2013-06-20-God’s Encompassing Truth
Lightline #401
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: God’s Encompassing Truth
o 1.2 Group: Lightline TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Truth
3.2.2 Human Condition, Pain
3.2.3 Cruelty
3.2.4 Demonstration
3.2.5 Teaching Mission
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Agondonters, Pain
3.3.2 Ageing
3.3.3 Forgiveness
o 3.4 Closing
3.4.1 Communication
Topic: God’s Emcompassing Truth
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit: here we are! Here we are again, gathered in to hear your cheerful message. We don’t know how you do it; I guess that’s why we’re here; but it is always so uplifting. It’s a kind of pure positivity that we cannot generate ourselves that we do appreciate–especially the conversations, the questions and comments we get to share with you, and your delightful answers and response. So once again we thank you very, very much for being who and what you are–Creator Son of God, and a delightful companion to a Creator Daughter of God. We do love and appreciate you both. Amen.
Lesson
Truth
MICHAEL: : Good evening everybody. This is Michael and, as always, we can’t say it enough: Mother Spirit and I are delighted to be with you this way and always. That “always” goes two ways, yet both “always” mean forever. You will forever be our children and, some time in the infinite future when you return from Paradise as full-fledged eternal beings yourself, we’re always glad to see you; and we will be with you all in the interim. But also “always” means all ways—by all means. Always keep in mind, my dear ones, that our spirit is part of you. My Spirit of Truth is that orientation that points you at something that, in all ways, is always and forever larger than you. It’s God’s truth, God’s way of doing things. And it’s his very presence within you.
God’s encompassing truth
This is what his truth is for your order of personal being. It’s an Encompassing. It’s what’s surrounding you. It’s the womb in which you live his greater truth. Even for Mother Spirit and me, it’s the same. We are very similar in that we too are surrounded by something so infinitely greater than we are, and it’s wonderful to be aware of that, and to open ourselves to that. We even trust in that. We trust that there is always, and will always be, some way to keep growing. There is always some stretch to do ourselves, some way of committing our personality–our very intrinsic being–committing us to this reality of God’s that is so much greater than us.
This is our home. This was created for every single one of us as an individual. God doesn’t leave anyone out. And as he’s no respecter of persons in this sense–we are all equal–we are all equally just small parts of his enormous totality. We hope that, through our lessons and just being with Mother Spirit and me, you can have a feeling of being comfortable in this enormous home.
Human Condition, Pain
This may take some doing for you, for we do acknowledge that, because you are in this present early beginning stage–you are so physical–that this fact itself holds a great threat to you. Your physical body can endure or even be wiped out by other physical events around you. You’ve not yet reached that stage where such things are in your past. It’s very much a part of you–this physical-ness.
So when you endure pain, or hunger, or even the loss of a limb or some physical ability, we do acknowledge that this is for you a very total thing. It’s a very real thing. Neither Mother Spirit nor I, nor any other spiritual being, ever makes light of this. For we do acknowledge that, for you, it is an article of faith that you do have a continuing life after this physical part of you undergoes such an enormous transformation you call death. This is real for you. It is something you all, as children, when you first became aware of death, maybe cried yourself to sleep a few nights, absolutely drowning in self-pity that you were going to die someday–just the absolutely incomprehensible nature of that.
But this is part and parcel of who and what you are now, this physicalness. Yet there are folks who try to run away from this, who try to deny it to the best of their personality’s ability, first of all in others. This is where, out of an ego sense of power and control, they do the most obscene things to each other–other people, physically.
Cruelty
You notice that Mother Spirit and I do reserve that word “obscene” for true violence; and it can be spiritual; it can be mental. As I’m discussing this evening, it can also be physical. You’ve only to look around your world, and perhaps even in your own nearby community, and your nightly news, to be aware of what folks are doing to each other physically. This is truly obscene, especially those things that are done that cannot be remedied, where someone is permanently maimed or loses their life because of the willful, conscious, deliberate actions of another.
And so this is part of what you live with. Some of you, maybe simply because of the community you live in, and your wealth, your physical status, are pretty much immune to this. Keep in mind your brothers and your sisters and those others who are living in very hazardous conditions, again, not only in a state of war, but in a state of crime. They are susceptible to what you call mugging–literally being physically grabbed hold of and injured, sometimes utterly gratuitously, just because someone else has the ego need to feel this power they derive from hurting another person.
