2011-08-08-Personality, Mind, Soul, Karma
Marin #206
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: God the It
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 Personality
3.1.2 Free will
3.1.3 Body
3.1.4 Mind
3.1.5 Spirit
3.1.6 Soul
3.1.7 Home
3.1.8 Karma, Causality
o 3.2 Dialogue
3.2.1 Humanity
3.2.2 Challenge
3.2.3 Morality
3.2.4 Existence
o 3.3 Closing
Topic: God the It
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, welcome. We are always so glad be here with the two of you, and as always we request that you help us as much as possible to be aware of your presence. I personally want to thank you for the times in recent days when your presence was like a waterfall, a roaring waterfall, almost a physical sensation to help me stay awake through a long and rather hazardous journey. So here in company I do wish to sincerely thank you for riding along with me. It is wonderful that we are able to detect your presence and even wonder why sometimes it is barely there and other times it is so strong–what exactly it is that determines these fluctuations. Then just to know you are here, you are literally a part of us, taking care of your children. So thank you very much, and continue to abide with us if you will. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening. This is Nebadonia, Mother Spirit of Nebadon, and also, like Michael, your closest and dearest friend. Oh, how I glory in all my children, just to have you all within me and marvel at your own spiritual natures, your own creativity, bequeathed you by God the Father and God the Son. Here on the seventh anniversary of this particular group, I’m pleased to notice we have two of the very original and stalwart members here. Think of how many times just the two or three of you were carrying the ball along for all of those who do enjoy so much tuning in, either listening to or reading the transcripts of our meetings here.
Personality
God the “It”?
I would like to review a bit what these years have been about—primarily, not only with us but with Reality Itself–our Universal Father, the First Source and Center of all creation. It comes to mind that recently there was a national poll here in the United States about those who believed or did not in God, and rating the job he was doing, wherein they referred to God as It: Do you believe that “It” exists? The most important thing about God is his personable-ness, that even though he is an absolute, infinite, and ultimate Being, he is also a personal being. He is the original source of personality itself, personality that he bestows upon all of us.
We’ve given so many lessons on how personality as a quality is in itself so much like him. Every personality is even unfathomable to the person. And so we’ve asked you to just take our word on this and rest assured, not be frightened or put off that your own personality–that you yourself are, is infinite, bottomless, and unfathomable even to yourself. There is a part of you that you can’t get hold of because that’s the very hand that is trying to grasp itself. At first to come across this deep fact can be quite unsettling, so much so that some folks go way out of their way to immerse themselves in some kind of other-entertainment to distract themselves from this ungraspable-ness at their very center. Consider all the philosophies and metaphysics of the world that try to express it, shall we say, as a horizon that recedes as you try to chase it. It’s the final ungraspable-ness of something that is living and changing–dynamic.
This is your essence right from our Father himself. So above all that word God means a personal being, our Creator, who maintains a dimension of personality, call it a circuit if you wish, that connects all personal beings. This is referred to often as a Mystery Monitor, an individualization of him that you have as part of you, for this is the way of expressing how God himself experiences everything you do, everything that every personal being does.
Free will
Free will: choosing your own destiny
No one can say definitely if God chooses to know what you are going to do next, but perhaps rather enjoys your free will, and encourages you in this, even in making his own contributions to your thoughts. This is his thought-adjusting right within you, making even those discreet thoughts he can give you subservient to your own will; even subservient to your own totally ignoring them. For unfortunately, there are so many of your religious teachers and so-called authorities that are not pronouncing and then reminding their congregations that each person in that congregation has a presence of God right within them. But by your very ability to ignore the presence of God within you, or to be in total ignorance of it, we only can see that as God himself having a great humility toward his own creation. Consider the fact that he has let it go and given it free reign over its own destiny–as much as he possibly can; and as much as each one of you wishes to assume of your own. So definitely God is not an “It.” True enough, the Trinity has impersonal functions, but neither is it an “It.” This is a special reality, this Deity acting as Totality and, as the Urantia Book notes, God’s mercy transcends and mitigates the impersonal justice of the Trinity.
