2011-01-06. Mind.
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Lightline #289
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: Mind
2Group: Lightline TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Tomas
2TR: Gerdean
3Session
1Opening
2Lesson
3Dialogue
4Closing
Heading
Topic: Mind
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Tomas
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
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Gerdean: Father God, thank you for life. Thank you for a new year and the opportunity to have new experiences, new lessons, meet new friends. Guide and direct my thoughts that we might have clear mind, altruistic motivations, and some soul satisfaction as a result of our format this evening. In fact, Father God, Mother Spirit, thanks for all you do. Amen
TOMAS: Good evening my friends and students, I am your loyal teacher, Tomas. I have eagerly awaited this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year and be with you once more in this learning forum that has been creatively constructed so that you and we together may investigate the deep recesses of the many aspects of the mind.
Lesson.
I qualify “the mind” because the mind is the gateway to the spirit and I am not qualified to be considered as spiritual experience, no. I am a teacher through the mind, and subsequently through the emotions, even the psyche. But the spirit is beyond my purview. I could never presume to speak as spirit, except as an aspect of spirit, such as you too are. We are all ascending sons and daughters.
I would like to speak this evening, in fact, about the mind at mischief. There is much ado about those of you who engage in this process of transmitting receiving and much negative aspersions have been cast on those who enjoy and participate in this co-creative effort to up-step humanity. And yet there is reason for concern by those who would seek to clarify the difference between one aspect of the mind and another, and so I would like to spend some time this evening on this fascinating concept of the creative mind, the mind at mischief, and the mind as the gateway to spirit reality.
As you may know, the mind you use loaned to you for this temporal sojourn, as is your body. It is provided for you so that you can function and fully experience your mortality. The mind is a mechanism we find fascinating, even in its comparatively elemental state. When you leave this mortal life and awaken in Mansonia, when you assimilate the morontia body and the divine mind that will accompany you, you will find many changes because your mind there will be on a different frequency, as it were, than the one you use here. You will not longer be facilitated by the adjutants for you are no longer animal. And so immediately there will be new considerations.
But all this is simply to say we observe the mortal mind, for it can go far afield of where the Spirit would lead, and, just as any supervisor or parent or babysitter would be charged with the task of keeping you more or less on track of the daily agenda, we too are charged with the task of helping you learn how to master your mind so that it serves you and humanity and heaven well.
Yes, you all know there are the superconscious mind and the subconscious mind and the unconscious mind and the conscious mind and even in the conscious mind there are alpha, delta, theta and so forth levels of mind. I am not going to go into those details this evening. They have been discussed. They are worthy of discussion. They are worthy of understanding. But what I wanted to talk about this evening is the peculiarities of the mind that would cause such consternation by your peers when they discover you are engaging in a practice that they consider to be “a trancelike state.”
Now, a trancelike state they define – the text defines – as focused islands of attention on an otherwise passive intellect.
- [UB 100:5.8]. There is great danger associated with the habitual practice of religious daydreaming; mysticism may become a technique of reality avoidance, albeit it has sometimes been a means of genuine spiritual communion. Short seasons of retreat from the busy scenes of life may not be seriously dangerous, but prolonged isolation of personality is most undesirable. Under no circumstances should the trancelike state of visionary consciousness be cultivated as a religious experience.
- [UB 100:5.9]. The characteristics of the mystical state are diffusion of consciousness with vivid islands of focal attention operating on a comparatively passive intellect. All of this gravitates consciousness toward the subconscious rather than in the direction of the zone of spiritual contact, the superconscious.]
The danger there is that the consciousness can so readily become stream of consciousness and roll downhill into the subconscious, there to find all manner of dalliances and divers’ lusts that have nothing to do with much of anything except perhaps a jolly good time from the mundane routine of your own thoughts, a step up from what’s on television, or a grand way to think about something besides what you ought to be thinking about, such as your homework, or [in short] other means of procrastination.
If then this practice is so potentially dangerous as to be, at the least a waste of time, why bother? Why encourage you to undertake to practice stillness so as to still the mind? Because when the mind is stilled, you have a chance to make contact with the indwelling spirit – that still small voice that resides deep within your psyche, in the mind, even the flawed and finite mind that you use. It has the ability to serve you, to lead you to divine mind, to the deep mind, where you can in fact contemplate divine reality, where you can consult with higher power and confer with divinity.
