2005-01-17-Personal Uniqueness
Marin #31
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: Personal Uniqueness
2Group: Marin TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Michael
2TR: JL
3Session
1Opening
2Lesson
3Dialogue
4Closing
Topic: Personal Uniqueness
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, We offer You our prayers of thanksgiving for the help You have been giving us to realize what was ours – innately ours all along: the potential we have to contact Spirit; first, the spiritual dimension of our own lives, and then beyond this, a whole host of other spiritual personalities who have always surrounded us with Their good wishes. Amen.
Michael: Good evening, My sons, this is your Father, Michael. This is your Brother, Jesus. I would like you to think of Me in both of these relationships I offer you. One is no less important than the other. As a father, I proceed you, I come before you, I prepare the way for you – the world in which and on which you live. In this I am a Son myself and I have a complete relationship with My Father, Who in turn came before Me, Who created Me and arranged a realm in which I could function and create, Myself. So in this same manner I have created you in Our image. And I created you with an enormous potential such that, since so much of this is yet undeveloped, I need to remind you, from time to time, to realize you are just beginning. You are taking just the first few hesitant steps in eternity. This is your potential and you should feel reassured with this knowledge.
Lesson
As a brother, I share your human life with you in a way I could not have before I myself lived a human life. This may be difficult to understand. You can wonder why a Creator Son, who has such intimate knowledge of His creation over such a long period of time on so many worlds; why would such a Creator Son have to actually experience a human life Himself to know what this is? But here I am most like you. I too am a creature of experience – of which there is no substitute. This a dimension of reality – if you will, a realness of reality that is in no way any kind of play-acting, no kind of show, no kind of mere practice for the real thing. This is what we are both engaged in.
The fact that so many humans do feel themselves caught up in a kind of unreality, a kind of mere shadow-play, in no way means that their life is unreal. It just means they are momentarily dysfunctional and unable to personally realize the absoluteness of their existence. Thus I wish you to appreciate to the fullest extent the importance of experience – an absolute cosmic reality that is being created moment by moment and so, forms an expansion, a growing of reality itself. When We say there is no substitute for experience, it means that no Being whatsoever, not even God, not even the Trinity, has yet experienced this reality being formed, moment by moment, throughout not only the entire realm of time and space, but also as you have read and been taught, a whole universe beyond time and space, a billion worlds around Paradise Itself.
This is what you are involved in. This is a reality you share with all your fellow personal beings, from the highest to the lowest – in the sense of scope and power of creativity; but also from the oldest and most ancient to the newest babe being born, just starting out. We are all part of the Deity Absolute, the absolute reality of all personal beings created by God, and in the most intimate touch with Him without any break whatsoever. All personal beings are members of a brotherhood. We’re all children of God and we are all growing. We’re all expanding in a way that you find difficult to imagine for more than a few moments for, from a human perspective, all reality seems like a balloon that must surely burst at any moment…but just keeps expanding. And so, realizing the nature of this expansion is somewhat a matter of faith if you cannot directly grasp it more than momentarily.
It is this necessity for experience that I accepted joyfully in becoming human. I myself feel humbled by My inability to express in your language the full meaning of My human life to Me. It was and it remains precious beyond words. I earned – I personally achieved – a compassion and understanding of My own fragile, tender being, and it added so much more amazement within Me about what you all experience day to day. I found My love for you to be overwhelming and so, again, and again, and again, I thanked My Father that I could feel so much, I could understand so much more that even I, as a Creator Son of God, could imagine. This, My children, is the chance you too are given. This is the potential in the situation of your human lives for you to enjoy and thank our Father with the most profound worship. This is how I am your brother. My loving desire is that each of you will realize what I was able to.
The enormity of a single human life is beyond grasping. How many of you understand that a part of this estrangement – this unknowable quality you find in each other – is because – truly – you are infinite to each other? How much of social tradition has grown up over endless ages to enable you to ignore this fact? How much then of the cultivated racial need for familiarity is based on ignoring this fact? How must society, right down to personal behavior, need to be transformed so more and more individuals can perceive and acknowledge and then someday share this supreme fact of each individual’s unique creation? But this is something you can try your best to understand now, and to welcome as a matter of faith – to prepare yourself for that moment when you begin to see other persons as infinite.