Also within you is Michael’s Spirit of Truth, the spirit of your own Creator Son. This is a differential urge, an encouragement to keep stretching, keep taking life in, and keep being hungry and curious for more. For you will never ever in all eternity even begin to approach the totality of the creation, what’s there even now–already. And so for this group we’ve enjoyed referring to Michael’s Spirit of Truth as an orientation: everywhere outward. No matter what you have gathered, all the knowledge and wisdom and understanding that I help you with, there will always be more for not only is the universe, the whole creation itself, progressive in the sense of evolving, so are you. And this is endless. You recall my lessons on what a hell eternity would be without this evolution, if it were just some kind of rabbit path going round and round. There is that other facet, that other whole half of God’s reality that never happened before in this moment, and will never happen again. It all forms a part of the God the Supreme–God’s perfect, infinite, and absolute memory of everything that takes place out here in time and space.
Body
Body, mind, and creative spirit
This has been the heart of our lessons these many years: the kind of personal being that you are with this unfathomable personality as your very essence, and how this is associated with a living physical body that is also another infinity to you. Even if you were to read a hundred thousand of your finest medical books on physiology, still there would be some unfathomable mystery about your own living personal material body. So it’s another infinity to you, another mystery of how exactly you reach out and pick something up, because there’s a very near limit to what you can wonder about this and still function. So much of your life is just in the doing of it, all in humble obedience–for all you know, for all your knowledge, for all your understanding–still this humble obedience to what’s going to happen next.
Mind
Then you have a mind that is also creative and spontaneous beyond your own grasping. Those of you with discipline and focus can pretty well decide what, for the next hour or two, you will think on a certain subject. But what exact thought is going to occur to you even five minutes from now?–not only from your understanding and knowledge, but from your own soul, from this spiritualized story of your life? What input is it having, and will it have a few minutes from now, to produce what exact thought? There’s a whole spectrum, from folks who are totally identified with whatever thought occurs to them, who are simply “acting out” willy-nilly with almost no free will whatsoever, just whatever occurs to them. At the other end of that spectrum are those who have meditated deeply and have some detachment from their own thoughts, who can watch their thoughts come and go and actually decide, consciously, what to act upon or not. They enjoy such enormous peace of mind irrespective of what their body and mind are going through. For just consider that intimate connection between your bodies and your minds. How many times has mankind from its very beginning experimented with various physical substances, call them drugs–minute quantities of which so totally affect the body and then the mind. And as your Urantia Book puts it, your Father’s input, your Thought Adjuster’s specific ideas, have to swim up through such a filter of biochemistry.
Spirit
So you are this living body/mind combination, and yet you are also endowed with spirit, with creative spirit right from your own self, right from this unfathomable personality that you are. You can originate something out here in time and space; and this is what your own free will depends upon. All free will exists within the limits of your consciousness, and it’s within your own consciousness that you can come up with some kind of alternative, something new, something different than just going along with what is being suggested to you by habit, or by the situation in which you find yourself. You yourself can be this active, creative agent for yourself, for others. This is the spiritual dimension in which you live for, as a spiritual being with this creativity, this ability to choose how you take even your own body and mind; from the standpoint of your personality, even your own body and mind, my children, are spiritualized. As your existential philosophers point out: you never touch the thing-in-itself. You know only your own reactions to things, even your own body and mind. As I said, if you are totally identified with them without choice, without previous detachment, there is almost no free will. You are purely re-actionary. So this spirit of yours holds such enormous potential, another infinity you will never get to the bottom of, one you can expand without limit by using it.
