2014-03-20-Expressing Yourself
Lightline #434
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Expressing Yourself
o 1.2 Group: Lightline TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Lesson
Topic: Expressing Yourself
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Lesson
PRAYER: Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, welcome. Come be with us. Come join our merry group here. It is for this that we gather together on our electronic media. It is for this that we open our minds and open our hearts to receive what you have for us. For you do have your own perspective on things, so much broader, deeper, and loving than our own. It gives us the opportunity to appreciate and welcome your spiritual perspective on our lives here.
We thank you for all of the lessons you have given us over the years, the hundreds and hundreds of times you and Mother Spirit have voiced your delight in talking with your children. We certainly enjoy them too. They help to keep us going–to have your perspective on things–though it is hard for us to understand, or even credit, always, just how you two are always so positive. You see us not only in these relatively short lives we have here–compared to what lies before us—and so you reassure us of that life to come. Through all of this you do, we most humbly thank you. Amen.
MICHAEL: Good evening everyone. This is Michael and, as always, I’d like to open by assuring you that Mother Spirit and I do appreciate your being here. You take time out of your life to be with us, and let us be with you this way. Once again I’d like to remind you, and maybe even tease you with the fact that we are just a thought away, anytime day or night. We are right here within you to receive your questions and comments, your wonderings and your appreciation. We even help augment your worship, your appreciation for our Father’s giving all of us life.
Again tonight, as before, I want to keep my lesson rather short because there are so many of you, and I can feel your curiosity and your questions begging to have an opportunity to be expressed.
(Expressing yourself)
These expressions of yours come from the marvelous fact that you have your own uniqueness of being–your own unique personalities. You have an ability of expressing yourselves, of putting yourself out into reality both physically, mentally, and spiritually. It is the spiritual part we encourage you to manifest and to bring into being because it is synonymous with what you know of as creativity, this other power, this other ability that God gives you. Being a human being, you have the ability to share in his creativity to bring something right out of yourselves that has no previous existence. Then here it is. It is real; it happened. It is part of the Supreme Being, God’s perfect memory of all that happens out here in time and space.
Tonight I would like to emphasize that, as you live your lives day to day, you are often faced with seemingly insurmountable difficulties, and not only in your own individual lives but also, as you tune into the evening news, you are aware of the national and international situations. You have all your profound concern for what is happening to others around the world. This can be very daunting and even frustrating and terrifying at times when you genuinely worry about what is happening with others. You see their social, political, and economic difficulties that do appeal to your heart.
These can seem insurmountable, as if Life Itself is somehow impossible, even cruel and vicious, in the way it treats folks. But Mother Spirit and I wish to reassure you that most of these difficulties–now in this present age, this present earth age–are man-made, and so they are amenable to mankind’s own resources of mind, body, and spirit.
(There is enough to go around)
Put in the most simple terms: there is enough to go around in spite of the over-population in some areas. Yet if that alone were controlled, if people had the reassurance that there was some other way–besides having too many children to take care of them in their old age, or in their sickness and infirmity–there would be more than enough to go around. There still is with the present population.
There is even enough energy to supply all the transportation necessary to get the food and the shelter out to those most desperately in need of it. You are aware of the sheer amount of armaments around the world, both for offensive and defensive warfare. The elimination of this need alone would insure that the amount of food and shelter–and the energy to distribute them–would be more than enough. Yet again: it would more than enough if people didn’t respond immediately by having more children to use up these resources. We ask you to think deeply about about these larger problems that are truly amenable to mankind’s unified efforts. Life is not set up to be mean or cruel. This can be largely a matter of the past when there was not enough material goods to go around, or even the means of distributing them.
This gets back to each of your own lives. What can you do to live as frugally as possible? It sounds all too simple, yet by living simply you not only increase your mental and spiritual abilities to do so, you then reap the time, just the pure amount of time this gives you to reflect, to be creative, to make more do with less. This simplicity in your lives allows others to live.
This is especially true with an eye to the future of your children and grandchildren. You are on a very finite sphere out here in space, and your resources are, in the material sense, very definitely limited. True enough, you are on the threshold of discoveries that will give you so much more energy than you have known in the past. But these are a ways off, and even with a super abundance of energy you would still have all the other material scarcities that you, as the human race, will have to live with.
You are making enormous strides in something as simple, yet profound, as recycling. Think of all the raw material you have had to mine and extract from the earth, and then refine into steel and other things. So much of this material is still here, especially since you are not engaged in world-wide wars and sinking thousands and thousands of tons of materials to the bottoms of the oceans. Still this “cold” warfare of yours does take the enormous resources of the men and women giving their lives to this kind of effort. This is where each one of you has to challenge yourself to be living as outwardly peacefully towards others as you can.