Can you imagine the kind of freedom you would then be willing to grant each other? Can you imagine the kind of respect that would automatically flow from your heart? Can you imagine the amazement and the love you would feel compelled to feel? Does this give you some inkling of this dimension of reality which human society must embrace in order to keep growing spiritually? Can you see how this perception, person to person, can and will change the world?
It is in this way I invite you, My sons, to welcome those about you. Even your long-time friends may seem a bit uncomfortably strange at first. But have faith, trust that there is something within you capable of growing to encompass this strangeness, and transforming it into a blossoming of personality. This is why, when I lived among you, I stressed and tried to encourage an emphasis upon the individual, not in some self-aggrandizing way of puffing yourself up in your own eyes, but exactly the opposite – a way of relaxing through self-confidence in being a child of God and letting your own God-created personality just be.
This is a paradox, so don’t be too hard on yourself or on your friends and others for not realizing it sooner: the more you try to be unique and individual through your own notions and efforts, the more you oftentimes fall into the trap of imitating others – falling into general stereotypes. Whereas the more you feel deep in your heart the self-confidence to be who you are when you are alone with just you and Myself and Mother and our Father, in stillness; this is how you achieve the singularity of your true personality. So it is not something invented, let alone embossed, but more a continuous discovery, and this is just another gift of our Father, ironic but real.
This was My great delight when I lived among you – that I could see God’s handiwork in each person. This was the point – the object and the essence of My teaching. It is My greatest desire to see the peoples of Urantia, as on My other worlds, be able to perceive this, realize this, enjoy this transcendent truth: as God’s children, we’re each unique, for only He is so creative. And this quality – I could say, this equality above all makes us brothers and sisters.
Think about this, My children. Be with this for awhile. If you have any questions this evening, I would be glad to answer them. (Very long pause)
Well, as I have said before, questions are not necessary. I appreciate that you can set yourselves aside for awhile to feel My presence, and let My words soak into your souls.
Dialogue
Student: Father, I do have one question. How were You able to be with each person on a continuing basis – from person to person to person – without lapsing into fatigue or, as the phrase is now, going into your head? I don’t understand that one.
Michael: Yes, C, if you will remember from last week’s lesson, this is similar to a question of how does one stay alert.
Student: Yes.
Michael: And We suggested that it is a two-fold challenge, only part of which you can meet by sheer effort. The other part is to be confident enough within yourself to let yourself go, to cease being fascinated with your own life, and have the courage within yourself to feel a genuine curiosity for your fellows. See if you can suspend this bubble of familiarity you think you need right now in meeting your fellows. Suspend an unnecessary reassurance that you know who they are. We are pointing to a kind of renewed perception. We are telling you that this is not something you invent or have to imagine, but it is a further dimension of reality you perceive as part of your process of maturation. It is an ability you acquire in maturing spiritually.
Otherwise, it is even, sadly, a factor in aging prematurely, physically and mentally. If you cannot begin to perceive this dimension spiritually, the bubble of familiarity we ask you to evolve out of is what slowly strangles you and cuts you off from the continuous creation which can renew you – because it is real. At first it takes wisdom to understand this intellectually as a possibility, then faith in trusting that this newness you encounter is not inimical to your health, but rather, if you allow it to pique your curiosity, what can lead to a very healthy moment to moment renewal of yourself. Do you understand?
Student: More and more I understand. I’ve been seeing that bubble of familiarity that I live in, that I hadn’t seen before, and I‘m still in it. I’m looking how to get out of it – the bubble of familiarity, that is.
