2005-03-07-Grow Or Die
Marin #38
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: Grow or Die
2Group: Marin TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Michael
2TR: JL
3Session
1Opening
2Lesson
3Dialogue
4Closing
4Note
Topic: Grow or Die
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, As You reach to contact us from without and right within, help us reach ourselves. Help us know ever greater measures of love, and honor, and respect for our bodies and our minds. Help us be ever more healthy – mentally and physically, not only for ourselves, but to be able to help those around us. Especially let us be good examples of how to live strong, healthy lives for our children and our youngsters who so profoundly need these examples. Amen.
Michael. Good evening, My children. This is your Father and your Brother, Michael. That’s it… Just relax and allow My presence to swell in your total awareness. Let the pace of your awareness slow so that you feel you are constantly arriving here and now. You are complete each moment and your souls are full of your whole lives’ adventures and discoveries, both what you have encountered, and so much too, My children, what you have created.
I would have you appreciate what you have done for yourselves all these years – the attention you paid when it really counted for yourself and for those you love. This is the supreme spiritual price you pay for an expansive, creative life, you pay attention. You seek out those new ways that are calling to you, saying, “Come this way. This is the way to greater life. This is the way to expand your horizons both within you and without. This is the way to find those rewarding experiences which help you continue to evolve.”
Lesson
For this, My children, is the critical necessity that life places on you. This is the primal condition of life itself, grow or die. And even though you lose so much of your fear of death by trusting in the resurrection of your souls on the Mansion Worlds of our Father, whose thresholds into eternity you will all know someday, I am concerned with all the little ways of dying that you encounter day by day.
Feel your souls as a right-up-to-the-instant alive balance of both healthy and unhealthy ways of living. The only difficulty in doing so is because your souls are so much a part of you. They are so close to you, you cannot perceive them as something distinct and fully other than yourselves. They are a spirit reality that belongs to you as much as do Mother Spirit and Myself. And so if you think of Us or your own souls as separate voices within you, you are mistaken.
I would ask you to recall an experience so common you may overlook it. Think of what you conceive, with the moral sensitivity that every personality has, mostly as a bad, that is to say, unhealthy habit. Everyone without exception has had these experiences where there seems to be, indeed – something there – that records each little triumph and failure. Since most habits are a combination of mental and physiological origin, you experience them as impulses which arise of themselves whether they be reaching for a cigarette, or a drink, or food you don’t need and cannot use. You have all experienced how, if you simply resist this impulse, it will fade away for awhile, then return on its own, prompted by this combination of a mentally comfortable habit and biological need.
And you have experienced how if you can resist this impulse a number of times, something positive seems to build up within you that makes it easier to resist the temptation again. In cases of severe drug dependency, the physical part is uppermost and it may take quite some time for your body chemistry to adjust. But so too there is mental habituation where a certain bad habit is so much a part of your lifestyle, or self image, or something you share in a social way with your friends. But this – something – you feel that strengthens the habit as you get into it and indulge it, or strengthens your resistance as you exercise and increase this ability, this is your soul, My children. This is the spiritual record of the decisions you make day by day, however consciously or unconsciously.
This – something – you feel at moments of conscious decision is something real indeed. So see these as decisions, as choices you are making, and seek first of all, and most fundamentally, to pay attention. These habit-impulses are complex and it helps if you can pull apart all the constituent pieces that combine to make up this or that particular one.
This is the time for your mini-meditation. This is the most crucial time for you to practice a moment of stillness, a moment of relaxing into or toward this impulse in order to understand it better and better. Contact the spiritual reality of your soul, that – something there – which just showed you how to feel, and then be reassured, that if you can resist this particular impulse, this time, it is a small triumph that is being recorded. It counts! And each little meditation, one at a time, can steadily suggest that alternative life you need, to replace what you are doing otherwise. Pure negativity does not carry the day. Just an aversion to what you know is unhealthy or unproductive does not get you anything concretely positive.
