2000-10-15. Communicating
Nashville #96
Topic: Communicating
Group: Nashville TeaM
Teacher: Ham
TR: Rebecca
Opening
Ham: Greetings, children, I am Ham and I thank you each individually for coming here this evening. We are extremely pleased with the progress you have all made over the last several months. You are each coming into a new understanding, a greater awareness, that will serve you well in the months and years ahead. Yes, these times have been difficult and filled with complexities which have forced you each one to delve more deeply into yourselves and to find new and growing awareness concerning the spiritual world which impacts upon your lives and guides each one of you in your path toward the Father. You have all made progress concerning self-esteem issues and you are all flowering, budding, and bearing the fruits of the spirit in your daily lives more and more. You are learning self-restraint, and are perfecting the art of communication which can be more complicated and subtle than you might have understood before.
Lesson
Communication, Perspective
Tonight, we shall discuss this art of communication even further. How shall you be open and honest while at the same time avoiding unproductive injury to someone’s feelings or the misunderstandings that can so easily occur. First, it is best to have all the information you can get on whatever it is that you are discussing. The more you understand about the other person’s point of view, the better able you will be in fashioning your communication to fit that person’s understanding.
Usually, what is difficult and what causes problems is skipping steps. In your own minds you have gone through a reasoning process that has brought you to a set of conclusions and you are tempted to simply present your conclusions without explaining the intermediate steps which brought you there. This simply can be a bit of an affront and cause the person to solidify his set of conclusions. So, when you are communicating, it is best to bring everything in that you know and understand. It is best not to appear to be too wise but rather to guide the other person towards the direction you wish to go gently and without pushing too fast or too hard.
It is very wise to have patience to allow maybe several conversations to develop your point rather than to try to get it all in in a short time period. When we speak of leading others to God, we do not mean to bring that person up to where you are immediately. Each person has their own pace and cannot be brought too far or too fast without a rebellion. Everyone has their own personal spirituality which is precious to them and you cannot communicate effectively if you put down any part of that belief system or personal experience which that person holds dear. It is tempting to be impatient and to want to give someone else your understanding as a completed whole and somehow you think that if you explain yourself well enough, that that will do it.
But, it is much more complex than that. You cannot ever really give another person your point of view. You may think you have, but it is impossible to do. Something that is completely obvious to you, another person, coming from a completely different background, completely different life experience, may see it in the completely opposite way and no amount of explaining on your part can alter that person’s perception.
The only way that human beings can really connect with each other is through the spiritual connection of love. Love bridges all those gaps and through grace you are given the gift of being able to see another person, not through a particular point of view, but rather through an overall empathy of human being to human being. When you have that spiritual connection, that empathy, it is easy to accept the other person’s right to think differently. Without it, the other person’s thoughts are alien and seemingly without basis.
The only way human beings come to love each other and to accept each other through that love is through living spiritual connection with the Father of all human beings. He sees into the hearts of each person on earth, of each being in a vast and far-flung universe. He sees all points of view equally and he does not condemn any person for a point of view.
When you reach out to that love, that love which embraces and transcends all points of view, then you can love another person regardless of his way of thinking, regardless of his background and all he has been taught, regardless of however your human mind judges that other person’s thinking or point of view. When you tap into that love, the divine mind condemns no one.
Jesus, as he lived on this earth, openly criticized and even condemned some other’s thinking and points of view with his human mind. With his divine mind, he forgave and understood it all. Use this resource, the resource of prayer and of finding love in your heart for your fellows, even as you seek to influence their thinking. Never forget that you are all equal in the Father’s eyes and that your point of view is no more valid that any other point of view.
I hope that this has been some aid, practically, for you in your lives. I wish that all my lessons are all so practical and helpful. Are there any questions at this time.
Dialogue
Inquiry
Q: Your lesson brought to mind the way that Socrates taught and his method of asking questions and leading his students to a conclusion. Is that part of it?
Ham: Certainly, yes. When you ask someone a question, you draw them out, you have something to build on, to work with and that person becomes engaged in the conversation and is not simply listening to some kind of lecture or diatribe.
Teaching, Pride
Q: It seems especially hard for me, having accepted the Urantia revelation and the lessons from you, to assume that I have access to more truth than someone else and how my point of view might be more valid than someone else’s. Can you speak to that point, spiritual pride?
Ham: You have access to knowledge that others may not have and thus the temptation to show off this knowledge is even greater. It is human to want others to look up to you, to want flattery and even to wow or awe others with your knowledge. But this is not the Father’s way. The Father’s way always thinks of the other person first. The Father’s way takes into account that person’s limitations and their limited exposure to higher truth and the Father seeks to love first and with that love comes understanding.
