of Our Creators. This longing that is born in the heart of the spirit-led, God-knowing individual is that which forges us into eternity, into the ever greater reality; it expands and grows in us, and allows us even greater capacity to know and feel that which is real, urging us ever onward then to manifest this which is real to those who are still in the shadows, that they too may see the light -- the light without and the light within.

 

This week then, as you go about your affairs, carry the light with you and radiate without self-consciousness the quiet, deep and infinite joy of the Kingdom within. Merium, did you want to have a moment yet with your girls? [Long moment]

 

MERIUM:     Well, Tomas, I have been having a moment with my girls. It's just that you have not been aware of it. Or perhaps you have been aware of it but we have just not stated it for the record. I have been comforting my daughters as you have been counseling them, for you know that I, as an arm of Our Mother, am always available to provide comfort and nurturance in the spirit realms, and that is in the feeling realms of the heart also. It is, as you say, Tomas, a privilege, a priceless opportunity, to be part of your Father's house, my Mother's mansions.

 

Beautiful daughters, rejoice in your merry-go-round of life's adventures, remembering to hold hands and that when you fall, fall laughing, so that you may rise up once more to engage in the activities of the day with The Father and The Mother in hand. Have fun, little girls.

 

Group:            Thank you.

MERIUM:     Good evening.

*****

 

DATE:                        November 24, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:              TOMAS, A SERAPHIM, DAMALIA

TOPIC:

Panning for Reality

 

TOMAS:        Good evening, loyal crew. I am Tomas. I am glad to be with you and to feel your presence here. Others are also in attendance and if we are fortunate perhaps we will have opportunity to hear from one or two of these most welcome visitors.   My friends, I call you loyal and indeed you are loyal to your own spiritual development and to your community of fellow believers, but even those who are not here in this room, yet seek the truth, are also loyal to those ideals which they exalt.

 

I perceive perhaps this may be one of the cruxes of your communications this evening, that in the search for ultimate perfection, you each will encounter ideologies that you hold up as worthy of the worship of all men. Certainly those with whom you have a modicum of relationship and a sense of understanding of communal values, and it is always somewhat of a disconcerting nature when you realize your fondest dreams are not shared all the way down to the last straw. But this, you see, is inherent in individuality! Snowflakes are all different, even though they are all part of the snowfall. And you yourselves are all different, even those of you who fall together in the blizzard besetting Urantia these days.

 

You come together with your olio of ideologies, ideals, concerns, experiences, complaints, joys and sorrows. And you are finding it within your heart to express these emotions and feelings and thoughts and responses to your life's experiences on new plateaus of understanding and in new depths of appreciation for your camaraderie, your confiding trust in one another, in and through your expanding understanding of your relationships with spirit.

 

You wonder why it takes so long for you to settle down and come together in a forum of solidarity of like-mindedness. Such that you can center yourselves in a degree of harmony with one another in order that you may sense the presence of guidance in and through your own Indwelling Spirits and the assistance of spirit guides such as myself. As these times become even more tumultuous, my friends, you will find it requires more and more of your conscientious application to sorting through these experiences and gleaning that which has value, as if you were prospectors panning for gold in the mountains of your experience here.

 

In allowing the living water to wash over your debris in the pan of your daily life experience, you can see the sun shine on and glimmer over that which is real and that which is fools gold and that which is silt which sinks to the bottom of the stream. You do not become proficient at this by an act of will. You become proficient at finding reality by familiarizing yourself with it, recognizing it and holding fast to it.

 

As your experience abuts the experience of others, you have more and more experiences to assimilate and compare and reject and observe as a result of your proximity, as a result of your potential connectedness through spirit, and through socialization. You who have tasted this clarity, this peace which passes all understanding, have a sacred frame of reference, one worthy of holding up as an ideal, indeed.

 

Well, my children, are there questions as a result of our efforts this evening?

 

Rachel:           Could you give Gerdean some advice on facing all her dysfunction she has to look at every day?

 

TOMAS:        I will speak of dysfunction but I will clarify, for the record, when you say "Gerdean's dysfunction," she becomes defensive.

Rachel:           Oh, not her dysfunction.

TOMAS:        But the dysfunctions she faces in her arena.

Rachel:           Yes.

 

TOMAS:        Yes. It is her reaction to this dysfunction that is the problem. And even more to the point, it is her reaction to the reaction of others reacting to her reaction which is the sore spot for her developing soul, for she feels alienated in her application of her perception of how to deal with dysfunction.

 

"What," you say, "Tomas, was all that?"

Rachel:           Something like that.

 

TOMAS:        I will bring to your attention the fact that you are in the making. You are immortal in potential but mortal by design. And it is necessary for you in your experience of being a mortal with potential, that you acknowledge your mortality. Were we looking for a re-enactment of our Creator Son's bestowal here, we would be looking elsewhere, but you see we are looking to you, you mortals who have asked to be of service in your realm to the mortals of time and space. It is therefore a dual nature job on your hands, for you to be so elevated above the abysmal difficulties of life as to only cast your shadow on it, as you pass by, would be ineffectual, at least. In order for you to be effective, it is necessary indeed that you become acquainted with your turf, and a working knowledge of the arena in which you work is necessary in order for you to be effective.

 

Do you understand what I am saying here? I am saying, if you are going to be a boxer in the ring, you need to practice pugilism. You cannot say, "I'm a boxer" and sit in the stands and watch someone else do it! This is experiential, not just existential.

 

Rachel:           So Gerdean has the experiential experience with recovery ...

TOMAS:        Yes.

Rachel:           ... so she is in quite a position to speak.

 

TOMAS:        Yes. She has a certain degree of authority as a result of her self-mastery. And this is part of her arena. It is only difficult when those who do not understand her work, regard her as being unchristian or un-Christlike, for that is truly an unfair assessment, in-as-much as they have not been there. In the jargon, you see, this is known as "tough love". It does not mean "NO love." It is unfortunate however for one without peer, because your support system is missing.

 

Rachel:           It's a lonely world out there.

 

TOMAS:        Yes, it can be a cold and lonely place, and you who are aware of the genuineness of life are also aware that by going within and finding Real Life, is one able to bring meaning to that existence. It is then no longer "out there" but "in here" and in the security of the life "in here" you are connected with all of the others who also recognize their inner light and you are not alone. Those who are alone "out there" flounder and flail in their desperate attempt to find that sanctity which has been hard fought and won
in many. And there are many, many other scenarios also of the human condition.

 

We have said often that there are as many ways to the Father as there are individuals who will take the path, and that which is your "cross to bear" is not equal to your neighbors. Each path is truly different, even though the ultimate goal is indeed the same.

 

I am going to give you an unusual assignment. I am going to give you a very difficult assignment. I don't want you to spend an awful lot of time on it, and I don't want you to make it worse by your imaginations, but I am going to give you an opportunity here and now to experiment as we take a brief recess. I would like for you each to address your immediate neighbor and admit to them something that you do not like about them. And, at the same time, assure them that they are loved by you, even so. And this is an experiment that will give you permission to discover that you can dislike something about someone else but it will not remove from you the appreciation of divine love that is inherent in you, in you all, as children of Paradise Trinity. Do you see the assets of such an assignment?

 

Rachel:           Clearly.

 

TOMAS:        I will then allow you to experience this, and will be back in just a moment, God willing.

 

[Break for the experiment]

 

TOMAS:        Well done. And you all feel much calmer now that you have been able to consult about the pros and cons of mortal relationship without rancor and with affection. This is a courageous practice, and one which will open the doors of friendship to communication.

 

As to your further discourses regarding dysfunction -- severe dysfunction, as you call it - - it is only natural that, having been in the ring, so to speak, you will feel beat up when the round is over. It is necessary for you to remind yourself to go inward in order to receive ministrations for your efforts in the field. To expect that you can give so much to your work and not feel the effects of your labors is absurd. Anyone who works hard at a physical task knows, at the end of the day, they have worked hard! Their hands are dirty. Their hair gets messed up. They may perspire. Their clothes are soiled. Anyone who does strong mental work, at the end of the day, seeks the soothing balm of ministrations of harmony, perhaps a concerto or a meal of infinite rectitude, in order to ease the strain of mental exertion. And the same thing is true in the spiritual arena. When you have worked hard, you will feel as if you had expended energy, and indeed you have! You must remember that it is even possible for you to become spiritually exhausted.

 

And so, don't berate yourself for feeling weakened by these onslaughts, these assaults. Rather, seek comfort and ministrations through the spirit. Allow the Divine Minister to minister unto you so that your strength is renewed. Allow Father to counsel you as to proceed wisely, for in due course you will have mastered these many techniques and have graduated on to yet new fields of endeavor. Even now you know that there are times when you work religiously and vigorously in the field and return renewed and invigorated, enlivened, filled with satisfaction at the work resulting in a greater appreciation of Our Father in the life of one of his children, or more.

 

Be aware too, all of you, that many times these efforts are because you allow them. That is to say, you have said, "I am willing. I am willing to go, Father, where you send me. I am willing to learn the lessons you would have me learn, I am willing to teach what you would have me teach." And so, like Christ Michael, you take the more rigorous path, where the opportunities for service will be greater. There are many who will take the easier, softer way. There are many who will be extremely effective for a great many people on the higher path. And thus, once again, we return to the key point of our discussions this evening and that is that each of you will portray your individuality in and as you are presented with these opportunities.

 

Rachel:           The path, the higher road, the more difficult one. I feel I have chosen one. I'm certain Gerdean has. And I can only say that as I complain, I can also see the silver lining, the lesson, the strength it builds, the character, the courage. Even though I don't like it half the tune. Would you care to comment?

 

TOMAS:        I enjoy discoursing with you, Rachel. Of course I will comment. I will, however, suggest to you that the higher path is not really the harder path.

Rachel:           It's not?

 

TOMAS:        It is, rather, a reflection on the scripture that says: His yoke is easy and his burden is light. It is not the more difficult way because you have all of this assistance. You have all of this inner strength to draw upon. You have all these opportunities to grow and to serve. You have all of this reflection of divine love showered upon you and reflected back to you from your peers in those moments when spiritual clarity brings these rewards of spirit association and of merely being in awareness of your
association with divinity. It is surely easier than those who flounder in darkness for fear of His way with them. No, dear, you are in all accounts on the higher path, a path of joyous unfolding. It is your rejoicing in the rejoicing in the path that you have chosen.

 

Rachel:           Am I rejoicing? I'm not sure sometimes. I guess I haven't been rejoicing lately…

 

TOMAS:        If you are in alignment with your Father ...

Rachel:           Oh, I am!

 

TOMAS:        ... you are automatically reflecting his reality back into your arena. That's all it takes, is to reach over and turn on your light switch, which you do every morning when you give your conscious will to the Father and every night when you ask Him to align your mind in order that He may give you consolation and consultation in your deep mind, in your rest. Fear not, daughter, but be about His business. You do well.

 

Rachel:           Thank you. There were some interesting lessons from Will in "The Center Within."

 

TOMAS:        Oh, yes.

Rachel:           I sort of was feeling like I had been left out of a lot of teachings.

TOMAS:        Yes.

 

Rachel:           When I read it. There are so many who have been hearing this for a lot longer than I had.

 

TOMAS:        There are any number of wonderful teachers in this Teaching Corps, and each one has his or her own stamp of individuality in teaching and preaching, as do you Rachel, and other mortals in the mortal teaching corps. Therefore when you encounter each other, you always have a new and valuable experience in learning again and anew from yet another reflection of Father, those myriad lessons of divine goodness, infinite truth, harmony, mercy, service, and beauty that His garden provides.

 

It would be like singling out a musical instrument and mastering it, but refusing to hear other musical instruments, if you were to attach yourself to the personality of only one teacher. We would have you appreciate the entire symphony. Indeed, be part of the symphony yourself! And admire and appreciate the individual notes of each instrument. Will's instrument is indeed sublime and she has served nobly and well and continues even now to inspire in her way, ways which are seen through this work and in ways which are only known in the sacred space of her personal students -- and now you are one.

 

But each teacher, supernal or mortal, has the gift of their own tone, their own note. And what a wonderful symphony it is when we all sing our praises to Our Lord. I would like to allow a visitor a brief moment before we conclude. One moment.

 

SERAPHIM:       I am a Seraphim. I am here on behalf of our Mother Nebadonia who has asked me to be here for you and for her as a liaison to join you with her in love. Feel now her embrace. She conveys to you, through me, through these words, an understanding for your minds, her generosity of heart, her embrace which enfolds you utterly and completely. All of you here are now embraced fully and completely, swept up into the arms of Our Mother.

 

What an honor it is for me to deliver this message to you and to share with you in this embrace. We adore our Divine Minister who ministers to all of us in the way of the Infinite Spirit. We are touched and led into blind alleys of experience with complete and total trust of Her guidance and protection. We would follow Our Mother anywhere. We know that She would want us to believe that she would bring us only that which would be good for us, which would be what we needed in order to become all that we can be, that we be developed, that we be made whole, that we become flush in goodness. Full. In appreciation of life itself. That we be trusting of Her divine nature and Her supreme devotion to our Father/Brother, her consort Michael.

 

Our family of spirit relation is our home in which we dwell. Lean upon Her. Lean into her Heart. Feel it beat. Allow your heart to beat in harmony with Hers. Seek Divine Mother's ministration and guidance in your mothering of your children, of your children in the flesh and of the spirit. Feed upon Her milk of loving kindness and betake yourselves of Her golden nectar of spirit food. Rest in the divine arms. I withdraw.

 

Rachel:           Thank you.

 

TOMAS:        I am Tomas. I am back. There is one other who would speak. One moment please.

 

DAMALIA:        You remember me. I am a social architect. Damalia. We are only passing through but we are aware of your growth efforts here, the internal labor pains, if you will, of growth in community. These experiences are beneficial, these seeming diversities, but they are only pebbles on the foot path. You will wear them down into sand. The path will become smooth. Fear not. Do not fret. It is a natural part of community development that you develop yourself in the face of adversity in order to withstand defeat, to overcome self-consciousness, to be fearless and to depend solely upon the Spirit of Truth as it speaks to you.   You will be strengthened and forged in these fires.  My friends, carry on. Thank you, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        Merium has been as busy in her way as I have been in mine. We are active in your community and in the extended community as well. Embrace one another in the spirit and be amenable to the possibilities of yet greater and larger of ideal. Rejoice. Amen and Farewell.

 

*****

 

DATE:                 December 1, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHER:                TOMAS, MERIUM, VERONICA, LINEL, PEARL

Group:                        Leah, Joniel, Gerdean, Hunnah

 

URANTIA BOOK STUDY

                PAPER 47, THE SEVEN MANSION WORLDS

                            1.   The Finaliters' World

                             2.   The Probationary Nursery

                             3.   The First Mansion World

 

TEACHER SESSION:

TOPIC:

A bead, a Fossil, or a Stick

 

TOMAS:        Good evening, my friends, I am Tomas your teacher. I am here this evening with an array of associates and assistants in spirit reality. We are going to be the recipients this evening of a few visitors, if you are up to it. I am always glad to afford these associates an opportunity to introduce themselves to you and you to them. In order to make our visits effective, I will emcee the situation. It is an arrangement which works well for my T/R and our process. Thus, my first guest to speak will be an old friend of many, an island maiden named Veronica. One moment, please.

 

VERONICA: Pacific predilectors of progress, peace be with you. I am your associate in the morontia realms, eager to enter into your consciousness, enter your zone, so that you may become more aware of my and others' very eager and earnest attentions in uplifting and enabling an energetic increase in inspiration and intrusting.

 

Leah:              Welcome.

VERONICA:  Thank you, Ah Leah.

 

It is a different mind I enter here than I am accustomed to. I thank you, Gerdean, for availing your mechanics. I can see that you are quite accustomed to another pattern/conditioning of thought. I must constantly curtail you from wanting to express words which are not mine but which you would like to have me say. Thank you for your co-operation, daughter.

 

You seem to want me to talk about the beach, or the sand, because you know I have taught in the Hawaii group, and I have no objection to making my identification with them spread abroad, but I am, as you know, available to you as well.

 

I will, however, make use of a conch shell, and enable you in your minds eye to embrace the sound of the spirit which has its trumpet call unending, pounding upon the shores of eternity. Always is this sound of the surf in evidence if you but listen, and so take this conch shell, this gift I give you by way of imagining, and hold it close to your ear and hear the sound of eternity. Listen in the stillness of the pounding surf for the voice of the Father, the Mother, the constancy, the energy, the endurance, the lastingness of the sea, the ocean of joy. I leave you with this gift. Aloha.

 

Leah:              Thank you.

Joniel:             Aloha.

TOMAS:        Thank you, Veronica. One moment, please.

 

LINEL:           This is Lin-El. Again, I am a new visitor to your arena but I am not new to the efforts which are upon us all. It is good to be in Tomas' teacher base, to touch base with his flock, our flock also. I am on an errand of neighborliness in my visit this evening. Many of you perceive that your primary loyalty is to your group teacher (after the Master, of course), but this is mere familiarity. The greater loyalty is indeed to the work at hand, and we are interested in contacting at will, and visiting at large, in teaching and preaching ad lib.

 

It is an interesting environment here. It is very typical of Urantia, yet it has its own distinct flavor. Your lesson from me this evening, then, will have to do with your environment, for what is more important than your environment and the work of your realm?

