2008-06-26. Humility
Lightline #175
Topic: Humility
Group: Lightline TeaM
Teacher: Tomas
TR: Gerdean
Opening
Gerdean: Michael, we greet you, knowing you come into our presence when we seek to be in yours. Bring us your peace. Lay upon us your harmony. Lead us into the presence of the Father so that we can gain support and strength for the service fields we’re sent into. Thank you for showing the way for us, being such an example of one who will go wherever you are sent, with a cheerful countenance. Be with our group this evening and help us get the information you would have us get. We are in your hands. Amen.
TOMAS: I am Tomas, one of the Teacher Corps and your friend. You know me well. I am a regular. I enjoy these adventures on the Light Line broadcast for it puts us all on an equal playing field, so to speak, in that none of us can see each other. We all act then on blind faith. In this way our faith, our God fragments, our divine connection is made manifest in the mind and in the heart and in the spirit and we need not concern ourselves with the material trappings or conventions of society.
Lesson
I don’t have a formal lesson planned. I feel as though I have been a formal teacher for so long, I have lectured about as far as I can go, and that the rest of my career here, which could be considerable, will be recapping what I have already taught and spoken of and yet with the added advantage of my having gotten to know you better and the circumstances of which you live for as I become conditioned to what your real problems are, I become more sensitive as to how I can be of service to you. I begin to understand your vocabulary better. I begin to pick up on the nuances of language and the idioms you use. If you observe, you will see that over time our language has softened and become more conversational than when we first began this mission.
There have been times when it seemed we had come down to your level almost too far, but it was a learning process to us to realize that we will go to any lengths to reach those who reach up for greater appreciation of truth, beauty and goodness, much as the Father goes with you into your sordid and reckless experiences as immature mortal beings in order to hold your hand when you reach for Him and say, “Father, lift me up. Take me out of this. Lead me home.”
And so in compassion and mercy we seek to lead you home from those mortal coils in which you get involved and which are a rightful part of your experiential journey. We don’t often tell you what not to do. Most of the time we allow you to make your own decisions and counsel you on the decisions you have made in and of your own judgment. This is how you progress. You do not progress by having someone show you how to do everything. You learn by experience and that is the crux of your existence here and made more poignant here by this being an experiential world, an experimental planet.
Instances that you encounter among yourselves in this sojourn are sometimes enough to be cause for alarm among you. The ideological differences, the difference is beliefs, the different ways you go about doing the Father’s will, how it is you seem to step on each others toes or hold each other at arms length is all a part of the learning process. All of these experiential journeys are for a reason. They are teaching you, experientially, what we have talked about, what you have read about, and in your heat you know that all is well, that even when you are in a painful situation of being alone with your beliefs you are appropriate to the moment, and this is what it is to be an agondonter.
You seem to think, being gregarious and social creatures, that like minds should always get along and see things the same, but there is no growth in that. The growth comes from resolving your own perspective on the situation, not the situation itself. The situation itself will resolve itself when you each know yourself and what it is you are to do in terms of doing His will.
I am reminded here of the seven psychic circles and how it is that it is very difficult to ascertain who is on what circle because of the nature of growth and the vagaries of the human condition. It is just not clear-cut. There is a great deal of overlapping. And so each individual has shades of black, shades of white, and shades of gray — mostly shades of gray. [There seems to be a party going on, a technological party. I hear things that distract from our session. We have had this kind of thing before. I have worked with my TR on precisely this kind of thing and so we can persevere.]
What I am trying to say is Be not alarmed by the differences between you. None of you are alike. None of you thinks as the others do, not completely. Each one of you is as unique as the snowflake is unique, or the flower is unique. It may see as though you are all from the same flowerbed, but your differences are myriad. It is not apparent from a cursory perusal. Only upon closer study can it be seen where the differences are, and yet each is precious in its own right. Each has its own statement to make. Each reflects the truth and the beauty and the goodness of the Creator. Each enhances the bouquet in its own way and each can stand alone in a solitary vase.
I wanted to make those comments, and I would like to comment also about a couple of other things, but before we do, for there is time, let me ask if there is anything that any of you would like to discuss? Is there something that has been on your mind that you would like to take up with one of the teachers, since I am here to be of service to you?
Dialogue
Verne: I have a question.
TOMAS: I am all ears.
Verne: Okay. In relations to communications with your Thought Adjuster– I know this is a hard question, but when you are trying to communicate with your Adjuster actively, how do you know its your Adjuster and not just your own mind telling you what you want to hear? Do you understand me?