This is the cultivation of spiritual experience, the proper use of the mind. But a lackadaisical, devil-may-care, undisciplined sojourn into the mental realms without direction, without purpose, renders you vulnerable to the mischief that would come about if you were to similarly stroll down life’s pathways and alleyways. Unaccompanied by supervisors, parents, or elders; you could wander into trouble, as Jesus well knew when he sent his apostles out two and two.
Furthermore, it is possible for your mind to be swayed, to be influenced by friends and associates who would have you think as they think or reinforce their thoughts, validate their thinking process, confirm their beliefs and their experiences, and thus lay the responsibility on you for their choices when your decisions are to be your own. Just because you hear something through a transmitter/receiver, just as you may hear something through a speaker, a professor, a person well-read or well-learned in a topic, you still weigh their expertise, their experience, their knowledge with and against your own, without automatically believing everything they say.
This is not to induce you to be suspicious, critical or untrusting, but to be discerning. When we teachers speak to you, it is to stimulate your own thought process. We never object to your finding fault with what we profess, and we never refuse you the opportunity to question what you hear. Far better for you to think for yourself and use your own mind than to depend upon the mind of others. The ideal is that you should discuss these things among yourselves, for we are an evolving process.
The lessons we engage in today, while in many ways the same as they were 20 years ago are different than they were last week because each moment is unique unto itself. Many of you forget what you heard 20 years ago or last week and it needs to be repeated. You ask that it be repeated. And so, many of these lessons that you have learned from the teachers are repetition, much like when you learned the multiplication tables in elementary school; it was simply a matter of repeating and repeating until you knew it. You had memorized it. And you could trust it.
Some of that is true in terms of what the teachers say again and again and again. It is a form of brainwashing, voluntary mind control, and so it is essential that you bring your mind with you into this process. It is essential that you not have a passive intellect. The passive intellect will be influenced by what you saw on television, what you dreamed about last night, what you fantasize about for tomorrow, but the mind that is focused on a concept will study that concept and practice it and determine for itself whether it is worth building upon or best let go to make way for something better.
At any rate, it should not be used as an escape from reality, for reality is too enthralling to be missed. Even difficulties are essential and fascinating if you have the right attitude. Again, referring to your text, Jesus, the master teacher, attained self-mastery over his mortal self, including his mortal mind. Gaining mastery over the mind means that you are not victimized by your own thinking. You are not subjected to fears, insecurities, and influences other than the divine hand that guides you. One moment.
Gerdean: This is Gerdean and there’s nothing else there. There’s nothing coming through. I don’t know if he’s conferring with someone or what. Wait a minute. Let me see. There’s something happening.
TOMAS: Tomas again. I will not belabor the topic. I don’t intend to berate you or exhaust you by repeating myself, but only chose to stimulate your mind.
The other point I wanted to make is that those who serve as transmitter/receivers, while to some extent active in the process, are also students of the process. It used to be said that there was as much in the pauses to be considered as there was in the words the teacher spoke. And yet over the course of time the process has become a skill to some of you and so those pauses have been eliminated. Sometimes, in fact, when a teacher pauses for you to reflect, someone will charge in to fill the empty space, as if that quiet time was a waste of time or a lost opportunity. Quiet time is invaluable to rest your mind from its incessant effort, as well as to reflect on certain thoughts that deserve rumination, just as certain paintings deserve study or music deserves appreciation.
And so it is all right to enjoy the mind. It’s wonderful to be creative with the mind. It is such a fascinating mechanism! To be able to create and design, problem-solve, calculate, and all the many wonderful things that the mind is capable of, is a reminder of how well gifted you are here in the flesh, how well you have been provided for, for even those of you who have limited intellect are cared for by legions of angels who oversee your development and your care.
The mind need not succumb to mischief, is what I am suggesting. Know thyself. Know the capacities of your own mind, and exercise it. Exercise the superconscious and the subconscious. Exercise the creative imagination. Exercise the mysteries and the memories that rise up to accompany you, be they moments of former friendships or bubbles of healing issues needing care. And when you find yourself meddling in areas that beyond your proper scope, withdraw and return to the disciplines that also can be had through self-mastery.