 

You are aware of the unfolding of new life and light and are a part of its unfolding because of your belief, your consecration to truth, beauty and goodness. But you are a threat to those who fear the reality you represent. I speak not as a warrior here, no, but as a mediator. Remember, if you can, that many of you mortals manage to confuse your perceptions of what love is, based upon what you are shown by outside influences. If you are showing an influence unfamiliar to your beholder, you will throw them off base. You will startle them, and they will react to your very being. Herein is the wisdom of the words to be as wise as serpents and as peaceful as doves. Perhaps you will ponder that when you remember your environment and your being therein.

 

Good of you to have me. Thank you, Gerdean. And thank you, Tomas and gracious Merium, for your local hospitality. Good evening.

 

Group:            Thank you.

 

TOMAS:         This is Tomas. We have another personage, a gentlewoman, approaching the podium. One moment, please.

 

PEARL:          Good evening, my lovely friends. I am Pearl. You haven't heard from me in a few weeks, but I am very much alive and well and with you in your on-going adventures in life's unfolding.

 

Group:         Welcome.

 

PEARL:          And welcome also to you. I am glad to be in your presence once again in your consciousness. I would like to speak in terms of your ability to grapple with and overcome fear. When we last spoke together, we spoke about fear, Terror, Severe angst, Personal emotional crucifixion. It is easy enough indeed for sensitive mortals to sense this persecution. Your predecessors, who the Master taught in his sojourn here in the flesh, were not strangers to such troubles, as you know. They met untimely and cruel deaths, many of them. Down through the ages indeed many believers have been made martyrs to the truths they exalted.

 

I would like to remind you, who courageously push forward in the face of your profound fears, without compromising your ideals, it is necessary for you to live and to be effective. It serves no purpose for you to be a martyr. It does not serve the Master. It is necessary that you stay alive in the spirit and even in the flesh in strength of Him who sent us, who sends us even now into our arenas in order to find and salvage his lost sheep.

 

In order to go there and find the sheep, you must perforce encounter many wolves in sheep’s clothing. Do not succumb to the animal legacy of fear. Rise above your instinct to run and hide, but do not be so foolish as to throw caution to the wind and get yourself eaten alive by the lions in the arena. There are trained lions in the ring who are fed royally because they have entertained the masses by bringing (the spectacle of) blood and destruction to those who would destroy the truth and torchbearers of truth.  I am not a bearer of bad news but a staff of strength for you, my children. Stand upright and carry this staff with you and lean upon it as you go about the Father's business. Good evening.

 

Group:            Good evening.

 

MERIUM:     I am Merium. It is good to be here with you, my little girls. Let me not just fluff the pillows but let me sweep the floor and open the windows because you feel as if you have been cooped up in a concept for too long. Perhaps Pearl's many words of fear and persecution have brought you down, but I will not let you stay in this serious note my sister has come to give you. It is indeed a pearl of great price. Let us then look upon the luminosity of the pearl and the rarity of its being. Now we have a pearl and a conch shell.

 

Joniel:             And a staff!

 

MERIUM:     And a staff. We are gathering up all kinds of accoutrements. Teaching tools. I will talk to you a moment about teaching tools and props and parables. My partner Tomas talked on Sunday to Elyssia about her Sunday School class and indicated that whatever was on hand would be a good thing to use to teach a truth. I am going to give you an assignment this week. Let me see if I can find a starting point.

 

Ah yes, it shall be this. Are you paying attention?

 

Group:            Yes!

 

MERIUM:     This week, any time you see a pearl, a conch shell, or a staff, -- Let's make that broader. A bead, a fossil, or a stick! - exercise your ability to focus on a spirit gem of truth by creating for yourself a little story around that which is immediately apparent.

 

You have heard the story that in some cultures, in some tribes, a baby is named according

to what it is that the mother first sees after the birth. Then use that same concept and let's say you are going to the store and you look down and find a leaf -- well, a leaf is a bit of a fossil, isn't it? -- Or a stone, a stick. Look around. What does it relate to? What is the first thing your eye sees? Perhaps your eye will discard some of the things that it comes upon, but what is the first thing your eye sees? The spirit will let you SEE something, based on this exercise.

 

Maybe it will be the sweater that that blonde woman is wearing which will lead you to see the blonde woman, which will lead you to see an attitude that she is wearing, and the attitude itself will give to you an impression of a value lesson, which -- if she were to present herself to you -- you would be able to weave into a pearl of great price to give to her as a gift. A seed, planted, for the Master's garden.

 

Now that I have given you something to think about and something to do, I will give you back to Tomas.

 

Group:            Thank you, Merium.

 

TOMAS:        Thank you, Merium, and other visitors. I am glad to be here with you, my daughters. Glad to conjoin with you once again in our customary configuration of student-teacher relationship. Next week, if we are able, let's turn the tables and you can teach me by your efforts and your results in following the instruction of Merium and bring back to me these lessons you have garnered and I will be your student.

 

But for this evening, little ones, are there any questions? Or do you have concerns or commentary?  [Silence] Your lights are quiet this evening. You are tired. It is enough then that we have companioned one another. We have had visits and stories and gifts. It is befitting this time of year that we should celebrate and give thanks and honor the seasons and the continuity and the comfort of friendship. Be on your way, then, and be of good cheer. Farewell.

 

Group:            Thank you, Tomas.

*****

 

DATE:                        December 8, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:             TOMAS, MERIUM

Group:                        Liana, Rachel, Leah, Joel and Gerdean

 

READING:    From Teacher Will (for December 8)

TOPIC:

How It Is You Teach

 

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

Group:            Good evening, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        I am delighted to be here and to partake of your intimate joy with one another. We rejoice to behold your camaraderie in the spirit. Many of us are here. We have been observing the many foods you have brought to the Table. You have indeed begun to feed us!

 

I indicated last week, indeed, that you perhaps would begin to teach me and I would like to point out to you how you have been teachers this evening, from our perspective, because perhaps you do not know! You were asked at the last meeting to look at your own perfection, to assume your own value, so that you could uphold your relationship with Our Father as you go about your day. I am going to pause, however, in my teaching for Merium is at hand and wants to say something. One moment, please.

 

MERIUM:     Dear little girls and boy. How delightful to be with you this evening in your lovely company. I am so enchanted by your new friend! Hello, young fellow. It is good to see you here. My name is Merium. I am a member of this merry band of personalities who delight to be your friend. My co-worker Tomas is more stuffy than I am. I am quite frivolous; but, make no mistake, I am a teacher. I am also certain of your ability to teach and to preach righteousness as you pass by.

 

Part of being a sharer, an evangelist if you will, of truth, of beauty, of goodness -- which are qualities of divinity -- it behooves one to acknowledge one another, for one does not live in an isolated space of existence. Indeed, Our Father radiates out into the far reaches of the grand universe in order to embrace and be with each of his creations, in one way or another. His effusiveness in sharing himself is what allows us to bask in the neighborhood of his very presence.

 

The presence of God is upon us. Wherever He is, we are; wherever we are, He is. This acknowledgement allows us to be in spiritual light. All it takes is to acknowledge our divine Source. No matter what the background, conditioning, coloration, experience or whatnot, we are all in His family of Life. It is an acknowledgement of this Life that gives life its wonder, its value lure, for when we begin to see the gift of life -- that life is a gift. We begin to hunger for a greater understanding of it, a greater involvement with it.

 

Perhaps now we will be able to expand our light one more degree by the association as met in you this evening. How wonderful to meet you, my son, and to have your presence here for the ladies.

 

Well, my comrade Tomas will carry on. I am going to observe. Be good now.

 

Group:            Thank you, Merium. Good to hear from you. We miss you!

 

TOMAS:        This is Tomas and Merium advises that if you want to talk with her more often, just call her up!

 

I was going to talk to you about how it is that you have taught. How can I teach you that you are teachers? Again you challenge me, dear class. I guess I will have to approach you as if you were my teacher in order for you to see how it is that you teach. One moment.

 

Joel, do you mind if I call you Joel? I will ask you to look upon your relationship with your son. Tell me, father, how does it feel to be a father? How do you love your son? What does this call forth in you?

 

Joel:                Responsibility.

TOMAS:        Responsibility. For?

Joel:                To provide for him.

 

TOMAS:        I had four sons. I know exactly what you mean. I had a responsibility to provide for them in their material needs, and for that I am very grateful to my mate who was very devoted to their mortal needs in her gift of mothering, particularly when I found myself away for long periods on my sojourns.

 

My greatest sense of responsibility, as to my sons, was an integral part of me, indeed, as you have said. Having my boys enriched my life such that I was at least four times bigger because of my four sons. Somehow the opportunity allowed me to be adequately expanded in order that I could obligate myself to that responsibility of fathering my sons, the creations of my mate and I. She and I were made greater by our parenting experience.

Your very sharing expands me. You remind me, by your sharing that which is of value to you, what is of value to me, and thus, my son, you have taught this evening. Anytime we are reminded of our Parent in Paradise, our Creator, we have opportunity to sit at his feet again and learn.

 

Ah, Leah, my child, shall I ask you questions, my teacher?

 

Leah:              Yes! I'm curious how you are going to inform me how a teaching has taken place.

 

TOMAS:        I will come to that in due course. (Long pause) When you have given me a report on what you have done in terms of your relationships with those dear to you, you have taught me. How do you interpret your teachings in your sharing this evening? I know Leah, that you are aware of your ministry, for you acknowledge your focus on service as that part of you which comprises an aspect of your perfection-hunger.

 

Leah:              I'm not sure of what you're asking me.

 

TOMAS:        I will elucidate in this way, and I will demonstrate for those with eyes to see, how it is that your selflessness has become such an integral part of you, in your desire to serve others, that you are unaware of how it is that you serve.

 

Leah:              I don't really understand that but it sounded good!

Rachel:           I do!

Leah:              I know it sounded really nice!

 

TOMAS:        I am glad that it has been understood by others. Perhaps in due course it will become an awareness on your part, if only because at some point you may want to bounce around off of that value level, for it is truly inherent in you.

 

Leah:              Are you talking about selflessness? Is that what you're talking about?

TOMAS:        Yes, child.

Leah:              Well, that's very nice but I'm probably very selfish.

TOMAS:        I am certain that you are! [Group laughter]

Leah:              Well, we got that out on the table!

 

TOMAS:        But I am also certain that you have a yearning to be of service to the extent that you readily resolve to serve, even though you may retain degrees of selfishness. But you see, you choose, and in choosing you chart your course. In charting your course, you are a teacher.

 

Let me go on to our other daughters. (Long pause) I would like to know why, if you are the teacher, I am still doing all the talking! You can do this! Rachel, you are very sharp, very vocal. You know how it is that you have taught me! And how you teach in your sharing. Let's not stumble over any false modesty here. What would Father have you teach, and what have you taught by your personality manifestation this evening?

 

Rachel:            Letting go of fear. Just saying thank you for all that we are. Getting stronger and stronger. Life is beautiful. And you have helped me see that, and the Father.

 

TOMAS:        I will point out to you, daughter, that excerpt from the text that has to do with The Master in his methods of teaching. Often he affirmed aloud for himself his own testimonials of faith in The Father, for his own sake and not so much for the sake of those who heard him. And thus He taught; and so many times you can use the same technique of affirming for your self aloud your own faith, and giving yourself the direction you need to continue in your faith path.   And as you are vocal and as you have a fragrant personality, it is therefore an effective tool that you may use in your ministry.

 

Rachel:           Learning out loud your own lessons?

 

TOMAS:        Certainly. It is a law in the universe that you teach what you have learned. Is it not also sensible then that you would reiterate that which you are learning?

 

Rachel:           As a teaching tool.

TOMAS:        Aha! I have come to teach you to be a teacher.

Rachel:           Mm-hum.

TOMAS:        I am glad I am doing my job.

Rachel:           You're doing a fine job, Tomas,

TOMAS:        As are you, daughter.

 

Leah:              I'd like to site an example of how you testified to your faith path, making it thereby more real for you, Rachel. And that was when you were talking about the group of young people and one of them asked how you came to be doing what you do and you said God showed you! And the child reacted to that. That was a real delight to read.

 

Rachel:           That was just a reaction to reality. It was reality!

 

TOMAS:        I would like to spend a moment in focus on our Liana, this fragrant flower. How are you, darling?

 

Rachel:           I'd better not say "good" or "fine". [Group laughter] I am wonderful! I'm doing fine.

 

TOMAS:        Way to go, girl.

Liana:             But I'd like you to ask a question.

 

TOMAS:        I like it already. Indeed, it is necessary that one asks questions. It is vital that you indicate to the universe that you are willing, ready, eager for instruction. "How can I serve? What is your will for me? What can I do to help? What do you mean by that? What's the big deal here? What's going on? Why did that happen? Why me, God?" These are questions that you ask in your heart when life exposes itself to you. "How did I get to be so lucky? How amazing it was that that happened!" All the time as you ask questions you are given answers. It is a truth.

 

Liana:             It is true.

TOMAS:        I will ask you questions. What is that book all about you are reading?

 

Liana:             It's about ... um. Well, I just got that book. [Group laughter] So, I just got that book yesterday, so it's just teasing me in my bag, but it's called "The Seven Rays" and it's about... the energy patterns that... it's kind of like what they call, in The Urantia Book, circuits. So there are certain circuits that we - I'm just making this up in my head. I haven't read the book yet, but I think this is where it's going to say, is that, like in astrology, there are certain circuits of energy that people …

 

If we didn't have bodies, we would be patterns of energy, which are called rays. Okay? So, they are kind of like the fruits of the spirit. Are you following me, Tomas?

 

TOMAS:        I'm afraid I will have to ask a lot more questions! [Group laughter]

 

Liana:             Okay. Well, I like to talk to people who are on a similar wave length so that I don't have to explain everything. I just simply say, "You know?" [Group laughter] And we finish each other's sentences and stuff like that.

 

TOMAS:        But I don't know. Does that mean you don't care about me?

 

Liana:             Oh, I care about you.   I care very deeply. What would you like to know, Tomas? I'll tell you. If I know, I'll tell you.

 

TOMAS:        But you haven't read the book yet.

 

Liana:             No, but I've read other books. A couple hundred at least! [Group laughter] What would you like to know about it? I'll tell you about the Course in Miracles! [More laughter] I've read other books by Alice Bailey; I just haven't read this one. So, everything has to say the same thing to me. You know, I have to see that there is consistency, that no matter what I read, I have to be able to recognize the truth of it. So that's really what I'm doing.

 

TOMAS:        I will ask you, then, if you will research and find out what role it is that you are playing when you are attempting to assimilate all of these truths.

 

Liana:             Well, I can tell you something right now, Tomas. I always pray to have an experience of oneness, so I really think that's the role. That's why I do that! Because it's sort of a healing of separate thought. These things aren't really separate. They are all the same. They are all saying the same thing. They are just using a different language.

 

TOMAS:        It is very true, I daresay, we are comrades here, and I have to acknowledge, you know? [Group laughter]

 

Liana:             Yes, I know! [More laughter] I love you, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        I love you, Liana, and we are both benefiting greatly by the ministry of the Infinite Spirit whose job it is, in some ray or another, to assimilate all these value lessons and truths for us, that we may find continuity and wholeness in our life experience, as well as the experience of others. You are a research scientist, indeed, in theology and cosmology, a very productive librarian for truth. You cannot help but be a teacher by your ability to find value in everything.

 

Liana:             Thank you, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        Perhaps I can even include our little one here, Gerdean, who remains mute. I will focus upon her ability to teach, if I may. One moment.

 

Gerdean:        I can't wait! [Group laughter]

 

TOMAS:        I would like to commend Gerdean for her ability to manifest her dual nature so adroitly. It would sometimes appear, perhaps, as if she were schizophrenic [group giggle], but this theatrical manifestation is a working affect on her part in order to demonstrate her duality. It is amusing to us to behold.

 

It is amazing, indeed, to observe the human learning to balance itself on the tight wire [high wire] of a spirit-led life. We have talked before about the lily pads, about how when you learn to walk in faith it is possible for you to step lightly upon the next lily pad that presents itself, and thus you have footing, noble little frogs, but as you begin to walk the morontia high wire, you do not have such firm footing. You are dependant upon having a lighter step, a higher reach, and, in this, a perception of balance is precise and even critical.

 

It is a joy to observe Gerdean's dance. And it is even more joyous to behold her in such jubilation as she experiences love in the mortal and morontial realms of her reality. Indeed, a high wire act! Let us watch to see if the trampoline of her experiential foundation holds her aloft.

 

Dear ones, what have we now? Are there questions?

 

Rachel:           Yeah, I have a question. I'm reading this book about speaking in tongues. Why do people have spiritual experiences of speaking in tongues?

 

TOMAS:        Why not? Have you not been discussing all the many ways that you may teach and preach?

 

Rachel:           Well, yeah, but this is personal!

TOMAS:        Perhaps you want to be more specific in your question.

 

Rachel:           No. No, not really. I guess I'll just chalk it up to another spiritual experience.

 

TOMAS:        Have you been doing such?

 

Rachel:           No, but I'm reading such, and it seems that everybody in this book had the same spiritual experience.

 

TOMAS:        Then you cannot chalk it up as a spiritual experience.

Rachel:           Well, for other people.

TOMAS:        Research.

Rachel:           Research?

TOMAS:        Yes.

 

Rachel:           I just... Well, like, they say everybody's spiritual experience is different, yet here's this -- groups of people who are having the same one.

 

TOMAS:        Look at the example set by Liana. Has she not found value in each of these many paths? Has she? Ask her! Does she say, "Why do these people do that?" [Group laughter]

 

Rachel:           Do you?