TOMAS: Yes. It’s a process, my son. You may not know that at first glance, but after a time — after some experience — you will be able to discern the shades of gray involved. At first you will hear your own mind reflected, and then your mind will go through a process of changing. If I may use this analogy, a writer may have an idea to tell a story and he or she sits down with a pen and paper and begins to tell the story he feels he wants to tell. And after a time, he returns to the project and rewrites it. He upgrades it. Throws out that which is not relevant or beefs up that which is relevant or will enhance the reader’s understanding. The Adjuster does the same kind of thing. It lets you think the thought, then it will come along and edit it for you.
Verne: Thank you.
TOMAS: Eventually you become gifted at the task and very little editing is necessary, but this takes time and a lot of practice. E very now and then you may be lucky and manifest a stroke of genius. You sit down and out pours something of incredible beauty and profundity, such that to change a word would be to lessen its effect. That well may have been your Adjuster, in which case you were simply the instrument of its expression, and this is the goal that ultimately you are an instrument of its expression.
But in the meantime, you need to exercise and contribute, such as an automobile needs to have the fuel injected in order for the carburetor to get the motor running and the car moving down the road. You need to get the oil flowing so that everything is lubricated and moving. This is your cooperation in the process. This is your mechanical contribution to the fact of locomotion.
Do you see my analogy? I realize it is very raw, but I am trying to use an analogy that you can think about after our conversation and when you recognize what you are doing, you can say, “Oh yes, this is part of the process. I am just getting the oil warmed up and flowing through the tubes, and once I get putting along, then I can anticipate the power of the vehicle taking over and driving me where I need to go.”
There are many analogies I could use to indicate the same point that listening to and hearing from and reflecting the voice of the Adjuster is a process, one in which you will get better as time goes by. But, as I said, even so, there are times when it comes through vibrantly, brilliantly, sometimes without words at all, sometimes in a rush of power and energy such that you feel that cosmic connection and you know you are on the right track.
Verne: To follow up, if I may. I just try not to let your mortal mind second-guess your Thought Adjuster. If I were to try to explain to somebody how I’m communicating with my Thought Adjuster/ myself, they would want to commit me. I don’t mean to — but I feel so profound when I’m self-communicating with my Thought Adjuster, it’s just the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt, and sometimes I say to myself, am I … don’t second guess what I’m being told. Just allow it to happen.
TOMAS: Yes, of course, allow it to happen. You don’t want to doubt yourself into deadening the communication. Self doubt is part of the intellectual fraud — the master intellectual fraud — practiced upon your evolving soul and you don’t need that. You don’t need that self-doubt and that second-guessing all the time, particularly in your inner life, in your developing faith, in your relationship with your own God fragment. That is a very special, even sacred arrangement you are developing there, and to second-guess it incessantly is to undermine your own soul growth.
Now, you may want to second-guess some of your discussions with other people regarding this process, because unless they themselves are eager to develop a dialog, if you will, or a rapport with divinity, they will in fact think you are beside yourself and this does nothing to support your confidence, it in fact will undermine your tendency to second guess yourself in the first place, so don’t test yourself and your adjuster by putting yourself in a position of defending your relationship with God. Just don’t worry about whatever it is those people think. You need not advertise the fact that you are talking to God. How you comport yourself is the best way for your relationship with God to reflect to other people. Not that it is happening in your mind, but that it happens in your behaviors, in your attitudes. Do you see the difference?
Verne: Yes, I do. I haven’t really communicated outside myself in regards to my basic relationship. It was basically my own … self-doubt in a way. Not in everything, just sometimes – conceptually. I mean, “How is this happening? Why is this happening?” type of thing. Yeah, I feel so profound when I’m doing it, I would just never stop. It’s just too beautiful and too intense to be able to communicate. I mean that was a part of my prayer, to improve my relationship with my Adjuster. It’s a wonderful thing; I just don’t want my mortal mind to override it. That was my concern.
TOMAS: I don’t want that to happen either, and so you are wise to give that some consideration and to overrule those aspects of your mind that would stand in the way of your furthering your intimacy with your Adjuster. That would be a good use of the will: to convey to your ego self or that fear-ridden self, that Father is looking out for your best interests and you, in turn, will look out for the best interests of your vessel, your personality, and so it should have nothing to fear. Assure yourself there is nothing to fear.
Marty: I have a question with regard to what you were speaking of.
TOMAS: Yes.
