2007-03-26-Temporal Independence, Being In the World
Marin #126
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Temporal Independence, Being In The World
o 1.2 Group: Marin TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Nebadonia
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
o 3.3 Dialogue
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Temporal Independence, Being In The World
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, Thank you for the recent installments in our Owner’s Manual For Human Beings, being human. We appreciate the Table of Contents in which you introduce and/or remind us of all the different aspects and dimensions we might enjoy. We are especially appreciative of the Shop Manual section, with its Helpful Hints for when we become all choked up and out of gumption due to incompletely combusted karma. Ok, I promise: no more analogies. All kidding aside, we are sincere in our appreciation and the enthusiasm with which we look forward to these visits together. The love in your words is quite palpable to us; and so, we trust, is our love for you. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, my dear children, this is your spirit mother, Nebadonia. OK, let’s hit the starter button, fire up, and get on our way. Actually, as an aside, Michael and I are quite tickled with your humor. As your Urantia book informed you, this was one of the great gifts of Adam and Eve to the human races: a keener sense of humor, a wonderfully liberating sense of the self-deprecating kind where you lose your abject fear of being a bit foolish from time to time. All this is very healthy and you will certainly enjoy many different kinds of humor over on the other side–as you call it. All higher spiritual beings do have a great sense of humor. There is a need not to take ourselves too seriously. It’s all part of our deepest security in our Father’s arms.
Lesson
Wonder (The state of question and wonder)
Like a few weeks ago, I would like to extend something Michael said before and look a little more closely at what we mean by living in a state of question and wonder. In line with your analogy, let’s look at the physical part of this first. Think of craftsmanship, your ability to work with tools and materials, whether you are a carpenter or a cook, a car mechanic or a jet jockey, a computer analyst–anything having to do with stuff, all this impersonal world you live in.
We’re suggesting you cultivate an attitude of detachment right in the hurly-burly, right in the living processes themselves. This is one way you escape the drudgery of repetition. You not only notice the continual creativity of God’s, the fact that this moment never happened before, you can also embrace and enjoy a detachment from yourself and your own abilities. This opens a door to constant refinement, a learning process whereby your craftsmanship can grow.
You can keep getting better and better at whatever you do by accepting this challenge, welcoming it, seeing it’s one way out of boredom. It’s one way of keeping your work and your play open-ended. For as we’ve told you recently, you’ll be dealing with stuff and your relationship with it for all eternity. Why not get in a playful, creative mood with it? No matter what you are doing, even if it’s the one-hundredth time, be curious about it. Wonder if there might be some other way of doing it. Lose your fear of trying something different.
In this context, I’d like to point out that those who are so painfully bored with whatever it is they are doing, who feel they are in some hell of repetition where nothing ever changes, and the minute hand on the clock seems more like the hour hand and time is just some agony dragging by; it is a very sad irony that this same mentality is extraordinarily startled by, and fearful of, change. Instead of seeing some change in the routine, the job, the process as a welcome difference, they feel threatened by it and can’t wait to get back to their reassuring, if boring routine.
With physical things the state of question is a kind of detachment in which you are standing slightly back within yourself and just watching what you are doing. Michael mentioned this within the context of just watching your breath—without affecting it–in your meditation. It’s a special kind of ability but it does make each moment as it comes a discovery. We can only ask you to try this, and accept on faith, if you cannot yet perceive the fact, the world is constantly new. There is always, as you say, something coming down.
(Temporal independence)
Now think of this with respect to your mental and spiritual dimensions. Michael mentioned an ideal relationship with your past in which you are detached from it enough it is not influencing you other than what you want. You have a kind of temporal independence. Now imagine how nice it would be if, at the same time you have this independence from the past, you have it completely open to you, nothing hidden, no fearful pitfalls or monstrous past events waiting to pounce on you if you are not wary.
We mentioned once with respect to injuries how parts of an event can be lost due to shock, and yet, my children, for so many folks this is true about large segments of their childhood and adolescence. Some have been so terribly brutalized by their own parents and associates the memories are of a very real pain, whether physical or a species of mental torture and bullying. I would ask you to see yourselves somewhat as we do, as little glowing suns in the spiritual firmament. For you do have your self-power. You do have a potential for autonomy and free will. You do have your own creative spirit that can glow out from within you.
Now your Urantia book has informed you the physical universe is shot through with enormous directed streams of a very subtle energy you have not yet detected. Those fortunate physical suns which are positioned right in these streams of energy can burn on indefinitely, not solely dependent upon the physical material that went to make them up initially.
You are more like this kind of sun, my children. You too have your own spark of life passed on to you at conception, just naturally growing in your mother’s womb and afterwards: plus you have your own intake of nutrition. But spirit-wise you are like the suns that receive energy from without. You have the love of the whole spiritual community, Michael and myself and our other Celestial children, and then that single, greatest source of love energy–God, all feeding you from within that you may continue to shine on and on into eternity.
