2008-02-11-Stages of Individualization
Marin #148
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Stages of Individualization
o 1.2 Group: Marin 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
Topic: Stages of Individualization
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, We feel so peaceful here in your presence. We’re always happy to acknowledge your presence here with us, yet it does give us pause to consider the kinds of beings you two are. We confess we cannot begin to comprehend personal beings dozens of times older than what our science says is the age of the universe–maybe a hundred times older than this planet we are living on; and then too your extent over so many millions of both evolutionary and architectural worlds peopled with all your children of so many different orders, some nearly as old as yourselves.
But while we can’t honestly comprehend your natures, we must admit they are fun to imagine. So we thank you for your light-hearted laughter, and teasing, and your deep abiding joy; and marvel that you offer us an equality of genuine friendship straight across. It fulfills our faith that you are truly our beloved spiritual parents. Let us say with our whole hearts, Amen–let it be so.
MICHAEL: Good evening, my children, this is Michael. I most heartedly agree: and it is so. We are here, and we are here for both you and ourselves. We do delight in you and it gives us such great joy when you can say the same thing, that you too fill yourselves full to overflowing with your awareness of us.
Lesson
Individual (Your individual lives–as you see them)
MICHAEL: We have assured you before, and have actually tried to demonstrate, our understanding and our sharing of your human lives more or less as you see yourselves; although this, of course, obviously varies enormously from one person to another in terms of their general spiritual development–how much of themselves they can be aware of from our point of view. So we do honor and take delight in the way in which you exist for yourselves–that is to say–consciously. This is no less than the story of your lives, my children, as you know and remember them.
I would like to talk a bit tonight about a subject that has come up over and over again, and that is the nature of your reality as an individual person. Let us look a little more closely at this individualization that you can realize within the living encompassing and continuity of God himself.
Your individuality is based primarily, but not only, on your uniqueness as a personality, and this you can understand most fully by thinking of God as that sole Supreme and Primal Personality–personality itself–who has sufficient absoluteness and infinity, if you will, to create a near infinity of individual, unique personal beings throughout His vast universe. But to realize your own individuality, you somewhat recapitulate the evolution of civilization, from the most primitive to the most advanced, as you grow up.
Mother Spirit touched on this last time, noting that for children and very primitive, un-self conscious folks, there’s no separation yet in their understanding between body, and mind, and spirit, let alone unique personality. They pretty much just identify with their conscious self which is not yet differentiated into physical-ness, mind, and spirit. They live in a very magical, mystical world because so much of it is truly inexplicable in all their various notions about what constitutes reality, and these notions are no way demonstrable. As one of your fictional characters once said: Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
We’ve mentioned before what an enormous leap forward it was to develop and gain acceptance for what you call the empirical method, a way of agreeing among yourselves on what constitutes a demonstration of natural law that, within a specific context, can be unfailingly repeated over and over again across the centuries. This scientific method literally created in human consciousness a separation between the material world and other, mental and spiritual causes and effects. Indeed it has proven so successful in the physical realm you have folks walking about who could be considered materialists, who believe with their whole heart that everything in human reality can be explained in terms of matter and energy in different states, including living.
But when you include the fact of living personal beings, for most folks there is still something left over, something that cannot be explained in terms of strict physical cause and effect. More recently you’ve evolved a further separation of inner human reality into mind and spirit, if you will, psychology and religious experience. And while, historically, as mankind’s developing science analyzed the world outside, and they build up their inner reason and logic based upon the causes and effects that could be demonstrated, now to a large degree, with your statistical analysis of hundreds of thousands of cases, you can deduce certain psychological truisms that have a wide validity.
For some, religious experience, isolated this way, is what they feel is left over, what cannot be demonstrated or proven to be predictable. This is almost their definition of that inner experience which is uniquely personal and, being unique, seems to contain some irreducible kernel that will forever remain ineffable, ungraspable, and unable to be articulated and shared completely, even with kindred souls. Again we’re back to a nub of uniqueness when you attempt to understand and really feel what your personality is on the inside.
