1996-05-09-Authority of Free Will
Pittsburgh #20
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Authority of Free Will
o 1.2 Group: Pittsburgh TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Tomas
o 2.2 TR: Gerdean
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Authority
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Dissemination
3.3.2 Discernment, Responsibility
3.3.3 Maitreya, Materialization
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Authority of Free Will
Group: Pittsburgh TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Tomas
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
TOMAS: I am Tomas, your teacher, guide, companion and friend and it gives me great pleasure to once again be in your midst. It affords us all an opportunity to behold your evolving natures and your configuration of personalities as you individually strive for personality attainment, self-mastery and congenial expression of your heart’s delights.
I am going to say at the outset that I appreciate the ministrations of your coordinator here, our hostess, who has developed a fine-tuned gift for coordinating your myriad differences in interest, time and priorities in the general interest of her devotion to Michael and His work on Urantia. We all owe her a great round of applause and vote of confidence that she, like Van, has been able to carry on in the face of isolation and adversity to the great gain of all here in attendance.
And in deference to her guidance earlier, I will now ask that we devote our customary time to stillness and prayer, that your souls may be properly aerated, that the seeds of truth, beauty, and goodness which may prevail will fall on fertile soil — ready, eager and willing to receive those sorts of teacher wisdom which will help to bring us together in the spirit. I will recess while we venture now into stillness.
… and the angels sing.
Perfect and righteous Heavenly Father, we come to you in humble obedience to your word and your will this day. We seek your guidance and your blessing on our growing understanding of your nature and your purpose. We come together as your children in supplication of your nurturance. We look to you for those guidelines to know how to be effective. We look to you for the source of our happiness and our contentment. We ask your compassion upon us as we err, as we struggle to comprehend the vastness of your divine nature. Allow us, Heavenly Father, through your infinite mercy, to lapse into smallness, to accept our humble orb as our realm in the vast greatness of your domain. We trust that you are supreme and we do your bidding. Even so, not our will but your will be done.
Lesson
Authority
TOMAS: My friends, I am eager to share with you this evening about “authority”. I am glad that we have had this moment in time to share with our divine nature that we may be reminded of the ultimate authority and the goodness which comes from this font of life and love, for love, indeed, is the highest, most compelling authority.
Your world, Urantia, has suffered from a default and a rebellion of the authority of the Creator and the Creator’s Creators. That misadministration has cast its gray pall upon your realm and the authority prevalent on Urantia is a false and ignoble authority indeed. The game seems to be that there are those who find their way into positions of authority, and those over whom they wield their influence are subjected to the authority reigned upon them. As such, most mortals carry on a living existence of paying lip service to an authority for which they have little regard, little respect and truly little authority. As time goes by, as mankind evolves in a spiritual way, the authority of times past will need to evolve also in order for more honesty to come into being.
The great fact is that you have the final authority over your own destiny. It is you, through your free will, who make those decisions which will determine what and who has authority over you and to what extent you will honor that power which you invest in others. Everyone is “guilty” of this condition. Anyone can tell you, if they are honest, to what they have given authority. Most of the time it is unconscious, it is a way of life, it is a result of decisions made long ago — oftentimes by peer pressure or parental influence or other traditional belief systems of social mores — which lead you to believe that you have no authority over the way you think, or the way you feel, or the way you react to life and its circumstances.
And I say to you that this deserves a fresh look, for you give authority to all that you are and all that you do by the doing and the being of it. As long as you give your authority to others, you are not empowered with the authority of your own integrity, your own appreciation for your relationship with the God, which you have professed to be your highest authority. Think not that the great God of us all is unaware of the games that are played; we say we give him authority over our lives and then go on acting as we always have, as we have for generations. You will notice I include myself in this discourse for I too am “guilty” of carrying around with me much baggage from my evolutionary upward trek.
It is a gratifying reminder of the mercy of God that we are given time in which to make those adjustments that will give love the greatest authority, for in allowing love to be your author, in allowing love to authorize you your being, you are paying homage to the greatest authority, for God is love.
