2010-04-05-Inner Spiritual Presence
Marin #187
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Inner Spiritual Presence
o 1.2 Group: Marin TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Nebadonia
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Inner Life, Presence
3.2.2 Exercise
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Experience, Mother Spirit, Service
3.3.2 Lucifer
3.3.3 Play
3.3.4 Trust, Faith
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Inner Spiritual Presence
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, Good evening and welcome–always and forever: welcome. We feel blessed to listen to, and talk so directly with, our spiritual parents. Michael, we especially enjoyed your lesson last time pointing out our inner seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter we go through inside, sometimes irrespective of what’s happening outside. We can see how, to some degree, we go through these every day. We head out into the world for our daily experiences with a drive to live our lives. We do accumulate our experiences through the day, and then in the evening comes a kind of autumn when our strength and energies begin to ebb and we reflect on what we’ve done, all our glorious accomplishments, all our terrible mistakes.
Then we pull our blankets over us like a coat of snow over the ground and hibernate for a while, sleep and rest and heal until the next morning when we throw off our blankets and head out again. We recognize too some of these inner seasons take weeks or even months to cycle and often catch us unaware. All of a sudden we realize we are in a summer or a winter of our soul, and it helps to know this. It makes more sense of what’s been happening to us. That very reflection, that very realization sets us free. We know where we are inside and we can embrace what’s coming next. So thank you for these lessons on our physical health and our inner seasons as they too affect these bodies of ours. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, my children, this is Nebadonia, your Mother Spirit. I welcome the newcomer to this tried and true old group here. It’s such a delight for Michael and me to have this direct exchange with our children for all you can detect and experience our presence within you, along with your Thought Adjuster. Michael and I are, you might say, two of the major spiritual influences in your total being of which your consciousness is only a small part. Your Father Fragment as well–this discrete presence of God within you–is continuously co-authoring your soul, capturing all the spiritually significant events of your life, forever. Your soul is truly the only necessary eternal possession of your personality. Relax a moment and feel all of us. (long pause)
Lesson
Inner Life, Presence
(Inner spiritual presence)
Our presence within you is very subtle. As we’ve said before, it’s more like the background or surround of your consciousness. I’m focusing the Cosmic Mind down to make it useful for you. You literally have my Mind/Spirit Adjutant kind of mind, distinct from any other order of personal being, like an angel. I’m part of your mentality and your consciousness is more than just your brain and nervous system activity. It’s partly me. I’m always in here with you, if you will, helping you, augmenting your intuition, your courage, your curiosity, your feelings of companionship and gregariousness, the summation of these in your wisdom; and finally, boosting your distinct human ability to feel thankful and worshipful to God for your life.
We so prize your free will and dignity, my children, we want to encourage you to get a feeling for who you are as you make your choices minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, as you direct yourself into your life. We value your free will so greatly, we’re not intrusive. By your very ability to ignore us, it’s your choice as to whether or not to acknowledge us–acknowledge me as part of your mentality. I am always here. My Holy Spirit is always part of you, and you are very definitely part of me.
This is the inexpressible glory Michael and I know through our children. It’s why we’re here. It’s what we love to do. But by the very subtlety of our nature it may take a while for you to realize this presence of ours. So we suggest, in your meditations, a way of being–not exactly unfocused, for there is your intention to contact Spirit–you do have that focus, that desire; but it’s opening yourself to what you cannot anticipate. Because we are always here. We are part of the ever-changing quality of your consciousness, now narrowly focused on a very particular task right in front of you, now kind-of dreamily being entertained when you’re at the movies or watching TV.
So it’s usually in your meditation and just being still, at first, you can begin to register us. We always appreciate it so much, my children, when you say, Hello, Mother!–or, Hello, Michael!–I’m glad to be here with you, glad to know you are in my life and I am in yours. As Michael said in his human life, he is the way to our Father. This orientation, his Spirit of Truth leads you directly to the indwelling presence of God in your mind. It is this presence of God, my children, your own Thought Adjuster which can spiritualize your thinking, which means making your consciousness broader and deeper and evermore all-inclusive of all that you are and all that the creation is.