 

Liana:             No, I haven't asked myself, but I would think that it's almost like Gerdean doing this, it's when you're in that environment you are allowed to express yourself in that way, so when they say it's Pentecostal and they speak in tongues, and you allow yourself an experience at that, it's a sharing with the people. Just like in this environment we are allowed to be teachers of spirit.  Just think what we could do if we allowed ourselves to do it!

 

TOMAS:        Way to go, girl. [Group laughter]

 

Liana:             But then somebody -- This is the big thing! -- Somebody’s got to be the fool. Because! The person first gets up and starts going (squeal) tongues! You know?

 

Rachel:           Yeah. You have to bare your soul.

 

Liana:             In other words, you have to be the fool. That's the first card in the Tarot, is the zero, is the fool, and that is what it's called, the experience of... the peak experience. So...

 

TOMAS:        One must be willing to be a servant. If you are willing to be a catalyst for growth, you may be perceived of as a fool, but you know if you have planted that seed, if you have enabled that pole-vault into that greater reality, then it is a willing sacrifice. Your dignity is not truly lost. Your reality is firm. But you may play the fool, and that, too, is a teaching method. But you must know in your heart that in truth you are not a fool, you are a child of God, a divine son or daughter in potential.

 

Liana:             Well, actually that's what the number zero is! It is where it all started, where it is God.

 

TOMAS:        The First Source.

Liana:             The First Source and Center. Yes.

 

Leah:              It's interesting how the zero represents nothing but the circle represents

everything.

 

Liana:             Yeah, it's everything and nothing. So it's no-thing became all things.

TOMAS:        Well, I can see quite clearly I am not needed here. [Group laughter]

Liana:             Tomas, I have one more comment to make about the teaching.

TOMAS:        Very well.

 

Liana:             A comment and a question, but through the Course in Miracles, it's been my experience that when I am teaching, the prime candidate, the prime pupil is myself. No, it seems to me that when I'm all energized to be teaching somebody something -- "I got to tell you this! I got to tell you this!" -- that's really something that I need to learn myself, and I find that by the time I finish teaching that particular lesson, or when I get tired of teaching that particular lesson, it's because I finally learned the damned thing.

 

TOMAS:        You have mastered it.

Liana:             I have mastered it.

 

TOMAS:        It is also a part of the development of the Supreme, for as you have mastered the lesson, as you have given away what you have learned, you have found perfection, relative perfection, but in this expression of fullness, you have given a gift to God. And that which you have given back to God in thanks, in praise, in effective learning, in actualizing your potential, you have contributed to the Evolving Supreme.

 

Liana:             All right!

Leah:              Way to go, girl! [Group laughter]

 

TOMAS:        Let me again acclaim your value and our joy in knowing you, appreciating you, and rejoicing in your camaraderie with each other and with us. How we love you.

How blessed you all are. What joyous workers in the field.   Be of good cheer. Farewell.

*****

 

DATE:                        December 15, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:             TOMAS, MERIUM, NAOMI

Group:                        Rachel, Hunnah, Gerdean, Liana, Leah, Joniel and Joel

 

UB STUDY:               Readings from ASOKA's "When Things Go Wrong"

 

TEACHER SESSION:

TOPIC:

Belief and Faith

 

NAOMI (Hunnah):      We're going to have a good time tonight. This is station SMILE. Greetings. Greetings to you all. Hunnah had a surprise this evening. While you were reading and while she was being quiet, my name was presented to her. She was quite startled because she remembered that just recently when she sat down at the PC, she announced my name, typed it right out without batting an eye. My name is Naomi.

 

Group:            Welcome.

 

NAOMI:         Greetings to you all. Hunnah is very surprised to have an identification of a name, and the short transcript that came through, she simply asked that someone come and I am here and I am so pleased to be here! And I am so pleased to meet you all!

 

Your program this evening has been for us, genuinely, a program, and I want to tell you that you are all experiencing, to a degree, something that has been happening to Hunnah, who has not taken the time until just recently to put it together, but she said to her friend today, "I know, as of today, once again, I am proving to myself that my human thoughts and my human conditioning are just a distraction, because I know that there is a great plan and that we are simply moved into place and to do the appropriate action at the appropriate time.

 

She was referring to the acquaintance of Reiki in Butler and the human being would say, "Oh! We've got to do this and we've got to do that", but the connected heart, the heart that listens to divine order, to that intimate program that is just for you and you alone, is already established in your heart, and as you become acquainted, and as you covet this special relationship which was indeed discussed in this transcript that you read this evening, this ultimate relationship that is established with your Thought Adjuster, that knows your every need. And you may allow yourself to continue to wail or be full of mischief and be very preoccupied, or you can stay home and sulk, you can do anything you want, but the schedule is on-line, the stage has been set, we have been about our work, it has been very successful because we are interacting.

 

And it is not the sacrifice of your freedom in any way. You could not have the Father's will come alive in the many ways as it has in your individual lives if you weren't part of this, but it is very perplexing for you and I know you suffer because you still think that you have to solve things the old way and you do not. There is no wrong way. That is quite startling. There are no wrong answers. There are only the opportunities for you to turn your back on your conditioned behavior because you are new. And you are alive. And you are so beautiful!

 

And I heard Hunnah say this evening, "I love myself and I put my arms around myself and I embrace myself, and I could not possibly do that," she said to herself, if she did not have a new definition of who she was and what she was all about. And this is nothing that you can strut and tell your friends. You have friendships on all levels, and out of respect you keep certain aspects of these truths close to yourself and you save these treasures for those who are like-minded, as Gerdean has shared this evening. She is so thrilled to find someone who is on this path. And you, my dear Rachel, are not the only one who is a holding pattern.

 

We know in Hunnah's heart she has watched her son and she has had to allow herself to watch him find his rhythms, find his opportunities, and in spite of the standard fare of concern and fear oriented propositions and explanations, it is hard and it is grating to hear the old way in your ear, but you have to know, and as you develop in your consciousness, that those calls that you’d define as their old way, and their fears, are really the human way of saying, "I love you child, so much, that I want you to be secure and happy."

 

And in their definition of what secure and happy is, is really alright, and your gift will be that you will not longer feel offended. It will no longer be caustic on your nerves because it will not be so sensitive. The old sounds will lose their power; their definitions will be understood in your heart in a way they never have before. It is really, really an exciting time for you all. We know that the doors are flying open very rapidly now, change is picking up and that you are, a lot of you, kind of bewildered by the fact that the things that come about in the way they are, or that you won't miss something that you thought you wanted for it is no longer your emotional need.

 

I am so pleased to be able to come here and bring reassurances. I feel like the understudy to the great star, Merium, and it is an honor for me to be able to come in and I hope that you will let me share with you in my way. I sing in the same choir and you are a wonderful audience and thank you.

 

Group:                        Thank you, Naomi.

TOMAS (Gerdean):    I am Tomas, your regularly scheduled teacher.

Group:                        Hello, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        It is indeed a bounty to be here and to be enthralled, amused, entertained, edified, enlightened and loved by our visitor, our sister Naomi. Her message is heartwarming indeed and I am even assured our star, Merium, is enchanted with her understudy.

 

Perhaps we can prevail upon Merium to join in our session on point. I would like to be pedantic for a moment and bring about a formal outpouring of wordage belonging to my repertoire of tricks. This one has to do with a balance between belief and faith. Indeed one time, when we were beginning our platform together, Merium and I had opportunity to teach in a format of the two sides of the coin and at that time one of us took faith and the other took trust. This evening I would like to prevail upon Merium to take one of the sides of the coin between belief and faith. Have you a preference, Merium?

 

MERIUM (Hunnah):               Oh, I think that I might like faith.

TOMAS:                                Who would like to go first?

 

MERIUM:     I feel that belief is frequently introduced through the cognitive skills...

TOMAS:        Yes.

 

MERIUM:     ... intelligence, and the reasoning mind, so I would prefer that you set the format.

 

TOMAS:        I will do so gladly, gracious colleague. I will speak in terms of the propensity of the human mind to develop, establish, depend upon and act in according to a belief system. We will pull from the hat the excerpt from the text which reflects the value lesson that whatever it is that man/woman believes is held up to be a worthy belief for all men/women. If it is good enough for me to believe in, it is good enough for everyone to believe in, and the more exalted the concept, the higher devotion to the belief system, the more supreme it becomes, even to the levels of the sublime.

 

Behold now the development of creeds and tenets, divisions. We have interest groups; we have politics; we have opinion; we have a busy society of mental approaches by and through a belief system that we share with others.

 

In the development of your spiritual nature, in your evolution, you are brought in to an appreciation of reality when your belief systems succeed or when they collapse. If and when your belief system is working and harmonious with an organism of fellows, it is a good belief system, but when it abandons you and collapses and leaves you floundering without knowing what to believe in, you have got to, then, rely upon faith in order to persevere, for in your humanness you will begin again soon and anon to construct yet another belief system upon which you can function.

 

Beliefs therefore are a great necessity in your evolving nature, in your structure. It is an interesting corollary also that everyone has a set of beliefs that are working for them. They may borrowed from someone else, they may be integral, but they are none-the-less an individual perception which has been raised to a level of a belief, and what you believe in you will hold up as worthy of the belief of anyone.

 

MERIUM:     Is that pause my cue?

TOMAS:        I will allow you now to flip the coin and approach the salvation of faith.

 

MERIUM:     Well, it's going to be a moment or so before that subject gets going because Hunnah is having her trepidations. She has been trying to cue me and help me out with the subject and I am very amused because she knows when I start to talk I take off and all her help is for nothing, but this is what happens when are a transmitter. You can hear but not concentrate on the speaker because you are sitting in the side wings and I am speaking for Hunnah now, but here we go.

 

Faith. First of all, you do a lot of living before the word even occurs to you that there even is such a thing as faith. Faith in what? Faith in the fact that supper will be ready at five? Faith in the fact that the dog will come home? In order to use the word faith, you have to have some living experiences and witness these experiences or digest this intellectual information or you've done a lot of listening in your community, to a lot of opinions, and you've read books and then you begin to discern a preference of whether you believe something or you do not.

 

And remember we have traveled a great distance from having a belief in one God. That was a giant step. And now you are here with this torrential downpour of trivia that society must find its way through and as soon as they find out they believe in something, they find out there is another angle to it and they're not sure what they believe. This develops a feeling of frustration and you get down to your doing your homework. "What do I believe?" and then when you start thinking about what you believe, you start to develop a reliance and this reliance, this dependable belief becomes the word faith, and you have faith in things, you have faith in ideas, you have faith you have moved to the point where you have faith in the invisible realm.

 

You have the faith that when you turn a faucet on, water will come out. A T/R, when she sits down, has developed trust and faith that something will happen when she begins to speak that will not be of herself. I think this is a splendid subject for you all to take and carry home in your heart of hearts, and to allow your intellect to wait upon the Lord and that's where the fan of faith comes along because I want you to say to yourself, "What is faith?" I want you to define that. It is a response to a belief what you believe in to be true, or “I have faith in something that works for me.”

 

There are so many ramifications, there are so many ideas on this subject, but the word is very important because you have faith that you know nothing of yet. You have to discover that you have a lot more faith than you ever thought you did and it is broadening your horizons. I would like to fluff it, if you please, I see a fan. If I handed you a beautiful fan and I said, ‘This is to help you develop your faith,’ how would you use it? If you were using it, would it not sway some of your beliefs? We would like to see you savor this subject. What do you have faith in? What do you believe? And at what point in your belief does it become the substance of your faith?

 

It's a very complex subject that you have chosen this evening! It is not as light and fluffy as I hoped it would be, but you've corralled me. Tomas, could you help?

 

TOMAS:        I see no necessity for help, Merium You have done a brilliant job and perhaps we can fling the corral doors open wide and allow the herd to enter in and apply some questions to this lesson.

 

MERIUM:     It does indeed lend itself to questions, and I hope that it will also become like a card that Hunnah bought but she didn't get it in the mail because the calendar moved too fast but you have all seen these cards that are the preparation of Christmas (Ed: an Advent calendar) and you open the little door and there is something inside that door for you for the day. Well, I would like to have you develop within yourself a calendar. Open that little door and a belief will pop into your thought processes and you may examine it and find out if it is for your faith file. Does it belong in that category? Or is it something that's out there as physical fact? We open the floor. (Pause) We have not tempted you, tantalized you with our subject?

 

TOMAS:        They must collect their wits, Merium.

 

MERIUM:     Oh, I have a suggestion. Are there some beliefs that you have that need to

go? You see this does lend itself to homework, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        Are we not teachers?

 

MERIUM:     Yes, but you won't have to think about it. It will pop into your  consciousness just as my friend's name Naomi did with Hunnah. You have all experienced this type of cue, so I hope that it will be very effective for you.

 

Rachel:           All right. I'll give one. I'll give up the belief I'm in control.

Liana:             Ohhh! Excellent!

MERIUM:     I had a question.

 

Rachel:           Urn-hum?

MERIUM:     How many Ts" do you have?

Rachel:           I being the human, Wendy.

 

MERIUM:     So you believe there are two of you?

Rachel:           Well, I guess since I haven't fused yet, aren't we still two?

TOMAS:        Dual nature, yes.

 

Rachel:           I am of dual nature. So as I find everything I believed in, Merium, falling apart, I now must have faith that the Father will catch me when I fall.

 

MERIUM:     You need your body. You need your heart and soul. So if you fall, you will have to get back up because you're needed, because you are developing a new concept of yourself.

 

TOMAS:        And we come back round to the goal of the human condition here in early light and life, and that is to balance oneself sufficiently that you walk in faith and in the flesh an integrated personality. Remember the mota that speaks to this.

 

Rachel:           What mota was that?

 

TOMAS:        Few persons have the courage to embrace the faith which they really have. The human soul is truly rich but they refuse to believe that.

 

Rachel:           Why is that?

 

Joel:                I can tell you why. I think experiences that are negative to you kind of
hurt your faith and the more that happens the less you believe in, but deep down, deep
down you know of things, you believe in things, you have a true faith in them but then
they get boxed away and hidden, a lot of things like bad childhood memories. That's
what I believe.

 

TOMAS:        A+.

 

Joel:                And so that's kind of where I'm coming from. It's kind of weird while we
are on the subject because ...

 

Rachel:           It must be everybody's subject.

Joel:                Yeah. But, yeah, I'm trying to open those boxes. I'm trying to find them.

MERIUM:     That takes courage!

 

Joel:                Yes.

MERIUM:     I have another nice word.

Rachel:           I don't have any courage!

 

MERIUM:     You do have courage, dear. You have a lot of courage! It's in one of those boxes.   It is Christmas.

 

Rachel:           I'm not feeling courageous though.

MERIUM:     It is Christmas.

Rachel:           I'm not even seeing Christmas, Merium!

 

MERIUM:     Perhaps you have packages to open that you have to open in our presence and in our time. If you are going to decide to be one of us, and in a sense you have already made the decision but it's still partly on the drawing board. For you. But for us it is a reality. You are already where you think you want to be. It's like catching up with yourself

 

Joel:                Is that true for everybody?

 

MERIUM:     Yes. When your heart opens to a high purpose, and in that high purpose you are willing to meet all the variations of your experience here with the same trust and integrity, we cannot want for anything greater from you. You are home! If you want to serve the highest good that lives and reigns in your heart, then why would you care if you were burning bridges behind you? Why would you care except you will be allowed to have compassion for your human nature, but you will see it in a more objective way.

 

For an example, I know today I feel that I am grieving. It's alright if I grieve, but I am not grief. I am observing my grief even when I feel it. It is hurting. When you are in a shadow place you are allowed to ask for a better interpretation of your experience and constantly remind yourself that the room is filled with caring assistance at all times. Our vigil is constant. You are normal because you are distracted, but our song is constantly available to you. And it feeds and strengthens the fibers of the new you.

 

The new you that your Thought Adjuster, this force of loving intelligence that has brought you here, is constantly with you. So in scripture it says, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." And you know that Jesus said these words but what we are hearing him say is, "I, the truth of your being, will never leave you, and I will be glorified when you allow yourself to hear it, to feel it, to focus on it."

 

If you focus on the pain you will be distracted. You may acknowledge it, but we want you to focus on your light force and your joyous purpose for being alive and how very, very important you are.

 

Rachel:           But I don't feel any purpose for being alive right now.

MERIUM:     In the moment,....

Rachel:           In the moment I don't.

 

MERIUM:     If you are wallowing in the moment, then so be it! It's like labor pains, is

it not?

 

Rachel:           Yes.

MERIUM:     And are you not....

Rachel:           Giving things up.

 

MERIUM:     Yes. Things that you....

Rachel:           Mourning them.

MERIUM:     That's right. Stuff.

Rachel:           Stuff. My whole life! So far.

 

TOMAS:        What does it matter if all things earthly crumble, to those who love the Lord? And what does it matter if a belief system is shattered if it is replaced with an experience which brings about a greater appreciation and understanding of Father and His qualities of truth, beauty and goodness?

 

Rachel:           Well, gee, Tomas, I think that Jesus said to me something about that yesterday.

 

MERIUM:     May I speak about friendship and Jesus?

Rachel:           Uh huh.

 

MERIUM:     It is a giant step to read about this personality of Jesus, this empowered being that was here on earth, and then you have this opportunity to meet Jesus within yourself privately and it is indeed perplexing for someone who is in the stage of development that you are all in, you ask yourself why? How can I possibly be having this nonsense going on in my life when I have been so blessed and honored with the holy presence of a living Christ? How can this possibly be?