Growth (Stages of individualization)
So as an individual person, you go from this magical state of undifferentiated oneness that is a complete blending of the physical and mental and spiritual that the young child experiences. Then you encounter a kind of a fragmentation in the seeming separation of these aspects into objective and subjective. Ironically, a lot of our lessons have added another complication–(Michael chuckles)–of the personality- and soulful-dimensions of human reality as well. Yet there is no way of avoiding this discrimination: it is part of your culture, part of your evolving civilization. It was and still is essential for the weeding out of that species of error you call superstition–imaginary notions that pretend to a true cause and effect meaning, but are found under examination to be utterly unreliable. It’s necessary to leave this stage of magical innocence of an undifferentiated wholeness and run the gauntlet of fragmentation and separation. This is the very angst of adolescence and immature civilizations.
So often in these social and cultural contexts ignorant of or in doubt of some final unification, you find the existing wide gap in so many peoples’ minds between science–the study of that out there, and religion–the experience of this in here: and never the twain shall meet: they war against each other still. Yet here we come encouraging you to bring them together. Like your two eyes that give you binocular vision and the perception and appreciation of depth, so too you need an equal understanding of the physical sciences and the reality of your personal religious experience. These not only can but need to be unified in order to inform and critique each other.
I said seeming fragmentation, as a conscious experience, but consider that even at the height of this process when you seem to have a very distinct separation between the physical, the mental, the spiritual–materialism, psychology, and religion–because your particular family, or larger society or culture emphasizes one over the others; we ask you to notice that there is no complete separation, no true objectivity, due to the fact of projection. As Mother Spirit put it last time: you surround yourselves; you encounter yourselves “out there.” You experience meaning and value out there, though the recognition is literally taking place in here, in your mind.
In this you are somewhat like a movie projector. Although you know that light is bouncing off those exterior objects because they are really out there–the objective world is not an illusion, that light is being interpreted in your brain. What you are actually experiencing is the interpretation of those light waves. We gave the example of how, say, a complicated schematic of the inner workings of a computer can appear as curious doodles to one person, yet to another be obvious and precisely meaningful, intrinsically valuable.
This process of projection works so well, so instantaneously and unconsciously you may seldom pause to think of how spirit, the origin of value in human reality, interpenetrates your physical and mental aspects and seems to exist in both the living physical world and your inner reasoning and understanding: you’re constantly evaluating everything. This spiritual unity is always present, even, ironically, in the mind of the most devoted materialist who gives mental meaning and spiritual value to the very notion that he has risen above these supposed superstitions.
Here I’m pointing to the spiritual unity of your personality that is continuous, that all through childhood and adolescence and young maturity can present to you a unified reality. But because your reality is growing and changing, however much it is fraught with uncertainty, anxiety, sadness and suffering, no one who aspires to be an individual and have some real feeling, some deep experience and understanding of their personal uniqueness, is spared this gauntlet. Granted, there is a true sweetness to the innocence and magic of childhood, but like everything else in your lives, my children, you cannot cling to it for long. You cannot insist upon it for your children. The sweetness and charm of innocence is offset by the fundamental need for experience. And so you grow, you embrace the seeming discrimination of the physical and mental and spiritual aspects of your life for the necessary understanding comprehension of the human condition.
Now you can understand further some of the olden religious teachings from those who often failed to distinguish between the points of view of ones God-created total self–including ones personality and soul–which they assumed, and ones limited conscious self–which they were; sometimes referring to both in the same sentence. So, my children, you can see why you are not spared running this gauntlet of seeming fragmentation and separation for your own good understanding. It’s the only way you can recognize meaning and value in such a plethora of truth and error from all the past that, as Mother Spirit said, is the living sea of information you’re swimming in.
This is a thousand times more apparent on Urantia where you have almost all the stages of civilization–in terms of mankind’s understanding of himself–coexisting at the same time; where different cultures encounter and try, or not, to understand each other. For millennia now this is what explorers ran into, and yet history is not repeating itself: every new day is also unique. Now primitive or medieval cultures have right within them the technological products of the most advanced civilizations yet. They had no television and computers back in the original medieval times. The primitive tribes of thousands of years ago could not crank up a generator, point an antenna at the sky, and bring in the world.
This is the adventure you’re in the middle of, so keep wondering what particular stage you are in along this continuum of childhood innocence and oneness, adolescence estrangement and fragmentation, then, hopefully, the re-unification in wisdom and worship truly crediting your inner life with the reality of religious experience, the contact with and developing that dimension we call spirit which is inclusive of everything.
This is the marvelous story of how the evolution of civilization in a planetary race is recapitulated by every child born into it. It points out the necessity for each generation to absorb all that is given it, and then carry the torch of understanding and true spiritual embrace one step further along than where they were given it. What great fun this is! We thank our Father for setting such an adventure before us.
