2004-12-06-My Peace Does Not Remove You From Life
Marin #25
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: My Peace Does Not Remove You From Life
2Group: Marin TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Michael
2TR: JL
3Session
1Opening
2Lesson
3Dialogue
4Closing
Topic: My Peace Does Not Remove You From Life
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Nebadonia, our spiritual Father and Mother, Welcome. You have given us to know that all You ask of us, not for ourselves, but for You, is that we invite You into our lives – to share our lives with You. But now we are mindful that on these special occasions, when You elect to speak directly to us, we are asking You – to share Your lives with us. And so it is with gratitude that we thank You for Your nigh infinite and eternal viewpoint. It helps us see our own lives from Your perspective, and for this we thank You very much. Amen.
Michael: Good evening, My children. This is Michael. Once again I invite you to rest deeply, ever so deeply, in My peace. This is the essence of My being – direct from our Father. Let this be the bedrock in your lives. This is a point of departure that, being of a spiritual nature, transcending time and space, you take along with you, in your heart, as you go through your busy days.
Lesson
The fact that this is a spiritual dimension makes it difficult to visualize or realize in your ordinary time-space perceptions. It is a point of departure and yet you need not leave it behind. Mother Nebadonia last week gave you a vision of standing on the edge of a vast chasm of the unknown that, with courage, you step off into, and the ground, as if magically, is created beneath your feet with each step. So you are forever on the edge of the unknown, and yet with confidence and faith in God’s creativity, you step off again and again.
My peace is what you can hold in your heart as you take each step. And contrary to what you may think of, at first, as a limitation – that somehow this peace would interfere with your most busy or even frantic activities – the opposite is true. The more peaceful and steady and stalwart in your faith you are at heart, the more steady and tenacious can be your perception of even the quickest events. To use another illustration you are very familiar with – a motion picture or television camera filming or broadcasting a scene. The more steady the camera is, the more true it can capture the busiest event. Whereas if the camera is bouncing around, everything is blurred, even a very slow moving scene.
Just so, the more you can rest in Me, the deeper you can be involved in life. My peace does not remove you from life, but on the contrary, gives you the very bedrock on which you can live an ever fuller life. Here in this peace and in this security you can realize and then let go those everyday fears which stand between you and whatever is happening.
This can be seen very quickly in an intellectual sense, but it is only deep in your heart and in what you call your gut feelings of the truth, can you realize that the more you welcome what is really real, the better are your chances of utilizing your abilities to their fullest. For this is exactly where any kind of self-deception stands between you and what is real. It’s where you are in the greatest danger. Let Me repeat this. Though you can understand this instantly with your mind, to translate this understanding into specific actions as you go through your day – as you meet this person, then that person, and you pick up this particular task or another – it is in a whole-hearted willingness to accept the uniqueness within each moment that this ability lies.
This is an ability you have to cultivate, for there is also a necessary human need to relate everything new to that with which you are already familiar. When I say necessary, this is a component of recognition, re-cog-nition, re-knowing something – fitting something new into an already existing context so it immediately has meaning to you. The ability I invite you to learn is how to recognize the newness in each moment in such away that you allow it to register within you, and trust yourself – for you to adapt to it. You can see that this is the exact opposite of the psychological phenomena you know of as denial, which is another ability many of you cultivate entirely unconsciously. Denial is just part of a very common shared psychology that you absorb merely by being in your society. I invite you to see the cost of this mental ability of denial, of creating a reality for yourself based on an unconscious exclusion of that which is real.
Now the question becomes: OK, all well and good. I can understand this. How do I do it? The most profound way We have suggested so far is the practice of stillness, of letting so many things that drive you along, simply come to a stop, as many times as you can practice this throughout your day, to whatever extent you can practice it. In other words, as deep as you can, allow this to happen for as long as you can – in a highly conscious manner.
Your allowing things to come to a stop, and resting in Me, is not sleeping, or entering any kind of trance state, but the exact opposite. It can be even be a profound recognition within yourself, saying, “Michael, I just don’t know what to do next!” If this is true for you, My children, this can be the greatest triumph of all, and your Mother and I salute the courage it takes to get to this point.
Here you are achieving a recognition of “home base.” This is your bedrock. Now you are open to great possibilities. Now you are realizing what We have called the opacity of, or sheer inability to know, beforehand, a large spiritual part of the future, including challenges and your own choices. And so you wait, moment to moment, not knowing what to do. Your heart keeps beating, you keep breathing, and you begin to know the enormity of what your Mother invited you to experience – the enormity of just existing. You are existing in Her arms. You are aware of yourself, within Her mind. And our Father keeps your heart beating, moment by moment. Then you begin to notice, even on this miniscule scale of one person, moment to moment, that each moment is unique. This is what We call God’s continuous creation. And so it is not a disaster or some ultimate failure – not knowing what to do next, but an opening to real possibilities.