There is truly something to acquire here, My children, waiting for you, and this adventure is not in any way just another, even if better, habit. This adventure is paying attention to and perceiving a continuously renewed reality that your Mother and I, and our mutual Father, are providing for you. At first you may have to trust Us that this is potentially real for you – there is a different kind of life possible for you, and you need to help Us create it – right at those moments when you are feeling another impulse to continue the old, unhealthy aspect of your life just one more time.
By paying attention you will be stepping into a perfect opportunity that is, by definition, somewhat free of the past, for as you go toward spirit, you are going toward spontaneity. You are going towards the ability to create something new right within your ongoing life. The spiritual part of your personality has this intrinsic ability, but you must exercise it like a muscle to know that, like a muscle, it is capable of growing and becoming stronger.
For several months now We have been helping you find the way, helping you discover true indications of this moral dimension within your lives. This is an inner compass, My children, you were born with. But unfortunately, for so many of you, no one told you you had it or how to use it. But when you do use it by making moral decisions, it is your soul that records this part of the adventure of discovering what is right and healthy and strengthening, making a record of it you can feel and enjoy. All cultures and societies have this injunction, don’t be impulsive. But often they don’t tell you how.
One parallel example I could give you, familiar to those in your particular society, is in handling machinery. Most of you can remember from when you learned how to drive, how careful you had to be at first not to follow just any contrary impulse that might occur to you. For if you did, you quickly learned how that impulse led immediately to an accident where something material was damaged in a very undeniable way.
But in the realm of health, just because your physiology was so developed over millions of years, and these tender bodies you inhabit are in their own way so tough and resilient, the immediate results of unhealthy impulses are not so obvious as a crumpled fender. You need to regain that freshness, that caution as when you first got behind the wheel of a car. Bring this same attitude to your day to day life and you will find that, just like learning how to drive, you will be learning – actually, earning – a base where creative ideas and ideals can find a home. This will be your new life, your healthier, stronger, more powerful and rewarding ability to discover and follow God’s larger way for you.
Nothing, My Children, is rewarded so wonderfully as courage. As strange as it may seem, it takes courage to practice your stillness for the very reason that this is the gateway to your soul, this is the way to the new life that is possible for you; for deep down inside you where you are truly one with yourself, you know this. Go towards it. Let this hunger for oneness within you grow. At first you may feel only the hunger, the need for a better life, but this is good. Find the courage to embrace it.
Feel the hunger of your souls, My children. Embrace this curiosity that can renew you. Break through the barrier of fearing greater possibility, fearing what this freedom can lead to. These all seem strange challenges, I agree. But otherwise free people are dying day by day for want of the resolve to feel this renewal. But once you do, My children, there is that – something there – that reassurance of your soul and your whole celestial family – cheering you on. So be of great heart and pause whenever you need to feel Our love and hope, as often and for however long it takes.
If you have any questions or comments, I am always glad to be here for you.
Dialogue
Student. One of the questions I have is, my mind wanders a lot during these sessions. Are these the impulses You were talking about that can be overcome little by little, or maybe all at once? I don’t seem to be doing too well with them. Also, I feel You stop my fear and I’m just beginning to recognize it as fear, instead of something else. Is this also one of the impulses You’re speaking of? Michael, C, I would say…no. An impulse is a specific, intense, immediate desire to do a certain thing.
Tonight I addressed them as they are associated with unhealthy habits, and to resist them I used as an example what you have all experienced when you first learned to drive, while going along at a fast rate – disregarding any stray impulse to suddenly jerk the steering wheel one way or the other to see what might happen. These little impulses can occur to you and yet you have some respect for the mass and the momentum of that physical vehicle, not to follow them. But those habit-impulses which lead to bad health can generally be indulged for awhile before large effects show up.
