2005-05-09-You Move Around In Your Spiritual Bubbles
Marin #47
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: You Move Around In Your Spiritual Bubbles
2Group: Marin TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Nebadonia
2TR: JL
3Session
1Opening
2Exercise
3Lesson
4Dialogue
5Closing
Topic: You Move Around In Your Spiritual Bubbles
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Folks, Here’s another delightfully encouraging message from Mother Spirit, once again teasing us out of ourselves.
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, We thank You for this series of lessons and spiritual experiences. Through You we are wonderfully assured that our human experiences of life, and each other, are safeguarded by a presence of God himself, forever framed in His meaning and value, so however these qualities may elude us in the moment, we know they will be ours some day. Amen.
Exercise
Nebadonia. Good evening My children, this is your mother, Nebadonia. Just relax for a while and feel My presence all around you. Now let the inside-you expand so it seems to go out forever and ever with no inner limitations at all. Here we are – together again. Can you feel My joy? This is My mother’s happiness just to have My children sharing this inner space with Me. We are sharing our natures now, My children, for as you can feel Me within you, so you can know how I can feel you within Me. We share this inner-space together. True enough, Mine is a bit larger. It encompasses the whole Local Universe of Nebadon. All of Nebadon is within Me, and in a way I touch My sisters – the other Mother Spirits surrounding Me – and They touch Me, like bubbles in foam. We are in touch much as your brother and sister human beings surrounding you.
Lesson
For their human spirits too surround you, and these are perceptible. In fact this is that flavor of character that you recognize in each other, especially old friends. But even with strangers, if you are so inclined, if you release your capacity to wonder, to be curious, and to be impacted by those you meet, so you will begin to experience how all of you too move around in similar kinds of spiritual bubbles. The more you get to know yourselves intimately and well in this all-encompassing now, so does your immediate and yet transcendent bubble of spirituality, your own bubbling fountain of creativity, replace the dusty bubble of familiarity that casts a dulling haze over this person approaching you now.
So how do you get ready for this encounter? Can you get ready for it? Here We have offered the notion that being here and now is truly a spiritual achievement. But it is subtle, and seemingly paradoxical insofar as it is nothing you can take hold of. Time is a bit too slippery for such heavy-handed attempts. If you are anxious about being able to control every facet of what might happen to you, every attempt to fix or forestall time as some sort of solid or predictable dimension that is directly susceptible or responsive to your will, only tends to grab you.
Here is where your personality – you – must surrender to the fact that everything perceptible, including all of yourself that you can perceive and know, is in motion. This is just the way your reality is. You have no alternative to dancing along. There is no place to stand outside this river of life. Since this is the case, any conceivable preparation is a matter of, How well can you dance? Like the familiar physical dancing you know, the sooner you consciously start the more mental and spiritual kind, the better.
True enough, your first attempts at this when you were quite young were rather herky-jerky. It took a while just to remember that you had a body – always there to be fed and taken care of, however much it came and went in your mind. So you all know to some degree how to dance along with life or you would have perished long ago. Always give yourselves credit for getting as far as you have. I mean – here you are! – dancing along.
Ah yes…but, how to grow? How to enjoy the dance ever more? We have called your attention to the fact that you are not dancing alone. You are surrounded by something called a universe. Both out there in space, and in here, spiritually, there are many personal beings, from God all the way down to yourselves – many levels of personal beings each with their own music, galaxies, Local Universes, Constellations, Systems, entire planets, nation states of different cultures, local societies, neighborhoods, families, so many different tunes being played. Every individual you meet has a certain melody they have righteously earned in their soul. You have yours too. This is how you go about your dance. Do you know what your melody is? Can you consciously recognize it – especially when you perceive it out there – in how it is intermingling with and influencing all the other soul-melodies you meet?
We started by wondering how can one get ready to meet all these other interlaced melodies, especially if the tune of the world seems to be a bit of a cacophony? For indeed at any stage of spiritual development you will encounter what at first impinges upon your consciousness as random or meaningless sequences, but are truly just higher melodies you are beginning to contact. What an intricately interwoven web this is. So We hope it will help to think of it, realize it as music, music from a thousand different sources, a thousand different cultures and times. As for the dance, are you eager to learn new steps? Do you also realize how much you can fall back on what you call free-style? You just hear the music and let it move you. You will have found another way to let go and – let God. One final caution – though you’ve heard it before. Don’t take yourselves too seriously. Don’t forget to have fun.