I would like to also state this evening that it is the authority of the Mother which is what keeps you together, in your mind. As you grow from one awareness to another, it is the Mother who holds your hand and holds you up when you stagger and stumble in your transitions from one realm of reality to the next; it is She who holds you together in your mind as it crumbles and dissolves an old belief in the wake of the birth of the new and better belief. And so this matter of authority reaches to the Eternal Parents. Not only to Michael and his Consort, but to the Sources and Centers on Paradise, from whence this great authority hails.
We do not honor our Father because he requires it. We do not respect our Father because he has willed it. We do not obey our Father because he demands it. We honor, respect and obey our Father because we love him, and choose to please him, not out of fear of reprisal or punishment or alienation but out of a deep desire to please Him … and Her … and to do Their perfect bidding in our lives. Much distortion of value has come from one being attempting to wield authority over another, and the simple truth is that the effects of the authority of love will garner eternal results. To put it in simple jargon: you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
I have concluded my more formal lesson for this evening. I do want to reiterate, particularly in view of the proximity to your Mother’s Day holiday, that Our Mother is the eternal partner of the Universal Father, that without one there is not the other, and that although we often make reference to the Father and take the Mother for granted with our words, it is not so in our hearts or in our actualities, for all our thoughts and all our growth and all of our healing is indissolubly linked to the Mother. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers in attendance — from this humble table, all the way to Paradise. And so I open this humble table to your participation.
Dialogue
Dissemination
Mrs. M: Speaking as a mother, thank you, Tomas.
Mrs. Ml: The children are a blessing and a frustration rolled into one.
TOMAS: Although I am not a mother, I have total sympathy and empathy with your sentiments. I behold this raucous bunch of children of my own and commiserate in the frustration, and yet I find such delight and amusement and true heartfelt appreciation for your courageous struggles and essays at being spiritually grown-up, my heart outpours upon you. I am certain we understand each other in that parental configuration.
Mrs. L: Well, Tomas, I so much wanted to tell you about an experience that I have had. I’d like to handle it better. I’m always thinking about how Jesus came and he knew so much and he didn’t tell everybody all that he knew. He didn’t even change the way they did the Passover in his own home; he didn’t change it until he went to Bethany where Lazarus and Mary and Martha were. He knew so much, and he didn’t burden everybody around him with it.
I’m always trying to remember that because I am always driving myself a little crazy by thinking how I know these beautiful things and I’m looking around and I know that the church is great but it’s having these horrible misconceptions . .. and I know that you’re looking at me and I know that you’re aware of any horrible misconceptions that I have as an evolutionary creature, but . .. nevertheless I feel I waste a lot of time thinking about it. I don’t know if I’m wasting time or not.
I’m so happy that Ms. S is putting these beautiful concepts into poetry for the children. Maybe she’ll be able to get some of this across. I’m always tempted to say something to some of my friends but I restrain myself, because I have always found out it doesn’t turn out well. I thought maybe you had some comments about this problem. I think everybody around here has that problem! I know Mr. L does.
Mrs. Ml: I think we all do.
TOMAS: You would like for me to comment.
Mrs. L: I would. You’re aware of this, and have probably gotten some ideas about it.
TOMAS: My only recommendation would be to plant one seed at a time. And for you to take on the church is perhaps a large field (– the north 40, in fact!). It is not required that you revamp the traditions and customs of the ways that are; they do well. They, even with their imperfections, are also evolving and are guided by many angelic orders that protect their worth, their value, their rich inheritance for those who opt to follow the beautiful, although imperfect, religions of authority.
The antithesis are such poems, as you referenced, by our friend Ms. S, those delightful poems/prayers which are simple and compatible to your pure and simple minds, such as children of all ages. The key here is to find that simple soul who is open to those truths that are not complicated by dogma and cosmology and tenets and creeds and the like. The spirit crosses all barriers and the most accessible/vulnerable are the children. As you yourself remain a child in your heart, you too will continue to grow, for you will be open to those words and seeds and concepts which will feed your growth bit by bit as you are able to assimilate that nourishment into your growing being. Those who have all the answers are not interested in your wisdom, so graciously take your seeds to those fertile flowerbeds where you might have more luck. That is all.
