2005-01-24-Feedback & Freedom
Marin #33
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: Feedback & Freedom
2Group: Marin TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Nebadonia
2TR: JL
3Session
1Opening
2Lesson
3Dialogue
4Closing
Topic: Feedback & Freedom
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Nebadonia
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, We thank You for being the occasion for these special weekly get-togethers. We feel especially blessed to be living at this time in history, when we have not only a Fragment of the Father in our minds, and Michael, Your Spirit of Truth in our hearts to help us know the way, but now also, we are extra blessed that You have chosen to talk to us so directly like this. Amen.
Nebadonia: Good evening, My children. I, too, feel very blessed to be here with you this evening. This is your Mother, Nebadonia, Mother Spirit to this realm. Yes, it is good to be able to talk to you this way, to reassure you that you and I, My children, we are very much One in spirit. We have the same Father. It is He who gives us both life and love. I am very much inside you, always. And you are very much inside of Me. I am all about you and I hold you suspended in the most powerful force that exists.
Lesson
The Infinite Spirit – if you will, My other parent, a mother to Me – it is Her connective force holding universes together, Her supreme intelligence, Her Cosmic Mind, that I funnel directly down to you and give you the connection with your lives. Now, My children, I want you to realize the two-way nature of this connection. You’ve developed a wonderful concept recently, the concept of feedback. It let’s you know most profoundly, when you touch something, that something touches you. And so when I touch your lives, your lives touch Me. This is how you enrichen Me. This is why I am so thankful to our Father that I have children like you. You fulfill Me. You give Me great joy and a reason for My being. And so, in a way beyond this simple expression, My children, I thank you.
Let us grow together. Let us spread the wings of our minds. Let us stretch wider and wider, more and more open. Let us be aware that we are always surrounded by, encompassed by, dimensions upon dimensions without end. Let us be humble in this awareness that we are in the midst of God’s creation, for it is enormous and profound and subtle and powerful, and yet gentle and loving and supporting beyond any measure. This is what surrounds us, always, more than you can realize. There is no limit to growth, none whatsoever. And so with light hearts, the joyful feeling of adventure, you don’t hesitate to open up and spread your wings and reach out to feel for that infinity surrounding you.
Never hesitate to start anew for you will always be – somewhat – beginners. And you want to keep your beginner’s mind. There is no limit out there, children. Don’t be shy. Step off and embrace it. This is God’s creation, and it was created for you. As Michael once assured you, though you may feel tiny in the face of all you are able to perceive and imagine with the creative spiritual power of your own personality, you can feel such an enormous joy in that humility. For though you are ever so tiny, that prospect you can perceive and imagine? – you will not only achieve it someday, you will surpass it again and again. There is no limit out there, My children, for you.
Now, if you care to look inside, there is no limit there either. Well! – you are not so tiny after all! Right within you is a living, growing soul of experience greater than you can perceive or imagine, and it is already yours. This is what you are, My children. You are gigantic beyond your fondest wishes. You cannot begin to hold yourselves, only God can do that. This is how you were created. You bear the hallmark of God’s handiwork.
Let this assurance sit on your hearts ever so lightly. Live your lives ever so comfortably. Rest deeply and profoundly in this home base of your spirit. You are a part of absolute reality. You are complete moment to moment as God creates you in a partnership with your own will. This way you are given a part, an equal part, in the creation of your own perfection. And beyond this there is good work to be done, My children. There is a whole world about you greatly in need of your helping hand.
This partnership, this good work to be done, your own wisdom will inform you that this is what makes heaven on earth – one step at a time. So again I invite you: don’t be shy. Step off. Do good work, one step at a time. Let Our love and our Father’s love flow through you and bless those around you. Then you will know what power is really all about. Then you will know what blessing and being blessed is all about.
Thank you, My children, for lending ear and heart to my voice. I love you so very much, and I worship our Father who lives right within you. Thank you, Father, for these My children. Aren’t they something!
If you have any questions or comments, I am always glad to share them with you, and answer as best I can.