(God’s absoluteness and infinity)
This is the way of being appreciative of His absoluteness and infinity. Even though we may truly contact Him, feel Him, converse with Him deep within ourselves, we can also in all humility acknowledge that He is truly absolute and infinite beyond what our concepts can ever able us to comprehend. He will forever be our encompassing. He is that which continually creates and sustains us so, as your great old hymnals put it, we can rest in His everlasting arms. He is the unity we seek, and our faith can allow us to rest in the assurance that that which is incomprehensible to us really exists, manifesting Himself as the greatest beauty, the most profound truth, a real goodness. And so we acknowledge you, dear Father of all of us. We thank you for your love that gives us this freedom to acknowledge you so–not out of force or coercion, or even necessity, but of the free will of our love for you. Amen. (students: Amen)
Now let your questions and your comments pour forth. I’m all ready.
Dialogue
Student: Good evening, Michael. That was so very thought-provoking I’m really looking forward to reading this back. It was deep, and I’m not very educated. I really have to read all of this back. But I hope what I’m hearing, I was thinking of in the car on the way here–about individuality, and personality, and identity. I was thinking how I probably wouldn’t be here even buying any of this had I not had the experience of actually being separate from my physical body and still alive–not dying, but out-of-body–whatever. I mean, I’ve always been fascinated about the physical, and then the mental, and the, I guess, the spiritual–the soul or spirit of what I’ve experienced once when I woke up from my dreaming I was hovering around the room, and I realized, wow, OK, this must be my–(Michael chuckled at this)–my truer self. This is the real me that’s formless right now.
That experience taught me to stay so open. I can’t explain everything but I can witness it, and I can be amazed and thrilled by this adventure. So my question is: you know, of course, fear is the big limiter, and as I’ve worked on fear in my life, when these experiences happen again I’m very, very curious and very amazed. I’m not so frightened any more in the sense that my truer nature is: that’s OK. Now I get a sense of what dying is going to be like and it’s not so serious.
I really think that the universe is this giant playground and I’m getting, you know, the idea that I will be able to pick and choose where I want to go–although I need to read more of the Urantia book about the Morontia level, and exactly understand it. But I do get the sense of my own personality and everything that my life has been that makes me unique from you, from D, from J. I’m unique. I truly get the sense now it’s not all illusion. Everything out there is real. I’ve been in a formless state where I’m traveling through this physical dimension, but I’m not physical. So that experience stirred up in me a whole lot of excitement. I’m really thankful for that experience. So your speaking about personality tonight was really great.
But if I find my self really out there, am I supposed to go and meet other entities that are outside their bodies? That’s really a scary realm. I know I’ve asked you this before: what should I do with these experiences? Just think of you and don’t let the fear overtake me?–and just see what happens?
Experience, Dreams (Mystical experiences; lucid dreaming; ESP)
MICHAEL: Essentially: yes! There are so many wonderful states of mind that are such an alteration or different species of normal consciousness that, as you become conscious of them, they disappear: your normative mind reasserts itself. So to remain highly conscious in one of these states is very tricky. It’s why we suggest your practice of stillness be one of relaxing and allowing.
With respect to these experiences you’ve had, my daughter, you might be surprised to consider there’s a paradox here because at the same time they give you an appreciation of how unique you are, they are well nigh universal. Almost everyone has had them to various degrees. They might be the import of your Father Fragment that introduces so many actual thoughts, suggests so many connections, and can even provide experiences that you can only infer meaning from later on as your logical, normative mind evaluates them.
The experiences remain ineffable in themselves, as do you. Similarly, while you cannot consciously experience unconsciousness by the very definition of these two states, you acknowledge its existence by practical notions of taking in a lot of information and then sleeping on it, giving it over to some kind of mind that is going to digest and organize it, all by itself.
So we offer you all these different distinctions to give you some reference points that you can infer from your mystical/spiritual experiences. Once you have these humanly boundless touches of the absolute and the infinite, usually in the warm, living aftermath of these experiences you rightfully hesitate to over-think them, let alone talk about them, because they seem so beyond normal thought or words. Some of the wise teachers who lead you to these experiences suggest just that, that you spend some time just being quiet and basking in the afterglow like soaking your weary and fearful soul in a hot tub; and be content with that for a while. Inexorably you normative mind–(Michael chuckles)–has to reassert itself. Like your body unconsciously worrying at a sore tooth, your irrepressibly curious intellect will do its best to express this ineffable experience to you, and others. This in turn precipitates language, culture, and historicity–the entire living unique context of whatever age the individuals find themselves. Then, if they’re not careful, come the arguments, the discussions, the comparing and contrasting.
