2011-03-07-Truth and Renaissance
Marin #201
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Truth and Renaissance
o 1.2 Group: Marin TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Nebadonia
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
3.1.1 Truth, Renaissance
3.1.2 Transparency
3.1.3 Individual
o 3.2 Dialogue
3.2.1 Information, Truth
3.2.2 Self Evaluation
3.2.3 Mansion Worlds, Judgment
3.2.4 Soul
3.2.5 Freedom
o 3.3 Closing
Topic: Truth and Renaissance
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, It’s good to be back with the two of you after a short break. I first want to thank the loyal students here who have been with us so many years. We do approach these times with some curiosity, perhaps even some doubt about what is happening here. How is it possible that two utterly illimitable spiritual beings, the origins of planetary life, the origins of our kind of human being, can speak to us this way? So we trust ourselves. We trust our own evaluation, our own valuing what you have for us. And we trust too that without you this simply would not be, any more than we would. So thank you, dear parents, just for being the kind of beings you are, just as we thank our mutual Father for all of us. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, it is Nebadonia, your Mother Spirit. So yes, by all means, my dear children, let’s take a few moments to let this soak in: who Michael and I claim to be; what we claim to be. To some of you who are unfamiliar with the Urantia book’s teachings it might seem ridiculous or almost absurd. But those of you who have meditated deeply on the truths revealed in the Urantia book have first entertained and then understood, at least intellectually, that I, as your Mother Spirit, am a part of your mindedness, your consciousness.
Truth, Renaissance
Truth and Renaissance
Just as normally minded human beings you have three great spiritual influences right inside you, really a part of your perceptions, your understanding, your memory, and your reasoning. This is literally what makes these transmissions possible. Michael and I are already and always a part of you. To no small degree, maybe even a large part of Michael’s Spirit of Truth is what leads you here and keeps you coming here, keeps you oriented and reaching for the truth. And as we have teased you with the notion, just by your very nature as a human being, then after your death your adventure out there among the stars, truth will always be a deeper, wider reality for you to embrace.
So it’s true, especially in this first phase of your eternal life, that truth is truly a transcendent reality. It is an encompassing within which you live, and truly we say that only our Father, only God is the sole possessor of all truth. He is the fundamental Reality of all existence, and so if you seek out the truth in any particular situation, so too you are seeking for the way, the path, the method, the means by which you can appropriate more and more. This is particularly important for you, my children, in this topsy-turvy Renaissance in which you’re all caught up. If you follow the news at all on your television you are aware of some of the profound changes going on in the world today that Michael spoke of in a Lightline Teleconference recently.
While there are many themes or trends to this change, we’ve pointed out several times this is what we call the decentralization of authority. Now with your modern media, your more democratic and generally available telecommunications, more and more individuals are communicating with each other all around the big islands of opinion established for some time now–various governmental bodies like little islands in the streams of information. More and more, individuals are able to communicate with each other and share their ideas, share their ideals. As Michael said, while this may appear as pure chaos, a kind of individuality run wild, we see the essential driving force of this worldwide Renaissance we’ll call a Spiritual Renaissance because it’s a re-evaluation of just what life means to you as an individual. This is the freedom you have now, this access to so much more information from so many points of view, it can lead to a kind of anxiety as you are thrown back upon yourself more and more as all the heretofore unquestioned authorities fight amongst themselves for your attention.
Transparency
The peace dividend
The way we see this, my children, is that this is a kind of peace dividend. We’ve given many lessons on, and your Urantia Book emphasizes, the hundreds of thousands of years of incessant warfare which has been your world’s history. Right from the tribal stage onward wherever you had folks warring over the use of resources, perhaps even for the land, the tribal territory itself, it has ever proven the point that warfare requires, almost demands, a unity of command and authority. The culmination of this was in the last century’s World Wars where you literally had whole nation/states being commanded by single individuals who were rightfully called dictators. Behind these were whole societies that were essentially put to the task of supporting that warfare, whole societies controlled by the secret police and what has come to be called terrorism, the deliberately arbitrary exercise of authority and power to terrorize a people into obedience.
So that is why we say that this Renaissance that is upon you, this decentralization of authority, is the dividend of an ever more peaceful earth, and there is no gainsaying the need then for more information from an ever greater number of points of view across what were social, political, and religious organizational boundaries. More and more does this call for a healthy competition in what you call the market place of ideas, for as strenuous and as strident as this competition is, there is no other way. Different ideals of how to live your life are being presented to you. Social and political and religious organizations are being examined as never before in the light, in this wonderful, penetrating light. This is what is necessary for the transparency we have called for, for as we have also taught in our many lessons, power comes from obscuration–the power that comes when social or political organizations can remain hidden. When so much of the true economic and commercial life of the people can be hidden from them, it becomes all the easier to manipulate them.