 

Rachel:           Who even tells me he will never forsake me!

MERIUM:     You are here. We are talking about consciousness.

Rachel:           Urn hum.

 

MERIUM:     And Hunnah had a teacher who put it beautifully, she said, "You are living in suffering because you have created yesterday's consciousness and you are encapsulated in it and it's like outgrowing something and you are uncomfortable." She called it yesterday's consciousness solidified. Let me go further.

 

If you kept company with a group of people and you developed new ideas and beliefs, as Tomas has brought to our attention, and as our friend earlier suggested (during sharing time) that her sister worked in an office where people were in a sense light years apart from her standards, she had to get out. She had to remove herself from an unhealthy situation. And it takes the belief in herself to do this and it takes this companionship with this Holy of Holies that we speak of, your friends who are gathered here, to embrace you in the move, but it is still going to be tiring and stressful but you will have the satisfaction of having made the right choice of the morsel that is given to you from On High. And you don't have to tell anyone about it. It's just the way it is. You have outgrown your circumstances and you are uncomfortable.

 

Let me also speak of spiritual pride. Hunnah is very familiar with it, and it comes like a wet mop in her physicality. It's jolting when you have a moment of wondering if you are suffering from spiritual pride. How can I be in such a dilemma when I have kept company with the Holy of Holies and I am putting up with this garbage? Everyone in this room could say the same thing. This is not unique; this is just part of the transition, and if you embrace your transition, I can assure you, my dear; it will not be as painful.

 

I sound like a divine Heloise, I'm afraid, but when I speak to you, please, I speak to you as a sort of a gentle prodding, with tender respect for your ability to take that and use it effectively, and if I gave you a bucket of soapy water and a rag you would have the sense to know that you would be cleaning something. Well, this counsel, in a sense, is cleansing and in that cleansing there will be a lubricant that will ease the debris of your prior years and your prior beliefs and the sparkle of faith will see you through it. Talk is cheap. But you've got to soldier it. Put your shoulder to it. There is another method.   It's called, "Change My Attitude."

 

Gerdean:        Adjust my thoughts.

MERIUM:     That's right.

Rachel:           I asked for that one; the discipline.

 

MERIUM:     It works. You can do it every day, all day long. It works. Do I need to see this differently?

 

Rachel:           What's the lesson?

MERIUM:     Just keep in touch with us. Keep in touch with yourself.

Rachel:           Oh, I have.

 

MERIUM:     You will, and your wail will fade and fade and one of these days you will

hear yourself...

 

Rachel:           I remember wailing in the past.

Leah:              Well, Heloise, how does one embrace this transition?

MERIUM:     You are all doing it! You are all doing it and you are doing very well.

Rachel:           I suppose we wouldn't be here if weren't.

 

MERIUM:     You are doing it very, very well. And you will have moments of connecting with this higher agenda and finding out that you really don't need to be doing some of the things you are doing; you don't need to be working so hard at it. Your being a beholder of how much help is at hand would ease everything.

 

Liana:             "My yoke is ..." How does that go?

Rachel:           "... my burden is light."

 

MERIUM:    "My yoke is easy, my burden is light." That is a very nice line to consider. Light. Light weight. Or perhaps invisible. Consciousness. "My yoke. My yoke is your  moving toward me." I'm talking "me" meaning divinity. Or if you don't like that word, cosmically. You are acknowledging we are going from matter to energy. It is true, so we will say that your yoke is ... it is not a yoke; it is not a harness. It is your new choice! It is the arc from which you will enter and say, 'This mantle I will wear, and now that I have made my choice, I realize that it doesn't have any burden. I do not feel the weight. What is going on here? I don't seem to feel like I have to work so hard! 'My yoke is easy; my burden is light'. “And as you have the courage to return to a situation that is unresolved, you are allowed to say every hour if you have to, "I am here to do whatever has to be done in a new way. Help me not to just parrot an old idea, bring up an old feeling, an old hurt, but to see it as a new fresh moment.”

 

Now, the people you are with, you are congregating with in your old scenario, aren't going to the same school you are going to in the same way. And it is sort of like white water rafting sometimes, and then you have your opportunities to move on forward without any resistance. They don't have to know what's going on with you. You do not have to explain yourself, but you do have to respect the fact that they are where they are and you can't pull them up all of a sudden. And we have heard A LOT of that from all of you, because you are puzzled and you are trying to figure it out.

 

TOMAS:        It is a puzzle. It is a simple matter of acknowledging that you all have a belief system and if you have faith, you will discover that in the long run they are all compatible, even though you may not be sharing the same belief system at the same time.

 

Leah:              When you are making that statement, Tomas, are you referring to the
people in this room or are you referring to the affiliates that we have in our lives outside
of this room?

 

TOMAS:        It is a universal law. All belief is perception. Everyone has a perception, and in the omniscient point of view, in as much as love is all there is, each belief is a temporary illusion of reality as scaffolding to a greater reality, that in which everyone has faith. Are we not all yearning to return to the Source?

 

Leah:              Yes.

TOMAS:        Are we not all in fact en route to a return to Divinington and perfection?

Rachel:           Uh-huh.

TOMAS:        Ultimate perfection.

Rachel:           Yes.

 

Leah:              Well, I guess I need some practical advice on how to be kind to people

who are not nice to you.

 

TOMAS:        Each person is a case in point. Some are not worthy of note. Some are worth an investment of untiring effort, and only an eye on infinity can establish for you what each individual person represents to you in your walk. Do not feel as if you have failed if you do not feel the impulse to respond to every flicker.

 

In other words, there is no blanket rule. You do His will as you perceive His will is for you. And allow everyone else the same opportunity. As Desiderata says, "And if you find each other, it's wonderful!" If not, go in peace. Indeed, enjoy the entertainment. Have we not often testified to how amusing we find you?

 

Rachel:           Yes.

TOMAS:        Why do you suppose that is?

Rachel:           I don't know. Why is that?

 

TOMAS:        Because of your individuality, your uniqueness; that you each have an approach, that you each have your own assortment of challenges. You each have your own most delightful interpretation of personality. Even in your error of manifestation, it is entertaining. It is not for us to judge your beliefs, but only to be aware of the fact that each one has beliefs. As your beliefs compare with others, you may feel and enjoy that camaraderie of kindred spirits. If it's not there, then it is not necessary to try to browbeat your peer into believing the way you do, for they could turn around and do the same thing and this serves well for debate or for contention, but does little to afford an atmosphere of teamwork and cooperation, and unity in diversity.  Practice makes perfect. And even higher levels of perfection.

 

MERIUM:     Let us pray for our what we used to call enemies. We have been talking about yesterday's consciousness solidified. That means you are with the same family and you've said things that have been written in stone and they have their slates and you have your slates, okay? Let us describe a common scenario of the office where people of diverse interests and belief systems are gathered and we will compound the problem by stressing them with the structure of the work they do. Then we will compound it once again with those individuals who are tense and have personal situations in their home life.

 

And you, of course, are the one glittering star in the whole scenario and you are the only one who really knows what's going on in the world [Giggle], and you are going to leave and take your toys, but if you are the glittering star in your own story and you really do believe that "I am" continuously congregating with you, and that I too am in the office, and that everyone in that office (let us just say there are twelve; it's a small group), and they have all their different habits. They drink a lot of pop, they smoke, they like to watch TV and some of them talk about fish. Now in this group (You are in the group. Let's not forget that) you are not going to take your toys and go home. You are going to be tapped on your shoulder in consciousness instead and say, "Oh my gosh!" and in a lucid moment you will be reminded by yourself, within yourself, that every one of those people have a Thought Adjuster, and a lot of them ARE in touch with their Thought Adjuster, and since you are of the same substance in light and truth, you have a right and an opportunity and the ability to contact every one of them because "Where I am is holy ground." So if they are there, they are on it too. And if you are aware of the celestial vanguard that is constantly available to you, then you ought to know too that they have the same services at hand.

 

So there isn't any enemy now. There is a new perception. And this takes a lot of work! Because you want to be lazy and not have to go into detail and get out your beginners manual to apply it to yourself and say, "Just what are you doing, picking up your toys and leaving? Didn't I - I want you to bloom where you are planted!" Did that not occur to you? And is not this essence that is in you called love and are they not even invisibly responsive to my love? I tell you, that it's very easy to pick up your toys and leave, and only seek like-minded people, but that is not what this mission is about.

 

And you are not there to say, "Well I think you better read The Urantia Book and get your act together." [Giggle] No, no, no! You are going to be more understanding. You are not going to be more understanding -- understanding will be emitted from you, from your very pores. Tolerance will come through you. Your very presence in the office will tip the scales and there will be a part of you that will want to jump out with a clipboard and keep track of the progress, but it is not necessary.

 

All we want you to do is embrace those about you. Those in your home. That person who is nearing difficulty in your face. It is very difficult, but you are here. You are agondonters. This is your mission! This is what this is all about! You are all in different stages of yawning and stretching and falling asleep again. And in that sleep state there is impatience in traffic. There is disease. There is loneliness and despair. But when you have discovered this precious jewel of the fact that you are allowed to put your arms around yourself and embrace yourself and say, "Oh, my God, I have to fall in love with myself first before I am really going to be able to love others."

 

And you have all been doing this for years now in your calendar time and it's been difficult but you have done so well. You are at the point and all have done it, have just snuggled inside yourself and said, "How joyful! I know that this is true, that the other life that I have lived in the darkness and in ignorance, digesting other people's opinions and making them my own, all of that is over. I have a new set of rules and they are reliable and I have developed faith in them."

 

One of these days in this group and in this conversation we will hear you make this announcement. You will know that you have gone over the top in your understanding that you are of Light and Life, and that the body is your servant and that that is true of everyone else but they haven't just found the pot of gold and they haven't even looked up to find out if there was a rainbow.

 

I hope these words tonight will stay in you. Have you ever seen concrete kid? Where they take bars and reinforcement rods and they lay it down and then they bring in the cement? They have to put this sturdy structure down in order to support the substance that's poured over it so that it will be useful. This is what has happened to you. We have allowed your circuitry to become these bars of strength in you because they are in contact with the reality of your Being. They do nothing but contain currents of truth, of living truth, and then that which is -- instead of being cement -- what it is, is what you radiate and represent. And it in turn is a strong emotional structure and an intelligence which influences your surroundings.

 

I want you to take this metaphor and I want you to allow yourself to put your own words together in privacy. Maybe even write it. And see how you come out with your own Thought Adjuster's guidance and your own guides, your own teachers, because remember, you are the new teacher! You are the new wayshower! And it is fun to talk about how it's been out there. It's important. But what we really want you to talk about is the Good News of what you have discovered, that the principles work and it's okay to -- there are no wrong answers anymore because you are living in the real answer and that's fulfillment.  I really enjoyed myself. [Group delight]

 

TOMAS:        How wonderful it is, Merium, to have you in our midst in your full regalia. It is a joy to observe and subject ourselves to your teaching ministry. I myself have felt in the last few moments as if I were creating a highway to heaven upon which we are all walking, and I am certain that each of us have a road that we will take to find our way Home, one which we indeed pave as we join forces with the Highway Department in the Sky.

 

I have so enjoyed our evening. I am delighted, again, to experience our teaching corps in its greater capability. It is also good to be able to reiterate to you, faithful flock old and new, how well you have developed. We do not take credit for this; we are growing with you. I did want to, however, respond somewhat to Merium's outpouring in particular with her remark regarding spiritual superiority. Pride.

 

I want to point out, referring back to the earlier lesson about belief and faith, that in the belief system shared by others in the Teaching Mission, Machiventa's proposed materialization in Naperville was and remains an important part of your appreciation for spirit made manifest, because since that time your ability to appreciate your peers in service to our Father has significantly increased, become more real. Your faith has grown as a culture and as a movement and as a facet of spiritual reality, individually and collectively, because of your shared belief and because of your faith.

 

But remember too that there are other movements afoot across the face of Urantia. The philosophies of Avatar and the Seven Rays and the Sparrow and the various teachers, each have an event. The harmonic convergence. Each have a philosophy. A Course in Miracles, which gives further perspective to the truth that Our Father works with all of his children and any one which seeks to find shall indeed discover the God who will, will you Home.

 

I have every confidence that my purpose this evening has been fulfilled. I am prepared now to remove myself, but I will allow also for any alternative in-as-much as we have a wonderful group and Merium and I have had such fun talking. Perhaps you might like to also. If you would like to, please carry on. If you would like to ask questions, please carry on there also. But if you would like to call it a day, you have my permission to do that as well.

 

Rachel:           Anybody?

 

Leah:              Well, I'd like to make a comment, I guess. In the beginning of your discourse, Merium, you more or less inferred (those are my words) that perhaps some of us were in situations that weren't working, and then later on you talked about getting in touch with the Adjuster of the other person, then we went into the rapids of -- where some of us are just going through the rapids and I guess some of us are just standing on the shore (those are not your words, those are my words) -- and I... I asked the question before, "How do you be nice to people who aren't nice to you?" So I feel as if you answered that by saying, "You ask to get in touch with their Thought Adjuster or for their Thought Adjuster to get in touch with your Thought Adjuster", but then we got into missing the people who were in your home and within your immediate presence, which I do seek to do, but I still don't know how to be nice to people who aren't nice.

 

Joel:    I think that she had answered part of it by saying to have faith that their presence is there, and that their Thought Adjusters are working on them too. I guess.

 

Rachel:           I ask Jesus to come hold my hand. That's what I do. Because I figure, with him beside me I won't be tempted to lash out or that I could better endure the onslaught of somebody who is in outrageous aggressive behavior.

 

Leah:              Okay, then we got into the yoke is easy and the burden is light, and ...

Liana:             That's if you give it up!

Leah:              The struggle?

 

Liana:             Uh huh. But you give it up to your Thought Adjuster. You give it up -- however you want to say it -- to your teacher or whatever, then your yoke ... I mean, that was Christ's words. Then your yoke is easy. But she is talking about giving up the control.

 

Joel:                Through faith.

Liana:             Through faith and that reminded me of that saying.

Leah:              Well I was just reflecting on it.

 

MERIUM:     Well, I will address that that is a despicable individual. With somebody who is not nice to you, it is perfectly all right to put distance between you. It's perfectly all right.

 

Rachel:           What if they follow you around?

Joel:                Then there is something you have to learn.

Rachel:           They won't leave you! From room, to room.

MERIUM:     Might I add something to ...

Rachel:           Hmm.

 

MERIUM:     There are ... This is not a psychiatrist session but let us remember one thing, that when there are relationships and one person changes their value system, it can create a discomfort with the partner, and they will not feel as needed. "You don't need me the way you used to. You have changed. I want you back. I want..." Some people are together because they make so many furious sparks. They fight well. And that is the relationship that they maintained for quite a while, so when the one decides not to fight, it leaves the other on unsteady ground, you might say. They are bewildered, and they want to be comfortable so they want the old pattern back.

 

Hunnah will let me share a little secret. She has with her husband what she jokingly refers to what the two of them do as their "Saturday conversations." When the husband is home in her territory, there is this dialog and it's like a tennis match and it lasts maybe twenty minutes and they both now, because they are more mature, recognize this and they will say, “Is this a Saturday conversation?" It is a sparring time, and it can become a habit. Well, it has stopped -- it is not as common -- because they recognize it and are amused. If humor can rescue you at times, it is very helpful, but I am suspicious that some of your suffering is because individuals who have not done their homework in the same manner, perhaps, and are -- it's like a control issue? -- and ...

 

Rachel:           Yeah, it's a control issue.

 

MERIUM:     ... knowing this helps, but it does not make it go away. You can even say to the person, "I know I'm not the same person I used to be, and I know that you perhaps find it difficult to understand." If you advertise that you are a "Christian" or you are a quote this or a that, then what you've done is set yourself up for criticizing because in their mind, that -- let's use "Christian" for example -- should behave in a certain manner. And then when you fail to meet their standards of being all endlessly patient, kind, honest, long-suffering, et cetera, et cetera, and you fail to meet this criteria, then you are going to hear about it.

 

And that's why a lot of this needs to be private. You do not have to advertise to people that you find the ultimate teaching and that you don't do these things anymore because you have found this ultimate teaching. This is where your teachers are so helpful. They help you to be gracefully appropriate.

 

Rachel:           Urn-hum.

 

MERIUM:     And they help you find ways to help you put distance between yourself and that other person, so that you don't keep them all fired up. Hunnah had a nurse in the office that was making reference to a patient and this friend of hers said, "Mrs. So-and-so keeps herself so upset." This is a human condition. It's a form of proving to themselves that they matter. They stay upset. And this is just the way it is out here in this lesser place. This lesser behavior. They are all are living in their yesterday's consciousness solidified. And when you are uncomfortable, know that you are going to be able to find a way to slide away from them and put a little distance there.

 

Leah:              Thank you.

 

MERIUM:     This is one of the valuable things about being a parent, is that you know that a child is learning and it's harder to deal with an adult because you know that they should know better.

 

Rachel:           Yeah, but they're like little kids who don't want to grow up.

MERIUM:     But that's a judgement.

Rachel:           Exactly.

 

MERIUM:     That's a judgement.

Rachel:           I know it's a judgement.

MERIUM:     And that judgement is where you err.

Rachel:           Hmm.

