Dear Michael and Mother Spirit,    Once again we gather together from near and far, leaving the rest of our lives to come and hear your kind words of encouragement and truth.  We look forward to these times with great anticipation for we have known such joy and downright good fun and cheer in these sessions.

We ask you to help us at this time tonight.  Help us open our hearts to feel.  Help us open our minds to recognize and respond to what you have to offer.  We do treasure that which we ourselves cannot anticipate, so help us realize now, as well as in the rest of our lives, that each moment of time, each moment of life out here in time and space, is unique: that a great part of our human reality, even reality in general, is not repeating.  It is springing forth like a fountain from God’s absolute and infinite creativity.  Help us recognize this and thank Him by living the fullest lives we can.  Amen.

MICHAEL:  Good evening, my children, this is Michael.  In your last session with Mother Spirit a student expressed his awe and amazement with the sheer fact of individual personality, and that this realization opened doors he couldn’t even explain.  Good.  That’s a good definition of humility: being aware of that which you can perceive somehow, opening, but is still beyond explication.  As for personality itself, while Mother Spirit and I create these enduring patterns of living energy that you are too, these bodies that give your personality conscious contact with reality, your personalities are your own.  They are God’s gift of you--to you, as well as to the rest of everyone else; just as everyone else is also God’s gift of them to you.  This is the great personality circuit, your participation in the Deity Absolute, the supreme fact that you absolutely are!

(The mystery of individual personality)

In our last series of lessons we’ve tried our best to give you a feeling of this self of yours that is, in every moment, antecedent to your ego-awareness.  In other words, even though you cannot literally hold your pure self as an object, you can get some intuition, some deep sense of this enduring, unique continuity that you are.  In addition, you have not only your ego awareness of who you feel you are and who you’ve been, my dear ones, you have a soul.  You have an enormous, extra-dimensional reality that is also alive, and growing, and lending itself to giving meaning and value to your day to day life.  So in spite of the ever-changing feelings you have about yourself, this object that you are for yourself called your ego--necessary as a social construct you can present as someone and something to others, there is this persisting reality of you that’s truly timeless, even space-less, almost as if you were looking in on your life from somewhere outside.  Yet there is no “outside” of reality.  You are definitely in it and of it.  It’s just because you are so changeless, so permanent, so endowed with the potential for eternal life, your pure personality is a subtle thing you can only intuit.  It is why you are somewhat of a mystery to yourself, existent, yet also a single unfathomable potential that only manifests in the life you demonstrate as you moment by moment.  Now perhaps this enduring mystery explains to you so much of otherwise inexplicable human behavior.  People absolutely are!--and yet they have this need to constantly rediscover themselves.

We call you a creature of free will dignity, first of all because you are a deliberately created being.  That’s the creature part.  You are endowed with creative spirit, the ability to create for yourself alternatives unique to you, you can choose, and this is what gives you freedom from mere circumstance.  You have a potential freedom from everything that led up to this moment.  You can create something new in time and space, and have a choice.  An even deeper and mostly unconscious mystery for so many who do not pray or meditate regularly is that this creativity of yours is incessant and has been part of you from the very beginning of your self-consciousness.  Some people denigrate this spirituality and call it mere subjectivity and treat it with contempt because it cannot be empirically demonstrated like a material fact.  

My children, you can have a really wonderful, fulfilling feeling of yourself that is not just what you call an ego trip.  It’s not just puffing yourself up.  Rather it’s taking responsibility for your own creativity, taking responsibility for how you have always shaped reality as best you could just to make sense of it, just to have some control over what was happening to you.  For this decisiveness that gives you the dignity of choice, of freedom, only exists in its usage.   It has no other manifestation.  It’s a living thing that cannot be captured and held, let alone stored up.  We’ve compared it to a flowing river coming out of you, you cannot hold any more than you can hold the river in a cup.  You can hold only memories and wonderful soul feelings of willpower that you’ve exercised--choices you’ve made--before in the past.

(The mystery of willpower and choice)

And so willpower is always a mystery too, even to you: where it comes from.  In a sense you just do things--or not.  Yet you’re always exercising your intention of self-will to the best of your ability in order to get some sense of personal freedom.  A failure of this is what gives you the feeling of being held down or imprisoned by circumstances, thwarted in some way when your creative spirit seems to have failed or abandoned you, leaving you stuck.

