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Tomas Vol IV - Butler, PA - April 21, 1998 thru June 16, 1998 - Part 8 of 13

"Tomas, how do you suggest that we learn to love our self? It seems that I'm hearing that a lot these days. We have to start loving ourselves, but how do you really do that?"

"Why can't we rid ourselves of this gloom and doom. Where does it come from, this wanting to give up and end it?"

"Well, what does it mean by 'even those who are in the tomb shall hear the voice of the resurrection'?"

"I have a question. How is it that animals can help with the healing process?"

"… to enter fully into the joy of their Lord." Can you interpret that?"

"I have often thought, 'What gives you the right to do such a thing?' and do indeed find it pompous. Can you respond to that?"

*****

BUTLER, PA, USA

VOLUME IV, Part 8 OF 13

April 21, 1998 - June 16, 1998

C O N T E N T S

Date:	Topic:	Page:
April 21, 1998	Leadership	1
April 28, 1998	God's Unchanging Nature; PERSONAL TEACHERS	8
May 5, 1998	A Toning Exercise; DANIEL	18
May 12, 1998	Your Changing Reality "Psycho-Babble"	23
May 19, 1998	Feelings; MICHAEL	32
May 26, 1998	Tune-up for the Mind;	45
June 2, 1998	The Perfect and Permissive Wills; JACK, et. al	56
June 9, 1998	Further Lessons on the Deep Mind	71
June 16, 1998	First Adjutant Mind Spirit: Intuition; OLFANA	80
	[End of Vol. IV, Part 8 of 13]	93

TOMAS: Merium also is here with me and we are embracing you initially for it is our consensus opinion that you, our flock, are in need of a great hug. It is our consensus opinion that this particular configuration is unique and is in the throes of getting to know each other yet and still, in the spirit, as we are indeed still getting to know you.

It is such a marvel, this thing of personality revelation that is the revelation of the Father-bestowed personality -- the divine aspect of you that is activated by divinity and yet which is colored by your particular and peculiar individual personality; it is a part of the unveiling of eternity, part of the revealing of the divine nature in its infinite variety of expression. It is a wonder to behold your personalities become realized.

The personality which you have been conditioned to maintain in your society, in your role in your world, is indeed a clever adaptation and yet it is a shallow second to that which is truly You, and you only come into being as you allow yourself to be guided and led by the spirit.

The admonition of Michael which says, "Follow me" would indicate, at first blush, that you were followers and your conditioned understanding of a follower is one who, like sheep, follow mindlessly, blindly, without input, without objection, without participation, but unconsciously even; and yet it is through your decisions, your conscious decisions, that you are led further into your ascension. And so this decision to advance is not the act of a passive follower, but an active follower of truth, wherever truth will lead you.

Your discussion this evening, prior to our joining you in this active phase of your evening agenda, has revealed an aspect of yourselves which contributes to your realization, your own reality-izing. It is these kinds of interchanges, indeed, which is the idea of our urging you to share, for it is a way of understanding, indeed, your divine nature, including your personality.

It is very easy for you to convey a surface understanding of who you are and what you do, where you go and so forth, according to your agenda, but it is more difficult for you to reveal who you are in terms of your real response to life. In due course, your reality will ennoble your very environment and each of you will comport yourself as wise ones in your world, wise ones which one would be wont to follow.

As you follow Him, they will follow you, for you know where you are going. You have made those decisions which would warrant one to follow where you lead, for you are led by the spirit. In natural course, then, they will come to realize that they, too, are being led by the spirit, that same spirit which leads all of us into Paradise.

It is interesting, however, to note that you cannot lead or follow if you are blind to the spiritual path, if you are allowing yourself and your world to remain unconscious. Now, it is fair to say that you may remain unconscious and, in good faith, you may even eventually end up on the shores of Paradise. I am not the one to ascertain; Ancients of Days ascertain. I am here to incite you to involve yourself in your own spiritual awareness. I am happy to see that we are succeeding.

MERIUM: This is Merium. I hope that the group, as small as it is, pondered the question that I asked last time: "What is it I want from this group? What is it I want within myself?" And we will not have to pass a feather for that report, for what is really important is that you take the time to do this on a regular basis. That's how people stay on course.

And you may apply the same principle to your work and to the relationships in your lives. It is always safe to do so and to not (do so) can be very enlightening. When you are uncomfortable, you can know that you have stuffed your pockets with the wrong stuff. If this is a releasing process when we come together to gather in the light, and there are times when you will be squirming and you won't have a clue as to why, you can comfort yourself and say, "I guess something's going on and it will pass" and if it is for sure something, you will be shown one opportunity after another how you can catch on to what it is that you need to address.

We have enjoyed this configuration this evening and the exchange that took place, and we appreciate your allowing to appreciate and respect others. It is late this evening, and we are glad to share with you, but we will also respect your schedules. Are there any questions?

MERIUM: Merium's intention is to sing her song, to serve the Lord in the best possible way, and to be myself in the course of it.

If you would be able to peruse the transcripts and read the exchanges that have taken place since I have joined the group, you will find that I have tried to help lift you up out of the heaviness of the daily grind and to allow you to see the lighter side of life and to stay close to your commitments and I have tried to help you take a look at the situations that you find yourself in and to observe them in an impersonal way and to help you to obtain as much possible benefit from the questions that you have asked of the things that have been on your mind.

It has been a joke that I hang curtains on the window after Tomas builds the room. It is as if you were to have the blueprints and someone would come along and remind you why you are building. It isn't any one quick statement to say what I do. What I do best is be myself.

TOMAS: It has also been said that this Teaching Mission is one great ego stroke, that we sit around admiring each other and telling each other how wonderful we are, and I would like to respond briefly to that, for in a way it is true. It is an affirmative action plan.

It serves very little purpose to focus on the negative. It serves much greater purpose to remind you of your divinity status. You are sons and daughters of the living God and, as such, you are capable of great things. Indeed, superhuman activities. And the qualities of God-likeness are such that you are all fragrant human beings and so it is virtually true, we are a mutual admiration society. It is one of those universal laws that affords us great pleasure, to love, for love is more contagious than hate.

It is difficult sometimes for you to realize the new level of love that you have attained. Remember it is said in the text that love must be redefined on each new level of existence, each new level of comprehension and functioning. And that which was once love to you is now a fondness, an affection, or a fantasy, compared to the nature of love as you define it today in your newfound experiential capacities.

MERIUM: I would like to further address Damien's question as to what I do. One of the things that I do, and I do very well, is to help to lift you out of the heaviness, as I said, of the earthly experience and to assist you in seeing and asking yourself the question, "Who is it you are serving? Man or God?" and when we allow you or assist you into seeing that you want to serve God, it takes the challenge that's at hand and reduces it to its proper proportions and allows you to rise in the truth of your being, so that, in a sense, when you are allowed to look at what's going on in your life from a loftier view, it reduces the fears.

It is true that when you are in your human mode you are constantly foiling with fear. Fear is clothed like a wolf in sheep's clothing, but there is a fear base continually gnawing at your progress, and when you come and we are together, we are able to lift you up into the light of vision to get a new perspective of what it is you are experiencing. Thank you.

MERIUM: The word "recognition" is very important because that is exactly what this is all about. When you read the transcripts or you hear the talk, you will recognize that which you need to hear and others will recognize what they have to hear, and sometimes the conversation will not appear to be appropriately designed for one person; it will look as if this conversation is all in another direction, but when you read it later you will find that you are able to apply some of the expressed truth and guidance in your own life.

MERIUM: Tomas, my friend Hunnah is not comfortable this evening and I am not doing well with her. I hope that you can carry the rest of the program.

TOMAS: We shall overcome, Merium. Be at peace, and Hunnah, be at peace in your soul as well. It is interesting that Merium has discussed being lifted up and you are feeling ill at ease. I would suggest that you comfort yourself, Hunnah, in the presence of your spirit guides and indeed in your own spirit reality and take heart in the comfort of those who love you. You are not called upon to further service this evening. You may participate in the group as you see fit.

Indeed, we shall not go late into the evening; however it has been a powerful evening in spite of itself. I would like to distribute the energy balance somewhat, for we have not seen Joniel for some time and it is good to feel her personality presence here once again. I am glad to see you, daughter. I embrace you. How are you?

TOMAS: We are also glad of your participation in your spirit family, not only in your spirit family but in this spiritual family of mortal comrades. It is error to think that the life of a God-knowing individual is over and above the mundane existence of the mortal life, for it is very much in the realm of the mortal life that the real stuff transpires. It is there that the spirit is so needed.

It is easy to stay joyous in the esoteric and ethereal realms of joy and harmony, but in the mundane levels of existence is where the spirit power is most needed, and so do not overlook your fleshly companions, for it is there that you are in need of comrades at arms in the flesh and in a spirit of cooperation and companionship that nurtures your human existence. It is unfortunate that there are so many who grasp the esthetics of a spiritual life and eschew the rigors of material existence. Erata, how are you this evening?

Erata: How did you know there was something on my mind? I'm not sure what it is, to be perfectly honest. I'm sure you were listening to my little reading from "The Infinite Way".

Erata: Yes. In my spiritual life I am trying to become peaceful at all times, like I want to be at a retreat all day long, and so I am striving for that, and hoping that a combination of teachings and teachers will lead me to that.

TOMAS: Let us discuss, briefly, what your interpretation is of a retreat. What would you hope to attain in attending a retreat?

TOMAS: And so you seek to walk in peace daily. It is indeed an attainable goal. I encourage your endeavors to attain such a state of mind. I believe your excerpt also spoke of the goodness of God.

Hunnah: I would like to comment about a retreat. I feel as if I have this great unmet longing to be saturated in light, and that's what a retreat can do as an outcome, but frequently at a retreat you can walk around like a cripple and frustrated because you're not connecting. All retreats are not all lottery-winning. They always have reward but not always immediate satisfaction. Some go out carrying their three bags full and others go out in dismay, only to find out that they need to soak, and that there was something needing to be dislodged.

So a retreat is a retreat and then there is a retreat effect, and I have experienced both, and come home bewildered only to find out I was passing through something difficult, so I too crave to live the life of grace and to be able to maintain . .. not the joy or the high, but the evenness, I guess you could call it, the certainty of the good will that retrieving the light provides.

TOMAS: Let me ask you: Do you feel that Apostle Paul was on a perpetual retreat when he promoted Christianity throughout the known world?

TOMAS: You see an ideal of a retreat as you understand a retreat, as a glorified vacation in the spirit, and unfortunately it is a concept that is popular today, that in order to have a happy spiritual life you must be removed from the difficulties of life, that the idea of being affiliated with the spirit guarantees you a life in which you are protected from the difficulties and the blows of the mortal experience.

In fact, your approach to a retreat can be expanded to consider that there are those who receive and those who give, and sometimes in your life you are on the receiving end and sometimes you are offering it out, and so it is that give-and-take kind of experience that allows for you to be a producer as well as a consumer, a worker as well as a player, and so you have a well-rounded experience.

It is not all fun and games. Joy is a deep feeling. Sometimes you can have joy by observing a psychic disturbance in someone, for you realize this is the birth pangs of a new reality. It is not a simple trip down a yellow brick road. It is a hallowed sojourn into reality.

It is certainly appreciated, however, that it is vital that you receive spiritual rest, and this is attained in the practice of going apart by yourself to commune with the Master and/or with the Father in prayer and thanksgiving, in a meditative and reflective mood as you seek strength from the First Source and Center. Always is this experience a retreat.

Always is this a holy place, apart from the madness of the temporal life. Always is this space with the spirit a food for you, a holiday, and a sojourn into grace.

You cannot however live here constantly until you have attained experiential wisdom, and even in having experiential wisdom, sometimes it is called upon for you to enter into the difficult realm in order to serve.

You spoke earlier about the City of Joy. Do you suppose that these people who have worked and do work in these very difficult realms are without grace? And without peace? even in the throes of the most difficult environment? Do you suppose Mother Theresa did not know joy? It is a paradox. It is a path that brings you into awareness of your spiritual adulthood, all the while allowing yourself to remember that you are a child.

Hunnah: Many years ago I was told that I had a great deal to receive, and that is true for everyone in this room and it is true for everyone on earth, but I had never heard it said that way before. I had always heard, "You have so much to give!" for it is true that we have a great deal to give, in the event that we let ourselves receive, and that too is what a retreat is about. It's a great fill-in.

I have a small car and the adjustment from this car from the other one has been basically that the gasoline tank is smaller and it seems as if I go from one gas station to another even though the mileage is pretty good, and in a sense, this is the way it is. I want a greater capacity, that I might hold more, because I don't get to the fueling, the quality of fueling, that I would prefer. I really want some high-test, and it is not just for the sake of mileage but it's the wanting to take the time to really fill up. And in a sense, though, you have to be emptied out in order to be able to fill up.

TOMAS: I will refer back to my earlier words this evening having to do with leadership and following, and it is easy, too easy for you, to follow one routine into nothingness. It is necessary that you assert your will to establish a conscious time with the Father, apart from your life here. It is too easy for you to assume your life is doing well and that you are doing the right thing and that you are following His will comfortably enough, that you are not making error, and that you are fulfilling your basic obligation.

It is too easy for you to let your spirit poignancy ride on yesterday's laurels. It is vital that you assert yourself and set yourself aside with Father to assume the drink of high-test that is critical to your ability to further yourself down the road. You cannot cheat yourself in this capacity, daughter. It is absolutely necessary for you to drink deep, particularly when you are saying you realize the need! It is a message to you from you that I am clearly reiterating for your benefit, that you are correct.

Take this to yourself for yourself, not only for yourself, but for those around you and ultimately for the Father Himself. Remember: God and man need each other. You need God and He needs you. You need you also.

TOMAS: You have much to give, much to receive, indeed. Begin with the basics and that is reinforcing your reality in spirit and the flesh will follow.

TOMAS: There are many cards that have been played that are not on the table. I am willing to go late but it is not wise that we do so. Earlier, Joniel, we had a chance to observe you discussing your understanding of Time: the concept of being on Time; beginning on Time; devoting quality Time to a specified purpose; understanding and respecting a Time frame; relinquishing yourself after a certain Time; in order that you may then proceed to the Time available for the rest of the day's activity.

We discussed time in terms of the spirit this evening, in terms of deliberately taking time to spend in that realm which is necessary, and I point out to you this tale because it is the same difficulty. You allow yourselves to walk along on custom and unconscious behavior and disallow your need for focus.

If your will is to focus on the Father, on spirit, you will hunger sufficiently that you will meet the need because of your yearning, not because of the clock. It is the same with the practice of stillness. You will attain the moment with the Father because of your yearning, and not because of the clock. Not because it is time for you to sit in prayer. This is a low-grade octane fuel. It will not stimulate you in the spirit. It will not fuel your tank.

The spirit life is dynamic, and it is invigorating but many of you skim the surface of a dynamic life, touching base with the spirit on occasion, trusting its existence but short-changing yourselves of the quality of life that you are capable of. I remind you of this not to chastise you, but to call to your minds your desperate need, your deep yearning for spirit reality, and then your lack of will in following through with what is necessary in order to sustain the reality level that you yourself yearn for. Again, it is a paradox.

In conclusion I will refer you to "The Adjuster's Problem" (Page 1223-24, U.B.). Perhaps you might take some comfort in the human condition and in your own strivings by reviewing your own Thought Adjuster's understanding of what it is that we deal with when we deal with a dual nature personality such as you human beings, you of animal origin and of divine destiny.

Merium, it is good that you are with me. I appreciate your companionship and your skill in affecting our students. I am always enlivened to observe your affection for our pupils. I am inspired to borrow from you your nature and embrace our children here in affection and in delight of your being.

I look forward to our continued association. I trust that you know first to sustain yourself in the Father's presence, and secondly in the presence of your family members, for are we not all the products of and the supporters of the gospel of the kingdom as taught by the Master, Jesus Christ, that being the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

My brothers, I and Merium leave you this evening. We will see you next week. Farewell.

TOMAS: Merium and I are here as your companions in your spirit ascension, in your comprehension of your life in the flesh in conjunction with the spirit.

This evening, in spite of your colorful discourse, I would like to persist in a lesson and offer you a few words on Our Father, and that is having to do with His unchanging personality, His unchanging quality, His unchanging perfection, His consistency in eternal perfection. Indeed, in-as-much as He is eternally unchanged, it is interesting to see, then, that all the creation that evolves and revolves around Him, out from Him, and returning to Him is in a constant state of change.

Indeed, you are in a constant change as well. And yet, within you, that which is of the Father is also unchanging. You have within you an unchanging personality, that which is permanently and eternally yours -- that which is of the Father which is changeless.

Have you given any consideration to the eternal oneness of the Father and His unlimitedlessness, his ability to be the same, that is perfect, from eternity to eternity? Indeed, His unchanging nature is the one stability in the universe. His stability provides you the freedom to experience the changes that are necessary in order for you to attain the infinite perfection of the Father.

As we observe you in your arenas and see your experiential growth, your adventures in the life, we are amazed incessantly at the continuing alteration in your configuration as a group and even as individuals, for your involvement and indeed your growth is in a constant state of alteration from evolutionary growth and revelation in yourself and in relation to others, but in your Core, you yourself, your personality remains constant, and that is the You that you are as a result of your relationship to the Father, the father of personality.

When you encounter each other, are you aware that you are encountering, in the main, an entirely different configuration than you met yesterday in the same person? Within the deep recesses of reality of each of you, lies the Core reality, that which is of the Father, that which is eternal; but external to that, exterior to that, is the continually adapting, fluctuating, growing and changing aspect of you in your own development. And so you yourself, as you appear to yourself and to others, are changing moment by moment, and that which was you yesterday is not you today, nor will it be you tomorrow, and so when you see each other, behold a new person, a new configuration, with the same true, pure Core at heart. What an interesting concept for you to ponder!

I have given you my formal words for the evening and I will, no doubt, have many more words to offer, but I now offer the platform to my co-worker for her opportunity to address you this evening. Merium?

MERIUM: Good evening, everyone, and a special good evening to our guest. I am amused. It is almost as if we had a rehearsal before this gathering, because Hunnah could have brought a paper that would have included a portion of a transcript from her personal teachers to her that expressed the very same, nearly word for word, thought/example of who you are and how you are moment by moment, and that your configuration is changing and it is so common to hear you speak of yourself as if it was written in stone when you are indeed an on-going creation.

When Hunnah was young, her mother used to use the expression (it was usually framed in post-discipline), she would say, "We are turning over a new leaf," or "a new page," and in a sense this is true because you are allowed to go forth; once you find that there is something you can correct, you are indeed allowed to go forth, free, and not own the error or limitation in the sense that it is so commonly thought of. You are allowed indeed to be lifted into a fresh new state, into this new light.

So I hope that you will keep this in the back of your mind, and don't let your human tendencies hang onto error as if it were a ball and chain. You are great collectors here in your human community. You collect everything, I understand, from key chains to money and teacups and knick-knacks and what-nots and doo-dahs. Well, we would like to see you collect the memory of your newness, your on-going freshness, and this is one of the reasons why we encourage you to center or come in to get yourself realigned, so that you don't have to remain off-balance.

If you have players that are out of alignment, you will pull off and have something done about it, or if you sense that something's done wrong you will fix it. Well, give yourself, once you discover something can be altered, do so with confidence. I am speaking to those who have a connection with an awareness of their light being, their truth self, and I hope this connects as well as my intention.

I would like to say Hello to you again and ask if there are any questions this evening.

Rachel: I'll just make a comment. In my meditation yesterday . ... It was quite a long one for me, I must say. But I had this vision of myself, call it my higher self... I was just sitting beside my teacher in this meadow in a long, white Grecian sort of robe, and my hair up, Grecian style, with flowers . .. that vision of an overwhelming sense of peace on my face. I felt that peace somewhere within me, so I guess I know that I can get there someday. It was very interesting. It was overwhelming, almost.

I'm not finding much joy in my life right now, Merium. Help me. You're such a full-of-joy person.

MERIUM: I was going to comment when you said that you had reached this point of peace and that it is still with you in the sense that it has infiltrated and altered your being, and it is so much like the human mind: you dwell on the difficulties of communicating with people who are not on your path, so to speak, and you find yourself at ease with those who are in a similar configuration as we have this evening, and those who are still in harness, going as fast as possible and worrying and fixing their lives, emit a tension that is offensive once you have experienced the buoyancy and the lightness of the new reality.

I can only tell you, my dear, -- I can't say this any better than Hunnah's teacher many years ago -- "You are dealing with yesterdays consciousness solidified," but it does not have to own you. You are allowed to let the goodness that rings in your new reality to affect your life (something about) the little ones, and to set the boundaries from a higher standpoint. You will gain confidence and poise in this new and living way, and you will be asked to make choices that will either nourish the path and lighten the path that you have chosen or you will go through the painful juggling act of trying to please everyone.

MERIUM: It is easier to please yourself when you know that you are anchored, grounded, and that you have been building a foundation that is strong enough to weather the conformity of the society that you find yourself in.

Rachel: I'm sure it will get easier. Where you no longer have to hold onto the old reality. Why do we do that?

MERIUM: It is human nature. It is fear. It's a power thing. It is a controlling.

Rachel: We control ourselves in the wrong way! And not in a good way. I guess its fear of change.

MERIUM: You may ask yourself if the decisions you make serve the highest good. You must develop your own litmus, your own standard for every situation, and it's not easy to be firm in ways that you never could before and it is not easy to give up in areas where you felt you had to be stubborn. It will all take care of itself. It is: "Choose you this day who you shall serve, God or mammon," and in the early developmental years, you have to be constantly reviewing your math of the rules of life, and when you're stuck you have to reach out to some of those old proven methods. Fresh ideas will continuously glow through you. Be more positive and you will be appropriate.

MERIUM: Did someone blow the whistle and say, "Here come the cops!"? Tomas, do you have your badge on tonight?

TOMAS: I am enjoying our evening, even so, and am awaiting yet another opportunity to espouse my profundities.

MERIUM: I'd like to comment about allowing things to rest. If you plant a garden, there's usually a great deal of work. You have to strike in on established ground that's been taken over by grass and weeds and I want you to draw up this analogy: You have been overrun with weeds, and all of a sudden you have decided that the weeds are choking the reality that you sense is there, so you call for help, and in the help plan the directions will read: Turn Over The Soil, so you're going to turn over the soil, indicating that you are going to allow yourself to lift the old pattern and uproot it not by force but by agreement and you will go through a state where you feel like you've been furrowed and then refined and seeded.

Hunnah likes to use the earth as a stimulation. She will go out and drive and see rows of farmland that have been plowed for many, many, many, many years, and the ground is soft and seeds are in and starting; it may be in a resting state, but you can see that it's had attention. Then there are days that she will see a new area that's been overturned and it's full of clogs and it will not be fruitful that year perhaps. This is in a sense the way you are.

There are areas in you that have been felled of trees, or it has been a marsh and drained because you are being expanded, and in a sense you have been plowed. The trees have been felled, the land has been cleared in your consciousness, and you have had information there that is no longer appropriate and it's been brought down and hauled out and you are ever being stretched.