So we call upon you, we challenge you to accept this wild Renaissance springing from individual creativity that challenges your notion of what basic human nature is. Are people essentially selfish, self-centered, stingy, manipulative beings interested only in their own ego sense of themselves? Or is the essential connection between people, the genuine love shared between folks the greater force? As large centralized authorities start to break down in this light of transparency with more and more individual desires and ideals making themselves felt as the essential uniqueness of personality begins to blossom, is this chaos? Or is this really the way to a greater and more peaceful, creative world?
True enough, there is a great disillusionment that is a counterpart to transparency and seeing through certain illusions about social or religious groups with which you may have unconsciously identified yourself in the past. When you take that initiative back into yourself you may feel this forced upon you because you’ve suddenly seen through some of their machinations. You may suddenly realize, as we taught, many of the so-called religious leaders in your society were all along merely politicians interested only in personal wealth and power, and quite unwilling to share that power.
Individual
Trying times
So these are also trying times, my dears. There is this trial going on, this necessary trial of your beliefs. Tonight we are trying to show the necessity for this to help you welcome any disillusionment, to put the full weight of your own personal will in concert with Michael’s Spirit of Truth so you will always welcome the truth as compared to any illusion. Yes it is a topsy-turvy world. Various institutions that have held sway now for hundreds of years are being questioned as never before, and those who have nothing but an unconscious identification with these institutions are due for this disillusionment. The enormous banking of materialism as a way of evaluating your own personal growth is crumbling all around you. What emerges then, what this makes possible is your own spiritual inner life.
There is a basic human need to evaluate, sometimes moment by moment, what you are doing, what you value. And so we remind you that stillness, that being alone with Michael and me, being alone with God right inside you; this is your true home base. This is your deepest reality that transcends even this body and mind that you have. You’ve only to wiggle your toes or feel yourself breathing to realize again the intimacy you have with this marvelous, marvelous body of yours. Then to consider that you, your essence, your personality transcends and will survive even this.
I’m speaking of spirit, creative spirit. I’m speaking of personality, your own unique personality. I’m speaking of true independence of thought and behavior, dependent less and less on any other authority. You are this decentralization, this individualization we are talking about. So welcome and even demand your birthright, my children. Strive to be independently-minded. And then with this deeper grasp of what you yourself are, do what you can to see that the institutions around you reflect this. This is both your duty as a citizen and your reward as a child of God. We are with you in this embrace.
Now if you have any questions or comments this evening, they delight Michael and me because they do come from your very center.
Dialogue
Student: Mother, what is the difference between accurate information and truth? I look on the Urantia Book as truth, but truth is ever growing, ever expanding, and the Urantia Book is accurate information.
Information, Truth
Information and truth
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son. Truth is a transcendent reality pointing at something you can never fully, none of us shy of God can ever fully possess. This is why we say Michael’s Spirit of Truth is not only a boost, Michael’s presence inside you gives you a power, a desire, an orientation, pointing yourself at something that, though you will never possess it, it is the way to go. It’s what you point yourself at, and valid information is each little stepping stone along that path. The path itself is towards truth, towards this growth taking in more and more, understanding more and more tying it all together.
For as you go out into the world and then out into the universe your situation keeps getting more and more enormous. Just think what in the last few hundred years your microscopes and your telescopes have revealed as fact. So the information is these physical facts. Then consider the way your mind not only stores these facts but puts them together in understanding. Think of the understanding of what leads to what, cause and effect: what that means to you as a living creature. And then finding things that are just…coincidental: all these relationships. Then capping these physical facts and mental meanings is your spirit which recognizes value. So all these, my son, are components of truth while Truth Itself remains that Encompassing of which you are only a part. The ultimate truth is God and his way of doing things, his will. And so as you pursue truth and are able to embody it and live by it, so do you approach him. You will never be God. Michael and I will never be God. But we don’t need to be. You don’t need to be other than who you are: curious, interested, and oriented toward this great adventure. Does that seem to explain the difference between the steps of the path and the path itself, and where it leads?
Student: It does indeed, Mother. Thank you very much.
NEBADONIA: You’re welcome, my son. Be in my love.