This is why, my daughter, I suggest you rest in these experiences as much as you can recall them in their pristine purity, and keep that sacrosanct right along with all your probing curiosity and human need to express them in words–as you say, to get a handle on them. Keep them separate if you can, and welcome more!–as often as they wish to occur. They can just pop up spontaneously in your stillness as you relinquish your hold on the outside world and the let the inner realities come forth. You are on the edge of your unknown so there is an element of fear involved. But then there is possible an element of triumph, of discovery.
The final thing I would offer is that in each stage of your development there is a need to reevaluate your larger context of meaning and value, yet the greatest mistake of so many philosophies, and metaphysics, and formalized religions is the unconscious habit of illusory Monday-morning-quarterbacking–the stubborn insistence that if only this or that had gone otherwise, some desired outcome would have happened; forgetting everything then was also in flux–like now. This is, in essence, clinging to some game plan of life, some grand notion of reality, even after it has been proven inadequate by facts. Nothing that ever happened was unnecessary, but was the resolution of living existence.
An outgrown illusion is only a reality that ceased to exist and was so judged after the fact. It may have played a large part in a person’s life, and be part of their soul. Even a cartoon character like Mickey Mouse has a certain reality and, like superstitions or wishes, expresses human feelings. There is no need to arrogantly and with condescension consider the outgrown notions–you yourself had to come through–with egoistic contempt, forgetting that, just as the game had to be played on Sunday, it is only after the fact that some things are known for sure. Re-evaluate as you must, glean what meaning you can, but find a way of respecting the past and letting it be. Now did you have another question?
Student: My experience with lucid dreaming? I just want to know I’m kind-of on the right track here with this understanding. And I will definitely rest more in stillness more often. But I found myself one morning evidently dreaming I was waking up and finding my piano gone, whereas if I had actually been in an out-body-experience the room would have been just as it should have been. That was puzzling and I couldn’t determine if I was awake or dreaming I was awake. So is there a real difference between dreaming you’re awake and actually being out in the Astral?
MICHAEL: Yes, my daughter, pretty much so. There are so many different states of consciousness: keep them separate as much as you can, as separate experiences. Respect their unique qualities. Wonder if you can validly compare them when each has its own validity. At the same time none of them possess absolute truth. You can deduce certain uniform-seeming spiritual laws from all your experiences, and extrapolate them into the future to test against your insight, but for all these various psychic experiences, just remember each one and let it be, independent of whether or not it may be a lucid dream or ESP. What is each telling you in itself? If you think is might be genuine ESP, check it out. How much truth did it contain? But enjoy them all–everything.
Student: Thank you. Speaking of telepathic things, I’ve felt I could pick up on my sister’s thought waves, and she’s a thousand miles away–you know, if something was going on for her. Then once–I know everyone sees faces in the patterns in rugs or similar things–wood grain, shadows, but once I saw her face in a carpet and she seemed really stressed out. I called her the next day and she’d had an experience out hunting. Then I did it three nights ago with my other sister–her face was about the size of a quarter–and it was just very odd, but because it had happened before, I called her the next day. And sure enough, she’d had like a crying spell. So is this really common, where you can pick up on loved ones and their thought waves when something’s wrong?
MICHAEL: Keep in mind, my daughter, your Thought Adjusters–the pre-personal Fragments of God in both your minds–can communicate with each other, yet this is hard to evaluate as to their validity because you have the psychological fact the human mind can also pick one instance out of many and give it extraordinary meaning. This is outside the scientific realm of proof because you would have to make very strict notes on all the times you’ve had these intimations–whether visual or whatever–and then compare them to the times they were valid, or not. I would just keep an open mind about all these phenomena and, if you want, within yourself, if it seems like a fun thing to do, keep track of how often they seem to be valid, and how often they seem to be only coincidence. Certainly they are part of your loving connection with your two sisters. So keep adding to your collection.
Student: Is there an ability to follow or develop that could actually do some good? There was a crime in my neighborhood recently and so I wondered if I should try to develop this to help. I just keep asking for your guidance.