Presence (Your spiritual presence in the present moment)
So with respect to time, feel yourselves glowing this way with an output of radiant energy holding the past and the future at a slight distance away from you. You’re certainly here. What you have experienced is part of your soul; and the future will still happen. It’s God’s will that it does. But in the meanwhile, right now, here you are glowing in the present with your own radiant presence.
What you are doing is now open to question and wonder. You can feel for an intrinsic value in your living, not just to make up for something you did in the past. Cease striving to vindicate yourself, for this merely precipitates you into a defensive position where it’s hard to ever catch up. You’ll always be behind the curve, struggling to compensate for something that is rightfully gone. By all means, make amends to any others you have harmed in your life, but for yourself, open your heart and forgive. Remember what Michael and I have said about the totality of your being, still being beyond you. You needn’t even pretend to begin to judge yourself in a total kind of way.
Rather, make your moment by moment smaller assessments as necessary and let us and God, our Father, be concerned about your total self. You are in our safekeeping. Just feel yourselves to be these radiant beings, hanging here totally suspended in the present moment–almost, from the standpoint of your personality, unmoving, as if time were flowing past and all around you like a current in space, you leaving a trail of radiance streaming behind you. And that’s your soul.
So here you are in the present, suspended in spirit, glowing, creating, initiating, feeling the fires of spirit burning in you as our Father’s and our love pours into you as well. Can you feel yourselves this way, my children? Can you feel your living presence in this present moment and how, actually and in truth, all your past is here with you now, and dependent upon you, dependent on your living continuity and persistence for its reality–and not the other way around?
As to the future: well, here it comes. Use what foresight you can muster, but wonder about it too. Be aware how the source of your foresight—wisdom, is also within you, and in need of a reoccurring visit. So enjoy these experiences. Realize your autonomy, your freedom. Fear not this being suspended with infinity in every direction and dimension. If you have any questions or comments this evening, they can be a part of this glowing presence you are, that we share.
Dialogue
Student: I don’t have any questions, but I have a comment. Something shifted this weekend. I notice I’m more open and a little more expanded than I was before. It’s a nice feeling. I don’t know what I did or didn’t do, but it is different than it was last week. I’m enjoying my life with a lot more happiness, and still there’s a humanness that’s always there—for me anyway. It’s a little bit dark, but not as dark as it used to be. So thank you and Michael, and all your children who’ve supported me.
(Being in the world all fresh and tender)
NEBADONIA: Thank you, my dear son, for taking my words to heart and feeling that glow inside. Last week you had a wonderful realization of how you do have to reread and think things over and over to let them soak in; entertain ideas and notions and concepts to let them effect you. I think now you are reaping some of the deep rewards of understanding, the power of understanding. You are this glowing ball of energy and as you slowly clear away all the hard calluses, the thick skin that hides the light, and have the nerve to go out into the world all fresh and tender—and it does take nerve to do this—you reap the immediate rewards of feeling your light shining out, illuminating your world and those you meet. So I thank you, my son, for having the courage to try these things and let them soak in. Be in my love.
Student: Thank you, Mother.
Student: Yes, Mother, once again your talk was right in line with what I’ve been experiencing. Yesterday on a bike ride I was thinking to myself that there is a part of me that has failed myself and God because of my past, because of not allowing realizations take hold of me. Instead I would take a different path of distortion or desire, not for my own good, or others’ good either. So I was kind-of admonishing myself for failing to go deeper and having these understandings take hold. My life could have been so different. So what you said tonight was greatly appreciated.
There’s a part of me—I’m only 52, and I know in the grand scheme of things I’m nothing—but I feel I’m letting time slip away. I do feel myself wanting to vindicate the past decisions, and that it’s only perpetuated by an inner anxiety, instead of being in alignment. That feels more at home, more at peace, more real and present, more creative. So I thank you for what you said. Because I do beat myself up for past decisions.
(Actively initiating VS. reacting)
NEBADONIA: My son, you are getting a deeper understanding of this wondering, self-questioning process. The next step would be to do this in a more positive way where you are not depending upon negativity for motivation. (laughs—What…) Let me explain that rather obtuse observation. (Mother Spirit laughs as well) Michael mentioned this with respect to the difference between a positive self-questioning and wonder about what you’re doing and have done, and doubt. In the analogy I was evolving tonight, doubt would be feelings directly dampening that glowing fire within you, threatening to put the fire out. It’s allowing the self-questioning to go too deeply, cutting to the quick.