Dialogue
Student: Mother, I just wanted to verbally express my appreciation for all that You and our Creator Father, Michael, do for all of us. The blessings You continue to shower on us are…I know they are not appreciated yet at our level of existence, but truly we have so much to be grateful for. And to see Your protection in the midst of healing suffering and human turbulence is further proof than I am very grateful for. I could take that…and You turn it into joy and understanding and an extended enhancement of divine perfection. It’s now that we can grow this in us – just to be consciously…be aware of that, and to be actively participating in that – I know my appreciation is very profound, and I just wanted to say that to You.
Nebadonia: You are very welcome, My daughter. It does My heart good to feel the wisdom within you. I think we share together, Mother and child, that wisdom which sees behind all that you mentioned, the necessity of freedom – all that human life entails, that you may be free. At times of tragic loss and suffering, it is not always easy to perceive this necessity for freedom, but you truly co-create your own reality with God. And so you also see all that Michael and I do to help you realize that freedom, and assure you, because it is in your human life a transcendent matter of faith, that this freedom is worth the price you have to pay for it. Thank you again, My daughter, that you can see this so clearly. And be in My love.
Student: Mother, would You explain what the phrase “beginner’s mind” means?
Nebadonia: Yes, C, I borrowed that phrase from an old saying that in the expert’s mind there are few choices, but in the beginner’s mind there is an infinity of choice. Partly We are reminding you, from time to time, to go a little easy on yourselves. Do not be judgmental against yourselves, or too critical. For in doing so you are being a bit presumptuous against yourselves. In this way you are acting somewhat like experts who think they know so much that they can pass judgment – that you can pass judgment on yourself or on others. It’s a caution against a kind of hubris, and a way of staying humble. Keep in the perspective of how tiny you are in the face of eternity, and in the face of the enormity of knowledge and experience you yourself will grow someday.
As long as you remember that reality – God’s creation – will always dwarf your own perception and imagination, you pay proper respect to the Source of everything. From this perspective you should delight in being a beginner. You should find great joy there are still so many mistakes to make. So keep your beginner’s mind, be open to endless possibilities. Slough off the old, hardened, callused skin of self-congratulating expertise and be aware of how little you know – exactly – what you are going to do next, before you do it. This may be God’s greatest gift of all: you yourself are there to be discovered. Does this give you some idea, My son?
Student: Yes, it does – sounds like a fascinating journey of discovery, being open to discover. Thank You, Mother.
Nedadonia: You are welcome, My son. This is just another example of how to evolve out of that bubble of familiarity you’ve been noticing.
Student: Yes.
Nebadonia: Experts have a habit of being very uncomfortable with something new. And be in My love.
Student: Yes, Mother, in a sense beginner’s mind is like the mind of a child being innocent – that every day, every moment, like You and Michael have said, is a new moment of self-discovery of this absolute reality that we are. So that is, in a sense, awesome, and I do thank Michael for the idea of seeing each person as an infinite potential of this absolute reality. It just changes things. It breaks down so many barriers that I have seen within myself, and I know I still have a ways to go. But it helps to have these tools and ideas and insights. So I thank You for that.
This idea of absolute reality – that God is the only reality – really has been more and more speaking into my soul, and it feels…whenever I feel a sense of limitation or separateness, more and more I allow these thoughts and attitudes to enter my mind. And things do shift and alter. So I thank You for these insights and perceptions. It is helping me deal with the suffering and pain of the world that I see around me. It instills hope that beneath all this is God’s reality, His absolute reality of goodness and love and truth. Unfortunately, since we are co-creators, we have the capacity to create perfect imperfection, and that’s what we are seeing now. So thank You for all this understanding and love. At times I do feel like a beginner with so much to unlearn and understand… Its so hard…
Nebadonia: Yes, My son, let your heart overflow. This is a healing that passes all understanding. It does My mother’s heart so warm to know My children can make good use, right in their day-to-day lives, of what I have to offer. You mentioned too, My son, the potential for deliberate evil – someone deliberately causing suffering for another, and that is what I meant by the price we all pay, even Michael and I, that we may be free. This is why it takes the deepest wisdom and faith to realize the necessity for this freedom in a universe created with perfection as its sometime goal, not its point of departure.
