2008-01-28-Soulful Ideals
Marin #147
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Soulful Ideals
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 Closing
Topic: Soulful Ideals
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, We thank you for kicking off the New Year with some very vigorous sessions; Michael, you were here two weeks ago, and Mother Spirit, you had a Lifeline conference last Thursday. We thank you for your messages of hope and inspiration, and also some good challenges to help us clarify our ideals as to what exactly we are aiming for–or aiming for at all–to point us in the right direction, to really think through what could be our contribution. We have come to understand that a world in Light and Life utilizes the full creativity of every person, where every person is pulling their weight and having their say as to what will constitute human reality on that world. So we accept your challenges, and look forward to fleshing out our ideals–with your help. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, my children. I’ll say that again; it just feels good to say that. Good evening, my children. (group: Good evening) You are very literally Michael’s and my children. This is your mother, Nebadonia. And as Michael keeps inviting you so often, so do I invite you to be dear friends of mine. Let us be as much on an equal footing as we can reach across the divide of the different kinds of beings we are, and just be good friends.
Lesson
Ideal (Soulful ideals)
NEBADONIA: This way we can flesh out another ideal that, hopefully, you parents and children have grown into yourselves. A good equality of genuine friendship is not always easy to establish. On the one hand it means relinquishing the authority of being a mother or a father, and on the other, outgrowing the natural rebelliousness of being a son or a daughter. To see each other as dear friends, we recognize and realize that together we fill each others’ souls.
As we’ve hinted before, your souls, my dears, do not contain every hamburger or hot dog you ever ate, however delicious. But they certainly do contain the other souls you have known, the other unique personalities with whom you have shared your human life. Think of them. As your Urantia book puts it so lovingly, so much of the materials of your life, even necessary things like food and shelter, the tools of your work, your vehicles and other possessions; all are means to an end. But the personal beings you’ve lived with, they are ends in themselves. This is what you carry with you, right though the transformation of natural death to the Morontia state. Though the fullness of this next existence is far beyond any possibility to convey to you, we assure you: you will recognize each other. Even beyond this there is what your Urantia book has called a–smile equivalent–between personal beings of vastly different orders, so you have no question as to the intentions of the Seraphim or Melchizedek suddenly before you. I’m always tickled with that expression of a–smile equivalent–between personal beings. (Mother Spirit chuckles) It’s true. It’s what you’ve already found between yourselves.
Unity (Inner unity)
Reflecting a bit myself, I realize we’ve used the words unity, and unify, a lot lately. This is the function of your personality because your personality, your personal being, is part of the Deity Absolute. The easiest way to get a grasp on this concept is to realize we use the word symbol–deity–to represent unity itself, and absolute insofar as the word God certainly means the personal aspect within total reality.
The one God is the First Source of all creation. Everything flows from Him either directly or indirectly through creative beings such as Michael and me, such as the beings who actually create the physical stuff out here in time and space. We are all part of the Deity Absolute, as are you. It is the function of every personality to thus mirror God himself as the First Source who unites all of creation. So you might think, my children, that on a microscopic scale this is what you are doing with your own co-created human reality.
Keep in mind your personality contacts impersonal reality–all this stuff, all this physical universe of matter/energy around you–through the physical senses of your body. And your personality is rather new at this even though most of you who read these papers are well into your mature years. So remember back into those first few years of your life, your beginning childhood. This is where it is such a great advantage for those of you who have been parents and raised your own children from birth; you’ve seen how life starts out with this small creature who is barely cognizant of his or her reality at all to begin with.
You marvel at how these little babies first begin to hear and see, and connect with the outside world. They’re like little sponges just absorbing everything, so full of interest and curiosity. They’re rather blank slates to be written upon, in addition to having a whole planet’s evolution of life right there in those little bodies. Then comes what you call the Terrible Twos: 2-year-olds, (group chuckles) and the budding of self-awareness, the beginning realization of a self, of a me that is contra-distinct from all that other out there that is not.
All of a sudden the realization begins to capture that struggling little mind: Me!–and of course, Mine!–That’s mine! (Mother Spirit chuckles). In the usual sequence of events this small and rather un-self-limited ego is fairly well developed by the time the first genuine expressions of thankfulness or worship can take hold in that young mind, and instantaneously!–the Thought Adjuster, the presence of the Father arrives. In other words, by the time there is an impulse towards the altruism of limiting the personal self of immediate gratification for the sake for some larger ideal, some greater notion of others and their well being too, the individual self is already very well developed.