This [the mind] is the arena where you make your choices, and only you can determine whether you are going to make good choices based on faith and intelligence of a high order, supported by good motivations and high ideals, or if you are simply amusing yourself and letting the chips fall where they may. Bear in mind you are all still very young in your universe career and there is still much to be learned, even with this temporary mind you have been given. It is still seeing you through and will see you through if you don’t forfeit your right to have your mind by indulgence and ignorance.
May this year be a banner year for you in your mental realms. May you find pleasure in your mind and in its skills and abilities, its disciplines, and its desires. May it work for you, and may it choose to serve the Divine. Amen.
Now we embark upon the more social aspect of our session. If you choose to come forth to share with me and the group at large, star six is the key.
Dialogue.
Eva: Hi. This is Eva. Is this To-mas’ that is speaking to us? TOMAS: This is Tomas. “Thomas” is how it is pronounced.
Eva: Okay. Because I only had one person that has a name like that guide me before like this and it was pronounced To-mas” so I’m wondering if I’m speaking to another entity. And it was you, Gerdean, who transmitted.
TOMAS: I am hard pressed here as to who should respond. This is Tom’as. I am and always have been Tom’as. I introduced myself in 1993 to Gerdean, having been introduced to her by Welmek from the Indianapolis group as “Tomas, no H.”
Eva: Okay! Did you have any affiliations in New Mexico?
TOMAS: No, I was assigned to New Mexico since they had asked for a teacher, but I am not Hispanic.
Eva: Okay. Tomas was able to help me and I was able to remember something that he told me and I thought I would take this opportunity to say thank you, but perhaps I will say it to you — “Thank you!” — and to all the teachers. It was wonderful guidance. At the time, I was considering becoming a little entity under the umbrella of a larger entity for the purpose of doing community service and he basically said, “Don’t waste your time selling the idea to people who aren’t already on your side” and to get ready for the showdown, to surround yourself with people, and I thought, “Whoa! What showdown?” I didn’t think there would be a showdown. But it worked out just fine and I wanted to say thanks. But I do have a question!
TOMAS: I am ready.
Eva: Thanks. I like that you said the mind does not succumb to mischief. Legions of angels care for us. I’m not going to give up telling people that we are heroes … those of us that are trying as hard as we are trying, and I’m going to tell that very thing – that we do have legions of angels caring for us, even so-called victims or people who are embittered. And I’ve been running across people who think nobody understands them, nobody will ever understand them. You know. I also bump up against folks who are abusive and it’s bothering me more now than it ever did. I used to just let it slough off me … or people are bullies and I’m finding there aren’t many battles to be fought for the common person because the common person thinks they are only ordinary and they just don’t fight for themselves. And that’s what I hope to do, if God is willing.
And I also like that you said that “reality is to enthralling to be missed.” That’s wonderful. I am going through challenging times but I would not miss them for the world. I remind myself of that and sometimes – I’ve learned to stop my brow from wrinkling. You know, if you’ve ever passed a mirror and you look at yourself, if you are a mortal, and you see you are wrinkling your brow and you say, “Why am I doing that?” And it’s a sign of years of unnecessary worrying. But anyway, it is our own thinking that’s getting us to wrinkle our brows.
Now here’s my question: Did we know God before being born? Were our spirits formed then? I know our soul and indwelling spirit were not with us yet, but did we have any memory of life with God when we came here? Thank you.
TOMAS: Thank you, Eva. Your outpouring was effusive. There were any number of points upon which I could lecture for an hour but I will master my tongue and respond specifically to your underlying question.
You did not exist as a personality until you were born here in the flesh. There was no personality before you. Your indwelling God fragment is pre-personality. It knows of God for it is of God. It has come all this way to meet you, the personality that is born in the flesh, so that it might converge with you and companion you home to Paradise.