The human way is to understand first, as much as it is possible in a limited way, and then decide whether that person is worthy of your love. The human way puts the self first, the divine way puts the self last. So even though you know more and understand the greater things of the kingdom, you first love and understand, then you begin with the small things, imparting truth that fits that person’s needs and denies or subjugates your own need to show off what you know or exalt yourself by overawing another’s mind.
Error, Judgment
Q: If all points of view are comprehensible or understandable and not to be condemned, where is a Hitler’s point of view or a serial killer’s point of view fit into the picture?
Ham: Yes, the human mind of Jesus did not hesitate to point out the errors to other’s thinking. But the divine mind of Jesus looks upon each child, the erring as well as the upright, as potentially great souls and the erring, if they are brought to understand their errors and to condemn those errors, in effect to repent and rehabilitate, those souls are inherently of equal value to those who are always upright and always seeking the Father’s will. The Father also sees in these erring mortals all the causes for those errors, all the human frailty which brings about such colossal evil.
The Father judges each soul on its intention and that is very different from judging on the consequences of actions. It is difficult, from a human standpoint, to understand how the Father can forgive such colossal sin, and yet the Father does so if that sinner is willing to repent of his sins. The human will is always supreme in deciding the ultimate fate of each human being. Is this helping your understanding.
Q: I can understand how the Father as a divine individual can forgive and not condemn such things, and I understand how the human mind is limited in capacity. It seems like we are stuck in running a society and choices of a correct or incorrect point of view have to be made.
Ham: Mankind can only judge on the consequences of action. The divine mind can only judge on the true intention of that person regardless of the outward workings of that person’s action. They are two very different ways of understanding the same thing. But, the bridge between the two is that erring mortals ability to renounce sin and turn away from atrocious actions, the ability to recognize error and to change is what bridges that difference. You cannot accept divine salvation and cling to error, sin, and iniquity at the same time.
Q: Ham, you said a phrase there, human mind can only judge through the results and divine mind can only judge by intentions. Maybe that’s just a way you said that, are you implying that the Father is somehow constrained in viewing it as other than that.
Ham: No, he chooses when it comes to judgment.
Counsel
Q: I am going to have the occasion to talk to a lot of people about how their habits influence their health and perhaps try to convince them to eat differently or to do different actions. Can you help me apply this lesson to that?
Ham: Certainly. Human beings are creatures of habit and often humans equate their habits with themselves. This seems illogical, but there is a deep connection between the thought I am and I do. The separation between I am and I do is a difficult transition to make, especially when you use words such as bad and good. I do bad equates to I am bad. So, though difficult, my first advice is to avoid judgment terms, bad versus good. It is probably wise to replace these with goal-like terms.
These types of foods can make you feel better, make you feel lighter or more energetic or what have you, and to, of course as in all lifestyle changes, to use baby steps and allow habituation to take place with each small change which could extend your study but could be more effective in the long-term. People want overnight change and yet people are so fundamentally geared not to be able to change overnight that you have a conflict at the beginning. But, in general, keeping to terms like better or better than rather than stark judgment calls is really a first good step in this kind of communication.
Q: Thank you that was helpful.
Q: It seems to me, like David’s book, people don’t buy them to refute them or denounce them but someone who comes to his lectures won’t come there to holler them down. They have paid their money and they have subscribed to this. It seems like that is a special communication situation where he has much more advantage. Am I thinking right.
Q: My problem is dealing with a community of people that maybe don’t even know that they should be listening but that what they are doing is still killing them.
Ham: Brogan’s dilemma is more complex in that he is very different in race, gender, in education than the people who he will be working with and so he has to be very careful how he presents himself so as not to put these people off and give them an excuse not to listen to him which they may be looking for. Remember, humility, humility, humility. Preface a lot of things, a lot of your questions, I don’t know, maybe you can tell me, what do you think, things like that. Also keep in mind that you are there to serve not to be served.
Q: Ham could I have a personal message?
Ham: Certainly, son.
Q: The last few weeks and months have been full of ups and downs and you are now feeling much more secure and more on solid ground emotionally and spiritually. You have come through quite a lot and have grown tremendously from these experiences. You are finding a new openness with yourself that you hadn’t had to this extent before. Your self-honesty is taking on a new dimension. You have always been ready to condemn yourself and not so ready to see the full truth in some other people.
But now you have a fuller realism of who you are and so you don’t need to find an unrealism in others. That is, you are more able to not have to project the good that was within you that you didn’t see onto others. You are continuing to become more balanced and more self-assured and self-aware and this is all wonderful to see. Go in peace my son, do you understand what I have imparted?
Q: For the most part.