And so begins the struggle between the immature ego–self-identified almost exclusively, to begin with, with the body and its senses, and its individual mind–and the just burgeoning spiritual impulses of worship and wisdom, thankfulness and insight. To resolve this struggle is what we mean by the necessity for unity. It is not just given. It does not just happen haphazardly or accidentally. For most human beings it is a real struggle, and one that is not often accomplished in the first human life.
Experience (The necessity for experience)
This unification is the function of your personality, and being experiential beings, the only way it can come about is through living experience. There is no substitute. Always remember, my dear children, that neither Michael nor myself, for all of our hundreds of billions of years of existence, for all of the unimaginable–to you–trillions of evolutionary sons and daughters–of all the different orders we’ve had, that we’ve seen all the way to Paradise and back to us again; in addition to all of that, or should I say, to crown all of that, Michael himself needed to have a human life, needed to graduate, if you will, by way of his own personal, human, living experience–for the both of us. So you can see there is no condescension whatsoever when I say you are experiential beings and your personalities must, step by step, piece by piece, bit by bit, learn how to do this unifying through living experience. The possibility for this unending individual experience is what you call eternal life.
Last time Michael talked with you about what it might be to be a perfected, fully realized human being. You bring all the aspects of yourself you’ve experienced into consciousness. You let your physical and mental life become unified with your self-reflective spirit and the Spirit of God within you. More and more your conscious self begins to approximate your soul. And insofar as your soul is itself a spiritual creation, a spiritual record of your experiences from God’s point of view, to approach your own soul is to approach and bring into consciousness the Father Fragment that indwells you. Indeed, it is possible for a human being to become totally one with their Father Fragment even while in a physical body, although that eternal fusing with a Fragment of God immediately extinguishes that body and translates them to the Morontia state, the full soul-state of being. For most human beings at your planetary stage of development, this is a rare occurrence. It usually does not happen until you’ve gone through several Mansion Worlds of development and further inner unification.
Though we cannot guarantee for you this ultimate union with a Fragment of God, my children, we can assure you that if it is your deepest desire to grow in spirit, to identify less and less with the temporal part of your being and more with the soulful, then you will make it. You definitely have it to look forward to. The main reason we cannot guarantee it at this time is because this is your choice. You have to choose eternal life. With your whole heart you have to desire this unification, this bringing into consciousness–to unify–all that you are and have been–physically, mentally, spiritually, soulfully, personally.
And so for your understanding comprehension we’ve drawn distinctions between your personality, your soul, your physical and mental being, the spiritual dimensions of your personality and the Father Fragment that has been your companion from your earliest childhood, and then your conscious self. For those children who have not yet, and those folks who have never, had an introduction to distinct spiritual realities, their conscious self is all they know or acknowledge themselves to be. Apart from those dreams they can remember upon awakening, they feel they somewhat cease to exist–(Mother chuckles)–every evening when they fall asleep, and somehow, mysteriously, are reborn again the next morning, considering only their persisting physical body to have bridged the gap; their minds went asleep.
Like children and primitive, un-self-conscious folks, they have little true awareness of how their own mind’s concepts contribute to their reality. Immediate necessity focuses their attention exclusively outward. They have yet to cross the threshold into full, spiritual self-consciousness and awareness of their own co-creativity. For security they generally identify with the prevailing group or tribal consciousness.
So you see, my children, with respect to your social group, the process of unifying yourself in full consciousness of all you are is the same as what has been called individualization–becoming an individual. As we put it once before, though you are raised by authority–your parents and your surrounding society–through the process of maturation you come to the point where you yourself must decide for yourself what is unconditionally true, again and again. As Michael said last time, this is your effort, your decisiveness, your creative contribution to yourself and others.
Although the different aspects of your human being are and have always been real and determining/influencing your perceived reality, we use the word–realization–to mean their being brought into consciousness for consideration, and embraced. This is the fully realized person. You need not be daunted you have not yet gotten there; you may still have a ways to go. Then too you have the whole physical, minded, and spiritual living universe full of personal beings in front of you to encounter, to encompass, to bring into conscious realization and make your own. Michael and I have every confidence in you. We know what you are capable of. If you have any questions or comments this evening, let’s bring them out into our shared consciousness here.