I realize this is not the popular response, but to say that you are your Adjuster is error. Even though God Himself may see the end from the beginning, there is an eternity between those two points and they are there for a reason. They are there for the experiential journey that must be taken. And so while it is fair to say that your Thought Adjuster did know what was getting into when it chose to come here and indwell you, you did not personally make that choice. Your Adjuster made that choice. But it was pre-personality and remains pre-personality, except and as you avail your personality to your indwelling Thought Adjuster to express itself through you.
This is the marriage, you see. This is the contract. This is the deal. You have the personality; it has immortality. You give it your personality; it gives you eternal life. And that is something you work out together. That will occur officially and formally when you fuse, and again, even though God may see the end from the beginning, we don’t. We live through the experience, all the many millions of years it may take to go through all the steps that we go through, starting out in the material worlds of time and space, through the mansion world experiences and to the Isle of Paradise, eventually emerging as full-fledged spirit beings, one with our Adjuster.
Eva: Why is it that so many people who have, let’s say, gone to a hospital and been declared dead and had a Near Death Experience, as it’s commonly known, why is it the second they go through their experience they are imbued with the sense of having been their before, of going home, if that’s not a memory?
TOMAS: Because they have been touched by the spirit. The Thought Adjuster is spirit. It comes from Paradise. It’s home is Divinington in Paradise and so it has been home to the Spirit, and when the finite vehicle shuts down and the mortal mind shuts down, the only thing left is Spirit, and so they experience the spirit, and what can they do but think they remember it.
Eva: Ah!
TOMAS: Now, they (the mortal) don’t personally remember it because they have not been here (Spirit) before. Only the Adjuster has been here before. But to that extent they have merged with their Adjuster, their soul is alive to that extent … and so probably they will awaken on Mansonia and eventually fuse with their Adjuster but it’s a process. How reassuring for them, however, to go through an experience like that and have such assurance when they return of the Light that lives beyond this existence. This is something that most people don’t get to experience but must believe on faith.
Eva: Yes, very reassuring when they come back to tell us. Near Death Experiences are almost all affirmative, empowering, God-conscious, and they all do talk about this feeling of going home, and encountering loved ones. Now there is something I have always wondered about. Are they on tap for us because our guardian angels want us to feel comfortable as we cross over? Because it almost begs the question … are they loved ones who have been yanked from whatever they were doing at the time, just to say hello to us as we are coming across?
TOMAS: Well, you must give your mind a break here. Because you are finite, you think in linear terms, and you expect to follow the dots, as it were, to a logical conclusion. If and when you cross over and stay over, that is to say, not a flash in the pan experience like a near death experience, but an actual transition, translation – you have a period of time to join with your family and friends and get oriented before you begin your next phase of your eternal career, and so there is that truth, that fact, built in to your “construct” that when you return to “heaven” they will be there to greet you. This is beyond your literal comprehension, but it is none-the-less a lure that you will encounter your loved ones when you leave here. Whether they are literal or figurative remains to be seen, but this again goes to the mind, the incredible gift of the mind, as well as the incredible dedication of your indwelling Adjuster, the spirit itself, that is so merciful and caring and constructive with you and will take advantage of every opportunity to impress you with lasting value.
It is not like those who have gone before you are clocked into the local factory and can’t get away until their lunch hour. They are registered On High as ascending sons and daughters, and so that fact, in itself, is enough to be a reality that will greet you when you get there; when you have several days to spend time with them, they will come into better focus. You will have a much better understanding of what this reunion means after you resurrect than you can while you are still here.
Eva: I understand what you’re saying. I do. It’s like you’re saying, the essence is on tap and whether I am on tap or not doesn’t matter. As I become more, I will know more and the focus will become sharper. I understand that.
TOMAS: Yes.
Eva: Thank you.
TOMAS: Yes. Thank you.
Eva: Is it good to be effusive?
TOMAS: In what context?
Eva: Well, is it – I think maybe – the way you were talking about mastering your mind. I do find that when I am effusive, it is to cover something up so I guess maybe I answered my own question. It’s good to be in the moment, and being effusive isn’t always the answer.
TOMAS: Yes, but by the same token, being effusive may not always be to cover things up. Being effusive can be borderline worship.
Eva: Ah!