Marty: You said self-doubt was a fraud foisted upon us. Is that — Did I hear that correctly?
TOMAS: Yes.
Marty: What were you speaking of?
TOMAS: I was addressing this young fellow’s question about when he perceives he is learning to communicate with his Adjuster and something in him tells him he is fooling himself or that is not the case. His self-doubt is what he was concerned about and so I was addressing this aspect of self-doubt. When you question yourself at every crossroad, when you question your own faith, when you question you belief to the point where you have no belief in anything, this is a trick of the ego, the negative ego, the master intellectual fraud that fights its own demise. It does not want to succumb to the greater power of spirit.
Marty: What you are saying is the fraud is something we do to ourselves.
MARTY: Yes. It’s fear. And it manifests in many ways, one of which is self-doubt.
TOMAS: Good! All right then. Thank you. Are there other questions? Or concerns?
I had thought to lend a few words regarding humility. Humility is something we seldom talk about. I making to self-doubt, there is some confusion sometimes as to our value, our worth. Humility can be understood to be worthlessness in one who doesn’t understand that concept. Humility is hardly worthlessness; it is submission to the divine will. It is allowing the greater good to surpass the perceived good that the mortal would present and promulgate.
Humility is a way of allowing divinity to run the show without even questioning its intent, but it is a quality very hard to come by in the human being for the idea of humility somehow suggests a lack of power, a lack of influence, or a lack of some kind, therefore not something someone would want to pursue or adopt as a personal quality. A lot of people mistake humility for humiliation. They have felt humiliation, they have felt shame, they have felt guilt; these are ordinary human feelings), and somehow they construe these with humility, that perhaps if they had been stronger or greater or if their self-esteem had been better developed or their ego been better polished, they would not have felt that same or that guilt or that insignificance.
Humility is not an uncomfortable feeling such as those mentioned otherwise. Humility is that sense of peace that passes all understanding, and you cannot experience that feeling without genuine humility, because we, as creations of the Creator are dependent on the Creator to provide the conditions that would allow for us to find our place in the paradigm that is created for us — that home away from home, the architectural sphere in which we are placed, that citadel of the spirit in which we seek and find our origin, source and destiny — the precious and rightful sense of smallness, appropriate smallness, any being would feel in the face of its Creator.
Having humility enables you to recognize whence cometh your help. Whether it comes from your creative imagination, whether it comes from your will, whether it comes from your experiential wisdom, whether it comes from antecedent causation, whether it comes from your perception of the divine will or whether it is the divine will itself without question, having humility enables you to observe life coming, coming at you, and then working through you. Humility is a wonderful quality. It is one of those qualities that is very difficult to justify carrying into the milieu because in the animal world there is so much emphasis on survival and survival of the fittest and as you know there are so many people who [struggle] to prevail. However, in humility you find your greatest strength. That is like the walkie-talkie between you and your Creator that gives you the sensitivity to be led through divine guidance rather than your own will seeking to do His will.
There have been a great many calamities in history as a result of good intentioned mortals seeking to do His will with such gusto as to bulldoze others who get in the way of their path, all in the name of doing Gods will. It has been this way throughout history. And yet, the meek shall inherit the earth. The humble seem to persist even as empires come and go, and to quote one of your great poets, “the grass covers all.” This is the humility of the grass, as compared to the majestic oak. We all cannot be oaks, nor should we try. Be who you are and God will reveal that to you if you listen.
There is a plan for us all. What a fascinating adventure it is to see us unfurl our reality, surprising even ourselves in the process of grasping and following the divine light.
What else is going on in your lives? What can you share with us?
Recca: This is Recca.
TOMAS: Greetings, Recca,
Recca: I left Light Line just as Gerdean was beginning the opening prayer because my son came in, on his way to fight a fire, so I gave him a kiss goodbye and ‘call me when you can’ sort of conversation and I’d like to ask right now that we – together and through my intention or by my intention – make a connection with his Thought Adjuster and all the Thought Adjusters of the team members that he will come in contact with, as he is encountering a fair amount of danger … that his responses to his physical circumstances and teamwork with his other team members will be in accordance with the fathers will in all humility
TOMAS: Let it be so. Indeed.
There are so many workers in the field who literally go blindly into the field to do battle, to do the right thing that must be done to create safety and security for those they love and that which they believe in, against real and supposed threats and dangers, fire being one of them. This is the season in certain parts of the country where fires catch hold and scar the face of the earth, taking lives and real estate and causing havoc. These unfortunate disturbances in the maintenance of civilization are in fact a part of the maintenance of civilization for which we commend the workers.
