2013-10-17-Free Will
Lightline #415
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Free will
o 1.2 Group: Lightline TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Lesson
o 3.2 Dialogue
o 3.3 Closing
Topic: Free will
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Lesson
PRAYER: Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, we wish to thank you for initiating, overseeing, and taking care of inviting all the various kinds of beings to write the Urantia Book. It’s something we treasure so much, largely because it gives us a sense of not only who but what the two of you are, the kinds of beings you are. We enjoy those chapters on what a Creator Son and a Creator Daughter of the Paradise Trinity–what the two of you are. It really stretches our creative imaginations, our creative spirit, to think about beings hundreds of billions of years old—many, many times older than what our scientists say our universe is. It’s all that much more glorious that we have your presence right within us along with all of our–yours and our–Father, whose presence is also within us.
These are three great spiritual presences within us; and then beyond that, the fact we can contact you in our prayers and meditations, and even in these Lightline teleconferences–hear your lessons and have a chance to carry on a conversation with you. So thank you for being in us, and a part of us, and being so contactable. We certainly do appreciate it. Amen.
MICHAEL: Good evening, this is Michael, and Mother Spirit and I accept your most gracious invitation to join you. As per your introduction, we are definitely happy to be part of you, part of your mental makeup. And we are here. We are actually here and part of your life. It delights us when you can feel us, when you can recognize what we are contributing to your life. It’s when you can feel Mother Spirit’s surrounding dimensions of mind.
You can feel yourself in not only a kind of classical time-and-space dimension, but with your creative imagination, you also have some notion of being in all these other dimensions of mind and spirit that so thoroughly encompass and penetrate you. They’re much like the radio and television frequencies that are going right through you this very moment.
Yet where, if you’re deep underground, or say, deep in the bowels of a huge building, those radio and TV signals can barely penetrate, if at all; there’s nothing in all material creation that separates you from us, or separates you from our Father. Our dimensions of spirit penetrate, and are universal, everywhere. This is God’s omnipresence, and his power within that, that you can tap into.
And so we welcome you—welcome you to feeling us, understanding us, and sharing your life with us. For that last part there–that sharing your life with us–is up to you. This is totally a function of your free will choice and how much you want to be aware of us, and how much you want to consciously invite us in.
The last time on this teleconference I talked about this question of free will. This comes right from your own uniqueness, my children, because you are a unique being, created this way by God, and you are endowed with the Eternal Son’s creative spirit. Because you are a creative spiritual being yourselves, you can originate something right out of yourselves, something that has no previous existence in all of reality, all of time and space. We have characterized you before as a nodule of creativity out here in time/space.
With your creative spirit you can come up with something new. Then with your mind capacity, with all the gifts of the Infinite Spirit funneled down to you through your Mother Spirit, Nebadonia, your mind can give form and expression to your fundamental creative spirit. She helps through your reasoning, through your understanding, through your knowledge of past experiences, and through your courage to entertain what your creative spirit can come up with and not simply brush aside or deny. It’s also the way you can share your mind with others, other human beings, and get so much from them–get all their ideas and all their reasoning’s. You can get all of this from them, all of their soul experience.
Then with your wisdom–the ability to unite–your personality can unite and unify all this raw material so thoroughly shot through and interpreted and combined with your own creativity. This is the kind of nodule, the focal point of personality that you are, surrounded by all these endless dimensions that we tease you with–the notion that there are hundreds or more dimensions that you will come to know in the eons and eons of time stretching out before you without end. Think of all the dimensions you will encounter with other kinds of extra-human beings, and learn to make these too your own, these gifts of the other kinds of beings that the Urantia Book introduces you to.
It comes back to this thing of will power. You are a focal point of all of these dimensions if you can bring them into your consciousness and choose to be aware of them; and then begin to exercise them, to bring them into fruition. Just like a plant that has its fruit, you, a living personality, can be fruitful. You cannot only conceive of, originate, and then work through, all the details of things: you can begin to do them.
This is where the will power comes in, first of all in being open, being open to what can originate within you and what is not, shall we say, denied or blanked out, refused to be thought about or entertained. We love that word entertain, my children, because this is when you have to allow something into you, let your mind chew on it a bit, and work it out. Think about it. Play with it. Let it into you. Entertain it. Let it entertain you, these new ideas, shall we say, of a better way to live, to grow; a way to keep encompassing greater and greater dimensions of reality.
All this you have in potential as a child of God. But then it gets down to doing something, either thinking it through, making notes, diagrams, whatever it takes: keeping it in mind. Last time I mentioned taking notes in your mediation, or getting a calendar with large spaces so every day you can write down what you’ve been doing. What is your progress? What have you been doing for the last few weeks, the last few months, even the last few years?