TOMAS: When you are that excited, you could be off on any number of tangents, and they may be constructive or destructive, but anything that is that out of control runs the risk of going off half cocked, engendering fanaticism, and so a certain amount of appropriate control or – better – mastery is the desired effect — not to cut into your fun, not to tell you to shape up or to make you serious, but simply to focus your energy so that you have more to give to that which you choose to dedicate yourself to. You waste a lot of energy otherwise. It’s hard to tell a child they are wasting energy when that’s all they seem to have is energy – more energy than good sense! — but what you are really telling them is to contain themselves.
Eva: Yes, thank you very much.
TOMAS: When you are constantly putting out extensive energy, you are not availing yourself to take it in or seeing the balance that is necessary to be integrated in the spirit and the flesh. Yes.
Eva: Yes, thank you.
Jerry: Yes, Tomas! Thank you! It’s nice to be here and kind of riding along with you in your point of view.
TOMAS: Thank you for being with us, teacher and friend.
Jerry: Amen.
TOMAS: Isn’t it wonderful how we all have such a unique perspective on what is ultimately the one great reality. Rather like wildflowers. There are so many different kinds and colors, and yet they are all testifying to the joy of living. Even wildflowers require certain circumstances and conditions to grow well and abundantly.
Jerry: Contra-distinct from flowers, isn’t it a glory that spiritual beings … such as we … can actually give ourselves to each other, and just trust that way, to ride along with that unique viewpoint, that we have that ability.
TOMAS: Yes, we can take a ride on others’ realities, and yet it behooves you to realize you are taking a ride and not generating the sojourn on your own power, rather like a dandelion seed floats on the air currents, rather than the tulip bulb that is planted in the ground. There are different ways of coming into being and expressing yourself.
Jerry: Yes, I meant that … I enjoyed that part of your lesson that just as transmitting receiving is an act of high consciousness and will, if you will, a will to be clear and let another being come through you. Isn’t that the essence, too, of love … of real, genuine, irrefutable sharing that we have together? That’s what I mean by “riding along.” If we are both there together, supporting what is coming along. Thank you very much.
TOMAS: I prefer to think of it as a dance where one may be leading but the other is also providing balance to the dance experience so that both enjoy the process.
Jerry: Well, as a dancer, I have to agree with you 100%. Some of those dance contests, we sit back and wonder between the leader and the follower, who’s really – but what ensues in the moment is the combination of the two of them.
TOMAS: It is the combination of two that results in artistry. And is such fun!
Jerry: I agree. That’s what I say. Thank you for your lively dance this evening.
TOMAS: I am certainly glad you were able to be in this ballroom with us, and to participate in the dance.
Jerry: And who knows but on some other unimaginable level, we might be supporting each other.
TOMAS: I have no doubt about that whatsoever. You all affect one another. Your faith provides the currents on which to float. For this reason we urge you to be conscientious. You don’t want someone to be riding along on your reality and be dropped – Kersplat! — because suddenly you took a left turn or ran out of gas. If we were all divine, it might be a little different, but you being finite, and even myself being yet imperfect, these are things we must consider if we are to make proper use of the mind. I am not talking about faith, which is a spiritual component. But the mind, which is in your control … as it should be.
You are the one who makes the decisions. Even if it is “shall we dance?” or “shall we sit this one out?” There are some who choose dance partners who consistently step on their toes. The human animal is such an interesting species — and even more so, you here on Urantia. Bizarre! I might say. But this is not to be construed as a criticism or a negative commentary, for you are each truly unique and very colorful and very peculiar in your own right. I would not want to quash your peculiarities, just to help you understand that each of you are original unto yourself and having a variegated background, as you do here, you are going to sometimes clash as colors will clash, but as more threads are drawn in, more fabric is brought into the weave, the woof and the warp are strengthened and you become a living tapestry of faith sons and daughters, enduring and purposive and fun!
I hear myself underscoring Eva’s compliment that you children of God on Urantia are each special and unique, even heroes, for you are. But you are all these together as one family, one fairly bizarre family if I may say so with deep affection.
Closing.
It is past my time. It is time for me to go and so I shall. It has been a great experience for me to be with you again and I look forward to our next opportunity. Don’t worry. Those technological difficulties will get ironed out in due course. Bravo! Farewell.