 

MERIUM:     And you're just going to have to come up with a new way of saying they are having a hard time. Because when you're having a hard time, you're begging for compassion from these other people and they don't have it because they don't understand. It is just a ... We are fascinated by it.

 

Rachel:           I'm glad you are!

 

MERIUM:     And we are amazed that you are able to fulfill the role as well as you do, but what is really important is to know when you're out there where you don't belong.

 

Rachel:           What do you mean "Out there where you don't belong?"

MERIUM:     When you're in someone else's "stuff'.

Rachel:           Oh.

 

MERIUM:     And it is hard to let someone else handle their own stuff. And if you are a parent, again I use that as an example because you want to live through your children and you don't realize that you're doing it until you're called on it. And if you're smart you will use that being called on it as an opportunity for yourself to pull in and take stock and you will find out, probably, that you are right. But it's their version of love. Concern is their version of love. Even if it is identified as control. But love comes across that way frequently and you all know because you have all extended it yourself.

 

Rachel:           That's true.

MERIUM:     Wouldn't it be nice if you could hear our music?

TOMAS:        Indeed.

 

Rachel:           I'd love to!

MERIUM:     Our music is available all the time.

Rachel:           Why can't I hear it?

 

MERIUM:     And I heard Hunnah talking about listening. I want you to do some listening. (Cat begins to talk)

 

Rachel:           There's music!

 

MERIUM:     Music. Re-define that. It can be a sound that you've heard many times and at a moment when you feel like you've got it together you will hear that sound and it will be music and you will be appreciative of that sound. My friend is tired. Thank you. Thank you, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        Thank you, Merium, and thank you class. We are dismissed.

Group:            Thank you again for your encouragement and your enlightenment.

 

*****

Addendum Meditation from Liana:

 

Dear Spirit of My Being,

            Come, my beloved, commune with me. I feel your love presence in such fullness. What would you say to me this day?

 

"Dear One,

My sweet beloved child of God, growing into adulthood—yet always the child to the parent. Love the creative force, the glue that does not stick, just holds the worlds in swirls of glory as humanity spins up the spiral of evolution. You cannot listen past the doorway of your perceptions. Judgements bar it closed tightly. Blame the parents that came before thee. Blame your God parents that set the pattern of separation that they may birth themselves in diverse ways. That they may come to know themselves through love and through the seemingly absence of it. Blame them, cry victim that you may have life. That you were born to a self that the one may be many.   Cry baby - that's what babies do.   Yet I beg you, baby, give up your baby ways. Life tires of rocking your cradle. Wake to your potential, to the impetus of your birth. Step out into eternal life as the child of God. You who has life in the Father, and you who in the Father has MORE life."

*****

 

DATE:                        December 22, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:             TOMAS, MERIUM, NAOMI

Group:                        Rachel, Hunnah, Gerdean, Liana, Leah, Joniel and Joel

TOPIC:

Toys and Tools

 

JESUS:           I am Jesus.

Liana:             Good evening.

 

JESUS:           Good evening to you, my dear child. I am glad to come and be with you a moment. I know you are all imbued in your culture in this time of year with our recollection of my birth here. It pleases me to be with you and to speak to you about my having been on your world.

 

I like to visit with you now and again as a fellow sojourner on the path of life, as one whose humble origins are shared with yours, and with many of your fellows who have known the humility of shelter from the storm such as my mother Mary found in the shelter where my manger bed lay.

 

Your world, even now, has its humble folk, many of whom are without shelter. Many who are, even now, in this cold night, gathering warmth from their manger, their shelter from the storm. Many times, literally, more often figuratively. Many of you, too, have discovered the security of your place, your nest, your manger bed. And you nestle warm and secure in the arms of your loving family.

 

This holiday brings to the forefront of your minds, of your spirits, an awareness of the Jesus in each of you. It is one reason why this is a difficult holiday. It reminds you at some level how infrequently you think of me. How seldom I am actualized in your consciousness by and through our Family of men and women, brothers in the Kingdom, in the spirit.

 

It is sad for me, even still, my friends, to realize that my being your Christ child brings to your mind such a sense of guilt and unworthiness. I did not come to remind you of humiliation, but of righteousness and joy in knowing Our Father as a reality. It is, of course, understood you are human and you err. You are imperfect, you have limitation. This is understood. If I intended you to be perfect, I would have created you perfect.

 

Do not run from me and hide from me in a false sense of guilt as if you yourself have left me in the cold, and if you should feel that you owe a duty to your brother who seeks shelter from the cold of life, then respond to him as your need appeals to you, and allow your burning heart to serve and don't deny yourself my gift to you, the gift of life, the gift of joy in service.

 

I will be sad by myself for I have, to balance this sense of sadness, an overflowing tenderness for each of you in your understanding of your smallness. Embrace Me, and I will bring a shelter in your storm and comfort you in your nights and enliven you in your days. Rejoice in knowing Me. I come not to offer you shame and guilt. I come not to bring any burden to you, but rather to remove your burdens, to take them upon myself for correction, for reconstruction.

 

I am your elder brother. I will teach you. I will stand by you and walk with you as you learn how to work in the vineyards. I will dance with you when you rejoice in the knowledge of Our Father. I will comfort you in your mourning your losses and in your victories of that which you have salvaged, in the challenges you have overcome. In short, my children, I would share you life with you, in every aspect.

 

Would that you would come to me and tell me of your woes and your joys and include me as your Great Friend. I invite you now into my manger, to feel the humility of the straw, and to listen to the lowing of the cattle and the cooing of the doves. Hear beyond to the angels singing. See beyond to the universe rejoicing and marveling at the possibility of divinity made mortal.

 

My children, you are yourselves a reflection of My Father and Me in your mortality. Allow yourself to accept the inheritance I give you. Accept the symbolic gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, the treasures of the kingdom of heaven.

 

Little lambs that you are, be with me on my day, when many, many minds are focused on my being. Bring to them in your sharing and in your gift-giving and in your food and song, a simple remembrance of my life in the flesh. I am your brother. I am like you and you are like me. And we are plea sing in the sight of Our Father in heaven. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad in this knowledge.

 

TOMAS:        Good evening, my faithful flock. I am Tomas. I am glad to be here with you and to share with you your regular dormitory-style study of your spiritual life. Your investigations into the diversity of divinity, in your sharing this evening of the many, many ways in which our godhead can be understood, is a lot like a parent watching the children open gifts on Christmas morning.

 

Your delight in discovering all the spiritual tools and toys wrapped in the packaging of the various evolutionary interpretations of divinity, are intriguing to us and we find great delight in your reception of these beliefs as tools and toys for your enjoyment and for your use in expanding your and others' understanding of Our Father.

 

In some ways it is like learning language, and as each facet of spiritual development has its icons and dialects, its rituals or passages, you can enjoy learning their methods, their mota, and share with them their value, their truth. Very much like you experience new personalities, and enjoy what they have to offer, and find value therein, and find them to be a reflection of a greater reality, even as they comport themselves in the ways of the world.

 

How many gifts you have received already in your life, in this Christmas existence. The gifts which are being bestowed upon you in this yielding time of, as you say 'spiritual renaissance', in this unfurling of Michael's banner upon Urantia, is a holiday morning indeed. Lots of ribbons. Lots of noise. Lots of jubilation. Lots of "batteries not included". Lots of joy.

 

Some day your Christmas toys will find their way into the toybox. Some will become broken and discarded. Some will become favorites and put upon a shelf. Some will indeed become a treasure to be handed down to your sons and daughters.

 

The treasure of passing on your toys and tools is a part of your legacy. Remember then your own roots of manger, your own bed of straw, in and with the Christ child, and allow your gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, to be those gifts of the spirit which can be a living legacy to your children of time and space.  Are there questions this evening?

 

Liana:             Your light's on Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        I have been glowing lately. I am very joyous, Liana. I am very happy for my students. I am happy for my T/R Gerdean. I am happy for Urantia. I am happy for this last normal Christmas before the mayhem of next year's celebration. I am glad, then, for today. My light indeed shines, and sometimes, like yours, my cup simply runneth over, and I seem to press upon the batteries included and I illuminate and radiate the light. I have a good toy, a good tool. And your light, my dear, is it shining as well?

 

Liana:             Yes, it's shining. Probably not as brightly as it could.

TOMAS:        I see, even so, that your voltage regulator is in order.

Liana:             Thank you, Tomas.

\

TOMAS:        I see no corrosion on your battery cable.

Liana:             Do you see long life?

TOMAS:        I do.

Liana:             Ever Ready?

 

TOMAS:        Lifetime guarantee. An excellent Christmas gift, an ever ready battery! Who could not enjoy such a gift? To be activated and charged each time they come into contact with you! This is, in fact, a reflection of the dynamic life of the religionist, the circuit of life that allows you to operate.

 

I and others have been appreciating your sense of acknowledgement of our allegories, analogies, parables, picturizations. I will point out to you that you do the same thing entirely. Indeed, Liana, this evening when you laid out the 21 tarot cards, you were drawing an allegorical picture of an understanding of the cosmos.

 

It is unfortunate that there are those who fear your creative ministries. These tools and toys of spirituality are enchanting, albeit imperfect, and yet who is to say which of these tools and toys are effectual or ineffectual if they are reaching the people? All of you have an opportunity to develop a ministry in and with tools and toys you find work for you. No one says you have to use the same ones for all eternity! There is infinite variation in these teaching opportunities.

 

One of the advantages of developing interests, such as you have in interpreting the cards, and as others have in interpreting chakras and the like, is that it enables you to become fluid in your thought processes and courageous in your exposition in your understanding, or AN understanding, of a reality which is expansive, is creative. It whets the appetite.

 

There are some who have no hunger, no taste, for such. Pass them by. There are many, many ministries. Do you think that the little drummer boy is not valued for the gift he brings? Amahl and the night visitors? All of these allegories and fairy tales are retelling the same story.

 

In the symphony which we have discussed many times, the drum, of course, does not sound like the piccolo, and the cello does not sound like the xylophone, but are they not each an instrument? And, in that, are they not all the same? It is in the music. It is in the coordination and the respect for the sound and the timing of each other's instrument that allows for the orchestra to play.

 

If you all remember who the Conductor is and what the music is for, you can bring all of your tools and toys to the theater, to the stage, to the arena wherein you live your life and perform your ministries, where you enjoy yourself, being yourself, doing what you love to do, to reveal to others how it is that you perceive the Master and/or His universe.

 

You are rejoicing in sonship, daughtership, and bringing good cheer, offering hope, liberating the captives by your efforts. You have brought gifts on behalf of the Christ child to Urantia. Noel. Noel.

 

It would seem that we teachers are learning your culture. We are beginning to -- or I should say I am beginning to understand your festivals and holidays. I am attempting to understand you because that way I can love you more, of course, but it also enables me to be a better teacher to you, for you. As you best understand who you are trying to teach, who you are trying to reveal the Father to, you are becoming adept and educated and skilled. You are becoming a better teacher and preacher. You are applying yourself to the subtle and not so subtle nuances of God-consciousness. You have learned how to use the tools and toys which have been given to you as gifts of the spirit.

 

MERIUM:     I would like to know what toys and tools I am going to get. I don't want a vacuum cleaner!

 

Liana:             Me either!

 

Gerdean:        Merium, do you think that we're making a big mess on the floor, opening all our presents? Is that what you're inferring?

 

MERIUM:     Infer nothing! There is no question you are making a mess! But it's not MY job to vacuum it up, at any rate. I am merely suggesting that if I am going to work with tools, a vacuum is not my style, but you already know that I am not domestic, not to say that there are not many who are. I like to play with dolls. I like trains too, huh, Leah?

 

Leah:              Yeah! And trucks.

MERIUM:     And cars.

Leah:              I got a pink train engine when I was a child and I really liked that.

Liana:             I got a Mona Lisa doll.

 

MERIUM:     And did you put her on the shelf?

Liana:             [Laughing] No, my sister ripped her head off!

Leah:              I had a really nice doll but I ripped her eyes out.

 

MERIUM:     Barbarians!

Group:            [Laughter]

Leah:              They were so pretty I wanted to see what they looked like!

 

MERIUM:     You are a scientist, my dear.

 

I have no lesson to offer this evening. I have been, however, immensely enjoying our time with you. I enjoyed our elder brother's visit and his marvelous words and, as always, I enjoy watching Uncle Tomas at work, but I daresay he has gotten into the toy box, and so if he is going to play, I certainly wanted to come on-board and have my fun too, and so I say to you I don't want a vacuum cleaner because I want to play with him in the field.

 

Leah:              I don't want to go out into the field. It's terribly cold.

 

MERIUM:     It is terribly cold. You must do what you can to find shelter from the storm.

 

I am admonished by my friends here in company with us this evening that the ultimate shelter from the storm is in the still, quiet place within you where you meet Our Father, the citadel of the spirit, the rapport you may find in oneness with your indwelling spirit. You may even call that your manger where you can go and feel at peace, enwrapped in swaddling clothes, you may feel completely secure and hear the lowing of the cows and the cooing of the doves and the sounds of the angels' voices.

 

Children, we leave you now in this state of repose and joy and look forward to our time together on Sunday.

 

Liana:             Thank you, Merium.

MERIUM:     Good night and farewell.

 

*****

 

DATE:                        December 29, 1998

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R’s:                         Gerdean, Hunnah

TEACHERS:             TOMAS, MERIUM

Group:                        Leah, Joniel, Rachel, Loreenia, Gerdean and L.B.

TOPIC:

Intellectual Peace

 

TOMAS:        Good evening, loyal flock and gracious visitors.  How wonderful to be here with you this evening in your divine repose and in your receptivity to fraternal love and divine guidance.  Joyous daughters, you have given us a great gift by your composure and your adoration of that which has been our pleasure to behold in you, that is, your appreciation of truth, beauty and goodness as it is perceived and as it is in harmony with you, kindred spirits, sisters, comrades, children of God.

 

Merium and I are here and Merium would like to greet you before I commence with my lesson, if you will.  One moment, please.

 

MERIUM:     I am here, my daughters.  I am smiling, as you can tell not from the T/R but from your understanding of me as a joyous and radiant child of God much like yourselves and when we are in good humor, you know we are radiant, even when we are grumbling we are grumbling in an acknowledgement of an ideal, an aspiration of a view of perfection which is just around the corner.  Your enthusiasm for your path is contagious.

 

We have observed you in your approach to your Christmas holiday in fascination, and have taken off our hats to you for your aplomb in handling the emotional tares and the confusions of your environments.  Now that we have acknowledged the birth of Jesus in our own lives and have set out on the path which we see before us, we rejoice in faith of the fact of the Wayshower who will show us the way indeed.  We hear the music of your evolution and your own revelation of .truth, inwardly and as it expresses itself in your realm.  The angels sing.

 

I will be here throughout the evening, but I will now turn the microphone back to Tomas who would speak a few words to you before we commence with our customary camaraderie at large.

 

TOMAS:        Again, I am Tomas, and I am acting on behalf of our Master Michael when I acknowledge the return of Loreenia and the visit from our gracious daughter known as L.B. and mother of our own Evangel.  Greetings all of you and thank you for your studies earlier.  It indeed gives me a springboard for my lesson to you this evening.  I will speak to you momentarily about the divine gift of intellectual peace.

 

As you know truth, as you feel it in your heart, as you recognize truth through the Spirit of Truth, as it harmonizes in your soul, as it becomes so pure and clear as to transcend human knowledge, you have found a source of unending inspiration.  It is the Source within which is the source of this intellectual peace.  The mind, the gift of the Infinite Spirit, is the apex of intellectual peace.  You know that you know.

 

What you know through the divine gift, you know in your being of beings.  It is beyond books, beyond theory, beyond sects, beyond interpretation.  It is.  It is.  And that is what enabled our Master, when he was here on this world, to be so focused that he was able to inherently and automatically with every conversation and with every individual around to that very fundamental reality, for it was the reality which was the Source of all that he knew, all that he was, and all that he would be.

 

When we know our Infinite Source, we look to that Source for the living water. The fluid truth which we will spout from our lips when we are touched to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus as he taught it when he walked upon Urantia.

 

Witness in your reading this evening how he was able in each case and with each individual to bring to their mind, a focus, a nugget, a gem of living truth which spoke to them and which resounded within their own kernel/core/source who they knew themselves to be.  And this is such a blessing, such a. skill, such an art, such a gift of divine spirit.

 

Remember too, in simple terms, that Jesus often would go to a person and draw them out by asking them questions.  It was not that he could read their minds/ any more than you can read the minds of your peers, but in order to be friendly you must go to them and say, "What interests you?  What are you about? What is your work?  Who are you? And how do you approach life?"  And in this way you find out about them and then you return your focus, as always and as ever, to your Source in order that you may pour forth living water upon the soil of your friendship with this new person who has been presented to you as a fellow as you pass by.

 

Any individual is an opportunity to sing the praises of the First Source and Center, to bring them around to an appreciation of their very being by and through the Creator of us all, an occasion to bring a soothing moment to their troubled countenance by acknowledging their indwelling spirit and the peace that dwells therein.

 

It gives me great pleasure to be with you each this evening and it would give me further pleasure to be able to be involved individually with you each in so far as we may share in this living water in a more direct and communal fashion. I therefore open the floor to you, my lovely friends, for your input, commentary...

questions?

 

Rachel:           Hi, Tomas.

TOMAS:        Good evening, my darling Rachel.  How are you this evening?

Rachel:           I'm doing better!

 

TOMAS:        Indeed, you are.  You are affirming your way all the way to Paradise, and in your affirmations, you are actualizing.  How exciting!

