2011-06-16-Refuse Authoritarian
Lightline #312
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: Refusing to be Authoritarian.
2Group: Lightline TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Michael
2TR: JL
3Session
1Opening
1.1Freedom
1.2Identity
1.3Consciousness
1.4Courage
2Dialogue
2.1Peace
3Closing
Heading
Topic: Refusing to be Authoritarian.
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, Welcome. Welcome dear parents. Tonight I would ask in a prayer that you give us all a good measure of humility. By your own definition of that word, humility is the wonderful feeling, the experience you get inside in the face of something enormous. In these instances you can go one of two ways. You can feel very tiny inside, very insignificant and fearful as if you and your whole life means nothing. Or you can thank our Father, you can thank God for the very perception of something so enormous. So I ask you for a full measure of this tonight. Especially I would ask you, Michael, to address some of the concerns that have come up in the Teaching Mission lately–anything that you would care to suggest. Amen
MICHAEL: Good evening, my children, this is Michael. Yes, I would be more than happy to address some of your concerns. I thank you too, all of you, for just opening your minds and your hearts to follow along with what I have to offer tonight. Let me emphasize that word again–to offer. Those of you who are familiar with Mother Spirit and myself, you know that the one request that we cannot answer is a request that we tell you what to do. This is the one thing, my children, that we must refuse. This is not just to set a good example of what spirit is and how it acts; this is just our own nature. You see, from our point of view, absolute power corrupts absolutely no one. True absolute power, spiritual power such as our Father has, corrupts absolutely no one.
Freedom
Refusing to be authoritarian
For our greatest delight is your freedom. Our greatest gift to you is just to let you be. I’m sure all of you parents know what a challenge this is, just to let your youngsters be and let them have their own life rather than, shall we say, trying to live through them. So this is the one thing we must refuse you, and that is to tell you what to do. All we can do is say, “Do what you think best.” And then request that you do stop from time to time and just come to a complete halt in stillness. Let everything settle down so that you can start fresh, so you give your own creative spirit a chance to speak and suggest something right within you. It might even be the presence of God in you that makes that suggestion, that comes up with that very next thought. You still yourself, and then you start again fresh, invigorated.
I would like to set a bit of framework here, my children. One of the great puzzles that you will encounter if you read that chapter in your Urantia Book called “Personality Survival”–which is one of the most succinct and comprehensive definitions of what you are–not only who you are but what you are: it states that personality has a quality of uniqueness. There are no two personal beings identical, and that this reality, this entity that you are is always associated with some living organization of material, or mind, or spirit; or in your case, all three. But also that each unique personality is devoid of identity. And so this becomes a great puzzle. How can something be unique, yet have no identity?
Identity
Uniqueness and identity
It goes on further to state that the quality–one of the functions and abilities of your personality is to unify all that it can become identified with. In your human case you are identified–you get your identity from the very living being you are so closely associated with in this your first life. This is how you achieve identity. We’ve given an example of looking at an old time photograph of a large family, maybe the mother and father and a dozen children, where right within that family resemblance you see in every face that uniqueness, that identity. Of course once you are born and you begin to experience, you begin to grow a soul, a soul of lifetime experience, and this is something that you will have as a possession forever.
Looked at from this point of view, it’s as if your personality has a hunger for identity, to use this ability of yours to unify all these constituent parts of you. And this is something you are all struggling with. How do you bring all these parts of you–body, mind, spirit and soul—how do you bring these all together into a unity? It’s something that so very few fully accomplish in this first life of theirs. But with this hunger for identity, you can now recognize the very familiar trait that you all have to identify with something. At first, of course, it is with your body. Then some of you get into a personal psychology and realize that you have these mental processes going on all the time. Yet as you begin to notice them, and you get some distance from them, you break the pure identification even with your own thoughts. One of the purposes of your stillness meditation is just to watch your thoughts and literally to break that identification with them so that you have some control over them.
It’s with your creative spirit you break, you might say, these automatic identifications and begin to realize just how much you yourself are creating every moment. Now you can take response-ability–be able to respond to what you yourself are creating. It’s how you yourself are taking your whole situation, for you have your whole social, and political, and even entertainment types of identification with a certain group, a certain sex, a certain social class, a certain political party or political outlook, a certain country, a certain state, a certain region.
All these are the hundreds of ways people can identify themselves with something. All of these things give meaning to your life. Yet from the standpoint of the growth of soul and the growth of personal ability right within you, to the degree they are not conscious, these are unconscious identifications. With respect to your freedom of choice, your free will moment to moment: to the degree that these identifications are unconscious, they have you. You have to make them a matter of conscious choice to say that, really, you have them–you are choosing to identify with this, or that, or the other.
This is one of your great spiritual achievements, to break these identifications in full consciousness and reap a greater realization of what you are as a unique personality, what you are as a singular being. For this is what you share with God, and Mother Spirit, and myself alone. This is that depth, that very depth of your uniqueness that, try as you might, you can’t fully share with all your friends, your partners and your lovers. Even in sharing so much of this essence of you, there is still that ungraspable, unfathomable part of you that can never be fully expressed–some infinite potential for growth, for realization, that can never be more than momentarily fulfilled that, maybe, will carry you on forever. But to feel that inside yourself, and then to see it, to perceive this ungraspable, infinite quality in another person, and to do this in love, and honor, and respect, in all the wonder of that: this is a life-changing moment. This is a realization of not only of who and what you are, but also to recognize this in another is a supreme moment, a supreme triumph of spirit–to see this, and then to grant this kind of reality in another, and then another, and then another. To realize this level of your common humanity is a supreme triumph of spirit because it not only sets you free, it enables you to set them free, and delight in their very freedom from you.
