1996-09-12-Providence, Superstition, Trust
Pittsburgh #35
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Confiding Trust
o 1.2 Group: Pittsburgh TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Tomas
o 2.2 TR: Gerdean
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
3.1.1 Providence, Superstition
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Trust
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Defenses
3.3.2 Dissemination
3.3.3 Growth
o 3.4 Note
3.4.1 Transmitting
Topic: Confiding Trust
Group: Pittsburgh TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Tomas
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
TOMAS: I am Tomas. Good evening. Group: Good evening, Tomas.
TOMAS: How wonderful it is to be in this bounteous group of believers this evening. It is always a pleasure to join with you, my faithful ones, and it is also always an eager event when we behold the presence of new persons interested in sharing their inner life with us that we may share our inner life with them, and thus grows the community of Kingdom builders. Welcome, one and all.
En masse we have appreciated your studies this evening regarding the bestowals of the Creator Son, Michael of Nebadon. Your interchanges are such an array of human responses that we unceasingly delight to behold you in action. It is, I daresay, our fond hope that in time your interaction will be focused and dynamic but, like the original apostles of Jesus, the diversity will never revert to boredom or monotony; and so are you, faithful followers of Him.
Providence, Superstition
TOMAS: It has been brought to my attention that the transcript of our discussions last week was lost, and much speculation has arisen as to the whereabouts and why-withal and I will say to you that I did not instruct the midwayers to delete the lesson, no, but will simply account it to mechanical failure. It is one of the sad aspects of the material realm that material items are prone to collapse and decay, are prone to error, and such was the case.
I have found it interesting, however, that your speculations were such that I needed to make a commentary, if you will, that being that when things occur, it is not necessarily within the divine providence. That is to say, we are not involved in every facet of life to the extent that each incident is a testimony to the involvement or un-involvement of divinity. When the matter is significant to your spiritual growth it will certainly be registered and there will certainly be reality reactions/responses, but for the run-of-the-mill, normal living experience as a mortal in the material realm, many things come and go which are not off-shoots of divinity or any facet thereof.
It has been noted among my cohorts, as we discussed your situation and your reactions, that it is an advanced form of superstition, but “advanced” is the key word, for we noticed that you have included God in your life in a positive vein more so than the ancients did in according all negative aspects to Divinity, and so we did chuckle and say, “See? They are evolving, after all.” (Group chuckle)
It would appear that in some ways it was beneficial that the transmission of last week was omitted/deleted from your records, for it has come to our attention that many of you have not been sufficiently impressed with the lesson to recall its topic, and I will therefore reiterate the lesson of last week with minor modifications. We are discussing again this week Confiding Trust.
Lesson
Trust
TOMAS: Confiding trust is a fruit of the spirit. It is a natural gift of sonship. When you give yourself over to divinity and become part of the Living Reality, your motives are such that you are reborn, you are now functioning as an enlightened being, or desire to be helpful in the ministry of Michael in your life as you may manifest the love of God. It is a natural result of knowing God that you should want to be like Him and to share Him in your behaviors and attitudes with others.
The facet of confiding trust as a behavior, as an attitude, was ideationalized by introducing your prayerful attitude toward the First Source and Center. Introducing the concept of a child who comes to the Father, trusting in his love, acceptance, overcare, guidance, consolation and so forth, is innate to you who have been reborn, to you who are born of the spirit, and who turn to the spirit for sustenance, nourishment and an answer to your grievances and prayers.
As you come to know the Father, as you come to Him with your burdens, your experiences, your cosmic problem solving situations, you begin to discourse with the Father as with a friend, and your soul conveys to Him the attitude of needing His guidance in solving these many problems, natural problems, as a result of living the life of a mortal of the realm, a realm much affected by darkness.
