PR
New Era Transition #029 – Facing challenges; Making Better Choices – Nov. 20, 2017
Mentor: Sondjah Melchizedek
Topics:
Applying social sustainability to larger organizations
Clarifying the use of “pre-destination” last session
Our personal “plan” for our life
The coefficients of Love, Mercy and Ministry
Accelerate the planet’s growth through guidance
Knowing if we are on the right path
Serendipity, coincidence and happenstance
The “null prayer”
Challenges facing corporations and individuals
Building better self-discipline and making better choices
Expressing the 7 values in art
TR: Daniel Raphael, PhD
Team Members present: Roxanne Andrews, Liz Cratty, Jeff Cutler, Doug Dodge, Stephane Labonte and Michael McCray, M.D.
Invocation
November 20, 2017
Applying social sustainability to larger organizations
SONDJAH: Good morning, this is Sondjah; welcome to a new day, a new beginning, a new phase of implementation. What is perhaps disconcerting to you is that you do not see what we see—the new developments of implementation where people in organizations are actually thinking about—and not only thinking about but beginning to apply the values of social sustainability to their group and to their programs. This is particularly important to non-profit organizations such as churches. Other non-profits could benefit from this greatly, though they have not begun to see these concepts clearly, they have not been made visible to them.
As I have reported in the past, our work continues with Christ the King Lutheran Church in Denver with This One and with the Pastor, Joel Rothe. His salary is being paid by Abiding Hope. This One and Sherille had a meeting with Joel this past week, a personal one-on-one with him, to finally explain the Family Clinic program and how it would apply to the church situation.
[[This is Daniel: The main church is Abiding Hope, Pastor Doug Hill is the Senior Pastor and they are the ones who bought the physical plant of Christ the King Lutheran Church and they are the 3rd largest church in Colorado.]]
SONDJAH: This meeting was very important as Joel had understood only briefly what the work of social sustainability was about and what had excited This One so much about the values that have sustained your species. [Rothe] will have a personal meeting with Pastor Hill on the 27th of November. Your thoughts and work with the celestials regarding that meeting would be appreciated. Having said that, you can accept that I will be involved in that as well. Our intention in the meeting is to open the mind of the Senior Pastor to see how this program could be applied and used to a larger church. When you step back from these situations, you must realize that a church with a congregation of between 5,000 – 10,000 members, that many members are also on the governing boards and preside over other non-profit organizations who will have a benefit in these values and in the concepts of social sustainability.
It is our attempt to use the impoverished situation of Christ the King Lutheran Church as a focal point for our work, one that can be applied to a much larger church and with the hope for eventual acceptance of this program into Christ the King, and also accepted and applied within the larger church of Abiding Hope. This would have a tremendous marketing perspective to all of our work that if a mega-church accepts such a program then other mega-churches may want to do so as well. This of course is not the only program that we are working with. I will keep this short due to This One’s inattention of his mind.
[[Note: Daniel was experiencing a lot of pain and though he was not on pain killers during this time, his TR’ing was a little “rambling,” which has been smoothed out during editing without changing Sondjah’s meanings.]]
SONDJAH: If you have questions, please ask them now.
Mike: Hello, Sondjah, this is Michael McCray. We have spoken together quite some time ago and it’s good to hear you again.
SONDJAH: It is good to see that you are still alive!
Mike: (Laughing.) Yes, I am, thank you very much. I wondered if you could give just a quick synopsis without the rambling; I didn’t get the point. Can you focus out on that?
SONDJAH: I would be glad to and thank you for your question. It helps bring focus to this rambling. This is the beginning of the implementation stage, which involved also a marketing program that will make our work nationwide within a very few months when it begins to be implemented. Does that help?
Mike: Yes it does, thank you.
Clarifying the use of “pre-destination” last session
Jeff: Thank you for being here. Last session, you said the following: “Though you have been called to this forum, know that you are present here today because you have a pre-destination to be here; you are not foreordained to be here, but you have a destiny to fulfill if you wish to participate with us.” Could you expound a little bit on the concept of pre-destination as you used it in that sentence?
