2009-08-17-Human Soul
Marin #173
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Human Soul
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
o 3.3 Dialogue
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Human Soul
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, Welcome. We welcome you with open minds and open hearts, and we appreciate the boost you give us to help us along with this. We also appreciate all the fun we’ve had with the two of you. It’s so deeply soul-reassuring that you, our closest spirit parents, have such a sense of humor and that you appreciate ours as well. I think this is what we carry with us from the warm and intimate touch we’ve known. I’ve said before but I’ll say it again, that sometimes after these meetings when we are all sitting here in a kind of warm and grateful shock, our most sincere expressions are just, “Wow!–what was that!” as we break up laughing. So thank you for all these innumerable nights of the deep joy we’ve known with the two of you. Let’s go forward together. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, this is your spirit mother, Nebadonia. My, what a wonderful group. My dear children–and for those of you who are new here tonight, I say that not with any kind of condensation, but because it’s true. You are my children. Yet as Michael was also pleased to acknowledge, you are not ours at all but you belong to yourselves, yourselves and God. If there were any way we could give you even more to yourselves, we would, but we can only encourage you to be for yourselves. This has been the thrust and force of all of our lessons: to help you be, to help you glory in this human life you have and take each moment as it comes to you with as much courage as you can muster, and be exceedingly joyful.
Lesson
Yet here comes the pain of having a human body and a human mind. For sometimes we do know, my dear children, you are just hanging on for dear life, taking it one moment at a time, just riding with the pain or sorrow as best you can when it takes you and shakes you like a rag doll. That too is real. That too is no illusion. And that too becomes part of your soul-experience of the complete human lives you’ve lived.
Soul (The human soul)
We ask you to use your imaginations and think what this presence of God–this Father Fragment–this Mystery Monitor–this Thought Adjuster–seen from different facets, actually is as a single existential presence within you. Imagine how your life is experienced from this point of view, for this is the full other half of your soul, along with what you yourselves are doing your best, by exercising your free will, to have some choice of what goes into your soul for all eternity.
This is why Michael said it’s hard to come up with any kind of adequate analogy of what the soul is. Think of it as a transcendent reality, a super-reality. We’ve teased you before with the notion that there will be no dissembling your surprise when you awaken on the Morontia worlds with a Morontia body and mind so much more sensitive to spirit realities; no dissembling your surprise whatsoever. You’ve been told that this surprise, this wonder, this glory of reawakening to having survived, will be with you forever. That’s what Morontia Reality is, my children. For so many who have lived in such doubt their entire lives, even doubting their own existence as some kind of dream land–as they actually experienced it; for them the reawakening will be so much more real than what they knew before. There is no adequate way we can express this. We would rather just pay our respect to that human experience you will have, and encourage you to do the same.
So when you think of soul, when you think of Morontia Reality, think of something even more real than what you know now. Think of inheriting more of God’s point of view than what you are able to get consciously, now, from your Thought Adjuster. For this next stage is a great leap beyond what you can develop now in this first life of yours. Yet you can tune into your soul. You can let it speak to you. You can realize how much your soul is not just some passive repository but is an active part of your life.
As much as my spirit is part of your living mentality right this moment, as much as Michael’s Spirit of Truth is with you now, helping you sort through and appreciate and wonder about what I’m saying, as much as the Father’s presence within you helps you experience this spirit of mine; as much as all our presences give you, my children, there is still your own spirit, your own living nature too. This totality of human experience is what your soul contains. True enough, what you think of as those solely positive aspects of your life do move you forward, but, my children, your soul is not only how you assess these in this first life of yours.
Your Urantia book puts it that your soul contains that which is spiritually significant. But by whose evaluation? The soul of a ten-year-old’s experience is more than his or her notion of what is spiritually significant. Even with some wonderful old timer, eighty or ninety years old, sitting there in the sunshine and basking in the glow of not only the sun, but a whole lifetime’s soul-experience, still, what is it that evaluates what is spiritually significant in their life?