Student: Thank you for your confidence, Mother. Earlier this evening we were talking abut the 11:11 signs and various number combinations—like 555 and so forth, and I was just wondering what to do about it? Is there something more to it than…just something that’s interesting? It’s going on quite a bit. I know what the numbers mean but I don’t know what to do about it.
Guidance (Spiritual promptings–or coincidence?)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son. Well, I’m not going to let you off the hook. (much laughter) I suggest every time these subtle, or not so subtle, reminders of the United Midwayers of your planet pop up–on all your digital clocks?–I suggest you just stop and wonder what to do, and see what comes up.
Student (laughing): That’s too simple.
NEBADONIA: No, my son, I’m afraid you’re going to find it very, very complex, because each time will be unique and there’s nothing you can decide here and now in terms of some kind of uniform response. Let these incidents call forth from you at that moment what your response should be. In other words, keep asking yourself what is an adequate response to the promptings of the spiritual realm? Could it possibly be something that you yourself not only can, but need to create?—on the moment?
Again, I have every confidence in you. You will find a way if you simply let go any notions of needing to decide beforehand. Things of the spirit, my son, cannot be anticipated that way. We are all too spontaneous and of that personal aspect of reality that is not repeating itself. It is our creative choice to be one with the unfolding of God’s plans: and so we invite you to join us. Discover what that adequate response of yours might be.
Student: Thank you once again, Mother. That puts those things right in the moment of now.
NEBADONIA: The little prompts you perceive as spiritual in origin—whatever they are!—that is where they are happening, is it not?
Student: Yes, Ma’am!
NEBADONIA: Then be in my love.
Student: Good evening, Mother. I feel your presence so strong tonight. I feel your peace. I’m listening to you, and the word that echoes in my mind is–contribution. Sometimes I think I’ve come a along way and made changes in life; and I judge people less; and I try to practice that feeling I have of love for my immediate family: I try to practice it—keep it going. But here tonight I’m asking myself, How am I contributing? How do I contribute in such a short little span of time? But I’m getting to a level now where I’m feeling peace, and getting ecstatic, and loving nature, and getting in love with life. I’m feeling this now and I think maybe a few words of wisdom on how can I feel I’m really contributing?
Foundation (Being a spiritual bedrock)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my daughter, might I suggest what you just expressed? The greatest things you can contribute to those around you—peace, and love, consideration, acknowledgment, enthusiasm—these are what occupy the citizenry of a world of Life and Light. These are the greatest things you can offer others. This is what you can be–a spiritual bedrock for others and, if you will, take in all the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that come your way, and ground them, not bump them back with a little extra spin. Just absorb all the evil and error that comes your way day to day, and not reflect it back, but come back creatively, come back with a whole heart, come back ever so fresh and spontaneous that you offer others, over and over again, a new beginning. Because you yourself can have this ability to begin again and again. After some insult, or other bruising of your feelings—whatever comes your way—just take it in and respond creatively to those around you. This is what it is to be a spiritual bedrock, a spiritual anchor for others. This is irrespective of how much they might consciously recognize it.
Also, my daughter, consider how this kind of practice in turn gives you the most accurate reading on what works and what doesn’t. So it’s for you own information: what is spiritual? What is not short-sighted? What does last? What does truly contribute to others? (Yeah!) This takes a constant, fresh, open mind to be fully aware of your influence, to take full response-ability for what you are doing. This way you grow, you learn, you become better at developing a kind of charm. This is what Michael had so greatly as Jesus, for so many: a deep spiritual charm that led folks to feel peaceful, and so strangely, inexplicably—complete—in his presence. Does this give you some inklings? (laughing)
Student: Oh… Thank you; I’m just filled to the depth of what you’re saying. It’s just delightful; it’s just the words–spiritual bedrock. I see how I am peoples’ bedrock sometimes. I am into that. I have people telling me they notice the changes in me. They like being around me—these things I overlook sometimes. I could be doing more good than I realize.
That feels good! Thank you, Mother. Just delighted to be here.
