2003-05-04-The Idea of Progress
Costa Rica #154
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: The Idea of Progress
o 1.2 Group: Costa Rica TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Alana, Legion
o 2.2 TR: S. Butterfield
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Dialogue
o 3.3 Dialogue
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: The Idea of Progress
Group: Costa Rica TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Alana, Legion
TR: S. Butterfield
Session
Opening
TR: (prayer) Mother, Father, I come to you with an open heart and an open mind. I pray for your guidance. I welcome your teachers. Thank you for all your gifts of love, beauty, truth. Thank you for your good will toward us. I ask you to help me shed the scales of negativity and give me the new skins of love. Your universe is so beautiful. I thank you for the stillness, the sound of birds, and the beauty of nature, all that is natural and good. Thank you. Give us guidance in getting along, communication, building trust, reducing fear and doubt. I pray that your love will be known across our world. Thank you.
ALANA: Yes, this is Alana. Yes, my beloveds, I am here, as always, ever since you turned toward love and learning to love. I would have you know my love as joyful. I do not come to show you your faults, or limitations. This, my beloveds, you do quite well all on your own. (laughter)
David: Thank you for your commendation, Alana. (Yes.) Are we learning anything? Can you give us any kind of progress report? Maybe I’m in need of a little encouragement at this point. (chuckles) Are we making progress, Alana?
ALANA: Might we discuss this idea of progress?
Dialogue
ALANA: Should you think progress would look like perfection, perfection as the remarkable lemon pies set upon the table with crystal and silver, the candles burning without smoke, prepared for the perfect photograph for the glossy magazine cover, then, my beloved, you must “sink or swim” on your own. But should we be speaking of progress as the daily steps toward increasing understanding, expanding the tenderness of patience, or allowing acceptance to be grounded in the certainty of forgiveness, which is to say the daily progress of the activity of perfecting oneself toward the fullest possible realization of love, then, my beloved, we work together, and both you and I will assess together, “are we making progress?” So, I ask you, as well, Are we making progress?
David: (chuckles) Yes.
ALANA: Thank you, my beloved. I return that affirmation to you. There are always, upon the “breakthroughs,” as you call them, of enlightenment and understanding…there are always the echoes, you might say, of the long held, or neuronally learned “cries in the wilderness,” fears and doubts, shames and guilts, to be listened to as you do when having shouted across the valley the shout comes back first loudly, then softly, then lesser and lesser and lesser in volume. Very much like that impulse that follows, to shout again, to repeat the experiment, does this work? Is this phenomenon real?
There is that temptation in moments of peace and solitude, or in moments of gentle loving with one another…there is often that same neuronal impulse to test the waters newly with your new understandings and skills, which, as indeed you are progressing, from time to time this new test, this testing of the new skills, becomes the shout with the ancient echoes following. But do not mistake difficult learning with lack of progress. Do not confuse echoes from the past with a changing and growing present.
You have, not only the growth within, but also the growth without, by which I mean interaction of relationship. These two tracks of learning are demanding of patience, tolerance, and the forgiveness of balance. These two seek balance, need balance, and yet, as you have been experiencing, you sometimes feel as if the see-saw has gone out of control and you are either way up high, or way below in your cave of confusion.
Still, my beloved, I would remind you for your well-being, and in response to your call for my reassurance, with all the tender love that is Alana, I would remind you, I would say, there was a time when you could not allow yourself (and I will include others by saying yourselves) to know in the midst of confusion, in the darkness of your pains, you could not allow yourself (selves) to know that you could turn to our love and be gently lifted into the comfort of compassion. So, yes, my beloved, you are progressing toward that balance of full understanding, inner peace, and outward joy.
There is no need to resign yourself, or assign yourself, to the category of “the lost and unforgiven.”
So! was that helpful, my beloved? You know my love for you can not change anything without your choice and co-operation to create along with me. Your progress, my beloved, is my progress, too. As you understand this team-work, you will increasingly find it less necessary to cry out to me, “Am I making any progress, Alana?” For you will no longer experience such separation from me, from Legion, from yourself and your knowing of yourself, or from your beloved, your friends, your relationships. The burden will no longer rest solely upon you, yes? (Yes.) We lift together, yes? All of us toward that light that is love.
So! shall we, together, my beloveds, create the heart room? Open your hearts. Breathe my love into your hearts. Allow love to fill your hearts, expand your hearts, flow through your hearts. Open your minds. Let the love rise up into your minds, permeating your thoughts, filling those patterns of time with the joy, faith, certainty and lightness of love. Love that can soften conditioning. Love that can heal wounding.
Open your minds and hearts now, and allow love to be shared. Love moving from one to the other. Affirm this love. Say “Yes” to love. Forgive your human frailties. Welcome into this circle of love all those you would forgive. Welcome into this heart room of love all those you would encourage. Dip, now, into the pool of love and forgiveness, and let the living waters of love, the real, true love of our Father, our Mother, for you, each one…let this love wash away your doubt and your fear, the remnants of your questioning, “Am I growing? Am I making progress? Am I any better?” Let this pool of love and forgiveness hold you, float you, lift you, permeate your every doubt and fear with reassurance.