SONDJAH: Yes. As you know every individual has a Thought Adjuster and that with every individual there has been developed a plan of life for that individual and this is their pre-destined course in life if they so choose to act upon what you might call the “intuitive guidance” given by their Thought Adjuster. Yet, you also know that the will decisions of mortals are sovereign, that you have free-will and that your free-will sovereign decisions will not be changed or amended, therefore, that you are responsible for your decisions. If you choose not to go with the plan, then that is your decision.
This plan that you have for your life is given to you as a gift from the Creator through your Thought Adjuster for the course of your life to guide you in your ascendant journey. Yet, you are not foreordained to do that—the choice is yours. It is simply a plan for your choosing. If it were foreordained then you would have no choice but to follow the plan. Such a situation would not work to your advantage on your ascendant journey which requires that you make independent decisions and take actions that prove you are capable of entering the next spiritually evolutionary step of your spiritual growth. Do you follow so far?
Jeff: I think so.
SONDJAH: It is very simple: everyone has a plan; you choose to follow the plan or not; it is not foreordained; the plan is not obligatory. If it were foreordained or pre-ordained, you would be obliged to follow it, but you are not.
[[ Daniel: I think this was covered once before in months past. I wish we had a way of searching all these files for topics. Somehow we’ve got to do that in the software.
Roxie: That’s something we are working on in the new archive.]]
SONDJAH: Jeff, do you have further questions?
Our personal “plan” for our life
Jeff: No, I don’t think so. It’s just that sometime back I basically made a personal pledge that I was going to turn my life over to the Father and just let him guide me through the rest of the steps of my journey and I don’t think that I have ever been given the blueprint or whatever the plan was that I was born with and I guess we would all wander off our plan here and there due to what circumstance or consequence we don’t really know yet, because we haven’t finished the journey.
SONDJAH: You are quite correct, rarely has anyone been given a vision of their plan, even those who are conscious members of the Corps of Destiny have rarely seen all of the plan. Some of these individuals have not seen any of it; some have seen part of it. The reason for not disclosing the plan to individuals is for the reasons that you have already given. Mortals think that if they have a plan then they must pursue it, but this is much as Lao-tse has said that “The journey is more important than the goal.” And so, when you make decisions ahead of time, then you disallow the growth of your soul, and so by not knowing the plan, you must search and remain in contact with your Thought Adjuster in your meditation and follow the plan through the opportunities that come to you from the celestials, the angels and your Thought Adjuster.
There are reasons for this plan: Even we celestials and celestial teachers who are on their ascendant journey are not given all of the plan; we are given options in how we want to act out the ascension plan of our lives, but rarely are we given the full disclosure of our plan. It comes eventually in doing the Father’s Will in all things without any obstructions or any resistance.
Jeff: That is a very comforting thought, thank you, Sondjah.
The coefficients of Love, Mercy and Ministry
Liz: Good morning, Sondjah. I heard myself say in our Urantia Book Study Group last week, something that I have said before and I’m not sure that I know if it’s true, or not, and I don’t know where I got this idea, but I wanted to run it by you to see if I am accurate in my thinking about this. Starting with Truth, Beauty and Goodness, which I believe are personality attributes of God, they have action coefficients of Love, Mercy and Ministry. I was thinking that Love is the action of Truth, and that Mercy is the action of Beautiful—In other words there is nothing more beautiful than offering mercy; there is nothing more loving than discovering truth, and there is nothing that demonstrates goodness more than ministering to one of our fellows. And I believe that, but I’m not sure that those things are as coordinated as I have set them out to be. Would you speak to this, please?
SONDJAH: Gladly. This too is—I would not call it part of the puzzle of your journey, of your plan—but it is something for you to discover. It seems obvious to me, and as I look within, your Thought Adjuster has dropped one of those big “Aha’s” into your mind. The test, of course, is for you to now apply that and test that out in your actions with your fellow brothers and sisters. It is also useful to test that out with you as an individual in the greatest honesty that you can apply to your own introspection as you analyze as objectively as possible your inner growth, your truth, beauty, and goodness, all the while being compassionate to yourself as a soul that is growing.