(The spirit of sharing)
Think of Mother Spirit’s Adjutant of Counsel, the way she helps the people of this world be gregarious and appreciate each other, be involved with each other’s lives, and help each other. This is always there within you as an impulse, a motivation, a desire to be involved in lives other than your own. Her Holy Spirit is what has advanced your civilization in terms of your social and political life. It is why we encourage you to be as open-minded as possible, irrespective of how you were brought up, or whatever orientation your parents had. Really open yourself up to all the various social and political viewpoints that are now available to you in your mass media.
To be informed is one of the greatest gifts you can give each other–to be informed yourselves. In your human realm of sharing, of association and all of the thousands and thousands of ways people are getting together: this is what counts now. Your science and your sheer creativity have brought you to the point where it is possible for people to live full lives with the amount of resources—food, and shelter, and basic transportation—available. It is possible as never before.
So this is your greatest challenge as an individual person yourself. What can you do? How can you live so as to help others? This is quite a challenge, is it not? How long will it take for this world of individuals to move positively in this direction? When will the sheer amount of antagonism, hatred, and enmity slowly give away to love and cherishing the lives of others as much as one’s own? I’ll leave these questions up in the air for you to challenge yourselves. Meditate deeply because, as these problems are man-made, so too the solutions lie within every individual.
(The community and the individual)
You have already had your political experiments of a small group coming into power and deciding for everyone else in their nation-state what they were going to do. These dictatorships have been notable, colossal failures; and rightfully so, for the collective is made up of all the minds, the hearts, and the souls of the individuals that comprise it. This is an individual thing finally–all the billions of you. This is the true reality, the fundamental reality of the problems and their solutions.
You have the whole spiritual community that has been here for thousands of years doing their best to move things along to increase the sheer amount of civilization on this world. But insofar as you have free will, and to the degree you are able to creatively exercise it: this is the only solution. We in the spiritual community do respect the choices you make day to day. It is all in your own hands, my dear children. This is where it should be. You were created by our Father, and you are endowed with his dignity of free will. As always it is up to you how you use it. So be of good cheer, my dear ones. Keep your eye on the prize–the possibility of moving this tired old world towards Light and Life for all your children and grandchildren to come. Now if you have any questions or comments, this too is a part of the joy of life is it not?
Student #1: Michael, this is G. Would you take a rather academic question?
MICHAEL: : Certainly.
Student #1: This is a thought I’ve had of late in regards to this talking to you through this format. It’s not just to you, but also to our other heavenly helpers–the Teacher Corpse (sic), the sundry teachers–Midwayers and entities–that we like to believe we are engaged in communicating with. It gets such bad press from the community at large, but I was thinking about how, when they brought the Urantia Book through, they said that in time the science aspect of it would be out of date because, as we invented new things, new sciences would come along and change the meanings.
That was to be expected, so I got to thinking about the fact that psychology itself is a new science. Even though there are many who don’t think it is a science, it certainly is–as psychology, and psychiatry–the study of psychosis and schizophrenia. The mind is such an incredible place, even our spiritual teachers talk to us about the universe of our own mind.
So I was thinking: wouldn’t it be helpful to promote the idea that talking to our spiritual teachers is not false as a scientific category? Rather, it should be studied academically, the same as studying our cellular structure, or our mechanical science. I was wondering what merit you find in that thought process?
(It is the content that convinces—or not)
MICHAEL: Well yes, my dear, let me start off by saying there is nothing that hinders this from taking place. It comes down to: irrespective of whom I claim to be, or whom Mother Spirit–or any of the other spiritual beings who are transmitting to you–claim to be: it always comes down to the content itself.
This is where folks either accept our lessons with a joyful discovery, or reject them out of hand sometimes for what is the claimed authorship. Yet it is always the content that convinces, irrespective of the source. This is another one of our frequent lessons: for you to gain the ability to assess things by their content–irrespective of the source! It’s whether you are being open-minded—or not–to whatever comes to you.
The situation is similar to a number of things that were first introduced in a general way to humankind through the Urantia Book, that have since been proven valid. I call to mind where, not too many years ago, some of you old-timers can remember how rare it was to come across someone else who had read the Urantia Book. Now there are possibly three hundred websites dealing with the book. I think they are listed at UBwebsitesites.com.
(I’m pulling this out of this TR’s mind–where you can locate them.)
I believe there are even a dozen or so websites listed there devoted to debunking the Urantia Book by declaring it all a colossal fraud, probably from folks who haven’t read too much of it. Again: it is the content that convinces. In the not too distant future we can foresee the Urantia Book being the study of college courses, as well as the National and International meetings you already have concerning it. These will increase in time as more and more people actually read the thing.
Please remember when you first encountered the Big Blue Book–for the most of you who went through the 65 or more pages just in the Table of Contents. You have to remember it was like picking up and opening a book into a foreign language because of the hundreds, if not thousands of unique concepts in it. How many people read only a little bit in it and then set it aside because of being inundated with a title wave of new concepts?
