2010-02-01-Reevaluating Physical Life
Marin #183
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Reevaluating Physical Life
o 1.2 Group: Marin TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Nebadonia
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
3.1.1 Body
3.1.2 Exercise
o 3.2 Dialogue
3.2.1 Acceptance
3.2.2 Healing
3.2.3 Culture, Obesity
3.2.4 Inner Life
3.2.5 Reflection
o 3.3 Closing
Topic: Reevaluating Physical Life
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, Welcome. We open our hearts and our minds and ask, dear parents, that you help us be aware of your presence here. We know you are always with us, but our own awareness of that fact does, all too humanly, come and go. And so we invite you to remind us of your presence, any time the two of you see fit. We especially welcome this in our moments of meditation and, frankly, our moments of being stumped when we just can’t see the way ahead. Help us remember the prayer you offered us: Dear God, what do I do next?–and then listen. Listen within where the answer can come with our very next thought.
I have a special request tonight and that is if you could expand on what Michael brought up last time. Help us understand these physical bodies we have. Help us see and accept what you mean by the misuse and the disrespect we often have for this part of our being. Help us extend our creative spirit into our bodies and into our minds so we can stay here and now, and keep up with these marvelous and ever-changing gifts of the Father. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, my children, this is Nebadonia, your spirit mother. I want to welcome the newcomers to this tried and true group. Michael and I welcome you and yes, by all means, open your hearts, open your minds, open your souls so you can best use this time.
Body
(Reevaluating your physical life)
Yes, I will do what you request. I will give you as best I can certain viewpoints of Michael’s and mine as we look upon the human condition. The order of human beings on the evolutionary planets are unique among all personal beings in that you have a physical body that even the lower angelic forms do not have. This physical body of yours, starting out as a dual origin–two-parent–one-celled living organism, recapitulates the evolution of Urantian animal life before you are born. Shortly after birth you begin, in a sense, to recapitulate the evolution of the particular civilization into which you were born: your three-year-olds walking around like little cavemen or cavewomen; coming up to your high school years and all the Medieval gangs and groups; how, hopefully, as you reach maturity in your late twenties, early thirties–these days, hopefully each generation takes one further step beyond what they got from their parents’ generation.
So there is evolution involved here in each individual, both physically and culturally and, as Michael said, in spite of all of the millions of books you have now on human physiology, hundreds of thousands of books, shall we say, on blood chemistry alone, in spite of all of this, your own personal body is to each of you an infinity. For all the specialization of your technical knowledge about human physiology, no one person can begin to comprehend even one hundredth of one percent of all of that. Your physical bodies, my children, are this partial mystery to you, moment to moment. And so we would have you stop from time to time and just be still in spite of all the busyness and the demands of your life. Pay some respect to this living, breathing part of you.
Feel yourself breathing and see–as we’ve teased you before into trying: see if you can just feel your body breathing, which is very tricky because it’s something you immediately affect. Yet if you get this detachment from your own physical body and approach it with newness and wonder and curiosity, you can get still enough to begin to feel your own heart beating. And what is this? What is this activity going on inside you over which you have so little control? What is it keeping your heart beating? Or is it Who?
We ask you to approach this physical part of your being with freshness, my children, because as a developed, industrialized culture now, you’re facing some supreme ironies compared to the whole history of mankind–literally the nearly one million years that people have been on the earth evolving their civilizations up to the present day. Up until very recent times–only your last few centuries of industrialization–everything not of wind and water was done with animal muscle and bone, either human or your draft animals. Then came steam power and a little gizmo that could sit there merrily percolating along indefinitely as long as you feed it a little water and fuel. With this power you began to change the face of the earth itself, and everything of your lives along with it.
But these bodies of yours, my children, they still remember–if you’ll allow me to use that concept, they still remember, and were shaped for and by, those million years of effort and struggle and work. And so when Michael mentioned last time that you are literally perishing for lack of good nutrition and adequate exercise, that are available to you, this is what that one little word “exercise” means.
Exercise
(Sufficient exercise for optimum health: the challenge)
Considering this, think not so much of the extreme limits of what the human body can do, shall we say, in some of your younger athletes who train for years and years in intense competition to present you with those spectacles you see every four years in your Olympics. It’s not so much what the human body is capable of doing on these competitive extremes. Rather I would have you go through the years and think of the folks in their seventies and eighties who’ve lived very full physical lives and are still so strong and flexible and supple. Think of some of the great dancers who, clear into their nineties, are marvels of strength and grace. Think of the craftsman, the men and women, whether in their work or their hobbies, who have found something infinitely physically rewarding and creative and new all through their lives. Think of the enormous soul wealth of experience they have because their bodies and their minds have been actively engaged in real physical effort, real rewarding effort for a whole lifetime.
