2012-05-03-IN the World, Not OF it
Lightline #356
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Be IN the world but not OF it
o 1.2 Group: Lightline TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Charles
o 2.2 TR: Gerdean
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Work
3.2.2 Correcting Time, Detachment
3.2.3 Culture, Value
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Detachment
3.3.2 Urantia
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Be IN the world but not OF it
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Charles
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
Prayer: Father God, thank you for the gift of life and for the responsibilities that it brings because, you know, we are such eager little children, wanting to please, wanting to have a job to do so that you’ll be proud of us, so we can show you how smart we are and so we can please you. You have certainly given us abundance. It’s only natural that we would want to give back, and so we have this system that we talk to you and you talk to us and you send us your helpers and we engage with them and we love this, Father God. Thank you for how it is that you stay in touch in a way that we can share and enjoy your teachings, your character. Thank you.
CHARLES: I am Charles, and I have been waiting here for things to settle down. I’ve been looking forward to another session, another piece of camaraderie. I am amused with the dependence on the technical aspects of the finite life, but you will not be surprised to learn that we too are very dependent upon the technical expertise of those who are perfectly suited to take care of such details. They can be read about in your text. There are many in this universe that serve in many ways.
Lesson
CHARLES: In keeping with your desire to be a part of the universe, a contributing part of the universe, we will continue our discussions this evening. We were just getting warmed up, getting into some “getting to know you” kinds of dialog, and we had broached the subject of advanced societies as they had been the topic of your work, Gerdean, with celestial artisan Athena, who worked with you in the creation of the futuristic novel “The Zooid Mission” and yes, there are a number of things that Athena was able to express and that you took note of that we can, in fact, delve into since the future has a way of catching up really fast, and so those things that were quite futuristic 20 or 30 years ago could well be passé by now, particularly in the realms of technology! You will note, for example, some of the technological devices you had invented for your novel are in fact the norm these days, and without getting caught up on yet more technology, let’s go into the philosophic aspects of what it was that Athena wanted to get across because chances are her work and mine have something in common, as you will find all of us are working toward the same ends.
Work
One of the first things I want to make note of is how it is your society, or your communities in your civilization, set itself apart from the regular population of the nation where this story takes place. And this has been a point of consternation for some and debate. When you approach Urantia, now, as enlightened sons and daughters of the living God, with the revelation under your belt, as you approach the world in which you life with an eye toward fostering light and life, how do you set about to do that? How do you approach the work at hand? Do you pick a field and go into it with determination and enthusiasm such as you might if you were engaging with the seraphic planetary government like some of you nurses obviously are working for the angels of health, some of you in your fields are working with angels of industry, angels of the races, the sundry divisions of labor that are there for you to support?
And they are working in this day and age! And yet there are times when you need to separate your work from the work of the realm because the work of the realm is … what is the word? “Unsustainable.” It cannot last. It is not good for your world. It is not leading to light and life. And so there are times when you need to draw the line and say, “it does not behoove me to go there or work there; rather, I need to focus my energy attention here in this area where I am qualified and where I can do some good.” Here is where you need to think in terms of the scripture that reads to the effect “you need to be in the world but not of it, because you are here. You are mortal.
This is the classroom. This is the arena where you work and there is nothing more important than the work of your realm so here you are. How do you make the best of it? How do you help the process? To be in the world and not of it, you are going to work here, not to burrow in and become comfortable and forget your spiritual aspirations, no, but because of your spiritual source, you are here to be of service and so you are inherently detached, you are at least detached enough to be able to look at situations and circumstances objectively.
Correcting Time, Detachment
CHARLES: There are some who feel that [those who are] establishing a civilization outside of the existing culture are shirking the responsibility of society at large, but everything in this society is not salvageable. Everything that exists is not worth carrying into a new paradigm. Again, a scripture comes to this mind, that I will take, that being, “Why put new wine into an old wineskin?” You need new wineskins for your new harvest and so we are busy building a new paradigm of reality. We are building a new dispensation, at the very least a new epochal reality and so for the fifth epoch, what would you have us do to forward and advance civilization on your world?