Student: Mother, I can’t engage myself with the world too much for some time, but I’m more trying to enrich myself with study and learning. And I’m wondering if serving others is the way to build up treasures in heaven–so to speak, and to do the right thing. Or whether it’s okay for me to be sort-of on strike and not engaging with the world and helping others, but more self-centered and enriching myself by learning about science and exposing myself to many fields. I’m enjoying it, but I kind-of fear judgment for not having served very well here on earth with others. So I’m wondering if you could maybe clarify my thinking on this?
Self Evaluation
Making inner decisions
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son. I do wish to congratulate you for the courage to enter this realm of questioning. This questioning can be painful in the uncertainty it reveals, and just to entertain that uncertainty, to live in a state of question is the very first step, my son, for you to answer that question yourself. This came up recently with another student, of how you will come to make these judgments, these assessments yourself, as you are striving to do now.
My son, you are an experiential being and the culmination of all this experience you have is your soul. This is what you are asking: what do I put in my soul? What is the greatest value I can devote my life to, and then have as a soul possession for all eternity? How do I best use this time? And this, my son, is something no one can give you directly, for in one way your studies, as you call them, are a way of expanding yourself out into realms of knowledge and understanding.
I sense you are wondering, more and more curious, about personalities, contacting other personal beings, other people. And this, my son, you will have to try. You’re surrounded by people of every size and shape and organization. You live in a very cosmopolitan area surrounded literally by dozens and dozens of organizations you can tune in to, to meet other folks. A goodly number of these organizations are devoted to helping others and there’s literally no end to the amount of volunteer work that is available right there.
So I congratulate you on this questioning and encourage you to bring it down to earth and answer yourself. Answer yourself with reality. Try some of these good works you have almost a guilty conscience in not pursuing. Get out and see what this actually is beyond how you conceive of it, or you may find yourself guilty for not fulfilling what is still just your own imagination. The reality, my son, is this person, and then that person, that unique personality, that very special unique person, the very next person you reach out to help. Go toward that reality just to see what it is. That is the only answer I can give you or they can give you. Does that make sense?
Student: Yes, that really resonates. That’s really good advice for me. Thank you.
NEBADONIA: I sense a little bit of shyness and a little bit of guilt even. Don’t let these become a crutch. Don’t get too comfortable. I say, I congratulate you on opening yourself to this self judgment, this self-evaluation. But beyond that it’s a matter of experience, and there’s no end to the need. One of the very first lessons I gave to this group was: you cannot know until you are right in the situation what you yourself are capable of doing, how you yourself can respond to another person. That response, that generosity coming right out of your own spirit and soul, my son: there is nothing like it. This is a genuine accomplishment, an undeniable knowledge you have done something good for someone else. It’s a true gift of spirit and soul I hope you experience. So give it a try, and be in my love.
Student: Thank you.
Student: Mother, after we die, what kinds of judgments occur? You know you hear of everything between heaven and hell, and I’m just wondering about judgment and punishment and karma and all of that, to have a little clarification on that whole mess.
Mansion Worlds, Judgment
Judgment and Karma
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son. Michael and I consider it the greater part of truth, if you will, to not even pretend we can give you an adequate description of what it’s like to reawaken on the Mansion Worlds for the first time. There’s quite a lot of detail given in that chapter of your Urantia book, and the one statement that I will emphasize is that you will never forget in all eternity–and here we speak of millions of years, ultimately billions of years: you will never forget that moment of reawakening: to know that you have survived.
But you will have survived in a mind and a body, in a whole world that really puts to shame your most wild science fiction, even with the amazing abilities you have now in your television and movies to create whole realities. As you’ve been informed you will have what would be several weeks of free time as you know it now, although even time itself will be at first such a strange sensation in such a world; it will take you quite a while to just get over marveling. In a Morontia reality…keep it in mind the closest English word for Morontia is soul. You will be so much more—instantaneously–all that you are; I should say, initially all that you have been. For even now, my son, as you sit here, your soul is adding so much to your experience. There it will just be just more so.
This utterly inexpressible knowledge of having died and now surviving, living in that kind of world, with that kind of body, and mind, and spirit, and soul, will be somewhat similar to your looking back on your life, shall we say, as a teenager. It’s how you make those assessments of, say, something you did on a sunny day back when you were sixteen years old. So, my son, you will make this assessment, this judgment if you will, of what you have done and not done with the opportunities given you, with the talents, and the potential given you.
