PR
New Era Conversations #48
– Progress; Mental Health; Teenagers and depression
– Jun. 9, 2015
Teachers: Monjoronson, Magisterial Son, and
Machiventa Melchizedek, Planetary Manager
Topics:
New Era progress report by Monjoronson
The affinity of various associations and organizations
“Meta” organizations are coming into place
Options for reducing flawed genes
Mental health issues secondary to environmental factors
Physical illnesses portrayed as mental illnesses
Depression
Teenagers and depression
Teenagers and suicide
Enculturation missing in societies concerning males
Evolving or devolving societies
Peer pressure of popularity among teens
The meaning and purpose of baptism
Seeking wholeness of being and oneness with God
TR: Daniel Raphael
Team members: Roxanne Andrews, Michael McCray and a Student
June 9, 2015
Invocation:
New Era progress report by Monjoronson
MONJORONSON: Good morning, this is Monjoronson. Some of you have felt the large, monumental blocks of our program moving into place. The large movement of blocks should tell you that the arrangement of those programs has been reset and reintegrated, and that we have begun a New Era in our work here on Urantia. I speak to you today because I am the Manager of these programs, and I am aware of them as they develop. Machiventa has been overseer of those programs with subordinate Melchizedeks in charge of each individual program.
The consternation that some of you have concerning these programs is that you do not see the programs, you are not aware of where they are, or who they are associated with, and you do not have the assurance or confidence that what I speak of is true. I ask you to take my word for that, that the programs that Christ Michael began in the Correcting Time Program are developing; some have continued to develop over the years; some will continue to be maintained, such as the Teaching Mission—those will not go away as they have prepared many thousands of people to be in connection with our work. These individuals may not have read The Urantia Book; they might not be religious at all, or even be concerned about the spirituality of their ascendant career. Nonetheless, there are millions upon millions who are very helpful to us in this program. Christ Michael is very generous in his program and invites everyone who has a concern for the welfare of this planet, its ecology and its civilization to participate as intimately as they are capable in these programs that he has developed.
The affinity of various associations and organizations
We have spoken in the past of the connection of the “dots of Cheerios,” so to speak, where one is attracted to another. In some cases, these Cheerios represent just one person being attracted to another person, and pretty soon the exchange of information leads one to the other and their association and organizations that they support and participate in and make contributions to. In this way, many more people have come together, and eventually the associations, groups and organizations they belong to begin to have an affinity for each other, and they too are attracted to each other and begin to support each other in these ways. We proposed this situation for the conference in South Africa, where we saw many organizations have a close affinity to each other through the desire to have peace in this world, whether it was through tourism, or whether it was through association, or teaching academics, or training in the family and [through] enculturation these groups began to know each other.
“Meta” organizations are coming into place
We found through our observation much success, and now know how to bring larger groups together quickly. Of course one of the major elements of our work involves the use of the Internet in guiding the minds of individuals to search for words that bring them new links to new organizations, and find they have so much in common. Thus, the larger organizations are starting to come into place, even if it is rough, and not very well finished. Everyone has a need for peace; everyone has a desire for peace, even those who are antagonistic from one nation to another has a desire for social stability. Ongoing universal war is ultimately, totally destructive to any nation or civilization, thus there is a hiatus in those activities and you call it peace. But the peace that we espouse is based upon the three core value-emotions of empathy, compassion and love, so that there is a caring for others. This is quite different from the absence of war, the absence of conflict.
Most of you are very well acquainted with seeing the organizations that are represented in the news, in the form of your governmental institutions and organizations, social organizations, military organizations, commercial organizations, and so on. We, however, have a set of organizations which are not formalized in terms of humans, mortals participating, but organizations that we see that are “meta”—you might call them meta organizations, much as there is a meta language, a meta code behind each web site page—so too, behind the pages of organizations that you see and hear about in your world, there is a meta-organization behind that, which we support. We see our meta-organizations as crossing the lines of your organizations in many dozens of ways; the more cross associations there are between your organizations, the stronger the meta-organization that we have developed behind the scenes.
We hope this metaphor is useful to you when you think about our work in the world around you. What you are feeling in the sense of these large blocks of energy moving about is the repositioning of those meta-organizations for a better relationship with even larger groups of organizations on the meta-plane. If you were to do an intuitive search of the meta-organizations on the Internet, you would begin to see the playing field that we were working in. You could see that there are successes, even when international news appears very chaotic and very much awry.