 

Rachel:           It is!  I'm starting to feel free!

TOMAS:        You are beginning to prance.

Rachel:           Well, not quite yet.  [Chuckle]  Not quite yet.

TOMAS:        It is good to see, however, that you are high-stepping.

 

Rachel:           Well, it's a good lesson to learn. It's a good lesson to learn, getting rid of your fears.  I had no idea I was so fearful.

 

TOMAS:        Most people do not.

Rachel:           I just wish I didn't have to throw such a tantrum about it.

TOMAS:        You are a child!

 

Rachel:           Yeah!  [Laughing]  Yes, I am.  Yes, I am.  Nobody likes their world disrupted.

 

TOMAS:        See yourself as a growing child and have patience with your outbursts.  You are at least willing to see your outbursts and grow there from. Now, daughter, pat yourself on the head and give yourself a push on the behind and "Go for it!"

 

Rachel:           Get out there and reach out, huh?

TOMAS:        Yes.

Rachel:           And the Father will take care of the rest?

 

TOMAS:        You are asking me? You are the one who gave me the testimony!

Rachel:           The Father WILL take care of the rest.

TOMAS:        You and He are now in a co-creative process, remember.

 

Rachel:           Right.

TOMAS:        You have found a God with whom you can do business.

Rachel:           Right.

 

TOMAS:        This is a personal relationship that reaches into the CORE of you. It involves the development of your very own being, your own immortal soul, and certainly Our Father wants to bring up His precious child into realms of being able to function happily and gloriously on behalf of all that is true and beautiful and good for you and for your family members throughout the vast cosmos of time and space.

 

Rachel:           It's a good feeling - growing.

TOMAS:        It is better than the alternative.

Rachel:           Living in quivering fear!  I've been living in fear for ages, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:      You are not alone, my child.  Even now you are surrounded by those who clutch fear to them as if it were a blanket, a security blanket, and they are reluctant to allow the fear to fall away, for in doing so, they would have to be in the cold, naked space of faith.  It is a courageous step to walk in faith.  And then you find you are not naked, not cold, but clothed in the raiment of grace, covered by His love, enshrouded, enveloped, encased in His protection.

 

Rachel:           Such a loving God.  It amazes me that He gives me time to come to grips with the things I need to come to grips with, you know?

 

TOMAS:        It is indeed true that He is a loving God.  He is Love itself.  It is a major breakthrough when you realize this -- that He is love in a manner which transcends and supersedes earlier perceptions of what love is.

 

Rachel:           Love actually is making little children face their fears.

 

TOMAS:        Allowing your children to face life.  Indeed we have all experienced our tribulations and adversities, and they are always of a varied nature, for if they were all the same all the time, we would become, perhaps, blasé about our Creator, but the infinite variety of life experiences and lessons are such an unfolding, and so impressive are the results of our own spiritual growth, we attain an appreciation such that we eagerly go toward the next growing experience, understanding that in this process we have become, somehow, thanks to God, more like Him!

 

In order to become more Godlike, of course, we must relinquish our impression of ourself in order that it may be made more perfect in His image, rather than in ours.  It is a constant surprise, then, to see how God reveals Himself to us and even in us.

 

Rachel:           It's like a washing machine inside us.  It's constantly agitating you and cleaning you out!

 

Loreenia:        It cleans you up and fills you up again.

Rachel:           Nothing like a new supply of living water!

 

TOMAS:        I am delighted to see Joniel emerge as a strong woman. It has not been that long before, I remember, a timid soul and behold we are seeing revealed a character-imbued woman, developing and growing and striving forward in strength and in confidence, no longer trembling in fear and paralysis of will.

 

This, my children, is a reward from your cosmic problem-solving efforts, from your attempts to understand true reality.  Indeed, true religion -- your own personal relationship with your God, Our Father.  He strengthens and vivifies in your noble attempts to become like him and to seek to do His will in your life, and to foster his reflection of reality in your fellows, and therefore the more you emerge from paralysis and fear, the more strengthened you become.  You have grown your own foundation; you have developed your own faith, and this faith that you have grown is made real by your very efforts.  You have learned to trust in that which is trustworthy.  In response then, you will be entrusted, and now we enter upon yet another level of growth and learning and unfolding.

 

Rachel:           It's hard thing to teach.  My father called me stubborn.

TOMAS:        I am certain that you are!  [Group laughter]

 

Rachel:           I am certain that I am.  I shall stubbornly follow The Father from now on! I am tenacious, too.

 

TOMAS:        You have been forthright, of a certainty, and you have been forging ahead, taking the kingdom by spiritual assault, and gaining ground in your foundation of faith also.  You are doing well.  ALL of you are doing very well.  I am giving myself a good mark for this season's teaching.  Your growth reflects that I have done a good job as well! 

 

Rachel:           You always do a good job, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        It is however always gladsome when I am able to perceive your good job and allow that we together have advanced spirit reality.  It is my supreme pleasure to be able to serve Machiventa and Michael in this fashion, and to serve you as well!  What a wonderful family we have, in the spirit, and it continues to envelop us in even greater folds of grace and glory in our efforts at upholding all our Father would have us know and do and be.  His will be done.

 

I like to exalt our Eternal Parents and our good works.  It is always of value to assess our growth and our goals, but as always it is of benefit to return to the field and to bring our understanding of Our Father into the awareness of His children who remain in darkness, who continue to labor under the illusions of the material existence and in the catacombs of fear.

 

My children, I urge you to remember your Source and the truth of the gift of the divine Spirit, intellectual peace -- intellectual peace as it hails all the way from Paradise, for in that you will be able to be of service and minister to your brethren as you pass by in ways that will enable the most humble and simple among you, the most fear-ridden and the most guilt-stricken, those who feel unworthy and those who angered, those who are lost and confused and betrayed. Help to draw them out and help to bestow upon them an appreciation for your genuine interest in their well-being, for as you see that you can be one with your brethren, they can see that they have, through you, a reflection of your greater reality, that which you have given yourself to in service of.

 

Yes, Rachel.

 

Rachel:           Speaking of being of service... When other people are being antagonistic towards me, can I gee it as service to the Father to not get embroiled in that, to just refuse to do it?  Is that a service to the person who is trying to bring you into that bad energy?

 

TOMAS:        Indeed you have asked a very complicated question and I cannot give you a simple answer.  It will depend upon your circumstances and each circumstance is different depending upon the configuration of the moment, for those who are confused or angry are unstable, and each moment they may be triggered by another fear, another anger, another anxiety, another attack, and sometimes you can be effective in following a thread of truth all the way to the culmination of pure truth, and these are wonderful growing experiences in practice and in pursuit of truth, but many times it is an opportunity only to engage in a battle of will.

 

If it is not falling upon fertile soil, it is rather pointless to try.  Now, this is not to say it cannot be effective to pointedly and purposively plant that seed in that opening which has abruptly and anxiously created an aperture. Perhaps, for example, in your assertive response to your earth father's announcement to you, you may have been able to effect a growth opportunity, and yet you will not know until the seed sprouts, that frankly you may never see in your own life because it is very difficult in your culture in this day and age to bring your own family into light and life.

 

Michael spoke of this when he was here when he spoke about "the prophet is not known in his own country," and yet you have stood your ground against your perpetrator and you have thus strengthened your resolve and your commitment to serve the Father in the face of your mortal father's insistence that what you opt to follow is not as real as he is.  He has been given to understand now, in no uncertain terms, that you are following a path of faith that supersedes his. 

 

It is a very difficult thing for earth fathers to lose control, to relinquish authority over that which he has created, over that which has given him great pleasure, even when he finds himself embroiled in criticizing and finding fault, for this is in many cases a mere reflection of his own expectations of himself in and through that which he has created.

 

You have said, “I will follow the Father in heaven."  He has heard your conviction.  Perhaps, Rachel, perhaps in that most explicit and poignant retort/ response, you were able to plant in him a seed that will enable him now to relinquish control and give you up to the Father, and if he can do that, then he has to acknowledge the Father's existence in order to even swallow the sentence you gave him, the seed you have planted, but he opened up the hard crack of his earth, his heart, in order to receive that seed.  Not knowing that you had the strength and power and conviction to insert this very powerful seed within his own soul.

 

Now, these situations are all different, so when you ask about difficult moments, I cannot say that that situation is true in every situation.  Sometimes people just like to argue, and in that case you would indeed be casting your pearls before swine, but this is another example of how it is that the Divine Spirit's gift of intellectual peace can give you that knowledge, that understanding, that great faith which will allow, given that moment, to allow you to open your mouth and let His will be done.  Not yours, but His will be done, and my dear, I see it growing more and more in you every day that it is His will that you will be done.  And so we grow.  And so the Father is glorified.

 

Rachel:           Thank you, Tomas. I can't wait to read that. I hadn't thought of it that way.

TOMAS:        You are welcome, daughter.

 

Evangel is in my mind's eye at this moment.  I would like to spend a moment with Evangel, in-as-much as I am close to him and he is close to me.  I visit often with him in his nether realms, in his yearning for connection to the spirit reality.  He is aware of my presence and the presence of many others in the spirit of life.  We are indeed blessed to have the association of this man who is a true faith son and a very busy agondonter. 

 

These next few days promise to be revealing and uplifting for many. What an opportunity to divulge new levels of affection and faith in the divine overcare of our Infinite Parent.

 

AHL:  Hello, Evangel, I am Ahl.  I am not going to give a big lesson here because we are in a group setting, but I am being given an opportunity to greet you and to be with you.  I know that when you hear my words, when they are called to your attention, you will feel my presence and recognize my devotion to your soul growth and your human happiness.

 

I am devoted to your adjustment, your character development, and your growth in your heart of hearts, in order that your human existence may be a flower of creation, a fragrance in the atmosphere of light and life to bestow upon your brethren.  Be with me, Evangel, to wait upon Our Master who walks before us, who has outlined a plan, and who will show us The Way.  We will walk together in this wondrous adventure before us, beloved son.  Dear companion, I greet you.  I embrace you.

 

TOMAS:        I am Tomas.  Are there other matters?

 

Leah:              I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your inspiration and your encouragement and kindness and your endurance in working with us.  [Group laughter]  I would like to also thank the other teachers for everything they do.

 

TOMAS:        You are a dear, Leah. As you know, we are pleased to be of service. It is sometimes our lament that we cannot do more, but I am certain that that is true of all of us. When we yearn to be meaningful in our life, we yearn to feel a greater wholeness, a greater connection with reality and share a more poignant and precious moment with the divinity of one another.

 

In bringing about this reality, we all long for greater patience, greater creativity, more righteousness, and thus you expand.  All of us seek to be more perfect. It is a growth process. As you allow yourself to love more and deeper, you are given greater opportunities to expand your capacities. It is true for all of us.  It is a good time here for me to make a cautionary remark against complaisancy.

 

Loreenia:        You know, we have all received our spiritual name from our teacher, but we had to ask, so if you want your spiritual name, Tomas is here. You could ask him.

 

Leah:              Tomas was about to make a remark.

TOMAS:        No, I am fine with the procession.

Rachel:           Tomas, who give us the spiritual name?  Is it the Father?  Or is it Michael?

 

TOMAS:        It is not a name, Rachel.  It is who you are.

RACHEL:      Oh.

 

TOMAS:        It is a matter of your becoming, and so it is essentially true that it is of the Father for He has given you your personality, and so you are becoming who He would have you be.  You grow accordingly.

 

Let us say that you are a peach.  You do not become a peach by an act of will, no, but your pit is buried in the soil.  It germinates.  The shell opens, given the correct circumstance.  The shoot of life begins.  Many, many years pass as this shoot, this sprout becomes a sprig, a sapling, a young tree, a tree old enough to bear fruit, and eventually a peach is born.  The Father knows that you are to become a peach, and it is as if it is known in the beginning that you are a peach, but you cannot be recognized as a peach when you are still a sapling, you see. It is the literal-mindedness of the mortal that seeks the nomenclature.

 

You will remember, for example, that the midwayers are known by a number.  They are registered according to number and it matters not what they are called, for they ARE, you see.  They ARE.  And yet for you, for your comprehension of personality recognition, given your understanding of life in your capacity today, you assign to it an identification, and so you are allowed an understanding of an identification of a personality that will become more and more as you become more and more who you are intended to be.

 

Now, you must remember you are only beginning.  You are only emerging.  You are in many ways still the pit. You have not even emerged from your mortal existence into the morontia sun!  And you have many, many miles to go throughout the universe until you return Home to the Paradise Father, before you stand before Him a full-fledged, rosy ripe peach.  But you are destined to be this peach, you see, and so you are identified as what you will become:  peach.

 

You, Rachel, are incubating as far as your real, greater reality is concerned, and yet we do not deny you your reality based upon your relationship with your indwelling God fragment.  It is that nature within you, that which chooses to be one with Him, which allows you to stand apart, and on your own, as agondonter Rachel, which separates you from the mortal animal of the realm, that which is the culturally conditioned creature of time and space.

 

Rachel:           It is so frightening in this world to be different.  For some reason everybody in this society is the same, you know?

 

Leah:              It's the herd instinct.

Rachel:           Yeah.  Herd instinct.

 

TOMAS:        Yes, it is reminiscent of the morontia mota that speaks of standardization and mediocrity and conformity [Ed:  Mota 27:  "Progress demands development of individuality; mediocrity sees perpetuation in standardization." The Urantia Book, pg. 557], and yet you will appreciate that as the circuit open, as you allow yourself to be imbued with the spirit pressures, prompts, realities from above, from On High, you, along with throngs of others, are being led out of darkness into the light where you delight to stand on your own as a child of God and not as one of the herd.  It is therefore becoming easier for you to be who you are becoming.

 

Loreenia:        Tomas, is it not so that the tones of the voice or the names that are given or that we are to be, aren't they a bit like the warm winds and the spring rains that help to nourish that seed, to draw it closer to the Source that they are?

 

TOMAS:        You have hit upon a truth, Loreenia, in your evaluation of the reality of the individual, which is not just a nomenclature but indeed a tonal quality, a viable vibration, a note in the song of creation, an instrument in the symphony of the Master, yes. Your reality presents a vibrational tone indeed, and this is part of your signature, a part of your identity, and this is indeed a greater dimension of understanding, a facet of your reality for it is not just a name; it is an identity.  Yes, you are correct.

 

Perhaps we have met our match this evening in terms of our ability to absorb.  I am not one to overeat nor to allow you to overstuff yourself, for it is not fun to have spiritual indigestion; it gives you upset stomach and you think, "I'll never want to eat again!" when in fact you will hunger and thirst on the morrow, but for today, my children, I am inclined to withdraw.  Are there issues which must be addressed before I go?

 

Rachel:           I don't think so.

 

TOMAS:        I embrace you in the harmony of the spirit which you have brought with you today and which the Father smiles upon in His connection with you each and with your connection with each other.  It is a privilege to be a part of you, of this Mission of the Master's plan.  Amen and farewell.

 

Group:            Thank you, Tomas.  Farewell.  God bless!

TOMAS:        And God bless you as well, my child.  Go in peace.

 

*****

 

DATE:                        January 19, 1999

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R:                            Gerdean

TEACHER:                TOMAS

TOPIC:                      

Consciousness/Superconsciousness

 

TOMAS:        I am Tomas. Good evening. It is good for you to be with me and me with you this evening. We are quite at home in the universe, and in this experiential state of being, your light, that which you perceive, that which you create, that which you know, that which you entertain, that which you ponder, that which you relate to in your arena, your universe. Your universe connects to the universe of that which is around you in terms beyond mortal comprehension; it is understood as it is experienced.

 

Yes, all of the universe is conscious, in-as-much as it is a part of the grand universe and has inherent potential but waits for the breath of life to bring it into orbit, to bring it into being. You yourselves have come to be. You are able to co-create. You are able to participate in this God expansion in-as-much as you have attuned yourself, aligned yourself in such a way as to embellish perfect pattern, of which you are a part -- manifesting perfection in the physical realm -- and in the spiritual realms by and through your superconscious existence, your consciousness of consciousness.

 

When you become conscious that you ARE, you become superconscious by and through your superconscious existence. In your consciousness of consciousness, you have Superconsciousness and this can co-create and bring about effects. Thus you contribute.

 

I would like to celebrate with you the development of universe reality in your very souls. Your devotion to your spiritual nature has superconsciously connected with the superconscious efforts of your neighbors and you have beheld one another as having value. By acknowledging the eternal value inherent in each encounter, you fan the eternal flame of hope and faith until it becomes a raging fire, a bonfire, around which you can dance and see, by the light of this illumination, this heat, the flashing eyes and very presences of your fellow beings, and we revolve around the universe en route to our home in Paradise and beyond into the far distant realms of the Master Universe.

 

It is in the stillness that these things are best comprehended, for then you can indeed bypass that consciousness which interferes with your spiritual purity. A respite, if you will, a drink of water in the stream of time.

 

I have spoken enough. I have enjoyed myself and I want you to know that I have enjoyed my sojourn with you here. I am not leaving, but I am well aware of inherent changes afoot, and I, like you, will need to make my adaptations, but in faith of our Melchizedek Receivers under Michael of Nebadon, we are certain that our progress will continue unabated until all of Urantia is settled in Light in Life, and your assistance is not only appreciated, it is your very reward, for then, precious children, you Become.

 

Amen and farewell.