Group: Thank you.
Mrs. M: I have a question left over from last week. We talked about . .. does anybody remember?
Mrs. H: “Intact?”
Mrs. M: “Intact.” Exactly. We weren’t clear what that meant, if “intact” meant a state of consciousness.
TOMAS: We had, in an earlier session, discussed fusion and I did not want to confuse the concept with fusion but rather, if you do not fuse and you make the transition from this realm to the other realm, it would be better/easier for you, perhaps, if you were to be aware of your transition; that is, if you were aware of your ascension experience. It was a differentiation between being aware of making that step as compared to fusion. Do you see my differentiation?
Mrs. M: Yes. I thought it must be consciousness.
TOMAS: Yes. For if you fuse it is done in a blinking of an eye, but if you are going through a process of dying, you can do that with your eyes open, so to speak, and greet your next level of existence with open arms and open heart, rather than fear or with your eyes closed to the experience.
Mrs. P: Thank you.
Loreenia: Tomas, I experienced something entirely different from what you were talking about today. I experienced something I would like to share with you and all the people at this table. This week — I’ve seen on this planet many times when people were injured or hurt and people just walked by and don’t pay attention, as if it’s not going on. This week there was a young girl who passed out on one of our lines which is extremely dangerous. And there’s a signal that goes off, in fact, where everybody knows that either somebody is caught in the machinery or there is a fire.
Well, it went off this week at work, and I was standing where I could observe the whole floor, and all the people from all the other machines ran to help this individual, and I was very moved by it, especially later when I had opportunity to observe in my mind how it happened. It’s like the whole factory shut down to come to her aid, which in previous times, I’ve seldom seen that. I thought it was an extremely beautiful thing that happened. She had just fainted; she wasn’t caught in the machinery, but she could have been caught in the machinery. I just wanted to share that with you and everybody else. Everybody on the floor ran to help, and it wasn’t ignored. That was very beautiful.
TOMAS: Your interpretation of it is very beautiful.
Loreenia: It shows to me that many things are happening on this planet that previously had not happened.
Mrs. M: Tomas, I wasn’t here but I wondered if you had commented on that news that we got about the Magisterial Son being on the planet. Did you have any comments about that? I wasn’t here.
TOMAS: I did not make any comments, no. You missed nothing.
Mrs. M: Do you have any comments to make about it?
Mrs. Ml: We would like that knowledge, if it’s allowed.
TOMAS: One moment.
T/R: I’m not getting anything.
Mrs. M: It’s not that important.
TOMAS: I will withhold comment. It is by the authority of this human vessel through whom I operate that I am not at liberty to discuss our Magisterial Son. (We have discussed this before.)
Mrs. P: Uh-huh.
Discernment, Responsibility
Mrs. McD: Gerdean, there are many people on the planet, hundreds of thousands at least, that believe there is a real teacher at this time, incarnated, in the flesh, and they call him the Maitreya, the teacher, and the belief is that he will make a general appearance to the planet, by mass communication, and they call it “the day of discovery,” I think, and when he makes this mass appearance, that all men will see him and will have to make a judgment as to whether he is a true teacher or not, and I just wonder if you know about this, how this world teacher called the Maitreya would fit into the scheme of things with a Magisterial . .. with what we were talking about before.
TOMAS: I will respond. I do not see the word Maitreya in Gerdean’s mind bank, and so she is unaware of this being. I will remark, however, that the concept is valid in that in all contexts each individual must make that determination as to the viability of any teacher. Indeed, is it not necessary that each of you, for instance, must determine the viability of my own existence with you, my role as a teacher? Is it not also, going beyond that, required of you who think that you must make determinations as to the viability, indeed, the authority of any teacher or belief system or energy pattern? It is by your own authority that it is made real.
There could be, in fact has been, a Creator Son himself who visited your world but few indeed recognized him when he came, and this will be the case on Urantia when Michael returns. There will be many who will refuse to see him, to acknowledge his authority as the supreme ruler of this universe. It is often the case that the mass mind makes those decisions which become acceptable for the throngs to follow. This is one of the responsibilities of forerunners. It is going to influence the destiny of your world by what you accept, by what you give authority to, by what you believe and then pass on by your acquiescence or your acceptance.