And if you want to spend your time standing with your hands on your hips, looking at the portion of the land that has simply been great lumps, not yet fruitful, you can allow yourself to be discouraged! But please, reposition yourself. Take a look at what's been going on. The very fact that you have found yourself comfortable with your inner counsel is quite a victory. Do not go out and worry over every scene that you discover because it isn't neat and tidy. That's not what it's all about.

Our friend here says that she feels heavy, does not seem to be enjoying herself enough, and yet she experienced a form of bliss! Allow yourself to say, "It's alright. I'm in a resting mode." Where you are having a day that isn't high and light, it's alright. Do not argue with it. Tell that mind that wants to carry the measuring tape and the judgment to go somewhere else. You are allowed to have a day off. Don't beat on yourself. Go play ball.

I hope that you can take my words, the stimulus of this idea, and rephrase it within yourself and apply it in accustomed form for yourself, because you cannot wear the other fellow's experience but you can use some of the ideas that work for them and apply them to your own life and see the wonderful results. I feel like Heloise this evening. [Group chuckle]

Rachel: No, but I think that's true. In my experience, in the past year and more, I discover that the more I discover myself, and then you're no longer listening to man. I listen to that side of me and . .. it's difficult. It's a different training to say . .. "But I was told in my head! I know what's right for me! Maybe not for you, but for me. Right now. At this point. And that's about all I can serve."

MERIUM: If you imply respect for that other human and explain that you have given it thought, you do not have to defend yourself, you simply can say, "I've given it some thought and I feel that it is in my best interests to such-and-such" and your confidence will be understood, that this is a new set of rules.

MERIUM: He who aligns himself with the living God does not need to scold, correct or defend themselves. Just remember, He stands beside you, and that old conditioning of self-defense will.... you will feel compassion toward it. You will be able to allow yourself to apply compassion toward others. Your tolerance will grow by leaps and bounds.

MERIUM: But when you pray, you must pray with the understanding that you are not whistling in the wind, that you are indeed praying in confidence, because these are a justifiable request.

Rachel: I feel that they are justifiable for my growth. I know that I can be made over.

MERIUM: The original plan for the sharing and the passing of the feather was to, as the Church would call, "witness" or express the report of how truth has worked in your life in a particular way that week. One of the other things that we have asked you to do is to ask yourself why you come to the group, why you individually come to the group, and I will add, how you can allow yourself to interact in a positive way in the group.

So I hope that you have done this homework because it affects the effectiveness of us coming together, and you don't want it to fall into the lull of going to church because "that's what I do on such-and-such-a-day" so I hope that you have done this, and if it is of meaning to you, you can allow yourself to become more devoted to the requirements of such a purpose. I think I've said enough, Tomas.

TOMAS: I think you have done wonderfully well, Merium, and you have not overstayed your welcome at all. Are there other questions from other participants, perhaps?

Damien: What are the "requirements" for such a purpose? Merium left off on that.

MERIUM: Requirements. You are at a disadvantage, young man, because you have not been with the group long enough to perhaps appreciate the growth that has taken place over the years. Many have come and gone. It is, in a sense, like the parable about the wedding. Guests were invited but did not come, so they went out and invited those from hither and yon to come and feast, and so, of course, humanly, you accept the graphic description of food on the table, but in this particular case it is manna that is hidden and its attributes are the Christ consciousness that live within you, and as you partake of a conscious awareness of allegiance to this living Source, there is a part of you that will respond to the fact that there is a living Source and you've wandered along and not by accident found a group of people who want to come together to help develop this enlightenment that has come into their life.

If you were visiting a country that had some customs, you would come in and observe and ask questions that you have. For some who come, it is, in a sense, sacred, and for others it is a stocking stuffer, because that is where they are. It might be getting out of the house, or they might be guilt-ridden and they may be searching for a better understanding of their life, but in regards to the rules, that be that you were aware of a question that has developed within yourself that deserves to be expanded upon.

I can only use Hunnah's software right now, but one of the reasons she came to the Urantia group, humanly, was because her husband was interested and so was her mother, but spiritually, she wanted to know more about how Jesus taught; she felt that she did not know him personally, that she could parrot the words and intellectually understand that he was "Christ the Savior" and prayed to God, but she wanted to know him personally because it was continually mentioned in the Bible that we were to have a personal experience, so this was a ripe opportunity to read The Urantia Book, to get an idea of how He interacted with the disciples.

I'm telling you this story in an effort that it will stimulate some pondering that's gone beyond the pondering that you already have, because you have a fine mind, and it is said in scripture, I believe, to "let this mind that was in Christ Jesus also be in me" and to have this mind that is in Christ Jesus, I can assure you that you will be a while acquiring it, but the pattern is there and the possibility and that your Thought Adjuster will sing and dance forever in the event that you embrace and honor your God-Source within you.

Once that happens a little bit it is a calling for more. It is a divine addiction, it is hidden manna and it is of utmost importance -- a requirement for such a group as this -- to spend your free thought within the circumference of this All-knowing presence, and then of course it's like opening a box, which contains a box, which contains a box, which contains a box. It's a new box with a new you, a new understanding, appreciation, a new energy tucked inside, and there is an intimacy that can develop and then before you know it, you suddenly have a personal God that was sought for and it will be in an ever expanding experience in that aspect as well.

Now, once again I have turned into a story-teller, but I want you to know that Hunnah has been disciplined. She doesn't mind me telling you, and that she is not allowed to know about anyone's credentials except that "this is who the Lord has sent," so if you want to hang out, then it's wonderful; they want to stay for one or two meetings and eat three little crumbs and leave, it's alright. There are some people who are on their way to another territory. We had a young man here not long ago who was blown off his chair from the impact of the presence of the Christ in this room; he has not been back. But you might say he went out with a box lunch.

So there are many answers to that question, but the most important answer is the one that you hold within yourself and it is important that you spend some time with it.

It is human to doubt. And doubting is understood from our side. It is absolutely normal to doubt. Humans doubt everything.

TOMAS: Engage. (Pause) I am glad, indeed, Merium, for our intermission here wherein you have thoroughly outlined the relevance of enabling each of our flock to realize the importance of understanding their own ability to transmit their own teachers, indeed, even you and I, and other teachers. It is quite the liberal arts education. There is no ownership in this man's army. Indeed, each of you are capable of developing your own avenues so clearly you will be a refreshing font of spiritual truth, beauty and goodness to your peers.

It is part of the symphony that we discussed long ago and continue to make reference to on occasion. As you begin to play your instrument, know your instrument, as you begin to be prompted by the Conductor, you will be part of the grand orchestra of music in praise of Him, and so we make our music in these many kinds of configurations: the discussions with your teachers being one of them. Remember, it is a friendly universe, a large and enduring universe in which you are a part and it is never too soon to begin to relate to your friends and neighbors in spirit reality.

I would like to address an issue of intelligent children who refuse to be lured into the delights of a spiritual reality. May I remind you that intelligent beings have always looked askance at any kind of reality that would give them a sense of responsibility and children are no exception. A spiritual life is a life of potential selflessness, even for delightful children (such as yourself) and so it is no wonder that you refuse to look upon matters of faith.

Indeed, your religious life is a matter of faith and intellectually it makes no sense at all, and so a child, no matter what age, who is searching for a reality that makes sense, is going to grasp a hard-core academic reality and not some ethereal reality such as a spiritual reality. Have patience with your children and indeed with yourself when you find yourself and others reaching for the facts of the matter, for the facts are at least accessible! You can put your finger on facts, but it's hard to recognize and realize truth in the spiritual sense, especially in this world.

Now, getting back to matters of your faith in your personal teachers and in your confidence of their being here, I will tell you that all of your teachers are in earnest and in attendance. Indeed we have many visitors. We have a full cotillion of personalities in attendance.

I will again commend Merium's efforts this evening and suggest that in a future meeting, perhaps even next week, you begin to approach the idea of a practice session. Indeed, if you were to sit up and study, literally focus on the various energies of the circuits available, if you were able to identify some of them and begin to recognize the prompts of the teachers who are eagerly awaiting your availability to utilize your vocal chords, your vocabulary, your language center, you would be amazed at the marvelous personalities on parade before you.

We are almost unlimited in our availability and only await your expansiveness. You see, it is not a limited agenda. Even though Merium and I are assigned here as your teachers at this Teacher Base, we are also host and hostess of a parade of personalities, fully prepared to address you as to their favored subjects and/or their message of the day.

Your personal teachers are indeed available also but, in-as-much as they are personal teachers, their real communication goes on ear to ear, eye to eye, heart to heart, shoulder to shoulder, soul to soul, and so even though they may visit and give you a pat on the back and encourage you in the path, generally their message is so general that the truth of their being is only known when you allow them to enter into your own arena, your own mind arena of choice.

HEATH: I am Heath and I am glad to be here and glad to be invited, my daughter, my friend. Erata, I am always heartened when you are in desire of my companionship, my conscious companionship. It is a pleasure for me to be associated with you for you are so willing, so eager, so demonstrative in your faith of me and of Wheat. Your realization of our part in your life is the envy of many of the other personal teachers who are having a hard time getting through to their students.

I will not say "dense" but truly you humans can be very stubborn, and so I am very glad of your openness, your willingness to include me and us in your life. It makes it much easier for us to work with you. And we share that quality with your indwelling Thought Adjusters who, I will pitch for them, await your awareness of their presence and their untiring efforts to make contact with you. We are a conspiracy, you know, to bring you into spiritual awareness and have great latitude in how it is that we may make contact and

Each of you are a unique snowflake, a divine particle of perfection in your Core and each of you is worthy of special attention. It is a delight to be able to give special attention to you, my friend, for you are so responsive and receptive it gives me a feeling of complete involvement and, therefore, some degree of success in my mission with you. It is a way also of encouraging you others to embrace your personal guides who long to be of assistance to you and to share your life more personally. You are our good friends and we want to work with you and play with you in constancy.

I will not stay long, but I am, again, glad for your interest and your affection for I know your feelings are deep and your loyalty is great, Erata. I embrace you, as does Wheat. Until we speak again, I am your friend, Heath.

TOMAS: And Philomena is here also and is envious of our opportunity and so I shall allow her to enter in, in order to address our sister Joniel.

PHILOMENA: My little mushroom, how are you? How affectionately I embrace you. I am your most devoted participant in your life's experiences. How are you, dear one?

PHILOMENA: Indeed you are doing very well. It is good to see you blossom and to hear you humming. It is not only your physical humming that we delight in, but your humming along in your life. You are purring, is what you're doing. You are meeting with certain degrees of happiness that you have worked for and attained righteously by your application, by your steadfast devotion to truth, to beauty and to goodness.

I commend you, daughter and sister. I am your most loyal fan. I hope you know that there is nothing you can do that will offend me or affect me negatively. I am your most loyal associate and I am integrally involved in much of your actions and inactions, and so I engage myself to you most readily and commend your loyal work of late. It is a steadfastness that you have that I enjoy. Your steadfastness is one of your most endearing qualities and so steadfastly I stand beside you, Aniela. I love you dearly. Until we speak again, farewell.

TOMAS: I am Tomas and whereas Merium feels like Heloise, I feel rather beside myself as well, but I am hardly apologetic when I tell you that Madigan is knocking on the door. One moment please.

MADIGAN: Hello lovely, and lovelies. I want to tell you that I wanted very much to convey how much I enjoyed our walk the other day when we did indeed stroll through the high grasses together. Your picturization of yourself as Grecian is the embodiment of your own dignity status, your awareness of yourself as a gracious and regal daughter of divinity. You are indeed of a high nature and again I refer as the others have this evening to that Core reality deep within you, that unchanging personality which is of our eternal Parent, our Father, our Mother, that Divine Grace which allows for you to stand so tall, so elegant, so perfect, and breathe deep of the glory of the Son.

Come with me also into the marshes and bogs of your emotional experiences that we may begin to drain the water from the bogs and lift you up onto the high, dry ground of human experience that you may stride wide and firm across the lawn of eternity. I look forward to yet more meetings with you on the moor, my lovely friend. I'll see you soon.

JASMINE: I am Jasmine. I am honored to be able to come through and greet you all and to convey to you, Hunnah, my dear, how I am enjoying your blossoming, your abundance, your devotion to your perception of divinity and your place therein. You are truly flowering. You are within the heart of the spiritual renaissance and your growth strides are like the child who is running downhill, who falls and rolls, laughing and giggling all the way, in the light and trust of the Father's overcare.

You are a comfort to your loved ones and a challenge to your peers. You are a vital and viable reality and I am tickled pink to be your best friend.

I am grateful to Merium for the guidance and direction she has provided by being your guide in so many matters and setting such an example as she does. I am also grateful to Tomas for his patience with us all and in particular his endurance in the face of such female companionship as we provide. If he were mortal he may be delighted and I don't hear him complaining, but you know we have put in a call many times for more male companionship in this group. It may be a lament that will go on indefinitely, but you know how it is with us girls, we can complain without let-up and without shame.

And so I will now back off in gratitude for the wonderful companionship that I experience here with you, my sisters, my daughters, my co-workers in the spirit. Thank you. Good evening.

TOMAS: I am Tomas and I am spent. I will allow Merium to close us out for this evening. Carry on. Farewell.

MERIUM: Tomas, I think I'd like to close the shop tonight, unless there is a question.

MERIUM: I think you have a bucket of fresh milk and you can keep it safe. Make sure you keep the quality of the milk because it's full of rich and nourishing cream, so enjoy your week and celebrate the gift of life.

DANIEL: Good evening. I am Daniel. It is a pleasure to be in your circle and to feel your circuitry. It is always exciting when a new group attempts to come on-line as a group and begin the process of commingling with the available teachers.

It is a pleasure to be here with you as well as a privilege. I have beheld your growth over many months time in this group and in other settings and I am confident of your ability to hear us in some fashion and to convey to your peers in good faith that we are with you. I will not stay, but observe; and adieu. [Long silence]

MERIUM: I have a suggestion. I would like for you to see, in your mind's eye, an envelope. Do not strain to make the configuration, but allow yourself to assume that it's there, and I would like to have you open your envelope, take out a paper; do not strain to see what's written on it, but in confidence I want you to open it and allow a voice transmission to speak what is on the paper. And I will have you go around the room. We will start with Erata, and see if she is willing to let a word float up from this delivery. This is only a suggestion. [Long silence]

I would like to have each of you make an agreement within yourself of some system that will make you comfortable. Perhaps you will turn on a radio or you will put on the television and see the words on the screen, or you may hear them in a song. In your own creative within-ness, allow yourself and your teachers and those who gather who are willing to use your circuitry, to deliver this in agreement with a calm acceptance of the normalcy of this experience.

You are simply entering an aspect of your development that is quite normal and for your well-being. You are entering a new phase of confidence of what it means to hear the words, "I will never leave you" and to know what this mind in Christ Jesus involves, this Christ consciousness. [Long silence]

Let us create a letter and a message and let the words just develop until the group creates the message.

MERIUM: I must speak and tell you that it brings me great joy to see the sincerity of your cooperation. This engagement that we are having this evening is enriched in the sense that it is equal to a high meditation. Let there be no fear. Let there not be any doubt or criticism in your involvement. It is important that you should feel comfortable.

I would like to give a suggestion to this group, and it will both horrify and amuse you. In our Pittsburgh group, for awhile, we were having toning. I would like to have you tone in the privacy of your home because what it does is let you be comfortable with the idea of using your vocal chords in the sense of service and obedience, because it will resonate within the cells of your body and teach you to release constraint.

We are in the business of "resist not". We are going from a habit of barring our door against the evil of the world and the perpetual competition of ego, for the new way, and we're going to have yourself humble yourself by doing something that you normally would never do. If you happen to like to sing, then you are two steps ahead, but toning is not rewarding in the sense that singing is.

That was very good. The first time Hunnah heard a woman tone she brought it through the name "Pretty Flower" and it was an exquisite sound. The very next morning she awakened to the sound of that remembered tone. The tone you just heard is not the eloquent sound from Pretty Flower, but it was a demonstration of toning.

Hunnah: If you would like to have a rehearsal and not much more, for this is not the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but this is your own personal instrument and it will come in and perhaps sound like it is not in agreement with others. What is important is that you find out what your sound and pitch is, so yes, indeed, let's go to it.

Hunnah: If you wish, but that is not what I asked. Just let the sound come out as if you were releasing a vowel and disregard what it sounds like because the vowel has been there a long time. Here we go.

That was wonderful. I think the neighbors will call the police. That was splendid. Well, I think this was a very good practice session. If you did not speak, disregard it, but what I want you to do is find out that it is your homework, and when you have an opportunity, go hide somewhere and let yourself have a good time. Thank you.

TOMAS: We are a large group this evening. It has been heartwarming to feel the juice from your gathering. It is an esteemed privilege to be your teacher. How we have enjoyed your evening.

I am glad for Merium's assistance. I am such an old professor, you know, and she is so good with the youngsters, the children. I forget what it's like, but she is invaluable in bringing to your attention those quality lessons of lasting reality that are essential to your building your own spiritual experience.

A religious life is not learned in books. It is not assimilated through an appreciation of long sentences or the bedazzlement of four-syllable words. It is built by your own participation in the miracle of your life in association with our Creator. Your personal relationship with the Father is that which will make a lasting impression on you. Words may come and go, but the sense of reality that you experience in those moments of sharing your inner life with a reflective reality, is "the cat's meow." I see our little mascot has attended also this evening. [Gerdean's cat - Ed.]

My dear ones, I am humbled by your outpourings this evening, and once again, we in the spirit realms who observe your gatherings are overwhelmed by the joy that you bring to us in your faith. I am also heartened and impressed by my friend Damien's words.

Damien, my son, I am honored indeed by your demeanor in relation to me. That you regard me as a role model is a red star on the upper right corner of my paper. You have given me an A+ grade and I want you to know I will see to it that your commentary reaches all the way to Salvington for I am truly blessed by your gift, by the honor you pay me in your comments. Thank you, my son, for your appreciation of that which I hope to bring to you and to your peers here.

All of you are my chief delight. I am glad that we had this opportunity to visit this evening and in keeping with the format for the evening and the late hour, I will not deliver a formal lesson.

Merium, however, is flanking me as are all your many and wonderful personal teachers. I will not encourage a series of visits with personal teachers for we could be here for hours, but I will ask if in general or in specifics, there are any questions?

Fraline: In my travels over the past couple of weeks, I kind of lost my way and I couldn't find the road that I wanted to go on, so I went back to where I knew how to get to where I was going, and as I was driving, I saw what I felt was a mountain lion, kind of leaping over the meadow, and at once I shook that right out of my head and it was just a horse, but it was not the same color as the mountain lion. The mountain lion was very real. Do you know what significance that would be?

TOMAS: I cannot give you any significance because it is your own interpretation based upon your psychological make-up. If and when it has a true reality for you, you will immediately recognize the representation it holds. That it has made an impression is noteworthy, but it may be a subconscious uprising. Remember, you were back-tracking to find where you were, that you may proceed forward in faith.

Damien: Yes, Daniel, this is Damien. During intermission I felt in my right side of my head, something strange, and I was wondering if that was my personal teacher trying to come through.

TOMAS: It is not unlikely that you are feeling teacher prompts; however, there are one or two things here I must clarify for the record. You are talking to Tomas and yet you said "Daniel". Now, I will convey to you that Daniel often prompts from the right; otherwise the right is a common prompting zone for the feminine. It could be Daniel was reaching for you; it could also be Keith; it could also be any number of other teachers who were making contact by way of tugging on your most vulnerable circuit, which is the right side, the feminine side, the "submissive" side.

I would urge you to be perceptive in this context and allow for these prompts to continue, and when you feel this awareness of otherness, allow yourself to ask, "Who are you?" and then give it enough time that it would be possible for them to identify them-self, either through giving you a name identification or a sense of how they impact your life so that you have an understanding of who they are and/or why they might be seeking contact. Has this been helpful?

Damien: Yes. I apologize for my slip of the tongue. I've really been a glitch this evening.

TOMAS: I am not going to accept your well-meaning apology, for I am truly honored that you would think of me and Daniel in the same breath, although I tell you, I know the human mind, and it is certainly no outside glitch that you would have us associated, for is it not true that you observed Daniel and I teaching in tandem for many, many months? We are comrades. Even were he and I to be confused in personality, we are one in purpose. We are both teachers for Michael. No problem.

Iyana: I have been sort of having a resume of my life and I realize how well I have been taken care of, how people have always been coming to the rescue and how well I have been protected, so I thought I would think of it in another way: What have I done? And I find that I have been there for people who needed attention at times. And when I thought of the number of times that I had been there to help others, I was amazed, but that, too, sort of balances it out. I just thought it was interesting.

TOMAS: Indeed it is interesting, and your observations regarding it are interesting also. I will not dwell on your remarks at length, but the balance sheet that you point up is a clear indication of your early training in spirituality, that ledger, for truly if you had never done anything to anyone, but had received all these wonderful gifts and had an attitude of gratitude, you would still be God's child.

Even though service is accountable in some way and at some time, it is not necessary for you to keep track. It is, of course, invaluable that you realize that you are in league with the Father, that you are a team player, but if you were in ignorance of your relationship with Him and acted in service, even though you remained ignorant of your service, you would still be invaluable to the Father for you are His child.

TOMAS: Thank you, Iyana. How lovely for you to have this review of your life. It behooves you all to ponder your life and your circumstances in terms of where you have been and where you are going.

MERIUM: I would like you to allow yourselves to discover how wonderful it is to allow, and I hope that you will report a week of allowing yourself to discover, in the smallest ways, and the example that Damien gave this evening is an outstanding example of what it is like to carry on this inner dialog with you throughout the day, so I wish you all well.

I know that you have made great strides this evening. It is really the type of gathering that deserves champagne, and so we should all drink a toast to the continuing of the integrity of this group, its commitment, and the hope of its fine service in the name of our beloved Christ Michael, and I wish you all a good week, a healthy week.

TOMAS: Good evening, my friends, my little family. I am Tomas. I am here with Merium and your many, many friends who have stopped by to observe our little gathering. It is, as always, a pleasure for Merium and I to be here and to foster our affection for you and enable you to reveal your own souls in social contact, in faith, with each other.

We are amused this evening, in part, in observation of your many complaints; in particular, in comparison to your overt delight. It is a part of the paradox of life on Urantia that on one hand you would exalt the opportunities and experiences of growth and harmony and accomplishment and complain loudly about the difficulties attending such accomplishments. As such, I would like to devote a few moments this evening discussing with you the idea that your reality is in a constant state of adaptation and change.

You know we have chatted of late as to your composition individually and as a group and that you are not the same as you were yesterday, nor are the same as you will be tomorrow, and that an invigorating approach to life is recognizing the newness of each day and allowing the personality to present new attained information, experiential knowledge and personality reflection/manifestation.