This orientation of Michael’s Spirit of Truth opens you up to contact and relate with your Thought Adjuster. As you get a greater sense of time becoming ever more still, you can feel yourself expanding. Your soul comes forth and your time units of maturity begin to develop. You get closer and closer to experiencing a real sense of what the transcendent dimensions of time are–that time is not only passing, but that it also holds everything. And as you gain this greater sense of continuity, my children, you get some detachment from your own immediate thoughts. You don’t identify so strictly with only what you are thinking at the moment. Now you can begin to notice as you deepen into your meditation, how your thoughts begin to change, how your thoughts are becoming adjusted. This is the presence of God in your mind, and there is no limit to this expansion as there is no limit to Him.
If you are open to it, if you are willing to listen and hear within you, and then value and heed what comes through, this presence of God can literally give you ideas, can even suggest the next step to take. You’ve all known moments of this, when, as you say, an idea came as a bolt from the blue, so startling and surprising, yet so welcome too as it totally comprehended the whole complicated situation.
True enough, you are a creative spiritual being yourself. You originate most of the thoughts that go through your mind. It’s also true that in your highest mind, the most spiritually creative part of your mind, is exactly where you link up with us. So you can never tell for sure, at first, whether a particular marvelous idea came from your Thought Adjuster or from your own creative personality. For all practical purposes it doesn’t matter. It’s your personal quality of recognition–of the value of the wonderful idea, its practical usefulness–that is just what you need. The recognition is what’s important. As Michael taught, as Jesus, you need this ability to recognize truth irrespective of its origin. This is your orientation. This is how you grow.
Exercise
(Physical stretching)
One further thing I wanted to mention tonight, we’ve talked about only briefly before, and that is the notion of stretching not only mentally but physically too. Think of physical stretching as a necessary activity simply because your body, all by itself through your activity and even more as you get older; your body left alone to its own devices will slowly lose its freedom of motion. Muscles and ligaments shorten; all the joints all over your body get little deposits of calcium around them. So it’s good to stretch and expand whatever range of motion you find yourself stuck with, at any age.
You notice that as you reach the limits to which you are used, you encounter pain. At first it’s just a slight ache, and then a heavier one. If you impatiently rush into the area with some notion in your mind of how much you are going to stretch that leg–or whatever, today–you will notice little tingly pricks of muscle tearing: that’s too much. Physical limits require patience and pure attention to really get down deep into that ache and let those muscles relax and lengthen, to feel those joints moving more than they have lately.
This takes enormous patience and attention. You can’t be somewhere else; your mind can’t be some where or some other time else. Your body is here and now. This is going deep, deep into that ache to let those muscles relax and let those joints move more. You have to really love yourself to be gentle enough. You really have to get out of your ego ambitions about how flexible you want to be, and be here and now in what’s happening. And so the earlier you start, or–this is a hint to all you parents–the younger children start, the better. The younger and more flexible the body–to begin with–makes it easier to learn. Then too to have this youthful experience–for comparison throughout your life–is a bonus.
For you older folks there can be nothing more critical to your quality of life. These are not abstract notions at all, but right down-to-earth qualities like flexibility, suppleness, coordination. In stretching you are literally learning and re-learning yourself from the inside out. It’s a spiritual activity, my children, that has to do with value. How much do you value this body of yours? How much do you value flexibility and suppleness? How much do you value being able to move around, get out in the world and take a walk through the woods–which is sadly and needlessly off limits to so many?
And so this stretching is with your mind simultaneously: putting your mind into your body; bringing your body into consciousness. For now, let your mind stretch with these concepts we are feeding you. In your spirit, my children, be unafraid to let your values be challenged. Be unafraid of the spiritual energy it takes to constantly re-evaluate your life. This is how you stretch your spirit: by having the courage to explore, and question, and wonder.