Now I think you can see the problem facing you as the culture we are framing here. From the time you are very small children the human body needs great exercise for the muscles to develop; needs it throughout life for the very stress on your bones, my children, makes and keeps them strong. Think of a schoolyard of youngsters playing and yelling and running about. Think of the enormous amount of physical effort that the human body thrives on. I know it sounds like some kind of futuristic science fiction, but think of a society in which all the individuals of all ages love and cherish engaging this physical-ness of theirs so much. From childhood clear to the onset of extreme old age and decrepitude, through their entire lifetime they’re interested and delight in real physical activity.
You can see the challenge facing you as a culture, especially now in your current economic downturn where the question becomes over and over again: where do you find the good work? Where do you find this physical work to engage everyone? Especially: where do you find this work when so many in your culture have come to denigrate and look down upon physical activity, look down upon craftsmanship–working with your hands in combination with your brain?
As Michael said, your current health care debate is almost beside the point if your society’s basic health itself is deteriorating. No amount of after-the-fact care with, as he said, however heroic measures or amazing technology, can make up for this lack of physical exercise that the body really thrives on. And so you can see this requires an enormous turning of a very existential corner. The great excitement of your Industrial Revolution was that it freed mankind from its whole history of back-breaking, health-destroying labor. How do you get the developed cultures to turn that corner and, not go back but go forward to welcome that very thing it cost them so much on a primal level to escape?–especially in a world situation where still a great part of mankind is involved in terrible, life destroying toil under the most appalling conditions.
How do you get a whole culture and the societies within it to turn that corner and, as individuals, welcome this need to be more physical? Where do you find the work for everyone? Think how much of your crime results from this lack of good, genuine accomplishment day to day. Think of how many of your youngsters, caught up in a life of crime, would welcome with delight having good, rewarding work to do. There is just no way of denying this challenge, and so tonight I wanted to lay it very squarely and honestly before you. The physical part of being human and the delight your body feels when it is fully engaged, wonderfully used, and then delightfully tired: how else can you know the sweetness of rest and the miracle of how your body heals and strengthens and refreshes itself?
This is something that faces each of you individually, and Michael and I are determined to share this with you. Believe me, my children, as we are your spiritual parents, we can feel with you what it takes sometimes to swing your legs out of bed in the morning and get up and go about your daily requirements of those things you have to do. We know how busy you get, how exhausted you get, and here we come suggesting that what you need is some good hard exercise for your bodies. You can call it some kind of tough-love, but we are determined to help you face this challenge even though it does mean to once again value good hard work. And so we ask you do not belittle but you embrace all those things that keep you healthy and fit. If your work does not require it, consider all those interesting hobbies and social activities where you can share this great need to get out and move around, and delight in each other.
We encourage you to read that part of your Urantia book that talks about life on a neighboring but more highly developed planet. You’ll see that they too have gone through a similar kind of a super-industrialized age as you are in now, yet there has been a further decentralization of power and authority and a greater blossoming of individual creativity that leads people to voluntarily embrace and enjoy things such as growing much of their own food, doing those creative physical things you’re now overly specialized in eliminating. For example, think of how your do-it-yourself projects have given such enjoyment and appreciation to folks, just to be able to be their own handymen and handywomen.
Thank you for entertaining these notions this evening. In some of our future lessons we will make other suggestions about what you need to do as a whole society to find that good rewarding physical work and play for everyone. It’s one of the greatest challenges facing you to become more healthy, and this is a spiritual task, my children, because it involves value. What do you value, and how, as a culture, do these values need to be reexamined to once again to find love and respect in those things you can do with these marvelous bodies of yours?
(Contemplating enormous necessary changes)
So you’ll forgive me for teasing you once again into contemplating something enormous. But I’m sure you are used to this stretch by now, and you’ll welcome the challenge both individually and collectively. As we’ve been saying lately, when you look at any social, economic, political or religious system, ask yourselves: what is it doing to encourage individuals to be more free, more creative, and more responsible? This is the way forward to a kind of decentralization of authority, encouraging each individual to live up to their potential. Tonight I emphasize the physical glory you are all capable of if you put your hearts and minds to it. What a wonderful reward of a lifetime of strength, agility, and flexibility–all these good things you enjoy of body, mind, spirit, and soul.
If you have any questions this evening, Michael and I and always happy to respond.
Dialogue
Student: I suffer from lack of energy and vitality, and quite a few physical ailments that go along with that–especially recently. I’d like to know why and how to resolve that.