Consciousness
Becoming conscious of unconscious identifications
And this my children, this breaking of unconscious identification, this–shall we say–coming into a living, ungraspable, infinite, wondrous kind of present moment, means you are also breaking free from the past. The determinisms of the past are still present, but they are conscious now. There is a chance for choice and freedom. And this is what peace is based upon, not just a knee-jerk reaction of revenge, or getting even, or some fancy balancing of all the terrible things that have happened in the past for your particular race, or nation, or country, or whatever–your religion. But to break free from these and give yourself and others a chance to create something new based upon this living moment. This is why your Urantia Book says that each of you has within you a presence of God that supersedes all ecclesiastical authority. This presence of God within you supersedes even the people you love and respect–the leaders of your particular religious or church group. And if the presence of God supersedes even these loving folks, think of how much it supersedes all the social and political authorities about you.
For history proves that none of these give up power voluntarily. The very thing that motivates and provides for those who seek social and political power, and enables them to fulfill those offices and those positions: this very drive tends to make them rather greedy and possessive of whatever power they are able to accumulate. They don’t give it away. You yourself have to detach yourself from that authority, which means that you yourself must stand alone with only those spiritual influences within you–with God, with Mother Spirit, and with me.
This is the decentralization of authority that Mother Spirit and I speak of, on a personal and a family level, then the neighborhood, city, state, and nation, and on to encompass the world. This is the planetary evolution, this blossoming of individuality and individual creative spirit. This is being open-minded, not having some unconscious need to close your mind to every little thing that comes to you, but to hold a 101 things open in your mind, to be able to take in and entertain dozens of view-points, and consciously decide to keep them all, in a sense, up in the air. To have patience, to extend patience to each other and give everybody a chance to fully blossom in what they have to offer, rather than pouncing and closing them down out of a sense of defensiveness because you yourself are so identified with something, you feel you have to deny them. It’s the very ability you have to deny anything that has its own ability to threaten your notions. This is the courage it takes to be truly open-minded and know that your own mind is infinite. There is no limit to how much you can put in there, and hold it up in the air, and wait and see what happens.
So, my children, in this huge roundabout way, this is what I offer and I simply suggest that you do with each other in your relationships, and especially in the Teaching Mission. For as you know, recently there have been some contentious things that have come about that have provoked a lot of sarcasm, snide remarks, innuendo, back-handed complements–all these reactions, all this characterizing each other, somewhat like in your political cartoons where somebody is caricaturized.
There have even been some calls for myself, or Mother Spirit, or some of your other teachers to resolve these things. And again, this is understandable. It’s an appeal to authority to decide things for you. Yet this is the very thing you must grow out of. You know yourselves from turning on your TV and catching, shall we say, a dozen different viewpoints on a dozen different channels, how many of those folks are just pure ideal-logs, people who can go on for an hour or two and express only a single viewpoint, shall we say a certain political viewpoint, and totally denigrate all the other viewpoints.
Courage
A matter of courage
Think of how much courage it takes to eschew all of those rhetorical flourishes yourself, all the innuendo, or snide remarks and sarcasm. Just think, my children, how much courage it takes to simply state your own belief and stand naked there with just that, and not take offense, not be defensive, not constantly be coming out of some past relationship, but be fresh each moment in what you have to offer. For this is your most precious gift you do have to offer each other. This is how your Teaching Mission discussions could show this true variety of opinion, and yet all be in this wonderful creative spirit, supporting each other and granting each other freedom.
So this is my offer, my suggestion. Feel your completeness moment to moment within. You may not be perfect yet. You may have a long way to go to achieve perfection. But each one of you is complete, totally complete moment by moment, in all that you are, not only who you are but what you are. You are a child of God’s, and he does really good work. See if you can’t see that in each other.
Now if you have any questions or comments, wait until this T/R un-mutes…
Dialogue
Student: I would just like to comment that, that was a beautiful reminder that we all need to co-operate, and respect each other’s diversity.
Peace
Let each other be
MICHAEL: Thank you, my daughter, this was my intention. This is the greatest gift you can give each other. Just let each other be, and delight, just delight in the fact that you are all unique. Think: here comes another person with their background, with their whole soul, with their character–with all that they too have earned, just as you have. There is no other way to peace except by making room for everyone. Thank you so much, and be in my peace.
Closing
If there are no other questions or comments, we can go ahead and close it up for tonight. I want to thank you all for coming and…being the occasion. What I addressed tonight is the heart of courage–this desire and willingness to be somewhat unique, to be alone with only myself, and Mother Spirit, and our Father for company–if it comes to that. But here at this home base–as we call it, this home base inside you that enables you to be, to really consciously realize all that you are: then this is your greatest gift to those that you love. This is your own unique creativity, your new fresh take on things–not always coming from the past, but to welcome the living beings around you and offer them this fresh take that is uniquely yours to give.
Infinity in every direction and dimension)
Then encouraging them to feel this in themselves–to feel not only who they are but what they are–these little walking infinities that we love to call you. And you just get used to it. You get used to being in the middle of infinities in every direction and dimension, and know that even in the midst of all this, with all this acceptance, all this realization: still!–you are just beginning. Your own future lays stretched out before you with no end whatsoever. No top or bottom or sides. No limit whatsoever to what you will grow to encompass. That’s God’s creation out there, my children. What a delight, scary as it is at times, still!– what a delight. So I bid you good evening. Be in my peace.