In your upward struggle you come to then confide in the First Source and Center your feelings, not only about your external situations but about your internal situations. Indeed, you well know it is not necessary to discuss these things in words with the Father, for he hears, sees, knows your soul as it is and responds to your attitude as you approach Him in prayer. It is your attitude that He speaks to and answers. It is His Presence that responds to you as you open for His presence. This is a result of your confiding trust in the Father.
Your difficulties with your fellow human beings, your distresses with your own abilities to live up to your own standards, your dismay when you discover disharmony, your chagrin at recognizing betrayals — many serious things occur in a life of a God-knowing mortal that cause deep feeling and concern, and bringing these concerns to the Father in confidence of his hearing, seeing, knowing and ultimately doing something about it, is a manifestation of your trust.
As you then develop this relationship with the Father, you look out upon the sea of personalities surrounding you in your daily life. Each individual you encounter is also indwelt by a fragment of divinity. There is a piece of God in each of his children. As you know your fellows, it behooves you to learn to have confiding trust also in them.
Let us speak first about fellow Kingdom believers, your brothers and sisters in the spirit, those in whom you recognize a God-consciousness, your friends in the spirit. You are opening yourself to lightening your burden when you can speak with them in confidence and in trust that they will hear you as a fellow sojourner and respect your confidence that they will give back to you in kind what the Father gives back to you when you speak to Him in confiding trust.
When you speak with the non-believer, it behooves you to be as wise as serpents and peaceful as doves;[1] it behooves you to whet their appetite for truth; it behooves you to encourage them to know the Father, for in knowing the Father, they are welcomed into this fraternity wherein you have confiding trust in one another. Many of your distresses are brought about, as you all well know, by placing your trust in sources which fall short of the goals of eternity, which fall short of the recognition of God.
It is worthy of the adventure to attempt to none-the-less convey a confiding trust even in your enemies, for it gives them an opportunity to make a choice. Every decision that is made brings the mortal closer to ascending one step further, every moment provides unlimited opportunities to the kingdom seeker.
Returning to your fellowship, your immediate associations, which we know is the arena in which you work, play, function, have influence and are influenced by, your arena is where you must learn to have confiding trust. Trust is a difficult thing for you mortals to undertake, for your trust has been betrayed often. Your Planetary Prince betrayed the trust when he set forth his Manifesto, and your entire evolution since those early, early times has been founded on this distrust.
Distrust is part and parcel of your realm. It permeates every facet of life in the realms of politics, education, philosophy, and so forth, and certainly in your behaviors and in your reactions. Trust is a decision you make. Only you can determine that you will trust. Faith is given to you, but to act upon your faith requires that you trust. And so the fruit of the spirit, confiding trust, requires an effort, even though it is a natural fruit of the spirit. Unless and until you are conscious of the ways you curtail your confiding trust in others, you will not advance nor will your brethren.
Before I conclude this subject, I would like to remind you that the betrayal of Judas was largely due to his refusal to trust his fellows. He refused to confide in them his feelings, his worries, his suspicions, his concerns regarding Jesus, many of the Master’s behaviors, and many of the facets of life during those times they spent together. As you isolate yourselves in your individual “ivory towers” of isolation from one another, you cut yourself off consciously from the fruit of the divine spirit, confiding trust.
And so, my assignment, my precious students, is to look this week at your understanding of confiding trust. Jesus trusted us. He trusted his children, one and all. And so I ask you to look to your brothers and sisters and learn to trust, learn to confide in others in trust of their response to your soul. I would enjoy hearing from each of you or some of you. I am not limited to formal questions. I am graciously amenable to discourse with you. I include you. I ask your indulgence to carry on with me for the benefit of us all. The floor is open.
Dialogue
Defenses
Elizabeth: Well, really, it would be just great if I could ask you to do something that I hardly even know to describe, and that is could you give some homely examples of how we could think of a way to trust each other, especially those not of our close circle, and could you give us possible homely examples because I think it would help me a lot if you could do that, Tomas.