With respect to our ongoing discussion of how to handle stubborn unhealthy habits, consider the feeling you have right now of who and what you are, and ponder the mystery of how you suddenly are capable, perhaps after a long struggle and many failures, you are suddenly capable of exercising your will power to choose another way of life.  Think of how many times you’ve tried and failed, and yet suddenly here it is, you’re capable of deciding: you decide and do it.  You’re capable of changing your life for the better.  And though each decision itself is always here and now and somewhat different and unique, your intention builds on itself so you not only have vicious circles, you have great beneficial ones too.

The more you exercise your will power, the more you feed your soul with these positives results in the new life that emerges.  Something just seems to be growing all on its own: that’s your soul.  You’re suddenly in accord with something greater than yourself--its co-author, a presence of God.  You’re choosing the good, the true, and the beautiful.  You’re suddenly enabled and it’s a growing thing, the very thing that leads to a fuller life, a longer life of joy and happiness, and greater service to your fellows.  You’re more able to discern God’s will and do it yourself.  You’re more in accord with Him.  You’re using some of His power by letting it flow through you for goodness, for truth and for beauty.

This is intrinsically fun.  This is the essence of happiness, this amazing mystery of what springs forth when each of you, in your own unique way, tries to be in accord with the supremely universal--our Father.  Even those who go so terribly astray and end up being so destructive to themselves and others, Mother Spirit and I, and our Father-- we see them in their completeness.  We see their innate desire, their yearning to be free, their yearning to be in accord with what leads to eternal life.  It’s the essence of the saying that we hate the sin but love the sinner.

This is the sense of yourself, my children, that will be so enormously enhanced over on what you call the other side when your spiritual sensitivity and more soulful nature will not require you to deny a single thing that has ever happened to you: the full possession of your soul.  You will have this vision, this perception of the wholeness and completeness of your living personality.

So ponder these things.  Allow yourself to be thrilled in wonder from time to time with who and even what you are.  It’s what your Urantia book calls cosmic consciousness, teaching you about so many other orders of personal beings that you may have a comprehension of what you are as distinct from an angel, a Midwayer, a Melchizedek, a Lanonandek Son.  Welcome this mystery; or should I should say, welcome the awareness of it, for this is real, not some kind of mystery-mongering like a little boy with a new flashlight looking for dark places use it.

This is just another unfathomable dimension of you that worries some, yet sets others free in wonder.  This is your spiritual creativity and decisiveness, seemingly springing out of nowhere, that sets you free.  Reach for it and let it happen.  Treasure your response-ability, your ability to respond not only to yourself and what arises within you, but also to all those hungry, pain-filled eyes out there looking to you for love and comfort and simple companionship.  Be here for yourself and for them.  Mother Spirit and I will be right within and beside you every step of the way.

Now if you have any questions or comments about these things, or anything else in your heart, bring them forth.

Student:  Dear Michael, I am so privileged to be hearing you this evening.  I’ve been trying to understand what my feelings are when I try to help folks along who really need me, and I’m afraid that it’s mostly fear and sadness.  I’m afraid I can’t really help them and that their sadness will defeat me.  Whatever you could offer that could help me I would appreciate.

(Caring for others)  

MICHAEL:  Yes, my daughter, as strange as it may seem, I have to congratulate you for feeling this sadness.  This is a true response to these situations and it takes a great deal of courage to accept these folks and to feel their sadness.  That is a true response that even Mother Spirit and I feel as well.  There is a great deal of truth in this and so we only ask you not to feel sad about yourself and your reaction to what you see as genuine suffering.

Your own feelings of helplessness could be your identifying with individuals who are experiencing their own lack of freedom.  They may not understand this, but you can see in them.  So fear not about perceiving this.  Don’t let it cripple you in your own behavior towards them, but rather let it continue to soften your heart so that you can reach out and take them in.  Sometimes it is only their seeing a pair of friendly eyes that can give them some small respite from the predicament they’re in.