[There were too many words in that sentence and there is a radio outside drawing Gerdean's attention also. I apologize for the drag on our morontia consciousness. It is a difficult and challenging process indeed, this transmitting/receiving. I appreciate your bearing with the process and garnering as much as you do from these engagements.]

I will return, now, my focus to the concept at hand, that being, the change that takes place in you from one moment to the next, from one day to the next, from one reality to the next, for surely you are in understanding that your change, your growth, is unconscious, but it is, even so, real.

Now, your difficulty is in assuming that you have attained a reality that you can call your own and bank on and assimilate and claim as perhaps a lasting reality, when, in fact, you may approach it tomorrow and discover that it is not you at all, but today you are entirely new and different; and if it were not for the Infinite Spirit, you could be so confused you would refuse to go on with the seeming charade of spiritual evolution; however, our Mother, the Universal Mother Spirit, is gifted in being able to allow you to assimilate a reality such that you can see a coordination and a connection not only between your experience yesterday and who you are today, but also in your relationships with others as they were yesterday and as they are today and as they will be tomorrow. You may, in this context, thank our heavenly Infinite Mother Spirit to coordinate your mind such that you can allow yourself to grow; and also allow for others to grow. Otherwise you would be static and rigid, inflexible and unable to experience real life.

I have given lessons in the past about how difficult it is for the human being to accept changes, to allow for an old interpretation of who you are to fall away in order that the new interpretation of who you are becoming may take hold and form you into your new configuration, your new plateau of growth. It is at first a frightening experience, as is even a rebirth wherein you must die in order to be reborn.

However, once the initial rebirthing experience takes place, you realize you will live and you will rejoice in the change, and as you experience life, you realize again and again, that as you let go of the old, you can assimilate the new, and this becomes less and less painful, more and more natural, until such time as you and the Mother Spirit accept the flowing growth of your personality and the unfolding of the flower of creation as if it were meant to be, indeed.

I am encouraging you this evening, dear ones, to allow for the continual flow of growth to become a natural part of your reality, to accept your changes as normal, and that as you experience conflict or confusion in your growing, allow yourself the luxury of trusting the Father and the Mother to lead you into your next appreciation of their reality for you.

Be at peace in these growing experiences, all of you. Do not fear the relinquishment of that which was for the embrace of that which is to be, for all these are your realities compounded yet simplified, stronger yet more sensitive, and this paradox of life continues, and so let us embark now upon some socialization wherein we can even appreciate how it is that you can rejoice on one hand and yet complain on the other.

Damien: I've got a question. It's a sociological question. Let's see here. Your topic. The question -- I don't know if it is a question rather than a statement and then some affirmation or some disaffirmation, the difference between codependency (excuse the psycho-babble) and interdependency is a codependency is riddled with fear? With interdependency is trust and faith, good faith. Is that a relative truth?

TOMAS: I am smiling and grappling with the way to address your inquiry for certainly you can say it is relative truth. It is also relative falsehood, for when you are experiencing the condition of codependency, which is for millions of people the normal way of life, there is a great deal of trust and comfort in the configuration, whereas the standing naked in interdependence with only your own understanding of truth to support you, you may feel very vulnerable and afraid. And so, you see, you are correct, it is a relative truth.

I am not averse to "psycho-babble" for it is, of course, a part of who you are. It is said that when you study your own religion you are studying theology, but when you study another's religion you are studying psychology, and so as we are getting to know each other, indeed, as you mentioned Damien, it is a sociological study, we are indeed talking about psychology and how we get along. In fact throughout eternity you will be adapting to other personalities and so it is beneficial to have a working knowledge of healthy and unhealthy relationships.

It would appear as though you are inferring there is a growth process from a dependency on the human and upon that which is the human way, to a relationship that involves the human and divinity, which, of course, will alter every relationship and even the mental machinations involved in the relationship ideal. Yes.

I am interested at this point, if you will excuse me, in making available our platform for Merium. I know she is here. She and I are here together. I would like to offer her an opportunity to contribute her words and to take part in our pas de deux.

MERIUM: This has been quite a day for my T/R and she was wondering if I would come charging in, but I am capable of having my opinion and it pleases me that we have a circle of intimacy this evening.

I would like to talk about fear-based dependencies and the network of interaction that takes place when you are connected with a higher standard and a commitment to do the highest good. One is (one moment please). Thank you. I wanted to strengthen the connection.

You are in the process of leaving the myriad forms of fear that adhere to you and the patterns that you have been talking about, the human patterns that you have formed over the years, that separation tends to use as a mesh cage to corral the human being who is not dedicated and released into the truth pattern.

We are talking about the haves and the have nots, you might say. You can think you are a "have" and be very dependent on so many things you can hardly keep track of them. Just try to rearrange your schedule some time and see what happens! There is a dependency on certainty, on wanting to know what comes next.

When you are serving the Christ, you are in that mind that is in Christ, and as you cultivate it, it will not occur to you to worry or have to have your seat in a certain row or comb your hair a certain way; you are released from this bondage of "having to" and be liberated into an effortless effort, and you are so involved in the act of just living and finding what you need at your fingertips.

It is a whole new experience, but in the beginning, when you are venturing into this new arena of freedom (and believe me you are coming out of bondage into freedom), it is irregular and you will find yourself rocking back and forth between two worlds, but what you are really doing is you are learning to live between two worlds and you will become very good at it and eventually within yourself you will have such a strong sense of reality that was expressed very well by your awareness of things that have changed but you can't put your finger on it.

I am not saying anything particularly new to you this evening but I am bringing you back to the fact that you can feel dependent or uncomfortable because you have to have something material. Whether it's words or goods or something to do all the time, you will know that you are still in a corral, but when you come out you will feel lighter, sit higher in your saddle, it will be easier for you and it will be a Tightness and a liberation that settles upon you that has a. sense of permanence, so be patient with yourselves as you find yourself pondering very heady questions. Bring them all in and lay them out and let them be clarified.

Am I babbling on, Tomas? It's really a sense that what I want to bring is encouragement, and for you to become objective when you feel yourself suffering and use it as a symptomatic clue to come in and reach for the Hand that is waiting.

TOMAS: The subject is psycho-babble, Merium. Shall we not babble with the best of them?

MERIUM: Well there is babbling and then there is quality babbling. I think that you are probably going to be facing an awareness of where you want to be and how you want to feel, and you will identify the discomfort very rapidly.

I would like to springboard off this discomfort, because when you are with those who make you uncomfortable, you must know that something is going on in them and it is nine times out of ten a fear-based experience. Remember, the things that you do in your daily life are pressing the buttons of those of you who perhaps do not have the equipment (meaning the awareness of counsel) with them at hand, and it can be that you don't need them in the way that you did anymore because their role was that of a form of co-dependency. And that is not a "dirty word". That is simply the way relationships have molded themselves, and the two of you have woven this interdependency.

When you have invited the Christ into your life, it is indeed big time competition, only those whom you are with do not know what to call it; they just know that you are not the same, and they do not understand it. You can take a risk and share your intimate new growth, and put it out into the perilous winds of their reply and their misunderstanding and ignorance, or you can just be at peace that the newness that's in you, that is expanding ever so rapidly, is an invisible intelligence and it does not need to be touched or threatened by misunderstanding.

You have to remember that when the Christ comes into your life it changes everything! It is the new kid on the block, you might say, and it makes many uncomfortable. You will be accused from everything to arrogance and selfishness. It is truly a time to be kind to yourself, but not without understanding what's going on with others. You all have your own definition of what that means.

I could say, "You're not the girlfriend I knew when you were young!" Why, certainly not! You have both journeyed. Or, "You're not like I remembered!" and you have to allow the other person the same liberty that you want them to give you. This is an ever-changing experience we are on, on earth, and you are indeed in school.

TOMAS: I will add one more thing in this murky conversation having to do with the consistency of personality. That is the one thing in you which is unchanging, for it is of the Father. Now I know that there are theories of how it is that the personality changes, but it is not the core personality, but rather the embellishments and the interpretations of the personality. It is character, taste, perception, delivery and so forth that change, but the personality itself is inherent in sonship/ daughtership. Who you are is who you are now and forever.

MERIUM: I would like to comment one more thing here. It is in Hunnah's folder but it is legitimate because it has our blessing. It is one of her very favorite stories. She was very perplexed by the situation in her life and a friend who was wise in years and in experience said to her, "I wish I could comfort you with some words of wisdom," and later her friend told her that it came to her, "What is it to thee if they tarry 'til I come?"

When you have a friend who is jealous . .. I say "jealous" because it is a common behavior when time that you had with them has been removed, (you have a new beaux, you have a new girl, you have a new focus) and it takes time away from some of the nonsense that you shared in a lesser time and you have been shown a new and living way. That new and living way also includes compassion for those who really have not made up their mind to walk that trail. They are aware of it on another level. They have their finger on the icing and say, "It tastes pretty good but it looks like too much work!" and so with that you must realize that it is simply your time, and they too will have their time.

But I would like to address loneliness and a sense of this new or mental stimulating companion. I want to remind you that the mental realm is a very complex and pre-occupying space, but technically this mental realm is used for the word "knowledge of truth." It is not a substitute for experiencing truth. Yes, it is true you will learn the letter of truth, and it will taste so good that you will want to be with it continuously, and it is legal to spend a great deal of time there because you are, in a sense, in school, but school, if it is balanced school, and it is not overtaken by a human power to become studious and knowledgeable, because it will wear that hat, it likes to wear graduation hats, you must allow the spirit to keep your balance for you, because you do need recess. You do need to play and run with people at all levels of awareness and know that the Father wants you to.

Hunnah has been reading about the life of the Master, and she is reminded of how he mingled with people of varying interest, and even though he spent the most time in his mature years with those who were consciously enhungered, he did mingle among others because they were like new soil that is being tilled. It was perhaps their first experience with an enlightened individual and of course they did not respond. They just saw him as one in the community.

So you must remember that you are experiencing many, many experiences in this one movement. You are both a student, who is in the classroom and on the field applying what we learned in the classroom; you are also lifted up and made feather light periodically to allow you to rest in the spirit; and then you are allowed to be returned and to go out and play without taking thought or being self-conscious about being in the wisdom school.

So if nothing more this evening, my words come to warm your hearts and to help you be patient with yourself. You cannot hurry this process, but you can neglect it, and when it is neglected, you will suffer; and the tendency of the old pattern will come hurrying in because it will think that you have come back. And you have not. But it will appear that way, and when you see signs of the old creature who is not born of the spirit, it is crying because it is being neglected. You will have this lovely, impersonal sense of catching on about what's going on and you will be able to feel comforted by the Christ who is your forever companion, the companion that you seek, both mentally and physically.

It is difficult because you are living in a different realm. And remember, coming to us is going to your journal. Your journal is like a little room. I must talk longer. All of a sudden I have a picture of you being in jail and your jailer said to you, "You have company. Come with me," and so you were allowed out of jail and you go through this corridor and are taken to a little room where you are allowed to be with your visitor.

Now, are you in jail? Do you want to be that dramatic about it? Or are you simply in a place that is not in light, where you belong? And the only place you can make it light where you belong is to allow yourself to visit that place and meet your friends who will help you wake up and remember that you are really at home. And the more that you remember that you are really at home, you will feel at home, and those around you will start to remember that they have a home too, and that you will help them ever so effortlessly reach that home.

You are dearly loved, and we are looking forward to having your guides pick up the key to bring you in so that we can visit. Blessings upon all of you. Thank you.

TOMAS: It was reported that Hunnah had evolved a question from her studies. Are you inclined to put it forth, Hunnah?

Hunnah: First of all, I would like to carry a message from Iyana who is ever so grateful for the attentions and the assistance that she has received from the realms that have come to help, as well as her earthly friends, and that she feels that she has been blessed and is ever so grateful. [Editor's note: After last Tuesday's session, Iyana fell down the stairs and hurt her hip; she has been in the hospital, mending from the fall.]

I, Hunnah, would probably, I assume that the presence of Grotto in Iyana's awareness has been making itself known since it was announced that the feminine teacher could be visited, and that she was in a place where she had to be approached. In a sense it connects with Merium's discussion about being taken to the room for a visitation, and that Iyana has found the corridor that leads to Grotto's quarters, her chosen space, because it is almost as if she was enthroned and needed to have lyana sense that she was to come, and this is my observation and I really like it because I have watched a willingness develop in Mum to respond. Some of the things that she says now have an awareness that was not, and an appreciation that I never noticed before. So I did want to -- I told her I would bring the message of thanks.

TOMAS: Indeed there is a word for her that Merium gave the group in Pittsburgh last week having to do with the contact between the mortal and the personal teacher as delivered to Celeste regarding her teacher/s Dorian/Dorcas, and this may be helpful to Iyana in terms of her contacting her personal teachers.

It is astute of you to perceive of a willingness being necessary and a state of sensitivity also. Yes, Iyana, if you would read last weeks transcript you will be fed and Grotto certainly awaits your knock upon her door of awareness.

I would like to also convey to you, dear Iyana, our adoration and devotion to you in your altercation with the material facets of life. How attentively we are observing your devotion to and your application to your human process in your altercation with your material realm. It is indeed because you are "walking on air" that you neglected to set foot on solid ground and we regret your discomfort but we are rejoicing in the companions that you have with you and indeed that you have sought in your repose and in your healing.

You are continually surrounded by and supported by those of us who wish you well and who hold you to our breast in affection and concern for your comfort and well-being. We embrace you, daughter, and rejoice with you in your mending which is already on-going. We look forward to your physical return to our embrace but know in the meantime that you are not alone and that the celestial hosts are available to you for companionship in what might seem to be yourself. Grotto is heartened by your approach.

Hunnah: Thank you. I'm going to let my question wait. I don't know if my brain is together enough to ask, but it had to do with illusion. I don't know that I can formulate the question, but I was reading the life of Jesus and in the eastern teachings they talk about illusion, then I had my own . . . and The Urantia Book doesn't make reference to illusion . .. at least I don't think it does, the way some of the schools do here. And then I had my own definition of what that meant via Urantia teaching.

So I was wondering if you could or if you're willing or if it seems appropriate or it can wait for another day, talk about . .. we are told that this experience here is an illusion, and the only way I can think of it as being an illusion is to be . .. for there to be a reality where you are not deluded, but you had a strong, truthful reality. So how does illusion . .. When you tell us that we are we, how does illusion fit into this picture? I don't even know if I am putting the words correctly, but if you want to formulate something out of what I just said and give us a little bit, go right ahead.

TOMAS: I understand your quandary and your question. It is a difficulty in understanding that has stymied many and it is a step forward in your understanding to realize the relative degrees of reality. The concept that this life is an illusion is celebrated and honored by millions of people on Urantia and it is an aspect of the Buddhist and Hindu and other religions for it is a way of enabling the mortal to endure the unreality of this existence as compared to the reality of the spiritual life.

When one goes inward to escape the life such as those who celebrate the ancient meditation techniques, they are literally turning their back on this way of life; and the spiritual life is the reality, whereas this one, which is full of suffering, is an unreality, an illusion. Yet the truth is, this is not an illusion but a reality in your existential experience here. It is a step forward, then, in your understanding to realize the relative degrees of reality.

Illusion is a concept that is dear to, important to, invaluable to your brothers and sisters the world over and is not to be disdained for its relative value. It is to be appreciated even here in terms of your understanding of relative reality. There are some things which are indeed an illusion of the imagination, a non-reality as would be perceived by one who has been born of the spirit, and yet you cannot tell someone who is in the throes of a human experience that they are not experiencing a reality, for you can only alienate one by this attitude, particularly those who are not familiar with the eastern way of thought.

It is a study; it is a large lesson. It is of relative worth and I am glad that you brought it up, and yet it is too large a subject to try to attempt to answer in one question/answer session.

TOMAS: I am beginning to be conscious of time. Whereas you used to worry about the tape recorder, I am beginning to now be aware of your hour's allotment to our engagement. I will, if there are any, take one short question.

Hunnah: I've been doing a lot of talking but I've been witnessing the tearing down of the old at work with a very uncertain bringing in of the new. The supply for the new has been very unstable. It is in the minds and the purse of man. I am seeing the house that housed a nurturing service being attacked, you might say. It may have gotten out of hand, the structure, the management, but the service that it harbors is like the pearl in the oyster almost, I mean it's a gift, and many people in my work are very bewildered and are just beside themselves in trying to dance fast enough to meet the changes.

In the meantime the service that we are hired to give is still needed, and although I know that we can't glamorize medicine in the old way -- we shouldn't glamorize it in the new either -- and I assume that it's just all part of the shake-up of the new times coming, and I am very grateful for the light that has been given, that can come through me to help these people study themselves and give them a refocus.

If I worked in an insurance company or if I worked . .. anywhere in America today, I would probably be having the same concerns because everything is absolutely topsy-turvy and I assume that it's just a sign of the times.

TOMAS: Yes, if you were working for the government you would find it to be true; if you were working for a religious organization you would find it to be true; where you work now in the medical profession you find it to be true. All things are undergoing Correcting Time. There will be voluminous global changes, and you cannot attempt to find the new answers in the old methods.

There is a scripture that rises to the surface here having to do with putting new wine in old vessels. The vessels are going to collapse, but the wine remains. When you apply yourself in good faith to quality service, it matters not whether it's in an old system or a new system, whether it's in a big system or a little system, for it is for the Father, and that is what goes on record for eternity, that is where the reality lies.

Let not your loyalty be mislaid here. Remember who you serve, for this service will be acknowledged in truth and for eternity.

TOMAS: We are finished for the evening. I know that Gerdean wants to call J.N. in Canada and we are putting in a request for the midwayers to pull the strings of Leah to return home where she is sorely missed, and again, Iyana, we embrace you in our devotion to your affection. All of you we adore you and will see you soon. Good evening.

MICHAEL: I am with you. I am here with you to comfort you, and to rejoice with you in your steadfastness, to your association with spirit reality. I will tell you, I am reminding you, before I said "You who follow after me are not weaklings." They said that no one could live such a life as I propose, that to be loving and gracious was not a way in which one could survive in the world, that you would be destroyed, and I tell you that your strength is in me, for the way of the world will not bring you into salvation, will not give you that peace which passes all understanding, will not move mountains. Only I can do that in-as-much as I and the Father are one.

I see you professing your human feelings, your mortal frailties, and I call upon you to realize that you are more than who you say you are, for I am with you. I am in you. I will not betray you. Do not betray yourself by leaving me alone on your pathway. In your mind, include me, and understand my relationship with you. It is not a religion for weaklings.

You are not failures. Gerdean, be kinder to yourself. Be kind to you as I would be kind to you. You are a beloved child. Joniel, you have given vital testimony to the truth that the universe surrounds you and concerns itself with you. In the face of the seeming disarray of mortal life, you were brought to your knees to view personally the devotion of Paradise upon your person. The angels themselves were with you and remain with you, my daughter.

Trouble not yourselves. I am never away from you. Call my name. Call me, even without my name. Call upon me. I am your salvation and your friend. Tomas and Merium are on hand. I will withdraw. Perhaps they will have some words for you this evening.

TOMAS: I am Tomas. I am glad to be here, even under the stressful circumstances, but I, too, would like to thank Michael for his kind visit and for his gentle words of assurance. His presence is one which is most valuable. It is good to know you have a personal teacher and a group teacher. It is good to know there are angels and midwayers. It is good also to know the Father in your moments of meditation and stillness, but it is a real pleasure to be in the company of our Creator, our Father/Brother, whose presence is such a comfort.

MERIUM: Daughters. Daughters of . .. I was going to say Babylon, but we aren't really babbling so I won't say that. And then I was going to say "Daughters of Jerusalem" but that's so far away. And you are certainly more than "Daughters of Butler" and yet you are "Daughters of Something." You are daughters that are set apart by your decision, by your courage, by your love for one another. You are in need of a bouquet of flowers.

You are in need of a name this evening. Daughters of Creation, Daughters of Michael, Daughters of Song. Daughters of Song, indeed. There are so many songs to be sung. There are so many songs available and such an orchestra to accompany you. We have seen your swan song, we have felt your melancholy, we have observed your tragedy and your comedy and to all of these moments there is a song. All of these songs are prayers.

Perhaps then you are Daughters of Prayer, for each of you in your voice give voice to that of compassion or rejoicing or need or caring or despairing, but all of these are songs sung to the Master. "Hear me!" you say. "Hear my song!" "Hear me singing to you, Father. Listen to my offering." Daughters of Song rise up.

Your Father has put the song upon your lips. He has given you the song to sing. Even the song of sorrow is a song you would not sing were it not for He who has given you the experience of life. You would not even be able to mourn your many experiences of woe were it not for Him providing you with those feelings which give rise to your song of woe, your song. Rejoice in your sorrow. Rejoice in all of your feelings, for these are feelings of the being. Of the being itself.

You have heard the phrase, "The breath of life". Your breath of life is that which gives you song. Do you think you only get to sing the love songs? Do you think you only get to hear the lullaby? Do you not know that life is an opera also? And sometimes a solo and sometimes a choral movement? You are, even so, responding to the choir Director, the Music Teacher.

You sing the song, you feel the feeling, you lift your voice, you offer your voice, you have given your prayer, your supplication, your praise, your Hosanna! -- your thanksgiving, your psalm. You have spoken. Daughters of Song, we embrace you. We applaud your noise. Your joyful noise. Your living noise. Your experiential noise.

Liana: I would like to sing a song of gratitude for Gerdean. I am grateful that she opens up her house to us; I am grateful that she has chosen to do what she has done so that I can benefit from it and so that other people benefit from it. I can tell her that just a few things that she has done has opened up my life for me. She has put me in touch with my spirit companion that has just opened up a waterfall of experiences and emotions that have blossomed my soul, and I want her to know how grateful I am, how much she is loved for what she does.

MERIUM: You have comforted her, indeed, with your words and given her peace by your acceptance of her gift. It is gracious, daughter, for you to sing this song of praise for your sister who serves our Master with graciousness. It is delightful that you find it within your heart to express this song and I am pleased to speak on her behalf in gratitude for you, of your friendship and your appreciation. Thank you.

TOMAS: I am Tomas and I would like to speak to you this evening about feelings, in-as-much as we have seen a full regalia in your session, in particular the feelings of deep pathos in regard for the human condition. Often we feel your feelings of responsiveness to the joy of life, the delight of discovery, the thrill of adventure, the security of spirit association, the gratitude of your friendship and delight in your teachers; but we also enjoy and appreciate observing your feelings on the other end of the spectrum for they are often eschewed as being negative feelings or feelings without value.

Feelings of a nature that will bring you into contact with who you are, are valuable. Grief is an important human feeling, and yet it is probably the one that is most readily avoided. No one rushes to experience grief. No one yearns for the feeling of despair or a broken heart, and yet these feelings are valuable for they teach you about yourself and about your relationship with others and with God. All of these experiences are necessary in order for you to know yourself.