TOMAS: I will give you a homely example. It is exemplified in your earlier discourse. It is apparent to many of us that you all distrust one another, for you are unwilling to be exposed to the full breadth of one another’s soul. Your personality techniques and defenses are deeply ingrained. Your inability to communicate is an example of distrust. You distrust having to acknowledge someone else’s discomfort in not knowing. You distrust the responsibility of a gracious response. You distrust the pain of insight. And you distrust the comfort of communion.
You do not have to go far afield to see how cleverly you have built up your defenses against the demands of others, the manipulations of clever sophistries, the flash and glitter of your material realms, the soothing tones of intimacy. Far be it for me to parade your imperfections before you, and I am not expanding for that purpose but only to help reveal to you that in your most immediate realm you are distrustful.
I say this not in accusation, for I trust that you are listening to me, that you are hearing me. This is one of the key themes of Brother Rantarason, that you learn to listen, that you not tolerate extensive rambling, but that you truly listen and see what it is that your brother wants to share and respond to that self-expression, that soul need. From there — from that understanding and that awareness — you may take it out into the marketplace as far as you like, but this business begins at home and at heart. Always remember your Source of trust. If you are sincere in your desire to be about the Father’s business, you will refer to Him incessantly. You will not hide behind yourself, but behind Him who sends you.
Elizabeth: Can you give us just human examples of John Doe and Mary Smith and John Doe does this and Mary Smith responds, or something like that, please?
TOMAS: No, daughter, I will not, for I am not in the character assassination business. It is up to you to meditate on confiding trust and apply it to your life. What goes on between John and Jane Doe is between them. What goes on between you and your brother is your business. I hope I am not causing offense here. I understand that you want a specific example, but, daughter, if I give you a specific example (and I know this because I know you mortals), you will identify that incident to the exclusion of other incidents representing the same value truth.
It is much like when Andon and Fonta discovered they could make fire by using a bird’s nest, and it was many, many moons before they realized that any dry sticks, leaves and twigs could also start a fire, for they were of a mind that only bird’s nest would work. You see my point.
Elizabeth: I do, but I think that if I could start with one human story — I love stories, and they help me because they are pleasant to contemplate and helpful to approach. This is a bit of a challenge.
TOMAS: I am certain that there are many at this table who have in their mind an example. Who would like to share?
Hunnah: I would. Unfortunately. I’m going to use myself as an example. While I have been on a spiritual journey, I have found that I am more aware of my — what I call the choice of behavior of my higher self and what I call my human conditioning. In the human conditioning, I can tell when I’m being manipulative or when there is an underlying purpose for my tack, which is basically selfish, or I will do it because —
I think my mother was correct the other day when she was pointing out that I always know what’s good for someone else . .. and that is a human nature and I can impersonalize it now that I have some distance, through our conversation, but in human nature we want to pay attention to what’s going on outside our self instead of our own agenda, and because of prayer and meditation, it allows me to tell the difference between my human motives and my preferred performance, and that would be unselfish. And the counsel, the way you behave, you don’t have that sly side agenda. Does that help?
TOMAS: It is certainly confirmation for us all of what confidence can be gained in your behaviors in knowing you walk a clear path. It is also good to hear you distinguish knowledgeably between your divine nature and your human nature. I think the key phrase may be the “hidden agenda”. It is the hidden agenda of the human being that is not depending upon trust, is not trusting of the higher nature.
Indeed, the human being may trust the fallibility of others in order to accomplish their selfish purpose, and the fruit of the spirit presents confiding trust in a manner in which you confide to us that you utilize in working out your cosmic problem-solving, your own personal spiritual evolution, your ascension, dear, and so your comments are well taken. You will notice, Elizabeth, that no one was assassinated in the process of sharing an understanding.
Elizabeth: Well, I remember that the supreme example to me in the Book was that Jesus knew the possibilities of Judas, but he made himself so completely vulnerable that he eventually was led to his crucifixion, and that, to me, is a supreme example of trust, but I’m thinking of some minute steps, some baby steps, and then perhaps progressing from there to doing some more significant….