Let’s put a handle on this and use a tool we’ve given you to understand human reality as physical facts, mental meanings and relationships, and spiritual values. When you think of your soul containing that which was of spiritual significance, think of what was of great value in, or gave great value to your life. You can see this far transcends–has to transcend, what you may be thinking of as solely positive or negative, delightful or painful, progressive or regressive. If you would think of your soul as containing colors, could they all be one hue? Or would you rather know that your soul contains–literally is–the fullness of your life and everything that was of spiritual significance and value to you–and a presence of God’s.
As your soul grows–and more, as your soul is invited to take an increasingly conscious part in your life, so too your conscious value of things, and of people, and of yourself can grow–even, as you say, right off the scale. So as someone sits there in the sunshine of their old age where the present moment kind of fades away in the glow of their whole lifetime’s soul wealth, can this give you some respect, and honor, and wonder, for their whole lifetime? Can you begin to see how we see you, that in spite of being a physically diminishing being in old age, you are so much more a continuously growing being?
This is the respect and the love, my dear ones, we would have you feel for your own soul and its co-author. This is that assurance you can have deep in your gut: you can let the past be. You don’t have to be anxious about it, or frightened, because a presence of God’s is keeping its totality sacrosanct for you. You literally have to grow to appropriate your soul to one glorious day fuse with its co-author; these are simultaneous. Yet as Michael also said in his last lesson, this is not the only real aspect of you. From our point of view, from the point of pure spirit, everything about you is real. There is no unreality, even those temporary realities you experience that come and go that you, more or less after the fact, term illusions.
What was real to you at the time; what was your human experience? This is most truly what you were; this is most truly your life. Could you think that Michael and I wouldn’t know, after some few millions of evolutionary worlds now in our souls, could you think that we wouldn’t know, and honor what you as a five-year-old, or a ten-year-old went through? Rather, don’t you think we delight in what your soul is and has always been to us?
Value (What is of value)
So you may wonder: as I go along, what is of value to me? Also, whether I think of my experience as positive or negative, progressive or regressive, helpful or hindering, is there anything besides my decisions that I can do to honor my soul by assisting it and helping my Father Fragment in some way? We can only answer, my children, that as an experiential being, as a little nodule of experience out here in time and space, that is what you have to offer. If you can feel and follow your indwelling spirit’s leadings, it will lead you to ever more experience of God’s creation. If you let Michael’s Spirit of Truth orient you towards an endless discovery, rest when you are weary–certainly, but keep your beginner’s mind and start over again, and again, and again, and again, to embrace experience. Experience the uniqueness of each moment of God’s creation which is not only repeating itself as Natural Law but is also each moment never before and never again. This adds to your soul.
Conversely, Michael gave the example of someone perhaps getting a little too drunk every evening, year after year, and going through the same routine, watching the same old TV programs, sitting around hour after hour only half conscious. From the standpoint of his Thought Adjuster, every cosmic evening is new and unique, and here even the TV shows are changing slightly, and the person is getting older. But that’s about it. There are no endless numbers of alert, creative evenings filled with satisfying and nourishing events of different people and things. In his human memory every evening is pretty much the same, and that actually may be the psychological purpose for living this way in fear for how to fill the time. Living in such apprehension of even a single sober evening to fill, if his soul is the true reflection of his human life, this is what part of it will be.
Contrast this to someone who, coming home from the day’s same hard work as our unfortunate fellow, still finds some time to meditate and relax all that day’s busyness so he can open his mind and heart and spirit to this particular evening. Then what wonders might suggest themselves for him to do differently this time. And so every evening has a little signature of uniqueness. Every evening more fully reflects that individual person’s uniqueness and what he or she is capable of doing; and fills their soul.
In either case there’s no incompleteness here. From our standpoint both individuals are equally complete. They are what they are. There’s nothing missing in either person or either soul. It’s just that one is so terrible dwarfed and stunted from the viewpoint of pure potential, of what might have been. The Father Fragment holds each one’s completeness and awaits on the Mansion Worlds. Both will glory in this completeness. For both there will be more spiritual awareness available of what their whole life has been from the standpoint of a spirit of God. But for one he will also know by comparison to those around him, the additional truth of his life of what might have been.