But also in that strange, different, amazing light that is so different physically, and mentally, and spiritually; in that light and in the wholeness of your life you will also find the ability to forgive, even greater than what you know now. You will see yourself and then those about you with this great spiritual generosity of mercy. And you will be just that one small but amazing step closer to our Father, to pure spirit.
All judgment, my son, is coming from you, and so we caution you: you need forget nothing that ever happened to you. You can forgive. You can show mercy to yourself and to those around you in order to begin again, to regain your beginner’s mind. And when you reawaken on the Mansion World this is truly a beginning you will never forget. So that is the most delicious sense of karma that I can give you.
In one way it’s impossible for us to overstate it, so you will not dissemble your surprise upon awakening there. And part of that surprise is that your soul will be so much more, shall we say, available to you. As this is all this life you’ve lived so far, it would be an amazing thing to you even now. Be in my love.
My daughters, have you anything to comment or any questions?
Student: I have a question. After death when a body is given to science, does its soul remain in a state of unrest, in an unrested state?
Soul
Body and soul
NEBADONIA: Yes, my daughter. I have to clarify the terms a bit to start. As we see your fundamental reality, what you really are is a unique personality that is created by God directly. You can wiggle your toes or bite you lip a little bit to realize how intimately your personality is associated with this body and mind you have. Your soul is your experience. Your soul is your life, this whole life you’ve lived, all the experiences you’ve had since you were born. And not just your memories, my dear, not just what you can think of. We say your soul is also as it is taken on by a presence of God right within you. All religions, all theologies speak of God’s omniscience, that God knows, literally experiences everything that exists. Your life is not only thus known by God in his omniscience, in his perfect memory, it’s more than this. Your soul is actually taken on by an individualized presence of God. God buds off a little bit of his pure being to live right within you, also called a Mystery Monitor because it’s how God experiences your life.
And so we say your soul is this amazing, enormous story of your life that’s way beyond your capacity yet to experience more than a few moments of it. So your soul, my dear, is your possession. It’s what you are earning day by day by living. It’s why God created you in the first place, to have your own life; and you share it with Him. And so your soul is sacrosanct. Your soul is preserved, if you will, by this counterpart, this presence of God within you. And so your soul is a living, growing thing, just as you are.
You are growing by experience day by day, and the reality in which you awaken on the other side is just so much more spiritual and soulful than what you know now. If you will, it is an enormous expansion not only of your physical senses, not only of your mind, but of your soul. Because your soul is part of you, it’s what you have that nothing, nothing can take away from you. You’ve earned it. Does this answer your question?
Student: Yes
NEBADONIA: This is the ultimate assurance Michael and I can give you: that your soul is already, already partly eternal. You are so far limited to this body you have, to be conscious–when you’re not sleeping. Your soul is so much more than just your memories. It is something that God himself has a hand in and is keeping for you. Someday you will merge with this living presence of God within you, and you can understand how to merge with the presence of God you have to grow a bit more. You’ve still a ways to go, my dear.
Student: Well, that’s good news.
Earning a soul
NEBADONIA: But when someday, on worlds and worlds to come, you grow to approximate that presence of God within you, then all that you are, all that you will have been by then, your full soul will become your conscious possession. Right now to visit your soul you have to sit down and shut out the rest of the world, go into deep meditation and maybe remember some time back in your life, and just let it swell forth. Some day when maybe you were a teenager, what the world was like, what it felt like then: that’s all still there. So rest easy, my dear, your soul is something, as I say, you have earned. And it’s your life not only as you remember it but as this presence of God sees you in all your completeness. Be in my love.
Freedom
The spiritual part of world changes
Thank you for being here and opening yourselves to me this way. Michael and I are fully aware of the changes that your world is going through, and as topsy-turvy and scary as it appears to so many of our children, from our standpoint it’s just another step in the absolutely unstoppable spiritual evolution of the planet–which is no other though than the spiritual evolution of every individual. There’s always been a World Soul but that again is a transcendent reality you can only begin to imagine. But through your telecommunications there is a way the world is becoming more united and known to itself. And there is a peace dividend, a soul growth beyond early stages of materialism, that is coming about as uncertain economic conditions force hard decisions upon you. There is a re-emergence of family, of spiritual bonds.
Closing
And so: be of strong heart. Realize the spiritual part of this Renaissance, this rebirth, and see how true democracy in republican forms of government is growing. The old authorities are breaking down, necessarily so. So welcome this genuine freedom and be in my love. I am always here beside you, and right in you, part of you, so stop and say hello from time to time. Good evening.