Well, there will be great areas where you will have no success at all. There are some areas where you can just write them off. This is not to say that you don’t have compassion, sympathy, empathy, mercy and all that, but there are some that will not survive and will fight to their last breath to see to it that others do not survive either, and this is certainly not an environment where you can do the most good. That is not only the blind leading the blind; it is the dead burying the dad and you have no business there, really. And so if the scene is such that you can do no good there, then remove yourself and go to where you can do some good.
Only you can determine for yourself if an area is one that you can do good within, and I urge you here to be careful because your history is such that you have a tendency to over-compensate for the deficiencies on this world. You have been touched by God; you have begun to experience the bliss of divinity in yourself, in your fellows, in the environment, and the wellspring of faith and hope and joy that this brings leads you to feel that anything can be accomplished, any problem can be overcome, any darkness can be lit, and while by and large eventually this may come to pass, it is not necessarily the most fruitful way for you to go about your life here and now, your very short life in the flesh.
And so my point is to learn detachment from everything you have known. When you are called upon to be born again, take that seriously and begin as a new babe and let our Eternal Parents guide you into the ways that they would have you know, not the ways that you were born into as a babe in the flesh, because this world is fraught with difficulty. Not the planet itself – it is a beautiful planet – but in the ways of life here are fraught with difficulty. And I don’t want to say especially in this country, but this country certainly does have its unique difficulties and thus you have unique responsibilities, one of which is to not foster the unreality that seems to be so compelling and popular. What this is is escapism. You do not need to go into an escapist reality. You need to detach yourself from that unreality in order to nourish and foster within yourself that which is eternally sustainable, and foster in your life and your lifestyle, those things which will support your long-range values and the long-range values of your children and your grandchildren, even into light and life.
Culture, Value
CHARLES: That is a tremendous challenge, because everything you have ever known has been steeped into you; it is your cultural conditioning, and it will take time to discern that which is of value and under what circumstances, as compared to that which perhaps once had value but has no more, and that which has no value whatsoever and never did have except as an escape from any kind of reality. Of course, there are those who say you who sit around talking to non-corporeal entities such as myself are also living in a fool’s paradise and escaping from the real rigors of real life, but as long as you are here, living and breathing, dealing with life on life’s terms, being a producer, being a consumer, having children, attending classes, shopping, mailing letters and all the things that humans do, you are in the world, and so you want to function as smoothly and as meaningfully as possible. If and as you find things completely disorderly, lacking in value altogether, find ways to step away from it; step outside of that non-reality for all it will do is keep you connected to unreality, and that makes your job that much more difficult.
Everyone has their own capacity, their own limitation, and there are some who can detach themselves from a situation and still go in and work in that arena. Often those arenas are completely distasteful, if not impossible, for most others to do. Sometimes your career choices are appropriate for when you are young, but when you begin to mellow or age, your mind has had a chance to re-think some of its earlier idealism and enthusiastic zeal; perhaps your body cannot keep up with your mind’s ambitions; perhaps your spirit has finally gotten through to you that it is not necessary for you to hurt yourself in your efforts to help others, and so these are problems that you and everybody else will be dealing with if you are intent upon working toward light and life.
This is where the adage “be in the world but not of it” is most important. You cannot help this world if you are in it with both feet. You really must have some semblance of detachment so that your efforts can be wise — “wise as a serpent, peaceful as a dove.” That is the first point that I wanted to make in our discussions about establishing civilization – a light and life kind of civilization.
You know how societies come and go. Even the major civilizations in your world have all risen and fallen. You have seen some of them fall within your lifetime.