What you are experiencing during these sessions is a wandering of your attention, and this wandering is more a lack of perception, a type of inability. Perhaps, as you say, you are also discovering some fear in following what I am saying. Let Me ask if you can say what these distractions are, especially with respect to what I was discussing this evening – how to deal with certain unwanted behaviors? This might have stirred up your memories or your own personal, ongoing battles with what you feel are bad habits – may simply have triggered these distractions. Is this the case?
Student. Yes, but it goes on in every session, not just this one. I can say I don’t want to be distracted, but I can only pay attention for awhile and then I find myself off wandering, mentally wandering somewhere else, and I can bring it back again to the meeting. So it’s not really just this session, but rather a general thing. I suspect it goes on in other places and at other times, but I don’t notice it as much. Now I understand, I think the impulses were like back in the days when I smoked, I would light up a cigarette without even thinking about it – I’d just stop and do it – and it seemed perfectly natural and normal to do it. Even when I heard it was dangerous for my health, I did it anyway. The same thing with alcohol – I would just pick up a beer and it seemed perfectly natural, even though I knew that too was dangerous to my health. But I was able to overcome both of them, so those two particular things don’t bother me any more.
Michael. Here you are confronting another challenge of growth, how do you grow the ability to pay attention? How do you feel about this? Is this ability to pay attention growing or diminishing, would you say? This can be somewhat hard to assess because your awareness of this ability, or the lack of it – this awareness itself is changing, just as it did with your other habits as you conquered them. First you had to be extra-conscious of doing these things. And so, can you make an assessment as to how this awareness of your wandering attention is growing or diminishing too?
Student. I think the lack of attention is diminishing somewhat, but what I got from tonight is that…it was…too comfortable. I kind-of assumed it was something I had to live with the rest of my life. But now I’m beginning to see that it is something I can really do something about. It does seem less than what it used to be.
Michael. Well, the purity of this consciousness you are trying very sincerely to maintain during these sessions gives you a good way of measuring how your attention is coming and going. This is one of the purposes of these meetings, so congratulations are in order. This is what your mother Nebadonia and I have been trying these last several months – to give you a psychological groundwork, and insights as to how your mind and body work in conjunction with your spirit so you can begin to perceive new things. So, continue to grow. Read and reread these lessons to help you understand this living process.
Student. I will do that, Father. Thank you very much for Your love and support.
Michael. You are very welcome, My son. I recommend the insightful lesson given to V about how to stay alert. (Ed, Nebadonia 1.10.05) This takes a very subtle attention in order to experience the qualitative fluctuation in your perceptions; here, how to actually experience when My voice is getting more or less interesting-seeming, My meaning swelling more or fading away. Do you follow?
Student. Not quite. I’m noticing that I’m paying more attention on these one-to-one talks as opposed to the opening lessons. It seems to be a lot easier now than earlier, now I’m talking directly to You.
Michael. Yes, this back-and-forth is more invigorating feedback. And some of the insights We wish to share with you are of such a nature that We are making full use of everything possible, including these recording devices and your hard work transcribing these lessons and putting them out on the internet. Your Mother and I can go into a greater depth and detail, which might be hard to follow live, so to speak. This is the reason We encourage you to read and reread the lessons to let some of the subtlety of these insights soak in and pique all sorts of responses, different each time. So you may be excused for losing Us from time to time.
Student. (Laughs) Yeah! Also, transcribing the lessons is very valuable to me for I get to pay attention then. But I’m pretty sure it is getting easier to pay attention right when this is happening.
Michael. Well, C, you have all of Our love, and We salute the courage it takes to be so honest. Be in My peace.
Student. Yes, Father. Along the same lines You just mentioned to C, the idea that when I’m here I’m losing, I guess, attention or focus on what is being said, and trying to absorb what is going on – the energy and everything. Even now I find when you are speaking to C the energy inside my head really relaxes me to the point that I kind-of lose consciousness. Then all of a sudden I wake myself up and realize You have said quite a bit. In this sense…thank God for the transcripts because it seems like there’s only so much I can absorb. Then when I do read the transcripts there is so much more I’m able to take in. It is interesting feeling the energy inside my head, and the relaxation kind-of takes over my being.