 

*****

 

DATE:                        February 2, 1999

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R:                            Gerdean

Group:                        Rachel, Gerdean and Alan

TEACHER:                TOMAS

TOPIC:                      

We are the Gospel; More on the Soul

 

TOMAS:        I am Tomas. Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, depending upon where you are in the world.

 

Rachel:           Good evening, Tomas.

 

TOMAS:        I am elated in our configuration this evening. I am amazed at the energy in a small group of people and a large group of spirits. We have long awaited our reunion here. It is a time of rejoicing. Merium was so happy to see the homecoming scenes, it was all we could do to get her to sit down.

 

It is always a joy in heaven when sojourners are returned safely to their home shores, having gone out effectively sowed seeds and returned to the table for the cornucopia of plenty which will feed the need to be renewed in the Father's house with anticipation of yet more concentrated efforts in adventurous and spiritual living in the near future. And this evening we are privy to the plenty.

 

We welcome you, Alan, and welcome also most loyal midwayer Jack, whose reputation precedes him. It would be a pleasure for all of us, I am sure, to hear from Jack but we will not press your talents prematurely. You well appreciate and understand the free will scenario and also we are fully appreciative of the mortal vessel and respect your sense of timing and cooperation. Even so, my friends, in the flesh and in the spirit realms, we are in a state of jubilation at this appointed day.

 

I see in technical terms you are a small group. I am going to pause here and ask if there are questions.

 

Rachel:           Alan, do you have a question?

Alan:               Not at the moment, I don't. I'm absorbing.

 

Rachel:           I'm also in sort of an absorbing mood. I kind of got overloaded last week with bearing the responsibility of asking questions. I was worried that I'm not asking the right questions here.

 

TOMAS:        I will address your brief but poignant conversation. You are in the capacity now of being a sponge and absorbing and assimilating impressions upon your psyche, your soul, your mind, in and through your intellect and for your spirit and for your heart. It is a very busy experience to be in the presence of spirit intelligence. One moment please. (Itinerant at the door.)

 

Alan:   would just like to thank Tomas for welcoming me and for the transmitter encouraging me to return to the comfort and sense of security, and for making me feel so welcome, knowing the foibles of humankind. And I do really appreciate it.

 

TOMAS:        We have among our workers in the field, a number of exceedingly wonderful people, Alan, not excluding yourself, and it is a joy to be able to bring you into an awareness of them, your brothers and sisters, who are living examples of the philosophies that you hold so dear. The difficulty of those of you who have endured long-suffering in isolation, is that you have not warmed to the camaraderie inherent in fellowship born of the spirit.

 

We speak of teamwork and the ability to get along in order to get things done, but not enough is placed on the aspect of simply being in the fold, of being at the feast of plenty, at knowing you are not alone at the table. It is always more wonderful to dine with others. And so we are pleased to invite you to dinner, in-as-much as now you can all become fattened upon the realization of your integrity individually and collectively. In time you will feel impelled to do something, but for today it is adequate that you savor the feast of the Father-bestowed personality that stands beside you, that embraces your presence as a tabernacle for the presence of the Father Himself.

 

It is an experience which is becoming more and more acceptable, and so we return now to my analogy that you are as sponges, soaking up the atmosphere of spirit intelligence. You yourselves are representatives of spirit intelligence, in-as-much as you have intelligently opted to follow the spirit leadings. You have made the wise choice -- to become fishers of men. You have opted for the highest good for yourselves, for your Creator, and for your fellows.

 

I am reminded of the difficulty Jesus had in his time when they chided him about teaching a way of life that didn't seem befitting for the times. He spoke of peace, and they argued that peacemakers were weaklings and would soon be destroyed, but He returned their logic with wisdom, and suggested, nay insisted, that those who were inclined toward true peace, were the strong ones, after all. It takes great stamina and fortitude to withstand the sophistries and foibles of the human existence. And by the same token, ... (One moment. Gerdean's worst nightmare has come to pass.)

 

Rachel:                       What's that?

TOMAS:                    She has gotten lost on a comma.

Rachel and Alan:       [Uproarious laughter]

 

TOMAS:                    It has happened before. It may happen again. It does not detract from the value of the message that the grammar is garbled. I daresay that is why some of you will make excellent editors.

 

Alan:               Tomas, I do have a question. It's a personal question, but you have been so personable in your welcome to me. I have a tendency to feel that there was a divine conspiracy that brought about the set of circumstances that compelled me to recognize that my years of isolation must end.  Can you confirm this?

 

TOMAS:        If you could but see my countenance, my son, you would recognize my smile which is indeed a confirmation of the divine conspiracy. How can you quibble?

 

Alan:               I cannot.

 

TOMAS:        You cannot. You well know: you have heard it said and felt the pull; you have acknowledged the direction, but still you want to know. Yes, of course! It is a conspiracy to bring you home to your own in order that you may give strength and derive strength from the bosom of your spirit family -- the family of men and women who follow after Michael as ardently, as earnestly, as joyously, sincerely and wholly as you do and as you have.

 

Indeed our wondrous and loving, living love is the foundation of all our efforts. This great reality of Our Father is what connects us as family members. We are the gospel. As we love and reach out in love to assimilate others also, it extends and expands the gospel and we have learned to love one another as Jesus loves us, bringing into existence this reality of living love which lifts us up out of the quagmire of doubt and density into the illumination of spirit clarity -- light and life.

 

What a wondrous challenge, opportunity and privilege. And in-as-much as you have been an invaluable worker in the field already, my comrade, it is a pleasure for me personally to welcome you into these loving arms of your family fold. Personally, yes indeed. For what is our experience if not personal. Even aspiring toward perfection in understanding of pre-personal. Personality is too important to be ignored. You are a precious son of God, as all of us are. Daughters as well, of course.

 

Rachel:           Of course.

Alan:               [Indistinguishable]

 

TOMAS:        I will remind you of something Jack said many years ago, having to do with the fact that "We do not have to leave the dinner table". It is very possible for the spiritual Board of Directors, if you will, to sit at their conference table and observe what goes on globally, and through the archangel circuits, send messages and finalize details in a heartbeat. It is a very precious planet and we have much work to do. We are gathering our forces for the work at hand and ahead, inasmuch as there will be much to do in these coming months ... and beyond. If you allow yourself a moment to reflect, you will not be so surprised.

 

Alan:               Well, you chose your centers of operations.

 

TOMAS:        There really are many more centers of operations to come. We are only just begun. It is, as we have described, a gridwork, a connecting time as well as a correcting time.

 

Rachel:           I have to comment. Having this spiritual family like this ... I mean, if I hadn't have asked God to lead me towards the truth, to other people where I could learn truth, and come into this, I could very well have faltered and not gone on, and to be accepted for who you are, when people are spiritually connected, instead of, you know, just looking from one human to another -- to be accepted and not be judged, to have your sense of worthiness and your purpose bolstered constantly, is incredible, to give you the drive to go on, you know, because you have this unit to come home to. And it's really strengthening, and I just love it! And if everybody in the world could be like this, imagine how this world would be.

 

Alan:               That's quite a testimonial.

Rachel:           It's just the truth.

 

TOMAS:        It is an acknowledgement of the value of you in your potential and as you are, yes, and essentially it is an acknowledgement of your soul -- that which about you is most real. In having your most real part acknowledged, you can carry with you all of the relative perfection and all of that which is relatively unreal, knowing that it is either necessary for functioning, or necessary for teaching, or necessary for learning en route to your greater perfection, your greater realizing. It is your soul that is of most interest to us, for as your soul is realized, you have more to work with, you have become greater, you are capable of more, God works with you more readily and you with Him.

 

It is said often that you are to address the Thought Adjuster in your peers and somehow this can be construed, by some, as impersonal and difficult, for it calls upon you to see them as a spiritual being having a human experience. It then precludes you from being a human having a spiritual experience. But when you can look at each other as an integrated personality, represented by the reality of the soul, that combination of the thought adjuster and the personality, then you have got something that you can wrap your arms around and sit next to, have confiding trust in, do merciful ministry for, and in other ways manifest these very viable and very sustaining fruits of the spirit.

 

The soul is the seat of your reality, for that is what you have created by your decisions to be in line with your Thought Adjuster. You are part of that partnership; it is your free will decision that makes the choices that enables you to begin to be a co-worker with divinity. That is the true you. That is the you that we embrace and honor at the Father's table.

 

Rachel:           How do you see our soul growth? I mean, let me rephrase that. As we -- as our soul grows, does it appear to you as a more viable reality?

 

TOMAS:        Certainly. But you must understand, I see with a different vantagepoint than you, and what does it matter really how I see it?

 

Rachel:           I don't know. I guess in our soul growth, we are certainly -- how will I say it?  We advance in our teaching, in our learning.

 

TOMAS:        Yes. It is interesting to begin to understand the nature of the soul.

Rachel:           I'm still trying to deal with that.

TOMAS:        And to recognize it in yourself and in your fellows, because then you can begin to see where you may be of service, for you can better discern your fellows strengths as well as their distresses. You can see the root cause of distress more easily.

Rachel:           As I gain soul growth!

TOMAS:        Yes. It is easier for you to distinguish between emotional hysteria and genuine distress. It is easier to cut through the artificial to get to that which is essential.

Rachel:           I noticed a little of that. Like it's more black and white.

TOMAS:        It is far more technicolor.

Rachel:           [Laughter] Oh, these words! How they get in our way!

 

Alan:               This general subject is a good example of why it is potentially so dangerous to be alone.

 

Rachel:           Dangerous to be alone?

TOMAS:        Would you elaborate for us.

 

Alan:               Well, because this growth that we're talking about, this soul growth, which is so necessary, grows exponentially -- I  believe -- through contact with fellow religionists. And if you don't have that contact, your soul will run into potential dangers. It will crystallize in spots.

Rachel:           It will stagnate.

Alan:               When that occurs, the next place it goes is back, not forward, and so this reinforces the necessity for inter-personal relationships with fellow seekers and fellow growers. This is one of the things that I personally felt so ... if I may use the word, so "threatened" by, in being alone so many years. Out there. You really have to do a lot of praying. But of course I advocate prayer under any circumstances, but it can potentially be very dangerous, and again, back to this business that Jesus did say that we should go two and two, and this is exactly what he was talking about; we take care of each other.

Rachel:           Yeah, because you can get wrapped up in your own ideas without having someone else to ...

Alan:              Exactly. Distortions.

Rachel:               Yeah.

Alan:              So it's a good subject to talk about.

TOMAS:        We always have interesting discourses, my lad, some more so than others. My more gratifying conversations and lessons have revolved around the soul and an understanding for you of what we speak of when we speak of the soul, because this is a way of your becoming aware of yourself in a most meaningful way. You know the human condition loves to focus on itself, and yet it is not an understanding, necessarily, of ego that we are striving for, although that is part of the acknowledgement of the "know thyself' admonition. But to know thyself as a comrade of deity, is truly to know thy Self.

 

This is how you become immortal. This is how you grow your morontia reality. And this is how we advance Urantia into the first stages of light and life. It must begin within the individual. One must begin to see divinity reflected back to him or her from fellow believers in order to confirm, by and through your own mortal existence, your divine existence as well. Did you follow that?

 

Rachel:           Oh, yes!

 

TOMAS:        And then you begin to reach out and uphold yourselves in your community, and this is what we have done in these several teacher bases, in our lessons. We have bonded you as a group, as a family - which is beyond two and two -- but into the community. In an understanding of the value of your community, you can uphold your neighboring community, and we are creating this gridwork, then, which will become the international scaffolding for a new phase of global administration, spiritual in nature, while it will be acted out upon the stage of mortal existence.

 

My friends, how we appreciate your efforts in attaining a glimmer of our aspirations on behalf of Urantia. Our efforts for Michael are our chief delight, and when we find that you also take delight in these assignments of advancing your world, we, like Merium, have a grin from ear to ear. It is, as I say, a joyous evening in the spirit realms, as a result of our appointment this evening. And we thank you.

 

Rachel:           Well, Tomas, I will speak for myself and many of us who cannot thank you enough for answering our prayers for a better reality.

 

TOMAS:        Yours and my thanks are forwarded onto our supervisors and forefathers in the divine administration. Michael heard your prayers. The petition was forwarded on to Uversa. And the motion was granted for greater light of truth on Urantia as a result of your prayers and the mercy of the Eternal Son. We are all happy to be in league with the divine conspiracy, indeed. I am inclined to step down, lest there is another question.

 

Rachel:           I don't think so.

Alan:               I'm okay.

Rachel:           It was a good discussion.

 

TOMAS:        I will speak with you later. I am going to put on the record that it will be great to hear from Jack when he and you are so inclined. Goodnight.

 

*****

 

DATE:                        February 9, 1999

LOCATION:              Butler, PA, USA

T/R:                            Gerdean

TEACHERS:              TOMAS, MERIUM, SONGBIRD

Group:                        Hunnah, Alan, Gerdean and Leah

TOPIC:

Self-Esteem; Songbird on the Third  Chakra

 

TOMAS:        Good evening, my friends, I am Tomas. It is good to be with you this evening. Many here embrace you in love and in mercy. We are joyful at this configuration of individuals. Welcome home, Ah Leah, from your sojourn. It is always good to feel your presence with us and to feel you absorb the warmth and solidarity of your home and hearth here in and with your teachers and your peers in truth.

 

I would like to introduce a format to utilize for a period of time, in-as-much as we have become an active participant in the art of transmitting in this group. I will speak for a while and step down so that others may have an opportunity to allow their teacher or their associate to express their truths as well. But I will give up my time this evening, in part at least, to my lovely midwayer friend, SongBird, who is once again with us and would like to discuss something with you. One moment please.

 

SONGBIRD:   Greetings, my friends. I am SongBird and it is again a pleasure to be here and to have this opportunity to spend some time with you and to share in your heart's delight, that which will enable you to become a more fragrant spreader of good cheer and good will.

 

One of the facets of a fragrant personality is this thing you call self-esteem. I would like to talk a little bit then about what you call your third chakra, the seat of the self, and how it reflects in your environment, your gut feelings, your sense of who you are, how you feel things poignantly, how you carry your conflicts in your belly, and when you are at peace with yourself, you find life digestible and nourishing.

 

Your self-esteem is a reflection on your appreciation of who you are as an individual personality with its own strengths and character, its own unique personality manifestation, by its own value and perception, its understanding of a relationship with divinity and a relationship with animal nature.

 

In an individual who has a solid sense of self in a healthy way, you will not find ulcers, you will not find bellyache, because that individual is not allowing him or herself to be determined by what goes outside itself, but by rather what is transpiring within. It engages a manner of grace about itself that allows for an esteem about who one is.

 

In your backgrounds you have been taught that how you present yourself, how you are seen by your society, is a reflection not only of yourself but your civilization as well. To carry the burden of your civilization in your behavior is an unkind responsibility.  All you need to do is be responsible for your own perspective, and this comes from your own integrity, your own relationship with Father, and with your life path.

 

Of course, your life path encounters others in its wake and of course you are mindful of your impact on others and yet if you merely hold in your heart and mind an understanding that the reality you are focusing on is your own, and it is a reflection of an honest reality, you needn't worry then about upholding the world on your shoulders.

 

Indeed we will one day move into a world wherein everyone is able to be self-governing, and granted it is a goal, but in cases such as yourself it can be a fact, and as you are self-governing, as you determine for yourself how you feel about things, how you choose to respond to life experiences, and not be overmuch influenced by the impact of others upon you, you have safeguarded your own self-esteem, that which enables you to feel good about yourself and therefore your impression upon the world around you.

 

In a culture such as yours that is so bent on judgment, it is a deep conditioning that you often second guess yourself as well as others as to their behaviors for your interaction with others in your behaviors. As you assess these things, you essay yourself overmuch and become overly analytical about yourself and you give yourself a bellyache because of your associations or because of your reaction to your associations.

 

As you are true to yourself, even when you are confused or in a growing place, you can keep to yourself your own growth experience and not rely overmuch on other peoples' opinions as to what you think or how you should behave, thereby maintaining your own sense of self and where you may victor the battle of growth because of your relationship with divinity, that clear guide to your ultimate reality.

 

I thus urge you in your comings and goings to be mindful of your gut and be aware of how it reacts and responds to the world around you. Strengthen yourself by allowing your esteem to be well established within yourself as a natural part of you, that which is being developed and borne from your respect for yourself as a child of God and your appropriate love for yourself as a child of the universe, faults and all.

 

I will be back again to discuss you with you more later, but I wanted to be here with you while you are undergoing group transition and Tomas has graciously allowed me to get out here and again practice my ability to express myself in terms that may be helpful to you in your evolution. Good afternoon.

 

TOMAS:        This is Tomas, and I will recess. Yes.

 

*****

 

MERIUM:     And we're off! Good evening, everyone.

Group:            Hi, Merium.

 

MERIUM:     I really do appreciate that discourse because it is like an all-year supply of stimulation for me to speak. I have asked that you look up the word in your Webster for self-esteem, or esteem, but as usual I am leading you to the truth of your being, so we shall disregard, as usual, that self-esteem with a small "s" and travel to the truth of your being to that which you truly are, the you that you are re-acquainting yourself with.

 

You are discovering the truth of your being. That is the self that is indeed being brought forth; that is the self that is non-judgmental, that is kind that is patient, that envies not, that is not puffed up. Oh, such a beautiful expression of life and it dwells in you, and even though this facade of external self wants to define everything continuously, from finances to political views, it is very busy embroidering the tapestry of falsehood, and here we have once again the invitation to the Eden of your being, where beauty is ever present.