As we’ve put it before, there’s no human behavior that does not have its adequate prior cause, and we see this. The individual’s presence of God certainly sees this. Rather it is the absence of personal creativity that is capable of springing forth ever anew that leads to this perpetuation to the same old, same old thing. And so we encourage you to be aware you are a child of God’s. You are made in His image. You have a portion of His creativity. Stretch yourselves. Exercise your creative free will.
I’d like to follow up on what Michael introduced on your notions of illusions. He mentioned that moment by moment you live in an eternal now, and in this–now–it is best for you to do whatever you can to open your heart, to open your mind, to open your spirit in a welcoming embrace and acceptance of all this transcendent reality you live in. Moment by moment you do your best to accept this reality of your life–however you find it–however you once found it even if a day later it appeared some kind of illusion.
Michael mentioned some of these illusions are your prejudices, your stereotypes, those little mental boxes you put the people in, sometimes simply to avoid confronting each individual’s unbounded uniqueness. But I can only encourage you, my children, to welcome being disillusioned. That grave word sends a shudder through so many, it seems so terrible, they cling so hard to their more comfortable, self-gratifying illusions; to be disillusioned seems such a terrible thing.
It may seem I’m suggesting the impossible if each moment you accept your human reality–whatever it is, and yet, as you continue to grow, you may see that what you once accepted as an absolute kind of reality was only prejudice or a stereotype like sexism, or racism, or cultural-ism. I’m saying they’re both real: this moment to moment reality you know and we ask you to embrace with your whole heart and mind; yet don’t be afraid to grow and accept that what was real for you one day can later be seen as an illusion, simply because you outgrew it. They’re both real at the time.
Now, my children, I feel I’ve given you enough to think about. It is true that Michael and I go rather deeply into these things because we know they are being recorded and you will have as much as you want the opportunity to read them over and over again. So let me turn the floor over to you, and if you have any comments or questions this evening, we certainly do welcome them.
Dialogue
Student: Well, Mother Nebadonia, I guess I’ll take the floor. It’s good to make contact with you again through our beloved middleman. I haven’t done this for awhile. I’d like to comment on what I’m experiencing and have experienced this summer, I’m calling my own Summer of Love. As I began to grow in self-acceptance and self-love by understanding the depth of self, I found those around me began to heal. It’s been an amazing summer experiencing this, seeing these men and women go through almost instantaneous transformations over a short period of time, just because they came into contact with someone who could accept themselves. So I see grace, and power and healing when someone learns to heal themselves, like learning to love themselves to the depth of themselves; those who come into contact with them are also being healed. This is a wonderful, wonderful program you’ve got going here. That’s one thing I’d like to comment on.
Another is more a question, Mother Nebadonia, a question about Adjuster contact. I’ve been experiencing much over the last several years along these lines of what I believe to be Adjuster contact. But it has been so extraordinary and out of the ordinary I’m having a tough time distinguishing what is real and what is not; am I being deceived or am I not? Am I deceiving myself, or am I just looking at it all wrong in doubt? Do I just assume that it’s human and not divine, and not act on what I believe to be I’m guided towards? How do I move forward with my desire to hear my Father within–clearly? Let me sit back and listen to your wonderful answer.
NEBADONIA: Thank you, my son. It’s good to be with you again. Your Urantia book addresses this doubting wonderfully with the simple statement that there’s not always any certain or simple way you can know. One of the most difficult things about recognizing your Father Fragment’s input into your life, is because it’s always been here. I would invite you to keep in mind that your Father Fragment is really part of you and there is no ultimate separation. Not only your soul–which I talked about this evening–but even your memories are totally shot through and part of this spiritual input you’ve had since your earliest experiences as a little child.