So be aware of this. Open your heart to this and do what you can in social and political realms to, as much as you can, put an end to this. And of course bring it home, bring it home to your own heart and your own mind and your own spirit and your own soul. Be gentle with each other. Be respecting of each other. Recently, we defined compassion as that of being open—open-minded, open-spirited–to the totality of another person, especially in realizing that their totality is really beyond your grasp. The uniqueness of another person and their whole life–their whole soul–is truly beyond your grasp.
Brutal-mindedness
MICHAEL: It’s a measure of respect to acknowledge this within yourself and realize how much you can hurt another person, and not only physically, just by being brutal. There’s a kind of brutal-mindedness as well, where through your words, or through your actions without even touching someone, you can be brutal with them and ignore their very expressions of pain. This is what you call being callous. Just as a workman’s hands grow thick skin over his palms so they can continue working, so people can become mentally calloused. They can have this thick layer over themselves to where they can’t be aware of, or even deny, that they are hurting other people.
A sad kind of irony is that, for these very folks who are so calloused, it works both ways. Just as a workman’s hands which are handling rough material cannot feel as delicately, shall we say, as a surgeon’s tying surgical knots back in some little corner of a person’s body: that kind of sensitivity–that same thing applies to your minds and your souls, my dears. It is where, if you’re so calloused as to be brutal—physically, or mentally, or spiritually–this is the loss of sensitivity. This is another whole realm of reality that you yourself, then, cannot feel, cannot respond to.
In mental realms it’s what you call cynicism. It’s being brutal with the inner excuse, “Well, everyone else is doing it,” or “Everyone else would–if they could.” It’s where somebody looks upon a more gentle, delicate soul as weak. This is where the criminal element comes in, where people can do the most terrible things to each other criminally and feel that, “Well, everyone would do this if they could. If they don’t it’s just because they’re weak.” They literally cannot recognize the enormously greater spiritual strength of being open, of being sensitive.
Yet how do you do this? How do you go about through a sometimes brutal world, especially if you live in a neighborhood where this is commonplace? How do you go out and live in such a reality, being open and sensitive yourself?
This is where you have to have that inner strength and inner connection with even greater spirit than yourself. This is where you can take in the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that do happen to you; take these into yourself and yet heal yourself. Take these in. Take in whatever comes to you and find a way of resolving that, understanding that with your greater spirit.
Then, rather than returning meanness for meanness, your creative spirit finds a way out of the situation. You can even have the spiritual glory of showing this other more brutal or more cynical person, show by living example how to do this, how they can be more open because you are being that right in front of them. You are offering a hand even though it is spit upon or slapped aside. You offer it again.
You bypass some of their violence with a kind of judo. You slough it off. You don’t let it affect you to where you feel you have to become calloused yourself. In your meditations, in your time with your Father, and with Mother Spirit and with me, this is where you open again. This is where you relax any of that defensive reaction. This is where you renew yourself. You can get up from your meditations and once again be an active person.
This is what I did so much in my human life–over and over again–use this kind of judo, this real spiritual strength to turn things around to not let folks hurt me; and then not re-act, but handle their reaction to me with a new, spontaneous, fresh response. This is what truly wins the day because it is truly new and creative. It’s not just a knee-jerk re-action.
Teaching Mission
The Teaching Mission
I especially encourage you to have this attitude towards those who are approaching you as teachers. Mother Spirit and I truly appreciate what you call the Teaching Mission, the way you use our lessons and the lessons of all of our others, both spiritual beings and ascendant mortals, who are giving you lessons now. Above all, my dear ones, you must show newcomers to the Teaching Mission that you yourself have absorbed the teaching; that you yourself have been a good student and that you have absorbed deep into your soul, and have opened your heart, to all those who come to you with all their different belief systems.
Each has their own way of grasping as best they can this Encompassing of truth that surrounds us all. This is what we call being open-minded, open-spirited, open-hearted to really welcome them in their very diversity. Go through life welcoming the very differences you have with each other because, if you are strong enough within to be open-hearted and open-minded; this is the delight–the very fact that they’re not you. This is the joy. This is appreciating God’s creativity.