Beyond that, do your best to gently suggest, perhaps, the next step they might take.  Tease them into taking it.  Be as playful and light-hearted with them as you can be for in doing so you will be showing them a truly liberating attitude.  This sadness you feel is your tie to them, it’s your bond, it’s your true inner feeling, and so let it motivate you and continue to let my Spirit of Truth be your orientation.  Trust your perceptions.   Be open to lead the way, whatever that is, whatever that living way is each next moment.  It might be a smile, or just a little hug, a hand on the shoulder.  It might be what you are very good at, my daughter--listening, taking them in and letting them know they are accepted.  So carry on.  Keep up your spirits.  Trust these feelings you have.  Be not downhearted for these feelings for they are your connection to folks.  Does this seem like something you could do?

Student:  Yes.  Thank you.  A very good answer.

MICHAEL:  Thank you, my daughter, for all the goodness, and all the love, and all the compassion you’ve shown others.  Be in my peace.

Student:  Thank you, Father Michael, for all the things you do for us, even all the things we don’t know about.  I’m wondering if your Spirit of Truth is a being like we can contact, or is it just a force or a pressure.

(God’s guiding lights within)

MICHAEL:  My son, to a large degree it depends upon you.  Our Father, Mother Spirit and myself: we are always here.  As we’ve introduced the notion before, it is by your very ability to ignore us--an essential part of your freedom that God gives you, your ability to ignore even Him--for a while!--you are caught up in His creation, are you not?--(Yes)--yet by this ability of yours, you have to choose to give us reality.  You have to allow our reality to impinge upon you.  You have to entertain the goodness that our Father can present to you with real, discrete thoughts.  This is especially true when you desperately need them.  This is the courage that is required of you to accept His guidance, His comfort, His council, for it is essential that you do your best to live by these guiding lights.   They are always shining.  But if you do not act upon them, they do not diminish their glow, but you are less able to register and heed their light.

This is why I call for an ever progressing self-honesty.  Like the good intentions I talked about earlier, your present honesty stands upon all the honesty you’ve known before, yet it’s not so much a habit as a continuous and highly conscious choice.  You can simply address us in your mind and ask: Dear God!--what do I do next?  And wait for the answer.  It will come, and you will recognize it by the feeling of goodness it gives you.  As we’ve said, it may come like a bolt from the blue--an idea, a concept, a notion, a realization that seems to perfectly answer or clarify the situation you’re in.

Then comes the faith part, the ability to act on things as yet unseen, the mystery I talked about when all of a sudden you are simply capable of doing things that were impossible before.  I think you will feel a big smile coming from all of us, and you will know you have ascertained, you have literally touched another part of God’s will for you.  Have you ever felt moments like this before?

Student:  Yes, I have.  I think I felt one yesterday and today when I had a problem and the answer just kind-of came.  It turned out to be a very good answer too.  I’m thankful the beacons are always there--no matter where I am.

MICHAEL:  It can be a very subtle thing.  It may be coming from your own higher consciousness.  You needn’t worry about the exact origin.  For a human being most spiritual presences represent such transcendent unity, they come through as one.  You just need to listen in all your little mini-meditations throughout the day.  Relax the tight grip that might have you stumped for a while.  Relax that with a deep breath or two and say, Hi Mom!--Hello Dad!--Thank you for me and this life of mine.  That alone can let us come through.  Then we can say, Thank you, our son, for once again acknowledging us, for having us in your life.  This is your gift to us, and it brings a big smile on our faces.  This is what we live for.

So keep reaching, my son.  See if you can recognize these moments when we are here with you.

Student:  Thank you, Father Michael.

MICHAEL:  You’re welcome.  Keep finding my peace.

Student:  Michael, my name is B, and I’ve been on my own journey of faith, the Christian journey of faith.  As you’ve said, and they say, we have freedom of choice, freedom of will; but then they also say that one day this place will no longer be, and that there will be a great battle, and there will be those who are left behind.  Those who confess you as our savior will be able to continue the journey, and the rest will just…disintegrate, or go to hell.  I don’t believe that, but I hear it so often.  Could you walk with me a moment on this?

(The battle of good and evil: judgment)

MICHAEL:  Yes, my son.  I think it is important to see how, for many of these individuals, they are expressing in outward metaphors what they are going through internally.  These are often very tortured souls who are moment to moment fearfully tipping back and forth and feeling swept along in forces over which they have little control.  They objectify their internal situation in order to get some slight control over their lives, here by putting their feelings in terms of a great battle between good and evil.  Essentially they’re objectifying the inner moral decisions that everyone needs to make by seeing this necessity as desperate battles with evil spirits for their souls.