You needn’t worry whether this input is coming from your Father Fragment, or your highest personal realization, for this is exactly where they are touching. As with any dearly beloved you wrap your arms around in a loving hug, keep in mind that everywhere you are touching her is exactly where she is touching you. The touch itself is what you are sharing in both cases. Welcome Michael’s Spirit of Truth to help you sort out simply what is beneficial. And so I’ll bounce it back to your first comment: you’re seeing that what is truly beneficial and healing and loving within yourself, changes all that out there as well, especially the people.
Freedom (Becoming free, granting freedom to others)
Michael had a wonderful thing last lesson on how, as you become aware of this connection, all that seemingly purely objective reality out there of not only people, but even things, changes as you change. Once this kind-of soaks in–this profound truth, this self-awareness, this self-knowledge, this self-love enables you to open yourself in such a way that you are not only becoming more free, you are granting freedom to others. What a glorious dance ensues when you’re both free. You’re spiritually encouraging yourself and the others to be there, each for the both of you.
This is the wonderful thing about disillusionment, that as you do your best to get beyond your own prejudices and stereotypes–even what I call your galloping generalities–all those adolescent wonderings of: What do women really want!–or: What do men really want!–you begin to realize that “women” or that “men” is only your own personal generality and has nothing–too much–(Mother Spirit laughed)–to do with any particular woman or man out there. As you realize these abstractions are only a kind of adolescent phase you go through, how liberating. All that seemingly purely objective impossibility to know anything for certain about those others out there starts to bend to your will, your desires, your determination to follow where Michael’s Spirit of Truth leads. As you can feel that freedom within, you can grant that freedom to others and heal you both. So congratulations, my dear son, carry on.
Don’t worry about the origins of things so much. Just feel for the goodness in them and let that move you. You can’t always as a first time human being here distinguish between different spiritual inputs, whether it’s Michael or myself, your Father Fragment, your beloved Monjoronson, or your own higher self. There’s a kind of living wholeness and unity within the spiritual community–of which you are a member–which you needn’t try to dissect. And be in my love.
Student: I’ll bask in that, Mother. Thank you.
Student: Good evening, Mother, I have a question similar to his. How can I tell the difference between a teacher’s voice and stuff I make up in my own head? I’m never quite sure what the real one is. Is there any way of distinguishing between the two?
Origin (Spirit-input origins)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, as you recall we went through this once when you were trying to transmit, did we not? (Yes) The short answer is: not always. The very doubt or questioning can stop the flow. You just have to step off and try whatever good is being suggested. You can’t always know. This is the primal need to experiment, the primal need to be, as we say, truly scientific, and express to yourself–you can write it down if you want, making a journal–in order to know to the best of your ability what you are trying to do. But then–and this is even more important–be open to the results.
That’s the part that is so often missing. Folks sail off into something and then, because they are effective–or not–they forget their original starting point. The result doesn’t really register in the light of what they were attempting to do. This is your Sunday-morning-quarterbacking. People try something, find an impasse, and then berate themselves, forgetting they had to try in order to learn that very thing. From a spiritual standpoint the only bad experiment is one that doesn’t go one way or another and tell you something, which is very rare.
When your thoughts come up with something to try, don’t be so worried about the exact origin of them. It could be your Father Fragment putting an idea in your mind. But it is you, my son, it is your personality, your primal reality that is going to decide whether to go with that idea, or not. That’s the important thing here. The decision is yours. The more clear you can be about that decision, the more clearly you can evaluate the outcome. Your whole life is an experiment. Your soul is the true recording of the result. Try to be conscious of both your intention and what happened. Don’t berate yourself for having to do this–needing to experiment. Grant yourself and others this freedom as well. Does that help?
Student: Yes, Mother, it does indeed. I can see that fear and doubt destroy the connections. I was kind-of brought up that way, but it’s still my decisions. I’m not blaming anyone else for them. There’s just a lot of fear and doubt around that. But I like the idea of needing to experiment.