Q: I was saying that kind of lightly though but I saw something else later. If you sell somebody something then they have to become your upholder and they have to proselytize and defend you to show that they have not become duped. So I think we should all become market place people, kind of like gypsies.
Ham: That is only partially true.
Q: I think quite often people will buy something and will turn against it. People quite often say 50% of the time say they got a lemon.
Ham: The people who become part of a study, for example, are certainly predisposed to be favorable toward it to a certain degree that degree will vary from person to person. All those people are in the weight situation that they are in certainly already having tried and bought many, many products and diet books and things which have failed. So their almost on a hair trigger to turn against something like this as well.
Q: Nobody has tried more diets than me and every time I read a new one I think this is it at last and will not let anyone argue me out of it until I am tired of it. [[[laugher]]]
Q: Elise requested a message.
Ham: Certainly, daughter, you do well. You are making good progress every day. You are soon going to be able to resume your past social interactions and even though your heart is tender you are healing and are finding a new life and a new passion for being that is helping you. You do well my dear.
Q: I’d like to take this time to let you know that your counsel has been very good and I would like to thank you and ask if you have any counsel tonight?
Ham: Certainly my son. You are doing very well. We are very pleased with the progress you have made over this past year. You have come through some quite extreme emotional circumstances and have shown a great deal of spiritual poise and emotional balance in coming through this. Think on this concept of service and how you can best serve in your life at this time. All of you have always a bed rock of service to fall back on. You may, for a time, attempt to gain some ego gratification through your works, but you must all remember that it is service that will lead you forward. Even when you do things which serve yourself, you are serving.
Sometimes you have needed to nurture yourselves a bit more than you have, to give yourselves love and attention, to let yourselves flower in your work by taking chances, by opening to your own creativity. It is possible to serve yourself without being self-serving. Continue then, my son, in service and in your reflections on service. One always feels best when you are being useful to others.
Q: A question from Norbert. Is it good for me to keep seeing Jupe. After the last session I felt down.
Ham: My son, spiritual progress is not pain free. Often when you are making the most spiritual gain, you are actually feeling quite unbalanced. Massage can bring out emotional blocks and issues which are not necessarily conscious. These feelings of unease and even depression are probably a sign that the massage therapy is working. Don’t worry, you are doing fine.
Q: Do you have anything for Esmirelda?
Ham: My dear, you are making good progress as always. You are a person who makes steady gains at like a low level, kind of like the tortoise versus the hare. Where some people make great breakthroughs and jumps forward, you make slow but steady progress which covers the same ground. You are far more able to remain balanced and steady than those who jump hear and there. Be at peace in all things for you do very well.
Q: Elena?
Ham: My dear, you do well and are finding time to nurture yourself as we spoke of earlier. You are asking yourself questions you have never asked before and are coming to new and different conclusions. You have been through a time of quite rapid growth and now you are in a time to consolidate that growth. Be at ease, for you do well.
Q: Rebecca?
Ham: Certainly my dear. You are doing well. This is a time of great growth and expansion of your understanding of your own ability and depth. You have come far in a short time and are continuing to forge many new links in the chain of who you are or who you know yourself to be. Your work is progressing and we encourage this. Go in peace, my dear, you do well.
Q: Jarad?
Ham: Son, likewise, you are expanding the limits of your self. But, like a little ground squirrel, you sometimes like to run back into your hole and experience the warmth and comfort of what you have created there. This doesn’t mean that the boundaries of your territory have shrunk into that hole, it just means that you have chosen to return there. Continue to expand those bounds to continue to explore yourself and who you are becoming. You have many more faith credits in the bank than you have dared to draw upon. Have faith in yourself and in who you are becoming and know that you are upheld by the divine forces that exist around you. Lean upon them, trust them. You do well.
Q: Charlie B?
Ham: Yes, my son, you are also doing well. You sometimes have trouble fully accepting and drawing upon the love that surrounds you. You have a bit of a tendency to want to go it alone when the circumstances call for support and teamwork. As you grow in the spirit, you will also become more comfortable with your humanity. Continue to seek self- acceptance and self-understanding. These two things will give you that most valuable of possessions, self-restraint. Be at peace, for you do very well.
Q: Ham if you have any feedback for me I would really appreciate it.
Ham: Certainly my son. You are doing very well. You are finding yourself in the training that comes in the mansion world experience, that is in working with those who are very different than yourself. The colleagues which you will be working with are also coming from different backgrounds and different points of view as we discussed. For all of you, this training of working with others is crucial and the lessons your learn from these things you will use all the way to Paradise. Therefore my son, count yourself fortunate to have this advanced training. You do very well and you are ready to receive it.
Are there any further questions? Very well, until next week my love and my prayers are with you each. Farewell.
