Tomas - Feeding the Needy Self - Sep 06, 2007 - Teleconference

LIGHT LINE September 6, 2007

TEACHER: Ill make it easy for you. This is Tomas. It is good to have this occasion to enter into your minds wherein you may opt to discern the value of my words and how they may affect your approach to your spiritual path. I am a part of the Teacher Corps and therefore I present myself as someone having some authority over my subject matter; however, I am a philosopher, and philosophy is not a hard science. It changes - not quite like a "shape-shifter" but it is often malleable, depending on the capacity of the truth seeker.

It is said that the mind is the gateway to the spirit realm, and certainly our task is to shed light on the path that you will take … not because of our guidance but because of the guidance provided to you by the Way Shower himself. We Teachers are simply landmarks along the way. There is no one who has authority over your mind except yourself. It is your right to choose which thoughts will serve and which are as tares that grow among the wheat.

In your search for that which feeds your growth -- the growth of your soul, the hunger of your mind -- you allow yourself to feel needy, a certain needfulness, a longing to be filled with a spirit substance, a soulful response, an emotional backlash -- some kind of reaction or response from the universe you can take as stimuli to feed that hunger that will stimulate the mind and spirit. This neediness is the eagerness of perfection hunger.

There are some, of course, who are so needy, they are almost insatiable. And like a youngster who is growing rapidly, cannot seem to get enough to eat, cannot be filled. There are stages in your life that call for different responses. In the mature years it takes very little to keep a body alive. Yet it may take more to keep the spirit aloft in the face of such views as are those who have lived many decades, seen many troubles and faced many challenges. There is a time to eat and a time to refrain from eating. Not to starve, no, but to slow down. There is a time to sleep, a time to be productive, a time to ponder the effects of your actions and a time to anticipate the results of your actions. All this provides perspective.

This is your life. Your choices, your life, your discernment, your appetites, your productivity, outlay, input -- all these constitutes your experience. If you never do another thing, if you never talk to another individual, if lightening should strike you right now, you each have enough constituted with you in your framework to continue in Mansonia, but that which you can do here now toward augmenting your growth and, as if by default, the growth of others, then you have contributed to life. You are not approaching life from a point of neediness as much as you are a point of bestowal. You are in a position to feed the hungry, to provide for the needy.

You will need to forgive yourself to failing to fulfill your own perception of what that means. When we set out to be like God, we have the idea that God can do anything, everything, and that if we abide by Him and live in Him, what He wishes and what we will can be brought into effect, and yet oftentimes in truth we fall far short. Sometimes it appears that we fail completely.

But this is an incomplete assessment of the situation, and so the thing to do is to forge ahead in faith of the next instance and on the next day or in the next circumstance, giving what you can, taking what you need, applying yourself to the give and take of the living organism of life itself - the material world and its energies as well as morontia reality and its energies, thus becoming a part of all that is and being all that you can be in this world, even as you function in and with the spirit.

Ascension is inherent. It is the plan, the scheme, the program. And yet there is nothing you can do to hurry the process. There are no shortcuts and there are no speed bumps. SO if you hasten ahead you will find you will have to wait until life catches up with you. Or if you dawdle, you will find that you must catch up before the world turns. All of you are in this together. Even though each of you are on your own independent circuit, your own personal path, you are like the many gears of a complicated clock synchronistically telling the time, ticking off the days and revealing the signs of the times in which you live.

While you are encouraged to lift up, I also encourage you to reach back and look down. Look down upon that which looks up to you. Look back at that which follows you. And help it along. Nurture it. Nourish it and encourage it. Help set it on its own path. It is in finding one's own way, through ones own will, by the decision of ones own mind that one advances. And the wonder of it is, when this occurs, we all advance together in harmony and in synch with divine order.

I have taught through this medium for nearly 15 years (your time). I look forward to many, many years of continued service in this Correcting Time, if not in this capacity, in some capacity IF it is God's will, and if it suits those who are my current and temporary supervisors. We hope that each of you will feel similarly disposed to continue to serve in the Correcting Time - for your own enhancement as well as for the enhancement of truth, beauty and goodness at large. As long as you are still here, as long as you have energy to spare, as long as you are still needy, and as long as you have something to give, let us be factored into your paradigm. We in the invisible realms, we who watch over you and work with you, encourage you and harmonize your efforts.