NEBADONIA: Part of the experiment is questioning what pops into your mind. Your mind kind-of tugs and pulls at the idea to get a feeling of its validity in the present situation. It’s a way of trying things within yourself before you–shall we say–spring them on someone else. This is why your self-consciousness, your ego, is so essential to being a social person. Those folks who try to go out into society without any sense of themselves at all have to be very shortly institutionalized.
This sense of yourself–that you are–that starts every morning when you awaken, and is extinguished when you go to bed at night–is capable of growing an awareness that there is more than you, that transcends you. Your spirit and your soul, even your body, my son, encompass you. You can read thousands of books on human physiology and there will still be some remaining mystery of how your body digests and uses an apple. This is what it is to be human, to be encompassed by infinities in every dimension. So get used to it. (much laughter) There is a difference between needing to question yourself, and worry–which is a fretful anxiousness about that need, as if, somehow, you should just automatically know things without trying. But worry too is real, and can to be met with confidence in your intention to know the truth. (Yes) Be in my love. (Thank you)
Student: Hello, Mother. Along the same lines, would it be a good idea to see the inner life as a teamwork where the personality makes the decisions and then the Thought Adjuster, the God fragment, also is making decisions; waiting for me to decide, but then also kind-of deciding to affirm what I just chose? The Thought Adjuster is going to convert my decisions into my soul, into soul material–Morontia Reality, and put it into the soul-repository. So is it like that: I’m making a decision and then he’s making a decision? Or maybe the Thought Adjuster isn’t going to make a decision because I’ve not made a choice the God-fragment wants to work with. Is this in the right ballpark to see how the teamwork is going on in there?
Soul (What goes in the soul)
NEBADONIA: Well, my son, I’ve always enjoyed this relationship we’ve had in which you are open to me saying: not at all! (much laughter) (OK!–I’m open to that!) The Thought Adjuster is pre-personal and has no need or inclination to make any kind of decision whatsoever. It is, in this sense, an absolutely steady divine presence that does not make judgments about your life. It literally takes on the fullness of your life that, as I said this evening, is yet far beyond your human comprehension, and will tickle and amaze you in no way you can foresee or imagine, over on the other side when you reawaken.
There is no “repository” aside from the Thought Adjuster. Your Thought Adjuster takes on your decisiveness and your indecisiveness, your full human experience which, as we’ve said, is always beyond and encompassing your enormously changing, momentary self-consciousness, this you that you are to yourself right now. Yet this experience is uniquely yours by way of your unique personality and universe situation, and so your life is the priceless gift you provide. As to what gets taken on, think of it as, not so much what is decided by a personal being, but what crosses an intrinsic threshold of spiritual significance/value as determined by a spirit-presence of God’s that knows your whole life from His point of view of absolute love and wisdom. This is what your Urantia book means by: the Thought Adjuster–is–God.
You did start out good with your idea of teamwork, of being open to the ideas which come into your mind, because some do have origin outside your personality. They may be the direct input of your Thought Adjuster—hence the name. The Thought Adjuster can literally suggest, in the form of discrete ideas, the most spiritually potent and fruitful way to go next, if you but listen. You’ve experienced these many times as those ideas that came when you were really stumped, came, as you say, as a bolt from the blue; that seemed to totally comprehend the entire situation you were in; and that alone was the solution: the needed decision was easy. You can recognize your Thought Adjuster’s input in these dramatic, life-altering moments, but it’s always here and part of your thinking, very similar to my Mind/Spirit Adjutants, which I one time characterized as a differential urge. Your Thought Adjuster is always trying to nudge you in the way of spiritual growth, more spiritually-encompassing awareness. That’s all, and that’s enough! The choices are yours.
Your Thought Adjuster is also taking on and holding sacrosanct your life. When you finally merge and fuse with your Thought Adjuster some glorious day, then your full soul–now part of your Thought Adjuster, will be yours in full consciousness. You can see how your consciousness has to grow to inseparably fuse with a pure spirit of God’s. Right now, if you can sit down and meditate and welcome your soul to bring forth a few moments of a past event, you have to relinquish your consciousness of here-and-now to let even these few moments fill your mind as when they first happened. Yet these reveries can thrill you again and you can marvel at the fullness of your soul. And that was only a few moments. Think about your whole life.