One of the solutions to being in fearful doubt is to return to your home base of spirit and actuality, and just feel your heart beating, feel your breathing stoking those fires of your life. It also depends on where you find yourself with respect to the necessary work of reflection. You may have accumulated a large backlog, a whole disorderly stack of stuff to look at. It’s going to take you a while, a lot of effort, a lot of accomplishment of understanding before you can thoroughly rest with respect to these past events that have gone too long now without review. This is what is meant by past events abrading your nerves now because you’ve not yet reflected upon them sufficiently to put them back in the past where they belong. They are still too present.
So I’m suggesting that if you initiate this process, if you willingly look at these things before you are driven to, before the negativity—this doubt and fear–drives you to look at them, or to do things to make up for them; this is taking the initiative and getting ahead of the curve. You can feel a spiritual triumph in accomplishing here-and-now, feeling once again that fire burning in you, feeling the glow illuminating you within and without. I congratulate you on understanding—as you just expressed—how these processes work. You can feel the liberating quality of this.
Student: I wonder if that is in conjunction with why certain prayers have been answered and others haven’t—at least by appearances? Is there something in me that is deterring the answer to my desires or needs? About a relationship with a woman, part of me does feel I’m not ready for that, and I need to reflect on that. I need to be in alignment and that’s the most important thing—to get into that flow, to be in that flow, to be that flow. That is the most precious experience for me right now.
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, and the way to do this, you’re discovering, in to feel for that flow, to credit with your faith that there is a flow there. There is a universe there to acknowledge. There is a will of God’s to be in tune with. That is a big step forward. And you’ll find… (Mother breaks up laughing) there is a big will of God’s out there.
Student: It makes me look at and question the desires I do have. What are the motivating factors underlying all that? If I’m in alignment with the universal flow, then what I truly need will come into fruition. I’m feeling my way around what is the truth, what is the reality, what is God’s will in all this?
NEBADONIA: You are becoming conscious of, and addressing, some inner conflicts, some inner contradictions of go-away-closer. You want companionship, but are you ready for it? What does it mean? All these are necessary steps of self-understanding.
Student: And what does it mean to know wealth—besides just the monitory value? Is there another way to look at that, to experience that? Does that make me freer? I’m just grappling with that. I mean, there’s God’s will, and then what I see out there that’s a reflection of peoples’ beliefs, and societal beliefs, and understandings. I want to come from a place of wholeness and alignment.
NEBADONIA: And yet wholeness is only achieved after you’ve become aware of, and gathered up, all the separate little pieces. Otherwise it’s a kind of false or premature wholeness.
Student: In some of the material I’ve been reading, Jesus, when he was grappling with his need to go into places of silence and stillness, he too questioned what was going on around him and within him. So…I follow in his footsteps—in that sense! I’m certainly not Jesus.
(Jesus’ full and complete humanity)
NEBADONIA: Yes, this was his full and complete humanity, co-existing, after his experience in the Jordan, with who and what he was an a Creator Son. He was still a human being in all humility acknowledging the necessity to wonder, to tap into his own spiritual needs, to over and over again open himself to his Father’s will. Then he could build within himself his own human determination to live according to that will. For this reason you can truly say from a human standpoint: My goodness! Look at the life he lived! Look what he accomplished every day, day after day after day, starting out fresh and doing so much. This truly becomes the ideal for you.
Student: But if I compare myself to that, then I fall so far short.
NEBADONIA: This is just the way, and it is your choice, day by day, how much you wish to exercise it. He is just showing you where the source is of the strength to live a full life. The choice is yours. It is not by any means a comparison because, my son, you are not a four-hundred-billion-year-old Creator Son. In what you can only think of as a two-hundred-percent-ness of life, he was also consciously Michael after a certain point, and living his life as Jesus not only for his immediate associates, and for Urantia, but in full view—and consciously aware he was—of our whole Local Universe. So forgive yourself the comparisons.
Student: Thank you.
NEBADONIA: You’re very welcome. Continue to be in my love. And don’t forget to love yourself.
Student (laughing): I do have sense—just a small sense—of what Jesus went through, initially, when he felt the change within himself, and his perceptions were different from what his society saw.
NEBADONIA: And he lived at a time when abject slavery was a totally unconsciously accepted norm. In parts of the Roman Empire slaves made up nearly half the population. And they accepted it unthinkingly as well. It’s what happened if you were captured by conquest, preferable to being put to the sword.
Wonder—just for the fun of it)
Closing
The challenge I put before you, my children, is to feel yourselves as free-floating, radiant suns, just burning with your own energy and the intake of my Spirit Adjutants, and Michael’s Spirit of Truth, and peace, directly in the stream of love from our Father. All the past is right here, opening for you to appreciate. The future is constantly flowing toward you. See if you can feel this free space around you. Whatever your hand or your mind finds to do, you will find some freshness, some recognition this has not happened before. Wonder about some other way of doing it—just for the fun of it. I beam at you all of my love, both from without–here from Salvington, and right from within you. Let’s shine out together. Good evening.
