2003-09-28-Opening Inner Self to God
Nashville #177
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Opening Inner Self to God
o 1.2 Group: Nashville TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Ham
o 2.2 TR: Rebecca
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Sharing, Inner Life
o 3.3 Personal Counsel
3.3.1 Ageing
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Opening Inner Self to God
Group: Nashville TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Ham
TR: Rebecca
Session
Opening
HAM: Greetings, children, I am Ham and I am happy to be with you this evening. Often we have spoken concerning the life of the spirit, and again we wish to speak of this broad and profound topic.
Lesson
Sharing, Inner Life
HAM: Many people spend their lives within the realms of mind and matter without often venturing into the spiritual realm of life. The venturing forward sometimes can involve many steps forward and many steps back before you may be comfortable functioning in the spiritual dimension, in the realm where you and exposed completely to the benevolent scrutiny of higher mind and higher soul. This consciousness of exposure can be frightening and difficult to adjust to. Most human beings continue for long periods with a kind of secret compartment where things are not exposed or shared with God, but this state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely and one must make the decision to open everything, to share everything, to confide everything to God, that loving, understanding, friendly and respectful spirit who stands ever ready to share everything He has with you.
When you share your life with God, when you open the inner compartments of your heart, when you stand exposed to the high beam of the Father’s gaze, you will find that you have nothing there that is so shameful, nothing that is so frightening that the Father will not understand and begin to allow you to understand. Most human beings have parts of themselves that have remained locked away for a long time, so that the person himself does not understand what lies within. But usually, it is a wonderful part of yourself that is hidden, it is something that the Father wishes to nurture and grow that has been stunted and held back by some secret shame of fear. Once this guilt or guilt-syndrome of shame and fear is removed, that part of you can being to grow again, can begin to seek the Father’s light and love and can become a mighty branch on the tree of your life.
Human beings pretty much invariably feel more guilt, feel themselves to be less worthy and feel that everyone else is ahead of them somehow. You feel that you have more to feel guilty about than other people, more to be ashamed of, more to hide away and not let anyone see it – you push it back into your mind where it is forgotten. But, all things must come to the Father’s light. There is nothing that is hidden that will not be revealed, nothing that is unworthy of His love, if it is part of you. The Father’s love reaches all human beings eventually. The Father’s reach extends completely through you. There is nothing that is truly hidden, nothing that can remain so.
Leading a life of the spirit is not an easy road. It is a road that requires much, it is a road that does not allow you to take any short-cuts or to re-route your path, for the Father gives everything. Once you have made the decision to know God and become increasingly filled with Him and therefore to become like Him, each obstacle must be gradually pared off, and like Jonah, you may run from place to place, cross the seas, change jobs, spouses, towns, and you will find at each new place the same sets of problems, the same repeating cycles of behavior until you open those inner boxes and reveal the things that are hidden to your self and to God. The Psalmist wrote, “create in me a clean heart, Oh Lord,” [1] and this sincere longing must be true for every person who desires to know God completely and without reservation.
The Psalmist of long ago, asked God to come into his heart, to open up the hidden places and to purify and cleanse those things which are impure, those things which are like a secret sin that has been locked away from God. “Come into my heart, clean away all those things which require cleansing, change my feelings, my attitude, my ideas, my life. Create in me that which reflects Your spirit.” This is truly the way of the spirit, these are truly the steps along the pathway. To truly enter the Kingdom of God as the Master put it, you must allow all cleansing, you must allow all that serves you not to be left outside, you must be willing to be born again, to see life with new eyes and to live life thereafter with a clean and pure heart.
Now, this is not to say that the cleansing process itself is instant, or that you will not find need of periodic cleansing after your first experience, but you are willing to allow this, you are willing to stand naked before God with nothing hidden, nothing set aside that will be brought back. The delight in righteousness that we often speak of, comes with this process. Your moral sense will be deepened and broadened, your love for others will be limitless, you patience and understanding will expand and you will delight in finding yourself a human being on a small planet, on the outer edges of the universe, just beginning a great and eternal life. The spirit itself will instruct you. It is not enough to follow moral laws themselves, but rather to expand your own moral sense in ways that the Father will show you, in new ways, in exciting chapters of your life. Be willing my friends to open your hearts completely everyday and ask the Father to create a clean heart within you. Are there questions at this time?
Personal Counsel
Q: Do you have any counsel for me tonight?
