Elyon041402Machiventa-Olfana_Relationships

North Idaho Teaching Mission

Elyon,

Machiventa,

Olfana

Topics:

Relationships

April 14, 2002

* Elyon (Jonathan TR): Greetings friends, this is Elyon. I guess my topic will be relationship. I have admired your discussion for your inquisitiveness and your ability to draw from one another feedback that does contribute significantly to understanding. May I add to your mix my discussion of the golden rule, that interpretation given in your text that the golden rule is so relating yourself to another that they gain the greatest possible good, that your relationship with another becomes the opportunity for the realization of the reality of God for that other individual, not in a theoretical acknowledgment of God's factuality, but rather in the intimate dynamism, that energy flow of the presence of God through one of His children to another of His children.

Friendship is a factor in relationship, however, there need not be relationship in order for friendship to be long-standing. Many of you know this from friends of years' past, those whom you still hold dear yet you have no daily interchange that fosters relationship. Therefore friendship is a state; relationship is a process. In order to further friendship, that is, to uplift its state, you must -- and I perceive this day that you are -- develop the skills or at least the sensitivity towards those skills that foster interrelated friendship, that being relationship.

The Father has undertaken an immense plan, and that is the bestowal of as many personalities as are resident in potential in His being that can be manifest individually apart from Him, and then to draw these very personalities back into unity with His being, not a return to the state of oneness, but to ascend to that Supreme level of relationship, interconnected unity of diverse personalities. This is a transcendent oneness, a togetherness. This being His desire, you are faced daily with this dynamic of relationship.

No one does well in isolation, and you will find in your life little opportunity to be isolated, for all that makes up your daily activities requires some form of exchange with another individual. It is inescapable. Of course I might add this does increase the importance of stillness, time alone. However, it is aloneness with the Father, again, another interpersonal moment. It is often taught in your culture that friendliness is good manners, and manners are confused with friendship. Friendliness is not friendship. Friendship grows from understanding and love. Friendliness is actions that maintain interchange person to person. One can be friendly and have no friends.

One can have many friends and fail at being friendly. One is an internal state of being and the other is merely a code of behavior. Relationships, it has been said, are an end in themselves, and what is that end but friendship? There can be no superficiality of relationship. The very word itself demands interrelated, interdependent connectivity. It is not had through formality of behavior, and it survives improper behavior, for love will penetrate all mistakes and reach to the core of the being to whom the relationship is invested. The keys, the tools, for relationships are found in the citing of that which is the fruit of the spirit: forgiveness and tolerance, mercy and patience, kindness, deep and sincere interest in another being, and curiosity about the makeup of another personality.

Yes, I witness that each of you is at times baffled by your own personality makeup. It is difficult to discern how well you tick, perhaps more difficult than it is to discover how another operates, for every layer you uncover in yourself reveals a deeper layer. It is unending, for the penetration of the understanding of self leads to the discovery of the great Personality of Paradise. That task is endless. You are limited in the understanding of another, and therefore your attempt to understand reaches an end, for it is impossible to take the inner journey of another individual. In order to benefit from the uniqueness of another bestowal of God in the form of another creature of free will you must enter into relationship. It is not had through a probing, searching, of another. It is had through enticing the bequeathment of the inner state of that individual to you. That is done best through your own willingness to lay before another your being, your wishes, your ideals, longings, and goals. You know that the master gained understanding of others through questions. That was the enticement for the other to share. He did not run down a checklist to make sure they filled in the proper blanks before he sought their friendship.

He sought their friendship without knowing them, and in their revealing of themselves they became his friend and he became theirs. You know of the phrase of taking the mote out of your own eye before you take the speck out of another. I refer to this line to illustrate my comments of how much more deep and unfathomable your own personality makeup is to you, or perhaps more correctly, how much more access to the depths of personality you have of yourself than you do another. By sharing the depths of yourself that you have discovered you allow another to receive the benefits of that interpersonal relationship and give the opportunity for another to be so related to that they come to a deeper understanding of themselves. The deeper your connection with the Father's presence the better friendship, relationship, and ministry you will have with another, the more you will be able to relate yourself to another as God would relate to them. What is God's primary goal but the revelation of His being to His children?

He does not demand that you reveal yourself to Him. He seeks to reveal Himself to you. In your discovery of that revelation you are inspired to reveal yourself to Him and to others. I have a few clamoring to speak with you today as well. I will pause. I am in our presence for the duration. Any one of us would take your questions, and we seek for your mediumship in order that we may express ourselves to you.

Ginny: I'm impressed by what you said about how important it is for us to reveal ourselves to each other, thus revealing God.

* Elyon: Thank you for that observation; it is one of my main points today. I would like once again to return to the line of the mote and the sliver.

Rather than look at it in terms of one's faults and another's faults, to look at it as the potential of discovery by placing your mote, that beam in yourself, before another to witness. If we define that beam, that mote in this case, to be the depths of your personality potential and actuals, another may discover that they do have but a speck, but a sliver, of discovered potential within themselves. That little speck can enlarge into their own beam of self awareness, of Father consciousness, and of universe citizenship.