 

You have in your world a reversible garment. I understand that you have clothing that you can wear inside out. Well, in a sense, this is what we are wanting to do. Your world is being turned inside out, upside down. It is being worn incorrectly and you are discovering the garland of truth that belongs to you that will allow your eyes to see what is truly there and they will be unified with your heartfelt intelligence, so that your judgment will be totally different.

 

In fact, you will not even bother to judge; you will be too busy being the beatific, beautiful being that you truly are. It will be a garment that is light and you will flow through your circumstances, picking the new opportunities in recognition to you, just as you would reach up carelessly and affectionately pick the flower and bring it to yourself because you know that it is for you.

 

This is a new life that you are being given, and you don't even have to become masters of it. It is simply going to present itself. It will become the new character and fiber of your being. You will not have to dig for it. You will not have to strain to get it out, to replace a lesser behavior. It is ever there for you. We are of the same ilk. We wear the garment. We know where we live, and we are at home wherever we go. We are at home with you in this room. There is no separation.

 

As you acquaint yourself with this new self-esteem, and you become more and more preoccupied with it and less and less weighted by the distractions that pull you ever, ever, endlessly, you will find that you will be able to attend to whatever comes to you and it will also be in an optimistic manner that your every need will be attended to. This group has suffered, and it has had growing pains that have come out of misunderstanding. It is learning to embrace itself more completely. It is really realizing that it is a lotus in this community and that it is perfume that is ever being released into all these areas that you consider just an ordinary town.

 

This that you truly are is not aware of class, it is not interested in economics, and it is not interested in so-called intelligence. There are no requirements for your reflection and your cooperation. I am talking about the seamless robe that is of your true make-up. And I am so pleased with this discourse that came this evening and I hope that you will read the manuscript in private, ponder it, and as you connected with my talk, you will be released into a new decibel of expression, a new tonal confidence, and a new strength in your effortless living.

 

Compassion is in the wings. It is ever at hand, and there is no anxiety as to where it will be seen because it is with you. You are your own compassion, and you will have as much as you allow yourself to be expressing it. You will receive every need as long as you remember that you are your own gift to yourself and that you will never be in need.

 

I delight in this opportunity to speak to you. I am ever so appreciative of you all. You are so dear to us, and I am also pleased to have Hunnah back that she may hear this message herself because she needs it as much as anyone else who is able to read the transcript.

 

I am going to allow someone else to speak, but thank you so much for letting me talk.

 

Group:            Thank you, Merium.

 

*****

 

MERIUM:     Dear friend, I welcome you.

 

Alan:               I don't know if this is your bag or not, but do you, Merium, any chance know some of the plans that Machiventa may have for some of the imbalances in the world? I'm speaking population-wise. What about that vast, vast, vast population that we know so little about here in America. What are Machiventa's plans for reaching those people?

 

MERIUM:     The plan is enlightenment.

Alan:               How?

 

MERIUM:     The plan is the waking of the heart intelligence, the heart's responsiveness to that which you are.

 

Alan:               Through which means?

 

MERIUM:     The means will produce itself. You can reflect in your very own experience what roused you from the doze that you were in at one time that you called out and asked that you be guided. It would be the same if you lived in the arctic or if you were in the farthest, most remote parts of the earth. Everyone is allowed to be where they are. There is no ... Are you talking about physical security?

 

Alan:               Well, I'm talking about (1) language, (2)... well, for me personally, it was just as lonely there [Thailand, India and Singapore] as it was here.

 

MERIUM:     Ah!

 

Alan:               Where are all the other folks that are willing to be there and break through these barriers?

 

MERIUM:     I must welcome you to a contamination of the Christian consciousness here. I think you will find it very stimulating because you're going to have the opportunity to bring the East and the West together in a sense of conscious union within yourself. Your questions are legitimate, but it is your intellect that is anxious, and what you are here for is to allow yourself great growth. I want to tell you that there is no hurry and that you will be finding your own questions welling up into you and that they are to apply to you first and the world secondly.

 

This group that you have entered is an ultimate one. It is called First Things First. That this peace that passes understanding will inhabit you and you will become your greatest prayerful hope.  If you allow it to happen, you have many, many experiences under your belt, and many, many -- much wisdom, but it is in the humbling of the private sanctity of your being that you will find your finest hour.

 

I hope I have not fooled you with my reply, but you are speaking to Merium I am the pillow fluffer. I have a mission of mercy, a mission of beauty, and I am not interested in the intellectual definition. My friend Tomas will lay out a lesson and I come along and lighten it, and I lighten it and I lighten it and my path is helping you to become lighter. That is my function. I hope that I have not disappointed you. We have teachers that will come in that perhaps will satisfy you completely. Tomas, can you assist?

 

Gerdean:        Wait a minute.

 

MERIUM:     Let me come back to this group that you have entered.   If you were to be here two weeks, six months, whatever, this has been an experiment for us within the Urantia teachings. It is called living the truth. It is called passing the barrier of the human burden that has kept you tight and narrow in your thinking. It has wakened you to a life beyond your habits and your likes and your dislikes. It has brought fellowship into a new dimension in a very personal way.

 

This group studies text in another meeting, and when they come here they are allowed to meet personal needs, to feel support, to feel supported. Now it is true, the group will take on a new pattern as the energies of male and female change, but in the past this has been a birthing of lightness, your morontia being. We want you to become more comfortable with the you that you truly are and we speak to you as if you had already been brought about. We are not speaking to the spoiled pattern of the human configuration. We are speaking to your Self-esteem at all times. Tomas, are you there?

 

TOMAS:        Yes, Merium, and I do appreciate your lighter touch. Indeed, in the face of Alan's ponderous question, fraught with human concern, it is a group counterbalance.

 

My leader Melchizedek has outlined the curriculum in terms of enlightenment toward light and life and we are promised to contribute to these many problems on Urantia as can be addressed in, by and through your own involvement in your realm as bearers of good news. When you say "What are you going to do about it?" we are going to work with you, over a long period of time, in order to alleviate these many imbalances and stressors upon the human condition, but no matter how vigorously we engage ourselves with a problem at hand, it will be ineffectual unless we have come at it with those On High in total guidance of our game plan, our behavior, our modus operandi, as you might say.

 

The truth remains that the answer is love, the question is love, and things in between are love. And I don't mean to usurp Merium's role as pillow fluffer when I say that because as you well understand, love is not all fun and games; it entails hard work. Even if you are hard at prayer and deep in pathos for your brethren who suffer the vicissitudes of life, many, many moons will pass before many of these very serious problems are assuaged, but they can be addressed and are being addressed even as we speak.

 

I thought I heard you talk about over-population. Was that your issue, Alan?

 

Alan:               No. Let me ask the question this way. Do you have knowledge of any of Machiventa's plans? In respect to (1) do you -- is there a contact personality over in China? Is there a contact personality over in India? Is there a contact personality in Indonesia? If so, tell me! I'm willing to go back so that that poor cat isn't sitting in isolation like I've been for all my life with this -- jazz, you know? If there is one, then sooner or later the person's got to be known!

 

TOMAS:        Yes.

 

Alan:               I'd like to know while I still have a little life left in me and I'll go back. I'll spend time with him. Tell me!

 

TOMAS:        Then let me respond to that query. You are eager, and yes we are also. There are many who are being touched, who are being called, and who are being invited. My son, you know the story about fortuitous electro-chemical systems, and even those who are not particularly religious are sometimes open to spirit impressions and there are many, all across the globe, who are being touched and who are even now responding to this spirit prompt which is pummeling Urantia as a result of the circuits being opened.

 

Yes, this is all according to plan. Just because someone does not speak English, of course, does not preclude them from knowing Our Father or from seeking to bring light of truth to Urantia.

 

Alan:               Question. Is the Urantia Book going to be translated into Mandarin Chinese? Soon?

 

TOMAS:        It must be translated into the Mongolian tongue, yes.

Alan:               Mongolian?

Gerdean:        That's the word that's there.

Alan:               I'll accept that. It blows my mind, but I'll accept it.

 

TOMAS:        In order to bring relief and to bring balance. There are many languages representing masses of peoples. It is more important at this point that the Master be made apparent by and through His ambassadors. A book, of course, is invaluable as a text and as a cosmology or history, but it is the spirit which will move the people and they are indwelt by Father as you are. The Spirit of Truth can work with those who are not even aware of Christ Michael or Jesus of Nazareth.

 

The Spirit of Truth is the spirit of Michael much as the Holy Spirit can be regarded as the spirit of the Third Source and Center. And so all people all around the world are in a position to see revelation direct from their own Thought Adjuster, the ministry of the Spirit of Truth, and the ministry also of the Holy Spirit. These are alive and well and ministering in those who seek.

 

A problem is when people allow themselves to be limited. Because they have been taught to believe that they are limited. When someone goes in and allows them to see they are only limited by their mind, they can adjust their thinking (Thought Adjuster activity), which allows greater radiance of light and truth to shine upon their inner reality. This is powerful. This is real. This, as you fully are aware, is potentially superhuman, and when the scale has been tipped, it will catch on as it is here.

 

I will be quick to add that in-as-much as Urantia is comprised of evolved religions, conditioned by and through their own cultures and belief systems, ingrained in deep history and influenced by our paucities of previous epochal revelations, much work is required. I am not going to say that any part of the world is going to need more work than others because as you fully are aware, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, and we will stop at nothing to bring Michael's natal sphere into alignment with the universe. It is our assignment and we are diligent.

 

It will take time, but you are encouraged to have faith and, in your own phraseology, seek the farther view. But have faith and yes, my son, when you ponder the workers in the field, your instinct to go also and attend to the fields and to the workers in the fields is noble and good. It is an inherent response of a son of God and you will be utilized, whether you are going to be utilized in Asia or Africa or Saudi Arabia or Canada or Butler is at this point irrelevant. The fact that you are willing to go serve Our Father/ Brother Michael is the pertinent point and you will be lead into those service fields which are most amenable to your own personality, your arts and skills as a teacher, and as a human being. Everyone has individual strengths and gifts that can be brought to the task at hand. One moment, please.

 

Alan:               I understand, you know, the movement being called The Correcting Time because time certainly has to be corrected. But I don't know how to express it except in this way -- as an example. Alcoholics Anonymous is all through the Orient now. AA is prolific in India. AA is in Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos, Nigra, Thailand. It's in Malaysia, Singapore. It's in Indonesia. It is not successful with the local people unless they happen to be Christian, because it is identified in the minds of the local people as a Christian movement, a Christian organization. So it's not successful with the local people.

 

It is successful with the ex-pats [ex-patriots]; it's successful with the "me's". It's a wonderful opportunity for the ex-pats to get together and share their problems and their hopes, wishes and dreams and all those things, and so forth, but they cannot -- they're not successful at getting the local people involved. There are many reasons why and I don't have to go into all the many reasons why except to just keep this as simple as possible in terms of conceptualization, because it is a Christian-identified organization as is the Urantia movement. And there's the problem.

 

So as the Christian-identified movement that we know of as Correcting Time or Urantia Book or whatever it means to us as individuals and as a group, it's got to have a new name! It's got to have a new approach! It's got to have a new thing! It's got to be less Christian oriented and it's got to be nuts and bolts oriented but it's got to be done in the culture of that country. And we're looking at -- and this is what I was trying to get the information from the contact personalities here -- what, if any, plans does Machiventa have to help to approach this problem. I think that that's information that we could use. Because then otherwise, even -- the very first thing I had to learn when I went over there was that I could not approach these people with any Christian concept. I could not approach these people in anything that had to do with Christ and the cross and dying for the sins and any of that stuff. I had to approach them where they were. Where they are.

 

TOMAS:        You will recall I spoke to you about this situation in terms of the Indwelling Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit…

 

Alan:               Yes. Translate it.

TOMAS:        …and not in building a new religion about Jesus.

 

Alan:               Of course not! Translate it. How? In what form? In what way? I just want some insight and I'm not getting any insight into the mechanics, into the means, the methodology.

 

TOMAS:        I appreciate your sense of urgency, and the only thing that will fill that need is indeed revelation. And you must have faith that you are not alone. There has been in motion for some time a very vast network of spirit workers, gaining momentum, pulling together forces for your world. You are going to be edified and you will begin to perceive busy workers. You are aware of your Christian converts in Thailand engaged in good works. It is an inroad. In the social arenas, people are becoming more and more accustomed to difference. Difference is becoming the vogue. Indeed, it is becoming fashionable to switch roles, to change gears, to trade places. Flex time. Careers. Languages. It is not as limiting as it once was.

 

And so the barriers that have been stumbling blocks are now mere shadows, and you can walk in and out of these areas much more readily than before. The barriers coming down, becoming less defined, enables all manner of information, insight, innuendo, et cetera, to slip through, and as the ability to grasp and assimilate other realities becomes more and more apparent, the more translucent/transparent will be the differences between Christianity and other religions because the living reality of spirit will have taken its rightful place in the personal lives of these people.

 

Just as you, as intelligent and civilized people, can see the value in the different races, the different cultures, the different religions, all people will reach a point of being able to be more tolerant of the differences while accepting the thread of similarity. This is the living God. This is the light of truth that transcends the racial, cultural, national differences aforementioned. It cannot be done overnight. It is an ongoing process, but as you sit here in sincere devotion to these values, you have once again fanned the flames of those who work, including yourself. The most effective thing you can do is pray. And as you express yourself in meetings like this, you have done already great work.

 

Yes, of course, you must work in the field, but any field will do. Allow the ripple effect to spread out into the great ocean of humanity and they will be touched. As you make your waves here and they across the globe make their waves there, the tide will turn. There is a plan. But it is not such a plan that is cast in stone. It is all dependent upon ability to assimilate greater reality and it falls upon you, in large part, to introduce that greater reality to your friends and neighbors. As you allow your spirit reality to be and manifest in your realm, you reflect back to them their reality also as a living child of God.

 

That reinforces their sense of reality within themselves. They begin to see themselves as a viable and valuable reality in the same light as you do. You have learned to communicate the benign virus. This is what it will take to advance Urantia. After it is permeating and infecting a greater portion of your world peoples, we will be able then to bond and band together to bring into being one world of people who recognize the light of truth and these altruistic goals and ideals for all their brothers and sisters, even those they have never seen and that they perhaps cannot understand.

 

Alan:               So then it is true, is it not, that economics plays a very important part in this plan? If the people over there become economically viable, then they could come to America, where they might come in contact with this movement that is becoming so popularized here? And hopefully we would have enough insight then to send them back as their own missionaries.

 

TOMAS:        Your words, of course, remind me of the plan in the Garden of Eden wherein the tribes sent representatives to the Garden to learn the way of life of Adam and Eve, but I am not going to quite allow the analogy because that would put you in America or in Christianity in a position of being this heralded Garden of Eden and, alas, you have "been banished therefrom" as well as everyone else. But to answer your question, yes, of course, economics play a very viable and vital role and not just because they can afford to come here, no, but because you can send much of your culture there and I am suggesting such things as music, which is a language which you can bridge gaps with.

 

There are many avenues of association and connection that touch the heart of the people that do not necessarily meddle with souls or confuse theologies. The heart connection is that which will lead to genuine love. That is the benign virus that will change the face of Urantia, and so an exchange of culture and goods and services and music and food and travelogue and all of these things that can help your world become one great entertainment palace of production, efficiency, progress and brotherly love is a step in the right direction.

 

Hunnah:          While you were talking, I was reminded of the great effort that it took for Yanni to put his dream into form. He performed at the Taj Mahal and the video is not only beautiful but the best part of the video is communicating with the community in these two vastly different cultures, and then the media, which represents wealth, shows the audience, and you don't even realize it but they are flashing the Oriental and an Indian at you so that the two are blended together, so that - almost as if their audiences were together. It is a masterpiece, and he also, by the way, embraces a great deal of Buddhist teaching.

 

He had cameras for children who didn't even know there was a Taj Mahal. They had never seen it. There is a culture shock they are going to get, but they can handle it. And so I feel this sort of thing is going out into the world and that the people will handle this rapid change that comes to them far better than we ever dreamed. But that memory came back to me. I was so inspired by his music. I felt as if I was home when I listened to it. And watching the audience I felt a great deal of love, and it was such an experience I hope that if anyone reading the transcript has not had a chance to see Yanni's video, I hope they will do so.

 

TOMAS:        It is very international, and those of you who are able to transcend the limitations of your specific interests, can contribute to a one world flavor, all of you are brothers and sisters under God and in potential. As you actualize this potential by being fishers of men and women of souls for the Father, in helping in the vineyard, you are engaged in a process that has no limitation, no limitation whatsoever. The ability to seek and find lost souls is Our Father's work and as you avail yourself, you will be shown in miraculous and incredible ways how it is that you can plant his seeds within and watch them grow.

 

It is good to hear your yearning to bring your brethren out of darkness. We are here for precisely that purpose and we are here because it is time. And much as the rose blooms quickly when it is time to bloom, your planet one day soon will begin to blossom in ways that will astound and delight you. Have faith, have living faith.

 

Hunnah:          Thank you.

TOMAS:        Are there other questions this evening?

 

Leah:              I have a comment. It's much more simplistic, but as Hunnah was talking about Yanni, I was thinking about that Disney's song, "It's a small world after all," how popular that was and then also the Coca-Cola song, "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony," and I was just thinking how that music is so far-reaching.

 

TOMAS:        As much as we love Jesus, we need advertisements for God. I'll see you soon. Farewell.

 

*****

 

[End of Vol. IV, Part 11]