I will go one step further in this discussion and talk about a feeling, a philosophy that says that you are also evil, and that one must embrace the evil within. Perhaps I am on dangerous ground here, but I will tell you that evil is merely imperfection and it is absolutely necessary that you embrace your own imperfection, that you understand that you are imperfect, and accept yourself thus. Indeed the Father within you is perfect, but you are not the Father; you are indwelt by the Father; you aspire, to become one with the Father, yes, and that is your destiny, but you are not yet the Father; you are yourself, and that includes your humanness, your feelings of being a creature of the realm.

You have all the feelings of all the mortals of all time. I would suggest to you that you not feel ashamed of your feelings, but rather, even understand what shame is so that you can recognize it (tape turned, some words lost) . .. To know yourself is not just to know your divine qualities and your fruits of the spirit. It is to know yourself as the human animal and its instinctual reactions and responses, its trigger points, its failings and frailties, its vulnerabilities, its fears, its gentleness, its weakness. It is good to be able to embrace all of these qualities about yourself because they are a part of you. You are not trying to run from yourself; you do not want to turn your back on yourself and become someone God-like, you want to include yourself in God-likeness.

All of you is you. All of you is part of the Father. All of you is available for service in the Father's name. By realizing your aspects, you can then recognize these in others and rise to the occasion, humanly speaking as well as spiritually speaking. I tell you these things not to remind you of your imperfection or your human failings, frailties, weaknesses, but to remind you that you are loved and to encourage you to accept yourself. If you can accept yourself with all of it, all of it, you can accept others with all of theirs, all of it. All of it. And through Michael, we can love it. We can love it into Reality.

Liana: Tomas, how do you suggest that we learn to love ourself. It seems that I'm hearing that a lot these days. We have to start loving ourselves, but how do you really do that?

TOMAS: Acceptance is the key. There are millions of people who have heard that phrase and run from it because acceptance is very difficult. You earlier, Liana, spoke of surrender, and surrender has much to do with it. You can learn to love all of yourself by recognizing what it is you're dealing with, by accepting what's there to work with, by having compassion for the human condition, by understanding your own motives, your own needs.

You can learn to love yourself by appreciating for yourself what the creature is, in and of itself, as you can learn to appreciate a puppy, and then you begin to add God-consciousness, and it assumes yet a new dimension. In recognizing that you are a creature as well as one who is indwelt by divinity, you can see, much as if you were to see a puppy, that it is in need of certain things and is subject to certain training or lack of training.

You remember you are of animal origin. The animal is a noble beast in and of itself, capable of wondrous feats and acts and attempts. It is a matter now of referring it to the mind arena of choice again and say, "What will I do with this? What will I do with this animal that I live in? That I am related to? That, in fact, is me?" It's a good animal. It may need currying; it may need to be declawed; it may need to be neutered; it may need to be brushed regularly; it may need a tree to swing in; it may need a cage. But as you come to know who you are, in that context, you can respect your feelings and realize why they are there and what to do about them and with them.

Damien: Here in Butler Pennsylvania, I sense a feeling of obligation in me being the only male presence here in this group. I know that you, of yourself, your personality, Tomas, outside of the group, evokes me, invokes me and holds my interest. At times I question your intentions, for you toy, if I will, on my or other people's feelings. And I question if that is not manipulation, albeit refined.

TOMAS: The sense of onerousness that may come to you as being the only male member of this Teaching Mission base is unfortunate. It is not my intention nor is it the intention of your sisters to give you undue responsibility. It is, in fact, a chief delight that we engage in your energies and hope that you find ours equally amenable. I will tell you that there is much adaptation that goes on in each configuration to accommodate the balance that is in attendance, humanly speaking.

Damien: At times, when I have recognized your subtleties in toying with the human feelings, I have often thought, "What gives you the right to do such a thing?" and do indeed find it pompous. Can you respond to that?

TOMAS: Yes, you find this in my sociability in company with others in our formal gathering. Am I to understand that this is not the case when you read my words and when you ponder my value lessons?

TOMAS: Do you sense that I toy with your emotions on paper? Or is it just the fragrance of my delivery in a social setting?

TOMAS: I would like to remind you that it is in a certain vernacular, the language of the heart, that I am speaking. It is impossible to discuss value without relating them to your feelings, for your experience is your religious experience in potential. An intellectual religion is ineffectual. It is as your experiences are felt "feelingly" that they become real, and so it is perhaps necessary that I touch upon how they may affect your feelings or that I induce or woo your feelings into an understanding of how I am approaching you.

You recall in your reading of Rodan that there is a lure, a justifiable lure. Now, I grant you I am attempting to be, as we have been admonished and invited, "fishers of men", and if I am going to fish for your soul and for your growth and for your camaraderie, your comradeship, you see, I must have bait, and if it is, in your eyes, that you are being toyed with, then I regret that you are putting yourself in a position of being a toy for you are most assuredly not a toy, but a very, very valuable individual whose spiritual meat will feed the multitudes in time.

Now, I do not mean to project on you an onerous responsibility that is to be assumed only by the male, no! For it is a responsibility that is assumed also by the most frail and fragile female among you. It is a responsibility invoked by the Master when he asked us, "Feed my sheep."

Damien: How is it that you assume that I am putting myself in a position to be toyed?

TOMAS: I repeat, I am not toying with you, Damien. I am quite serious about your soul. If you feel as if I were meddling, perhaps I should mind my own business and perhaps you would do as well to find your way without my guidance, for indeed there are as many ways to the Master as there are individuals who choose to follow him.

There are many, many ways, as outlined by the Wayshower himself. I am only a guide, a helper, a teacher. By the authority invested in me as a teacher, I teach. I induce you if possible to become one with me in our purpose, to proclaim the gospel of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, a living reality.

TOMAS: I assure you I am not requiring devotion, nor is any personality that I am aware of except, of course, the Father of personality, that being the Father himself, and that, my son, is the divine relationship between you and He. I cannot invade your sanctuary where you converse with the eternal Parent, nor would I presume to. You owe no one homage. No one.

Perhaps in time you may choose to devote yourself to the Master, but that is only done out of love for him and not out of any sense of obligation. It is not required that you obey under threat of judgment. It is a living love that we subscribe to in our work here and in our circle of association.

Damien: The question has come up, to my attention: Do I serve God or man? That is a difficult question for me. For, me and God have been estranged for some time. And as I go through life and identify, through my feelings, truth goodness and beauty and tell other humans that I am more inclined to serve that . ..

TOMAS: That is fallible. That will bring you heartache. That will perhaps earn you a paycheck, but even that, in and of itself, is a shallow victory. Be advised that the Father over-rides other employers, even as you offer yourself to other employers as one who serves. And so in the long run, my son, you will serve the Father, even indirectly, unless and until you make a conscious decision to work against him, which certainly we hope you will not make.

But it is true also that it is sometimes necessary, as a human, as a mortal of the realm, in particular in this day and age and in your world at its evolutionary state, necessary in a way to serve both in order for you to function in the world as a man, as a human being, as an individual, with all that that entails, as well as the Father who dwells within and affects your society without, also.

You are correct to ponder these questions, but do not be hard on yourself and attempt to make eternal cut-and-dried decisions based on a week or two's reflection, for these are ponderous questions indeed that require further and further investigation, refinement and elevation of understanding. This is part of the evolution of your world and of your part in it. You cannot remove yourself from the experience of life, even when you bow down to the God of all of life and seek guidance and direction from him alone. You still must live the life of the mortal. This is a most effective arrangement, for then you bring your good values into your good earth.

Damien: I am strong and eager flesh. Some people are inclined to deny my humanness, and its frailties and strengths.

TOMAS: Again, you look to others for a reflection of your reality and your values, and this can and must be found in and through your relationship with the Father, rather than through another. Now, I hear you say you are strong, you are virile, you are a man of the realm, and this is true, this is good, and thus you must follow along the lines that one must take in order to accommodate the needs of the mortal.

As I discussed earlier, there is a huge chunk of you each that is animal, of animal origin, and man is a noble animal (and woman), and it is not meant for you to deny your animal nature but to appropriately align it with the Father's will and with the social mores of the society and time in which you find yourself. There are appropriate avenues for all of these human strivings, all of them healthy and good.

I am reminded of Paul and I will speak of Paul in spite of Gerdean's objection for he has never been a hero to her, and yet Paul had many good things to say on the subject of marriage and on the nature of the man as well as his profound devotion to establishing the "body of Christ" through the church. Perhaps much of your existing conditioning in these regards are from a Biblical frame of reference.

Damien: Perhaps. You speak of social mores and then you speak of Biblical reference all in two statements, in which is conditioning in and of itself!

TOMAS: I regret, my son, that I am not effective in my communications with you. I am not completely certain what it is that we are discussing. I was, however, enjoying our conversation.

TOMAS: And so we have had an inadvertent intermission. I am in the peculiar advantage of now inquiring as to whether or not you have found your wits. I am amused. I am attempting to be amusing. I say, "have you found your wits?" because I certainly have not found mine. What have I to say without you? I have no one to talk to. Are you here?

Liana: I just wanted to pick up at a point in the conversation about Paul. That one statement that you made and I don't think you got to go into it about how you create the body of Christ? How man does?

Liana: Yes. You started to say that but you didn't finish it, and I was wondering. I have an incomplete idea that I'm not familiar with, and I was wondering if you could finish that. If you can recall that; I don't know if you can.

TOMAS: I can to some extent recall making reference to that but it was only a teaser. In discussing the "body of Christ", I was really talking about a sexual matter, and it was perhaps bad taste on my part but I am reminded of Paul's discussion with Timothy had to do with the "nature of the beast" and that is that (and this is poorly paraphrased) it is better that a man lie with a woman than to flail against the incessant demands of the flesh or the rigors of abstinence therefrom.

And of course it is generally understood that Paul was not a promoter of the same standard of family values that Christ was. Jesus adored the concept of the family for he had based his gospel on the fatherhood of God and the sibling aspects of his children, and so there is a family nature of Jesus that was not so revered in Paul's philosophy. Paul would rather you all be celebrate or abstinent, but in the absence of that, then, if you must, associate yourself with a woman.

But I am speaking very generally of Paul's remarks in the context of the subject that I was impelled to believe was on the agenda because of certain remarks made by Damien, and so, Liana, I am willing to discuss the church as the body of Christ but I must confess to you that I would have to discuss it as an entirely fresh topic, for my remarks were truly directed towards concern elucidated by my friend, Damien. Do you see?

TOMAS: Very well. Damien has long sought an opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with me. We have had off and on conversations over a period of years and it is my sense that he has found the social configuration, the gender balance, difficult, in-as-much as our previous discourses were rather focused and personalized, but all of you understand the expansiveness of the format of our evenings here.

They are made to accommodate each of you and often indeed even become generic in order to approach each of you in terms of a value which you may take to heart. It is one of the peculiarities of the group setting, and in-as-much as I am a group teacher, it is my responsibility to embrace you all, even though I have the privilege of addressing you each individually as the occasion will present itself.

It has been a pleasure in this agenda to have some time with you, Damien, and I look forward to further conversation. I certainly suspect that we will be able to work through our communication difficulties in-as-much as we are both sensitive and intelligent and have much in common. I beseech your friendship, but I will not invade your soul. I will not meddle if I am not invited, and that is the case in my relationship with all of my pupils and comrades.

Erata: In the Urantia Book there is a statement. I'll read a little bit of it here: “He who hears the gospel of the kingdom and believes in the teaching of the sonship with God has eternal life. Already are such believers passing from judgment and death to life and light. And the hour is coming wherein even those which are in the tomb shall hear the voice of the resurrection.” Can you explain this to us?

TOMAS: I can discuss these remarks, but I have not the full context of the recitation. Even so, we can pick it up from there.

TOMAS: I would like to know what you would like discussed. There is a number of interests in there.

Erata: Yes, there is. That's true. That is true. They are talking about people who are sick and afflicted. It talks above here: “After all, if we are willing to do the will of the eternal, we will be healed of our physical afflictions and you would indeed marvel, but it is even greater that you be cleansed of all spiritual disease and find yourself healed of all moral infirmities. You are all God's children. You are the sons of the heavenly father . . . the father of eternity loves you, and when the time comes, fear not, you will have an abundance of mercy.”

The question is, those that are in the tomb shall hear the voices of the resurrection. Is that literal or is it real in that way?

TOMAS: Yes. Let me discuss with you, then, what happens in terms that we can understand. When you die, your essence is divided up. That is to say, your mortal body becomes as if it had not been, it returns to dust. Your Thought Adjuster returns to Divinington to await the roll call. Your soul is enseraphimed into the sphere that will allow you to awaken and be reunited with your Adjuster at the time of the roll call. In the meantime you are unconscious of time and space; you are essentially asleep.

That which you are is your soul. You have built this by your efforts, your decisions, your growth in reality. It is at rest. Now, when the roll call occurs, it is as if someone were to call out your name and that which has been asleep will come forward, be awakened, and then the Thought Adjuster will come from Divinington to join with you, your soul, and you proceed from there to the Resurrection Halls of Mansonia in order to embark upon your morontia life and your further growth and development.

If, however, there has been nothing developed, if there is nothing of value to awaken, the Thought Adjuster does not arrive, does not come, does not show up. If there is nothing there, there is no point, you see. Now as you work with your comprehension of reality while you are here in the flesh, as you make those decisions which will foster your spiritual reality, which will develop your soul, you have then something with which the Thought Adjuster can work.

Erata: Well, what does it mean by "even those who are in the tomb shall hear the voice of the resurrection?"

TOMAS: Remember I described to you that at the time of death the body dies, the soul is enseraphimed into a sleep, the sleep of transition. That is the tomb that is referred, and if you are called to awaken, you will be rejoined with your Thought Adjuster and will proceed from there. That sleep of the ages is the tomb they refer to.

TOMAS: You are welcome. Was that the only thing in that paragraph that bothered you?

TOMAS: It was indeed. It is. I regret that Gerdean has not set to paper some of her accumulated questions as a result of her reading of transcripts and text. I will work with her on developing that discipline.

Erata: There was another part in another section I was reading, if you don't mind. Under "dividing the inheritance", Jesus said "what shall you profit if you gain the world and lose your own soul?" Another standing there asked Jesus how the wealthy would stand in the Day of Judgment and he said he had come to judge neither rich nor poor but the lives men live will sit in judgment on all. Whatever else -- At least three questions must be answered by those who acquire great wealth and these questions are: how much wealth did you accumulate, how did you get this wealth, how did you use your wealth?

And they don't give the answers. We just have to ask these questions of the wealthy, and I thought that was quite a . .. the three questions were thought-provoking because you really do have to think about . .. Now, I don't have a lot of money, but riches could also be figurative.

TOMAS: In this case it is fair to say that he was discussing the literal wealth and is asking the question about your acquisition of materialism. He has testified that he has not come to judge whether you are rich or poor, but how you manage your estate, your human estate, will reflect upon your values as a spirit. That is to say, they will reflect upon who you are as a person and does this person have eternal value or only material value? "How much", I am certain, is not related to the current interest rate, but is related to how much in terms of a comparative analysis of what is needed, what is necessary, and that ties in directly with what was done with it.

Was it done to benefit mankind or to promote science or medicine or was it used to promote art or was it used to promote destruction and isolation of one sort or another? These things will reflect upon what kind of individual one is, and that in itself is a question that you each can ponder in your heart if it is important to you. How much have you made and is it necessary that you persist in making more? Is it necessary that you make that much or is it necessary that you do a lot more in terms of working harder instead of smarter.

And these affect your relationship with your world, your fashioning yourself in the ways of humanity, which brings us back in part to our discussion earlier about "Who do you serve, God or man?" and how is it possible then that you may loyally and righteously serve man because you serve God? And in serving God you can better serve your fellows, or your employer, depending upon your motives and again your purpose.

TOMAS: I will use the word "ripe" with potential. I feel a lot of stirrings, as if a rebirth were ensuing, as if a thought were about to formulate, as if an idea were about to light up -- that kind of pregnancy. Perhaps the electro-chemical composition of the evening is also in part due to your weather configuration. The lull before the storm or those kinds of atmospheric conditions.

I point this up because it is an interesting exercise that we have long enjoyed, we in the spirit realm, to become sensitive to the electrical charge of the environment, for the electrical charge of the environment in and of itself is a testimony to the reality or the lack of reality in the vicinity, and in-as-much as it is possible for you to become sensitive to the presence of spirit reality as compared to density, it is a good reminder then that when you feel density in your environment, to ask for the presence of divinity to prevail. As you become more conscious of your own divinity association, your environment will alter accordingly. It is a matter of physics.

Lest we become engaged, however, in a discourse in physics, which we shall not, I am going to personally peruse you all and ask if there is another question that we might address before we call it a day. (Silence) Are you all at peace? (Yes) Damien.

Damien: Yeah, I had a question. You left off . .. I recall in your conversation, you spoke of social mores and adjusting yourself to them. You also spoke of my conditioning. I look at social mores and my conditioning as one and the same. What direction are you giving me? That is my confusion.

TOMAS: You are indeed conditioned by your social mores. But that is not necessarily who you are nor your reality, but as you begin to understand how it is that you have been conditioned by your mores, by understanding the mores in terms of their historicity and their evolved value, indeed the culture and religion and racial structure and so on and so forth of the world in which you live, the realm of your engagement, the world as you find it, you can begin to determine whether or not this reflects to you a reality that you want to carry with you or is it something that you have merely been taught and conditioned.

You can look at these things and ascertain for yourself if it is advantageous of you to continue to carry around that conditioning or to alter your conditioning by applying yourself to changing your pre-programming to perhaps carry with you a greater, kinder, more poignant reality. You can ask the Father to condition you in such a way as to bring you greater peace of mind and greater reality. Now from this greater reality standpoint, you can observe the social mores of your world with a greater appreciation of why you behave the way you behave and in part also why you have behaved the way you have behaved as a part of the conditioning that is represented by the social mores.

The entire issue there is one of the collective unconscious, you see, and it is an opportunity for you to become aware of yourself in the arena in which you live and work and how it affects you and then how you can affect it. I want for you to understand that there is often value in the social mores. I say often because not always, but this is a matter for your observation and involvement as a child of God, a member of the human race, to act upon as you see fit and as you feel led, guided, to impact upon the world.

Much of the social mores of your world are the representations of the accumulated values of the culture that has gone before you and it has brought you, as a human being, thus far. Therefore, having indeed great value, but all of it is not of great value. Some of it is roughage and/or restriction and/or superstition and/or so forth, and so it is for you, if you are inclined, to observe the arena in which you work and play and determine for yourself what you will alter in yourself based upon your understanding of how it is you want to be in light of what you have been created by your mores as compared to your relationship with divinity.

TOMAS: My lovely friends. I have observed your tape recorder ticking beyond its customary time slot and I am happy to say that it is still early in the evening, but this does not mean that we will continue to chat indefinitely, but rather that I will and Merium will bow out and allow you to proceed with your lives, in full faith that this too shall pass and that the sun will rise tomorrow on a new day, a new day that the Lord has made, and in which you shall carry with you the breath of life with which to respect the experience of your very being in the course of time and in the presence space.

TOMAS: Good evening, beloved friends, I am Tomas , your teacher. I am glad to be here with you and to be your companion in your search for truth, in your seeking for divine life and for harmony in living in the field. Merium also is with me this evening as are a number of shall we say interns in cosmology for your operating room this evening is indeed an ideal study of a configuration of the inherent healing processes at large.

It is exhilarating for us to observe, to behold your processes of sharing and caring in association of friends in spirit. Indeed, your fruits of the spirit are being portrayed and indeed consumed in and through your sharing, your trust, your association. You have each given us an ample palette of colors in which we might dabble in the arts of ( ? ) but before I assume/presume to judge the merits of the moment, I will allow for Merium to come in and say hello and I will ask for questions.

MERIUM: Hello, my friends. I am Merium. I am also here with you. I would not be anywhere else but at the accountable platform as we have established and as we honor, as

you honor our reality and your own. I would like to speak only briefly in reference to association of what could be called a gender answer. I am a feminine teacher and I am sharing the platform with Tomas, a male teacher. His presence is quite magnificent and although I often I tease him about being philosophical, pedantic and overbearing, if not to say dull, I do this in sincere affection for I am truly impressed by my brother's capability and were it not for my own good faith in my own identity, I might be intimidated by Tomas' seeming command of his post.

Indeed when I entered into arrangement with him, I was immediately assured I was not to play second fiddle but was to be his full partner in association and I quickly assumed my position which is as a partner and rather than attempt to counter-balance his personality, I attempted rather to be myself, and I know that many of you have been dismayed at my characteristics by comparison to his but I am myself and I have my own lessons to teach.

Therefore, my lovely ones, I am able to be and convey to you a facet of femininity that your world would do well to emulate of a certainty for I am able to play with you and attend to you in your simple repose and response to life as a child. Your childlike faith is comfortable with me, for I am not heady. With you I am playful and childlike myself.

I am not here this evening to go on about me, even though it would appear so, no. I am here to allow for my reality, and this is all anyone can ask, you see, that we allow for our personality. I know you have all heard the lesson on the symphony and how it is that we are all instruments in the Father's orchestra, and if and when and as we learn to know the sound of our own note, our own instrument, as long as we are willing to allow the Master Conductor to fine-tune our notes, so that we will know when to play and how to play, so that when we are called upon to play, we can be on key, and if we are to be off-key, then we know when to be off-key.

It is only by knowing our own instrument that we can be a part of the orchestra, that we can realize the wonders of association. Indeed, it is a value lesson I am happy to convey by my own personality for I am my own music. And how we love the sound of your music! Each of you has a note that is uniquely your own, and as you hear your note, as you hear your reality sung, played, strummed, you recognize it. You recognize that as a clear indication of that which you are, that which is comfortable for you. That is what you radiate to, and never will you be content until you turn to the sound of that note which is your own.

It is my privilege to be here as your teacher, your feminine teacher, in order to help you bring forth from you that which is your own note. If we must, we will alter the shape of the instrument itself so that it is inherent that your noise be made known, your joyful noise indeed.

Tomas, I relinquish to you the floor and to you, my children, I am all ears and all embraces, all smiles and tears of happiness. Allow me to be with you in truth. Perhaps I will speak again. Tomas?

TOMAS: Indeed. I am here. I am Tomas. I am glad for our preliminary remarks. It is always wise, you see, to have a moment of focusing. It helps to align your systems in harmony with the circuits and in these circuits you can find harmony and answers to the perplexing questions of life. Are there questions?

Damien: Tomas, in your Fruits of the Spirit book you allude to a preface. Me and Gerdean have taken it upon us that the preface would be the first following thing. I have been hard at work being an editor. Can you give us some direction?

TOMAS: I will give you some direction here, my lad, my co-worker in this project to which I am happy to see your energies being applied, but I will tell you that the question itself is in some ways a preface to the more meaty matters of what is contained in the lessons of the Fruits, for my preface in this undertaking would be those remarks preparatory to an application.