Here they stand in front of you, and you can’t begin to encompass them–especially not to judge them. The reward of this is them. You have not just copies of yourself in your soul–that you’ve been able to force and coerce and bulldog others into being like you and agreeing with you–but you have something new. You have their soul. You have their life experience within you. It’s why you have a world literature. It’s why you have all your movies and television and now your Internet to connect with all these other folks and what they’ve known of life. These things are rewards in and of themselves.
So, my dear ones, if you cannot feel this, then open your faith. Just try it. You don’t have to believe me, or Mother Spirit, or anything we say. Just entertain it. Try it. Be truly experimental in this sense. I think you’ll be surprised at this totality of another person, especially maybe someone you’ve known your whole life. See how delighted they are for, all of sudden, you to be even more open and welcoming who they are. Not only who they’ve been, but who they are. I’ll end this part of our lesson here, and ask you to let me enjoy some of you with your questions and comments.
Dialogue
Agondonters, Pain
Student: Yes, Michael, I just wanted to say it’s been a great lesson, and so it’s a whole lot to think about for sure, especially about the pain of a lot of people. I suffer a lot. I broke my back. It’s been almost thirty years ago. It paralyzed me for a little while, but I was able to walk again after a couple of years. I’ve still gone through a lot of pain the last thirty years or so, but I’ve learned to deal with it just in order to make it. I try to relate to a lot of other people and their problems too, and the pain that they go through. So it’s just to be more open, I guess, and try to understand it, and maybe the thing I’m getting out of it is: not to think so much about the pain that I have, but the pain that everybody else is going through. It doesn’t have to be only physical because on this planet there seems to be enough pain that happens that doesn’t have to be physical. So, I appreciate your words.
MICHAEL: Well, my son, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart because this is something that we do acknowledge. We do respect the very kinds of beings you are, my children. It may be very hard for you to understand–or get your mind around–as you say, that the very angels do envy you in the way you have this relationship to physical reality. It gives you an appreciation of living matter and energy–an appreciation of Life Itself–because of the sometimes terrible price you have to pay, even day to day, to keep living–and then to welcome life!
Courage, and strength, and great soul
MICHAEL: And so we do humbly–most humbly–acknowledge this. We congratulate you for your courage and your strength just to be, just to continue to be, and then to be open–to be open to other folks and have them in your soul forever. We do appreciate the way you reach, in a sense, reach through your pain to acknowledge another: and then to be there for them! This is what gives you great soul. This is what makes you an Agondonter, one who, in spite of all that life has dealt you–and so often not what you would call your fault at all: accepts that these things happen. Sometimes in your youth and your immaturity you did things that had consequences you could not foresee at that time. But to accept this, and to continue to work with it–as I’m sure you’ve learned how to do; even those . . .
Student: There are quite a few who are a lot worse off. That’s a lot of ways I look at it. I remember years ago my dad always said, “Never judge anybody until you walk a day in that man’s shoes.” When I was real young I heard that, and it took a while for me to really understand and appreciate that, because a lot of times you can’t tell just by looking at someone. Because I get by fairly well. You know, I broke a few other bones like my ankle, and a couple other things, but I just keep going. A lot of people, you know, they look at me and there’s no way they can tell that there’s anything wrong with me; except my attitude sometimes. I tend to get a little irritable at times, so I have to be aware of that.
MICHAEL: : Well, you all have something to work on, do you not?
Student: Oh yes. There’re challenges everywhere.
Ageing
MICHAEL: : Even physically. It’s something that, as folks get older too, it’s such a blessing when, when your joints and your muscles just naturally get more stiff and painful, just to work with that. You take whatever you have in what we call this Eternal Now, totally irrespective of how you got to where you are. It’s the fact that you are, and in this Eternal Now you are determined within yourself to work with what you have. That’s the real glory, is it not?
Student: Yes. That’s for sure. My mom’s eighty-seven and I hear a lot, you know, of her back pains; and I really relate to that back pain. But I can’t relate so much because hers is, like you say: it’s pain. Pain is pain no matter what causes it or not. So she keeps going too. I give her…she’s another inspiration in a way, you know.