The free-will one has is only potential apart from its actual, living use--what I spoke on this evening--in each separate decision.  Objectifying this need for decisiveness and seeing it outside oneself as a war between other, warring spirits can be, unfortunately, a way of denial--of ones own responsibility.  This is true because many have lost, or not yet learned, an ability to respond to another unique human being in front of them in a unique situation that has never happened before.  They overlay this essence of reality and cast so much of everything and everyone they encounter into the drama of their own internal battle, their own--ironically correct--inner feeling of no freedom, and no adequate response from life.

Then that projected battle is carried even further.  We gave a lesson once on how, as you go through your social life day to day, you have necessary assessments to make.  Maybe your old friend here is fibbing a little bit; and that could be a necessary assessment.  But to suddenly in your mind condemn him for being an utter liar: that’s judgment.  That’s playing God.  That’s filling yourself with some ego notion that you yourself can, like your notion of God, judge another person in their totality.  This ego puffery carries over into the smug self-satisfaction that you can determine which folks will go to heaven, which to hell--neither of which exists in reality.  What you have in the next phase of your ongoing eternal life is a rebirth in such a transformed body and mind that no one will dissemble their surprise upon awakening in such a more soulful reality with a more spiritually all-inclusive ability to suspend all these arrogant judgments.  You will be more able to see each other as the little walking infinities you are--all that soul and character--far beyond any kind of superficial judgment you might be tempted to make.

The great glory here, my son, is that prejudiced people will be given this new opportunity to get beyond their own notions and start to be response-able, with humility, with all these others they can finally appreciate.  That larger perception and appreciation is humility.  As for the battle for their soul, that is up to each, for no one is forced to accept eternal life.  Everyone will have the opportunity to choose whether to continue or not.  Does that answer your question?

Student:  So they will never have to be eternally punished for the misdeeds they’ve done in this life, but they’ll have the opportunity to go in a new direction.  Yes!--that walks with my life.  Thank you, Michael.

MICHAEL:  You are very welcome, my  son.  Try teasing these folks into letting go a little bit--(Yes)--all their desperate need to judge everyone--and themselves.  Point out the wonderful spiritual blessing of humility in perceiving the enormity of God’s creation of other personal beings, rather than feeling so little, with the need to belittle everyone else.  Keep walking the good walk with me, my son, and be in my peace.

Student:   Yes, Michael.  Glad to be back here again.  I think one need not wait to go to the other side to experience their full humanity and the potential that exists in every moment.  In ones stillness one has access to the true nature of oneself.  We can be open to both your creativity and our own.  Right here and now the kingdom  of heaven exists in our consciousness, but it gets clouded or colored over with our erroneous notions of what it means to be a human being, maybe past experiences with others.  Right from birth we’ve not yet experienced what being a full human being is, and the ideal gets lost.  God’s primordial intention for us never gets tried.

I read something yesterday that the here and now is very good at what it does, and it’s not constrained by past or future, or even present.  There is perfection in each and every moment if we allow ourselves to be still and relaxed and let go, and see what opens up.  All we have is here and now.  It’s always here; we needn’t hold onto it; we can’t anyway.

It felt like yesterday…I did a lot of dying yesterday.  But I wasn’t afraid of it.  It’s like every moment is a kind of death, and you move on to the next.  That’s where my commitment lies, in my moving on to the next.  I don’t even have any idea what exactly it’s going to look like.  So…(and a little chuckle)

(Creative reflection/meditation)

MICHAEL:  Yes, my son, that’s very well spoken.  You’ve articulated your orientation very well.  In expressing what goes into each moment, you also mention what, in a sense, keeps people from experiencing and realizing the new and spontaneous nature of God’s creativity--that this present moment contains that which has never happened before, and will never be again.  All the while each individual human mind, coming out of its infancy and childhood, coming out of all the social and biological conditioning he or she was born into and with, goes through a long process of emerging from that conditioning in order to realize an individual free will that is only potential up to the moment, and only realized within the living moment it is actually used.