The genuine truth is something that lies too deep for words. The true reality is something you already know in your heart and no amount of political hubbub or social swarming will alter your commitment to that which you know to be true for you, even though myriad may be diametrically opposite your stance. It is indeed dangerous to grasp even an important concept or leader or teacher because everyone else is. This is part of the human condition of wanting to belong, the need to find acceptance and, ultimately, the importance of having a conviction that what you believe in is correct, is divinely authorized.
Only you can make this decision. Otherwise you have given yourself away to yet another false authority, and you are only playing the game of giving obeisance to that authority when you actually opt to let your own free will go its merry way anyway. I am sorry that I have not, perhaps, answered your question in the way that you would have preferred. I do not know. Perhaps I answered it even more to your satisfaction than you initially craved, but I have spoken my piece.
Mrs. M: Well, this week we have Time Magazine and his Franklin on the front cover, and he got a medal in Washington, and so I listened to him and, again, I was in my miserable usual dilemma because he was talking about “you’ve got to do these things if you want to go to heaven.” That representation was on a national level of our supposed faith and it is a disappointment to me. It is. It just is.
Mrs. Ml: It is.
Mrs. L: What I could say to you about that is, whenever you are speaking to the masses, whoever it is, you have to realize that who Billy Graham speaks to, that doesn’t mean that if you speak to him yourself you wouldn’t get a different — at least that’s what I find out in the Catholic church. That they teach and then what they . . . when politically things are presented at a level that isn’t exactly correct and the same thing in religion when people are talking to the masses.
Mrs. M: I guess so.
TOMAS: I would like to say that we are seeing the authority of fear. Many individuals give fear highest authority, and without fear they have no direction. They do not know how to be brave of heart and forge into those unknown realms of faith that is the hallmark of others. Yes, there are sad commentaries to tell regarding how it is that great religious leaders teach undignified untruths. This has been the way since the beginning of ghost cults on your planet, and do not spend overmuch time watching programming to that effect for it only frustrates you. There is no way that you can fight City Hall and the Pentagon and Vatican City and still have energy left over to read poems and prayers to your grandchildren. Get your authority in order and your priorities in order. I will also say that Time Magazine is one of the false authorities which wields great power.
Maitreya, Materialization
Mrs. M: Yes. You know, I understand that those people who look for the Maitreya actually think it is Jesus Christ.
Mrs. McD: Yes, you know this all comes from Benjamin Creme and they say Christians will view him as Christ, Jews will view him as the Messiah, Muslims will view him as Mohammed, Buddhists will view him as Buddha. Everyone will see him as their “savior” — whatever they’re looking for when he appears. It’s supposed to be a mass communication, around the world, and when he appears and speaks his peace, the teaching is that anyone who sees him will instantly recognize him as the one they have waited for.
Mrs. L: But isn’t that the Michael they talk about in the Urantia Book?
Mrs. McD: That is why I was asking Tomas. Was there a connection? Could this person be? But he’s supposed to be in the flesh; he’s supposed to have been on the planet for some time, and he is simply waiting for the time to be right to make his appearance worldwide. In the meantime, so the teaching goes, he has appeared to small groups. What I mean by small … 300, 400, 500 people … all around the planet. He’s appeared to fundamental Christians, fundamental Muslim’s, he’s appeared to people on every continent. He’s appeared in the United States because he’s appeared in Virginia, in Texas, and this is his teaching that many, many people are teaching and following and I don’t know if there’s any validity to it or not or whether it is a product of this Benjamin Creme’s mind.
Whether there’s truth or isn’t truth.
I will tell one thing, that the tradition that this is in, is it would be the White Brotherhood, the hierarchy, Alice Bailey, Madame Blavatsky, the people that follow that tradition is how its coming through, and its being disseminated on our own planet, so I know people who are totally into this and I’m never sure if it’s the man that’s channeling this, if it’s his aberration, or if it’s really valid. And, Tomas, I thought you might have some knowledge of it.