Soul
And then there’s your soul, this part of you that is being co-created by a presence of God, and as such, so contra-distinct from your own memories that are just being produced by your physical brain and nervous system. This is always another even greater infinity, because it is an extra-spiritual reality co-created and vouchsafed by a presence of God. In this sense you are a kind of dual spiritual being. This is the compensation for your very humanity and the time-and-space limitations you know by being so closely associated with a living, physical being. It is the perfect compensation of having a presence of God taking on your life–this life you are living; these choices you are making; this free will you are exercising. This is your supreme gift to this presence of God. You are personal. You are a personal being. You are giving this personality, this dimension of reality, to the presence of God within you. This presages the day in which the two of you become as one for the benefit of both of you. You are giving this presence, this individualized presence of God, personality–uniqueness of being; and this presence of God is giving you eternal life, which you already have in part as your own soul. You own soul is already eternal, already a part of God the Supreme. If for whatever reason you would choose to cease to exist as a personality, nothing is lost. Your Thought Adjuster still has all of your experience, as well as does the Supreme Being–this perfect memory of God’s of who and what you were.
Home
Coming home
And so this is the essence of our teaching, Michael’s and mine, this personal-ness of God, of the Eternal Son, of the Infinite Spirit, of the Master Spirits, of the heads of the Superuniverses and the galaxies, right on down to: you. All these trillions of trillions of trillions of personal beings are all connected to our Father. This is your home. It is made for you and you were deliberately made for it. So we welcome you home. We invite you to feel at home. No matter what happens to you here in this time and space dimension where you have a very limited lifetime: know you have your soul. Let your meditations of previous times of your life come forth in all their fullness and reassure you that yes, you are this enormously complex being that your personality is struggling so mightily to unify, all these different elements of you going this way and that; sometimes totally at odds within yourself; some folks even totally torn apart. To experience your own soul is to experience God’s presence within you. Feel Michael’s and my presence within you and how we just let you be, even ignoring us if you will. We are always here. We enjoy your conscious company. And as you become conscious of us, so too you can know, you can feel that you are not alone. We are always here, and we do so delight when you say hello.
So continue to be with us, my dears. Come to enjoy the awareness of our presence within you. Know that you too are a spiritual being, and as such, every aspect of your experience here is spiritualized and becomes part of your soul. Now if you have any questions or comments this evening, let’s wonder where they come from.
Student: Nebadonia, two things are on my mind to ask about: Karma. People simplify that concept and think they understand it, and believe it’s a punishment and reward system. I wonder if you could comment on that part.
Karma, Causality
Karma as total causality
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son. As you note, the word has such a range of meaning from one individual to another, even from one philosophy or metaphysics, one religion to another. My feeling about it is: it’s man’s attempt to get a hold on some kind of total causality, not only in the physical realm which you know as fact, and not only in the mental realm of how one thought or one kind of behavior leads to another, shall we say: what you do today will have some effect on what you do tomorrow. Karma does posit some entity similar to what we call your personality, which does continue beyond death. And so it even asserts a causality from one lifetime to the next. This implies justice, this kind of total causality.
Applied backwards into the distant past it suggests that so much of what is happening to you today, now, is because of what you did–you as a personal being–you particularly did in the past. Now you are reaping either the benefits or the sorrow of things you did in the past. That implies a kind of justice; again, a total justice, a cosmic justice, from one life to the next. But also, most systems that use this term also refer to a kind of free will, a way of escaping this absolute determinism in your present moment. You are not necessarily bound so rigidly by Karma–to the very degree you can know it and understand it!
This is very similar to the notion we have of free will: that–in various degrees—you consciously realize the automatic, instantaneous, unconscious identification with you own ego–who you think you are and who you’ve been. It’s not all you are. To the very degree you can exercise your free will and not just identify unconsciously with all you’ve been, you have some freedom of movement, some escaping all the determinism of self-generated Karma right in this present moment. Indeed, most of the philosophies are oriented this way.
There is much to be said about this. It’s something that concerns every personal being: just what is it, what is my connection with who I’ve been? What freedom do I have in this present moment, or am I totally determined by other lifetimes I’ve had? In a way, my son, you die a little every night as you go to sleep, and are reborn again each morning; and there is something carried over from day to day. But these are talked about on a very general plane now, and Karma is another one of those intimations of causality that tries to be all-inclusive, somewhat like my lesson tonight on your personality, your body, your mind, your spirit, and your soul, all going along through time.