And history is filled with sagas of empires and great civilizations that have come and gone away because they were immature, grandiose, self-seeking, too warlike, and many other reasons they did not endure. Even a civilization built on the highest ideals cannot completely endure because it is finite, and until the temple of morontia material is lowered from On High, every industry, every domicile, every hall of letters or justice you create will be material and will disintegrate in time. And so, there is nothing on this earth that is entirely sustainable except certain values, and so we focus on the values.
What values then can we hold up as worthy, recognizing that even as material worlds and their institutions and families may have worth, they are temporal and temporary? What will endure is spiritual, morontial [and] to some extent, mental/mindal, but even that will grow and adapt over time as you evolve. So let go of that which is obviously falling apart, which cannot survive, and hitch your wagon to a star that will take you places on this world and that will take others with you also.
I will quit speaking now because I would like to have interaction with you since it is your world, your project, your challenge, and in to some extent, your assignment, so let’s see what we can do to be clear about how you can go about your work and how we can counsel you about your efforts. In order to get back online, so that we can converse easily, you will need to press *6. That will open your channel of communication so we can hear you, so it will be recorded for posterity. So those that would speak, open your channel now and speak so that we can engage in discussion.
Dialogue
John: This is John.
CHARLES: Welcome, John.
John: This is a topic I have spent some time dealing with.
CHARLES: Well, then, it seems we are contemporary. Good. I will not ask you to divulge anything that you choose to remain confidential, but I am glad to hear that you are touched by the discussion as it hit close to home, as they say. Did you have anything specific in mind to discuss?
John: No, just that I would certainly welcome more discussion along these lines.
CHARLES: Well, I am certain that I can discuss without let-up, but I don’t want to monopolize the floor.
Ineara: Hello?
CHARLES: Yes. Yes, greetings!
Detachment
Ineara: Hi, Charles. Thank you for your message. This is something that I am dealing with daily and you’ve really helped me put it in perspective. I work with young gals with addiction and what I was hearing from you is “let go with love” and–
CHARLES: Well, I am going to assume that you ARE love, and you won’t let go of anything that you have a reason to stay invested in, but if there is nothing there for you to salvage, there is nothing you can do, and so detach, of course. The love is automatic. If you didn’t love, you wouldn’t be there in the first place. I am simply supporting you, but that thing about detaching with love — it’s not like you are attaching because you don’t like them. That’s not the point. No one likes addiction or abuse. No one likes to see someone destroy themselves or everything in their environment, and if they can’t get it, if they won’t accept counseling or assistance, if they refuse to see … remember the adage “angels refuse to assist those who refuse to act on their light of truth.” Do the angels love those people?
Ineara: Yes!
CHARLES: They are love! They are love. They can do nothing but. But if these people are destroying themselves and that is their choice, then you only have to let go. The love is inherent. I make this point because I see people asking themselves and questioning their capacity to love and staying beyond a reasonable time wondering about their own motives. “Perhaps I don’t love them enough; perhaps I love them too much.” You need not worry about love. We assume you love because you are a child of God and God is love, therefore you are love. If you detach, you detach; if you engage, you engage. Everything you do, you do with love. It is not in you to do things out of hatred; you don’t have hatred. You see my point?
Ineara: I do, and I thank you very much.
CHARLES: Don’t question yourself. Just move on. If there is another crisis down the road, there are angels – legions of angels – who observe these “lost souls,” as it were. There are seraphim that look over battalions of people who have not yet made the supreme decision and you must not feel guilty about letting go of those you cannot help nor berating yourself for your incompetence for those you cannot help or who refuse to be helped. Just don’t question yourself. Do what you can do and move on. It’s the only way you can keep your sanity; otherwise you will be questioning yourself all the way there and back. Did you wish to say or ask anything else?
Ineara: No.