TOMAS: Let me speak with authority. It is a great curiosity, a great diversion, a great lure, and a great anticipation of all mortals to look for a hero, someone who will cure the ills under which you suffer. There was a time, not long ago, when there were some who were that excited about us teachers who were going to change the world. There are also reports and rumors of a Melchizedek appearance which we eagerly anticipate, as do you, and yet, in keeping with some of the more stable minds of the times, it is only speculation to ponder the arrival, the appearance, the itinerary, the retinue, etc., of any visitor.
The Urantia Book is our most recent material visitor, and you see it is not in human form. It is in the form, like the Course in Miracles, which enables you to sit in stillness and ponder and read and weigh and experience through the authority of your own mind, in conjunction with your own indwelling God fragment, those truths which will carry you from today into tomorrow, which will, in the course of application of its principles, change the planet Urantia from a dark sphere to a planet settled in light and life, and so the ultimate authority, again, returns to you.
It is how you live your life, as if each individual you met were an Ambassador of the heavenly Kingdom. Each individual, with their own authority, is a pronouncement to you for you to make your determination as to whether they are part of the solution or part of the problem. The true test of your truth and your faith is in your heart, not in your mind, and so even if you were to see a being — unless you were to spend some time, or unless your Thought Adjuster gave you such a responsive thrill that it left little doubt — all of these are external manifestations of potential reality, both good and evil.
You are your own authority. It is you who must determine your actions, your faith, your belief, your devotion, your commitment to your God on a moment to moment basis. It is your authority, dear, and only yours that counts.
Mrs. McD: I wasn’t thinking of this appearance in relation to myself so much because I know what I know, but he’s supposed to awaken the masses. The masses are supposed to be awakened . ..
TOMAS: Indeed!
Mrs. McD: . .. by this appearance.
TOMAS: By you, in fact. By each of you here. We all have that authority to manifest our Loving Parent in our lives so as to positively impact on Urantia those truths, beauties and goodnesses which Michael brought and personified when he lived here.
Mrs. McD: This is true, but our influence doesn’t cover the whole sphere of the globe. The unusual thing about this appearance was that he was to be visible by every soul on the planet.
Mrs. H: May I? Remember, we have other dimensions out there, and where we resonate — kind of where we are, we can’t really understand — we’re just one of many, many, many groups involved in the preparation.
Mrs. McD: Well, I — one of the reasons we’re so bedazzled by this and tempted by this, is that now we know we can watch a tennis game and everybody in the world is watching it, and they taught us that! They say, okay, . .. they give us numbers in the millions of people who are watching and, of course, as people say we are, we can’t help but think, “If one of our beings could just get on television . ..”
TOMAS: [Four students all talking at once.] Excuse me. In the interest of the transcriber, it is very hard to transcribe three or four voices at once.
Mrs. H: You’ve got the floor.
Mrs. McD: I forgot what I was talking about. (Group laughter)
Mrs. L: The way I understand it, we are all of One Mind, so when one of us changes our mind about what authority is, or beyond authority, it affects the whole world.
Mrs. McD: That’s true. The Whole Mind affects everybody, but it’s at an unconscious level. What this experience was to do was to bring it to the conscious level of mind.
Mrs. H: Television brought that about.
Mrs. McD: Well, it’s a confrontation between each soul in this message.
Mrs. M: External things never change internal….
Mrs. McD: Except that this message was supposed to have made each man….
Mrs. C: You know the Course in Miracles. You know the aspirin doesn’t cure the headache.
Mrs. McD: Yeah, I know. But this man …
Mrs. C: It’s the belief in the aspirin that cures it.
Mrs. McD: . .. was to awaken the consciousness of mankind and what a lot of people know on a deep unconscious level hasn’t surfaced yet, but this event is supposed to have this …
Mrs. C: The event will occur when the mind gets there instead of the other way around.
Mrs. McD: But we are a global village, now, and what goes on, the whole world can see it. That might — just from the perspective of a divine being, a divine teacher — that might have been slowly evolved because it’s going to be used in this way, too. That’s a possibility. That’s the way communications have evolved, is for a purpose and it is — we are all one group now, most definitely.