The chore now for you, the work now to do is to hold those standards up to yourself in your mind, or on a piece of paper, as you are in conversation with others on the telephone, or as you meet people face-to-face. Then you will see your living growth in action, your love in action and your mercy, your compassion and your empathy for others and your service to others. It is a wonderful means to evaluate your own personal growth and [that] you are striving to do so signifies that you have achieved quite a good level of inner beauty yourself.
Liz: Thank you for that. I have a long way to go.
Accelerate the planet’s growth through guidance
Stephane: I want to put the Teaching Mission and Correcting Time in context: You talk about everyone of us having a plan discovered through a connection with our Thought Adjuster who can then, with our willingness, enable this plan to occur through the angels and other circuits. As such the growth and progress of society and the planet can occur in such a way as has transpired in the last thousands of years. The purpose of the Teaching Mission and the Correcting Time is to accelerate this progress socially and globally. Is that correct?
SONDJAH: That is correct. Continue.
Knowing if we are on the right path
Stephane: My question is here: How are we going to apply these teachings that we receive and are reading, how are we to know that we are on the right path on a day-to-day basis if we are not in connection with a TR ourselves?
SONDJAH: Gladly. Without being a TR—and being a TR does not necessarily assure that you know your plan or understand what it is or what you need to do. With that caveat out of the way, the way to tell if you are on track or not is to appraise your life in terms of coincidence, happenstance and serendipity. Those provide the tell-tale evidence of the angels and celestials and midwayers at work in your life. It is through these serendipitous coincidences that resources are brought together. It is important therefore that the Teaching Mission had to be initiated in order to develop a cadre of individuals who believe that there was and is and are celestial beings about and that Christ Michael has a conscious, intentional, deliberate will to bring this world into the light as other planets are doing so as well.
When this cadre becomes large enough, when there are enough to gain traction—meaning that there are enough individuals to begin implementing social programs, which are the evidence of the Magisterial Mission—once you see these in play, then you know that spirit is ramping up the energy and to work co-creatively with the mortals of this cadre. And do not be surprised to see other people who are not part of this cadre make major contributions to our work. Even those who do not believe in God can be used to good ends for our work of bringing this planet into the Days of Light and Life.
You have begun to see part of that already. You have been given a very small example of a coincidence that is a part of Divine Order and Divine Timing and Divine Development in the delivery of the book that This One mentioned that was given to him earlier last week. It was by coincidence that this book arrived as a gift and having read it, This One realized that the book offered so much insight into the work that we spirit are doing on this planet, co-creatively with each of you and with groups of individuals. So when you see these tell-tale signs of spirit working in your life, you should be assured—we hope you will be assured—that you are on track and you are doing the right things.
[Note: This book was mentioned in our team discussion before the session began.; Wilber, Ken 2016, Integral Meditation, Shambala Publications, Boulder, Colorado, ISBN: 978-1-61180-298-6, $16.95 // Daniel: I read sections of it in great detail for material relevant to my paper, UNDERSTANDING Social Sustainability; and gave great swaths of it only a cursory examination.]
Serendipity, coincidence and happenstance
There is a vision or illustration, which I wish to give you: Finding signs, symbols and omens as happenstance, coincidence and serendipity are much like the trail of sparkles from Tinker Bell in the Walt Disney animated movies that you have seen. This is evidence of angels being present, much as Tinker Bell did not want to be seen and visible to people, still individuals could see the sparkling trail of her passing. So too, the work of angels is visible in the serendipity, coincidence and happenstance in your life. And remember too that all of these developments do not necessarily have to do with the Correcting Time; they are also meant for you personally with the development of your spiritual career as a mortal, that you are guided to one person and another and so on. It was not by assignment that you arrived in Denver and visited with This One and his wife a few weeks ago. That too was a wonderful coincidence, happenstance that came to your life and made it possible. Do you understand?