I now know too these past few days – Saturday, Sunday, and this morning – I’ve really allowed myself to be laid-back for the whole time, doing things I needed to do to nourish myself – to meditate and read and write, to walk, and just be in the moment as best as I could. It’s so refreshing. And I guess one of the so-called bad habits that I’m constantly seeking to overcome is the habit of worrying, worrying about the future, worrying about my kids, worrying about things that in reality probably will never happen, just worrying about my existence, my relationship with my mother.
So it’s a constant struggle to allow myself to experience…just this present moment, here-and-now, and…enjoy this. It was so refreshing these past few days of doing that, and feeling my soul – actually feeling it! – feeling…rich!…(Heavy sigh) And it seems like You Guys…(Laughs)…seem so familiar…it’s just because I…seems like You and Mother are so much a part of my life…mmmm…
Michael. Well, My son, you are experiencing the wonder in the triumph when you give yourself permission to feel. When you cease to worry about worrying, this is what transforms worry into loving concern. It is by giving yourself permission to worry, to feel – if you wish to think of it this way – that you realize you are actually in a process of evaluating what you are doing, and facing the challenge of, what do I want to do; what are my alternative futures; how much is each one possible?
These are all aspects of creating your own life ever more consciously. You are beginning to experience the real soul-felt reward that I wished to introduce this evening – this subtle feeling so close to you that it is usually imperceptible. But this can be a – something there – something that lets you know that when you indulge an unhealthy habit, this is registering in a morally sensitive way. And every time you can resist the impulse, you can feel this too building up, and be reassured the bad habit will in time fade away, just fade away, if you can replace it with something more interesting and positively life-affirming. This is truly your soul. And it is good company to keep.
As to what you are experiencing during these sessions, I take it as a great compliment to My presence that you feel comfortable enough just to feel Me here, and trust that there is within you – something there – recording what I am saying. Then you can get the nourishment you most profoundly need – to rest deeper and deeper in My presence. This is a decision you have been making unconsciously, My son, by trusting your Mother and I, and We thank you for it. This way you get to know you are truly Our son. So never fear to rest deeply in Our peace and love.
Closing
(Very long pause) And so as one of your poets said, “You lose yourself. You reappear.” It takes a bit of courage to do this too. The rest you are able to get while you sleep is dependent on this trust in our Father to put you back together again in the morning. Then too it is possible to go through your days never too far away from your spiritual home base because you can take the awareness of it along with you.
Paradoxically seeming, you simultaneously acquire the ability to go deeper and deeper into the adventure of your life by going deeper and deeper into self-forgetfulness – deeper and deeper into a faith that lets you be fully engaged, trusting you will reappear to yourself in spontaneous moments of stillness and reflection. For it is also, sadly, possible for fear to become so great, and you to feel the need to hold onto yourself so tightly, that nothing much happens in your life. This would be the greatest waste of all, a death right within life. Yet your trust and your faith and your courage are, if you are paying attention, immediately felt rewards in themselves, as well as being doorways to something – unimaginably marvelous.
Carry on, My children. And be in My peace. Good evening.
Students. Thank you, Father Michael…Thank you.
Note
[Transcriber’s Note, Dear Folks, I didn’t know you were going to publish these introductions to the transmissions or I would have mentioned not only a short period of training to transmit, but the years of experiencing Michael’s and Mother Spirit’s very palpable – sometimes intense – Presence at Donna’s meetings, which fully convinced me of Their reality and accessibility. Then Donna gave lessons specifically designed to help us transmit first a kindred spirit – an ascendant mortal, Welmek, with whom we had also had years of contact, and consider to be a very close, real friend. Jerry.]