Let me say that Merium this evening gave an excellent preface to our conversations to follow. She has, in her preface, established the purpose of our gathering and what we have to deal with. In discussing the theme of the symphony and the sound of your own note, she has given a theme that can be carried out throughout the evening. This has been established in the preface, and so in a discussion of the fruits of the spirit, you are introducing the concept of fruitage and how it is that the fruit will affect you, the necessity for fruit, how these fruits will be prepared and so forth, in a manner that will allow for the recipient of the lesson to be aware of what will be served. Of how they will be fed. This is atmospheric, if you will. Attitudinal also.

I am glad to see you have undertaken the chore. I think there is merit to the project. I am enjoying how you are approaching your role as editor and am appreciating the integrity with which you apply yourself. Gerdean has selected wisely in associating you with the project of editor. Has it not been said consistently that you have a good mind and so now it has something to do. I am interested at some point in seeing your questions as to the contents of the lessons themselves -- the fruits.

Damien: The editor has not gotten to that point. I'm configuring the format, still and yet, and that's where I'm at -- right there at the start of the Fruits of the Spirit. Which comes first, the contents, prelude, preface, things along these lines. That's where I'm at. Well, I've read a couple of the fruits. Can't remember 'em. Can't remember 'em. But at any rate, that's where I'm at is just analyzing the format.

TOMAS: It is a creative process that is best approached, academically speaking, from several vantage points and you are appropriately on one now, and so in due course, other layers/levels of investigation will conspire to bring you to another appreciation and application. All in good time, my son. Carry on.

Damien: Thank you. Umm. Sorry I lashed out at you the other day. I was emotionally reacting and it had gotten to the point of being volatile. It came out sideways and you got it. I was willing to go fisticuffs to you, Tomas, and I'm sorry.

TOMAS: I accept your apology in this case, my friend, and I am glad to be in continued association in this course with you. It is often the case in association of respect that one or the other presumes to dispense with graciousness and so this lapse is not uncommon and it is good of us to continue in the vein of friendship that we are familiar with. We are still friends, my friend. Fear not.

Rachel: Good evening. What brings on such depression in us. I mean, even though we have discovered the light, so to speak, and are attempting to walk in it. I mean, even I am prone to such great depression at times. You want to give up. I think I even read one of the apostles . .. I can't remember . . . was prone to depression.

Rachel: Why can't we rid ourselves of this gloom and doom. Where does it come from, this wanting to give up and end it?

TOMAS: You have not asked a simple question, Rachel. You have asked a very extended question in terms of its potential response. There are two or three textbooks in your question. I will go at once to our text book and call up a couple of references. One you mentioned, the Apostle Simon, who was inclined toward melancholy and depression -- moodiness. Simon fell into great despair and others also. Peter was emotional and dramatic in his emotions. It contributed to his being a good speaker, a great preacher but it played havoc with his systems and with his fellows for these are things that not are bourn alone, in spite of your attempts to remove yourself from your fellows while under this curse of gloom. Going into isolation does not truly insulate the situation, for you are connected to others and they are connected to you.

Let me return to connectedness and go again to your text book and recall to minds possibly, the tale of two brothers who had come from backgrounds, family backgrounds, wherein one was readily more reliable than the other, based on his family configuration. This is another facet of moods and depression and esteem matters that reflect upon your attitude and reflect upon your relationships.

In relationship, then, let me discuss connectedness, and help you to realize that it is most likely that you lapse into these states of mind that are discouraging and sometimes progressively downward spiraling because you have allowed yourself to become disassociated from that which would enable you to remain afloat -- if not soaring at least afloat! -- And herein is one of the reasons why we are here, we teachers. We are encouraging you to associate with other active religionists. Not mouthers of scripture but faithers who live their faith and who, like you, are opening up to each other in confiding trust, with enlightened honesty, in merciful ministry, for enduring peace, and so on and so forth.

It is rare that you fall into the hole of depression when you are flanked by your living reality associates, and it is more easy for you to realize your reality when you are with your associates in the flesh. You tend to take your spirit companions for granted more readily than your material associates, and even in your material associates you are comfortable in certain realms, certain behaviors, certain mood patterns and so forth, that can lure you away from your more edifying and enlightened reality, into those realities affecting your ability to fall prey to the lesser nature feelings such as despair and fear.

Now, obviously, the antithesis of the situation is to stay aloft. But your question, I see, is not just to constantly be swimming upstream or against the tide, but to allow for those -- What do you call those? Concrete blocks connected to your ankles, chained to your ankles. What are they called? The Mafia uses them.

TOMAS: Along those lines. We want to be done with those. So how do we break those chains that leave the personality shackled to the dead weight that would pull it down into the dark, cold depths of isolation. This is part of Correcting Time. You are not alone. It is a global situation. You are experiencing rebirths because of the new association of spirit reality. As you touch upon spirit reality and accept it, your appetite is whetted for more, and when it is not immediately forthcoming, like children, you have a temper tantrum.

Sometimes you will hold your breath until you turn blue, and this is very much like putting on chains to cement blocks that will pull you down to the bottom of the lake until you remember that you are the one who tied your foot to it, whereupon you can come up sputtering and be angry if you like, or be glad, if you like, for the breath of fresh air that you have allowed yourself. I point this out to you not in accusation, as if it were something you did to yourself often or all the time, but it is an example of how it is that you contribute to your own poor alchemy.

It is certainly true that it could be another who is experiencing a depth of despair that you are associated with or connected to in some way. You have heard stories of twins who, although miles and miles apart, identify that something is going on with the other twin because they are so sensitive kinetically, so to speak, to each other's composition. Any of you who is in a relationship with anyone of any degree of reality is going to feel the effects of their reality, or even their relative unreality.

This is part of the collective unconscious, and so as you feel pain you may be relating to the pain of others. As you feel joy, you may be relating to the joy of others. This is a generic feeling that you could be aware of and then instead of going into a funk you could say, "Hey! This is not my stuff! This is generic funk. I acknowledge it. I do not own it." And that is a technique of side-stepping stuff that is not inherently yours but you are part of because you are part of the collective unconscious.

Now, that might be helpful if you can enhabit yourself -- excuse me -- if you can make it a habit and tie it into your techniques of spiritual problem-solving.

There are off course, also, those matters of issues. And here I will speak to you in terms of healing and remind you that there is no healing without forgiveness. These realms of healing having to do with forgiveness are extremely powerful and run very deep. They are not easy to access and there is sometimes great emotional investment, great effort involved in allowing the rebirthing process to occur.

Perhaps a "rebirthing process" is not the best analogy I can use here because it would seem to have feminine connotations. It is not intended that way, although the Universal Mother Spirit might appreciate the merits to the rebirthing process as a phrase, but I cannot think of another way of putting it in order for you to become, in order for you to emerge, in order for you to be revealed.

Be assured that your personal teachers are on hand at all times in this process of helping you to become the best you can be, that is, to disenfranchise yourself from those conditionings of error that enable you to become disgruntled with who you are today. All of the above is in response to your comment, Rachel.

Rachel: And I do thank you. I was throwing a temper tantrum today, as a matter of fact, and I thought . .. I do understand how you can choose to react towards people or not react.

TOMAS: You may react or not react, you may also respond, and there are psycho-babble terms for this. Fight, flight, freeze and so forth. It is not all the time that you want to be mature and responsible and respond in an adult way. Indeed you are children and sometimes you prefer the temper tantrum and easily justify your squalling fit for attention, particularly when you feel you are not understood as compared to not getting your own way.

It is a growing process, we realize. It is also helpful when you realize that you are in a growing process. It is most unfortunate when you find yourself in a mental quagmire, a deep mindal glitch that cannot seem to free you. As you begin to work through some of these labyrinthine situations, you will realize that although you may seem temporarily lost, you will find your way out, and I will conclude my remarks, as always, by referencing your relationship to the First Source and Center and that precious opportunity of invading your own spirit reality by contact with your indwelling Adjuster or that which most closely assimilates your understanding of divinity in your life.

There are times, I know, in the mortal growing stages where you cannot get past the hallucinations, the fantasies, the committee members, the fears, the anxiety, the scolding, the conditionings, ad nauseum, of beforehand to find Father, but if you allow yourself some good habit practices, you can build up an arsenal of spiritual ammunition that will help you defend yourself against those pits, those abysses, that the flesh is heir to.

I commend you, my children, for your courage in your life experience and for your nurturance of the truth of each other.

MERIUM: I am Merium and this evening we have applesauce. Have you been pureed for the evening or are there more matters on hand? I am going to rally if anyone is into it. Throw me a ball and I'll toss it back.

Damien: You might not like this ball, but here we go. This one's got some weight to it.

Damien: No, it's not a tetherball. It's one of those -- a weight ball, a medicine ball. MERIUM: Okay. My gut is ready.

Damien: All right. Here comes a launch. I'm going to heave ho. Sometimes I feel a lack of control in my moods. And in their range, they overwhelm me, so quickly how they change. I am on the lines of Tomas' discussion of moods and that is a tetherball, or a medicine ball. My moods as of late have been impetuous and just plain lethal at other times. And they snap. They've been snapping. I don't know . .. I've sought some help and I don't know if I'm on the right lines or not. Daniel has come to visit me and promptly did say, "Yeah, you're going in the right position." Can you give me some other oral feedback?

MERIUM: I am trying to ascertain what game this is. I am feeling this as a game, obviously, and I am not trying to detract from the merits of Daniel's guidance, nor would I ever for his value lessons are sacred, but I have my own voice, you see, and I see this as a game. I see brightly colored balls, many of them, all bouncing around in a cylinder, brightly lit and yet totally wanton and out of control, gaily bouncing off the walls and intermingling with one another for fun and diversion from that which is more important, more poignant.

Perhaps that which Daniel speaks to you of is more pertinent, but I will put in my two cents as I am inclined to do and offer to you this thought that you might consider that these moods, these out of control moods, are rather like a game and let's even go so far as to say "bumper cars" and you are having fun getting out of control and blasting your neighbor and going round in circles and going out to the outer rims to renew your play pell mell with the other colored motions.

Moods are non-reality. They are not even particularly emotion. They are passing fancies like Lawrence Welk's champagne bubbles. They are out of control because they are not real. They quit and burst like bubbles will, like Lawrence Welk's champagne bubbles indeed. And so there is something for you to consider. Here! Catch!

Damien: Okay! Maybe we ought to define moods. In my acknowledgement of what a mood might be, it's a bunch of emotions or feelings.

MERIUM: You are seduced by your feelings, seduced into believing that they have great worth. These feelings of great worth are not those which are easily exploded or side-tracked. Feelings of significant reality are those which you may savor. Am I mistaken in my comprehension of what you are trying to convey to me?

Damien: I'm trying to convey that square one is to redefine what I mean by moods. Moods, for me, are, as you say, a ball of feelings or at least feeling or two feelings. It's a combopulation of feelings and emotions.

Damien My emotional feeling, as of late, has been combopulation of really bad feelings and then quickly moving to a combopulation of really good feelings. This is where I start to feel out of control. Am I seduced by my feelings? Or do my feelings mislead me? I hope not, for God's sakes, I hope not.

MERIUM: Do not lament, my friend. Feelings are luring and can be overwhelming, and when you are having more than one at once, it is no wonder that you feel discombopulated. You are not abnormal in any respect as far as real stuff is concerned. You have disorder in your feelings and in your thinking, but you are not seriously ill. You are not irreparable.

You are merely bouncing around a lot, much of which is inside your head, much of which is inside your feelings, but even you admit that you are feeling more than one feeling at once! Perhaps if you were to discipline yourself to identify your feelings, identify a feeling one at a time, learn to savor and appreciate that feeling and what it was telling you, and learning to appreciate the value of that feeling, you would begin to determine the feeling as compared to a mood which is a champagne bubble that will not last into eternity, that will not contribute greatly to your growth but that will be a passing fancy, a hallucination, a side-trip, if you will, into la la land of a sort, to divert you from your feelings which are more real and more important but perhaps more frightening.

But just take one at a time, my son, and take a couple of good ones and know them well so that when you experience, say, sadness or anger, you will not allow yourself to give into it, for you will know that it is a feeling that has value but that is not the only feeling that you have. You have also love and joy and peace. These too are feelings, good feelings, valuable feelings, necessary feelings. After, then, you have identified some feelings and can differentiate them from moods, you will begin to be able to recognize how your feelings become emotions and how they then affect your relationship with others.

But before you go out into the field of studying your relationships with others, go back into your own psyche and soul and see for yourself a few genuine things in there. Not that hole that you are inclined to slide into for, among other things, solace in the dark and attention in the techniques, but the light of day, the radiant aspect of the joyous boychild that you are, the marvelous manfriend that you can be. These are parts of you, too, that are genuine and wholesome and good. I am saying these things to encourage you.

Rachel: I have one question, Merium. I was wondering how I can become -- I was feeling very ineffective in my arena this weekend with these people who don't understand how to, I suppose, take care of their horses so they'd feel better, and I just want to know how I should appeal to these people. I mean, I'm lost.

MERIUM: I will refer to a comment made earlier about how it is that we are connected to each other, and I would suggest that you approach your clients as that they are connected to their horse.

There is a connection between the animal and the animal owner, even the animal trainer, and that as your client has ambitions so does the horse; as your client has anxieties so does the horse; as your client has stress so does the horse; as the client has hope so does the horse; as the client has a pain in its shoulder, so does the horse; as the client has a strained tendon, an Achilles heel, so does the horse; and associate the kinship of the first five adjutant mind spirits so closely into the reality of the client that they can identify themselves as an animal also and seek counsel and healing for the horse as they would for their self.

Rachel: Okay. It's something that's crossed my mind quite a few times, that you just spoke of. I'll just have to practice more. Thank you.

MERIUM: You are welcome. I am delighted to have had the opportunity to come teach this evening. It has been a pleasure to be in your environment. I will convey to you, Damien, my affection and the esteem of Daniel who has been attendance this evening, observing our interplay, and in-as-much as I am able, I convey to you his deep and undying affection. Tomas, thank you and good evening.

TOMAS: I would like to convey to Gerdean a few words on the subject of regrets. I understand that she has revisited New Mexico and Colorado and has come away with a satchel full of regrets that she has been carrying around with her as if they were excess baggage weighing her down.

Gerdean, my child, be done with them. There is nothing you can do. We all make mistakes. We all make adventurous decisions that could lead one way or the other. It is impossible for you to know the outcome before you make the decision. It is impossible for you to experience all of the adventures in one short lifetime in the flesh. It is not possible for you to be six places at once. And so as you are an eager child and it is impossible to attain your highest ideals, assume that there will be an occasional regret and do not despair. Indeed, learn to enthuse upon disappointment. Rest easy, little one, and welcome back.

Dear ones, it is a joy as always to be with you and to be in your company, to be co-workers in this army of Michael's. It is good to be under his banner which flies high and clear in the Spring sky. Enjoy yourselves. Enjoy your own companionship. Know thyself and become thine own best friend. Till we speak again, be of good cheer. Farewell.

DANIEL: I am Daniel. I am here in response to your need and your invitation. It is a joy to be here this evening. Gerdean, it is nice of you to be accommodating. It is nice to see you, Rachel, and I look forward to our continued long-term association. Damien, my man, how goes it this evening?

Damien: It's been a day! I appreciate your visit this morning and reaffirming that I am real, in a good orderly direction, and thank you. And so it goes.

DANIEL: I am glad our midwayers were able to be effective in notifying you of my attendance in this method of established communications, that allow for you to see and sense in-coming communication with your spirit helpers. We have not worked this hard for amusement, you know. We are intent upon conveying our assistance and our affection for you because you are important not only to us, not only to Michael, but to your brothers and sisters here who have yet to recognize who they are in terms of reality.

Those of you who are willing to be the vanguard of identifying yourself with the greater reality on the forefront will be used, used to inform your peers of a great change, a great churning up of unwanted realities, making way for these realities that will support your understanding of truth, beauty and goodness.

You will become more sensitive; you will become more refined in your sensitivities toward each other, toward those nuances of need; in order for you to respond to them, you will become so sensitive you will need to develop defenses against the horrible hunger which surrounds you. You will feel incapable of rising to the occasion of meeting the need as you will meet it comforted it by the understanding that Our Father is aware of each of His children and is in readiness of their decision to become more conscious of the truth that lives within them that reflects in the world without.

You are experiencing these things in order that you may be better prepared, and in order that you may know real happiness. You are not alone.

DANIEL: I cannot conceive how it is that your hormones have anything to do with what I was saying,...

DANIEL: Unless you are speaking of fathering a new race of people, but I am not speaking genetically.

Damien: Okay. Gotcha. I'm on the lines of seeking out a psychiatrist to work through what Merium called a disorder. It is difficult to enjoy the disorders which Merium pointed out.

DANIEL: Do not err. Your disorder is not related to your moods. Your moods are a diversion, a distraction from the work at hand. It is important that you begin to identify these problem areas and reckon with them. They will not be revealed nor resolved in short-time, but will be worked through in good course for good ends. You are doing the right thing. It is not a shame to ask for help.

It is not out of line for even God-conscious individuals to seek a mental tune-up on occasion. The stresses of this life are such that you would do well to calibrate your mental mechanics on occasion. When you drive a car, you have to go in occasionally for a tune-up, for mechanical repairs and check-ups, to make sure the belts are tight and the fuel and fluid levels are up to par.

It is the same with your machine, your material machine, your body, and that in some aspects involves your mind as well. Go get those physicals and have a mental health day regularly. If it requires an overhaul, go for it! It is your temple. It is the temple that you provide for your Thought Adjuster, and if your goal in life is to become one with your Thought Adjuster, then help the goal along by allowing your machine, your mind and body, to be as accommodating for your Father as possible. He will certainly be as accommodating to you as possible. This is part of the teamwork, the liaison, the relationship between you and divinity.

Damien: I've been thinking of dealing with some bio-chemical aspects of me. Isaac assured me that you said in the Pocatello group that it was something that needed to be reckoned with. I could take full advantage of it.

DANIEL: You are too sharp to be dulled by this. Fear not. You can only benefit by working with what needs to be-done. You are invaluable, my son, and so allow your synapses to flow, your circuits to connect, your hormones to be at peace, and your joy to be heartfelt. All of these aspects of who you are, in alignment with yourself, in and through the Father, will you go in a person of great social fragrance, and this goes beyond your manners (and you have good manners, but you are more than that) and will be in good course and in good time.

Be patient with yourself. Others will be regarding you as simply one of them, for everyone is also going through their own process, their own healing, and their own fine-tuning of their own machine. Do not feel, in that regard, that you are particularly unique. You are one with the human race. Each human being needs to maintain his own peculiar instrument. Indeed.

I am glad that you called me. I am glad that we are friends. I am glad that you remember me over all these years and over all the miles. I am glad that our association has deepened sufficiently that something I have taught conveyed an impression upon your mind, indeed within your soul. You give me great credence when you convey your desire to speak with me and I remind you and all of you that we are here to serve you and it is our joy to respond to your needs, and so, my friend, thank you for calling me up and seeking my friendship. It is my pleasure. I will see you again and soon. Indeed, all of you, have a good evening.

TOMAS: I am here to tell you a story before Merium and I commence our evening's agenda, and it has to do indeed with our Michael's relating about The Perfect Will and The Permissive Will. I would like, in keeping with your discussions of art, draw you a picture. I would like to draw a picture of food coloring in a teacup as compared to food coloring in a bathtub. When you put one drop of yellow food coloring in a dainty teacup, you get a brilliant lemon shade; there is no doubt that the cup contains a yellow liquid. When you put one drop of yellow food coloring into a bathtub, you will hardly discern any difference.

Let me tell you my friends, my children, my students, that this is the way it is also in your work in the field. When you work in a small environment, you can more readily see the impact of your drop, but when you look at the larger picture, you cannot see the effect that your drop has made in the large, but do not be discouraged by the fact that in the large you cannot see that you have made much of a difference, for you have, and you are not the only one making strides toward bringing color into this large vat.

I tell you this story because I know that some of you become discouraged and in your intimate environment and with your intimate friends, you develop a culture, a cult, and it involves certain language: certain gestures, certain belief systems, certain triggers and certain responses; and as you all understand the language that you speak, you feel that you have brought about great effects, and indeed you have for you have learned to communicate your nuances and you have begun to enjoy the sensitivity that you can now enjoy because you speak a language that gives you great pleasure and increases your appreciation of deep meaning.

When you go out into the world at large, where they do not speak this language, where they are unfamiliar with the gestures, you feel as though you have made no impact, and yet your presence does indeed affect your environment. It may be subtle, it may be indiscernible to your eye, but you may be assured that you have made a mark.

My friends, we are interested in your relative experiences of Will. It is said in your text that life is but a days work, do it well, and there is no one who cannot identify with that very simple adage: "Life is but a days work; do it well," and when you add to it the concept of God-consciousness and the metaphysical appreciation for life being more than 24 hours, you have added a range of reality which bespeaks greater truths than are apparent to the naked eye. How are your truths revealing themselves in your daily sphere? That is all that can be expected: that you do His Will as you perceive it to be done in your life in your day's work.

MERIUM: Greetings, everyone. Tomas, thank you for delivering this subject this evening because I have had Hunnah listening to a tape that involves the Will of God and as a teaching tool this evening I would like to take the carpenter's equipment, if I may, and I believe that the tool I have chosen is a tool that will help you create a perfect corner, a square, and this square is to help you know what is God's Will, if you take the challenges of your day and do not wait for it to become a challenge but for a rule of your daily habit of choice, to use your tool to help you to decipher whether you are living through the human will or toward the Will of God.

There is also another tool: there is a level, and they come in many sizes. I will suggest you have one that is pocket-sized and you will see the little floating air bubble in there and your measure will prove to you that it is okay, will help you to know that it is within the Will of God. In Hunnah' s terminology at work it is called: "Within Normal Limits" (W.N.L.) and if you allow yourself to look at your path throughout the day and you are applying the lesson of hearing the old message, you can grab it and put your rule on it to find out if you are within that space of acceptable choice and acceptable behavior.

I do not want to imply that there are two of you, but you are coming up out of soil of spoiled and sloppy habits. The fertile, well-turned soil that you have with you is a place that is going to require your choice of tools that will help you keep yourself on track, and I want you to look at the habits that you have that are being motivated by your lesser will, the attitudes where you don't want to put your energy.

I am going to continue here to plagiarize. It is alright to plagiarize if you are using it in the proper context, but I would like to have you seriously take a look at the habits that you have formed and instead of wrestling them with your mind and putting yourself down because you have not achieved some of the worldly standards, I simply want you to pause and allow yourself to notice whom you are serving at that time.

There are so many interlocking ways that can help you get through this, but what is really required is the dedication to live a life and to serve the one highest source, that which will keep you on track. I know this is my theme song, but I have been chosen to bring in this ribbon of fruitful reminders, to bind you in the hope of them, and to enhance your ability to take this message that Tomas brings to you and to utilize it the best way possible.

Visualization is a very effective tool and you have your own supply of preferred methods. Allow your spirit-filled purpose to choose these as helps and to keep you and prod you on your way, act as a staff that you can lean upon. It can be funny; it can be hope-filled, it can be reassuring and celebrating, and I am encouraging you, once again, even though we are a small group.