MICHAEL: Then let me ask: why not? Explore. Extend yourself out into every dimension you can. This is definitely stepping off into the unknown, and I can feel under your questions your wondering about an objective validity, a demonstrable, predictable validity to these phenomena. Insofar as they are so unique to the individual, and to each circumstance, this is something you are going to have to decide for yourself. But keep exploring, keep wondering. Welcome these experiences.
Student: I do! With less fear I do welcome them.
MICHAEL: I might say, about other people who experience the same kind of spiritual influence in their lives–this kind of connection with those they love–that it expresses itself differently within their belief systems. Some interpret it as nostalgia or memory, this presence of a friend or sibling who is far away, yet they might wonder if they are picking up some essence of their soul. So keep exploring; keep seeking my peace throughout. And keep being unafraid.
Student: I will. Thank you, Michael.
MICHAEL: Come in D…!
Student (laughing): I’m here! Everything you said tonight kind-of flew right over my head–but that’s OK! I’m also looking forward to reading the transcript. I’ve been thinking about some of the past conversations we’ve had, and I think it was you, talking about what our ideals are. What are my ideals for tomorrow and a year for now–for me and my family, for my community, and for this world? We ought to talk about these things more. I see the validity of that–that we need to stretch ourselves more to think beyond our assumptions.
But sitting in front of my computer and asking myself this, I kind-of drew a blank beyond, you know, world peace and that kind of thing. It seemed so superficial. For me, those things are given. I couldn’t write anything down. Maybe I don’t want to put words to my conceptions because that diminishes them. Maybe my ideals are indescribable. So I guess my ideals are…God. And I don’t want to diminish Him by defining Him. But I’ll still try to put it to words (laughing). I guess.
I’m just trying to stay open to reality–the idea of reality; the reality of reality–what that really is for me. It goes hand in hand with finding my voice that is not independent from the One Voice of the universe. How can I put this? In my musing over reality, I’m trying not to be bound in by any points of view. I’m not tied down to what I might have thought once. It’s more open-ended. But it’s wholly possible, and beneficial. So… (sigh)
Ideal (More ideals)
MICHAEL: Well, my son, I think you’re going to enjoy reading your latest discourse here, because you started off wondering if there were any ideals you could put your finger on and articulate, and then went on to do so quite well. This can be a wonderful ideal to pursue, being able to differentiate between your wondering and what you already know. You can do this by keeping sacrosanct those experiences of a pure reality that are ineffable. These are like those other ideals I teased you to imagine–the most wonderful things happening, irrespective of possibility or probability–and just let them fill your mind. They too will be somewhat ineffable, but that’s great: they’re alive. Reach for them. The pure feelings will filter down in time to what can be expressed in thought.
You’re beginning to sense this. You already have, if you will, the ideal of an ideal being ungraspable, being open-ended, being out ahead of your own consciousness. It’s where you’re trying to approximate as best you can with your human ideals what God’s might be for you.
Student: The idea just crossed my mind that maybe I’m living my ideal without even realizing it. Maybe I’m putting forth my ideal with each step, learning to relax more with whatever arises. I mentioned before hearing Alan Watts saying that nirvana is just being open–perceptually open without defining, without grasping, without holding or clinging. When points of view or emotions come up, like anger or irritability, or even positive ones like love or joy; just relax with them and try not to hold onto them. Just be aware.
Analysis (Thought and feeling–analysis and ineffable experience)
MICHAEL: Yes. Grow the ability to have both of these aspects simultaneously in your conscious mind, both the experience and the detachment, which is again a further differentiation within a vast, open-ended wondering that is content to feel things without needing to express them or grab hold of them with past associations that, in a way, deny their living newness. Just see the flow of thought alongside these feelings, and let each be. This is what you were expressing, how not to let your ideas, mainly your reactions coming from previous definitions, affect the flow, the pure awareness of what’s happening now.
They can both be there together, and you can see the purpose of each. Your thinking, analytical mind is necessary, and can be taught to respect the spiritual, however ineffable. Simultaneously, your spiritual experiences can be developed to the point you don’t have to shut out thought in order to have them. So I’ll put that one out ahead of you–(laughing)–to aim for, to enjoy. Keep in mind some of those thoughts might be from the Father within you, and most appropriate. You are realizing the ideal of having these distinctions in consciousness.
Student: I used to define myself and my spiritual progress with what was being displayed, so I got frustrated because I wasn’t able to do certain things; my life wasn’t going like I thought it should.