Does all that make sense to you? Does that accord with your feeling of what Karma is?
Dialogue
Student: Yes, very much. So: thank you.
NEBADONIA: You had something else?
Student: Well, it’s about my concern for the planet and our systems of government, and dealing with psychology, and politics, and wars; and it seems like the whole planet is threatened by climate change, and corrupt systems–dysfunctional systems. I wonder if this is a period of tribulation coming.
Humanity
The human world
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son. It’s like Planetary Karma, if you will. Those of you who have read the Urantia Book will be relatively familiar with it. Understand: one of the great purposes of that revelation is to put all these things you have wondered about into historical context. The third part, the history of your world, relates not only to the physical world but also the story of humankind starting with Andon and Fonta, then all those chapters on The Evolution of Government; The Evolution of the Family. Also in its discussions of the planet was the way the celestial family gave of itself to a young planet in terms of a Planetary Prince and his corporal staff, then later, Adam and Eve. You get the picture of a divine plan for planetary evolution, and how in the case of Urantia this went so terribly, almost uniquely-terribly wrong.
So now you are nearly a million years from Andon and Fonta and there is still so much of the world’s resources of material and people’s lives that is caught up in both offensive and defensive armaments; such an enormous amount of human resources dedicated to warfare or its prevention. And I’ve mentioned several times before the kinds of crime–the criminal activity–the deliberate predation of one human being on another, not only, you might say, the stick-up person out on the street, but what you’ve mentioned about all the corruption shot-through society and your political organizations.
This is mitigated by your understanding of all this world has come through. It’s reassuring, my son, to know that, in spite of all, there is a steady progression throughout the world, a refinement of culture. It’s not so many centuries ago that culture could even be preserved and disseminated so widely by the coming of the printing press. It wasn’t so long ago a wealthy man had only a hundred volumes in his library. It was so rare; and now you have a hundred times the Encyclopedia Britannica on your little Blackberries, your iPhones, with another hundred applications.
Read again that part of your Urantia Book, page 51, on The Inevitabilities–the way that human life itself is set up to bring these challenges of civilization right home to every individual. And you know, my son, when you look at it this way, you realize that every human being has to start from zero and be civilized. You also know it’s quite common for your Huck Finns and Tom Sawyers to resist being “civilized.” Consider the history of all the different cultures in the world and how, instead of having one rather monolithic and uniform World Culture being led by a Planetary Prince and Material Son and Daughter, how much you all are on your own. To the degree those of you can keep the faith, keep the trust in each other, I refer to as Agondonters for this trial you are going through–compared to almost any other world in which the celestial program was carried out.
So that tipping, my son, that you feel between possibilities?–is always a function of your faith. Just be as open to that as you can, to all those possibilities you mentioned. That’s where free will comes in. The resultant world you see, moment by moment, is the sum total of all those individuals. Does that at least begin to explain things?
Student: Yes, thank you,
NEBADONIA: That tipping you feel inside between: Is it getting better, or is it getting worse?–on the most broad, general scale: Is the world getting better or is it getting worse?–even with your own life, you as an individual know how difficult that is to ascertain, to evaluate. Multiply that by billions. That is the world, all those individuals, all starting from scratch, all having to learn, all having to become civilized in all the thousand-and-one little mini-cultures. From our standpoint seeing the world’s spiritual glow, seeing the effort and the love, seeing the bonding and the sharing even under the most extreme conditions: we see the world is dominated by spirit. Yet for an individual, that too is a matter of faith for each one of you. So keep the faith. Keep being open-minded. Keep being curious. And be in my love.