It occurred to Hunnah coming in this evening that she hoped the messages and the words this evening that we brought to you would go out like the little drops of color into this community, and that is what you have done. You have come in and we will take this change of vibratory rate within your development and you will take it to your own quarter of this community, so thank you for letting me speak and I hope it reads well. Tomas?

Damien: Could you give a better definition of relative . .. the Perfect, God's Will and the other one . .. Permissive, God's Will?

TOMAS: I would like to have the opportunity to discuss this somewhat, but I cannot give an exact definition in-as-much as I am a student of the Master as are you. I can, however, surmise some of his intentions in portraying His Divine Will as compared to His Permissive Will.

You realize, of course, that you are human and as a human you are of dual nature. You have your animal origin with your seven adjutant mind spirits allowing you to function as a sophisticated creature of divinity potential, and so (rather like having the heart and mind cooperate) an effective human being is effective in and when he/she allows for the divine Will to be done and the permissive will can be done in conjunction with the animal aspect.

All right, now, let me break that down a little bit because you know that you are encouraged to find the value of the human experience in that human experience which constitutes the human and the divine. That is where you find the richness of life, the grace of the experience. But prior to your being aware of the possibility of divine Will, before you have committed yourself to doing the Father's Will -- perfectly, imperfectly or relatively -- you may be living such a life as to be doing His Will even though you are not aware of it.

Remember, the Thought Adjuster can work through you even though you are an unwitting partner. As long as you are not in opposition to His Will, His Will, will be done, even through the fallible human being, and this is His permissive will. He permits you to wander along in life without good orderly direction for in this walk you are able to grow and develop an appetite for those things which would increase your hunger for greater value.

I will refer now to this meddlesome process in the human being that refuses to allow for things to stay calm. It is a part of the divine ascension plan that as things begin to settle down, a restlessness will well up within you and you insist on attaining yet new heights of perfection attainment, and this is true whether you are aware of the ascension scheme or not.

A woman, for example, who has a home will want a nicer dining room table cloth and when she has this then she will want new curtains to match, and this is just a simple example of how it is that you are constantly striving for greater and greater perfection. A man will do the same in terms of the order in his shop. He wants those tools (that level and that T-square that will make his work easier) and he will establish shelves and pegboards and hooks in order to perfect his workshop.

This is true of people who have no conscious consciousness of His Will, yet His Will is done permissively. Even after you have become God-conscious and as you wander through the maze of your early growth in the Kingdom, as you are spiritual kindergarteners, as you bring with you your programming and your prejudices and your impressions, you are doing His Will but it will be perhaps colored by your conditioning and so forth.

His permissive Will is being done, you see. He permits you to be yourself, to permit you to experientially find your way. He permits you to struggle and attain and strive for new levels of perfection -- whether that is a new dining room table cloth or whether that is a new standard of ethics in your behaviors with your fellow men/women.

This is part of the ascension plan. In time, it is true that you will learn to follow His divine Will perfectly, and I myself aspire for that goal, and yet in the interim we are the recipients of His mercy in His allowing us to follow His Will imperfectly. He has been permissive with His children.

I will conclude my remarks with a cautionary remark of knowing this truth and knowing of The Father's mercy. I would encourage you who take this under advisement to not presume upon the divine mercy of the Father and that as you approach your permissiveness, His permissive will, you not presume to take advantage of His graciousness and assume that you will be care-taken and your faults overlooked, for remember, too, that the angels refuse to help those who refuse to act upon their light of truth, and so if you know better and you choose to be willful, this is not the same as inadvertently following His Will, His permissive will, through His good graces. Has this been edifying, my friend?

TOMAS: I have, you see, poured a steady stream of yellow food coloring into the pond and yet I see no discernible difference. I am therefore learning to be patient with myself as I urge you to be patient with yourself in your doing His Will, perfectly or otherwise.

Joniel: I have a question. How is it that animals can help with the healing process?

MERIUM: First of all I would like to bring forward the subject of trust again. It seems to be a garment that we cannot put away. Trust is something that you have to attend to continuously, and one of the gifts of having a pet is that there is an established trust that is very easily developed. An animal does not criticize you; it does not make promises; it does not have false expectations of you; it gives you unconditioned love if you offer it, in almost a small portion of friendship. It is trusting of your intent.

It is easy for the human and the animal to come together, providing that you have used the wisdom to select the proper animal. I would not recommend that you send away for a tiger or bring an animal that could harm others, but if it is your intention to have a pet, think about how you behave when you are with the pet.

I am going to tell a story in Hunnah's repertoire here, and it is very dear. Hunnah was visiting a lady who spoke with a foreign accent. She had a canary that was in a cage near the door in her kitchen, and in this small house, the woman's bedroom door was in a location so that she could see the cage from her bed and in the morning the woman would call her bird, Peaches, and she would say, "Peaches! Sing-y, sing-y!" and Peaches would oblige.

There was this rhythm, this cadence of love that went back and forth between them. It brought out, in her, tenderness, love, affection and appreciation. The bird did not know she was an old lady. The bird did not know that it lived in a simplistic home that was clean. The bird did not know anything except that there was this rapport, so is it not natural that you would find it a wonderful place to rehearse love and affection?

Hunnah also had a friend whose husband was not good to her, to the woman friend, and yet he wrote beautiful poetry, and it fascinated Hunnah that this man, who had such refined and tender feelings, such intelligence, such passion for life, only could write it in poetry and mingle in nature when he felt secure, for he had such a bad relationship with people.

He was, you might say, in a lab, for he was learning to be in a safe place with love. It would not be torn from it; it would not hurt him; and it could come to him at his beck and call. It would be there in just the right way. It was predictable, it was reliable. But when it came to dealing with places of his social development, where he had been wounded, he did not perform well.

And it is for this reason that nature and its animals can indeed help a person look forward in their healing, their ability to respond and develop to the point where they step out and go beyond the horse stall and the groom and they start to mingle with people and interact with new confidence and you might say an unconscious acquisition of practicing love and receiving love. I hope that helps, and Tomas, if you would like to add to this, please do.

TOMAS: I enjoyed your recitation, Merium. I have no further comments. Joniel, is this sufficient for you . ..

MERIUM: I might add, and simply because I am familiar with some of the activity here, that Erata had the sensitivity to allow her boys to receive an animal, and the animal is a diversion for them, for some of the stresses that was going on in their personal lives. The animal helps to develop a safe corridor to a place of R&R where you can practice responsibility, you can practice consideration. It is just simply a wonderful area.

0802-AB: Jack here. Hi guys. How goes it? I am glad to be here. I am just passing through, as they say. I am really glad to have this moment with you, however. I don't venture forth very often. I had the light on the other day but no one was home so I'm now coming back to venture in and see what goes on here at your house, at this locale, that is to say, this family of believers.

I hope you appreciate that my approach to a residence is not the same as the mortals understanding, but when you come together as sisters and brothers, as siblings, as children of The Father, you have created a family gathering, and I call it your residence for that is where you are. It is a noteworthy thing I say here because it is astounding how many people are not present where they are. They are not aware that they exist, much less the configuration that they engage in as they encounter their fellow men and women.

I will not dwell on the paucity of life but on the abundance of life and it is an abundance that I begin to perceive your solidarity, your solidarity as individuals and as a family unit. Your family here is like any family in The Father's house and that infers that in time you will leave home. You will become grown. You will have learned your appropriate behaviors for your time and space. Your teenage years in the spirit will have come and gone. Your identifying your Self and how you will employ your Self in The Kingdom will become a part of you. You will have learned how to engage in social intercourse with spiritual fragrance and you will be sent forth into The Father's Kingdom to work in his vineyards.

It is a fine occasion when we behold a family at rest, at repose, in company with itself, in building those firm foundations of love and support which will give you the growth necessary for you to develop your character and your courage to follow through on your commitment to serve the Master in love for Him and for your brothers and sisters in truth.

And so it gives me great pleasure this afternoon to be present at this family gathering. Indeed, this family extends throughout the greater universe and I am pleased to let you know that you are one with them that also work towards those greater goals of His perfect Will in time and eternity. Carry on. Farewell.

TOMAS: We are again on-line and open to discourse and for questions. I see you, eager one, over there turning pages as if to say you have encountered a question in your studies.

Erata: You are so right. I used a highlighter this time to mark my pages. Maybe you could elaborate on this. I'll read part of it.

Erata: It's "Later Discussions at the Camp" from Paper 176, "Tuesday Evening on Mount Olivet".

ERATA: It's just prior to the Return of Michael. "To every one who has, more shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him who has not, even that which he has shall be taken away. You cannot stand still in the affairs of the eternal kingdom. My Father requires all his children to grow in grace and in a knowledge of the truth. You who know these truths must yield the increase of the fruits of the spirit and manifest a growing devotion to the unselfish service of your fellow servants. And remember that, inasmuch as you minister to one of the least of my brethren, you have done this service to me.”

"And so should you go about the work of the Father's business, now and henceforth, even forevermore. Carry on until I come. In faithfulness do that which is entrusted to you, and thereby shall you be ready for the reckoning call of death. And having thus lived for the glory of the Father and the satisfaction of the Son, you shall enter with joy and exceedingly great pleasure into the eternal service of the everlasting kingdom."

"Truth is living; the Spirit of Truth is ever leading the children of light into new realms of spiritual reality and divine service. You are not given truth to crystallize into settled, safe, and honored forms. Your revelation of truth must be so enhanced by passing through your personal experience that new beauty and actual spiritual gains will be disclosed to all who behold your spiritual fruits and in consequence thereof are led to glorify the Father who is in heaven. Only those faithful servants who thus grow in the knowledge of the truth, and who thereby develop the capacity for divine appreciation of spiritual realities can ever hope to enter fully into the joy of their Lord."

That's the part I had underlined. What does it really . ..? Going to the end of this statement, "who thereby develop the capacity for divine appreciation of spiritual realities can ever hope to enter fully into the joy of their Lord." Can you interpret that?

TOMAS: I will make an attempt. It has to do with your degree of application. It is referenced also in your text that there are those of a more timid demeanor who would find comfort in an association with others who allow for someone else to give them their spiritual guidance, who would deign to speak for them as an intermediary between them and the Father. These are often, although not always, cases wherein the spirit life has been crystallized.

Those of you who live the gospel of the Kingdom, who do not resort to the words of others but who apply the truth in your own life, are more inclined to stumble upon the wisdom of experience and in this wisdom you will encounter the relative difficulties and certain bliss of knowing the living God and being actively involved in association with It. As you follow a traditional religion, or a crystallized way of life, you may garner certain satisfactions from the association, and yet only as you actually engage yourself in the living ministry, the actual experience, are you able to also fully take to your heart the divine favor of sonship with God, the true joy of knowing this living reality.

Hunnah: Merium has been on hold here and I have been locked into a high frequency. I find it very difficult to follow a lengthy statement or question and even when Tomas is talking I seem to lose the connection. It's hard to pay attention and be Merium at the same time.

Regarding what Erata has just read, I think it has connected very well because what she is talking about is the Will of God in action, if I recall from what was said. You'll have to excuse me. I was listening to her but it's as if I was in another space.

TOMAS: Let me parenthetically remark to you Merium, and to you Hunnah, and to those of you who may be interested: your quandary is perfectly understandable because you are indeed two entities using the same mind and as you, Hunnah, are listening to your friend and to your teacher Tomas, it is only natural that you would come off-line, and even though Merium can be paying attention in her own right, it is a significant shift for you to set yourself aside in order that Merium may enter into a conversation that she has only surreptitiously been enjoying.

It is okay, my dear. It is perfectly understandable. It is also delightful that you remain the student as well as accommodate the teacher, for it enables you to enjoy the lesson also. I say these things in full appreciation of the many times that Gerdean would listen to Daniel and then I would have to wing it because she was truly not even there. I understand that this is an esoteric conversation, but you see, when you all begin to transmit, if you ever do, you will understand these peculiar vagaries of the mental process in transmitting/receiving.

Erata: "Only those faithful servants who thus grow in the knowledge of the truth, and who thereby develop the capacity for divine appreciation of spiritual realities, can ever hope to enter fully into the joy of their Lord.'"

MERIUM: If you bought a fancy car that had written on the gas cap, "Use High Test Only for a smooth ride and good engine care," you would not hesitate to pull into the gas station to have the appropriate fuel put into the gas tank. Some time ago I asked the question, "Why do you come? What do you want?"

The subject of devotion is frequently interlaced in this course of communication that we have had with you, and just recently -- it was in the Paper Thursday evening -- we have been encouraging you to develop your devotion. This is something that Erata has done almost effortlessly. We are very aware that she would like to stay in the study of the life of Jesus, as she is so renewed when she reads it. There is a part of her that is enhungered for the teachings of Jesus and his mission.

And this the type of appetite that we would all like to see you develop. You have, in your own way, but this is an expanding process. We would like for you to have greater fuel tanks in your cars. We would like to not have you bother buying cheap gas because you are in a hurry. We would like to have you take this power more seriously and its purpose and the destination.

You have a purpose and a destiny and it takes devotion that is not compiled from the outside or the human effort. It is something that builds and builds and it is almost like having more horsepower in your vehicle, and as you pursue your enhungered desire to be with the Beloved, this will become a natural development within yourself, and therefore you will be living in the Kingdom and you will bear fruits. You will have a companioning and you will spill over with unselfish love, in this understanding and appreciation and patience. You will be developing the morontia perfection that you seek, and even if that description "morontia perfection" has not developed sufficiently in your consciousness, it will continuously be fed and nourished until you are very comfortable with this concept.

In the church of your background you may have heard it said, "let your light shine." This is just another way of saying, "Your light will shine because it is My light." So you are not making this experience, you are allowing it, and to the point where there isn't any thought of allowing it; it is simply your natural beingness.

I hope that this statement has connected sufficiently with you all and that you are feeling more comfortable with what you are all about. It is indeed very, very common, when you are wearing human conditioning, within the human mindset, to be constantly upset, and this is an example of what we were calling the Permissive Will that allows you to get off track, but this inner connection with your destiny helps you to pick up your parts, put yourself back on track and off you go again.

And off you go again to your Tuesday gathering. Sometimes you don't even know why you're going, but there is something in you that keeps you loyal, so please, try being more comfortable with this. I hope this transmission will travel, because I think that Erata's selection is a very appropriate one. Thank you, dear. Did it help?

MERIUM: When you have a question and there is an answer, there is a feeling of being fed, a feeling of knowingness and a coming into agreement when we talk. This is unity. We want your focus to be conscious meeting with God, and that is what the Master came to do, is to help you know that your destiny is conscious union with God, and when you feel yourself living in the poise of this effortless effort, you will be experiencing Light and Life, Kingdom on earth.

Erata: I don't have another question but I have another little discourse that I sort of highlighted and I kind of thought was pretty nice. It's from The Farewell Discourse, page 1945. It says:

"If you would share the Master's joy, you must share his love. And to share his love means that you have shared his service. Such an experience of love does not deliver you from the difficulties of this world; it does not create a new world, but it most certainly does make the old world new.”

"Keep in mind: It is loyalty, not sacrifice, that Jesus demands. The consciousness of sacrifice implies the absence of that wholehearted affection which would have made such a loving service a supreme joy. The idea of duty signifies that you are servant-minded and hence are missing the mighty thrill of doing your service as a friend and for a friend. The impulse of friendship transcends all convictions of duty, and the service of a friend for a friend can never be called a sacrifice. The Master has taught the apostles that they are the sons of God. He has called them brethren, and now, before he leaves, he calls them his friends."

TOMAS: It is not only lovely; it is vital in your understanding of what it means to do His Will. Indeed the many who follow traditional ways of religion are servant-minded. They are not soaring in the joy of knowing the interpersonal relationship with a living Son of God.

To be a friend in the spirit is a sublime status. Those of you here are developing that status among yourselves. The bonds that are developing between you are those bonds that will feed and nourish your soul into tomorrow and into eternity. Never again will you be able to sit alone and not know that you are loved, because of this bonding experience that you have learned because of your association in living fellowship and love for the Master whom you serve, that which is your friend. It sets you apart from the others as you read earlier.

Hunnah: I have been sitting here in a modular energy and have been aware that I've felt it all the way to the back of myself, which is something new. Theater in the round, but no pictures. And I am assuming that this is something that is going to continue and it has something that ought to be at ease with the changes. Gerdean commented about having sensations in her spine, and I, Hunnah, assumed it was something similar to what I have been experiencing. We were told at one time that there are electrical, you might say, adjustments made in our light body or our response to this energy, and that you all may experience it at some point. It may not happen to you for a long time but in the event you have these sensations, don't be alarmed.

There was something else I was going to comment about. I would really like it if -- I would probably T/R for others more if it would be just permissible to just have some sort of . .. cue that would state, "May I please come in?" I've had some very faint pictures this evening that, before our friend with the numbered license plate stopped by, and I, Hunnah, was uncomfortable with it because I don't understand it.

When we have counsel with you, with the teachers, they do not bring the kind of counsel to us that explains these changes in our body or in our third eye. I had a teacher that would only allow us to focus on our homework. She felt that we were inviting in the use of the third eye prematurely and did not encourage it. Her whole message was based in the security and the sanctity of love, and therefore I have a built-in precaution. I'm just rambling on right now but I really would like to, if it is appropriate, if it is high born, if it is for the feeding of the masses and the uplifting of the Christ spirit, allow myself to be used, for the circuitry not to be approached by a lesser energy. Thank you.

TOMAS: I would like to address some of your remarks, Hunnah, and I am not certain this is "for publication," but it is certainly for your peace of mind, your edification.

I understand from your recitation that you have been recipient of advice from a previous teaching that has held you in good stead for some time and you have benefited from this guidance and now you are reluctant to let it go in order that yet more guidance can come forth. You indicated a teacher had spoken to you about focusing on energy of the heart and this is well and should never be completely abandoned for indeed it is the language of the heart that will make the difference.

It is the love, the divine love that generates from the heart of the love of the Master that will affect you and all of mankind, and yet there are other energies as well. Indeed, you yourself refer to these other relative realities when you spoke, at the beginning of the evening, regarding your appreciation for those who speak to their various gifts or their understanding of their gifts, such as the person who saw pictures when she looked at people's hands.

This is an interpretation, an art form of spiritual intent. It is, coincidentally, part of His Permissive Will, for it involves the experience of this individual who, in good faith, is interpreting her value as inspired by her belief, her energy as she feels it conforms to the greater whole. All of the energies outside of the heart are available for your amusement and experience, and many of them are good and many of them are -- not bad, but less than supremely valuable.

Now, you spoke of so many things, as you are inclined to do when you are on a roll. It is very difficult for a peer to respond to you fully, and yet your outpouring is stimulative of much. Let me see if I can put my lips to the project you present.

I would like to assume a truth, that you have asked that only the Father's divine way will impact you, and that you, as his beloved daughter, in truth, are only capable of transmitting that which He in his infinite love has allowed you to hear, to see, to be impressed by. It is very similar to the experience of many who come across this "talent" of transmitting, or many others who encounter a new way of spiritual application, they distrust the process based upon previous conditioning and fear -- the fear of traditional religion that still fears Satan and what he can do to you, as if you were without faith and conscious will of your own to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan. Get thee behind me, evil and dark ways. I embrace the light. I live in the light. The love of God surrounds us. The power of God protects us. The love of God embraces our very presence, our very reality, and all that I am, I am because I am a child of I AM."

Wash yourself in this living truth and begin to have living faith in yourself and in the Father. Once you have established that all you are and all you can be is good because you are the child of good itself, you can allow yourself the freedom of realizing the divine personalities that habituate and inhabit your friendly universe and who are your helpers and your divine companions, your neighbors, your friends in the spirit. As midwayer Jack talked about, it is a friendly universe and we all sit at the table of the Father. We all enjoy the companionship of knowing our kinship.

You might then, if this plan is amenable to you, discuss this with your primary teacher, let us say Merium who works well with you. Ask Merium to work with you in such a way that she will let you know if and when a visitor is coming on-line, in order for you to take that moment to adjust your circuitry such that Merium can step aside and the visitor can come on-line. It takes a moment to make that adjustment.

It is cleaner, when you allow for that mechanical aspect to occur, than allowing for the vagueness of Christ-consciousness to enter in, for although it has merit, it has beauty, it has truth and it has goodness, it also, if you will, deprives the individual personality of their right and their joy of being. Inasmuch as you are able to transmit them, let them be themselves.

You yourself, as a human being, all of you, know how you loathe to have someone else put words in your mouth, even though they may be the words that you would say and even though sometimes you are relieved that they have said them so well. The individual identity often craves an opportunity to have personality expression.

Remember, this is one of the facets of the ascension plan, the divine plan, that the Thought Adjuster within, the God fragment within you, begins to have reign and can function through your personality so that It has personality expression. Personality expression is one of the most delightful things about your life. The fact that you yourself will live into eternity as yourself is what is so enticing for you individually.

What possible lure is there for you to become totally and eternally washed into the great ocean wherein you are a mere drop all the time? When you, as your own drop, are unique, and when you, as a drop, are allowed, in and through your will decision, to embrace the concept of the One, then you can rest in that and know you are part of the One, but you are also yourself -- unique, original, unto yourself. And this is an expression, again, of the Father's infinitude, that each of his billions and billions of children are unique and original unto him/herself. Each personality that comes into being through the Father is desirous of personality expression and of acknowledgement.

If you will recall, when the Father stood alone as the First Source and Center, the original I AM, He opted to become the Paradise Trinity so that He could have recognition, so that He could have peers with whom to discuss things, so that He did not stand alone, and so it is okay to be uniquely yourself and yet, at the same time, to be one with the others. Has this been helpful, Hunnah?

TOMAS: Again, I will refer to your sensitivity as a creative artist, for yet again I recall your words earlier this evening and now I hear you speaking to your yearning even closer, for what I hear, daughter, is your acknowledging the "okayness" of a creative approach to the various creative personalities that come into your presence as you are on-line and in a transmitting mode. Is this possibly true.

Hunnah: Oh, indeed. I just have so much more energy on this evening than usual, and it made me wonder if I had left town! My daughter so frequently tells me that most of the people aren't really in their bodies anyway and that's one of the problems: they don't want to be here, and so they're not really where they should be. Merium will resume her post. How did you wish to do this? Was I to do it myself?

MERIUM: Indeed it is an act of trust and you will hear me speak and permit a friend to come.

TOMAS: Merium, are you going to tell us in advance who your friend is? Do they have a classification that will be of interest to us that would indicate perhaps what their purpose was, what their role was, what their interest is in visiting us?

MERIUM: Hunnah's habit of, you might say, "bowing" to the energy keeps her from wanting to speak, as it would be if you were in meditation you would not want to be interrupted and this speaking would be an effort and this energy which she is feeling very powerfully in her feet and in her third eye, is still with her.

