2016-09-15 To Turn Things Around
Lightline #496
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: To Turn Things Around
o 1.2 Group: Lightline TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
o 3.3 Dialogue
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: To Turn Things Around
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Invocation: (Transmitter)Dear Michael and Mother Spirit: Michael, I have a special request for you this evening and that is, could you continue what Mother Spirit started last month on a Lightline when I asked her if she could address the question of how do we turn things around? She mentioned it is a great spiritual triumph when we can, first of all, recognize that things are going in the wrong direction and we are either stuck in bad habits and getting unhealthy, or our relationships with all our dear friends around us are deteriorating. We are getting stuck on ourselves, or other things, and need to be turned around. Yet how do we do this? If you could answer that same request we would appreciate it so much. Thank you. Amen.
Lesson
MICHAEL: Good evening. This is Michael and I would be delighted as always to fulfill any requests you have for me–equally with Mother Spirit. It is our privilege to help our children in any way at all. It fills our hearts when you make requests of us for it is an acknowledgement on your part that we are in your lives, and we can help you–just as you are with your own children. It is such a reward when they come to you and ask for your help, and you are able to help them. It forms a bond of sharing between you and them, as between you and Mother Spirit, and me. We have talked so often about this quality of sharing our lives together that is God’s greatest gift to all of us. It is part of the reason we are all out here in time and space— so he can share himself with all of his children.
To turn things around
I’d like to start just by re-emphasizing some of the points Mother Spirit brought out last month. Once you recognize and fully accept within yourself that things in your life need to be turned around, need to be headed off in a more positive, fulfilling and creative direction, one of the main things is to get a base of operations to act from; and this is a continuity of your own self. This is especially critical with what you call bad, unhealthy habits that are partly physical and simply re-occur on their own–the addictions that constantly come up over and over again, sometimes every few minutes. They can more or less take you away if you haven’t the determination, the gumption, the where-with-all to stand up against them. So the first thing is to get a continuity of your own self. You literally create a stronger self–for yourself!–that can continue this determination.
The need for meditation, open-minded reflection
The best way–sometimes the only way–of doing this is through meditation. Really take time out of your other activities just to be still and give yourself over to yourself. Just be still with yourself and then, if you can, remind yourself that you are not alone. You have Mother Spirit and me within you, and all around you. Way, way beyond us, deeper and more profoundly within you, you have our mutual Father: you have God’s presence within you. And very definitely–if you can realize this too–he has already helped you acknowledge the need to turn things around and confront an unhealthy habit, or perhaps open yourself to ways of relating to your dear ones more openly and creatively. So the main message that Mother Spirit gave you was about meditating and doing so on a regular basis, so you tune in to yourself. You tune into your needs. You can formulate your deepest prayers to God, to our Father, and ask, “Dear Father, what do I do next?—and I mean today, as soon as I get up from my meditations. How do I address this problem I’m having? How do I turn things around?”
Record your meditations
Then, to continue this daily continuity, don’t hesitate to use some physical means to help. I’m talking about actually taking notes and writing down your questions–your problems–and whatever answers you get. Or, with your modern electronics, you can have a little recording device, or take notes in your computer. This is another continuity very much like a writer of short stories or a novel, a day to day history where you can re-read these messages to yourself. Again: this is creating a continuous, day-to-day self when you feel lost or helpless in the face of a terrible addiction. You get in touch with your new, determined self again as you read your notes. They become a very precious diary, writing to yourself in the future when you may very well desperately need to tune in again to your effort, your determination. This is the easiest and the most direct way of creating your stronger self with a greater determination to get healthy, or appreciate the situation of all the folks around you who might be slipping away.
It is up to you to initiate change
You can break out of a re-actionary, knee-jerk kind of relationship with others for, as Mother Spirit cautioned you, it is up to you, my dear ones, to initiate this change, especially with those you have lived with for years–a husband, a wife, your own children or your own parents. Do this rather than falling back into a kind of blaming habit like, “Why don’t they pay more attention? Why don’t they do this or that?” Drop all of that and take it upon yourself to initiate what you want to see grow. Exercise your own creativity. Try things- -experiment. Be honest with yourself about what works and what doesn’t. All these parts of Mother Spirit’s lesson are so valuable. They are the place to start. Now, tonight, I’d like to expand this question out into society, out into the city or the countryside where you might be living–the counties, the states, and clear up to your nations and countries. How do these larger political units get turned around?— especially if you feel they are heading off into very destructive ways, or just getting stuck in a growing corruption over the years.
