2001-04-21-Discipleship, Jesus, Truth
Spokane #82
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: A Little Talk
o 1.2 Group: Spokane TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teachers: Jesus & Aaron
o 2.2 TR: Gerdean
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Discipleship
3.2.2 Jesus
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Truth, Knowledge
3.3.2 Urantia Book
Topic: A Little Talk
Group: Spokane TeaM
Facilitators
Teachers: Jesus & Aaron
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
JESUS: Good afternoon, children. This is your father/brother Michael. I’d like to spend a few minutes with you.
GINNY: Hello, Michael.
JESUS: : Hello, indeed. I kiss you and acknowledge you ~ as my children ~ and as my co-workers in this effort ~ to enjoy the spirit life ~ and share the values of eternity ~ with the material worlds of time and space. My words this afternoon have to do with how it is that so many people feel that religion is somehow the panacea, the solution to all ills and the opiate that allows you to drift through life untroubled, untouched by challenges and difficulties. This has never been the case, although sonship is able to provide us with an affiliation that cannot be enjoyed by and through any other form of reality.
Lesson
Discipleship
JESUS: The communion we enjoy with Our Father, as a part of His creation, in the work He has given us to do and the joys we are given to perceive, makes us kindred spirits, gives us rightful fellowship. But the far-flung universe provides far-flung opinions and attitudes and perceptions and approaches to what Our Father may be leading each individually to perform or present. This is what I meant when I spoke to James and the others about thinking alike, because you are indeed all unique, original, and different even though you are, yes, all the same in some other regards. [Pg..1591]
When I ask you to love one another as I have loved you, it is to love you as a brother accepts another brother, with complete appreciation of the character and personality of the other, including his strengths and weaknesses, his sensitivities and humor, his tender feelings and his righteous indignation.
I do not love my children simply because they are seen to be perfect. I am not such an indulgent father as to not recognize what I’m dealing with, and you are also invited to realize what you are dealing with when you deal with one another. And yet and still love one another. As I do. And as I did as a mortal of the realm in your company. Just as you today sit with me in moments like these and realize the extent of my devotion to Our Father, to my universe, and to you — our children.
I long ago told you that to follow me was not to be a life of ease but a sure pathway to trouble. Now your challenge is to manifest godlike-ness in your humanness ~ to reflect the fruit of the vine ~ to witness to the divine nature by portraying the qualities of you in communion with spirit. It gives me supreme delight to see you come together to further understand our work, our relationship, and to give praise to Our Eternal Parents in their design of life everlasting in service. I will stay with you during your session today and be with you as your brother. I enjoy observing your sessions and sitting in quietly and observing how you take your lessons to heart and practice your principles in the arena, bringing your experiential situations back to share with your fellows in search of understanding. Peace be upon you.
Jesus
AARON: Aaron here. I’m feeling very young at the moment, in the presence of our elder brother and senior advisor here. He is a marvelous personality, even to us who work with him on a different level than you, who know him from a different vantage point than you. We enjoy the Michael Son for his wisdom. He always has the right response. He always has a correct answer. He always provides the right attitude. For Him the door is always open. He always knows where to find the key. He is far beyond my capacity to comprehend, and yet I feel as if I am close friends with Him and He with me.
And so while we have much to learn in our future relationship, the repleteness we share in our moments together today, lack nothing, is impervious to want. I cannot help but wonder if this is something of what He means to say when He asks us to love each other as He loves us ~ under-standing that in future our relationship will develop and grow but, as it is now, it is a treasure to have, complete and true as it is.
I see no flaw in Michael of Nebadon, but I cannot imagine He is able to perceive of me as also without flaw, for I am aware of how much I have to learn yet before I am ascended any farther than I am today; thus I give my attention and my efforts to where I am today, for as I master my challenges and opportunities as set before me, I stand a chance of being promoted/ advanced/ uplifted and brought into another and greater reality tomorrow, as is a natural course of events in the unfolding of perfection.
While Michael presumes to conjoin with us in the guise of Jesus of Nazareth, I am able to enjoy our campfire here for we can think in terms of how it was in days of old with the original apostles when Jesus sent them out two and two into the towns and provinces whereupon they would work their way through the men and women of that time in an effort to introduce them to our loving Father in heaven in such a way as to personalize their experience, increasing the spiritual capacity then of the individual and subsequently the world ~ coming home then and discussing the experiences that were had in those arenas, and coming to better understandings and appreciations of their efforts and of the people they were trying to meet.