Physical stretching means going into that ache with your mindfulness, and so, simultaneously, to stretch your mind this way you have to be willing to have all your precious, hard-earned notions of your body be challenged and expanded. You are not who you were yesterday. You have to let Michel’s Spirit of Truth orient you, orient your spirit towards truth, and orient your willingness to seek wherever the truth may be, from whatever source.
This is our spirit gift to you this evening–these notions, these concepts about stretching, teasing you to let yourselves go and follow along where your own creative imaginations recognize what we offer. For our part–Michael and I: we enjoy these journeys with you.
Let me ask if you have any questions or comments this evening. Let’s do that too.
Dialogue
Student: I have a question and I’m sure you can clarify this. I remember that Michael once stated that if you have seen the Son you have seen the Father. Would it be accurate to say if I see Nebadonia I’ve seen the Infinite Spirit?
Experience, Mother Spirit, Service
(Experiencing Mother Spirit: service)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, that is true–if you realize that what we are talking about is pure spirit. Similarly to how I focus the Cosmic Mind of the Infinite Spirit down for each individual personal being within me according to their ability to receive this, just so, my son, what you will experience is how I present myself to you at that particular moment, that unique moment of time and situation. And so I am able to appear to each of my children of different orders of personal beings, and at each stage of their spiritual growth, so uniquely. Insofar as you “see”–that is, feel/realize/experience my Holy Spirit, yes, you are experiencing through me the creative quality of the Infinite Spirit. Keep in mind all along that we are two very discrete beings. I am the daughter of the Infinite Spirit, and the parent is different from the child. Now does this qualification–(Mother Spirit chuckles)–give you some notion of what you would experience if, as you say, you could see me?
Student: Oh!–yes it does, because in my stillness and meditation I look forward to experiencing the individual spirit personalities of Michael and you, Nebadonia, as well as the presence of God the Father. It really opens up doors and makes me realize that personality is such an amazing thing. The gift of personality, that the Father has given us, is just awesome to me; and that, in some way, opens up doors I can’t even explain. (laughter)
NEBADONIA: Yes. Michael explained last time that there is that essence of you–your unique personality, which you can share only with God. Michael and I are happy to acknowledge that our Universal Father knows you even more intimately than we do. So yes, to a human being it takes a while and is not always possible, or even necessary, in this first life of yours, to distinguish between different spiritual presences. The recognition of truth is the critical thing. What you are experiencing is definitely real.
Student: My next question for guidance is: how can I better serve my fellow mortals?
NEBADONIA: It’s a two-fold process, and a balance we once referred to as: deep calls to deep, and responds. As you become deeper inside yourself with these spiritual experiences you mentioned, it might seem strange but these actually allow you to let go of yourself with a growing and genuine self-confidence. It’s this inner confidence which allows you to open yourself outwardly. It comes out as a greater tenacity and fearlessness to let other folks come in to you where you can more clearly register them. For each person you meet is unique as well, and you have to grow your ability to fearlessly embrace so much living character.
This ability is the opposite of prejudice wherein an inner insecurity is the cause of the need to pre-judge and type others along stereotypical lines that mask their individual uniqueness. A prejudiced person sees only types–race, or sex, or ethnicity–not individuals. But to see and accept another as the living, changing, bottomless infinity they actually are, is being of service, is giving them recognition and response. As you grow spiritually inside, you are creating the tough balance, the equanimity, to meet them as whom and what they are. As you grow inside so you also grow outwardly in what you are able to perceive and relate to. This is your character. This is your own secure home base of spirit that enables you to let the world in unafraid. It is its own reward–instantaneously!–(Mother Spirit laughs). Being of service is the greatest, fullest life you can live. More and more people will emerge as individuals to fill your soul.
Deep calls to deep, for they will register your response too–not always consciously, perhaps, but there is something in them as well–their Thought Adjuster, their portion of my spirit and my being, which recognizes the intrinsic love and strength you have. It’s this which enables you to see their character and reflect it back to them more fully. Does this sound like something interesting?
Student: Yes–very much.