VISITOR: It is indeed a celebration that I bring to you, a message of good will. The heavens rejoice in the name of the Holy One whom you all seek. Could you imagine us coming to visit you without bringing tidings of great joy as it has been said in these meetings so well so often? Could you possibly imagine that we would not be bringing you good news?

Hope. Allow yourselves to entertain and renew yourselves and familiarize yourself in the highest way with the word hope. It is indeed good news to be able to come through this channel. It is as if we were pouring a great deal in a small container. It is almost frustrating to us because we are so eager to have this container respond, to expand a lumen of entry. This is indeed a fulfillment of the promise of the announcement that "you have much to receive."

How can you allow an ocean of wellbeing to descend upon you if your lumen is only large enough to accommodate a drop? That is almost pitiful, because it is the darkness that has constricted this. You are so accustomed to so little, when indeed Home is an indication of so much. This is an invitation for homecoming, for you are allowed to feast, to make plans for the day, to be effortless, to be light, to be ever responsive and not to be burdened by too much analysis. Analyzing and studying is what you have been programmed to be in your human mode. We simply want you to allow the delivery of the All of God, whatever form it takes, whatever form it is delivered in, and when the gift comes, reason and understanding are delivered with it. Provision is delivered with it. It's never an incomplete gift.

The gift this evening will be confidence. You will feel confident in allowing yourself to be expanded. Not just one or the other or "Gerdean does that" and "Hunnah does that" -- it is for all, and I am even speaking to those who do not appear to be here! You are all always in attendance, all of you, ever so many of you, even the ones who appear to not come any more. They are simply not in this room, but when we speak, we speak to all of you; we speak to ourselves, because this is a celebrating communion, conscious union.

ANOTHER: Good evening. My name doesn't seem to want to come. I will not belabor the name. I come in the name of perfection. I serve perfection. Join me in this calm. Let it resonate in your bodies. Let it live in your bones. Let it strengthen your reasoning. Confidence in Christ is all you need. The Christ that dwells in you. You call it a Thought Adjuster. Isn't that a perfect name?

I want you to become more comfortable with the pauses between my statements. They will be coming more often. These pauses are more powerful than our words! It strengthens your acceptance. It is part of the Homecoming. You shall weep with joy at the recognition of this frequency. It belongs to you. It is the umbilical cord of True Life.

I am going to give you homework. I will be kind. Three times a day. I do not ask you to bow unto Mecca. I will ask you to deliver a view upon yourself as to the truth of your being, until you find yourself living continually in the awareness of the King you belong to, who you are. This is high octane this evening. You shall never hunger again, without great effort. It will only appear to be that way. There is a statement, "I have meat the world knows not of." Remember that. That you have all that. Always.

This song that I have offered this evening, this reminder that all is well, could go on and on, but you have work to do, and you are going to take the little that you continue to hold in your cup and you are going to allow it to remain full because you are going to, three times a day, remind yourself that your cup is never empty, and that you are not allowed to be thirsty. All you have to do is remember that you are allowed to feel complete. I wish you well, and thank our friend for allowing me to come.

VOICE OF GOOD WILL: This -- Voice of Good Will. I am your sister. Imagine that you do not have to imagine that it is true. You have a true sister! If you have a sister in the flesh and you do not recognize her to be your sister, allow me to insist that you bring the truth into a reality, that thou might honor Our Lord. Thank you.

MERIUM: This is Merium. This has been a supreme example of "thou knowest your every need." You have witnessed a viewing, as you like to say there. This messenger did not say "brother". If you have a sister, allow this gift to resonate and envelop that loved one. [Existential] Thank you.

TOMAS: I am Tomas. I am going to bring down the curtain on our very lovely concert this evening. I want to thank all of you for being here -- all of you in person and all of you in spirit. We have truly enjoyed this recital and the arias, indeed. It is a joy to be one with you and to behold your originality. In peace, farewell.

Textual Reference: URANTIA BOOK STUDY: Daily Meditation from Will & Co. and related Paper, page 1536, Sermon on the Kingdom: "He who would be great in my Father's kingdom must first become server of all." [Sharing and Extended Stillness]

TOMAS: We are coming in. Your critters are making our presence known. You, of course, are well aware that we are here and have been and have engaged in prayer and meditation with you.

What a gift you give yourselves when you give this devoted time to focusing your reality on the Great Source and Center. What a gift you give when you focus yourself on service. We are giving a supreme gift to you by focusing our attention on you and on your desires, your needs, as you do when you focus on those who come before you in need and in demand of your focused attention. It is seen as a duty, an obligation, a requirement, but in truth it is a service that you do for the Master in doing for his children.

Often your charges require from you more than you feel you should give, and your discernment in this is valorous, for like a children they will become spoiled, become indulged as you will allow them, and so you must presume to be a Father to them and see with a Fatherly affection and draw the line, whereupon you may withdraw in good faith that His will, will be done, and also so that you may extend yourself into other areas of service, and this includes yourself, for you must tend to your own vessel. You must sit with Father and restore your soul to gain strength for further work, further play.

TOMAS: For some reason it has been requested that I review for you the discourse we had some time ago having to do with the mental realm called the deep mind. There are understandings of levels of mind that lend to a degree of differential in understanding what aspects of the mind you are speaking of. There is, in psychological terms, the unconscious, the conscious, the id, the ego. In spiritual terms we use the phrase the subconscious, conscious and superconscious. You, of course, are familiar with the imagination; and there is the part of the mind that abuts upon the morontial level of understanding; and last but not least, again, we come across this place called the "deep mind". So what mind is it we're talking about when we speak about, for example, "the mind arena of choice"?

The mind arena of choice is that realm that you go to in order to make those decisions that will further your spiritual development, that will increase your reality-izing , that will lead you into greater awareness of your own God-consciousness. This has nothing to do with left brain or right brain. The deep mind is that part of the mind that is subterranean.

In terms of mining, you realize that somewhere down in the geologic realms of your planet there is perhaps a mother lode of uranium or ore or gold or another element and this is in the deep levels of your planet (not to be confused with unconscious or subconscious) but it's deep. It's down in there. It's related to the foundations. It is way down in the footings of the structure. It is not the same as that facet of the mind that is way up there that abuts the morontia realms. The deep mind is that which is so integral to you and your footing, your fundamental Reality, that you don't even have to think about it. It is an instinctual, almost, part of you, although not instinctual in the material sense but instinctual in the mindal sense.

Now, I fear that I am confusing you, but my intention is to edify, enlighten, and expand. You know we have spent a lot of time understanding the human being. We have discussed emotions and feelings and behaviors, behavior modification, we have used psycho-babble, we have discussed moods, and these are all part of the human being.

This evening I am broaching the realm of the mind in all of its many variations. The Mother, the Infinite Spirit, has bestowed the marvelous mechanism of the mind. It is not a simple thing, this mind. It is extremely expansive and extensive, imaginative and cognitive, but the deep mind is that mind of yours which is so accustomed to what is REAL, you don't even have to think about it. Your response is mentally instinctual.

I bring it up because there is a section in your text book, in the section about the Reserve Corp of Destiny, that discusses that some of you mortals are trained in the deep mind to act in emergency situations, and many of you have wondered about that, how it is that you are trained in the deep mind.

It is not quite the same as your going for your degree in a college or university of your choice on Urantia, but it is certainly having advanced studies in the Melchizedek Universities, for it involves cosmic reality, cosmic wisdom, and this is not necessarily of an intellectual nature. This is one of the wonderful things about divine Mind. This particular kind of mind is not limited to academia and intelligencia. It is not just the left brain, you see. It is inclusive of cosmic problem-solving and imagination.

The mind is wonderful. The more you know about the mind, the better you can think and the better you can think, the wiser you can be become and the more happy lives you can lead. We do not have to stay on the subject of mind, but mind is obviously and certainly an extensive range of study. Are your minds agile this evening? Or are you passive? Are you sponges? Or are you stimulated?

Hunnah: I was thinking while you were talking about mind. If you were in an elevator going down to a rich deep vein, there would be this great wealth of appropriate information and the flow of rhythm that would permit you to be appropriate in the human aspect. Being there and returning does not necessarily give you words; it gives you quiet poise. And that was a reflection of what you found.

There was always the example of reaching up to God and going to a higher state of consciousness, but in this, consciousness is a feeling of being in depth and having access to your (as I used to call it) your divine inheritance, the accessibility of your living inheritance which provides a connectivity. It isn't any word, it's just dove-tails to the degree of your development. There is comfort in this connection that it is right and good, and that's how I think of the deep mind in God, being this settling in and being very peaceful in where I belong.

Hunnah: I feel sometimes that people are on a wheel of repeating the same pattern again and again and again and we get hungry for something dramatic and powerful and to know that it came from a place of appropriate direction.

TOMAS: When you have contributed to your own wisdom, to your own experiential application with your hand in the hand of the Master, that which you have learned is now integral to you, and although many of the experiences may not be cognizantly understood, you know that you know, and you cannot be shaken in your knowledge of this truth, and this is the truth of what you shared in this elevator that has gone down deep into who you are. You are this entity as a result of your experiencing and being sure. Yes.

Hunnah: I had an experience. Obedience without taking thought. I had a phone call from someone regarding reflexology and I heard myself saying, "Yes, I'm very interested in that," and I got dressed and within an hour I was well on my way, and when I got there, something about her looked very familiar to me. I said to her, "Tell me about yourself. You resemble someone I knew", and she told me about herself and some of the things that she said did not disturb me so much, but it was like the cue that I was there to assist her in a self-realized release. She did my feet and I gave her some Reiki, but she was in that place of duality that was hindering her, and the simplicity of our visit seemed to release her from it, and I thought, "That's the way it is for us!" All of a sudden and it works. I just said I would. The same for anyone sitting in this room, and bang, you're on your feet and "This is whom the Lord has sent."

Hunnah: I like that. See you always have the perfect definition. I guess it was. And I went away knowing that I had done the right thing, and it wasn't to fix anything, but it was -- I guess you could say -- holy communion to strengthen.

TOMAS: You, after all, are a child of God, spirit-led, and as he has desired to manifest the fruits of the divine spirit in your life, you will hear the call and go to serve. You have been of service. These incidents go back to the initial remarks of the evening, that whereas they were not a chore, a burden, they were, it was, an act that you did willingly, joyfully, in service.

Hunnah: In confidence. There is something more I was going to add about her. She apparently had been affected by a charismatic experience. She said she spent 30 minutes in the presence of the Master and (she used her own terminology) and had decided to join the Catholic church because of this experience, and it was an opportunity for me to be given words that were appropriate to her, and that went well.

Hunnah: It's so common that we meet people who are already open in Christ and they're the ones that receive the most effectively.

TOMAS: It is true that they receive most effectively, but they are not your real work. Those are your comrades.

TOMAS: Those are your peers, and from them you get encouragement and the yoke is easy. Your true work goes on in the trenches, in those souls who are belabored and in turmoil, those sinners who are in darkness, in agony of conflict, in anger and in despair without hope, without faith, those who have not been born of the spirit, those who disbelieve that God is with them, those who disremember the Master's admonition to "seek and ye shall find". That is the work in the fields. Those are our subjects.

TOMAS: You cannot correct people but the Father can. Are you not an agent, an ambassador of the Father? Are you not able to allow Him to speak through you? It is true that you can do nothing, but that the Father can do all.

Rachel: It's difficult when they turn such a blind eye towards God and people just want to blame all their problems on God or someone.

Hunnah: I don't have trouble with this because -- just like you're saying -- this is like casting your pearls before swine.

TOMAS: You are not in a position to judge, however. If you have planted a seed, if you have been of good cheer, and you meet with a violent resistance, obviously you are clear then to pass on, to pass by, and to greet your next neighbor, and to plant your next seed. The seed that you have planted may or may not come to fruit.

It is also true that you may be able to assist those who want to grow but are themselves resistant. Remember the Centurion who said, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." There are all manner of ways in which to serve the unbeliever. Not all unbelievers are closed to the truth. Many times you can whet their appetite. You can entice them with tidbits of truth, beauty and goodness from the Father and I say 'you' but you realize you are an extension of him in your work in the field. You do not go there alone.

Rachel: When you say, "trained in the deep mind" were you implying that we have been trained here in the deep mind?

TOMAS: You are being trained in your deep mind. It is necessary for you to be trained in your deep mind so that when the occasion calls for it, you can respond without thought. That within you which is trained, is committed to those values, would speak to the truth, and so when you are in a situation, an emergency if you will, that requires unstinted courage, you will instinctually respond in truth, not in defense of your life, not in defense of mores, not in justification for behaviors, but in truth.

TOMAS: By and large it is an unconscious training but it requires your conscious co-operation. You must be willing to be deepened in the truth. You must be willing to extend your experiences deep into your soul and make your experiences meaningful. If you insist upon maintaining a superficial value level in your life, in your reality, you will not be deepened. You will not be developed in your deep mind and you will not be able to serve in moments of crisis effectively.

Rachel: I was thinking of something the other day that you had once said. I had asked a question one time and you said I had a literal mind, so I was pondering on that. That means, I suppose, that every little word, every little sentence, every little perfect connotation has to make every little perfect sense, and then I wonder what other kinds of minds there are? How do other people think?

Hunnah: We like to trust and act and know that our source of supply is the appropriate response of that supply.

Hunnah: We really like it and we don't want to come out and act it out. We want to stop at that stage. I like thinking about it, but please don't make me live it under these circumstances.

Hunnah: You have your peaceful tolerance of being in that situation if you really choose. Even people you know darned well don't want to be on your line and not being offended by it. We all like to be comfortable.

Erata: I couldn't find it. It was in the life of Jesus but it was too long. Well, what I can do is . .. You were talking about the judgmental part, which is what I do so well, but I couldn't find it. I guess it's just acceptance. I think that if you accept someone as they are, without any overtones of allowing them to feel any less of a person by how you feel about them, that's the beginning of showing them the way. And then by your behavior and your acceptance, that's how I feel Jesus was able to lead multitudes, how he accepted them no matter who they were and how they longed to be with him, even though they . ..

TOMAS: I will respond to your commentary by contributing some aspect of the growth of your deep mind in this comprehension. As you read the words, they are more than words to you. You reflect upon how they reacted/responded to him, to his voice, to his message. You have pondered it in your heart. It is not a new matter of intellectual knowledge, but you have taken it into yourself as food. You have savored this food. You have fed your deep mind, that mind within you which would know how the Master handled it, who the Master was.

What was his religious life and how did he live it? You have looked at the Master living his faith, expressing his relationship with Our Father. You have cognizantly, intuitively and appreciably observed and considered how he did it and compared how you could do it by being his child and a devotee of his divine way.

He is the Vine, we are the branches. As we have sought from him the divine way, as we know now how he would do it, how he would have us do it, we are taught in our deep mind. You have now relished the truth of the reality of deep mind.

Hunnah: I'm under the impression that he spent a great deal of time in there and he did not spend a lot of time with people of unreceptive demeanor, that he was with his disciples, he was with those who would not drain him, but he spent a lot of time in communion with the higher relationship and those who came to assist.

Think of your own experience. If you wanted to maintain a level of consciousness, or a higher level of consciousness, would you go out into this very confusing state and hang out there? Would he hang out indiscriminately or would he be selective? I think he would be selective, and I know that when I want to maintain my peace, and I don't want to leak all over the place, then I opt for that, I'll spare myself of a situation that I know will be taxing.

TOMAS: The Master went into the mountains to restore himself when he became weary, and of course he had different episodes wherein he ministered in different ways. There were the years of his personal ministry and the grueling years of his public ministry which increased in difficulty as his time continued. There was indeed a period of time wherein he was surrounded by the multitudes and only in stealing away to visit with the Father was he able to have any peace; even then there were seasons when they (he and his apostles) could not get away for rest and relaxation.

In these crowds always were there hecklers as well as followers, disbelievers as well as believers. Always were there spies intermingled with the group trying to catch him up and so he had to deal with these vexations of the spirit. Always did he change these occasions into a teaching ministry. Always were they the occasion to pull upon his font of truth in his deep mind, in his faith, in order that he could portray a parable or a story or an example that would bring the light of truth to the moment, to the emergency situation at hand. Always was he teaching and preaching.

It was not, unfortunately, a simple matter of hanging out with his friends. He came to teach rich and poor, Jew and gentile, men and women, healthy and lame, and he put himself in a position of going among these people and he taught his followers to do the same.

There were times when he grew so weary, he had to try to steal a nap on the bottom of the boat and even then sometimes they would not let him rest. By the time he got to Jerusalem, and ultimately to Golgotha, he was exhausted. He worked hard. He did not hang out with his friends and talk to God primarily, for he had significant work to accomplish while he was here and he did just that.

Friends can be very reassuring, however, and very gratifying, very comforting, and the Father is, of course, the greatest source of strength, but Jesus was a worker.

TOMAS: There is no greater joy, you see, than to find your sheep who has been lost. He is the good shepherd. He is teaching us to love his sheep. "Feed my sheep," he said, and so we must know where the sheep are, and when the sheep are away from the flock, it is our job to go find that sheep and bring him home.

Inherent capacities cannot be exceeded. A pint can never hold a quart, and until such time as your pint has expanded itself, it cannot do the service, but it can serve in the capacity it is able, and if you are doing 100% with what you have to work with, you are surely teaching and preaching in accordance with His will. There are those who are more comfortable in other realms, in the dirtier fields, but there are no less need here or there. Rich or poor, Jew or gentile. That which is lost from the Father is that which we seek to find, and in our way we shall, for we are instruments of His peace, of His love, of His light. He will use us in whatever way we allow Him to, if we are open to His bidding. Fear not. Fear not.

Hunnah: I would like to ask a special blessing for Iyana tonight. She has been very peaceful and has expressed her gratitude for her care, which she has received. I was thinking of the scripture where the two apostles were out and, I cannot quote it but someone asked them for healing, I guess, and they said, they replied, we will give you that which we have. "That which we have" I interpreted as their personal commitment and their personal interpretation of this living relationship with Christ, and some people expect you to have a shower of words or they expect you to touch them, when it seemed to me if you were in the right mode, the very presence of one who was a believer, an apostle, for example, that their very presence should be a sufficiency because their Christ-consciousness within that individual would draw upon that. Would you care to comment on that?

TOMAS: I will comment on the word expectancy. If they expect to find comfort, they will be comforted. If they expect strength, they will find strength. If they are expecting something that is unreasonable, however, it may not be forthcoming. Remember the Jews expected the Messiah to come in glory and remove them from the yoke of Roman rule and this was not forthcoming, therefore their nation denied our Lord and ceased to have importance in destiny thereafter. It depends upon what you are looking for when you speak of expectation.

Now as to Iyana, it is very easy to have words of greeting for our daughter, our lovely child of God. It is good, Iyana, to embrace you and to remember you in the spirit in this way. You are a delight. You are a true study in humanity and earnestness to be of good cheer, to give as you pass by. What a delightful child you are and how we enjoy your gift. How your daughters also cherish you and see unto themselves the jewel that you represent yourself to be to them, a reflection of their own beauty, indeed. We miss you, child, in our configuration but embrace you in the spirit. Amen.

Rachel: I just had a thought I wanted to share, getting back to expectations. In the times of Jesus they were expecting a Messiah, a wonder of wonders, a miracle maker, and now we're coming up on the year 2,000. People are once again expecting Jesus to come down from the heavens and wrought miracles upon the earth, so I expect their expectations will be dashed.

TOMAS: All the more reason, then, for you to spread the glory of God in and through yourself and so when they ask you can say, "I have come. I and my Father are one." I will leave you this evening with that thought and many, many embraces. Merium and I

Rachel: I just wanted -- Are people more apt, in your eyes, to say, in the times to come they are more apt to believe a person, a human, can have a personal relationship with the Father and with the Christ in their times of crisis?

MERIUM: I am Merium and I am going to talk for awhile through this channel. I have been given the perfect opportunity because Tomas' words are so big I myself don't even know what he is trying to say. "Exponentially" and what? I dare say, Tomas, you do lay it on thick. Now, let's get back to, what were we saying? You wanted to know if the millennium is going to be an indication of what people will say. What? Tell me again.

Rachel: That they will believe that . .. I suppose people look towards the Bible or some other religion and they can't really believe that a human being can have a personal relationship with the Father, that the Father is here in us. They find that very hard to believe. How can you speak for the Father, how can you speak for God, how can you speak for Jesus? How dare you?

MERIUM: Indeed. However, let me remind you that there is another faction of humanity in existence and it is that which is alive and well in the spirit. I remind you, for example, of the millions of people who are in recovery of one sort or another who are looking for a personal God, one with which they can do business. There is a huge hunger afoot in and through your world, not counting your religions, that seek a God of reality, one which is in the spirit and not in religion, and this is a reality that is growing exponentially and enthusiastically! So even though those who have stuck to a traditional religion will think you to be a blasphemer, you needn't stumble on their fear but stand aloud and say what you have to say based on your own reality. It is, in a manner, tilting the scale and reality will win out. Remember that love is more contagious than hate and truth is more powerful than fear.

As more and more of you incorporate God in your life in a living way, you will tilt the scale and those who choose to stay within the security of Christianity will have no choice but to bring the living Jesus into the churches with them, and perhaps then you will begin to see a true flowering of Christianity, perhaps then you will see the living God come down off the cross and walk and talk with his people.

This is one of our goals, to break from the traditional understanding of a God who lives far away and a Jesus who is risen, to a God who is near at hand and a Jesus who walks with you as your brother. Bringing religion into your daily life is what will make or break the world. Real spirituality is a personal religious experience, and that is how you will forward the movement here on Urantia. So yes, stand up there, astound them all by your faith, by saying that you and God have done it together. You've done it before, you'll do it again. You are friends. You are pals. You work together. You are co-creators of tomorrow.

Rachel: Boy, I'd love to do that but people would look at me as if I were a fanatic, though.

MERIUM: Just keep smiling. Keep paying your taxes and you'll be fine. Tomas, thank you for the opportunity to speak a bit. I know how we are when we get on a roll; you and I are both cut from the same cloth. Thank you class, thank you Hunnah. Good night.

TOMAS: And I, Tomas, will join my coworker off-line in order that we may observe your interplay and your enjoyment of each other throughout the course of the rest of the evening. Go in peace. See you soon. Farewell.

MIDWAYER: I am a visitor. I am not able to convey my name at the moment but you may be assured that I have a feminine presence and I have been here all day. I have been here much longer than "all day" but I have been here in abeyance, in anticipation of a moment with you and now this moment has come and I am rejoicing in the moment, having had a good baptism in your laughter. It is a great joy for me to have this time with you and I am thankful to Teacher Tomas and Teacher Merium for the occasion. I would like to share with you this evening, my cousins, in the realm of intuition.

In-as-much as we are girls here and it is a phrase in your language, in your culture -- perhaps even from your tribal understandings -- that there is this thing called "women's intuition," I am going to ask you what you think this is. Do any of you have a response off the top of your head? (Nothing) Then let us think about it for a moment. Ponder what intuition means to you.

Give me an example, Leah, of what you think intuition is, how you would recognize it in you.