The “null prayer”
Stephane: I do. I’d like you to elaborate with the concept and within the context of the “null prayer” previously discussed. How can we know that a suggested path is not a path that needs to be followed?
SONDJAH: Yes, thank you. The vast, vast majority of mortals do not know what their plan of life is. If you see an opportunity that comes to you, for whatever it may be, you would then “probe” the situation. [A metaphor comes from the Star Trek Enterprise where the captain would order a “probe” to be sent out to explore, measure, and assess some unknown situation.] When an opportunity comes along, you may want to explore it, meaning that you would want to test it to see whether it offers something to you, and to see whether it will provide you with a continuing stream of opportunities ahead.
The affirmative prayer is apparent when you would say to spirit, “If this is the way forward for me, then open this situation with further opportunities.” The null prayer is apparent when you say to spirit, “If this is not the way for me to move forward, then bring this event, this situation to a fast close so I do not waste my time.”
This has been used many times by This One and others, and we are in full agreement that you are following the opportunities that lead you forward in doing God’s Will, that it is in alignment with your life plan and the work that you can do with us. It is not useful to you in your spiritual career to pursue avenues of opportunity that only have a material or mortal advantage. We wish for you to have an advantage that assists you in your spiritual journey. Do you have further questions regarding this?
Challenges facing corporations and individuals
Stephane: No, thank you for explaining. I want to put it in context of challenges. There are more and more new books coming out on challenges, such as Kim Scott’s “Radical Candor” in Silicon Valley where the more successful corporations are the ones that accept internal challenges as acceptable behaviors throughout the organization. Another one is “Principles: Life and Work” by Ray Dalio, Chairman and Chief Investment Operator of Bridgewater Associates, who also promotes internal challenges in their corporate culture—very few corporations have this culture ingrained but some of the most successful ones are the ones that accept challenges and this comes back to my question: How do we challenge ourselves and each other to accelerate and validate progress in the Correcting Time, the Teaching Mission and with our individual life plans?
SONDJAH: One moment. We would first ask you to differentiate your work at the corporate level from a personal level. Corporations and organizations do not have a soul, they do not enter the afterlife and they do not have an ascendant career, therefore they are only a means to an end for investors and for your civilization. First of all, we fully admire, support and give credence to the aspect of challenging the internal community, internal mores of an organization. When an organization becomes very large it has to have the ability to be self-conscious a culture of consciousness of questioning whether the course it is taking is “right.” When you see this word “right,” you can also substitute the word “correct” or the words “what works.” This is the point where we introduce the morality of social sustainability as offering the criteria for long-term transcendence of an organization beyond its unchallenged competitors.
The challenge for the individual is to ask themselves in a similar manner, “Am I going in the right direction? Does what I do bring service to my soul, to the lives of other individuals, to my family, and to my children?” It is important that one have the courage to ask this question for it will create an existential crisis if you do not. And the existential crisis for corporations is this, “Are we pursuing a wrong direction then eventually we will not be sustained and not be able to transcend our current situation and remain sustainable in existence into the decades and centuries ahead.” As you have begun to become aware this is vastly expanded thinking for an organization, and this is what organizations must do to survive, and in surviving they will need to take on the approach—I do not like to use the term “global approach” or “perspective” — but they need to have an integral approach of their present and into their future.
We admire the work that is being done and we fully support it as I said earlier, as this is the way that large organizations will teach other organizations how to become sustainable into an indeterminate and unknown future. For you as a soul it is important that you challenge yourself. It is not necessarily the work that you do, the career that you have, but how you think and what is of most importance to you. Is having a retirement fund the most important thing in your life? Or is making a contribution to your children so that they become the conscientious challenging leaders of the future for organizations, governments, and non-profits as well? It is important to feed yourself as a soul, to be good to yourself, to analyze and ask yourself, “Am I making moral decisions?
Is my life being lived in an ethical way with a social conscience for the concerns of others?” For you to ask such a question means that you have already achieved a high level of self-awareness to do this. As we have said before, self-observation is sine qua non, [an indispensable condition; a necessity], of an achieving soul that you then have the criteria to correct your way and to achieve great growth no matter where you are in your life, no matter how wealthy you are, or how impoverished you are, or the social culture that you come from.