Student: Yes, Mother Spirit. I would like to reiterate what I spoke on last time: that no matter how big or small our challenges are in life, whether personal or global, they all provide a means of growth. It seems there are two identities, one pure and pristine, and the other one of the world and our culture. The two sometimes conflict, but really there’s a blend. Again it’s just expanding that notion of what being a human is all about, how we often don’t see ourselves as beautiful, as magnificent, as little infinities–as you’ve alluded to. We seem to focus on the flaws and the negatives of our past instead of opening up to this so-called Kingdom of Heaven that exists here and now. So I am trying to live positively, but I feel, what’s the word…?
NEBADONIA: Challenged, perhaps?
Student: Yes!—“challenged” fits.
Challenge
The challenge
NEBADONIA: Well, my son, you express very well this living dynamic. It is a blessing to actually see what we call personality–that essence of a person that is unchanging and doing the best that he or she can to unify and bring into oneness a wonderful comprehension and feeling of understanding everything that’s happening to them. Everyone’s starting from zero and being just a speck, in a very true way just a speck in a gigantic happening, especially in the social way with all the other people, all the other unique beings you’re constantly running into. There’s no way of avoiding this challenge. You remember me years ago when I would tease you about the stretch that’s required of you, that you’re going to be stretched out of all you’ve known, all that you’ve understood. You will be challenged because otherwise eternity would be a hell of repetition. It’s the fact that tomorrow is going to be different, and it’s going to be different forever.
You can appreciate that Michael’s Spirit of Truth is a willing orientation toward that challenge, even while that challenge is making you worried and making your heart skip a beat, flushing you with adrenalin: still!–to trust that, trust the necessity for it, trust the way that God has set up, as I mentioned, these “inevitabilities,” these challenges of loyalty and equality. All these are qualities you are now being able to see in people–their essential personality, that unchangeable, unfathomable part of them that, no matter what happens, that’s still there doing his or her best.
You mention the ways that denial works in the way of trying to get to true simplicity; i.e. to find the one thread tying everything together–which is God. The temptation is to simply deny a big part of all that is and take refuge in simple-mindedness—not that you’d be able to rest there for long. But rather, to embrace all this challenge and thank our Father for setting it up this way, keeps you on your toes. And so, you learn to dance, dance along with something that’s in motion, something grand that cannot be held still.
Student: One of the challenges for me—when I’m not being gentle with myself–is that I could be doing more to achieve the life I perceive I could believing; that I’m living less than I could.
NEBADONIA: The challenge is coming from your own being. It’s the way in which you are doing your best to challenge yourself.
Student: Sometimes it’s hard to rest with that. It’s hard to even…live my moment-to-moment existence with that. Sometimes I just sit with it, and not react from it—this place, and the wisdom will come forth.
NEBADONIA: That is one of the wonderful, glorious purposes of stillness. It lets you understand sometimes how much of that drive to stay ahead of the challenges, or to keep up with the challenges; how much of that drive is coming from your own self. For those that can’t realize this but simply feel driven, and get paranoid about what it is driving them when so much of that is their own ambition or their own bad habits: think what it takes to exercise—consciously!–the innate ability you have of morality. Think of going through your day by day life weighing everything relentlessly, and realizing how bad a habit is, of, say, smoking–something that is giving you a little boost, a stimulate—is at the same time coating your lungs with a oily tar that reduces your strength. And yet, knowing that, and still, as Michael says, just trying to be consciously aware of that, realizing: yes, I cannot help myself, I can almost watch my hands lighting this next cigarette. Think what a seeming blessing it would be just to forget that morality, kick back, and enjoy a smoke.
Morality
Living with conscious morality
But to keep that morality alive in yourself every puff: is this the Father’s will for me? Or does my Father want me to be healthy and strong? To me, that’s the price you pay for freedom. That’s the price you pay for consciousness of morality in everything you do. You yourself, my son, know by trying to ignore that, by just being simple-minded and deny all that, what a terrible toll that takes upon your potential life. That’s what you’re wrestling with: how can I realize my potential? What can I do more?