Since this moment is usually not one hundred percent absolute and perfect, soon enough your own momentum of your life and of yourself, as you felt and knew yourself to be, will start again all by itself. Most of you who have meditated deeply know this experience very well. But it is just such experiences that give you a chance to shed that extra baggage you are tired of carrying around, and yet have forgotten to let go of. And it is also these moments that allow something new to occur to you from completely outside your context – the over-all personal encompassing in which you have been living.
This is where you have a chance to slough off an old, hardened, callused skin, and emerge all tender and new. So this is a bit frightening – being so tender and sensitive out in the world – is it not? But here is openness and flexibility, curiosity and real contact with reality. Here in this way of living you can really and truly meet people, and get a real hold on the work before you, because you can see both them and it so much more clearly through your apprehensions and fears.
Here you can perceive the continuous creation and be aware that: Of course this day never happened before! This day is passing, so there is no use in clinging to it. Everything is alive, and yet God Himself is creating for me a record of all of this in my soul, so there is no need or usefulness in hanging on to myself so tightly.
Ironically, here is response-ability. Here is the ability to respond wholeheartedly to the next situation. Here is freedom from mere reaction. In the perception of this continuous creation, by Spirit, is the creativity of your own spirit. This, My children, I invite you to share with Me and with your Mother – the creation of your life. Here I present you with the miracle of not knowing – at heart – who the next person you meet is going to be. Are you up for it? Can this be your own delight? Can you trust your ability to respond? – trust that this responsibility can grow? This is what is possible. And it all starts with taking the time, from time to time, to stop. Get back to your bedrock.
Let it all go and rest in your Mother and Me. Invite this essence of Us into your life, right in the middle of your busiest moments. Let nothing stand between us. I think you will find, in a very short while, the sheer delight and the intrinsic reward in this will help you remember. It may seem very strange at first to be stopping and starting again right in the middle of living. But this too can be part of the delight, part of the renewal, part of the wonder.
It is there for the doing, My children. So take heart, literately. Feel Me right in your heart as you take time to feel your heart beating, and be aware you are a living cell in God’s living body. If you have any questions or comments, I am always glad to hear them and respond to you.
Dialogue
Student: Father, I think You answered the question I had. I’ll have to read the transcript to be sure, but I was wondering what You mean when You say, “Be in My peace,” and also when Mother says, “Be in My love?” I guess that was what was going on tonight.
Michael: Yes, C, you’ve allowed Me to take you to the heart of the matter – no pun intended. This is something that has been known to what you normally call – wise men – throughout the history of the world. Many individuals, men and women, have found this spiritual place and have tried to express the paradoxical nature of it – the dynamic/peacefulness of it – when put into words. The essence of My peace is not a concept, it is an experience, and you all are experiential beings – nodules of experience that have no duplicate in all the universe.
So while My peace may appear paradoxical as it is expressed in words, it is something you can feel. The same is true of Mother Nebadonia’s love. Many cultures have expressed, in their philosophy, the concept of love as the ultimate connection, in a spiritual sense, much like every physical particle in existence is connected by universal gravity. So you can see Mother Nebadonia’s love, Her actual living presence, in the connection with everything you know, for it is the very connection by which you can know. This is Her! She is as close to you as you are to yourself, for she gives you the ability to perceive yourself and connect to a physical body which in turn connects you to the whole universe of impersonal material energy. So when She invites you to be in Her love, She is inviting you to be conscious and loving of all you know. Does this fulfill your question, My son?
Student: Yes, thank You – it does.
Student: Michael, can You give me some more general advice on how to stay better focused? Because I have leisure, it’s easy for my type of mind to drift.
Michael: Yes, V. I call your attention to a duality of mind here, part of which you experience as drifting, and part of which you experience as an evaluation of that drifting. This very duality you correctly perceive is a kind of mental hopscotch or leapfrog. The drifting is intrinsic in the lack of focus, and the lack of focus is this duality that perceives the drifting. So let’s look at the larger context in which this leapfrogging is taking place, for if you desire to focus, you generally need something to focus upon. True enough, you can focus into the middle of space where there is nothing, but I sense that’s not what your heart desires. At these moments, rather than using a convergent type of mind, you have to go to a divergent, open kind of mind and ask yourself: What is the larger context in which I am living today?
Since you have this leisure time, you are deprived of the structure you just discussed, I believe, a while ago with Welmek. The context in which your life had meaning for a while – the work you were doing – is suddenly gone. In this situation you have to create a context, a surrounding meaning in which you can choose whatever activity touches your heart. This is very difficult if you do not know the length of time you will be in this situation, or certain other practical considerations like expenses and so forth, that can limit your choices as to what you are capable of doing. But for the focus, as you requested, you need an object, or more precisely – in a time sense – an objective. Why not ask yourself what your heart desires? True, it may not be very practical, but it might be the most rewarding. Does this help?
Student: Ah, yes, it does. Thank you.
Michael: I would add here that this is one of the great difficulties facing mankind, not only individually, but generally: that is, what to do with freedom once you have it. I’m sure you can think of – from your own experience or with friends’ – some of the ironic tragedies that people get into that lead to expressions like, “killing time.” So it may help if you appreciate the challenge. And be in My peace.