Student: Yes, I wondered how the Thought Adjuster could make decisions if it isn’t a decision-making entity, but is submissive to my free will–pre-personal. My confusion is that the Urantia text seems to say that it is the agent which makes the concept-duplicates of our higher moral choices. It somehow seizes upon them and duplicates them as a new part of the soul. It seems to be pro-actively doing that, but you’re saying, not really. It’s taking on everything.
NEBADONIA: Let me clarify that, my son. There is no contradiction. Your Thought Adjuster does not take on everything, only what is spiritually significant from its broader comprehension of your whole life. And yes, I’ve been saying it is pro-active, not just a passive story, however spiritual. Being a fragment of God’s, it has the capacity to know what is the best way for your greater spiritual growth and awareness. It’s not just a willy-nilly urge more or less spiritual: this is a differential urge akin to my Mind/Spirit Adjutants I derive from the Infinite Spirit. It is an urge for you to be more spiritual, and spirit is all-inclusive. (Yes) So when you come up with your own ideas that have spiritual merit, they are augmented much as my Mind/Spirit Adjutants augment other facets of your mentality–intuition, courage, wisdom.
It is possible to feel this nudge, this augmentation. Yet you may not always know if it isn’t just your own recognition of, well: This is a good idea; or partly your Thought Adjuster. You may not always be able to make that distinction, but this is what is happening. Your Thought Adjuster is urging you on to greater spiritual decisions–growth–awareness, not by judgments or decisions, but by recognizing intrinsic value to your life-as-a-whole. You too learn to recognize spirit and value as you become more soulful.
At the same time your Thought Adjuster is providing this urge/suggestion, it is directly taking on your life in a way beyond human conception and consciousness. Your soul is a greater reality than any you’ve yet experienced for long. It’s not a construct. It’s a special kind of living reality that is fully half an existential, eternal, absolute, and infinite presence. My whole lesson tonight was to invite you to use your creative imagination and spirit to wonder what your life is and has been–as God sees it.
When you reawaken on the other side, this will be that glorious beauty in your Morontia selves you will be more able to see in yourselves and each other. It’s this fullness of your human lives, of which you can only know now–pure–in moments of deepest reverie. This is the sad irony of the poor-in-spirit ego-manic: he’s so much more than what he is so fearful that he is less than.
Yes, my son, you can trust with faith that your soul is the full story of your life, not only what you might think of as, say, positive or moral. That would be trying to paint a person’s life in only one color. What of the trials, the failures, the pain, the sorrow, some great loss in your life–are they not of value? Do they not determine, as well as do the joys and triumphs, the value of life for you? Are they not spiritually significant? This is how you can have such an enormous trust in your Thought Adjuster, that a spirit of God’s is keeping sacrosanct these human events of yours. The soul, my son, is a glorious, glorious reality. We even hint around this might be the purpose for the creation.
Student: For the creation of human life.
NEBADONIA: For the creation of all personal beings–everywhere!–existing for themselves and each other, and yet simultaneously forming the Supreme Being. This is why it is Supreme.
Student: I guess I’m looking for a mechanism for how it does what it does, and it’s much more, probably, beyond conception for us–how the Thought Adjuster does its work of creating the soul.
NEBADONIA: Also, my son, don’t forget that you too are a discrete, individualized entity, a unique personality who is, at this early stage in your eternal life, a bit opaque to yourself even in terms of your own physical and mental functions, let alone your spiritual dimensions. You are your personality, if you will, a unique point of departure into time and space in which you experience your human life and co-create your soul. You have all these dimensions as intrinsic aspects of your personality–created by God, experienced by your Thought Adjuster–His fragment, with a loving urge to help you be more spiritual, to simply be more. Yes, in the final analysis these divine functions are quite… transcendent–(Mother Spirit laughed): another infinity you’re living in the middle of. But are they not glorious!