You are here, my beloveds, because you choose to be here, in the heart room, in the pool of love and forgiveness. Do not berate yourselves, should you, walking along the path of love, on a world of confusion, should you, from time to time, mis-step. It is this quickness to condemn the errors of love, the mistakes of communication, the unforgiven wounds of destruction, the thoughtlessly repeated conditioning…it is the quickness to condemn such as these, in yourselves or in another, that is the same expectation of yourself, or another, to progress to a state you call “complete perfection.”
Allow patience to become your best friend, for patience speaks with compassion. Patience is not foolishly permissive, does not pretend, can speak with the firmness of certainty, but always true patience brings love to the forefront of your mind, allows love to spill forth from your heart, and never judges your “progress,” as you say. So, my beloveds, would you speak to me, now, of your progress? Is there something you know that says to you: “Yes, I listened, I learned. I have received the caress of forgiveness, the comfort of love. Be it ever so small, I can say, my work with Alana has born fruit today.”
Dialogue
David: Yes, I can say some things.
ALANA: Wonderful.
David: Everytime I turn to you it is a learning experience of knowing that a perfect love awaits me, and listens to me, and I feel totally accepted by you, more than I ever have by any other spirit I’ve ever encountered..or person..or being. I’ve experienced changing in the middle of difficult situations simply by turning my attention to you, and to love, and to the heart room, or to Song, Legion, Davina, everything on that channel, if you will. Actually, I’m quite pleased with the progress that we have made since we tuned into you. It’s just been a little difficult lately…like two steps forward, and three back. (laugh) But I think in terms of the overall picture, I am more than pleased, Alana. I think you have picked that up in my heart signals from my day to day experiences with you.
ALANA: Yes, Beloved. And I would have you understand that this love, as you say, “that is always waiting for you,” does not await in the waiting room, so to speak. There is no door between us, my beloved. The love that is waiting could be described, also, as the love that is there. Yes? And so, perhaps we could say that sometimes you are awaiting you. Yes?
David: Thank you, my beloved.
ALANA: Yes.
Sonja: Yes. I’ve found many times, lately, that pausing and putting things into the heart room really helps me in how to express things the way I really want to say them, and let them come out with more love…which is really what I mean to express…rather than being caught up in the heat of the moment.
ALANA: That, my beloved, is what you might call “beautiful progress.” Yes? It is the “cooking.” yes? The putting the ingredients of success into the warm oven of the heart room, and allowing the true beauty of your intention to arise and be brought out into the open with confidence in joy to be. This is, indeed, sometimes perceived as miraculous. Yes? How the sentence structure, or the chosen words, become so transformed. Yes? Yet, I would say again, it is no miracle. It is the consequence of creative co-operation with love.
It is this some call prayer. Yes? And it is that you experience the power of co-operation with our Mother-our Father’s love, Michael’s love, our love, all love as an ever present reality available to you. Yes?
David: I have an unusual request, if it is permissible within the parameters of your bailiwick, shall we say? My beloved parents both had birthdays in the first week of May. So earlier I have been sending to them, “Happy Birthday!’ So if it is possible through your networks, I would like to ask you to convey that message to them…if it isn’t going through my networks, I’d like you to say “Happy Birthday!” to them.
ALANA: Yes, my beloved. I will tell you with great joy that your beloved parents have a continuing re-birth of joy in their devotion to each other and to the “progress,” shall we say, of our Mother-our Father’s love in the universes. Thank you.
David: Thank you for that wonderful report. I have another question as well. It may be that…well you can decide for yourself who should answer this…but Song said, awhile ago, used the metaphor, “keep your eye on the balance wheel of love.” He did answer that in some ways…and I didn’t all together get a real strong grasp of that…could you, or Song, or the teachers, take hold of this…tell me more about what it means to keep one’s eye on the balance wheel of love?
ALANA: She (the t/r) sees the two wheels rolling along the bumpy road. You, your heart, your mind, remain tranquil and calm, knowing this vehicle you inhabit has all it needs to arrive on time. Think of a mind and heart as a crystal globe containing within it all form of thought and feeling, much like those paper weights you turn and the snow flurries, rises, floats around. But this globe, always turning, always creating change, is held between two hands of love that, no matter how the change disturbs the snow, nevertheless (the globe) is always glowing with the light of knowing all is well. It is to say, my beloved, a balance that is the balance of love without fear, without doubt, and with the confidence and certainty of faith. Has this been helpful? Would you speak to any other?
Sonja: Well, Alana, last week you said something about “nobody can create alone.” Would you elaborate on that? Did you mean nobody can create without being in tune with God’s love? Or…?