Michael: What I am suggesting is that, ultimately, this changed perception is valid. The world around you, which you have known and is so familiar, will achieve a new depth, and this depth is something real and already existing. If it helps to think of reality divided into physical facts, mental meanings or relationships, and spiritual values, the dimension I invite you to perceive is primarily one of spiritual value. This is the extraordinary gift God has in potential for each of you: the world around you will grow in value. Each person will appear more individual, and you will value this uniqueness of each person more and more.
Stereotypes, judgments, classifications, categories – all these are tools of familiarity it takes courage to dispense with. You may find yourself embarrassed and at a loss within yourself. How you relate to true individuals coming at you one after another – from the viewpoint of familiarity, this can be very scary. You might have to stretch your notions of what being human is all about. You may have to trust you have the ability to do this. This perception of all of those around you becoming more and more valuable may demand all kinds of changes in your own life and in your behavior.
But I assure you this is what can renew you. Just think of the world you will inhabit when everything and everyone has more meaning and value. This is the way to grow. Enjoy it. You find it largely by being in My peace.
Student: Thank you, Father.
Student: Michael, I don’t have any questions this evening, but I would like to just…thank You for opening Your heart and sharing it with us in the fashion You have just done. I always greatly enjoy it when another is able to open their heart without any pretense or façade, and just allow who they are to be expressed as You have done this evening. I’d like to thank You for that.
Michael: Well, My son, you have truly grasped what I wished to share this evening. This is My greatest desire, that all God’s children see each other for the infinite beings they are – of His handiwork. This is what will change Urantia. This is the way the people of the world will grow spiritually. And be in My peace.
Student: Yes, Michael, there so many things I wish to discuss with You. There are so many questions and ideas that are swirling in my head, even pertaining to what has been discussed this evening in the last few questions. I have been reading this book on nonviolent communication that stresses getting beyond judgments and opinions and communicating with compassion – which is our natural state of being. I think this is a very important book for everyone to read, especially children, to learn how to communicate from their heart. And there is a group in the Bay Area that gives courses which I think I will be pursuing. So that’s, that’s one thing, especially since today was a day to honor Martin Luther King who, like Gandhi before him, preached non-violence not only in deed but also in word. And looking how we speak to each other, even a subtle teasing can be violent in action or word – if it masks what we truly feel. So that’s one thing I wish to express to You.
Secondly, I’ve been looking at this idea of familiarity even before it was brought up last week, and I wasn’t even here. I’m always questioning my motives and what I am doing moment to moment; and the patterns of my life – patterns I feel no longer work for me, and how can I best free myself from them. And then I thought about how can I create the life I wish to create, or God wishes for me to live, and how can I manifest the things I need in this life to make it more enjoyable not only for myself but for others around me?
And the more I pondered this and thought about this, I thought about my own creation and went deep into meditation about this – thinking that initially I was a thought, God thought of me, or who I am, and I was created. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but I was just thinking: When did I begin? Where did I come from initially – my primal self? And I feel that if I could understand that, it would help me create the world or the life I desire to live here and now. In a sense I’m asking: Who am I? What are my beliefs or…beyond my beliefs? These are things I’ve been pondering.
And thinking about pure existence, what does that actually mean? Because I relish the thought of pure existence – when I let go of all patterns and beliefs and ideas and judgments. It seems so strange – beyond familiarity.
Michael: Well, My son, you seem to be enjoying the path. About what you said at first: very definitely words are actions, there’s no separation. About who you are: the word personality has so many meanings in your general usage that you must keep in mind the special way in which your Mother Spirit and I use it, in the general context as it is expressed in your textbook, The Urantia Book. Indeed, there are several chapters of many pages devoted just to this concept.
Personality, as We express it, has qualities, one of the foremost being the uniqueness of each personality as created by God. For only God, Himself, has the infinity of creativity to create unique personalities beyond comprehension. You cannot even begin to imagine trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of beings and grasp that each one is unique. Only God experiences what each of these personalities experiences, in a way beyond any notion or perception you have of time and space – instantaneously.