Leah: Well, the first thing that came to my mind was that, when you have the feeling that the phone is going to ring or something, you think of somebody and they call you, that's what came to my mind, but I think women's intuition is more some sort of . .. I'm trying to think of another word than "intuitive" -- a knowing or understanding of other peoples' needs. Anticipation. It's almost like an anticipation and then a readiness, a willingness to nurture that. And as we were talking earlier, we don't always nurture that appropriately, but it's just kind of being aware.

MIDWAYER: Very good. I like your response. I think, too, that it could incorporate male, and not just female, given that understanding, that definition.

Hunnah: I think of this as a feminine alertness, almost like an animal's sense of protection and safety. It's like an extension of an animal, an alert knowing of protection, so that in our case it would be emotional. You want your charge or your responsibility to be safe and so it's as if your antennae were out to pick up things.

Hunnah: No. The male that I'm thinking of, animal-wise, I was thinking of my male cat who is a slug, who lays around and lets the little female do all the hunting.

Liana: I think it's a sensual feeling. I think sensual feelings are -- is a full range. It's not... Some people think sensual is sexual.

Liana: I mean, it is not something that -- I get the feeling, I become aware of feelings and then I make up stories to go with my feelings.

Erata: To me, it's a knowing something without -- just having something come to me without having to think about it. Knowing you need to do something and you don't know why. You need to do something, usually to help someone, or . .. it's like, to me, that you already know what's going to happen, but you don't really know what it is. I don't know. But you go with it.

MIDWAYER: I would like to assuage our transmitter here and academically look up the reference of the seven adjutant mind spirits. Look, if you would, at the first one and come right back to me. Thank you.

[U.B. Pg. 402, Paper: THE LIFE CARRIERS. #1. The spirit of intuition -- quick perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts, the directional and other self-preservative endowments of all mind creations; the only one of the adjutants to function so largely in the lower orders of animal life and the only one to make extensive functional contact with the nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.]

MIDWAYER: The reason I have asked you to spend a moment looking at this first adjutant mind spirit is because it gives you yet another opportunity to begin to study yourself as a creation and find out what it is that makes you tick. It is quite the vogue these days on Urantia, in the more advanced societies, such as your New Age culture, to evidence a degree of reality in and through these many focuses of chakra realities, adjutant mind spirits, colors, and various and sundry other avenues of study, even including the seven deadly sins and so forth, since seven is such a highly workable number.

What I would like to do is play, and I would like to play with you in the context of contributing to your culture yet another realm of appreciation for you as an entity in the world and even of it, but en route to a higher being than that which meets the eye.

The tapes of Ms. (Carolyn) Myss have given a marvelous introduction to tribal behavior. Not that you were unaware of tribal behavior before, but it is in the context of your social mores and many modern behaviors that she couches her philosophy, and she has a lot to offer. I would like for you to think in terms of the first adjutant mind spirit, this one of intuition, as representing, perhaps, the lowest of chakras. You can tie that in also with any number of seven thises or seven thats.

Let's discuss, for example, how you can pull in the spirit of intuition, that which you share with all intelligent life, even the animal realm, and think of it in terms of tribal behavior -- your instinctual and intuitive response to life. Is it not uncanny how the parallel exists between what Ms. Myss provides and what the first adjutant mind spirit provides, for these are on a level of functioning that is so rote, so inherent, it hardly bears discussing or reaction, except that it affects your whole approach to life!

If you are, for example, afraid of loud noises, you will always react to a loud noise. This is one of those non-teachable things. If you have been taught to fear people who don't look like you, there will be a part of you that will always fear someone who looks different, even though you grow up to realize otherwise. We recently had lessons on the deep mind, and here you can begin to affect your own deep mind, even down to your intuitive levels, not that you can tear up the root, tear up the core of your animal legacy, but you can find the tap root of many of these instinctual and intuitive responses and train yourself in order that you can act appropriately to the moment.

Your comments, Leah, about anticipation of someone else's needs indeed brings me to the purpose of this exercise, and that is to begin to see the spiritual brotherhood as your new tribe.

Instinctually and intuitively, then, you can train yourself to be sensitive to your spirit self-preservation, and you can begin to promote in your peers that higher reality, that very Core reality, that gives them Real Life -- life in the cosmic sense. That, of course, includes your beingness, but it goes well beyond that.

It's really inroads into operating in Light and Life for your world, for your society, for it begins now in your tribal group very much like you did this evening in coaching one another in intuitively flocking to your sister who was wounded and helping her to heal, to nurture her in embraces of understanding, in confiding trust and merciful ministry. Your understanding of tribal behavior has been elevated from that which was initially taught you, to this new tribal behavior of the family of man/ the Family of God.

I think it's a worthy exercise. As you, as mothers, as sisters, as siblings, know how your brothers and sisters behave and you can act accordingly, you can do this same thing in a spiritual sense. Be sensitive to the Reality of your brother and sister, their personality nuances. Not in the original tribal sense, no, but in the Family of God tribal sense, this new family, this new tribe of believers, of faithers, that are forging into a new civilization of Life and Light.

I had no idea I was going to talk so much! I am going to withdraw. I am going to withdraw only so that you can touch base with your primary teachers here, Tomas and Merium, for I know that they will want to greet you in their way and perhaps embellish our understanding of this new tribal behavior. Incidentally, I will suggest to those of you who will be attending spiritual retreats this summer, you will have an opportunity to see your tribe in action, and when you observe and behold your spiritual tribe, rejoice in the new methodologies that are being taught and learned on a very, very fundamental, even primal reality-base level. It is very exciting to watch this new world unfold.

I am your cousin and your friend and I'll be back in due course. I will work on allowing my name to come forth. Have a nice evening.

TOMAS: Good evening. This is Tomas. How wonderful to have you all here in this circle of friends, this family gathering. Leah, how we have longed for your return. Your embrace is most sweet this evening. Your siblings are delighted to know you again and all of you, it is good to have you here laughing and crying in true sisterly fashion. It is my wish to also convey my deep and abiding affection to Damien who is in the wings in anticipation of our truths and our spiritual forging which is on-going. My greetings and embraces to you all.

MERIUM: I am very pleased to be here. I didn't think that the mike was going to be available for me this evening. Greetings to you all, and it is indeed good to have this little cluster back together again. I am looking forward to our exchange. Tomas, what's on the menu?

TOMAS: I have no further entrees. I think the stimuli of the midwayer and the camaraderie of you this evening is really adequate to the purpose. I am intrigued by the midwayer's exercise. I am eager to see how this unfolds. It is not part of my curriculum, you see. It is not particularly part of the Melchizedek curriculum that I follow, but I am in complete compliance of the efforts of the midwayers who have been here far longer than I have, and so I am as intrigued with their exercise as ever I would have been on my native sphere to discover how the locals wanted to do a job or handle a celebration or a festival, so let's party!

I see no harm in observing how it is that your intuition works and how your intuition can reach out and intuit an attitude, a sense, a feeling in your comrades. Indeed, I will go one further, for I have heard a remark or two of late, in the context of your feeling a sense of loneliness or a sense of internal isolation. It has been described as sensitivity.

I am reminded, in your text, of the Master, and he had no peers. He attained a level of awareness of his divine nature that he was unable to be on equal footing with any human being. He was then alone, except for his communion with the Father and occasional discourse with his celestial helpers, Gabriel, or others, but you here are in a position to comfort one another in ways, through the Father, that is appropriate for you as siblings in this Kingdom, in the spirit and in the sensitivity that is inherent in your becoming more conscious of your spirit-mindedness and less enthralled with the material lures.

I find indeed, in reflection, our midwayer friend's exercise most meritorious. Are there questions from any of you this evening?

Leah: I'm glad that you spoke about this because sometimes -- I don't even know how to say this, but -- our material . .. Certain material things just don't do it anymore. Like, I'm thinking about getting a new car and it seems more like a chore than a real joyful experience. I don't know.

TOMAS: I will borrow from another midwayer who is here attending and suggesting the phrase: "sex, drugs and rock-n-roll". That was not my vernacular, but it was a midwayer who seems to feel that this speaks to the human condition in terms of identification with the material realm. Obviously it was not your generation.

Leah: Well, it was, but in relation to what was just said . .. I'm going to be getting this divorce so, of course, the sexual aspects of my marriage are gone and part of me is like, "Oh, well, who wants to deal with that anymore," and I just wonder . .. Am I no longer normal or something? But then I talk about intuition, I say Maybe, just Maybe I don't value that stuff so much any more.

TOMAS: You are growing up, and finding that intimacy has a new meaning for you. It is not to say that intimacy in relationships of the sort you are leaving is not still possible; do not give up your "romantic aspects". Indeed the spirit is that which can bring even more to a love relationship, but your values are changing. Your needs are changing. Your expectations are different and your understanding of reality is significantly different than it was a few years ago.

Yes, you are changing. It is appropriate, and as you change and as others change, there needs to be new answers to these situations which have never existed before. As you forerunners in the spiritual realm push your way into Light and Life, you will find more worth in your friendships, and yet it is not the same sort of camaraderie that you have known before, as in your bowling league or your bridge club. Again, not to say that those configurations are not idyllic on occasion.

I am speaking, however, of your greater need for honoring Our Father, not only verbally but actually. And this involves a sense, a feeling, an intuition of awareness, a concern, a sensitivity to you, your fellows, your environment, your Father, your Father/ Brother, your celestial helpers, that is indeed a true and viable creation, a living environment, an organism of divinity, and you are coming into an opportunity to need it and to help develop it, for yourself and for your brothers and sisters. This is something that emerges as you are emerging. (Tape turned)

MERIUM: I am here, then, and I am going to use this as an example of how it is that your sensitivity to our presence has enlarged your arena, your environment. It is so good to be with you and to enjoy your company. It is so encouraging for us to be able to sit and talk with you as if you were just like us, which, in fact, you are except that you still have your mortal body and we are in our morontia condition.

In time, in very short time, actually, it will be such that you will not be constrained by your material environment and you will be with us for sure, surely, and we will sit around and talk in these ways as if your forms were not a consideration. And this is indeed what we are trying to attain here, that we develop a new mode of seeing each other and enduring -- no. Embracing each other. I suppose "enduring" also, but this is not necessarily bad news, and endurance is also how far you can go, an accomplishment, a good work out.

Anyway, I am glad to be able to work with this midwayer who's been loitering in the neighborhood. I like the midwayers. They have been very helpful to us in showing us around Urantia. Your midwayer female friend has given you something to do in terms of your humanness and an occasion to have fun. Any time you can have fun as human beings and apply it to your spiritual appreciation, you have got something going! And so I am glad for that which they interjected.

I'm looking forward to next Tuesday to see if they tie in the spirit of courage with the second chakra, but that's not my lesson. I'm only here to follow up with Big Mac's curriculum and any spiritual goodies that we can chew on or pass around between us that will help to develop this great family of believers and so of course we give the job of working on your belief system to Tomas.

Well, I just wanted to be here with you. I wanted to let you know how much I enjoy being here and how much I wish you would all bring me into your circuitry so that I can go next over to Liana and talk through her for awhile, and to Erata and Leah and so forth. You well know that there are no claims on ownership here as far as the teachers are concerned. It is indeed a great opportunity to experience this Family of God.

I can't wait until more of you T/R so that you can experience each others' personal teachers! It is such a fellowship! Such a sharing! Such a community of peers and helpers! It is only that we are trying to encourage you now here to engage in this spiritual repartee such as we engage in. Just because you're dragging around your flesh doesn't mean that you can't enjoy each other in the spirit as fully and wholly and joyously as we do in our evenings together. Thank you.

TOMAS: I am Tomas. I am going to speak to your insecurity, Hunnah. It is a truth that we are all His children and what he would have us do is what will bring us the greatest delight in the long run. Most assuredly our entire educational system is available to you to nurture and foster and deliver. It is not so much that Merium is on the block looking for a new home as it could be that we are looking to you or for you to transmit the words of other individuals that have come here to experience this incredible process of bridging the gap between the human and the divine.

What an array! I will tell you that Olfana has been here this evening also. She is the one, you know, who has the great gestures. I am going to let her come in and say hello, assuming we can get Gerdean to limber up somewhat. It is that Olfana really enjoys a full range of expression. One moment, please.

Gerdean: God! If I would've known that Olfana was coming, I would have dressed nicer! [Group laughter]

OLFANA: Great! Great! How good to see you. How wonderful, my daughters, how enjoyable it is to be here and to sweep you into my presence. How lovely you are. I am grabbing you, you see, and pulling you closer to me, as if you were puppets on a string. I will pull you in. I will pull you in. Now we can embrace. I feel you closer to me. I feel you more intimately, more intimately now, yes. Do you feel the dancing? I can feel it! I think we are going to be fine, now. Fine. Alright.

How wonderful of Michael to create this . . . organism. What a dreadful word. Organism. [Group laughter] It is so mortal, you know. The organism. It is indeed an orb, it is an egg, it is . .. it is . .. it is so much more than your words, is it not? Is it not? So. Well, I know that Gerdean is extremely self-conscious with my pirouetting around, you see, but this is part of my expression. I am always encouraging you to feel the fluidity of the spirit. You get into your little . .. what's the word? You sit down. You sit up straight. You do all these things to make you feel more rigid, as if that were going to impress the Father. Ha! Oh, well. Never mind.

It is so good to be here. Do have me back. Thank you, Gerdean. You are most gracious. My daughters, I love you. The Father loves you. Good night.

TOMAS: Well, I am Tomas. Unfortunately I am sitting up straight in my chair. [Group laughter]

TOMAS: It is not clothing; it is an attitude. It is a presentation of self. It is how I am clothed, but not with clothing.

TOMAS: [Pause; sigh] I am blue. (Ooohs and Ahhhs) It has been said that I am blue with white spots, those white spots being light. I am pleased with the descriptive adjective but really, truly, I am energy, personality, and in terms of color, I am a full range, as are we all. Our full range of color is not the same as your full range of color. We are all the colors all at once. Not in a material sense, you see, but in an aura type sense. And that word, even, falls short.

You must appreciate how we have had to be creative in order to get some ideas across. We have, I will use the word "prostituted" truth greatly in order to aspire to bring you into greater understandings of many, many things, in particular those things that are related to your personal lives, the growing process, the re-conditioning, if you will. The Father is so wonderful and your backgrounds have been so . .. dense.

It is a true challenge for us to create these scenarios, these concepts, these perceptions that will allow you to see in greater breadth with greater appreciation. The idea, for example, of saying that I am blue. I know how you are, literal-minded, ones. You see a being who has a blue hue, and this is a perception peculiarly mortal, for I am not quite that way. Even so, we have talked enough about my wardrobe.

I am glad to have been able to allow our lovely co-teacher the opportunity to introduce herself to you. I will suggest to you all that you can learn to transmit her also. Olfana. She is eager to visit and she can sit still if she must, but her expression is much more effusive when she is given reign. How lovely she comports herself and if you can accept the grace that she brings, you too will be touched by her presence.

I and Merium, the United Midwayers who are in attendance, a cotillion of angels and student visitors, several Morontia Companions, reflectors of various and sundry spirit realities and our Master himself have enjoyed our evening with you. It is good of you to have us in your home, your heart and your hearth. Merium and I embrace you in good faith and will see you soon. Good night.

Gerdean: Well, that midwayer didn't tell me who she was, either. She just started emerging.

Gerdean: Well, that is too literal. How are you? Are you a daughter or a son?

VISITOR: I am a presence who seems to be caught with a voiceless individual.

Gerdean: Oh, she'll get over that. You can forge ahead. Are you here in response to our earlier discussions about intuition?

Leah: The mike has a great big smile on her face, so she must be enjoying it.

VISITOR: The only problem seems to be that my hostess does not trust that I have anything significant to say.

VISITOR: It is very pleasant to see you all so relaxed and enjoying each other. I am also here to introduce you to the fact that powerful silence is a manna in itself. It is all right to sit with a trunk line that is lit up, but it is true that we like show and tell. We feel compassion for your dilemmas, and that's all they are is a temporary confusion, because you are constantly being challenged by other people's perceptions. That is why it is so very important for you to know whom you shall serve.

Are you going to play amateur psychiatrist? Or are you going to let yourself be an embracing presence? A presence that is electrifying, that will take care of things regardless of what is going on. It is part of the cloak that you wear, this powerful conversion of your unstable emotions. They are very troublesome.

VISITOR: When I say conversion, I'm indicating anything that you are involved in that can be uplifted and re-translated, so that the transference of the higher frequency can penetrate whatever you are doing.

VISITOR: Yes. We are dealing with One Power, not many illusions that drain your focus. If you stay with One Power, it will keep you stable. One Authority. All those trembling reactions that you deal with every day are draining. That's why it is of paramount importance that you continuously acknowledge your divinity.

VISITOR: Commitment is something that you can develop, like a muscle, until you are nothing but commitment. We are developing a greater body of awareness, an awareness that commitment is not something that you talk about, it is something that happens to you and becomes you. You discover that you are it. You are commitment. You are perseverance. You are trustworthy. You are devoted. I am describing the cells of your body.

You will no longer be shaken by these shades of gray that are in the minds of those in the periphery of your life. You will do better at defining the appearance and you will treat it gently, regardless of the chronic condition that it appears to be in.

Leah: We were told that we were going to be addressing reverence and devotion, and I have an intuitive sense that you are addressing commitment with these attitudes.

VISITOR: I am addressing your countenance. The robe you wear. Your raiment. Erata: Who we are?

VISITOR: Indeed. And when your ears hear the familiar sound of the lesser challenge, the awareness -- or we might use the word intuitiveness -- will be more consistent, your awareness of this new configuration that is being offered. Let us be done with the miniscule and mischief. There is work to be done. Not on the outside, but on the inside. On the interior of your being. We want you to become familiar with it. With the greatness. Olfana stood before you in the form of Gerdean, but her lovely movement, her liberation of spirit, allowed this body to be spontaneous. Pleasingly so.

I want you to allow yourself to be this wonderful example. There will be no foolishness or imitation. There will be a resilience and flexibility in your embodiment that will be very pleasing. You must remember where you are going to focus your attention. This continuous birthing of this development of your interior design, the design that will cuddle you with reassurance, with strength, that will bolster your courage.

It is said, "What have you in your house?" I am acquainting you, through this conversation, with your house, your dwelling place, this embodiment of the greatness of a god. This spilling over of its abundance of provision will show forth in your daily exchange. Worry will be a memory.

Leah: You bring a very reassuring message. Can you tell us what you are called?

VISITOR: I am a voice through a human being, but what I am is a reality of the truth of your Being.

VISITOR: You are capable of being taught in many ways. If you were out in the field, this entire discourse could permeate your being.

Gerdean: You sound to me like a ministering spirit of the superuniverse, one of those Spirit of Something -- not an adjutant mind spirit, but -- those that we have been studying in Pittsburgh.

VISITOR: It please me to be able to light down in this group. It is far more appreciated than you can ever imagine. You see, we have a pact, as you might call it, an understanding. The understanding that you have allowed to take place in your heart of hearts is far greater than you can possibly comprehend on the so-called outside of your experience.

You are far more real where I am. This is as serious as it appears to be. I am not accustomed to speaking through the fibers that are available. I am simply here to once again remind you that this is no light, casual affair, that you do make a difference and that there is more to you than what appears to be. It is only right that you should enjoy your experience here, but in the invisible realm, there is an agreement. I would like to be more eloquent.

It's as if you were a scroll and you have only just been opened a very small amount, but it does not take hands to open this scroll that it might be made known. It takes connection and devotion to allow it to do and be what it is.

Gerdean: I have been getting flashes in my early morning nether meditations about the effectiveness of prayer almost as if, in a parallel universe, a material universe, it's like -- altering the molecules, sort of. We're told that prayer is the most effective thing we can do, and I'm beginning to think that it may actually change the molecular structure of the cosmos somehow. Can you give me any pictures about that or any input about that? I had some wonderment.

VISITOR: Are you saying: "Do I make a difference?" (Not I, the voice that speaks, but I, the voice that speaks to me.)

Gerdean: I know that our prayers make a difference. We are told in our text that praying is the most effective thing that we can do, but in my meditations I had a feeling, a visualization if you will, that the prayer actually changes the composition somehow of the environment, that it is an electro-chemical or the molecular structure or something is actually altered as a result of the energy inherent in a prayer, in a conversation with God, and I was wondering, from your vantage point, if you have any offering.

VISITOR: Prayer is responsiveness. It is most certainly an example of altering the appearance. You are saying that this prayer is evidence of a change of vibration. It is a vibratory expression, whether it's thought or spoken, and it influences the environment, and it is cumulative. It finds its own and knits anew the tapestry of a more refined environment.

There are prayers and there are prayers. There are prayers of worry, lamenting, and they serve their purpose, but the prayers that make the difference are the prayers of acknowledgement of the truth of your being, and knowing that there is a truth of being in those with whom you exchange in your daily lives.

Liana: Recently I started being grateful to the Telleric kingdom and this just came from . .. I say that I am grateful for the gathering of love for the purpose of my being, and it feels like that's what happens, that molecularly that's what happens when you pray; there is a gathering. And then I got this "Sounds True" -- they have a thing in there that says, "There are no atoms in the universe; there are only stories," and I took my marker and noted: "Atoms are the storytellers!" because they seem to gather the matter to make your prayers come true. I mean, that's the kind of a thing that I've been getting in my prayer life, which aligns with what you were talking about.

Gerdean: I didn't think of anything in specific, but just that the quality of prayer seems to help the universe reality of it somehow, so I appreciate what our Visitor here was saying.

VISITOR: I would like to add something. From our vantage point, we are thrilled with what happens to you when you pray a righteous prayer. Let us say that the prayer is simply the facility to bring you to the greatness that you seek to become, that you are meant to be. You create and strengthen your new design when you express righteous prayer. It is indeed a form of manna and it will sustain you. Yes, dear.

VISITOR: Yes. It's a resonation with your knowingness. At one time this young woman used a metaphor of a spider. This amuses her because she never liked spiders, but she felt that the spider was resourceful. Other creatures are resourceful, but this one could spin something that could be seen, and in a sense your prayers are a form of spinning your new garment.

VISITOR: Indeed. Indeed. This has been a rather heavy going. I am not accustomed to doing this, but it pleases me that you have made it so comfortable for both the transmitter and myself.

VISITOR: I would like it very much if you would allow yourselves to utilize the privilege of going to Michael more often. This gift that is, in a sense, your lucky stone, your shining ring of courage, the jewel, the stone, the polished stone that you covet. It is your password to the privilege of intimate counsel.

This was one of the greatest gifts, was for you to have your very own psychiatrist. It is true, and this garment, this new configuration is a more stunning awareness that you are to go there and wait upon the Lord. Fortunately for you, there is no waiting room. You are the only one there waiting for counsel, and if you are devoted to this habit, it will seem as if you will not have to wait very long. I think that I have spoken enough.

Leah: How do we call you? Do we just call you the visitor from Tuesday night? VISITOR: I think, in a light way, we will call me an interior decorator.