What then have you formulated, daughter, to present to our good Teacher as to your experience in the field?
Dialogue
GINNY: Are we obliged or are we being asked to correct — Oh! That sounds really arrogant, but — to correct something that’s wrong? Something erroneous, or what we think is erroneous, or what may be incorrect? It’s hard to ask a question like this. If we say that everybody’s beliefs aren’t valid, then . .. There is such a thing as truth! To me. And once we discover that, how do we handle it? Like…. What . ..?
AARON: : Tell me first how you perceive of truth. What is truth to you? When you say you know truth, what do you refer to?
GINNY: Well, I guess I’m referring to the facts of how this universe runs. Like, who we are and where we come from and our destiny.
Truth, Knowledge
AARON: This is not so much “truth” as it is “true”. There is a difference. That which you refer to are facts. That is the basis of theory, the foundation of belief systems; it is intellectual appreciation, and yet it is not truth as truth is presented to be a quality of divinity. Your world is a material existence, true, and a shadow of divinity, in that, it is so dense and far removed from spirituality. (You’ve got me locked into theory now, just through defining our terms!) But if you want to witness to Our Father, and glorify Him, a presentation of facts surrounding His creation, these superuniverses, this hierarchy, this organization of cosmic reality which you have learned from Urantia Papers, is certainly a way of portraying God’s greatness, but it will not portray His greatness in such a way as will touch their hearts and thus convert them to, move them to appreciate Him as a reality in their own personal experience.
This is Truth ! This Truth needs no explanation, requires no definition, for it is of a Source, an Origin of supremacy far beyond your mortal comprehension. When you say, “I know that I know,” it is THIS of which you speak. When you talk about theory, facts, philosophy and cosmology, you also are sharing what you know, but you are sharing what you know as a mental representation of what Truth lies in your heart.
However, I am not certain that is how far you wanted to go or whether you ar e going in another direction than from where you were in the beginning and I would like to say that I am going to invite Thoroah into this conversation for I’m not comfortable monopolizing the floor. I enjoy hearing from you. You are the workers. You are the ones. I need to hear your points of view for clarification, not mine.
THOROAH: I think, from my perspective, you explained the way that I would attempt to explain. I demonstrate that which I know I know, and I talk about that which I think I know, as well as what I know I know. And I think we get lost sometimes in what we think we know. I found that what I thought I knew , I only knew part of it until I knew. Which sounds like a lot of double talk but it . .. I’ve learned in my process, having gone through a number of things, going 100%, going all the way to the wall for a belief, to find that I either went past the belief into something new or that the belief that I thought I had was just the tip of an iceberg that I discovered. So it’s hard for me to hang my hat on what I believe. If somebody was to ask me what I believe, I’d have to make it as simple and as broad-based as possible.
AARON: : Even the gospel, which is the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, as simple as it is, can be rejected because of the gender thing or because of the word “gospel”.
THOROAH: The “brotherhood of man” is probably one of the safest things to start with, because we have shown to ourselves on this material world that there is indeed a much larger universe out there and that we are just a small part of it, and so the concept of our brother hood, might be easier for some to understand or accept than necessarily the Fatherhood of God. If we agree on a beginning-hood, in general, a creator-hood,… but somehow there has to be a sense of it all being very friendly, very supportive, and a reflection of the love that operates the universe. I would go that far to saying to people that I believe it’s a friendly universe.
AARON: : It is a friendly universe, yes, even though there are humans in situations who would find that hard to believe under the circumstances but these nuances of value and reality are understood best in the experiential depth of the moment and not on our mountaintop experience of discussing these theories around the campfire.
THOROAH: Talk is cheap, evidently.
Urantia Book
AARON: : And yet the right words at the right moment are as food for the hungry. The subject you were discussing before we came online was and is of infinite value in terms of conveying truth to your hearers, for so many of you are so happy to have found the Urantia Papers and the truths therein (both Truth and that which is true), you are eager to ascribe all of your beliefs as being based on its precepts. And having found this satisfaction for yourself, you would share it with others. This is understandable.