These personalities, of whatever kind from the highest to the lowest in terms of the dimensions of reality they can experience; all of these have a relative freedom of action within their sphere of realization. When we get down to a specific human being raised in a particular time and cultural society – especially a modern society where you are surrounded by so many different forms of media – quite different, say, from someone raised as a cave-child within a circle of several dozen persons – your society and your companions are so complex, you very quickly develop layer upon layer upon layer of reaction and self-image. So We invite you to let these layers go. Just relax them and gently sink down as a pebble sinks down through layers of foam. Sink down ‘till you rest at this home base of just purely existing, and you will realize the irony I mentioned earlier: that all these layers of actions and reactions – learned behavior, social norms – all these are somewhat stereotypical insofar as they’re shared patterns. When you let them go, you’re actually approaching your own unique self.
Again: the more you try to be unique in a kind of self-image way, what you call ego, the more you generally become somewhat of a stereotype because this is what so many else are doing. It is only by relaxing all these efforts, by way of a genuine self-confidence in connection with Spirit, you find yourself more and more unique and truly individual. So this is not something that has to be invented or imagined. This is a God-created reality and this is there for you to discover. So keep going, My son. It is good that you enjoy the process.
Student: Yeah, there’s that sense of excitement like there’s something in me saying, yes! And those layers You talked about, the stereotypical layers and patterns limit my self expression, limit that voice within me that’s saying yes. So I do relish those moments. I do not wish to be limited any longer. I want to create and to love unencumbered and unconditionally, and communicate from that place, that non-violent communication of compassion. Thank You.
Michael: You’re welcome, My son. It helps to feel the irony of the situation because it helps you be gentle with those around you who have not yet seen this, and who struggle so intensely to be unique, and end just being – at least as they present themselves – another copy. This is somewhat similar to the caution about gilding the lily: each personality is radiantly shining in his or her own essence and so must be cautious about adding layers of paint.
This is what I suggested this evening: that when people begin to see themselves and each other more and more as God-created infinite beings, compassion arises out of a sense of generosity and worship, and it becomes unthinkable that one would deliberately harm another. Thank you for your observations, and be in My peace.
Student: Could You expound a little on why You had to say, “Fear not,” to Your public more often than any other phrase? Would it help us put people at ease, be a little more gracious, or is that something You found absolutely necessary at that time in history? I know today people are very fearful, but how do we use that method – that You used – a little more effectively, if you will?
Michael: Yes, V, I think it would help to keep in mind the essence of grace in the theological sense of – unmerited gift. We speak of God’s grace as His love flowing to us as much as we can accept, absolutely independently of our behavior. And so if we wish to emulate our Father and be gracious, see that it comes from an overflowing heart. When we are so full of love and worshipful thankfulness, and able to perceive that each of our fellows is this creation of God, this is simply the definition of graciousness. We are overflowing with the gift of love for our fellows – irrespective of their behavior. This creates and sustains such a situation, such an encompassing, that most of our brothers and sisters do respond in kind.
As you know from reading about My experience, it is not always so. Your very graciousness, no matter how well-meaning and genuine, can be mistaken and appear threatening. But if it is genuine, if it is somewhat independent of another’s behavior, it is still a gift of God coming through you. It is still His way and no one can take this from you. This is your gift. Just the feeling, the awareness of God’s love pouring through you, is reward enough – can be more than enough. This is the joy of life and there is no substitute for this experience either. Does this answer your question, My son?
Student: Yes, it’s wonderful. I can see why you can naturally say, “Fear not,” just to put people at ease. It seems like a separate item, but I’m sure it was just a very relaxed and common phrase, probably uttered just to put them at ease so they could share in the bounty – bounteous theme of generosity You were proclaiming and giving.
Michael: As I said, and as My life demonstrated, it didn’t always work. There were those who, for various reasons, were terrified of Me, and could be forgiven for that very reason. But you do your very best and God’s reward is right in the doing, instantaneously, moment by moment. You enjoy the completeness of knowing you are in His love.
Closing
Now rest in My peace, My children, and tomorrow, when that new day breaks, see if you can go out and greet all your fellows anew. Good evening.