If you have any questions or comments this evening, Shall we dance?
Dialogue
Student. Mother Nebadonia, I have a question about dancing. Some people have music that they really like and we find it easy to dance with. And then other people may have music we don’t like. Can You say anything about dancing when the music doesn’t really match or line up so we can dance together?
Nebadonia. Well first, My son, I accept your observation. I think this is an experience you humans have very often. Several things suggest themselves. There is a saving grace in the very wonder of what this other person is doing. So it may be advantageous just to observe for a while without any notion of interference. This is part of being open – recognizing these strange movements and not being instantaneously against them. This in turn requires a certain self confidence to not feel threatened by the mere existence of this strange music, and this odd behavior, but be content to observe it for a while. Then too you may find that the dance floor is large enough, and so you may enjoy doing a few steps of your own, and maybe catch their attention.
They too may have the grace to observe you for a while. Perhaps the two styles here are not compatible. In this case a live-and-let-live attitude would be most appropriate. Then it could be that there is a higher harmony yet undiscovered which enables the two of you to compliment each other in some as yet unimaginable way. But you would never find this unless you both gave each other room and danced along a while. So enjoy and encourage yourself in the self confidence this takes. For however strange this other dance may appear at first, the simple observation of it becomes a part of your soul, and even, perhaps, some day, a part of your repertoire.
Are these any other questions you have about our analogy here…or anything else?
Student. Yes, Nebadonia, on another matter, I know You know in Your omniscience about the situation I and some of my colleges face in the way we’re being attacked politically…by forces who are keeping themselves invisible to us; and the toxic effect of these attacks – observed by many – which are affecting me a lot. What can You say to me now about what to do about these periodic attacks, and come out of this situation with safety and grace?
Nebadonia. First I would ask you to be as clear in your mind as you can be about the nature of what you are choosing to involve yourself in. The political arena is one of the most concentrated manifestations of social power where the players derive much from the unconscious assignment of individual, personal power. In other words, various politicians and associated institutions derive enormous power from the unconscious and unexamined traditions of the society at large.
Further, because at this stage of international relationships all existing human governments are freely accorded by their constituencies with a necessary need for secrecy, all the way from where the game is being played on the highest levels of brute military power, all the way down, in some societies, to the local neighborhoods – that whole gamut; so as you step into this relationship and are attempting to influence this realm to be more the way you feel it should be, you can encounter great hidden depths of power. This power is truly, from moment to moment, some individual’s possession.
However unconsciously this power is given to individuals by their constituencies, it is all the stronger for that very reason. But it resides in individual persons who are exercising it in all the different ways that particular societies are organized on Urantia – from the most representative democracies to the most totalitarian dictatorships. When you choose to increase your personal ability to exercise this power, you are in a zero-sum game. So make no mistake, if they are at all awake, those from whom you wish to take this power will immediately sense what you are about, as it affects them.
Beyond this it is hard for Me to articulate because, especially in your country now, political power is so complexly tied up with media and the degree to which various groups of people are aware of what is being done for them and to them, and the ways which individuals can organize to influence both legitimate, and what you might consider illegitimate organs of government.
For you personally, be as open as you can be with yourself – to your motivations and your goals. There is a constant reevaluation of means and ends required for this kind of living surgery on the body politic. Try to continue to grow – to help your values evolve, and to know the cost of whatever you suggest – in human terms. Does this help you, My son?
Student. Yes, thank You for this in-depth answer, Nebadonia. I’ll be sure to read the transcript too, and take this up with You one-on-one. Thank You.
Nebadonia. You’re welcome, My son. Be in My love.
Student. Dear Nebadonia, I’ve been formulating sort of a Thought-Adjusterized-animal understanding ask for help to, in my dance and projection out to others, to get above the curve…like a ceiling, almost like deep meditation, like from a possible belief system crowding in the womb that, as we march through society and get a little bit behind the curve… I remember once having a communication release in Boston where I felt absolutely in present time and committed a Thought-Adjuster improved… It seems as we go crashing through life not quite in focus, not quite feeling like marching in step to the infinite, but just a little bit off, and it seems to be a little bit of Catholic guilt, a little bit of distraction of an animal/chemical poisoning… And so my prayer is, I feel an improvement already tonight to… How do You answer this, because it seems extremely causal to get more of my personality into present time and project out my fairly true optimistic self, and be more socially and spiritually fragrant to my neighbors, and therefore more valuable and more – Jesus says – more serviceable, but I’m sure there are a lot of people just a bit out of focus, and I ask You to help in that area.