Student: Yeah, but my thing is, and I’ve always mentioned it to you, is my desire to be coming from my own experience. That’s all I have; to come from my own inner wisdom. What I’ve come to understand is letting go of the safety nets of being a part of an organization, of a teaching, or a religion. It’s just me and God now. Isn’t that where everyone in life has to come to, that place in their life where everything else is let go of, and it’s just me and God, and that oneness, that wonder, that connection?
NEBADONIA: Yes!—if not in this life, then someday. It’s called fusion. That is the ultimate but not final connection, because it is another beginning. But yes, that is the supreme/ultimate of when you really join and become totally one with all that you are. Remember that all that you are includes the presence of God that you are sharing your life with.
Student: But getting back to morality: when I make a conscious commitment to sever all safety nets, there’s a fear there, that maybe I should still belong to some teaching. It was OK—I enjoyed it. But am I deluding myself? What if I don’t come here to Jerry’s because I don’t feel like it, you know? Like I’m not fulfilling my moral obligation? But I’m still the same person. I’m still connected to
God, to the truth.
Existence
One thing happening
NEBADONIA: Well, my son, that is one glory of existential happening: existence itself. There is a uni-verse; there is a one-happening–in God; and as it comes out through you as an individual person, it is what you do.
I can see the necessity–and so can you–to really question this: should I go; should I not go? But of all these swarming possibilities around each moment, there is that one-thing-happening: you either went or you didn’t. You either put yourself in motion, or you said, The heck with it, I’m staying home tonight. There is this one-thing-happening that is the movement of life, of the universe itself, that is coming down like a driving rain sometimes; and just to stay up with that. So I can definitely feel with you the necessity to question what you do, and I encourage you to keep all this in consciousness. This is not necessarily self-doubt. It is the way in which you are keeping yourself as free as you can, and staying touch with that one-thing-happening including what you do. This is a blessing—this One Thing Happening. (Mother Spirit breaks out laughing) And you are a part of it—inextricably.
Student: And there’s my free will again. What is driving me? What makes me want to go and join the group? I mean I love sharing. That’s why I love participating here. But not to go somewhere just because I feel obligated to by some moral authority that is pushing me to do this or that, different from that self-sense of: I’m OK being right here. You know?—I’m OK.
NEBADONIA: Now to find unity between those; to realize what obligation is coming from your own essence, or from what might be a little more—by comparison—superficial–some obligation that is simply being laid upon you. Some organizations do say: you have to be here every time; you miss once and you’re out. You can have a feeling of a self-generated drive, and rightfully detach yourself, so you can have free will, from all the things that are simply put on you by your circumstances. (Yeah) That is feeling for freedom. It’s the necessary attention, that price you pay—paying attention. And keeping all those choices (Mother Spirit laughs) up in the air so you can have your pick, moment by moment.
Student: And it’s all OK. I’m OK. (he laughs)
NEBADONIA: And yet here comes another challenge, to challenge that very OK-ness. (and they both break up laughing).
Student: Yes!—I know. I get that a lot–humility.
NEBADONIA: Amen to that. Thank you, dear Father, for making it all so big.
Student: Well, thank you.
NEBADONIA: And be in my love. Thank the two of you for a wonderful evening again. I do so love to play with my children, my dear friends.
Closing
Final benediction
To begin to enjoy this….unfathomable-ness, this deep mystery; to feel at home in it: to feel all these challenges impinging upon you; to feel all these swarming possibilities, and then to stay in sync with that singleness, the one thing that is happening as the present becomes the past: and to let it be; to let the past be open to reliving in such fullness—back before all the judgments and assessments and evaluations; to experience another moment of your life as you’re experiencing this moment now, with all the wonder of it all: and get that assurance, that feeling of our presence within you, saying, Just step off. It is OK in the sense of: You can’t see the end from the beginning. You’re not God.
But he’s riding right along with you. So continue to feel my love, and Michael’s support, and our Father’s presence within you—giving you those good ideas. Good evening.