NEBADONIA: Yes, my daughter, it’s a continuous process of imagining good ideals, and doing your best to live up to them, yet at the same time not overreaching yourself and setting yourself some too-abstract goal, some kind of imaginary great influence. Just allow yourself to be humble and content with knowing you are this good presence in your everyday life. So many folks get distracted by grandiose notions of changing everything in their future before they’ve taken their first few steps of noticing what effect they’re having immediately, directly.
Student: That’s the difference between intention and action.
NEBADONIA: Yes; and bringing into consciousness as much as you can of your full life’s experiences, the spiritual story of your soul. Let it shine forth and call forth the deepest soul of others. And what fun! (laughs) What deep joy this is. (Yes…) Be in my love, my daughter, and shine forth your own.
Student (very hesitant and feeling his way along throughout): Yes, mother, a while ago you or Michael said to me—I was inquiring as to how I would like to live as God intended me to live—and you or Michael asked: What made me think I was not doing so right then? (much laughter all around) Upon reflection, as you asked us to do, and through all the teachings I have experienced over the past few years, I’ve come to realize the truth of that. I can understand the depth of what you were asking. I was always going after the brass ring, and never reaching it. I’m realizing I am the brass ring. And the carousel. And all that.
I am the reality that you speak of, that I am this grounded being that we all are, that is only colored by my own beliefs and perceptions. If I allow myself to be still, and let just whatever arises, I’m being perceptively open. I’ve come to understand that nirvana is being perceptively open. That is the basis.
And if I allow myself to become more and more familiar with this ground of my being, this awareness, then I live as God intended me to. I am my intention–with no, in a sense, creating this: as if it were already created. There’s no dwelling upon it because there’s no need to: it is. If I allow myself to become more familiar, more still, and to rest in the grounded-ness of who I am–without any contrivance, without any destination, without any goals… I just allow. Then… (pause: everyone chuckles) I am that. I can contribute from that place—that is no-place. It’s all beneficial, with no greater or lesser good, with no inspiration because there’s no un-inspiration, no boredom. I can’t even be bored!—you know? (more laughter)
It seems like everything I’ve come to read, no matter what teaching it is, they all kind-of say the same thing: be the reality; and we cannot be untrue to our nature. It’s always present. We just have to allow.
NEBADONIA: Thank you, my son. I enjoy your feelings, and your reaching for expressions, of what unity is all about. Thank you very much. I enjoyed that.
Student: I enjoy it all. (much laughter all around) Thank you.
NEBADONIA: It is wonderful to have these times of what I mean by realization, having all this unity you can perceive in even the most disparate things–see the connections. See in spite of all the disagreements, the lack of uniformity of expression; see the unity of spiritual desire, the wondering, the getting lost and then getting found again. It’s good to just rest in this a while.
Purpose (Are you what God intended?)
It was Michael who asked you that question: what made you think you were not as God intended? If you are open to it, I’ll tease you with the fact that can be taken on many levels. One, the most apparent, and which occasions the most humor, is to consider the question rhetorically. Another, deeper level, as you just expressed so eloquently and joyfully, points you at the reality that is an encompassing for your conscious self: the God-created personality you are. Like your soul, your personality is an encompassing for your consciousness. Spatially, you are all around you.
Taken further, literally–what makes you think you are not?–is the function of the ideals you’ve not yet reached, but which you equate with God’s intentions for you. This is the self-questioning, the self-wondering. It need not necessarily be disquieting–though it usually is. This is another living balance between the real and the ideal on the human level, the wondering if, perhaps, there is not something more to life, something not yet realized, some untapped potential.
And so that itself–answering Michael’s question quite literally–can be what makes you think that you are not yet all that God intends for you. But that too is very real, is it not? Ideals are real; they really exist and influence people. To wonder which is the greater, the real or the ideal; the real already is and includes the potential ideal. In human life the real and the ideal are not yet one; they are almost contra-distinct from one another. But in God, in the Holy Spirit, the real and the ideal are one, and both are provided for your use–to know where you really are, yet show the light to where you ideally might choose to go. Not to play on words but, in this sense, the ideal will become more real as you approach spirit. This is realizing the ideal of becoming more spiritual. You approach where the real and the ideal are one.