I do not have the authority to advise anyone what to do. But I do have the authority of my own convictions, and they have come about experientially, just as yours is coming about. And I assure you that when we meet in the morontia form On High, I will know you from these days in the flesh and you will know me by my teachings, and we will know together that we have come a long way together in this perfecting process. I look forward to seeing your eyes open - if not on the day of your resurrection [then] in the days that follow when you are putting together all the pieces of the puzzle that today may be seen as a hazy picture … nebulous, ethereal … but there will be actual and vivid … unequivocal. For that kind of assurance then will be my reward for having encouraged you to continue in your grasp of those things which will feed your soul and foster your spirit forevermore. It is a privilege to serve in this mission. It is an honor to be allied with Michael of Nebadonia, our remarkable Prince of Peace, and the many personalities in his organization who run a tight ship upon whose seas we sail.

I would be happy to engage with you, to discourse with you any of your concerns in your learning or your teaching. The floor is open.

Simon: Hi Tomas. Can you hear me?

TOMAS: Yes, very well

Simon: This is Simon in Salt Lake. I was excited to hear you talk about that spirit substance that people are really looking for. Perhaps you could make some more connections in my spirit mind about that.

TOMAS: Dear Simon, you are a good student. You ask not only for yourself, but for others. I will say this about that. There are many who yearn for truth, beauty and goodness, yes, who long for deeper love, greater reality, but they don't know it. It is like people who have a tremendous craving for a certain food, or for drugs and alcohol, or who have a tremendous desire to go somewhere or to do something. They are drawn, they are compelled, they are driven but they don’t know what for or what about, and when you send out words such as truth or beauty and goodness or love, they may not know what that means. They may not have the same definition you do. Depending on where they are in their growth, or where they are stuck, their definition will be different.

Here is where you need to reach down or reach back. And that may involve ascertaining where they are so that you can reach them, rather than having them lift up to you to find out where you are coming from. You go to them. Draw them out, as Jesus did. Ask them questions. Socialize with them. The only place Jesus did not go was to the public baths because of the rampant promiscuity there. [But] there is no proscription against your going even to the public baths if you feel you would be able to minister there to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. There is no lowly work in the kingdom. There is no demeaning effort.

Sometimes people who have been abused in life only understand abuse. They would disdain someone who would dare to be kindly, considering them to be condescending. You need to find out where your student is, "where are they coming from," as they say, and reach them there. You need not bring them up too high. There is no point in giving your students spiritual indigestion. Just give them enough that they have something to chew on, something that they can make their own.

When you seek to enlighten your fellows, don't overburden them with all of your ponderous thoughts and your pontifications (such as I myself am inclined to do), but rather, speak to them where they are, as I would do if I were doing personal ministry. In personal ministry, you can get quite intimate (without necessarily getting familiar). Draw out the seeker and find out where their need lies, and if it is within you to give it to them, or to direct them to where they need to go to have that need fulfilled, in the hope that they will then seek to go the next step and walk the second mile to find a higher plateau, this will have been a valuable service.

For some reason, people like to think that the only acceptable or admirable service is through a church or an institution or an organization that has been sanctioned somehow through a government office, perhaps, or an eleemosynary institution, perhaps, but I tell you the greatest services are those that are accomplished one-on-one. Personal ministry. Even though there is a great emphasis on classrooms, workshops, seminars, CDs, books, presentations and the like -- EXPOs, conventions, conferences, retreats where people get together to show what they are doing, what they have done, manifest their employment for God and demonstrate their devotion to duty, this is only one of the many, many forms of important ministry. Never overlook the importance of the one-on-one ministry as you pass by.

It is not even necessary that it be Christian in its presentation, or "religious," for human kindness is Godlike, and so is straight talk, sometimes called "tough love," sometimes seen as Dutch Uncle conference. Acknowledging another's existence is a service! I am certain, Simon, that you are one busy fellow in the Kingdom. You may not feel your works rise to a level of notice that would set you in the ranks of the movers and the shakers or the leaders and the plowers, but you are an eager and earnest worker in the field. Fear not. Just continue to befriend humanity as you do and as you can. I know that the Father goes with you.

Playing checkers with the old men on the corner, combing the hair of the old lady at the old folks' home, holding the babies in the nursery at the hospital, reading textbooks to blind students, acting the clown for the neighborhood children, peeling potatoes for your aunt, organizing the nuts and bolts drawer for your uncle, these are ministries that make life sweet, that add to the harmony of mortal existence -- those sensations that allow humans to feel that all is right with the world, that humans really are good people. It instills faith and hope through these simple gestures. Does this help?

Simon: It helps a lot Tomas. You're super great. And I'll be studying your words.

TOMAS: Thank you. Are there other questions, other discussions, other concerns?