Nebadonia. Well, My son, I have a great thing to ask of you. I want you to at least entertain the notion, even if you cannot accept it totally, that you are dancing better than you know.
Student. Flattery only has to be one percent truth to be believed, and I want to believe.
Nebadonia. It also points you the way to dance better. To extend our analogy further, you can invent/discover your own somewhat form-less free-style, but you have also learned by going to school – in this analogy, all your education and your spiritual curiosity leading you through so many books and relationships – all of this formality added to your repertoire. And so now you are feeling a need to combine these so that the formal instruction you’ve known – all these concepts – can be more free-flowing, connected, and less abstract. At the same time your free-style can use some clever little moves in it – forms that have been passed down quite a while. This is what you are asking, how to be a better dancer, how to keep growing.
This evening I asked you, how do you prepare? If you put this along a dimension of time, preparation is what you can do before you step out onto the floor. It’s like attending a dance studio before you go out on a social event where you will be observed, practice as compared to what you call – the real thing. Be open to all the different melodies coming to you from all the different folks you meet. Pick up a little wiggle here, a little twinkle-toes there, all these add to your repertoire. But remember what you introduced the other evening as the power of now. This is where your practice transforms into, and becomes the real thing.
As to focus, it will always be too late to wish you had more practice. Now it is real. Now you are on the floor with all you have learned up to this point, and any attempt to remember it all while you are dancing is going to immediately get you into trouble. What is needed is the quality of self-forgetfulness. When it is now, you have to go with what you’ve got. I’ll say it again, it will always be too late to wish you had more practice, this will always keep you behind the curve.
But here let Me point out two enormous saving graces. One is the music itself. If you look around and listen well to this constant creativity We have been trying to help you experience, you will know in your heart that most of this music of the world is being played by God himself. So as you get greater and greater spiritual sensitivity, you will perceive His music ever stronger. The other saving grace is your partner – the other human being you are dancing with. Here in this other seemingly limited human body is another unfathomable source. Like any good dancer, both learning and teaching, learn to both lead and follow, equally. Discover the joy in both, simultaneously. Appreciate what your partner is doing. Does this help you, My son?
Student. It does, Nebadonia, really good things. Thank You.
Nebadonia. Of the three things I mentioned – the self-forgetfulness, the tuning into God’s creations, His music, and the other person or persons you are moving with – for you particularly it is a question of the self-forgetfulness. There is no way you can estimate how you are doing when you are successfully self-forgetting. So don’t try to pick yourself up by your bootstraps. Follow you heart. Enjoy the music and your partners. And believe Me, you will be – radiating – the very love you wish to convey. Indeed, this is how you’ve been stepping off successfully and un-self-aware all along. Right in focus. Stay in My love.
Student. Mother, I saw in the conversation with (Student) I’ve been trying to control the dance so I wouldn’t make a mistake. But I also saw that I have to become the dance – what You mean by self-forgetfulness. And just do the dance instead of trying to make the dance do something. Your illustration is easily understood, even though I’m not a very good dancer – physically, that is. Thank You.
Nebadonia. You are very welcome, My son. Yes, it is hard to forget yourself at times when your heart truly wants to do the right thing. This is why I made the suggestion to not take yourself too seriously, or be overly self-conscious, but take the mistakes light-heartily. Above all, extend this same courtesy, this same loving graciousness to your dance partners, and everyone else on the floor. Forget their mistakes to help them forget themselves. So I’ll say this too again, don’t get so caught up in technique, or comparisons, you forget to have fun. We ask you most humbly, My children, to enjoy yourselves, to trust that light-heartedness and joy are the truest means of finding your way. Trust yourselves. The music is playing. Just step off.
Closing
And so our dance comes to an end this evening. Yet I am always here in your mind, teasing you with a do-se-do from time to time. I’m always here. My arms are extended. God’s music is always playing. Michael is out here on the floor too. Will you join Us? Be in Our love and peace.
Students. Thank You, Mother… Thanks… All our love.