Theresa: I think some of us, Tomas, just — in my case, I’m not sure that my understanding of trust is what you’re talking about. Unless it’s just that I myself am afraid of being hurt. It’s what I — when I open up and try to trust other people with . .. what do I want to say? Talking about God, talking about Urantia, and I’m afraid maybe these people aren’t ready for it. And maybe the ones that aren’t ready for it will think you’re crazy, or act like you’re crazy. Or in the case of somebody close to me, it’s like a big put-down.
Dissemination
TOMAS: I am not discussing the proselytizing of a book or a philosophy. I am discussing behavior.
Theresa: Trusting a person and trying to carry on a conversation with them. But you get a big putdown. Is this my problem with the trust?
Hunnah: May I? Theresa: I don’t understand it . … Hunnah: May I? TOMAS: Yes, Hunnah.
Hunnah: When you’re talking to someone and you want to talk to them about the Book, when you check in, just pause, because humanly you are a wonderfully unselfish person, and you love so much that you want to share, but you set yourself up. And when you enter your inner counsel, that whole scenario may be avoided because that person you’re talking to isn’t ready.
Theresa: Isn’t ready.
Hunnah: But your tongue will be loosened when you’re with someone you least suspect is ready, and they will be just thrilled at something you said. You won’t even know what you said.
Theresa: But how do you know . ..?
Hunnah: It’s timing. Theresa: . .. which person to trust? Hunnah: It’s timing.
TOMAS: You trust the Father and you trust the God Fragment in your fellow human being. If as a mortal they would sting you, then go about your business. It is not for you to take it personally whether they decide for or against the pearls, which you bestow for them. Place your trust in the Father and in the Father Fragment. It is the human being that you are trying “to save” but only God can do that. You are only conveying what you wish to convey, and what I wish to convey is that you are to practice the fruit of the spirit in your life, which is not to preach a book, but to live the gospel.
Trusting someone in confidence is being able to sit and share not a book but an attitude. You can share your distress, your pain, your excitement, your living experience. This is personal. This is not a book. I say this so that you will not make the mistake of Christianity. Our Mission is not to sell or promote the Urantia Book; it is to live the gospel of Jesus as he lived it. Anyone can read a book. Ideally they will ultimately find that the truths in The Urantia Book uphold and support their own inner concepts of life. But whether or not you place a book in their hands, in their lap, is not the focus of my lesson regarding confiding trust. I do not know if I am being clear to you here, but I did need to put it on record.
Hunnah: Does that reflect the scripture, “choose whom this day who you shall serve”? Isn’t it like a constant on-going thing you have to remember? Whether you are saying the old line or the new one?
TOMAS: I am trusting you all, in confidence, that you are sons and daughters of the living God, that we choose to share the good news, that we are sons and daughters of the living God, that we manifest in our lives the fruits abundantly which he has given us, and these are merciful ministry, loving service, confiding trust, enlightened honesty, courageous loyalty, enduring peace, undying hope and so forth. These soul attitudes are what the kingdom is about. It is not about books or groups or even mortal beings. It is about the life, the Life that is alive. Perhaps I have overstepped myself here. Abram, please, what do you think?
Growth
Abram: I’m confused. But I can see where you’re coming from. You don’t want to deal with anything in this mortal scene. You’re talking with something that’s quite nebulous, and that’s dealing with the internal aspect of the individual in the universe and how they feel toward it and how they operate with it. Trust is something that we almost have to acquire. You have to really feel it in order to understand it and that’s about all I can say about it.
TOMAS: I appreciate your contribution. You have sustained me, my son. I am reminded that it would do you well to recognize the presence of God in others. As you recognize your Father in heaven, you can recognize Him in others and discourse more freely, share more fully and confide more deeply. Yes.