Student: Thank You.
Student: Yes, Michael, I’ve had throughout this day the experience of what you have been talking to us about tonight. When I went to work this morning, and I began to work, I started feeling a little bit despondent about how much money I need to make, and certain bills that have come up and need to be paid. And how my daughter needs certain things done – dental work and eye surgery, and the money for that… And it just kept on steamrollering. Then it went to: I’m not living the life I desire to live, I’m failing in my eyes and even in God’s eyes… And I was watching myself go through this, saying this to myself. Part of me said, kind-of out loud, “God, I need money right here and now. I need it,” and then, with that I thought, about that, I remembered God being abundance – and doing all those affirmations.
And then I remembered, going deeper into myself, the prayer of Saint Frances of Assisi, “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace, and make me an instrument of Thy love.” And from that moment on, the inner dialogue I was having in myself was at peace. And I’ve carried that peace, and that sense of existing moment to moment – as You alluded to – with me up to this point. And there is even a sense of being empowered. I’m not saying my situation has been resolved, but it’s coming from that bedrock of peace that You alluded to. In that place, the steps I’m taking into the future are a lot more confident and decisive.
Michael: Yes, My son – this is what I would consider to be a triumph, not of the human will as you so often think of it, but a triumph of the spirit of truth. In human life your emotions are such double-edged swords that can lacerate you and cause you much pain, and yet, at the same time, can inform you of certain overall, encompassing concerns that do need attention. So to become merely callous and refuse to feel is not only throwing out the baby with the bath water, but doing real violence to yourself. Because this is that denial I mentioned earlier.
In refusing to feel emotions you are also denying and refusing to acknowledge the message they may be carrying, and this message can have an enormous quotient of reality within it. In denying emotions and refusing to feel them, you only require them to become sharper and sharper and more cutting and lacerating. But by feeling them, by acknowledging the demands contained within them of – in this case, certain financial considerations – I would suggest this acceptance could be what led you to think of Saint Francis’ wonderful prayer. It is this triumph of truth, of seeking truth, that has stayed with you – almost by definition, is it not?
Student: Yes.
Michael: Truth is that which is – that which has substance. This substance endures moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, so you can have an assurance, finally, of some solid ground, of discovering that the essence of this ground is peace. Standing even further back, you see this as a living process. By staying in touch with the real living essence of what you’ve gone through today, you can understand: Well, this is how my mind works: not to short-circuit the process, but to have faith in the process. And this is mirrored in your feelings of self-confidence. Are there any other aspects of this you wish to discuss?
Student: It’s just the understanding that what I was going through – the feeling, the feeling of frustration and negativity – just to see how little I felt, and how like…a “woe is me” kind of feeling… I can see how defeating it was, or is – to continue in that train of thought, does not help alleviate the situation at all. And so I chose not to stay there. I think people on this world don’t make that choice so consciously. And I always tell my children, never to make a decision from emotional distress, but come from this place of peace and equanimity.
Michael: I see this as a process of maturing, for how many times must the human heart be torn like this before it learns, as you did today, to turn towards and face the fear, and find a way through it, by accepting all the factors of the situation? There is a triumph in refusing, as you did, to wallow in self pity, or just to escape in any number of ways.
You will recall from your text the distinction between self gratification and self maintenance. In this case it was by staying focused on self maintenance and accepting the situation – by refusing to merely waste time in self gratification in indulging a “woe is me” kind of pity – that you escaped. The more you do this, the more you have faith – right when you are in the clutches of this negative emotion – to see it for the unconscious reaction it is. Think of panic, the extreme case of this emotion, as a way in which your system is trying to liberate enough energy to confront the situation. So even panic, on a certain level, is well intended, but it is still only an animal level of reaction that has to be transcended in order to effectively swing onto action. All these negative emotions are just ways of trying to deal with the situation, but in a way that only perpetuates the status quo, or worse – causes a regression. It is in your wise refusal to indulge these that you are actually swinging into action, confronting the situation by getting to the bottom, the real bedrock of both the facts and your faith. So we have learned something today, have we not?
Group: Yes.
Michael: Good! This is good. Student: Part of the realization too, and I’ve always thought about this: there is only so much I can do with the means that are here for me. There is only so much money I can make with the work that I do. There’s only so much I can do, so I leave it in God’s hands -to direct me creatively to rectify the situation. It’s all I can do.
Michael: This, I would suggest, is the difference between evaluating the situation in a truly helpful way, and being judgmental against yourself. Well, My son, I invite you to rest well this evening. Sleep on this, and remain in My peace.
Student: Thank you.
Closing
Michael: And so, My children, you see how it is you acquire character. You ever so slowly, but certainly, build up within yourselves that which can endure. This is not to say that there cannot occur something that will sweep you away entirely. But it is to say that your faith informs you that nothing like this is for long. Even though you may be swept away, your Father – our Father, can recreate you anew on the other side with nothing lost – all that you were, and now this experience too. There is no end or limit to the adventure, but with faith we go forward joyfully to greet it. Be in My peace. Good evening.