In fact the text itself is a presentation of the Master such as to induce a new appreciation for His personality and His life among you, and open up the hearts and minds of men and women in a meaningful way, such that, were all of humanity infused with an appreciation of our Creator, our combined hearts would be filled to overflowing with love for Him, and our planet might take a quantum leap forward into a spiritually enlightened state. But a book is also an icon of a sort that can be a handicap to those of you who are yet in its protective coverings and unmindful of other ways in which to bring about the enduring and endearing truths which are held within its bindings.
Let me remind you of John the Baptist who was imprisoned in the day of the appearance of Michael on Urantia in the fourth epochal revelation to mankind . And John cried out from his cell for word from Jesus as to what he might expect, and when word came to Jesus, he sent back a message to John to not stumble over him on the way to the Father. Do you think you could draw a parallel here? If the Book is the Revelation, as Jesus was the Revelation, could the Revelation say to you, “Don’t stumble on me on the way to the Father”?
Your spiritual experience is a direct connection between you and the Father and, more immediately, It resides within, requiring no theory, no philosophy, no definition, no papers, no persons, but only that divine thread which connects you to That Which is Without Name and Number. However, as teachers and preachers, you are encouraged to use any and all materials at your disposal to stimulate the growth of the God-consciousness of your fellows.
You are lost in thought, deep in contemplation. Come forth!
GINNY: I guess, I believe I think that For me,…. Again,… As you said,.. My own personal experience with God . .. that it needs to be personal . It can’t just be gotten from a book, but in my case, the information in this book has led me to a deeper faith, a deeper love of Michael and the Father.
AARON: : Indeed.
GINNY: So this is what I’m trying to say: that this is my experience; that if correct information has led me to deep, deeper connection with the Father — and that’s what I’m saying — Be eager to pass on this information so that others might possibly experience what I have experienced.
AARON: : Yes, indeed.
GINNY: Not that reading the Urantia Book is the only path to the Father,… I hope I don’t mean that. It’s MY path, and a very important path for me.
AARON: : You are right to be impressed! It is an impressive product! My concern has to do with what your appreciation for what you regard as your truth and your belief . …
GINNY: Well, I try to practice being open to listening to others’ experience . ..
AARON: : Yes. They too have their beliefs and books. If it is brought to a level of competition, it is hardly a reflection of how Jesus loves his fellows.
GINNY: Well, if I believe and feel something is true, like I’m just giving the example, like Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene or there was no Nazareth or stuff like that. Or the entombment, you know. Jesus did not die for our sins, that kind of stuff. I just . .. I don’t know. If I feel very strongly about something, then it’s hard for me not to be intense about it.
AARON: : By the same token, if you feel that strongly about what you believe in, it is no threat then to you for you to be able to visit the beliefs of your fellows in order to find value within their framework, in which case yo u can support that which compares favorably with the truth as you understand it, while overlooking or minimizing the effects of those which run counter to your philosophies.
GINNY: I’m reminded of Michael, his time on earth, how he handled all these situations where people had doubts and questions, were acting like , picture Jesus smacking his head and saying “I could’ve had a V-8!” or being a little frustrated about the density of the people, that they weren’t getting it, so I very often think about what he did and . .. not what he said so much as how he said it and what he did. They certainly had this immense truth to give to those around him and a lot of them just weren’t getting it. I can imagine his frustration.
Well, maybe not! Maybe there was no frustration. Maybe there was just more love. Thank frustration. So that’s where I’m at.
AARON: : The ability to perceive the capacities of the hearer as empty vessels wanting to be filled or not open to whatever he might have to give, or whatever you might have to give, is an advantage we might all aspire to discern. That would certainly alleviate a lot of expended energy spinning your wheels. The Master was always willing to stop and teach and minister i n his days of teaching the multitudes. He would get in his boat and push off from shore to be able to see them and they him. He could feel the emptiness , the hunger, the spiritual hunger of the people and the Father, through him, fed the people.
If there were on empty vessels he could fill, he wiped the dust from his feet and went on to the next town. If the people were not listening to him, as they stood there, do you think he would have wasted his time teaching and preaching to those who were busy, murmuring among themselves, making change, selling pigeons, hustling women, negotiating politics, or whatever it is that humanity occupies itself with in the main? He was able to perceive whether or not he was feeding the hungry. How valuable that perspective would be!
THOROAH: We could use a lesson or three on developing that perception.