Consider the physical universe that your science has discovered, both down into the microcosm and out into the macrocosm, then the idea that this is all spiritually created in open space, and controlled/administered by a whole hierarchy of spiritual beings. Just that one concept alone becomes such a stumbling block for many. It appears to be so absurd they set the book aside without realizing all the other dozens and dozens of different human disciplines that are included between its covers.
Yet this broader readership will happen. This will happen in time as more and more people devote so much of their lives that it does take to read the book, and then maybe read it again with an ever fuller comprehension.
Never lose sight of the enormity of this Fifth Epical (sic) Revelation. Never forget what it was for you to encounter. This gives you some appreciation of what it will take for it to be, as we said, presented as a college course throughout the world.
Student #1: Actually, everything you said was true, but I wasn’t worried about the Urantia Book. The Urantia Book is something that I prayed for, that I was grateful to receive, that I took unto myself, and that I continue to read and study and promote daily. That is fine. I am thrilled that there are web sites and many translations. The progress of the book is marvelous.
I’m talking about t/r-ing and the process that goes on between our ears, between the spirit and the flesh, and a science of mind where there might be a way to provide the validity of what we do–for those who insist that it is only delusion, or subconscious uprisings. This is not to say there isn’t plenty of delusion and plenty of sub-conscious uprising involved. But to the extent there is any reality or potential reality at all, I would like to see it looked at as mindal science, and I wondered what your thought was regarding that?
(What people are already, constantly evaluating)
MICHAEL: Yes, that is what I meant to answer–what I meant by content and the way people do evaluate things on their content irrespective of their source. Yet this is a learned ability, an acquired ability to evaluate things on their own merit. This is what most people will do in time. This is why people do accept with joy, or reject with distain (sic), the Teaching Mission. This is what you talked about in terms of psychological study. This is what is happening. This is why both Mother Spirit and I, and other teachers, do introduce folks to the fact that we are part of their mind. Our part of their mind processes what you call t/r-ing which will, in the future, become more and more a common conscious occurrence.
Also keep in mind, my dear, that this is happening all over the world now in this new spiritual age. People are tuning in and getting all kinds of additional spiritual help right within their own minds, whether or not they understand it in the same Urantia Book context as you. There is a Spiritual Renaissance happening.
Student #1: Yes, I do realize that.
MICHAEL: : Again, it has to do with the content of what they are learning and accepting and finding true in their own life. In other words: this is already happening. It is happening. There are dozens and dozens of websites now dealing with the Teaching Mission, and not only proposing it as you say, but also including your detractors. This is the way it should be. This is the open market place of ideas in which things rise or sink, succeed or fail. This is happening all around you already, and it will increase as it spreads.
Student #1: Good. Thank You.
MICHAEL: : My dear, this is where it takes confidence just to see the general fact of human curiosity, especially in spiritual matters. For things like the Teaching Mission are going right up against the established religions and established psychologies of what is possible, and what is not. Just as with the Urantia Book, the context of all this t/r-ed content can be welcomed as the most amazing discovery in one’s life-time, or rejected out of hand for the seeming absurdity that it comes to you by spiritual beings. So this is all in play; very much so. I know you are all delighted to be a part of it, to have discovered it.
Student #1: Indeed
MICHAEL: : Be in my Peace.
Student #2: This is L. and I just want to comment that we do make a difference in the world as individuals. Is that correct?
(Personal response-ability)
MICHAEL: : Yes, my dear. You got the real point of my message this evening. As complex as things look and truly are, they are still made up of individuals. It is each individual’s need to change in order to change a situation, since you don’t have some of the material problems of the past, that were put aside. You do have the sheer creativity now to feed and house everyone.
Yet since there are still millions and millions of folks dying of malnutrition and simple exposure, it is up to each individual to do what they can. This is the solution. As you struggle in your own life to keep up with the demands put upon you, and perhaps not only in your own life but with those around you–your family and the others you love and are concerned with: this gives you some measure of what everybody is facing to some degree. It’s the need for meaning and value, and how these are challenged from time to time just in the process of growing older, or facing all the slings and arrows of misfortune that do happen.
This is why it takes so much courage to live a creative life. Yet the rewards are commensurate and they reassure you that yes, this is the way to go. It’s the creativity to keep up with things, even get ahead of the curve–if you can. Do all you can to live a good life. Does this answer your question?
Student #2: Yes, and I just wanted to include that it is through influencing other people that we can increase the potential of the individual.
(True leadership via discovery)
MICHAEL: : Yes. First of all you have to be a creative person yourself to discover the right way. It’s being open-minded to try a number of different things, and not be prejudiced, not be pre-judging what is going to work and what is not. You’re putting yourself out there and finding, for yourself, what is a good life, so you have something to offer. You aren’t just perpetuating outworn ideas, the theories and ideologies that so many folks are caught up in.