The spiritual value of democracy
Let me emphasize the value of what you call a democracy, a political unit that recognizes an equality between all of its adult citizens, men and women. You put it most succinctly as: one person, one vote, with an honesty and transparency of not only who casts the votes, but also who counts the votes. To have honest and free elections, this is still and always the way to go. This is still the most spiritual manifestation in your politics. Yet you have only to look at your nightly news to see how, not exactly rare, but still how only a majority of the human race has this ability. You can still see many nation- states where there is not the slightest bit of democracy even pretended.
There’s just a very ruthless dictatorship that rules with an iron fist of what we call the most obscene kind of relationships between people–murdering folks in the most diabolical and painful ways imaginable. Think of a person’s creativity gone into devising ever more hideous ways of hurting others. This is still taking place on your world. You have those most cynical regimes where every so many years they have a great election and 99.9% of the folks vote for the current dictator. This would all be so laughable and hideously funny if it were not for the terror that exists to hold their citizens in such a bond–and then even publish such a cynical result.
You can see this where men and women are forced into the most rigid habits of public clothing. Their appearance has to be so totally regimented and controlled, the whole culture does not allow even the slightest deviation for individual taste and delightful variety in their clothing, or attitudes, in their public behavior. The most regimented law is forcibly instilled. So for those of you who will come to hear or read my words, who do live in a relatively free democracy where you have a wide variety of opinion being expressed in your mass media, your television, and the internet; or just in walking down an average city street or small town: you can see of such a variety of self-expression with both men and women.
The freedom of personal expression
Think of all your songs, and novels and short stories in all your entertainment to be such a wide expression of human creativity, such individuality blossoming forth. You can know in your hearts that, given the freedom of expression, this is what the whole world would delight in doing. So wherever you see this lack of individuality you know in your hearts that it is only because of a rigidly enforced cultural determination. My dear ones, keep abiding in your faith in democracy and internalize this as much as you can so you are free inside.
The meditation of opening your mind in stillness every day is where it all originates, right with you. And this is where, in those repressive regimes all around the world, this too is where it has to start—in each and every individual welcoming a greater variety all around them, so secure in themselves they do not demand of other family members, or other members of their society, to adhere to some strict code of behavior. This is that blossoming of individuality that I taught even when I was among you two thousand years ago.
It’s an inner strength, an inner connection with your own creative spirit that creates a strong, determined self of such self-reliance and self-sufficiency that lets others be. You actually encourage them to come forth with their own unique personality right from God. This is how you turn things around in your own life. This is how you recognize this in others, and encourage them to be themselves. This is the basis in whatever society we consider. It has to start with the people. It has to start with all the individuals, because they are that unique variety right from God.
This is that little seed in every single person, the unique personality that can be acknowledged and encouraged to blossom forth in all its unique expression. This is how, just walking down the average small town or city street anywhere in the world, you can so immediately get this feeling of individuality–or not. Recently in one of your cultural revolutions someone mentioned what a change it was to see a little girl in a flowered dress of many colors out in the street–what a sight that was!–what a transformation, what a blossoming forth. What a strange revolution that was.
Have faith in God’s unique creations—other folks
And so, my dear ones, have this faith in God’s creation. Delight in it, in all its expressions. Imagine a world that is–as your Urantia Book mentions–surrounded in Light and Life where any overriding suppression is totally absent. Imagine the kind of trust in each individual that does not call for, or need, or in any way accept such a centralization of power. But rather, as Mother Spirit and I have called for, imagine a decentralization of power of a free people who don’t need someone else telling them and forcing them what to do. It’s where each individual is most directly and fundamentally tuned in to something inside them–the presence of God and all his wonder, all his creative ability to create each one of us unique. Now if you have any questions or comments this evening, you can express your uniqueness.