Stephane: Thank you for making that link.
Building better self-discipline and making better choices
Doug: Good morning. My question is a follow-up from last time where we talked about self-discipline and getting from your comfort zone to your courage zone, to be able to help make better choices for doing the Will of God. It just seems like there is a link between self-discipline and discipleship that is kind of a segue from one to the other, and if you would have some more comments on building better self-discipline to making better choices for discipleship.
SONDJAH: Explain “discipleship” as you define and use it.
Doug: Obviously it is following in God’s Will, you are going to do things to hone yourself to better follow what you think is the ideal.
[[This is Daniel: That word “discipleship” does not compute for me. Please ask the question again about discipline.]]
Doug: Well, it’s just that we can make small choices in our own daily life to reaffirm our ability to—it’s sort of like flexing your own self-will muscles in order to build up the courage to step out of your comfort zone, to have courage to do the self-willed acts that are our higher self, I guess—for your higher self.
SONDJAH: One moment. Self-discipline ties in very well with the answers given to Stephane and that topic. Self-awareness is needed to hone your self-discipline. If you are not self-aware of the necessity of making an appropriate decision, then you will not be able to exercise your self-discipline. Self-discipline has to do with being aware of the right course of action and then following through, whether that means picking up your date and going to the movies on time, or being late because you dithered your time away watching the news. Self-discipline is a personal habit that courses through all aspects of your life, both the mundane and the grand. Many people have procrastinated, which is the opposite of self-discipline and acting on self-discipline. I use those two words together to give you a succinct way of viewing self-discipline. If you think that you are procrastinating then you need to buckle up, step up, and pursue the right course of action by making the right decision and then moving forward with that decision. Does this make sense for you, Doug?
Doug: Sure. I think a lot of people stack up all these things that they want to do, creatively and part goal, and on the other hand they trade them off or watch reruns on TV, as an example.
SONDJAH: Well said.
Doug: Okay, that was my question for the day. Thank you.
Expressing the 7 values in art
Roxie: I have a question from a reader that I’ve been hanging onto for several sessions. Rick says that: “The Mexican Public High School students do not receive art instruction, so two years ago I started a free University Level Art School in the city of San Miguel de Allende designed for the most talented and motivated local students ages 14-17. What can Liz and I do to maximize the effectiveness, growth and success of our free high school art school?”
SONDJAH: One moment. You are in a supremely delightful predicament, are you not? In an art class you can begin to express “truth, beauty and goodness,” and that in the decisions, the choices, the options of an art piece, students are confronted with what they will portray and what they will express, what will come out of their imagination. It is important that in all educational situations that the 7 core values, the 7 values of social sustainability, the 7 values that have sustained your species are applied in art, as well as in government and in the family situation. You are in a delightful situation where you have harvested the most adept and insightful and spiritually open individuals to receive your ministry. I use “ministry” in a very light way; the ministry of art, in which you work is not pedantic as you cannot dictate what students will work on in their interests.
This is a subtle way of giving children, teenagers, insight into their thinking and for them to aspire to the higher values that art often has portrayed in the past. Mexico has a wonderful history of sacred art, and art that can be seen as sacred. It is not necessary that they draw pictures of Jesus and the Cross, Mary and so on, but simply the decisions, the thoughts given to their art work through your guidance is important to the formation of these individuals as thriving and growing individuals and souls. If you have further questions regarding this you are most welcome to ask them and we will attend to your questions promptly.
Roxie: Thank you for Rick, Sondjah.
Are there any other questions from the group?
Doug: Just well wishes for Thanksgiving!
Daniel: Thank you! I appreciate that. And likewise, whether you are celebrating Thanksgiving in Canada on another day, or in France, or any other nation, thanksgiving for abundance is always appropriate and so thank you and best wishes to your holidays.
[Note: There was not the usual closing message from Sondjah.]