There are many fires that could be avoided, not simply by putting out [camp] fires or cigarettes, but by tending the forest itself. Some of these forests are huge and they create wonderful sanctuaries for wildlife and huge vast reserves of peaceful greenery for visual beauty and to guard against population encroachment. But they are often neglected and become a tinderbox, and fire is the natural way of weeding out the dead wood and this is part of evolution. If the forests were manicured as your parks and gardens are manicured, these would not transpire. Oh, of course, there is the occasional lightening strike that will cause even a brush fire even where there are no trees, so Mother Nature will get her licks in, if you will, but the noble workers are often the heroes of the day in taking care of these situations that need to be taken care of on your world in order to maintain its balance of nature.
Natural resources are products of the people of any given world. The air, water, forests, fields, its minerals, oil, coal, energy resources, wind, waterpower, all these are the people’s. The more the people take an interest in these things, the more they can feel a sense of responsibility and empowerment as far as their world is concerned. And so when young men like your son go off to fight fires even in a neighboring state because that is where the need is, where they are saving lives, and homes, this is indeed a noble endeavor and prayers on their behalf is not inappropriate.
There is a great bonding that goes on among and between those people that work and serve in these dangerous capacities. The brotherhood or sisterhood bond among workers is incredible. We have observed many what you might call miracles occurring among and between people who work in these situations with such intensity, and such fervor, in such danger, against such odds, for such rewards.
Never again in eternity, once you have left Urantia, will these dangers be so intense or so severe. Only on a world as primitive as yours can this drama take place, and it will indeed be written in the annals of history that you endure and that you revel in as adventurous, even foolhardy young souls in service to one another and what you believe in. It is remarkable, really.
Naturally this refers to soldiers, as well. But it also refers to domestic helpers, caretakers, parents, teachers, doctors, students; anyone who seeks to serve is assisted in their efforts by myriad angels and others. It is immensely invigorating to see.
Recca: Thank you.
TOMAS: Certainly.
Verne: I have one more question, if time permits.
In regards to monitoring ones personal progression in spirituality, how would an individual gauge his moving forward in understanding the goings on in terms of universe, growing closer to the universal father and so forth. Or is that– I’m trying to decide here how I continue to move forward and how I know that I am moving forward and in the appropriate direction
TOMAS: Let me ask you, why would you want to? Why would you want to gauge your progress? Do you not have faith that you are progressing?
Verne: I feel that I’m progressing, I guess. My goal is to move forward and to bring others closer to God as well, yet I don’t feel comfortable. I mean I’ve talked to others and I want to report to others that they are moving closer to God as well. I mean, it’s not just a personal–
TOMAS: You do not bring people to God through the intellect, through knowledge. You do that through understanding and allowing the Spirit to do the work. Having knowledge about the workings of the universe is interesting certainly, makes for some interesting discussions and speculations, but it will not enhance a person’s spirit reality. That is a personal matter. And the way that you can stimulate that in your fellows is to be as genuine as possible. As you are genuine within yourself, you reflect that reality and that invites others to also be genuine, and this being real allows the Father an opportunity to have play.
Don’t get hung up in your mind, or in knowledge. Allow the intellect to do its work, yes, but don’t bank on it to gather followers. That is simply the mechanics. If you truly seek to introduce people to their Father, you will do that not through knowledge, but through the Spirit, and that comes by your own knowing of the Spirit and sharing that Spirit with others. Do you see the difference?
Verne: Yes. Yes, I do.
TOMAS: That takes the onerous off of all those intellectual exercises that you may have felt compelled to investigate. Investigate that which is amusing to you and engage that with others for likeminded sharing and appreciation of knowledge, but that is not what you need to rely upon if you intend to lead people to the Father. Those efforts are made more in line with manifesting the fruits of the spirit: confiding trust, loving service, merciful ministry, such as those qualities.
Closing
Anything else? I am not clear. I hear a voice but it is not coming through. Perhaps our connection is wavering. I will gather us together, then, to close out the session with thanks for your presence but more specifically for your desire to engage in processes of upstepping your own consciousness, investigating spirit reality, bonding with your peers in the search for truth, beauty and goodness and in joining with one another in your living faith. It has been my pleasure and my privilege to be with you again.
Marty: Thank you Teacher Tomas. Your perspective is very helpful to us.
TOMAS: Thank you for being there for me to give my perspective to.
Amen and farewell.