Dialogue
Student: Hello. Thank you so much. This has been resonating with me. I got to spend a month without computers. I was literally camping in Canada, outside in the forest under the stars with no TV, no drama, and only organic food. I’ve come back to a heaviness. I came back to the Western fires, the ambulances and all of that. I am trying–trying to stay healthy and sane from where I’m at. I’m also quitting tobacco, so I’m loving these lessons, just re-listening to last week’s and the one before, the last one Mother Spirit did on August 18th. That is what I listen to in the mornings, lately. That is what reinforces me. So thank you–thank you so much for always knowing our hearts, and our intent, and having our backs.
(Confronting physical addictions)
MICHAEL: Oh!–my dear!–thank you so much. I truly appreciate your thanks for Mother Spirit’s lesson. I’m glad her lesson last month had such a deep resonance within you. You can go on your computer and look up “nicotine” and understand why it is one of the most difficult addictions to get rid of. It is a central nervous stimulant and that is one important thing in your human life, so limited as you are from pure spiritual standpoint like Mother Spirit’s and mine. I especially, because of my human life, appreciate what it is to be so physical and, in a sense, never having a surplus of energy. But it is so good that you do get away and tune in to a self that exists without all of the distractions and even the delightful entertainments that are yours just for the flipping of a switch and spending a few cents of electricity for your computers, your television, your modern movies and so forth.
It is so valuable–as you found out–to get back to just your skin, walking through the woods with the animals, and the way that the whole presence of the natural world surrounds you. You get away from the bright cities and look up at the night sky and see one arm of your galaxy stretched across it. That is another kind of tuning in. I am so glad you are finding in Mother Spirit’s lesson what I wanted to reemphasize this evening–how to literally create a self that can tackle such a clinging bad habit, that does so much for you physiologically it does have to be faced sometimes over and over again, minute to minute, because it has such a physical component.
Appreciating other folks’ difficulties
It can give you an appreciation then too for how different peoples can get beyond a severe cultural determination that totally squashes such a wide area of their own personal expression. You can appreciate what it is to live under a ruthless dictatorship that will go to any means of torture in the most hideous, obscene kinds of murdering people just to terrorize and control them. It can give you such an appreciation for the day-to-day choices that are yours to make. So I solute you, my dear daughter, and bid you: Carry on!
Student: Thank you, thank you. And thank you, Jerry, for taking the time out of your life to TR, and be steadfast and be there where we can count on you.
MICHAEL: : Thank you again, my dear. This is such a reward for Mother Spirit and me to find our well-meant words do resonate and get magnified in a human heart. We are so happy to be part of your soul then, part of your soul memories, part of who and what you have been once upon a time.
Closing
The magic of sharing one’s life with others
MICHAEL: And so on that positive note let me wrap up this evening’s lesson. Once again I will mention that magic word of sharing where we have taught that one and one makes three–with what you and another–let alone a group—what you and another hold together. This is true whether it is with another person, or with me and Mother Spirit in your meditation, or with our Father in your prayers when you are very sincere and earnest in asking for help, if only what to do next. All of this becomes part of your soul. It’s what you are internalizing and setting aside for eternity, with God as the co-author holding this sacrosanct no matter what happens to you physically, mentally, or spiritually on into the future. These are your eternal triumphs, your eternal values you are establishing and enjoying day to day. You share them with us, for Mother Spirit and I are part of you.
Expanding to embrace your God co-authored soul
We will meet face to face some day when you have become one with your soul, when your consciousness, your very being, will have expanded to approximate the enormity of the soul of your whole life. This is what you have to look forward to, my dear ones. This is the expansion of your very self that we have offered a way to get it started–this consciousness of yourself, day to day; this determination to turn things around that you know, in your heart of hearts, is a way to keep growing on to a greater health and a greater sharing your life with those around you. And so, my dear ones, I bid you to be in my peace. Let it settle over you, and be still within it. Be free and thankful within this peace that goes beyond understanding, yet so need-fully informs your understanding. Mother Spirit sends you her love, and we both wish you a wonderful Good Evening