NEBADONIA: This is how you open yourself to others and give them the greatest gift of, not only yourself, but their own infinite personhood beyond what they can yet perceive. This is what Michael did when he was among you as Jesus, taking people just as they were and giving them back an awareness and hope in themselves they could not muster alone. This is what spirit does. This is what you do for each other. In addition you become an example for all those around you of what is possible because it’s actually happening. So give it a try.
Student: I read in the Urantia book that Michael had many incarnations. Do you, Nebadonia, incarnate?
NEBADONIA: No. Keep in mind that while we have a rather absolute unity of spiritual understanding and exchange between the two of us, we are two very distinct and different kinds of beings. My consciousness is literally the bounds of the Local Universe and I anchor the consciousness of all my children within me. This is my motherly attribute, how my Holy Spirit is the mother of all the native personal beings, even all the life, in our Local Universe. As such I am more a part of you, a dimension of your body and mind, whereas Michael is more a companion with you, as with me. As another discrete being, Michael moves around a lot while I don’t move like that at all. Together, united in spirit, we are mostly independent of both time and space.
So I neither need to, nor am able to become one of you, as Michael was able to become, in a descending series, one of our children and live their actual life. He did this for the both of us, as well as you.
Student: This just popped into my mind: what were your feelings about Lucifer, and was he cognizant of you?
Lucifer
(Lucifer’s erroneous ideas and choices)
NEBADONIA: Our main feelings about our son were initially ones of surprise and disappointment. Yet for us it was also an acknowledgment of our Father’s ability to create–truly create unique, free-willed personalities, independent of both Him and us. Lucifer’s genuinely erroneous ideas came out of his own creativity, and then because of what you would call ego/maniacal reasoning–a kind of stubborn partiality to what he himself was capable of originating–call it pride or arrogance–he seized upon these notions to the exclusion of all the rest of Michael’s, and my, and the Father’s creation. In human terms it was an infatuation with, and an addiction to, his own ideas of how things should be. He was always cognizant of Michael’s and my existence, and of our offers of love and assistance to help him gain some humility, some deeper appreciation of the enormity of what he was devaluing, but our offers were spurned with increasing contempt. He took Michael’s refusal to judge and come up against him as some kind of proof he–Lucifer–was right.
It got the point of his thinking we were some kind of petty tyranny, and that he was ever so courageous himself to break free and lead a rebellion against us. His flaw was essentially one of irresponsibility insofar as he began to initiate things–changes in your Local System–and then refused to respond to what ensued. He would not respond to the chaos, the retrogression, and the enormous suffering he himself was initiating. He began to live more and more in his own mind, especially as things did not pan out as he thought they would. You can only imagine what it was like for a personality to become so twisted and turned in upon itself like this. For hundreds of thousand of years he constantly spurned Michael’s offers of mercy simply because they implied genuine rehabilitation–acknowledging, in order to re-embrace, greater spirit.
Student: At a certain point he must have known he was wrong, and he just couldn’t turn that around?
NEBADONIA: No; what I’m saying is that he never accepted that he was wrong. He stubbornly persisted in “being right”–clinging to a past decision–just as you’ve all experienced with others, perhaps even within yourself at times.
Student: But when he was interred, he must have come to realize he no longer had any power. How could he not, like, deal with that fact?
NEBADONIA: This is what you would call, in a human being, insanity. It doesn’t make sense. If he had been capable of reasoning even to that slight degree of accuracy, he wouldn’t have been where he was. He had lost the ability to let go his own inner machinations to the point where they then had him. He had lost touch with outer reality and the enormous glory of the Father’s creation, the perception we call the spiritual blessing of humility.
Student: So he no longer exists?
NEBADONIA: Yes, since the adjudication of his rebellion that wiped him out, along with all the other spirits who also refused to acknowledge something greater than themselves. This is why, in a very real sense, iniquitous, evil beings more or less remove themselves from cosmic reality by their own refusal to acknowledge and appreciate it.
As you’ve been informed, neither Michael nor I were required to cause any of our own children to cease to exist, although everything they were and did, everything they directly caused, will always be a part of the Supreme Being, the universal history of time and space events–God’s soul, if you will. Only in that sense do they live on.