Student, much moved: I will rest in the glory of that mystery. I thank you for this unparalleled possibility for questions and conversation. Thank you.
NEBADONIA, equally: Thank you, my son. We find it very delightful. You are our beloved children. This is why we glory in your free will. We would have it no other way. You have the ability to surprise us. Be in my love. (long pause)
Do our newcomers have any questions or comments? As Michael said last time, we’re very informal around here, so jump in any time.
Student: I get a lot of visions. That’s how I navigate. I get a lot of visions and I get to meet that…create that contact with other beings. There is a running away from that in the sense of having this third eye ability…not sure how to frame this…in this space. But there’s definitely a knowing that it’s angels. And so I guess the question I have is… I don’t know if I really have a question.
I’ve just been delighted in the visions I’ve gotten since I’m here. They’re very beautiful pictures that I haven’t seen the kind of before, at all. They’re very powerful and beautiful. I’m actually kind of surprised about that. So I thank you for those, and…I guess I do have a question.
While I was sitting here I sensed or experienced a presence, and then I dialogued with it as a way to see: Is that you, or did I make that up? That’s weird. But there seems to be a growing up in my spirit that’s happening, whether it was dreams that came true, or just slowly over time–the realization that there is another realm is pretty evident now; it’s no longer a question. Does this continue? Do I just continue to experience this reality? There’s a nagging about what is this…calling for; or: why me, why can’t it be other people bringing it together–like is that what I really want?–that kind of question.
NEBADONIA: Yes, my daughter, congratulations. You are very much in touch with this presence. It definitely is growing, even as you welcome it, even as you question it, and toy with it, and tug at it this way and that. We encourage you to do all this. You need to do this, even with what Michael and I offer. We don’t ask you to take anything on blind belief. You’re growing your faith in this contact you speak of; these real experiences are their own proof. Faith is the way you extend yourself out over the abyss of possibility and step out into uncertainty, and then something solidifies underfoot and is the reward for that faith–the genuine experience inside.
Vision (Visualizing and conceptualizing)
It is true that people do come with many different inner abilities, and one of these is that you are a visual-izer in the way your mind presents complex facts to itself to get a handle on living spirit. You are right in not taking them purely for how they present themselves, but in thinking about them and working with them, sorting through them with Michael’s Spirit of Truth as a helper. Other folks are more conceptual-izers. Their inner reality is mostly ideas and concepts. Of course we encourage each type to develop like the other and become adept with both techniques. You’re just now reaching for ideas and concepts and notions and relationships in the way you’re expressing yourself here. So carry on. This presence is definitely growing in you. It’s a reward of faith. This spiritual contact will continue if you want it to. Some of this presence you’re feeling tonight, my daughter, is Michael and I, is the presence of God within you, and is your own soul.
Student: I feel I really like that. (much laughter)
NEBADONIA: Your Urantia book has that sweet Morontia mota or truth that most folks are enormously soul-wealthy, but so many refuse to believe it. Continue on in my love.
Student: Thank you, Nebadonia, I have no questions. All I can say is that I’ve given God all my questions and He’s given me His presence in return. For whatever reason questions no longer arise, I think because His presence is what I was looking for through all my questions. And I’m very satisfied with that arrangement.
NEBADONIA: My son, it sounds like teamwork to me, where you can anticipate each other and His presence answers your questions as they arise, almost as if the question were the answer in its very expression. It’s marvelous: people can know this. I extend you my love, and Michael’s peace too–we do speak for each other. We’re glad you’re here.
Forth student again: Mother, I do have a question. There is a lot of information recently that’s been pressing on me. I have spoken it into a recorder, but then there’s a question about what to do with it all in terms of my everyday life. Sometimes I forget all about it, but then, later, it seems to prove right on.