ALANA: Yes. It is as I have spoken to my beloved, Sir David. There is no door, really, between our Mother-our Father’s love and any one of you. There has grown upon your planet a misconception about creativity and creation. Which is to say, that the cleverness of constructing ”new thought,” or “new ideas,” or “new activities,” has become confused with genuine creativity. Thus this cleverness of newness, you will painfully see, in truth, leaves largely destruction, great or small, even tiny in the form of failure of true perception. Thus, your humanity has become confused with “bigger, better, greater” powers as, not true mastery but rather control over others, over natural forces.
When I speak of creativity, I speak of the true creation, the true creativity which is the creativity of God, which is the creativity of love, which is the creation of joy. This, my beloved, one does not do alone; but always in concert with the love that dwells within, the love that dwells without, the love that embraces our Father-our Mother’s love, in you, through you, with you always; and in creative co-operation with every other living being upon your planet. Does this help you, my beloved, in your understanding?
Sonja: Yes.
ALANA: I would speak to your beloved Sir John, whose faith and certainty in our task has grown and expanded his ability to experience pleasure and give comfort. He is to understand that this new pleasure and delight that he sees from time to time in the delightful flashes of blue…butterflies, she (the t/r) tells me…is not to be taken as Legion telling the butterflies, “Go! Flutter before him that he knows I say yes, this way, no that way, over here!” But rather that he (John) should understand that they do, indeed, reflect this new joy he has in his heart that is the joy that Legion has in him. And when these natural expressions of God’s beauty bring a smile to mind and heart, he is to know that, yes, in mind and heart so is Legion.
David: Thank you. That was a wonderful message for John. I know he had that question in mind. Do you have a word for our beloved transmitter, today? She has been bringing such wonderful messages to us from you.
ALANA: Yes. I would tell her that she has greater potential for expressing…for knowing and teaching love and trust, than she has yet to fully recognize. She is increasingly allowing her unique style of love and logic to become something that she trusts and can give expression. We do not wish her to experience any shame or guilt for those lapses of certainty, or those moments of having nothing to give, for these are the experiences of any human being on your planet learning the steps of love that require balance between self-love and love of another.
Once she has become more comfortable with the experience she calls “having nothing more to give,” she will no longer think of that space as an emptiness, an emptiness filled with the echoes of emptiness. She will no longer see herself as a pail with a hole in it, to be thrown, bumping down the rocky road, echoing its emptiness all along the way. So we encourage her to put herself in the heart room and sit there as long as she would wish, and absorb the joy of floating in my arms with no thought of selfishness. She is learning how to speak. And even as the very act of speech raises fears and doubts, still I congratulate her and tell her that her speech will make a difference.
Also, I would speak to Lady Kim. I would reassure that bundle of love and confusion. I would reassure her that there is no hurry. The way will be made clear to her. The sense of urgency will become less a matter of fear, and more an experience of creative joy. She is beloved. She suffers now from the natural pain and confusion that sometimes comes with growth.
David: I’d like to say thank you, on behalf of John and Kim, for your messages. Is it possible that you have a word for Mr. Chris, as well?
ALANA/LEGION: Yes. He continues to grow in his ability to co-ordinate mind and heart. When the human being is vulnerable, as the snail without a shell, the many influences of input, good and bad, or well-intentioned but with unintended meaning, often become absorbed into the heart and mind without, you might say, consciousness, or conscious choice. Thus the sense of “being out of control,” or “being controlled,” or not being comfortable, or sure of “who I am.” This condition was his, and is in a state of healing as he has allowed, as he allows, and as he will continue to allow the love of Alana, and the comfort of Legion, to soften while standing tall.
His new confidence in himself, which is not to say he has had no confidence before, nor to say that his “old” confidence was wrong, but rather “new” in the sense of expanded understanding of love within and without, is the confidence to which he was born and is now born again. It is to be his joy to increasingly know that God’s love belongs to him, as to any other, and is his purpose, direction, and definition. Life lived with love and expressed with joy.
Or, in the words of Legion, the discipline of love is the discipline of joy. Yes? And I am Legion, happy to tag-along with Alana and give thanks to my student for his intention and determination to practice my disciplines. Thank you. As well, to Sir John. And you, my beloved, Sir David.
But I would not leave out the…how do you call it…the distaff side…our beloved ladies, our women, our girls, whose willingness to listen and open to the words of Alana, and the words of Legion, contribute to the expansion of the understanding of female love in co-operation and balance with male love. Yes? thank you.
Closing
David: We have had some requests from both Brother Richard and Brother Oliver to join with us in this circle. Do you have any heavenly advice for us?
ALANA/LEGION: Not at this time.
David: Thank you. I want to thank you for this time together…for your availability not only in this structure, but from moment to moment in our lives. I have great appreciation for this fellowship…the church of the twinkling eyes. Thank you.
ALANA: Thank you. Let the love grow. Let love pour through. Have faith in love to show you the way. Put your beloveds into the heart room of love. Embrace them. Be with them in the pool of love and forgiveness now. Thank you.
