2012-03-07-Faith, A Threshold of Agreement
Marin #211
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Faith, A Threshold of Agreement
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
3.2.1 Faith
3.2.2 Balance
3.2.3 Generosity
3.2.4 Inner Life
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Wisdom
3.3.2 Reincarnation
Topic: Faith, A Threshold of Agreement
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, here in northern California it’s been spring now for a few weeks. All the trees are blooming; they’re just fragrant. Even though the nights are still cool you can tell there’s no real teeth left in them and it’s bound to get warmer. We don’t know exactly who invented seasons, whether it was our Father or the two of you who got the idea of tipping our planet’s axis so many degrees away from perpendicular to its path around the sun. But we want you to know we appreciate the result. And even though we know from our news broadcasts that it’s almost any conceivable season somewhere on earth right now, from the deepest desserts of ice and snow to those of sand, we do appreciate these changes and this renewal, just as we appreciate your lessons on the seasons of our soul. Please help us be aware of what season it is on the inside, irrespective of what it is outside. For these and all your many lessons, we are truly thankful. Amen.
Lesson
Faith
MICHAEL: Good evening, this is Michael. Yes, Mother Spirit and I are happy to delight with you in another spring, another season of renewal and growth. Sometimes the little flowers push their way up through the snow to signal that they know what time it is, irrespective of what’s happening outside. None of us of the celestial realm will claim all credit for this fact of seasons on your earth for keep in mind that with all of our intentions, we too struggle with and appreciate the Unqualified Absolute, this absolute part of reality that cannot be pinned down whatsoever–cannot be qualified or quantified.
Faith
But it exercises our faith and so our faith is rewarded. We are all of us personal beings, hanging out over a cliff, in a way, with each step. We go forward not knowing exactly what is around the corner or what tomorrow will bring. But that’s not so much in the realm of the Unqualified Absolute as in the fact that the whole cosmos is not repeating itself but is springing up fresh and unique each moment. We can have faith and trust in that renewal, in that uniqueness of every moment and every thing. Our faith pays wonderful worship to our Father’s creativity.
What is more uncertain in your lives are all these other personal beings surrounding you, all your fellow human beings. Certainly Nature–writ large–comes up with storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, blizzards, and hurricanes. But even these follow absolute physical law. It’s your fellows, my dears, with their intrinsic creativity, that are so unpredictable. Yet this too can be a delight, especially with you older couples who have been together for so many years and have found ways to enliven yourselves and each other by respecting and enjoying deeply this creative spontaneity that you can tap into. It can even be true in all the un-predictableness of human-to-human, person-to-person relationships. Think of walking down a busy sidewalk in a large city meeting and passing hundreds of folks you’ll never meet again; or even in a small town where you do pretty much recognize all those you encounter.
Balance
A threshold of agreement
You have achieved a marvelous threshold of agreement in working together. Think of the economic realm of the earth and the way all the different nation-states with all their billions of people are interrelating just for the basics of life–food and shelter, clothing and transportation. Consider within this economic network all the trust, all the contracts, all the tacit understandings that are the network that ties it all together. Though this network is far from perfect, and indeed is the major bone of contention that you fight over–these economic matters–who possesses what, especially in terms of real estate; the contention is so totally dwarfed by the agreements and understandings and commitments, the honoring of one’s word. This is literally what is tying everything together and creating such islands of peace, peaceful day-to-day relationships in a world that has known a million years of rather incessant warfare.
So in your meditations get a feeling for this balance between contention and agreement. For those of you who live in peaceful climes and have only, shall we say, very petty crime to annoy you, let your hearts go out, let your resources go out to those poor souls who may not make it back from a trip outdoors to get a little food or water, living in the hell of a war zone. Let your hearts go out, let your support go out to those individuals who are being systematically brutalized simply because of the sex they are. Keep informed. Be a world citizen to the best of your ability, and then bring it all home right in your own heart as you go out to meet your fellows.
Generosity
Be strong inside for from that strength comes generosity, from that comes a super-abundance of spirit, creative spirit, just to be that lively, good-natured neighbor. Let your knowledge of the world and those with persisting hardships in it, let them fill your heart, let them soften your heart. For this is why you need the strength of spirit and creativity, the security amid so much uncertainty, to be generous, to take good care of yourself and then have something left over to give.
The light of recognition in a friend; that response of genuine thanks for what you have done for another: this is what truly fills your soul. These are those bright shining stars in your own firmament, your own reach-less spaces within. This is what you carry forward, this sharing of your human situation, for in that sharing is all the glory there is. It’s what takes place between you and reality, and how this is reflected and recreated with your own personal spring inside. So be not afraid of the winters within, the times when it’s necessary to slow down and be still and reflect. It might be a physical injury. It might be a mental injury. It might even be a spiritual injury, some sudden loss of value. These are situations in which it is best to just rest and be still a little bit under the snow, confident there is within you that unquenchable energy that will bring you to bloom again and again.
Inner Life
In-here and out-there
Because there is no ultimate dividing line between in-here and out-there for your order of personal being, think about taking up residence on the contact line. That seeming razors edge can become a broad path where inside and outside can fall into such agreement, such oneness, such unity, you can see the inside and the outside of your life reflecting each other. It’s where you, on the tipping point with a rich inner life and wonderful friends outside, you can be on this tipping point of power and strength just by paying attention, by instantaneously accepting and responding to what’s happening in either realm. Something happens outside and you feel the energy welling up within you to meet it. Or conversely you have the inner strength to be generous and reap the reward of how it transforms those who come into your presence and are happy to be with you.