HAM: Yes my son, you are doing very well. Many new and exciting chapters are opening for you. Your life will undergo some changes, some restructuring, and you must have faith in yourself, and that the Father has placed these responsibilities on you for a purpose. So when you discharge your responsibilities to others, you will be discharging your responsibilities the Father himself and to the Master himself. The work that you have completed during this process of opening and cleansing has been extremely valuable. You are coming to have love and compassion for yourself, where before there was guilt, shame and feelings of unworthiness, feelings of being unworthy of the Father’s love and His gentle guidance, but now you are past this, you are becoming attuned to His guidance and attuned to your teacher’s gentle prodding. All of this will be a great benefit as time goes on and your stature in the world gradually comes to reflect this knowledge of worthiness and the cleansing of the past, with its associated feelings continues. Remember that each day, your life is new and each day you can make new decisions that effect the days to come. Be unafraid of all these things, for this is part of the godly life. Is this helping?
Q: I would also like to know if you have anything for me.
HAM: Yes, my son, you are also doing well. Likewise, your life has been changing and you also have been going through a cleansing process. You have always had a great urge to be self-expressive, to rebel against the tried and true and to strike out in new ways, some of which have been good for you and some, of course, have not been good for you. But these things are simply the path of your life and so have been necessary for your learning. All of you have had difficulties, hard roads and difficulties making adjustments and changes necessary, but my son, you have been ever more willing to make those changes, to adjust yourself to change the old thinking and become new, to become re-born. When the Master used this phrase, this re-birth, he meant it to be taken very seriously because going through this process can be tumultuous, like a stormy birth, but thereafter, your life changes, your focus changes, your values change and what you want out of life is altered.
This is what you have been experiencing the last few years, a re-directing of your will, so to speak, an aligning of your will with the divine will, the Father’s will for you in life. This is not to say that every little thing will reflect the Father’s great desire for you, all of life is a mixture. For within life there are things which are the Father’s will and things which are not necessarily the Father’s will because of His allowing each human being freedom, freedom of will. So don’t get caught up in the details, but keep your eyes focused on where you’re going, and let the details take care of themselves. Focus on the grand scheme, focus on Eternal life and you will find the way here will straighten and become more certain.
Q: inaudible
A: Yes, my daughter, you are doing very well, and you are coming through into a new era of your life. The struggles you have had with understanding God over the past year have been profound, and have created within you a much deeper thought process concerning the nature of reality and life; why we are here and so forth. Life is brief, much too brief for most human beings, but during this life, you must come to a kind of peace with God and as yet you have declared a truce, but have not as yet partaken of His peace completely. The profound sadness still wells up, but it does not prevent your spiritual growth, does not change the direction of your growth, it does not limit your growth. Sometimes people get caught in a cycle of thought that seems to go nowhere, but in reality, it is more like a spiral, and as time goes on, that thought expands and encompasses more and more. This is what you are experiencing, this expanding of that cycle. It’s still okay to think of yourself, to think of your own healing. It’s alright to put that first and to go through what is required. All is well, my dear, be at peace.
Q: May I ask for a message for Jim?
HAM: Of course, my son you do very well. This lesson in many ways, is very pertinent for you this week. You are always considering the past as well as the present and this process continues as you grow and change and develop. The old answers don’t always satisfy anymore, the old way of seeing and being does not always work when so much change is required, so much adjustment. So continue to create an open heart and to follow the Father’s leading, wherever this may take you, intellectually and emotionally as well as physically. Be unafraid of change.
Q: inaudible
HAM: Of course my daughter. Yes, you are continually rearranging the furniture within yourself to always be pleasing to God, but real change is upon you, real spiritual movement is occurring. And so the old room no longer suffices when all things are new. Go ahead and embrace this inner change, this realignment and allow this leading, this spiritual impetus to rearrange the past, to sort through it, without your having to do so yourself – if this makes sense to you. Some things are best left to their own unconscious devices. Allow the Father to rearrange and sort through and make sense of for you, and then allow these realizations to come to you, rather than trying to wrench them before they are completely flowering in your consciousness. So be at ease, my daughter, for you do very well.
Q: Anything for Rebecca?
HAM: Yes, my daughter you are doing very well. Many things are opening in your soul, many new growth is occurring, many new flowers are beginning to bud and to bloom. Find that assurance that will ground you in this process so that your roots go deep and have a firmness, a deep, solid grounding in life and in thought. My son, you must not worry concerning these changes in your partner. These things will bring you closer, these life-levels that you each must traverse together, will bring you great joy and great happiness. You, my son, are doing very well. You have consistently fulfilled all requirements. You have generously and completely tackled all effort required.