Betty: Well, I wrote this down. I read it today. Jesus said, “those who are born of the spirit begin immediately to show forth the fruits of the spirit,” one of the fruits of the spirit being that confiding trust.
TOMAS: Indeed.
Betty: And then as that one fruit of the spirit starts within you then the others come along and progress until you’ve got them all.
TOMAS: Yes.
Betty: And you’ve got to have total trust in God, the Father.
TOMAS: Yes. Well done. The fruits of the spirit are born into you as you are born of the spirit, but you are born in the spirit as a babe, and you grow in the spirit by your decisions and by your sincerity. Whereas these fruits of the spirit are given to you, it is my assignment to help you develop them, that you might grow to the stature of spiritual adulthood, that we might become an army of believers.
Elizabeth: Well, Tomas, can’t you find a minute example, somewhere in the group or somewhere, to tell us an example of when somebody was employing this kind of trust. Can’t you think of some tiny example along the line to fasten onto? Nobody else, I guess, has this problem, possibly, except me.
Hunnah: Could I? I see trust in everyone here all the time, but we’re so close to it we cannot see it. And when you were talking I thought of Joanna. And she loves her Savior — not any more than any of us here but — she knows that her welfare, in spite of the fact that it’s looked very slim to us materially, it’s like daily bread for her. Some people want to see the Father give them a drop at a time.
They want to witness a drop. And others want to bask in it, splash in it, and . .. I like the word Betty used: “immediately” we are given the fruits of the spirit, and I pray this week that everyone here will see that they do believe, that they do trust, and that they will be able to watch how immediate this recognition will be in them, for it’s such a generous system. And Leah travels constantly. She trusts totally, inexplicably, that she will always be safe on the highway. Joel used to say that our safety is a built-in gift into our consciousness.
Barbara: Well, will somebody explain, Tomas or somebody, expound on . ..? Tomas, you mentioned something about God not being involved in every aspect of our daily life, if I understood you? and I always thought that He was.
TOMAS: Let me explain further. There was a mechanical failure in the tape recorder last week and there was some speculation that the midwayers may have tampered with the mechanism, and I said that God does not meddle in each facet of material life in that context. Sometimes when you drop a hammer on your toe, it is simply that the hammer slipped; it does not mean necessarily that you need to become grounded, and this is what I was making reference to. In all things that matter to your evolving soul and to your relationship with divinity, it is overseen and orchestrated by divinity, by God, yes, but cars break down, tires go flat, toasters wear out and it doesn’t mean that God told you to buy a new toaster, you see?
Barbara: Yes.
Abram: Just a little bit of levity, Tomas. Many, many years ago my wife and I were first married, we were building a new home and I was doing all the construction, and I’ll never forget the time that hammer did fall and just about missed my head and also a piece of sheet rock fell, which she was holding, just missed my head, bounced off, but I did trust that she wasn’t trying to do me in . .. (group laughter) and we are still married almost 35 years later. She did tend the fire, though, that one evening. I wouldn’t let her do anything else. (laughter)
TOMAS: It would seem that you have great trust in one another.
Hunnah: We depend. We depend on each other.
TOMAS: There is a certain inborn trust in mutual need and dependency. It is, however, the reward of friendship, the mortal companionship.
Elizabeth: Well, I’d like to pursue this in the sense that I’m wondering if in the highest uses of trust with another human is to challenge them, to trust them to rise to some occasion that you think they’re worthy of, that they haven’t quite come to yet, and I wonder if that is true.
Hunnah: Aren’t you involving patience in that statement? Is there patience involved here? Elizabeth: Yeah, there would be patience.
Hunnah: In their potential? Elizabeth: Yeah.
TOMAS: Let me say regarding trust that as you trust the Father and manifest this fruit in your life, you become trustworthy. As you become trustworthy, you then are entrusted with greater responsibilities. Is it any wonder that the fledgling soul is reluctant to learn to trust, for ultimately there will be “hell to pay.” I feel the session is reaching closure.