This is the real living stuff of life–this inner life, this outer life, this one life. Even though you may not be able to achieve this oneness of being, even in this life, still to have that confidence in your soul, in the spiritual record of your life, the faith and confidence in God, the co-author of all that you have experienced. So you sit and be still. You feel yourself living. You feel yourself complete, yet with a tickling curiosity to know what this day holds; and the joy and the energy to go forward to meet it.
Now if you have any questions or comments, that’s fun, too.
Dialogue
Wisdom
Student: Michael, this is J. I’m wondering: what is the best way to effect change with people who are closed, not loving? Is it best to be generous and to be loving—ourselves, and that’s it? That’s all I can think of how I can deal with what I’m dealing with in my life.
For instance, one of my mother’s caretakers is a little mean, and I’m trying to be good to her and show her love so that it will maybe transfer to my mother, ‘cause I know my mother’s days are not long here on this planet. So I’m thinking that if I give and I’m loving, that maybe I can affect other people by my actions. Am I on the right track?
Dealing with difficult folks
MICHAEL: Yes, my daughter, I’d say you’re very much on track for it is out of this generosity of spirit, this inner strength of all the good-hearted people in the world, this is literally what is tying things together. But when confronted with what is a very undeniable, rather mean kind of personality, a personality that just seems to take and take–perhaps partly consciously, mainly unconsciously just being stingy with themselves, withholding themselves because it is even somewhat valuable in eliciting attention from someone else: there’s no way you can totally fill up such a personality. Their own cynical take on what you do can render your best efforts something they barely acknowledge, or even derive pleasure from disregarding.
So, my dear, there is no substitute for wisdom. This is where your love has to be wise. And this can be painful because it means opening yourself more and more to them and to their response, yet—literally–not feeding into their rather stingy notions of what they can get out of you. As you know, sometimes they are overtly, intentionally pushing your buttons, saying and doing those things they know cause you pain. So this is the tricky part, if you will. This where you have to be truly creative and spontaneous and paying attention. I think you know this. It’s opening yourself to their genuine response. What is it? Where are they deep down inside themselves? What is their situation? And how, as best you can, can you ascertain how they see you?
It means being yourself and not letting them sway you, not letting them hurt you so they can delight in that rather ungracious power. These kinds of people, my dear, really challenge you, and that’s why they’re so exhausting compared to being with a true friend who is just as generous and spontaneous and delightful as yourself. I think you know this from all your years of experience. You know what a narrow line it is to walk sometimes, which makes it so fearful even to anticipate. But in this I salute your courage and your humble determination to be a good person, for this is truly your greatest strength of spirit.
Student: Thank you. Thank you.
MICHAEL: You’re welcome, my dear.
Reincarnation
Student: So I have one last question, Michael. I want to know so much. I feel I’ve always believed in reincarnation, and I haven’t read all of The Urantia Book so I’m ignorant about a lot of things.
But I feel that I’ve had a life when you were alive. What do you think about that?
Reincarnation
MICHAEL: Yes, my dear, Mother Spirit and I have discussed at length this concept that is so deeply held, perhaps by the majority of people. I touched on it recently in a Lightline session of how when an egg and a sperm get together, that is a unique event resulting in a unique physical being. And it’s how at that moment, surrounding this whole creation of a new physical being, God comes up with a personality to match everything, the whole surrounding, not only the mother and father but the whole social milieu in which this child will be born. It’s all the potential physical, mental, spiritual, soulful, and personal dimensions of human reality that are perfectly appropriate—by God’s handiwork–with that unique physical event.
My dear, you perhaps might be slighting your own creativity. This is to only suggest that reincarnation is an idea that your own mind can elaborate on endlessly, if you find it interesting. In all the various schools of reincarnation, of which there are dozens and dozens, through all these different schools there is the suggestion, or even more than a suggestion, of some continuity of personality. When these schools of thought were formed as a way of explaining the uniqueness of each little baby that is born, the unfathomable quality of personality seemed, as they begin to understand cause and effect, it had to, in their minds, it had to have had some kind of previous existence in order to be so unfathomable. Consider all the thousand and one physical human characteristics of body and mind that suggest some previous lifetime; then the whole idea of karma, that so much of what happens to you in this lifetime is due to some previous conditioning–which now you simply call the evolution of culture. The fact that physically you are partly your parents, and also your grandparents, and your great-grand parents, on and on; there were no concepts in those days of sub-microscopic, almost molecular determinism in terms of DNA.
All these are operative and so I would just suggest you keep an open mind. If you feel you have real memories from some previous time, explore them. Seek out the true origins of your notions and concepts of understanding. Above all don’t be closed about any of this. Keep an open mind. Appreciate all the ways that mankind throughout all of its history has tried to get a hold on the ungraspable, unfathomable quality of personality simply because it is created by God, unique in every case. And have fun with it. Explore your beliefs.
Student: That makes sense. Thank you.
Keep searching
MICHAEL: Just keep searching, my dear. It is fun to trace back all the historical origins of so many human beliefs about what’s happening here. Wonder: what freedom do you have from what karma you’ve inherited physically, mentally, even soulfully from all the folks you’ve know? You have all eternity to explore so I wouldn’t write anything off at this stage. Just keep opening wider, deeper.
And be in my peace.
Student: Thank you. Thank you, Michael.
MICHAEL: And so upon such unfathomable, imponderable but real qualities of being human that have tickled mankind’s curiosity from the very beginning, this is the very spiritual creativity that really marks you as human, a personal being fundamentally, primarily, and then on into the ultimate, a creature–a created being of God’s as your very essence.
Good evening, my dear ones. Be in my peace.