So yes, each becomes aware of his or her conditioning through sincere reflection--and discovers how this conditioning can be overcome by tuning in to their own spontaneous, spiritual creativity; reflection and creativity arise together: that’s the mystery I addressed this evening.  It’s the great mystery of individual personality itself, endowed with creative spirit.  You are the eye that sees but cannot see yourself.  You are that fount of realization--making reality real for you.  You are that little god co-creating your world--along with God’s contribution of a universe situation.  You are like a fountain in a surreal painting, gushing forth right out in the middle of the air.  But that is the true nature of the infinity of spontaneous creativity.  There it is!  Here it is!  Here’s another moment that has never happened before and will never happen again; however captured in your memory and soul; how captured perfectly in God’s memory and soul--the Supreme Being.

(Full of soul, or devoid of spirit?)

Yes, many individuals have realized they already have a foot in the next, soulful realm, what we call Morontia reality, this part existential-spiritual, part creature-experiential reality that is your true possession.  You can let more of your own soul into consciousness.  In your stillness you can relive moments and marvel at the completeness of some incident in your life; not only how you remember it had looked, but actually: how did it feel?  What is this soul-quality of all-encompassing reality equal to that you are experiencing now?  How does that time out of the past--feel!  This you will have over there more by choice.

We also addressed this evening those individuals who have never achieved any great degree of individualization, who do go through life and on into the next phase rightfully feeling just swept along with little choice or freedom, no fun or happiness; no--them--there, with little or no companionship with spirit.  Think of the poor but convinced materialist who cannot realize it’s his own spiritual creativity that has produced for his understanding such a compelling and seemingly-comprehensive physical universe, devoid of spirit.   But this too is possible, else you would not be free in your creations.  Our materialist could well be seeking and following his spirit of truth as best he can; and still learning.  The physical universe too is infinite to any sub-infinite being.

Yes, it is kind-of scary--from a human point of view--this yawning chasm of the unknowable mystery of such a transcendent creation.  You can’t even know the exact thoughts you will have five minutes from now; the subject, perhaps, you can concentrate upon and hold, but not the exact thoughts.  And yet, my children, being so much an instantaneously changing consciousness, can’t you marvel at this persistence, this continuity of personhood, and this growing soul, that you are!  You are more than a living, persisting pattern of energy with a related animal consciousness.  You are a creation of God’s, and each one of you is unique.  The very degree to which you are capable of realizing this is a large measure of your freedom from all else.

Mother Spirit and I can only suggest and tease, and say: We are right here with you, helping you realize this moment and create that better future.  But beyond this it is your choice because it is your future.  Claim it.  Lay hold of it.  You are co-creating it, either consciously or willy-nilly.  It’s an awesome thing our Father has put in your hands.  Mother Spirit and I can only try our best to help you appreciate it, and be able to respond to it.

So carry on, my son.  Keep enjoying this here-and-now you’re bringing into better and better focus.

Student:  Thank you.

MICHAEL:  Be in my peace.

Student:  Here and now!  (and everyone laughs)

MICHAEL:  My children, as you wiggle around and experience all your various realities of body and mind and spirit, you are growing this tail.  (Michael laughs)  You are growing a path back into your past, and through understanding, back into the past.  You are growing a soul that is vouchsafed by a presence of God.  What do you want to put in it?  What do you want to carry with you into eternity?--especially, as we’ve assured you, you will always have a direct perception and relationship with this material realm you are literally earning by living with it.  It’s this human realm with which no angel, not even a close-by Midwayer, no other order of personal being can have quite the same intimacy of experience.  It was why I myself, after hundreds of billions of years of life with Mother Spirit, and being with her the Creator Parents to the inhabitants of millions of worlds we created, I was blessed with the opportunity to have a human life myself.  In all humility I was able to thank my Father for that life.  This is what you have, my children.  This is your opportunity.

(Abilities are your true soul-wealth)

I don’t want to scare you with this freedom you have, but here it is.  Do your best to be able to respond.  Like everything else you earn, we call these abilities your true soul-wealth.  Ability is another thing you grow through eternity as you learn how to respond and dance with the infinity God presents you.  And here it comes, always.

So be of good cheer.  This is your life.  Lean  into it.  Feel it.  Love and enjoy it.  Do your best to be not-afraid.  The fear is real; it serves a purpose, like pain.  It’s information.  But still: you can be not-afraid.  Mother Spirit sends her love.  And I bid you continue to be in my peace.  Good evening.                     

END