Student: It’s so hard to grasp that such a life like that could falter. It doesn’t make sense. Like you said, it’s just insane.
NEBADONIA: Yes, this is what I meant when I said it was a demonstration to Michael and me of God’s infinity in creating unique personalities that are truly free–free even from Him and His goodness; free from us. Lucifer’s experience was, and is, a cosmic possibility. The things that go awry by personal choice are proof of the free-will-ness of all of God’s children. Without this ability to avoid even Him, you’d have only a kind of absolute cosmic determinism, an inescapable fatalism. You would not have discrete personal beings but only little aspects of God running around, doing only His will. This is not the awesome reality and mystery of personality you noticed–which actually exists.
Student: Now, with that adjudication, with all the System circuits being open, I do encounter those who are avid and deep readers of the Urantia book who don’t believe that that has happened. I don’t get into arguments with them, but allow the Spirit of Truth to reveal that. Is there any guidance you could give me in this realm?
NEBDONIA, laughing: Well, do what we do: tease. You are wise in following the ways of spirit: you never demand; you playfully suggest. Plant seeds/concepts. Keep a sense of humor about it all.
Listen well to what they say, and follow your own advice by really entertaining–as best you can–what they have to offer. Have a real exchange; get to know them and their viewpoint.
Student: Well, I thank you for the guidance. I honor your presence–very much.
NEBADONIA: You are welcome, my son. Be in my love.
Student: I want to thank you, Mother, for pulling all of us forward–pulling me forward out of myself. And the growth.
NEBADONIA: My son, are you having more fun?
Student: Yes and no–more of yes, though. Actually–I’m doing very good.
Play
(Having fun)
NEBADONIA: We do like to tease you with that because there is a tendency to take Michael and me too seriously. We do appreciate your love, and your devotion, and your respect. But also, this thing of fun?–this deep joy of the soul: this too was in God’s imagination. This too is what He created you to experience. And so we love to tease you this way because we do–simultaneously/instantaneously–register the pain, the sorrow, the uncertainty, the anguish and loneliness–most human lives will know. So we have faith in you. We trust in you, my son, to grow, to expand and see things ever more spiritually inclusive. And then to feel that freedom!–that joy of freedom.
These realizations set you free. There will always be another mountain of the world, or mind, or spirit, to climb. There is always another step to take on your own, but with God’s company too–forever! There’s also laughter and stopping to look around, all along the way. You keep climbing higher. The view keeps getting broader. Your soul keeps growing. This is the stuff of it all, the joy God created you to share with Him. So spread it around, my son.
Student: Thank you, Mother.
NEBADONIA: You are welcome. Be in my love.
Trust, Faith
(Opening with trust and faith)
So, my children, tonight I wanted to acknowledge that physical ache you feel when you stretch your bodies, along with that spiritual gap of uncertainty and surprise when you are confronted with something that might go wrong, and requires so much patience and care. And then your openness that is so necessary for you to stretch your spirits in a genuine adventure–to go into that huge world out there, surround by an even more unfathomable creation of God’s. It takes a strong spirit to open in trust and faith like this, yet this is what strengthens you. So be determined to know it all: because you will. There are a thousand and one schools out there of every art and science you’ve discovered so far; and a million more. These are to stretch and strengthen your spirit in embracing whatever comes, and not be daunted there is no end to the adventure either in space or time.
We pointed to the second phase of giving up an unhealthy habit: after it’s gone, what to fill in that space and time? What do you fill in eternity with? That could be kind-of scary in prospect; and is, for so many, just contemplating the giving-up part. And so trust, my children. Trust God has given you the means as part of you. You are endowed with spirit. You are endowed with creativity. You’re using it all the time. Together with all that myriad infinity of other personal beings out there, for company, you’re going to have a good time. This first, human life of your is truly a trial, yet that trial is what points the way for you to grow. Lean into it. Welcome the stretch it takes. Be unafraid of what lets you know you’re stretching, and growing.
Closing
Be in Michael’s peace and my love. Good evening.