Thank you. I will release the podium to my Dear Associate and Friend, Machiventa Melchizedek.
MACHIVENTA: This is Machiventa Melchizedek; I am open for questions if you have some at this time.
Options for reducing flawed genes
MMc: Hello, Machiventa. While we recognize a large fraction of Urantians have, or potentially have, mental health issues, we recognize that some of us have flaws that have been introduced into our genetic material, either through malice or natural gene mutations. What are our options to reduce the number of us with flawed genes leading to mental health issues?
MACHIVENTA: We have spoken to you about this numerous times in the past, and that your medical technologies and genetic technologies are adequate enough now to begin a broad analysis of all individuals who are less than age 20 to assist them in determining whether they should have children or not. Ultimately, it is a personal decision. Population management ultimately is a personal decision. That decision can be assisted through enculturation by education and the family to assist the individual when they become of age to reproduce to know ahead of time of their genetic anomalies. It is important for them to know ahead of time whether they are pre-disposed to produce children with genetic anomalies that could cause them to have an impairment in their quality of life and their ability to grow into their potential equally as those who are totally healthy.
Mental health issues secondary to environmental factors
MMc: We also recognize that some of us have mental health issues secondary to what I am calling, “environmental factors”—child abuse, sexual abuse, post traumatic stress disorder, learning disabilities, being bullied at school, living in poverty, having inadequate adult supervision, etc. What are our options to reduce the number of individuals who have mental health issues, secondary to these environmental factors?
MACHIVENTA: In this situation you are seeing the injured individuals as symptoms of a larger social dynamic. (Dynamic is an inadequate word.) What you are seeing in those individuals who are injured is evidence of predators of abuse. This is something that must cease in a society that has chosen to move towards or grow into social stability and social sustainability. Your examples would move upon a gradient: some abuse is minor, whereas repeated minor abuse causes greater and greater injury, whereas maybe one single incident of immense gross abuse would cause PTSD in a child as they grow up, which would cause them great difficulty, and in some cases the abuse would manifest in trans-generational terms, where one who is abused as a child would begin to abuse other children when they are older. In this case society must take very stern measures to remove that predation of its people or its populace.
What is so grossly disturbing to us is the tolerance for moral and ethical predation by members of your society, upon those who are weaker. This is unconscionable on any level, whether a human society or a spiritual group, the acceptance of such gross moral anomalies is indicative of the moral corruption that is endemic in your society. Saying that is quite an indictment, don’t you think?
MMc: Yes.
MACHIVENTA: And so it is that when your societies begin to think about and contemplate the measures of social sustainability and what your societies must do to move more powerfully into the future, to become sustainable will require incredible moral decisions and strength on the part of your societies to curb those negative influences.
We understand and know what those measures must ultimately be, but the decisions to invoke those measures are totally mortal. It will be one of the most difficult decisions of all time for any society to take, and we speak in general terms as we do not want to form opinions this early in our discussion about those measures that mortals must take in their societies to curb predation. It will dawn upon some of the early thinkers of social sustainability what these measures will be, and they too will refrain from discussing it in publications, but eventually it will become so egregious that there must be a public decision about what to do. Further, the cataclysms of the future will create such a horrendous crush and pressure upon society to preserve those who are capable of surviving as to remove those individuals who continue their predation upon other individuals who are weaker.
MMc: Are there certain mental health diagnoses that point to flawed genetics?
MACHIVENTA: You have a better understanding than I do, though I know completely of what you speak, you must discuss this among yourselves and for me to reiterate what you know would not be productive at this point in our relationship.
MMc: Thank you. It is known that many people have mental health issues, and if we are to shrink this number we need to become more sensitive in our evaluation. What sorts of evaluations for mental illness would you suggest?
MACHIVENTA: We ask you to apply due diligence in your own consideration and experience within your medical sciences to answer those questions. Once you have begun that and have expired all options, you are welcome to ask for our assistance. The midwayers will assist you in gaining more ideas and options in your mind about how to proceed.
MMc: I’m going to give up the floor. Is there anyone else with questions for Machiventa?