(Addressing specific challenges with spirit)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my daughter, could you be a little more specific?
Student: I have what’s called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I’ve had it for about twenty years. I’ve extremely, extremely low vitality, and memory loss–fatigue, and recently I had a very severe kidney infection that really damaged my kidneys and my body a lot. My vitality seems to be getting worse and worse as does my health.
NEBADONIA: Let me ask what you’ve done so far, who you’ve seen, who you’ve talked with about this.
Student: Over the years I’ve seen many, many doctors. At the moment I’m taking antibiotics for the infection–that helps the infection. I’m getting acupuncture; energetic healing work; Netri (Sp?) energetic systems, which is a great new medical system which is helping a lot, Bobbi-Field medicine (Sp?). I’m taking a lot of supplements which are supporting the regeneration of the kidneys.
NEBADONIA: Are you talking about vitamin supplements? (Yes) How about your diet, meaning everything you put into your body which gives you energy.
Student: My diet is pretty good; a lot of greens, soups. I don’t drink coffee that much. I drink a lot of water. My diet is pretty good.
NEBADONIA: Have you considered any kind of heredity implications–your parents or your siblings?
Student: No, I’m the only one in my family to have it.
NEBADONIA: It seems you’ve pretty well looked at the different aspects of it. Let me ask if you’ve–and this may seem very far a field–but let me ask about your spiritual activities which you talked about earlier this evening. We consider that the creative part of your personality and it’s something you’re using every moment of your life. You’re trying to creatively understand yourself, and so what is your contact with this creative spirit of yours? How do you do tune in and come up with your own evaluations and answers to these problems?
Student: I meditate daily.
NEBADONIA: What kind of meditation?
Student: It’s a meditation where I become very present, and still in the moment, and from that sense of presence I can consciously connect with my own higher self–however you want to name it. Then I’m sensing that higher vibration.
NEBADONIA: Does this seem to give you energy?
Student: When I’m able to sustain a very high level of vibration I’m aware of my physical body but I’m no longer aware of the ailments in this physical body. It’s like I’ve transcended that state.
NEBADONIA: Are you then able to go out and be more physical?
Student: Once the vibration level goes down again the physical ailments are very much present again.
NEBADONIA: You have tried then to be more physical, to develop your body. But you are, in a sense, just hitting a wall? (Yes)
NEBADONIA: My daughter, this is not to suggest anything you are trying is wrong, but so far you have not received any kind of diagnosis as to what is causing this?
Student: The diagnosis is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, many, many years ago, but that is a very broad thing.
NEBADONIA: Yes, but no one has been able to pin it down as to some specific cause, in spite of all the things you’ve tried like supplements for your body, the exercises you’ve tried, the good rest and meditation? The condition still seems to get worse?
Student: Yes.
Acceptance
(Acceptance of the totality of oneself)
NEBADONIA: I suggest a deeper sense of acceptance and contact with these ailments to bathe them in your mind and spirit. Don’t abandon any part of yourself. It’s good, this deeper sense of, as you say, when you contact this higher spirit, this higher self of yours, it does this give you a stronger feeling for what we call your personality and your soul–this deepest continuity of who you’ve been. It’s the true story of your life, and it is actually co-created by a fragment of God within you. When you contact this higher self, it can give you an assurance of who you’ve been all along. Does this resonate within you? (Yes)
This is where you derive your strength, by an acceptance, a contact, a feeling of who you are–especially physically, and including everything. As you put it, you feel more present. This is, in a sense, my daughter, all you can do. You are putting your whole heart, and now your soul into this staying present and accepting your situation, learning from it, because you have to keep learning as it changes. You have to keep trying things in a very scientific way, being of a clear mind of what you are trying, and then whether it works or not in your human complexity of having a body and mind and spirit and personality and soul. It’s a true exploration. I sense you are learning this.
But if you have a general system’s failure, a kind of continuing malady like this, you have to work with it. You have to honor it. I can offer no specific cure for you except that you continue this very spiritual evaluation you are involved in. Know that it is your spirit, your creative spirit that you are using to feel your way along. It may seem at times as if you are in a very dark room and you are literally feeling your way along minute by minute, day by day, to see what works and what doesn’t–using your analytical ability to see what leads to what.
Because, my daughter, as a free-willed being, you are inside there. You are in the cockpit flying your own airplane, and all we can do is be here at your wingtip offering our presence–along, of course, with the dedicated presence of the Father and His thoughts for you. Michael’s Spirit of Truth is this open-minded orientation toward what works, toward what is all-inclusively true here. And that is the best and necessary thing to commit to. Now does this make sense?
Student: Yes, but I want some answer.