You have held nothing back in your search for God. Your achievements have been greater than you know. Your impact in the world has been much greater than you understand and your work is still in its infancy. All of you must understand that your lives are just at the very beginning, whatever your age in years, however long your lives extend in the physical plane, is tiny, and when you awaken in the new life, in the new world, then the real work begins. Most of what you do here is preparation, it is the initial tilling of the soil and sowing of the seed. The harvest is in the next life. This life is too short for you to see the fruition of all that you do and all you have done. Be at ease, therefore my son, in all things. Everything goes very well. Be assured.
Ageing
Q: Charlie Beyer asks: Ham, In several weekly progress reports to me, you noted quite correctly that I have to move beyond certain “thought patterns” which have become obstacles that I must deal with in order for me to move ahead. To be honest with you, Ham, one big problem I’ve been trying to deal with as I am growing older is the realization of my mortal frailties….I realize we all age, and often we don’t all age very well….Yet, I also realize that our world experienced the default of Adam and Eve and we Urantians have been deprived the biological upliftment of our race which would have occurred if we had received the adamic blood.
My “obstacle” is that I feel the heavenly powers who control and administer our world continue to deprive us of these biological upliftments, and I can’t get over the fact that they don’t offer us more hope and help in this area. For instance….On a normal world, which was not deprived of the adamic blood, the people often live to be 500 years old, which gives them plenty of time to commune and eventually fuse with their adjuster during their normal lifetime…Yet, here on urantia, our short lifespans do not afford us that same opportunity….Plus we are plagued with a host of diseases that often cut our lives off even more prematurely.
Anyway…. In a recently posted transcript, which noted the graduation of mission member Bill Kelly, Monjoronson (our world’s Magisterial Son) revealed that a “morontial/material blending process” is in the works which is intended to biologically uplift those of us living on Urantia. Monjoronson said: “The blending of the Morontial/Material process is truly a gift that will help lead Urantians into a more spiritual awareness and growth beyond your present understanding …I look forward to answering your questions in-group form or individual through you circuit connection. Understand that anyone who wishes for greater spiritual understanding with their Thought Adjuster and the upliftment of Urantia are welcome to this process.” My questions to you, Ham are: Is this transcript from Monjoronson accurate?
(Other questions followed, but were not read aloud)
HAM: My son, let me help your understanding. All spiritual growth, all spiritual growth, involves the blending of the spiritual and the material and helps to create the morontia soul. This soul, this blending of the two, does have some repercussion with the physical. The Master said, “the well of health will spring up within you. This is what he spoke of, this blending of that which has perfection, the spirit, with that which is imperfect: matter. This is not to say that your lives will be dramatically extended or that you will avoid disease or that the aging process will not continue. All these things are part of life, all these things will happen.
The physical body is wrought with problems because it is a material construct. You cannot expect, no matter how much spiritual growth you have achieved in life, to avoid the problems associated with bodily aging. These physical problems, these things which enforce a change of lifestyle, that perhaps force a slowing down, a reassessment of life, these things are not necessarily bad for the spirit. Going from being robust and seemingly indestructible in the body to limited physical activities and frailties; these things are humbling, these things are spiritually valuable and so it perhaps is not wise that they be avoided entirely.
Each person must strive to come to a place where every day is a gift, every step in life is valued and treasured and aging confers these gifts on humankind, confers wisdom and a sense of fragility in life, which makes it more precious. All these things are part of a growing in wisdom, they are becoming now a part of your spiritual growth. Welcome them, then make the necessary adjustments, strive for the spirit and gradually relinquish the material. Anything left undone in this life, can be done in the next. You do not lose anything by death, but you rather gain that next step, gain the very valuable consciousness of death, a very valuable understanding of your life as a whole after your death, and your life as it shall extend.
Do not worry concerning whether this or that transcript is accurate or not. Take from each what is valuable to you. Take from each what speaks to you, what deepens your sense of the spirit, but do not make the mistake of expecting magical solutions or miraculous healings, for as an Agondonter, you must live entirely by faith.
Q: Message for Norbert, please.
HAM: My son, be at peace. Life is not as complicated as you sometimes tend to make it. Some things simply are, without too much complex origination. Learn to be accepting of that which is, without being resentful against that which was. The day is now. The time is yours to change what you can, to grow as best you can and to deepen your understanding as best you can each day. Rest in complete assurance that no man carries more than he is able. The Father gives you that which you can carry, not more and not less, so be grateful for what is, and be grateful for what you can learn.
Closing
HAM: Are there any further questions at this time? In that case, my children, go in peace. My love and prayers go with you each. Farewell.