Physical illnesses portrayed as mental illnesses
Student: Could you please talk about how a physical illness can be portrayed as a mental illness?
MACHIVENTA: Certainly. This is in the realm of psychosomatics, which is a fairly well developed field of study in your medical sciences. It is the meeting place between the mind and the body, where the body manifests some illness or manifestation of illness, manufactured by the mind. This is evidence of the malformed thinking process from early childhood that developed into the individual’s adulthood, and became a topic or fetish or compulsion in the mind that was repeated over and over again. In its grossest form it is hypochondriasis and you have seen many manifestations of hypochondriacal thinking, which led to an overly gross interest in medical problems of the individual, where and in fact, they are fairly well healthy.
Mental beliefs and attitudes about the individual and their body become manifest even in real terms, and oftentimes under treatment do not show any improvement. This is an indication that it may have its origin in the thinking of the individual. These manifestations can be in the extreme forms, which may be capable of causing death to the individual, or they may be simply manifest as an allergy or an itch, or something of that sort. It is difficult to address, and it is difficult to treat in the medical sciences capability of your medical professions at this time.
Student: One of the reasons I asked this question was when I was in my late teens—19 or so—I had been very ill a couple of times, and I developed, unbeknownst to me, at the time as hyperthyroidism, and that was a physical illness and it manifested in a way like “manic,” I would get very manic, and that is what I am referring to is that as an illness as well—that a person could have this illness and exhibit some kind of mental illness through it. Am I right in thinking this way?
MACHIVENTA: Yes, you are correct. It is important that your medical professionals begin with the physical to actually do tests to assess the level or condition of your thyroid by analyzing blood samples, and so on, to know what is occurring with the thyroid. This hyperactivity may appear to be a manic episode, where in fact it is an expression of hyperthyroidism. This mistake could become serious if it were treated as a mental illness problem, then it would continue to cause problems and psychotropic medications would not help, but may in fact, exacerbate the situation. Does that help?
Student: Yes, thank you, Machiventa, it certainly does because that was just one thing I related with as far as physical illness and mental illness goes, and as untreated I could see where it would become a terrible problem. I was wondering if there are any others in the body that would manifest that way, beside the thyroid gland?
MACHIVENTA: There could be many; it will become necessary as your medical sciences mature, to learn from other cultural/medical databases. The Chinese and other sources have a well-developed analysis of psychosomatic illnesses, as well as mental illnesses, and they are able to assess in some cases much more accurately than Western allopathic medical practices.
Depression
Student: Thank you. This leads me into asking you if you would please discuss depression?
MACHIVENTA: Certainly. Depression is quite an anomaly that is far more complex than most people understand. First of all, you are organisms whose organic origins come from the earth. You, as a species are very old, and so you are affected by the environment where you live, whether it is in the tropics or in the higher latitudes, where the amount of sunlight coming to you has an affect on some people, whereas it has little affect on others. There are other anomalies associated with where you live on the planet, some of which are not readily apparent. Certain degrees of magnetic strength in the earth have an effect upon your body and mind mechanism, particularly the junction between the mind and the brain. There is a mechanism involved—electro-chemical mechanism—that can cause depression due to geographic circumstances. This is quite an oddity, I know, but it does occur and it occurs in specific places around the world.
Secondly, depression can be a manifestation of genetic disorders in your DNA structure, and can be passed on from one generation to another. Depression can be latent; it can exist in an individual in the latent manner, and not manifest itself until there are circumstances that are external, which cause the shock to the individual in some emotional way. The interface between the emotional energy and the spiritual in the individual is very strong; it is also very strong between the emotional generation and the mind mechanism. Depression such as that may appear to be circumstantial, which it is, and it may be episodic and dependent upon events in the person’s life whether it manifests or does not. Once it becomes an operational part of the mind mechanism, it is most difficult to root out.
The specific area we address now in this conversation is that depression is mind-dependent, meaning that the thinking and command-mind, the will-mind, can have a powerful effect upon the mind mechanism and the mind-side of your being. The will-mind has a choice whether to be passive and accept what the mind presents, or refuse to accept what the mind-presents. In other words, you can refuse to be depressed. It is as with many other learned behaviors and expressions in your life, it takes time to learn to be depressed; it takes time as well to learn not to be depressed, and not to allow depression into your mind. This is where advanced minds are helpful to the individual, that they can be self-observing, even in conversation, even in the conversation of their own mind [during] thinking, to be attentive and aware of the evidences of depression and to make a command decision not to accept those thoughts.