MICHAEL: : It is part of life… I was going to say, it is part of life that the pain kind-of closes in on you. I mean the muscles and the joints do get stiff with age. Yet it’s the willingness to go into that pain, and that means so very, very carefully and not impatiently throw yourself about, and work out so hard you’re actually going backwards and injuring yourself. But every day you get into that physical stretching because as things stiffen up, you have to willingly go into that ache with a very delicate, loving respect for your body. You slowly stretch whatever you can to keep movement happening.
In a similar way this too is where folks who have gone through terrible psychic or spiritual pain, sit down in their meditation and open themselves up to our Father. You go into that to re-live, ever and ever deeper, with ever greater understanding, some of the mental and spiritual pain that you’ve endured. You slowly heal yourself there so that your mind and your spirit are ever more open. This is the parallel to what you’re going through physically. Also what I tried to address tonight is stretching spiritually, and stretching mentally, so you’re open the next day. No matter what happened to you yesterday, you’re open today.
Student: Yesterday’s gone, so . . .
MICHAEL: : Right. Unfortunately, it does linger on for so many folks.
Student: There’s reminders every once in a while.
Forgiveness
Mental, spiritual wounds
MICHAEL: : There are terribly, terribly mentally crippled folks because they did have genuinely mean and sadistic parents. But all of a sudden—it seems–they’re in their seventies or eighties and they’ve lived their whole lives never ever forgiving, never ever putting that behind them. They can become emotionally crippled their whole life because they will constantly bring it up with anybody who’ll stop for five minutes and listen to them. Here it comes up again about the evil father or the evil mother, and although that was sixty years ago, it’s still crippling them. So it’s also real that some folks are so injured they can never forgive the person who injured them. They carry that terrible mental wound and it has destroyed their whole life. That is also another kind of wounding that can only be cured by forgiveness and acceptance. We thank you, my son, for the lesson you’ve given us all this evening.
Student: It’s not my lesson. Thank you, Father.
MICHAEL: : Well, it’s deeply appreciated.
Student: I don’t have near the pain that you went through, that’s for sure, while you spent your time here, so . . .
MICHAEL: : And yet it was a glory that I can never even begin to thank my Father, that he gave me that opportunity. So: we live in his grace, do we not?
Student: That’s for sure.
MICHAEL: : Be in my peace.
Student: Thank you, Father.
MICHAEL: : Does someone care to join the conversation? I believe it’s star-six in your system here. If not, my dear ones, let me close this evening with… Let me extend my lesson a little bit and talk about the difference between expressing yourself and communication.
Closing
Communication
Expressing oneself VS. real communication
Mother Spirit and I have taught a couple times in the past that expressing yourself does not necessarily involve another personality. You can go out and express yourself on a mountain road in your sports car–being one with the machine, as you say. You can be out in the middle of the desert just yelling at the stars or singing a great song.
But communication means taking in the other, whoever or whatever this other is. You express yourself and then you stop. You stop yourself expressing in order to open yourself as totally as you can to take in this other. That means you are not so concerned with what you’re going to say next and are only waiting for them to stop talking at you so you can say some more.
You totally stop your expression and open yourself and really listen. You really see. You really feel them. Then when they are through you can express yourself again. This is real communication. This is real exchange. This is real back-and-forth responding, having the ability to respond back and forth with another person.
This is the delight of life. As I said, this is where their very differences from you are what you have to offer each other–a different life. This is what fills your literature and your movies and your television and your Internet–this whole world of other people, unique individuals. This requires a certain kind of letting go of yourself. You express yourself and then let yourself go—totally–and forget about yourself. Forget about what you want to say. Forget about the fact that you’re so full of yourself. You suspend all of that and are able to take them into you and add to your soul.
Clinging to tragedy
MICHAEL: People say, “Pity those poor individuals who were so twisted in their youth that they cannot forgive those who did genuinely harm them.” By clinging to that, by having that be their reason for being, they will have deprived themselves of a whole lifetime ever since. That’s the true tragedy.
This is why Mother Spirit and I do delight in communicating with you. And we are right inside of you. We are part of you. We do delight so when, in your meditations, you say, “Hi Dad,” and, “Hello Mom,” and even if you want to think of our mutual Father, “Hi Grandpa. Thank you for my life, and please help me live it as best I can, not only for myself but for all these others. Help me give to them. Help me be there for them, to listen, to see, to enjoy.” Mother Spirit sends her love and I bid you, be in my peace. Good evening.