Where are you going in terms of where you’ve been? What’s your orientation?–especially with the help of my Spirit of Truth, your orientation towards that which is greater than you, the whole greater realm of spirit and creativity. Irrespective of whether something is comfortable or not, or even possible or not as you are today: is it true? How does it feel? How does that feel within you—simply: is it true? That gets into all your politics and social things.
But then your will power, your will power to sit in meditation when your impatient social activities, shall we way, are clamoring for you to get up off that chair, get out and do something? Still!–to have the will power to sit there and open yourself to spirit and to mind; to pray, to orient yourself to greater spirit and have the wonderful humility to ask of greater power and greater spirit for help, especially for help for someone else.
It’s to have the will power to think things through, to plan, to organize, to work on all the experience you’ve had–all the knowledge, all that you know because you’ve done it–it’s happened to you: to work that into understanding. What’s connected to what in what way? What follows what? What causes what? What has to be before something else?
What of all the plans that you need to have some feeling for, like: What do you want to do? Given the whole range of possibility–from the easiest to the most difficult: What do you want to do? What do want to have in your life? Who do you want to have in your life, and how do you go about that? These are all dimensions of mind, and depend upon having the will power to spend time working all of this out–the good work.
And then, in the doing of things, remember the old trilogy of: physical facts, mental meanings and relationships, and then spiritual value. How about these physical facts? How about the will power it takes to start doing something physically, that I talked about so much last Lightline? What is the state of your physical being? What is your health? And what is your will power tied to moment by moment as you go through the day, especially the times you–shall we say–are not required to be somewhere, doing something because of some previous arrangements that are tied in with other folks: your work, your family, your neighborhood?
Apart from those—consider your time by yourself with those things over which you have choice moment to moment because you’re not previously committed. How are you using your will power to be creative, and efficient, and functioning in those moments just for you?
What is your diet? What are you putting into your body? Are you doing so thinking and feeling your body as a temple, a magnificent event beyond your full comprehension, of all your libraries and all your medicine? This miracle, the physical being you have: do you give it all the respect you can? Do you give it all the help you can, to be ever more healthy, strong, flexible, agile?
So these are the dimensions of will power: spiritually, mentally, and physically. Dealing first with spiritual value: what’s really important to you? Then you have your mental relationships of everything to everything else; your knowledge, your understanding, your courage to open to new things, Mother Spirit’s adjutants of counsel–your relationship to all those around you. There’s the wisdom you are able to bring to your whole life’s experience, and understanding to each moment. Think of all these marvelous dimensions of your human being, all coming down to focus on: dear God, dear Father, what do I do next?
Even having the courage to open yourself and make a decision–What is the best thing to do next?–isn’t this another word for freedom? Doesn’t this require a free will? Isn’t this what gives you the dignity of a living personal being–the dignity of free will that you get to choose what to do next? Think about it.
I’ll open the floor now to any questions or comments you may have. Good. I can feel you thinking.
Well, my dear ones, there is no necessity here between us for questions or comments. It’s quite alright. That’s another aspect of freedom, is it not: to get beyond necessity, to feel yourself complete–however imperfect? Still, in all, because you are part of the creation, you are a created being. You are complete moment to moment. There’s no need, there’s no necessity for any of this. It’s simply God’s will–this whole Creation. It’s his delight. And it’s part of his delight that it can be our delight as well. So isn’t it wonderful to feel this–shall we say—lack-of-necessity? That too can be another definition, another feeling of freedom. Just to be: because you are.
Dialogue
Student: Yes. Michael, this is G. I had a question. I was reading, “Christ’s Way,” I guess, is one of the books or writings that you created. One of them was talking about after your baptism when you were walking towards the mountains, how you were enlightened in a way. You actually saw things in their molecular structure. I think you called it like a “shimmer of tiny motes”–or something similar to that–you know; the creative power of the mind itself and inner consciousness. It was more of an awakening, I guess, that you experienced. And I’m wondering if you could talk about that?
MICHAEL: : Well, yes, my son, I’ve talked about that a number of times–which you can look up through the transcripts, if you wish–what those moments were after my cousin did baptize me, and I had this profound change in my being. As the Urantia Book puts it so correctly, when I walked down into the Jordan that day, that was my last act as a purely human being. Once I had a presentation of being a Creator Son of God–as well as a human being–as I’ve said before, I still walked along as a human being.
I could still feel the dust between my toes, and feel the sun on my face–I also had, all of sudden, Creator prerogatives. As you know, it was almost a kind of a cosmic joke, or moment of humor, when the first extraordinary miracle I performed was only partly consciously, was as much a surprise to me as to those around me. (Ed: I believe he is referring to the event of turning water into wine) I realized again just how careful I had to be as a Creator Son of God in human form.