Mrs. M: It’s my opinion that it’s the other way around. When the internal consciousness reaches that point, then it will manifest in the external.
Mrs. Ml: The Son of God is calling forth consciously and I believe now we are the tennis match, and the universe is watching us.
TOMAS: It is my personal opinion (Tomas speaking) that we are to create an environment which is more suitable to a king instead of waiting for him to fix it for us.
Mrs. McD: To go back to what you were saying, when Christ Michael bestowed . .. here on the earth, when did he do it? At the time of the Roman Empire, when communication, caravans, commerce, everything. It was the best time. And here again we have a time where we have total new methods of communication, like satellites, for mass communication. Now is the time to do it.
Mrs. M: Why can’t it all be correct? Everything we are saying. United in united input?
Mrs. Ml: Because I have followed this a little bit from Mrs. McD, and right here, tonight, I got the distinction that no, that is what, you know, we’re always looking for this outer thing, and of course we always wish for this, that somebody is going to come out and present it. And it’s really what Tomas told us. It’s so difficult for us to realize that . .. it’s much more subtle. It’s the moment-to-moment thing. And this other thing, as of right now, I’d just dismiss it. I’m thinking, oh no! It’s so subtle, we just don’t want to accept it. We want it to be some dramatic, you know, appearance or something, and when you see the life of Christ, it’s not that way at all.
Mrs. P: You know, I was reading the statistics and something like 80% of the people in this country believe in God, 72% of the people in this country believe that they had prayers answered. This is powerful!
TOMAS: What they are looking for is people who will stand up for what they believe in without the trappings of fear and false authority. To stand in the light of the Son and have love as your witness. To be gracious, compassionate, kind, merciful, far-reaching, all embracing, non-judgmental, all those assets of character which we have far to discuss.
Mrs. L: I just think of Mother Theresa. She is the only universal symbol that I can think of that is like that.
TOMAS: Truly.
Mrs. C: And exists right now on the planet.
Mrs. L: But she doesn’t seek the recognition. I’m sure there are many souls like her, but she is the one who is known.
Mrs. H: And that Ching Hai that I talk about.
Mrs. L: But Mother Theresa, having won the Nobel Peace Prize, is the one who is highly acclaimed.
TOMAS: You will notice that she has been sanctioned again by your material authorities. What gives her true authority is her devotion and her selflessness. She is not in it for recognition, but for true service. She is presented as a saint and this makes it difficult for people to see her true godlikeness, which is that she forgets herself in the interest of helping others. It is very difficult in this day and age of the media and Time Magazine and Internet and so forth, to forget the self. Very difficult, indeed, for the self has a history of clamoring for attention.
When you are in the embrace of the Eternal Parents, when your existence is not only authorized by them but is embraced, accepted, validated, consecrated, sent out to play in harmony, you may do this with self-forgetfulness for you are secure. When you are secure in your place in the universe, it doesn’t matter if you are memorialized in the eyes of mortality or not. This is hard work. This is attaining God-consciousness — constantly to be turning aside that which calls attention to yourself to the greater glory of calling attention to that which is the destiny of us all.
Closing
TOMAS: I could go on and give an entire lesson on this but I will not for the hour grows late. I will afford us another moment or two but then we must conclude for the day. Are there any further discourses awaiting our attention?
Mrs. M: Thank you very much, Tomas.
TOMAS: My humble pupils, you feed my heart. You cause my heart to swell with love. My affection for you grows daily as I watch you try to overcome your patterns and aspire to be bigger, better, more adult, more mature, more loving, more childlike. How you try! And how your attempts please us who observe. I do not tell you this as if you were puppets on a string at the whims of a bored and mischievous universe, but because you are eager to grow in the spirit. Because the efforts you make have yielded certain results and harmonies in your life, you are willing to make those attempts at molding your minds so that you are at greatest happiness for yourself and for your relationship with divinity.
It is truly a struggle; it is truly an honorable vocation. Your efforts are duly, honorably noted, and you are encouraged and appreciated for those acts, those thoughts, those motives which yield to you that peace which passes all understanding. My beloved flock, I bid you farewell until we meet again. Good evening.
Group: Good night, Tomas.