This may seem awfully surreal to many of you, but it is a part of living as a developed mind mechanism that is struggling to overcome the vicissitudes of events and environment, and the pre-disposition to the depression. Minds that can exercise this amount of authority—the will-mind that has the capacity to command this level of authority over the mind mechanism is one that has the capacity to evolve more completely into the sub-morontial levels of mind-thinking, mental activity, while remaining as a mortal. One of the fortunate things about this is that it is hard to form prejudices or elitism among individuals who are self-observing and capable of self-correction in their thinking between themselves and those who do not. The advantage of self-observing individuals is that they would be aware of any egoism in their thinking and attend to that as well, so that elitism would not become a part of their thinking. As self-observation develops the ability to command the territory of the mind mechanism become more and more complete. This is the journey into becoming Christ-like.
Jesus had the same challenges, even with his perfect mind, he had to overcome the cultural influences upon his mind mechanism that were given to him as an infant and as a young child—a youngster—and given to him by the church, by his faith, and so on. As he came into his adolescent years, his will-mind became more and more identified with the God-presence within him, his Thought Adjuster, and he was rapidly becoming self-aware of those manipulations and the erroneous activity of his birth mind mechanism, and move into his morontial self early on. This was totally complete upon his baptism in the river Jordan, so once that had occurred, then he became fully identified with the morontial mind within him and had complete command over the mind mechanism of his mortality. This is your journey as well. It will not be completed for most of you in this lifetime; it will have begun for many of you in this lifetime, and surely will take much remediation for many of you in the mansion worlds in the afterlife.
You see, Dear One, that the question about depression is not simple, though it is much more rationally thought about by individuals who are self-aware. We strive to assist those of you who are marginal in your capacity to be self-observing, to assist you to grow into that strength. Your Thought Adjuster has begun this process, even as it first was monitoring your first moral decision. This is the beginning of self-observation, and is the beginning of moving into your spiritual adulthood in this lifetime, and into your morontial childhood in this lifetime as well.
Thank you for your question; it was thoughtfully given and I hope it was thoughtfully received.
Teenagers and depression
Student: Thank you so much I could hug you, Machiventa! That was just what I needed, and the fact that we go back again to the power of thought and how strong it is, and how we can change our life so much by using it. I have one more question and that has to do with the age factor with teenage children. It seems like depression seems to affect them a lot. Is it to due to their changing years, or their young years? Could you explain it, please?
MACHIVENTA: Yes, that is a very complex era, as one moves out of the innocence of childhood into the anomalies and difficulties of your society, of growing into your body, which is so unfamiliar to you, and which hormonal activity begins to influence the thinking. As a child now moves into that era, where the animalism, the origins, the primal origins of your species begins to become active, and where there has been no preparation in childhood for these adolescent years and the responsibilities of adulthood, there is much confusion in the mind of the child who is moving into young adulthood. This is an educational enculturating factor that must be corrected very early on in the Correcting Time, which we have already spoken of a number of times. It is important that children be prepared for these tumultuous years to know what is right and what is wrong, and to know what works and what does not work in their social relationships with others, and how they can evaluate their own thinking, that through this training, they become self-observing.
Yes, the years of growing through adolescence into young maturity in the late teens and particularly in the early 20’s—they become well developed in the mid-20’s—is the time, an era, where the formulation of thinking and actual behavioral responses to those thoughts begins to be manifest. Thus you see why and how abuse in childhood becomes manifest in early adulthood, and begins to become expressed in behavior. Long before that, those behaviors were being acted out in the mind and thinking of the individual. That is why it is important to teach these early youngsters what to accept and what not to accept with themselves and the reasons for doing so. It is eventual [that] they become a much more social individual, an individual who can work well with others—easily with others—and work easily with themselves, to know their own thinking and how to behave in response to it.