NEBADONIA: And yes, my daughter, I know, but I cannot directly or immediately diagnose what is wrong. This is something you, with the strength of your personality, have to find out for yourself. You have to try things and see if they work or not. If you have a general, systemic condition that has not responded to what you’ve tried so far, that is the truth of your situation. Yet it is also true that you’ve learned a lot about yourself through all this.
Student: Thank you.
NEBADONIA: You’re welcome, my dear. Be in my love.
Student: Do you think her going to see John of God would be a good idea?
NEBADONIA: I’m not familiar with that person, but I can’t see any harm in being truly open-minded and entertaining any thought whatsoever. Be systematic and take notes, if you will, in your meditation. Don’t be afraid to entertain any theory whatsoever. Don’t be afraid to go to anyone. I’m just emphasizing she is this free-willed creature, and this is what gives her the dignity of being a human being. Each person has to make the ultimate decisions for them, and try their best to live by these decisions; and this personal/spiritual realization is the basis for their strength.
By being open to alternative suggestions, and entertaining them, this occasions the possibility to use your now hard-earned self-understanding and wisdom that you’ve acquired. No genuine self-understanding based on personal experience is irrelevant; it’s the basis for your wisdom and provides the background by which you can make better decisions in the future. It’s the analytical part of wisdom that sometimes takes time to work itself out and emerge in discrete thought as the causes for whatever it is disturbing you.
What kind of healer is this John of God?–there are so many kinds. Do you mean a kind of faith or spiritual healer?
1St Student again: He’s a spiritual healer who has higher spiritual beings work through him, and there are many, many miraculous healings in and around his center, even many, many miraculous assistants. He’s pretty amazing.
Healing
(Spiritual healing)
NEBADONIA: These things can be true in general; these things do happen. As Jesus said on occasion: it is your faith that heals you. As long as you approach this with your eyes wide open, and deep down inside yourself you accept the responsibility for what you’re trying, by all means go ahead. What you are doing is what we recommend–tune in to your spiritual self and use your meditation and prayer to understand what’s happening to you. Then if you want to, in all humility and acceptance, go and see this man; see what he can do for you. This is just part of being open-minded, is it not?
Next student: I don’t have any questions, only a comment: thank you again, Mother.
NEBADONIA: Well, you’re welcome, my son. I know that this evening I set out a lot of things to consider and entertain. There are some supreme historical ironies coming down like a driving rain, ways in which whole societies, whole-cultural ways of looking at things, whole directions built up over centuries, have to turn a subtle kind of corner. The physical hardships of backbreaking labor that people have struggled so long and hard to escape–to turn that orientation around and actively, joyfully, willfully embrace a large amount of physical activity for optimum health: what an enormous challenge to free will, individually and collectively.
This is especially true now your societies are running out of ways to gainfully employ folks in this economic downturn. You are at a loss as to how to put so much of your society to work: what are the good jobs now?–especially for the young folks who need some good hard work to strengthen their souls with the feedback of engaging material reality. Can you envision how tapping and beneficially releasing the physical energy of nearly everyone would utterly transform your society in terms of general health, aging, and eliminating crime?
Thank you, my son, for entertaining these things and appreciating the challenges. Be in my love.
Student: Yes, Mother, isn’t it time we open up to a new standard of connection with the Source and Creative Intelligence of all of this? Isn’t it time that we affirm in our own lives the natural order and perfection that exists within all of us? Isn’t it time to raise our awareness of what it is to be truly human, as Jesus, and Buddha, and Lao-Tzu, and a million others, have shown?
Culture, Obesity
(A question of culture)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, I had hoped to put some physical-aspect framework around that standard, and point out some of the profound ironies that make it so difficult for people to envision and accept at this point in your history. With the success of your industrialization, compared to the million years of humanity that came before it, you have another irony that in the developed countries the people with their machinery and technology are so productive they can provide an enormous amount of leisure for so many others, compared to any time before: ironic if your very productivity is robbing folks of opportunity–the way you have things set up. Folks are literally dying or living stunted lives through, as Michael said, lack of good nutrition and exercise, even when they are available. In the developed countries it’s more a cultural question than a strictly economic one.
Your society is facing a challenge even now of what you call childhood obesity, where if those young little bodies fail to develop the right proportion of muscle and bone through good diet and exercise, they’re also missing out on strength, flexibility, endurance, becoming, rather, susceptible to disease and stunted minds by way of constricted life experience. Obesity not only shortens life, it limits its physical expression throughout.
Student: How about the notion of simplifying ones life by letting go the perceived need for material possessions? Obviously we need certain basics to live, but, especially in this country, we’ve been so materially oriented over the past twenty or thirty years, at the top of the people living on this planet, at the cost of their leisure.