Student: Yes, and it’s important because the reason why I was having such consternation about not living as God intended me to live, was because I was putting the ideal ahead of the real–that I was somehow less that I actually was. In one way the ideal can never be reached because we’re always expanding and becoming fuller. But I was not living who I am now, because I put myself up to something before I could actually realize it. Do you understand? (more laughter)
NEBADONIA (laughing too): Very much so, my son. You have just described the process of realization. This is very true. It is a process. It is an accomplishment. It is something you earn.
Student: Like a baby; like my granddaughter. Before she walked she crawled; and before she crawled, she rolled. And before that she just lay there. I was like rolling but wanted to run. But you know, that’s a simple metaphor.
NEBADONIA: This is why we’ve drawn a distinction between being perfect–perfectly unified within–which is your goal, your ideal, and being complete, which you always are in your fundamental, transcendent reality. At every moment of its existence all of reality is complete in God, yet it is capable, by God’s will, of expanding, of growing, of becoming more replete, more perfect–as He is.
Second student again: I think we run ahead of ourselves.
NEBADONIA: As Michael pointed out, there are those philosophies and metaphysics that do get mixed up on this point. Putting the ideal, the potential as greater than the already real, puts you in the position of never being complete. You can come to feel there is something real missing. And this can be a terrible, very cruel taskmaster. Their very definition of enlightenment, or completion, is always out ahead of them, and people can spend their lives like a small animal chasing its tail, and miss the glory within every moment.
Student: It’s like setting yourself up for failure, by definition. But it was so great hearing about nirvana–I heard once from Alan Watts–it was on an archival program–that it is just perceptual openness. Whatever arises, whatever you’re experiencing: don’t run away from it. Just experience it and understand its true nature. If we make it less than it really is, we’re lost. But if we understand our true nature, then we’re free. We’re living as eternal beings already.
As I rested in what you were saying, the ideal was here. And it’s out there as well. And that’s OK. I’m going to live–now.
NEBADONIA: This understanding is indeed a reversal of orientation, a true event in peoples’ lives. It is earning your wisdom through experience.
Student: I always have these questions in my head. I ask myself: what if we’re living our lives incorrectly? (a lot of laughter) Not judging by how we are, but what if the belief systems we have are coming from that place of there is so much more–we could be so much more? We can experience joy and heaven on earth. It’s here. It’s very, very real–when we rest; when we’re still. What is all this other stuff we create that seems incongruent with our true nature? We don’t have to get into that now. That’s another lesson. But those are the kind of thoughts that come up in my consciousness. So…thank you.
Truth (The sea of truth and error)
NEBADONIA: You’re very welcome, my son. We can go into it at greater depths later, but a lot of this is simply the history of your race, the history of thought, the history of philosophy and the ways human beings have tried to put it all together over the endless millennia–and have passed on the good and the bad, the truth and the error. It’s the sea you swim in. And you must recognize it all, or you are forced into a fundamentalist position of trying to shut it out. Yet here come all the opinions you’ve ever heard, knocking at the door of your soul again.
Student: I also understand the nature of it all. And there’s great relief in that.
NEBADONIA: And this only comes from being open to everything. See it all. Embrace it all in your understanding. Never forget that, as a personal being, you have an innate moral sense. Never let yourself be talked out of that but rather, develop it. All the while you keep the humility of realizing how young and just-beginning a potentially eternal being you are. That’s the difference between your self-limited, humble assessment of the present situation, and assuming any kind of judgment about a person’s whole self–your own or another’s.
Student: We’re all little infinities, little realities.
NEBADONIA: We like to think you’re all nodules of experience out here…
Student: …Better than tadpoles…
Closing
NEBADONIA: …created for that very purpose. When you think about it, that which adds to experience, that enables you to experience, is in keeping with God’s purpose for you. Whereas that which reduces experience, reduces consciousness to mere habitual repetition; any refusing to open yourself to experience more, even that which might be contradictory to your most cherished beliefs; this is a kind of dying right in life.
This challenge is what Michael welcomed as a Creator Son of God, this necessity for him to have a human life and experience the dust between his toes, the sun on his face. So enjoy it well, my children. Each moment of this life you know is unique in all of eternity. Embrace it. Experience it. Know the deep joy of that acceptance. Be in my love. Good evening.