So, you are beginning to see the continuum of all life. It is important that these positive ways of thinking and self-evaluation, self-observation be instilled in early years, which gives the young adult and the older adult—the maturing adult—and then in the elder years a peaceful way of observing themselves and to accept where they are. The great difficulty in many of your societies, particularly in western societies, is that there is often rejection of the life-style and worldview as one ages. The simple fact that one ages and gets older is rejected by many people who want to live in their youth and remain youthful, and not to appreciate their years as now a time to discern what truly works. It is a time to gather the wisdom of life and living that perhaps they can share in service with those who are younger. If this does not answer your question, I invite you to continue your questioning until you are satisfied.
Teenagers and suicide
Student: Thank you, Machiventa. Now when a teenager commits suicide—and it’s quite often because of depression, the result of depression—or at least most of the time it seems to be—why are we not able to help them before they commit suicide?
MACHIVENTA: It is largely because you have no options to help yourself now, as a person who is not depressed. Do you follow that?
Student: Not quite.
MACHIVENTA: That your enculturation processes [of] teaching young ones to grow into their adulthood is not present. The worst cases you see in some families, there is absolutely an absence of enculturation or even caring or love for the offspring. These children do not feel safe; they do not feel secure; they do not feel appreciated or accepted, and interpret that as being rejected. The fallacy of young children is that they think their parents are omniscient, that their parents are the ultimate authority of what is and what is not. It is most unfortunate when it occurs because in most cases the parents are in the same quandaries of life and living and have never asked the questions that give life meaning for themselves and how they can produce productive children. It is a very sad situation where millions of children are not welcome into a family, or couple situation, but simply were a biological product of an act of sex and intercourse.
Enculturation missing in societies concerning males
Student: Thank you, that helps me a lot. And so therefore, as in enculturation, is it because there are more males/men/boys committing suicide than females or women? Is that enculturation too?
MACHIVENTA: Yes, in its grossest form. Your cultures—if you take the work enculturation—there is no formula present, that has been created for developing a culture of sound, whole, thinking males. Women have a culture of their own that surrounds family and birthing children, and creating a nuclear family with children in that purpose. What is missing from the feminine culture also is the necessity, the responsibility to enculturate children, both males and females to become whole and complete. You are seeing where fathers are not capable of being supportive partners in the family situation; they have not learned that and they have not been given that enculturation, but are in fact, absent fathers and do not know how to exist in a family situation and make contributions. In many cases in some cultures and national ethnic groups this has gone on for multiple generations. Family is a creation of intention and purpose. That is why having children is such an integral part of that development of sustainable societies. Sustainable societies do not come into existence spontaneously, but through the conscious intention to do so, where it begins is in the family.
Evolving or devolving societies
Your question goes to the very heart of developing a positive, constructive growing and evolving society, or one that is devolving. What you are seeing in your own societies in North America and other nations is the simultaneous evolution and devolution within the same national boundaries.
Student: Thank you very much for answering all my questions. I have no more right now.
Machiventa: You are most welcome.
Peer pressure of popularity among teens
Roxie: Along these lines of talking about teenagers, it seems to me that in our culture that children go through some of their most intensive growth during their teenage years in regard to what they think of as “personality,” which of course, is very different from The Urantia Book definition. For example, they think about being “popular,” “pretty”—that kind of thing that goes into what they think of and what they are trying to develop as their personality. Is it considered kind of fighting against what their true personality is that is trying to develop that gets in the way and causes some of the mental problems that so many teenagers have?
MACHIVENTA: Yes, you are roughly correct. It is important to let children know—infants and very young children, and particularly in the ages below age 9, and so on, and particularly before they enter their teen years — that they understand that they are a unique individual, that they have their own personality and that they must come to know what they are made of, who they are, how they feel about themselves and that they are perfect as they are. What you are speaking about is the developed need to be accepted and appreciated and recognized by peers, so the individual strives to develop a social persona that matches that of their dominant social group. This will provide them with acceptance and recognition and appreciation. The more conformance to that, the more integral and part of that social persona they become. The rejection of individuals from that group is horrendous, as it is a problem that causes rejection, and personal alienation from that group, where the individual interprets this as being abnormal, and that they are not part of the dominant group, but the rejected sub-group, and they are ostracized or exiled from that dominant group.