NEBADONIA: My daughter, we call this journaling where you sit down and either write or record what comes in your meditation. Think of it as a complimentary activity to your soul that enables you to articulate and keep what’s percolating inside you. You might feel shy about doing this because it’s more than you can put into language–your visual impressions. But your desire to understand by putting them into words is all very good. And then later, as you say, you’ve reached across time to address a future you. This what a record does. In the future you can look back and it’s like a little auxiliary soul. You can wonder: Was that me back then? It takes you back to the full reality you were living in then, and by reflection, gives you an appreciation of where you are now.
So these recordings are little gifts to yourself in the future. As to what you do with this, that’s up to you. That’s fully on your shoulders, and we can only be honest with you and put it so bluntly. All this information, all this complexity you are, all this encompassing reality of being human with such potential, all this eternity to fill–let alone another evening; that’s the challenge. You can try to dodge the challenge by sinking into dulling habits, or you can courageously face each evening that is potentially new if you can find a way to it. We suggest being still for a starter. Let those deep desires to live a full life surface.
All this information you’re feeling being pressed in upon you comes back to: what do you want to do? That’s one of the biggest questions you face in all eternity: what do you want to do? What is coming from your own deepest self? Not that you have to answer right now.
Student: Well, I do feel angels all around… (Ed: the rest, a short sentence, was too faint to catch)
NEBADONIA: There is a whole spiritual community right now sitting in on our little session–student visitors and others. If you can visualize them, all the better.
Student: (Ed: again, unfortunately, the next response was too faint to catch)
Student: Yes, Mother, it seems the presence of God within me won’t allow me to sit in front of the TV with a six-pack. I congratulate you for giving the same lesson on what I’ve been feeling–imagining how God see us all. I’ve been writing about humans being human–our human nature and how we’re redefining what it means to be in the image of God. No matter what happens politically or economically, they’re not going to get it right until they come from the same vision. I’ve been idealizing notions and just allowing that, to see where it takes me. Right now I feel like a nowhere man, but it’s OK–I talked with Michael about this last time. It’s just sitting with whatever arises and seeing where it goes.
And so there’s fear there, but there’s also a certainty that I’m OK, that I’m opening up to something I can’t yet conceive of. Maybe I’m un-defining myself from how I defined myself before. So I’ve been writing about this identity that is beyond this body, or what I once believed–all the religions I’ve participated in. But they’re part of me, and I’ve gleaned so much wisdom from all of them.
I’m beyond being a father, yet my children are also a part of me. It’s all new and fresh, and it seems like that’s how God sees me; and so much more I can’t fathom. I love it when you and Michael say: if we could only see ourselves how you see us–the light that we all are. That’s affirmation enough, to know that for a certainty. So: thank you.
Change (Living in transition)
NEBADONIA: My son, it’s my delight to thank you. As Michael said, this very state of a kind of limbo, or transition, is so feared by so many partly because they’re coming from such a defensive position toward life, and it makes them feel so vulnerable. This vulnerability is a valid assessment, to be open this way, to be fully in the present with all your past truly behind you, and yet available. Remember our early lessons when we encouraged you to meditate and relive moments of your life, back before all the subsequent judgments and categorizing, back to the original experience? By doing so, by giving up how you’ve been manipulating the past, you become ever more present. To be ever more present, to feel the freshness, the newness that is part of the creation, in no way incapacitates you to do the most practical things. Rather this gives you a quality of attention that makes you more effective. It’s the reward of faith: you are capable of being more–forever!
Closing
This is the promise of your soul, teasing you to just be. Trust that part of the image of God in which you are made, is that you are complete each moment. There’s no need for any of this; no need whatsoever: it just is. It’s all God’s will, shared with your own. You are complete. There’s nothing missing, not in you, not in your soul, nowhere! Each person is complete in Him, and yet capable, because we are all His creations, capable of growing evermore replete. As Michael said, the next moment simply is. Here it is, and your soul has grown. You are a little more than you were–forever! This is the Supreme on its way to the Ultimate, with you along.
Carry on, my children. And be in my love.