But to be open and creative day by day to what works and what doesn’t? To be willing to apply these discoveries to your own life by welcoming the adventure? Because the very essence of adventure is not knowing what is going to happen next–isn’t it?–when you are out there hanging off the side of a cliff as a mountain climber, or just going to work through heavy traffic in the morning? Welcome this adventure by not cursing God, but thanking God that human life is set up this way. This is what you have to discover first for yourself in order to offer it as a valid thing for others.
Student #2: Yes, I have discovered that it is very exciting. It can take me right to the edge, and sometimes I will take a leap off: and I am still here. Yes it is an adventure; and I conclude that: to find myself–I loose myself. That way I get rid of the old ideas, the old ways of looking at things, and leap out there to discover all the new things that are all around me.
MICHAEL: : And to be a living example of this. This is what I talked about before–what really convinces. In terms of the messages, the contacts with the spiritual community: it is the content that convinces. So it is with your own life, just being happy, healthy, and generous. Heaven is the abundance, the super-abundance of spirit to help other folks you know. This is what convinces. This is what is real.
Student #2: I think what makes the real genuine influence on other lives is the way we live our lives. These are just my conclusions and there is nothing that brings greater joy to me than to give to others. And in return I learn from them. I can never out-give what is given. I could give more that is all.
MICHAEL: : This was a great secret for many folks, that by giving they actually have more. It is obvious when you are tuned in to your own soul. You realize your soul isn’t just some lonely desert of yourself.
What you are sharing with others is your eternal possession. This is what you have most abundantly if you are simply–as you say–willing to let go, be self-forgetful, and give yourself over to others. Really listen to them. Really be there with them. Really accept them into you.
(The need for courage)
This takes courage. This takes nerve for all the failures of communication and all the struggles you have sometimes to accept others. Some aren’t all that friendly. There are folks who will out-and-out deliberately attack you in any number of ways if they can. Yet to take all this in and still come back, still be open, still welcome the adventure? This way you are showing them: this is possible.
Student #2: Yes, I call that intimacy–where you break down the walls that separate an individual from others. Sometimes it can be very painful when people are threatened by that. But then I don’t push myself, and give them the distance they need.
MICHAEL: : This is what we call spiritual generosity, the fact that joy and giving and sharing are just as infectious as fear and troubles. So be infected with as much joy as you can. Infect others with it. Give them that possibility in their life too. This is reward in and of itself, is it not?
Student #2: Yes, definitely. I can’t believe I am talking to God right now. This is incredible.
(Children of God)
MICHAEL: Well, my dear, I am not. I am a long shot from God. I am just one of his sons. Also keep in mind, my dear: so are you. This is what we share: we are children of God’s and we each have our own sphere of influence and activity. You are just as important in yours, as Mother Spirit and I are in ours.
Student #2: You are our Creator. There is no way…
MICHAEL: : And, my dear, I salute you for your own creativity. This is what God endows you with. Now to see, and to hear, and to feel someone utilizing their creativity for others? This is what the Spiritual Community is involved in. It is their hallmark, is it not?–this giving of oneself? Then the reward is in that look, that smile, that thankfulness you get from another pair of eyes. Let it be. Let it be overwhelming. Let it overwhelm you. Be not afraid of the amount of love that you can receive.
Student #2: Thank you, Michael. You are overwhelming. I love you. I always have. You are the source of all love, joy, and peace. I just can’t express how much I love you.
MICHAEL: : Thank you, my dear. Believe me, your expression is well taken. Be in my peace.
(The real stuff)
MICHAEL: My dear ones, let me close with sharing with you that this is truly what we live for. This love we share is what we can know most truly, most assuredly. This is the most real stuff that exists. This is what brings out the stars, brings out all of Creation–God’s love and desire to share–share experience itself–share the experience of life.
Because for all of us, and perhaps even for Him–his own love–his own life–Life Itself is always transcendent and encompassing. It holds us. It holds us so securely. This is what our faith lets us experience and, in experiencing, share with each other. Because it is each other that we experience–our uniqueness–our very independence from each other—our difference from each other. Our very uniqueness is then what we have to share, and enjoy, and delight that only God could have conceived and created such a reality.
(Thank you, Father, for each other—for company)
We call you “little walking infinities” and invite you, tease you to be aware of this, and marvel at this other person coming towards you–so different, so independent–such another complete personality in and of themselves. Yet here they are, for company. Mother Spirit and I thank you for your company, and for your sheer existence, not only as our children but also as each other’s. We thank you, Father, for this magnificent notion of yours–for this Creation of yours–and for each other. Amen.
Be in my peace, dear ones. Good night.