Elizabeth: Oh, no it’s not! If you want it to it will be, but I wanted to tell you about the fact that I was enjoying Enlightened Honesty a lot and I didn’t even think I could possibly even try it for six months without thinking about it, but I began to enjoy thinking about it and sort of nibbling on the edges of it and I enjoyed it tremendously, and so maybe after I get used to this new one, I’ll enjoy it too, but I haven’t been able to think about it enough to . …
Betty: It seems a lot more complex. Elizabeth: It does.
Hunnah: I have a question, if you can hang in there for a minute, and it involves accidents. It surprises me tonight that the subject wasn’t brought up by two of the people sitting at this table. But I got to thinking about the number of people we had in our group and there had been four or five that have had mean situations happen to them, and in counsel one time with my daughter regarding the problem I was having — and my problem would not go away — and I was causing many people to be frustrated — I said to her, “Am I doing this to myself?” and she said, “Yes, you are,” and I said, “Well, I want it to stop!” She said, “It can stop. You may let it stop.”
And by her stating that, it seemed to have moved me into another place. I think my guessing and watching our human behavior, the human considers the administration of spirit an anathema, and like you pointed out, Elizabeth, if I grow up, I’ll be given more responsibility and I like being a child and I’ll play forever because I don’t trust that the Father has playful joy on his agenda, that it’s nothing but hard work.
And you may have brought up this subject of the joy of learning and it was part of — it was one of my blocks, and apparently it still is — but I had an experience the other night where I did some reading for my job and I had a joyful reading session. I had enough experience that I could relate to what I was reading and I really enjoyed it, and I was conscious that I was enjoying it and I was ever, ever so grateful, because it made me appreciate how some people feel when they are learning something and I’ve never really had that as long as I can remember. Ever.
So coming back to what we do to ourselves, unconsciously are we teaching ourselves lessons that we don’t want to see? And I think I’ve talked enough that it will probably take you a month to answer, but I’m hoping that I’ve tapped into something inadvertently that will be helpful to the others as it has been for me.
TOMAS: Your sharing what you just shared has been helpful to the group and to me, for it proves to me that your joy of learning has indeed become a living reality in your life and I am personally delighted and grateful for your expression. It validates my existence here, if you will. I am not going to carry on about it for you have made the point better than I could and I will take this opportunity now, Hunnah, to further focus on learning this technique of transmitting/ receiving, for your positive attitude even I find refreshing.
As to your remark, Elizabeth, I would like to reiterate something from the lost lesson of last week, that being that this ability to engage in confiding trust with your fellows is a method of involving yourself in the human race. It bonds you with people in an intimate way that can never be brought about by mere social banter, for it is a soul to soul situation. There is no friendship without a certain amount of confiding trust. There is no real marriage without confiding trust. How, indeed, can one give so much of oneself to someone without some degree of trust? As we study further certain subjects such as intimacy we will gain yet broader understanding….
Note
Transmitting
[Gerdean: Recently Tomas had a private session with one of his students, during which time he explained to the student the process whereby I admit him. This student suggested that I reveal that information to the group and so I shall.
“You may wonder what goes on in that period of a few minutes’ time before Tomas begins to speak. What happens is that I first take a few moments to talk with Michael. When I perceive his presence, I ask for his guidance and seek his blessing; I ask him to direct the transmitting/ receiving process such that I have a clear mind with which the teachers may work, that my motives be sincere, that my intentions be to serve; and then I ask to be brought into the presence of the Father.
In the presence of the Father, I wash myself in the Living Water. I bow before Him and allow myself to become very small — so small that I am a mere shadow on the back wall, so that my inner chamber may be expanded to include the presence of the teachers. When I am certain that my ego is at bay, I rest assured and await the awareness of the presence of the teacher.”]