NEBADONIA: My son, it’s: how do you find something better to replace that reliance on material things to measure ones growth in life? This is what I’m suggesting. Envision everyone living much more physical lives right when your machinery and technology is rendering this unnecessary for so many. In so many ways you are turning that subtle corner. Michael and I delight that so many are discovering real soul-fulfilling fun in doing their own do-it-yourself projects, walking and hiking and bicycling, growing some food, evolving their craftsmanship, helping out in their own hard-hit families and communities with genuine, loving service.
Student: That’s what I’m saying–redefining what it truly means to be a human being. That’s the question being asked. I noticed there’re these small groups of people in this world, even in the Bay Area, who are trying to take things up and look at the good things, the good news, look at the other alternatives rather than big government or what’s going on in the status quo. I’ve noticed there’re hundreds of these grass-roots groups all over the world who are cracking these old ways of living. It’s happening some places fast, and some places slow. I know I get a little frustrated with how human beings are treating other human beings, and I know people are suffering out there.
Oh!–I do know of John of God! I met a group in the City (Ed: San Francisco) who had gone to Brazil and his sanctuary, and some were healed, and some got better. So I’m aware of him. He’s got a book as well. I’m going tomorrow to a bookstore here where they’re showing a healing modality called Quantum Touch; because I’ve been interested in looking into healing and alleviating the suffering of others. I came across this on the internet. It’s just like the laying on of hands if you can feel the vibrations. It just kind-of piqued my interest. Apparently their use of divine energy can heal others–according to their website.
I have a sense, Mother, that this body that you talked about tonight has in our DNA the idea of wholeness and wellbeing. That’s always there: it’s why we can heal. We have that capacity, that innate potential. It’s just accepting that this is already true. So…
Inner Life
(Having a full inner life)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, I couldn’t be more in agreement. This innate ability exists even in those with rather extensive bad habits and health; they would have died long ago if their bodies hadn’t been continually healing. Think of the allure every culture puts out through its media of what is important in life. As long as you are focused upon so much, shall we say, abstract measurement for your own worth through material possessions–keeping up with the Joneses–you have a lot of expressions for it; as long as what is being successfully advertised as the cost for all your entertainment, you’re faced with the enormity of folks spending so much of their time being entertained, rather than creatively entertaining themselves. Think of all those thousand and one products designed just to soothe or exalt your ego. All these things can stand in the way and get between you and your own healing spiritual growth. As Michael says, you can totally disregard and abuse your body following some notion. You’re sacrificing your body for some object of mind alone, some hollow excitement.
But yes, we do see the corner being turned by more and more folks who are aware of these ironies, and who have a life of their own based upon contact with their own growing soul, and what has made and kept them strong and free throughout. This is your unique inner life shared with us and our Father. But you have to choose to treasure your inner life and your own thoughts. Now, with your ingenious [www.apple.com/ipodclassic/ i-pods], you never have to hear your thoughts, even on a solitary walk. Now you can live your life with constant music, even videos, on the go; and some do. This is far, far beyond the most fantastic dreams of the ages simply because it was never envisioned as possible until very recently. And this is your own personal choice of the whole world’s history of music, millions of tracks available over the internet. But when is more of a good thing too much? What does it displace of your own inner you?
Yes, the evolution is inexorable. We just hope to lessen the human suffering along the way.
Student: Thank you.
Reflection
(No substitute for reflection)
NEBADONIA: This is why, my children, there is no substitute for reflection, for thinking deeply and spiritually about your life and what is of value to you. To be truly open-minded, to be here and now, present and open to that natural healing, that natural goodness that is your birthright: you have to appreciate it. Without appreciation there is nothing, because, my children, you are creatures of will-dignity. It depends upon your will, what you choose to value. We only hope to increase your awareness of these choices you are constantly making, either consciously or higgly-piggly simply because you were raised/trained/educated that way. It is all up to you. God has put so much of your life in your hands. Sure enough, you are involved in a whole universe and every personal being is caught up in the evolution of the whole, but in your life these are your choices. Your personal freedom depends upon them.
There is no substitute for this reflection: what am I doing? And that is good. What a gift this ability is. To dare to bring yourself to a stop in stillness and wonder, alone with us and our Father, alone with your breathing and heartbeat, alone with this body that needs your attention and love and respect. Even though you will, someday, let it go, you will be leaving it with a full soul.
Closing
Come home to your all-inclusive spiritual base. Feel this marvelous body you have. It wants to live! Do your best to help it.
Good evening, my children. Be in my love.