Urantia
CHARLES: You are working with women, seriously troubled women, and it is sad. And in your quiet time, you are certainly comforted if you weep for the situation that so many find themselves in, with “such a life on such a planet.” But then again, you must rise up and forge ahead to do what you can for those who will respond to the light of truth. I was going to suggest that you begin to look at your planet here as if it were a living entity, a living being, and I am going to expound to say, think of this world as if it were an infant in the universe – which I some ways it is; it’s a very young planet, and in some ways it is like your associates who have had a troubled past. Urantia has had a number of painful setbacks, has been without supernal guidance, without parental oversight; its basic structure has been neglected and its original civilization has been rendered dysfunctional. Think of this world now as a newborn child that has its full life ahead of it, and you are here as one of its caretakers. Think of this world as an infant who has been born and is now crying to have its needs met.
Others have been raping and pillaging and plundering, burning it, polluting it, poisoning it, ignoring it, draining it of its natural resources. This poor child Urantia — you wonder, “Will it survive? Will it grow up to be a healthy, wholesome member of the cosmic neighborhood?” We know through the grace of our Michael Son here that it will, but that is not inherently “in the bag” simply because he lived here. We cannot take advantage of that as if to say, “Well, Jesus loves this world. It’s his hometown; he won’t let it go asunder.” It is your home town. You don’t want it to go asunder. This precious world that has been your cradle and your sandbox and your playground and your school and your workplace and your home is a friend and it could be benefited by taking it more personally as a living thing and espousing that to those you encounter. When you see people litter, for example, it’s not difficult to find ways to difficult to talk about how people love to stick bubblegum in their hair, or …
Gerdean: Oh, I know that didn’t come across.
CHARLES: … litter the body when they litter the earth, or when they stick pins in it, when they ignore it, when they abuse it or when they drain the goodies out of it. It’s easy to draw parallels between the earth and a person, and I’m suggesting a way you might be able to cultivate a more positive attitude about the world you live on would be to help people think of it as an organism that needs care, your care. I believe there is another scripture referencing the Garden of Eden by the Old Testament God about having dominion over the animals and the trees and the gardens, and we have dominion over our home spheres. I have been mortal; I can say that; I can share with you the value of “our” home world. The home planet is like the four walls that you reside within; it’s precious and it needs to sustain you today, throughout your life, and your children and their children. You don’t want to just use it up and throw it out as if it were fast food.
So these are two angles I wanted to touch base with you about this evening. The first one being that of detachment, to detach yourself so that you can see where you can do good and where you need concern yourself. And the other is that since you are in the world, consider it a living thing and help others to see it as a living thing that needs your care. It is not a machine that is here to pump out products and conveniences for you. You have dominion over it; you need to care for it. And so these two attitudes, these two fundamental attitudes of detaching and nurturing — they might sound like they are contradictory but they are not, because when you detach yourself from so many things that are not necessary for you to be entangled into, you have time then to think about where you can put some of this loving nature and you can indeed put it into your world, which needs to sustain you and your children and your grandchildren all the way into light and life and beyond. You don’t want this planet to be destroyed or poisoned through lack of overcare.
You don’t want it to go the way of those sad addicts who have so often opted to just die rather than rise to the challenge set before them. Perhaps they did not have tools they needed soon enough. Begin to instill in people, even now, the tools that are available to keep from coming to that way of life that allows you to escape into which if you do escape rather than living in the light. I have certainly talked more than enough now. Come forward. We have barely … yes.
John: I just wanted to thank you again. This is – This is good stuff.
CHARLES: Well, it’s good stuff because it’s your world. It relates to you and can help your attitude and your attitude affects the attitude of others and although it may be to some a small gesture, it is an act of courage and it matters.
Closing
CHARLES: I am glad to have had this opportunity to spend some time. It is, however, time to close. I will pause though, in the event there is one more question before we close it out.
Ineara: I just wanted to say thank you, Charlie, and it was nice meeting you.
CHARLES: Bless you, child. I hope we meet again. And I want to extend my blessing to all who were here this evening and who lent me your ears for these expressions of concern for you and the world on which you live