Think of those choices I had to make about what to do with this power, this creative power. And so, if it’s to answer your question, I had to go off by myself, much to the consternation of my followers who were suddenly missing me and much worried. I had to make certain decisions about how to live the rest of my life here because I was assured by my first-born Son between Mother Spirit and me; I was given the assurance that I had fulfilled all the requirements put upon a Creator Son having a human life.
So I had to decide what to do with the rest of my human life. And as you know, one of the things that occurred to me–a temptation, if you will: I could wave my hand and wipe out the Roman Occupation of my people. It was the whole tradition I was raised in of what the Messiah would do, and suddenly I had the power to do it.
But also, my son, at that time, being not only Jesus, but Michael too, I was blessed with this dual nature of Michael’s as well. What pure, genuine spirit chooses to do is summed up in the expression “The spirit suggests and offers. It does not compel.” Spirit acts in the ways to maximize the free will dignity of all those beings that I and you now come in contact with.
This is what those first few days, and then weeks–of my being Michael-and-Jesus–were about: these choices, these decisions that you too have, and that I talked on tonight–this creative power of yours. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to manifest your uniqueness as a God-created being? How are you going to manifest your creativity, especially in your relationships with all these others, these other free-willed spiritual beings around you, these other folks?
So: welcome. Welcome to being a God-created being. It’s what we have in common. You in your own realm, and in your own time, are going through what I went through–as soon as you also have this change-of-being by realizing your creativity. Does that help answer the question?
Student: Yes, it does. Thanks, Michael. I guess there’s no easy road to anything really. So I guess I have to just keep trying.
MICHAEL: : My son, it’s also the fact that there is a road. There is a road there to walk, and you have the feet to walk on it. Yes, by all means, you’re constantly deciding. Consider that poem you have about the two paths that diverged in a woods, and you have to choose one. But the fact is: the path is there, and will always be there. There will always be that next step to take, even though, as I’ve teased you with before, it may be the feeling of you standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, and your faith demands that you step off, trusting that the ground will be there under your foot. It always has been. It always will be. You’re actually on a road, and it’s called the Creation. So keep stepping off.
Student: Yes. We truly are lucky just being here, then, you know, having the ability to choose. Thanks again, Michael.
MICHAEL: : The ability to choose: that too is up to you, and it can be a progressive thing because it’s not assured. It’s part of this existential being that you are. There are possibilities of denial and things like that, you know–being split within yourself. But also you have this impulse, this desire and ability to unify behind your actions. You can bring all your spirit, and mind, and physical-ness into a unity. Definitely keep stepping off. It takes nerve, but then that’s a genuine accomplishment, my son. It becomes part of your soul. Be in my peace.
Student: Thank you, Michael.
MICHAEL: : So, my children, you see how we’re similar in a sense, even though you are just starting out into eternity. We are creative Sons and Daughters of God, and we each have challenges within our own spheres. But the very effort it takes to do, to be: that too is inexhaustible in its very use.
I talked last time of how you can get lost and almost drown in a swamp of mystery. This can be a part of denial, just by making a mystery of everything and being content with that, rather than knowing the fulfillment of actual accomplishment. Yet this by no means suggests that things have to be difficult to have meaning. Everything has meaning simply in its actuality, and in its relationship to everything else. Things don’t have to be difficult.
That could be just another little way to hide away from those things which are delightfully easy, and almost seem to fall your way. Because that’s being ever more in God’s will. Being attuned to his will can seem to be easy, just because it works. It gloriously works.
In this sense–as we’ve taught so many times before–you are part of the Deity Absolute.
You are a part of the deified aspect of reality. Even if in this one dimension only–along these lines of your very existence–you absolutely are!–though many of you have the capacity, and notion, to doubt even that. That’s another example of just how free you are.
And so, my dear ones, it’s Mother Spirit’s and my wish that you do find this wonderful great glory of genuine accomplishment.
The fact, the cosmic fact, the cosmic reality is that you are here. You are absolutely here. And you can do things. You can think things. You can imagine things right out of your own unique essence. And that’s what you have to give to the rest of us, what you uniquely can come up with. That’s our glory: that you have something to give to us, we can get from nowhere else.
It’s why Mother Spirit and I thank you. We thank you for trying. We thank you for all this effort you put in to exercising your free will, this mystery that becomes reality, becomes a part of your soul, becomes a part of our soul, becomes a part of God’s soul–the Supreme Being.
Closing
MICHAEL: So rest easy, my dear ones. Let it all go from time to time. Let it all go. Sleep deep. Rest deeply, because you have the ability at any moment to start again, to re-create yourself and your connection with all of this stuff, this whole Creation all around you.
And be in my peace. Good evening.