* Machiventa (Mark): This is Machiventa. I address this classroom as a subset of the greater project we are involved in, the classroom of your world. I make the observation for you that there are two levels of growth to be observed. One overall, grand level; the class as a whole grows and moves forward step by step. Achievements are made and progress is evident. Within any given classroom the individual students are involved in their individual growth cycles. As two children sitting at adjacent desks, there may be much interaction between these students separate from the lessons being delivered to the class. There is as much, perhaps even more, growth potential resident in the exchange between two individuals engaged in this ongoing dialogue as there is when they both are called to attention to listen to the professor. Indeed, sometimes the instructor may find it more appropriate to suspend the intended lesson in favor of the issue involved in small groups of students who through their exchanges with one another are far more in place to experience these growth spurts, being personally involved in the situation and having personal interest in the material delivered.

The awareness becomes much keener of the implications when individuals are directly impacted, and the stakes at times seem higher. This all important method of growth through interpersonal exchange is, in the final analysis, where the bulk of learning occurs, and we as instructors recognize the value inherent in this process and attempt in our lesson plans to accommodate every aspect of this interpersonal learning we are able. Sometimes it becomes helpful to clear your throat in the classroom and once again restore focus to a central point, a common issue, that may be delivered. Invariably once again after exposing good and earnest students to a new principle or a new facet of an old principle the students fall once again to their separate discussions and take this new material to be passed around and thrown back and forth as in a sporting event.

In the final analysis when the bell has rung, the instructor has left, and the students have dispersed each one must take the lessons of the day delivered by the instructor and expounded upon by their private discussions home to their own space where each one must separately reconcile themselves to this new discovery, to these new insights. It is when the day is through and when you prepare to lay down and go to your rest that the sum total of your exchanges may filter into your being and becomes a possession of yours.

So, you see these stages of delivery and acceptance follow this pattern, and when you are confronted with a new circumstance invariably you will find these patterns to hold true. You must be exposed. You must churn over the information within yourself and between each other, and then personally and privately you must come to terms with these points. When this process has come about there is only one more step to bring it full circle, and that is to share it with another, to express what you have gained through this process, thereby starting another's circle of understanding, another's cycle of interpretation. It is a pleasure to witness each of you going around in circles. With that I take my leave and leave you with my thanks.

* Olfana (Ginny): Hello, this is Olfana. Growth in friendship is very much like cultivation of your plants. At this time of the year we all turn our thoughts to sunshine, dirt, wind, rain, and we all get excited even if we are not gardeners about new growth. Let us think for a moment what it takes to grow healthy plants. Let us each contribute something to this little exercise.

Jonathan: It gives me goose bumps because images were being given to me before you spoke of pony packs of seeds started under grow lights and how the light and the fertilizer in the soil are like the Thought Adjuster or periodic revelation that help us get started. The pony pack is like how the angels draw people who work well together. Once we are set out, acclimated to morontia life, we merge our roots. That is when our relationships will really inter-tangle. Now we are beginning to grow, but we are destined to a deeper interconnection. But no plant does well planted too close to another.

* Olfana: Thank you for your observations.

Mark: I sense slightly what it must be like for the Father and Mother Spirit through our limited grasp, to have expectation of the potential inherent in the process of growth involved in our planting a seed with the expectation of that seed to become what we expect it to become. Our wisdom has in this process gained us the perspective to see the plant in its entirety when we set it out. To glimpse the long term wisdom of the inherent potential in our limited scope is thrilling. It must be spectacular for the Father and Mother Spirit who plant us here and see us as fully matured specimens.

Evelyn: We don't plant peas expecting to get macadamia nuts. Plants benefit from watering, but I think they feel refreshed by it, too.

* Olfana: Maybe during this week as all of us think more about these flowers, the colors, the freshness, the bright green of everything, we can spend some time pondering what it takes to keep our gardens looking beautiful. As we clear out the rubble of winter, as we clear out what we no longer need, as we prune the dead branches and the dry leaves, which still have a purpose by the way in your recycling, let us keep in mind all the elements, all the steps it takes to keep a plant free of danger and surround it with the nutrients of the elements to grow into a healthy plant. These are the same qualifications, these are the same reasons why we need to treat each other in the same way. In cultivating our friendships sometimes it is necessary to cut off what we do not need and to be wise about where we plant, how deeply we plant, and how much we plant. This is an excellent lesson and an excellent analogy at this time when we are surrounded with beauty everywhere and we are breaking up and tossing out the dead branches and leaves to give room for more growth. So, let us think about these things in our daily dealings with the earth.

Jonathan: Cultivating friendships in light of regeneration in spring, I think of how we don't have to see alike to be spiritually be alike. Each of us is a different plant and is beautiful for this alone. The goals are to produce the different fruit. In cultivating friendship we stir our common ground, the soil, our humanity, our divine family, things that contribute to all of us regardless of whether we are weeds or trees. I trust my friends to mulch my dead matter for others to grow from. We help each other stir in the old as compost.

* Olfana: Well said, my friend. Thank you all for your company, for your friendship. Now go to your gardens.

END