But when I let that go, the relief was totally…(laughing)…wow–was really felt. It’s beyond seeking; it’s more like living, allowing myself to experience this ground of my being, this awareness.
MICHAEL: We could call this the reality of religious experience, the inner proof that cannot be demonstrated to another person. It’s the inner proof there is more to you than any single moment of comprehension can contain. The very practical and useful comprehensive aspect of your mind, the way it comprehends things by grabbing them conceptually, needs to relax to allow this larger self to swell forth so you can become aware of it. What you become aware of is this pure curiosity, this pure wondering, this insight of openness that can allow something totally new to pop in. This in turn leads to a growth in thought and comprehension. You go along in these pulses, approaching the ideal of having both simultaneously. This is why we recommend never holding your mind a blank in meditation, but let what thoughts that want to happen, happen. The stillness must come about of its own accord, and will, given time.
Student: Yes, I’m learning how to relax with a thought without doing anything about it.
MICHAEL: These are real abilities, and they are transforming your life inside and out–within you and with the others you meet.
Student: It’s interesting. There’s a possibility my little family–my daughter and her baby, and her boyfriend, they may be moving out if they get accepted by this housing development. Anyway, noticing how I feel about that, seeing the possibility, when I’m open to whatever might happen, who I am doesn’t change. The circumstances might change, but the ground of my being doesn’t. I will be alone, but that’s OK. I’m just open to whatever might be. That’s where I feel I really am transforming. I’m more alive, more curious. And I don’t worry about what’s not in my control. I told my daughter that whatever is beneficial for all of us is OK.
MICHAEL: I think this is what a lot of the formal religions of the world mean by the end of suffering when you have faith. It doesn’t mean that if you cut your finger or stub your toe there is no pain, but you don’t worry about it. The whole psychological component of suffering; as you just said, there is such a relief when this ceases, when you can feel whatever it is directly without a lot of uncontrollable reaction happening. You get to a much purer, tougher and tenacious state of awareness. It’s a strength, the strength of courage to just accept whatever comes along and allow it to register. It’s an inner confidence of your abilities to handle whatever happens. Even though you may get overwhelmed from time to time with some physical pain or mental sadness, you can ride along with it. You can know a diminishing of suffering right in the middle of that stubbed toe or sadness. That can be nirvana enough.
Student: Right–without running away from it, or trying to change it, or indulging it.
First student again: It’s like the pain is mandatory but the suffering is optional.
MICHAEL: There’s a quality of soul, a courage in the detachment that you do earn.
Student: I think too it’s what we identify with. I’m trying to identify with the indescribable. So I’m indescribable! (much laughter) There’s no attachment to anything, no clinging.
First student: It’s the difference between feeling empty and feeling full. Sometimes I go through a craziness for companionship, and then all of a sudden I think, wait a minute. It’s up to me as to whether I feel empty or full. It really is about taking my own life and learning my own perspective.
Socialization (Keeping yourself good company)
MICHAEL: It’s that deep inner confidence that there is a you there, that Mother Spirit and I keep reassuring you: you absolutely are! But you must learn a way of letting this reality come forth to keep you company. I don’t want you to feel schizophrenic here–(much laughter). We did tease you once before about having a whole crowd inside, what with Mother Spirit’s influence and a Fragment of God, plus your soul with all the people you’ve known. And yet there is also that unique, irreducible you as well, you are learning not to identify with anything in particular at all, but letting yourself be free. Be a democracy inside. I think you will find there can only be a democracy outside–socially and governmentally, when all the individuals are little democracies inside: they’re actually perfectly parallel points of evolution.
Student: Thank you, Michael, for all we’ve talked about this evening.
MICHAEL: You’re welcome. It’s so very enjoyable for me when my students begin to get the point and start to enjoy, themselves, the benefits of an expanded truth. Truth itself is God’s alone, but we approach it closest when we pay it the greatest respect of letting it be, letting it bubble up from His deep wellsprings of absoluteness and infinity we can touch inside. I do know He wants us to use Him this way, to definitely rest in His everlasting arms, and even, from time to time, find His hands on the ends of our own arms. That is the equally real individualization, if you will, that He created us to enjoy. So dig in. Get a hold, and hang on; and then let go.
Student: Wheee!…
MICHAEL: Right! (Michael laughs along) And be in my peace. Good evening dear children, dear friends