This is the great stage, the real stage, the stage of reality on which the part we have to play was given us by God, yet also with our own freedom of action. We too, as individuals, have a part in what goes forth from this moment on. Thank you for your heartfelt gratitude, My son. And be in My peace.
Student: Dear Nebadonia, I’d like some help in understanding my older boy and his mind. He seems to be developing at a rapid pace, but it’s herkey-jerkey. At the same time I could use Your comments about circular simultaneity because I feel all this is happening at once. This is a wonderful revelation to me and I feel that I want to understand my boy’s mind better as it unfolds.
Nebadonia: Yes, V, I understand your concern. This is a wonderful example of two-way action and reaction along the lines of connection between you and your son. For if you both employ this, if you both can be open to each other and learn from each other, renew each other, strengthen each other, this could be the ideal to aim for, to keep in mind when you are actually engaged. As you can see, this takes a certain amount of detachment. You have to see the whole situation almost as if you were outside and looking in on a father and son relating to each other.
As you strive to be open to his reality, be aware of how much a part you play in this reality of his. You are his father. Try to be sensitive to what this means to him. What does he need you to be? It is what you know as an archetype. There is a dynamic happening here – father and son – which is an ancient one as old as the human race. And so there are deep meanings within this relationship which are not only inescapable, but useful. In this relationship, father and son, there should be something evolving – not static or rigid. So be aware of the differential, not only of specific knowledge, but more importantly, of wisdom based on an inequality of experience – without misusing this authority.
Try to impress on your son what Michael and I have been teaching these last several months, the importance of experience. As we have been suggesting, you live in such a complex society, in terms of entertainment, that even at a very young age your children are full of thousands and thousands of hours of vicarious experience. And they may not yet have the discrimination to be able to separate this vicarious experience from what they themselves have personally known.
So help your son be as active as he can be in those ways that give him a necessary feedback as to where he, personally, is, so that he may start to be grounded in an appreciation of his own unique experience. And he can best do this through your discrimination of this very thing. This is what fathers have done for their sons throughout history: not exactly curtailing the child’s imagination, but reminding him gently but firmly of the difference between imagination and actual experience, personal experience.
As to your other point – I’m not sure what you mean by circular simultaneity.
Student: That would be…it’s mentioned in the Urantia Book, the idea that as we approach nearer and nearer to Paradise, we don’t keep time so much on a continuous basis as much as with a circular simultaneity of Gods’ attitude towards the universe. He just…ages upon ages, tends to grasp that – but I feel grateful that I have a sense of the immediacy of all this, to God on Paradise.
Nebadonia: Yes, but I think you might realize then, that on that enormous scale, it’s like your trying to see the circumference or the curvature of the earth on a six-inch ruler. Do you see what I mean? When you talk about circles with respect to the movement of the seven Superuniverses of galaxies around Paradise over endless eons of time, it’s hard to see how that has application within a human lifetime. I think what might be more useful is the notion of non-linear simultaneity, which ties in with what I mentioned earlier – a way of reminding yourself that however linear – and necessarily usefully linear – your thought process are, all around you are endless dimensions all happening simultaneously. This might be a more useful concept in your day-to-day life. Does this help you, My son?
Student: Yes, I think that’s the term that I meant. My Thought Adjuster, while I have fuzzy memories, has a clear memory, and as I try to predict the future, the future is more alive and unpredictable. I think the term helps me in the sense – to see that when I meditate, I’ve been comfortable that I’m not loosing anything. And also at the same time, I am catching up with infinity and I don’t have to worry – it’s a fact.
Nebadonia: Yes. We have invited you to rest in the assurance that the Hand that writes the journals of your soul writes exceedingly fine. From the human perspective, you are suspended between infinity and the infinitesimal, yet you can rightly call this – home! And be in My love.
Closing
Well, My children, another evening draws to a close. My heart is full – you have helped make it so. Try to keep in mind all that there is out there, surrounding you. But be not daunted by that, but be assured you are in good hands – and one of those hands is your own! All My love. Good evening.