It must be conveyed early to children, before the teen years that these situations will occur, and that there will be a dominant social group where they can choose to participate in and compete, but the harm and hazard is that they may be rejected. It is important to know that it is usual that from this subordinate, non-dominant group that these individuals are exceptional in many ways, that these oftentimes become the cultural leaders. I’m not saying social leaders or political leaders or economic leaders, because those individuals usually come from the dominant social group, but individuals who are creative, who are genius level mathematicians, artists and academics and so on, that there is a reason the way they are, and that they must find their way. It is not that we are soliciting that individuals who are not part of the dominant group, become a part of rejects and outcasts and identify themselves as outcasts, but see themselves as unique in many ways, and provide the quality and texture of society that gives life so much greater meaning for those who have been so very “vanilla” in the early parts of their years.
The meaning and purpose of baptism
Roxie: Thank you; that’s helpful. My last question is unfortunately not on the mental health issue but is one that keeps coming up for me. It was even mentioned in the prolog today. In my Urantia Book study group recently, we’ve been reading in the Jesus Papers about the baptism of Jesus, and then later how the followers of John continued with the baptism ritual. How important is that in your opinion? I’m not even sure of what comes out of the baptism experience that is helpful, since I have never been baptized. Could you discuss this, please?
MACHIVENTA: Certainly. I would be glad to. Baptism is an event. If you were baptized as an infant, then you do not remember that. It is in the minds of the parents and the witnesses that it becomes important, that they then take on the responsibility of your enculturation and your indoctrination into your base of your faith, those creedal documents and beliefs which support your religious life later on. Baptism from our perspective is not an important event “except” when it is consciously recognized by the individual who is being baptized as “becoming a new person.” It is the identification that occurs within this event that is most important, that the individual has made a conscious intention to be baptized and for what purposes: to be baptized to carry on the creedal beliefs of the religion, or the beliefs of “becoming” as Jesus “became,” to become a morontial being in this lifetime.
Oftentimes, this is attended with beliefs and thoughts and consciousness by the individual that they have a mystic relationship with God, that they have had a “God experience,” a religious experience, which is transpersonal and which brings them into a new awareness of their being-ness. This is truly being baptized “in the spirit” that you have experienced the oneness of knowing God. Oftentimes, this is forgotten by the individual due to the social circumstances of the baptism, that the social activities overcomes this trans-formative inner experience of meeting and knowing God in the spirit. When it is forgotten and lost, it can be renewed in the future through a meditation and through “walking with God.” Yes, baptism is important. It is important to us when it is important to you, that it not only signifies a transformation of your being, but that you have actually become a “new being” in the consciousness of the risen Christ.
Roxie: So, how does one become baptized if they don’t belong to one of the churches or religious groups on Urantia?
MACHIVENTA: You can baptize yourself, my Dear. You simply invite your guardians, your Thought Adjuster and the midwayers to be with you, to open your mind mechanism to the presence and energy of the Christedness within you. Christedness is synonymous with a spiritual relationship with your Thought Adjuster. You can do this through a retreat of your own. You can do it on a retreat with other people with a similar purpose, but eventually it comes when you “come apart from others” in your consciousness. Even if you are with a group of people, you can come away in your consciousness to be alone and consecrated in your relationship with your Thought Adjuster.
Do you see what I am speaking of?
Roxie: Yes, that is very, very helpful to me. Thank you.
MACHIVENTA: You are welcome.
Roxie: I have no further questions.
Seeking wholeness of being and oneness with God
MACHIVENTA: Thank you for your time today, and I thank you for the depth of your questions, and your search for wholeness—some call this truth; some call this oneness—it is wholeness. This is the truth of your being that you are mortals becoming transcendent and morontial. You are in the process of understanding your life as mortals, what is this about and learning to become more than you are. You are learning to become something “new.” Both of these catch words and button words are similar to what you have heard in other religions, and that you become not only identified with, but you become one with the purposes of your life as a spiritual being, under the tutelage of your Thought Adjuster, to be reunited eventually with the First Source and Center in Paradise. Along the way there are great misunderstandings, particularly in a society that does not understand even its own existence as a social entity of millions of people, or the meaningfulness of the individual within that group.
The Correcting Time is a powerful program of enduring nature that will see you as individuals and as nations of people, and as a planetary civilization into the Days of Light and Life, where you are settled. It is our hope that you as individuals may attain that same level of peace and tranquility in your personal lives now, as you grow into oneness with your Thought Adjuster. For this, we praise you for your efforts and diligence to pursue these ends. Good day.