Mike: Hello, Tomas!

TOMAS: Yes.

Mike: Hi, this is Mike and I'd like to contribute something to this. I have found that recently - over the past couple years - I have been definitely growing, and growing in terms of my ability to love and relate and minister, as you are speaking of. And I've found that as I get more clear-headed, so to speak, about picking up on people's inner pain, or just knowing when to do just something as simple as smile, I've sort of been confronted with larger problems in terms of relative truth and dealing with sort of seeing situations from behind the eyes of these people and knowing how real some of these realities are to them and sometimes I'm not 100% sure which way . .. what to say, or the right thing to do in varying / in specific concepts I see, that seem to cross, and I wonder if there is any information or counsel you can give as far as relative truth.

TOMAS: You have now broached my arena of philosophy. But before I get too philosophic, let me point out that your question reminded me of the sundry bestowals made by the Master in putting himself into situations that caused him to need to learn to understand the nature of the creature whose world he was incarnated into and having a plan for their advancement. Thus, your experience in approaching these people, these situations, and having a mind to know it well enough that you would be able to bring to it that same quality of concern and wisdom that Michael would have brought in his bestowals, is a comparison not to be overlooked. It confirms your relative maturity in having the mind to observe the relativity of the situation and want to give your best possible of the many possible contributions.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do except be there and afford them companionship. This in itself sometimes is all that it takes, just to let them know they are not alone, that you, too, have been in situations where you did not know the answer but, even so, you knew that your motives were such that you would not be punished for whatever choice you made, in fact, what ever choice you made would bring about some kind of experiential wisdom. This, of course, takes you off the hook.

If you know something about what their quandary is and you know something about what they face based on your own experience, you might philosophize with them as to what the cause and effect might be, given the circumstances. You might review with them as Jesus did and "count the cost" of their possible choices. You can draw them out and ascertain how their behaviors will affect others and weigh the good and not so good effects, for almost nothing you do does not affect someone or something else. And sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing. You need not have all the answers on their behalf.

There are, however (and blissfully) those times when you find yourself bubbling up like a well-spring and works pouring forth from you like water from a fountain, words that are surely only yours through the grace of God, and this, of course, is those moments we look forward to when we are a channel for God, when we know we are an instrument, without question. But in the meantime, to be a man among men, a fellow, a friend, is a credible alternative, and perhaps even more enduring for its tangible nature.

You are to live your life, after all, not anticipate that you will live the life of Jesus but to live your life, and to encounter men, women, children as you pass by in your life, in your time, in your culture and your economy and you language, which makes it your unique experience. You cannot be expected to live Jesus life or any other life but your own. Therefore, make it yours.

You needn't think your way through all of this life. You can feel your way through some of it, allowing the adjutants to assist you, allowing the Spirit of Truth to guide you, but allowing yourself the freedom and the leeway to also be a student as you attempt to teach those with whom you encounter life's situations. Is this helpful?

Mike: It's quite helpful. Thank you so much for your wisdom. It helps show me different approaches to the situation and different ways to assess the situation and, of course, with all my difficulties I'm just happy to have these situations to grow. And thank you very much for your counsel.

TOMAS: You are welcome, my son. Yes, it is way too easy for people to find the simplicity of polarity, but such a black and white response to life lacks the depth often required which can be found in the gray areas of life's situations. It's not always wrong or right, black or white, high and low. Life can get very complicated. And rather than become discouraged by that complication, far better to take the time necessary to embrace the situation and dissect it or unsnarl it such that you can see your way clear, out of the trap of indecision, or past the maze of confusion. Perhaps not to see the ultimate resolution but to at least see it clearly enough that you can proceed in good faith.

Are there other questions? [None] I would like to add some personal counsel, then, for any of you who can use this as counsel.

Keep your focus. Keep your eye on the prize. Know Whom you serve. Stay clear of that which befuddles.

Treat yourself well. Nurture yourself. Be good to yourself. If you are not well, you cannot give of yourself in service for others.

Take your time. There is no hurry. The Master was never in a hurry. When he did hasten, he was mindful of what he was hastening to.

Be at peace. Find it within you. Let your mind be at rest. Allow your Spirit to minister to you and strengthen you.

There are no undue demands put upon you. You are a liberated faith child. Be at peace. Be of good cheer.

We lift our voice now in thanks to the Universal Father, Paradise Trinity, and Their myriad helpers throughout the realms of time and space, of which we are a part, in happiness of this grand Family, forevermore.

Farewell.

END