1996-06-27-Work Is an Inside Job, Euthanasia
Pittsburgh #26
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Work Is An Inside Job, Euthanasia
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 Light
3.2.2 Inner Life
3.2.3 Morontia
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Color
3.3.2 Freedom
3.3.3 Euthanasia
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Work Is An Inside Job, Euthanasia
Group: Pittsburgh TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Tomas
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
TOMAS: Good evening, my friends.
Group: Good evening, Tomas.
TOMAS: Indeed, I am Tomas, your teacher, your guide and your companion in your eternal ascent. It gives me great pleasure to once again be here with you in this gathering of women, of believers, of sisters, of faith daughters, faith sons all in the divine plan of ascension.
Lesson
Light
TOMAS: I reflect on you this evening as I reflect on the delight of a field of fireflies. I observe your gentle lights go on and off as you move in and around your arenas, and it is in the fact that the light comes on unexpectedly in new and different places that brings the delight; for truly, if your lights were to shine constantly, it would be a different view entirely. Do not mistake me, I would relish the view, but I am grateful for you, my little firefly friends.
I am reminded of our friend Abraham who has spoken of the light switch, that when life becomes difficult and you find yourself in a darkened experiential room, it is your privilege and your responsibility and your option to turn on the light switch of spirit and illuminate yourselves in the light of the Son.
Once again, my friends, I have many things which I am eager to share with you and often I find I am unable to address everything I would bring to you, and must limit myself to one subject or two in order that we might bite off one morsel at a time. The morsel that I would call to your mind this evening is that the work is an inside job.
Inner Life
TOMAS: I have been exposed of late to much external titillation and twinkling of lights, and feel it desirable to remind you and us of the fact that attaining divinity and finding happiness in this existence is a matter of going inward and upward, not outward and around. Going inward to find God is not what you have been exposed to in the Christian sense. Always have you been shown that Jesus was outside of yourself, often on the cross, often in a field with children around him, sometimes in the temple teaching. You have always been taught that God is in heaven, a long way away. And so you have not identified with the Master as you might have if you thought of him as your spirit companion who stood beside you, and if you thought of God as an integral part of your internal makeup.
Rather, that truth has been kept from you, lest the error be made that your ego is God, and this has been a concept that has lived, although it has not been promoted, even so. The living God that dwells within you is above and beyond you in that, it pre-existed you; and it will return to Divinington, with or without you. The key, obviously, for your eternal survival, is to ascertain where it is in you. Get to know it, spend time with it, allow it to lead you. Allow it also to benefit you by showing you your strengths, your gifts, your abilities, your place in the universe and your service opportunities among your fellow men and women.
One of the obstacles to allowing yourself to go inward is this matter of control which has blocked so many from finding the living water in which they wade, for they somehow have indeed construed that they are God and to give up control would be to lose control. And yet I say to you, as you give up control over defining your inner life, you become acquainted with your Inner Companion, and indeed you become acquainted, in the spiritual sense, with that intimate awareness of Michael, your Father-Brother, as he stands beside you in the spirit.
I have taken back control from Gerdean who had taken it from me, and you see what results: a standstill. Only in allowing yourself to be open to the guidance of either the spirit or the ego, are you able to function, and the choice is yours. It is a choice you may make each moment. And as you make those choices, your existence is that of the firefly, for often you waft along in the grace of God in the dark, and often through the grace of God you are aware of the light. In order to shine brightly, in order to light the way for others, in order to be a forerunner into the realm of light and life, it is desirous for you to allow the light to burn, to give over control to the God who dwells within you and seeks expression through you.
Morontia
TOMAS: Let me entertain you by presenting yet another assignment, and this one will have to do with your awareness of your Indwelling Spirit. Your studies have taught you that when you leave Urantia and you leave your mortal tabernacle behind, you will be existing in the morontia form which is part spirit, part material, and that living organism already is a part of you, is becoming as you are becoming.
I will give you an example from your mortal frame of reference. Have you ever had a tooth pulled and later believed you had a toothache there? Have you heard of individuals who lost their foot relay that their foot itched, even when it was no longer there? This is dramatic license that I take here in order to impress upon you the concept of your morontia body and I am going to ask you throughout your week to notice your morontia body.
I am not specifically focusing on your God Fragment, on your Indwelling Adjuster, on that aspect of spirit, no, but on this morontia form, and the reason I will ask you to observe this form about yourself is so that you may understand how it feels to waft in grace when you allow yourself to be led by the spirit and when you give up control of your own marching through life. It is not expected that you will spend a long time here, no. It will be a glimpse, if anything, but it could be helpful of your understanding to your future spirit existence, and also instill within you a new appreciation for that God that dwells within you in terms of its energy manifestation potential.
We have heretofore spoken of your potential service work, your merciful ministry, your speaking truth, beauty, and goodness, but we have not spoken of your recognition of the spirit in being a physical being. I thought it would be an interesting experiment. If you are willing, I would be interested to hear your feedback in time, as your observation of your morontial body begins to indicate to you the grace and dignity of a true faith son. How have you been this week?
Dialogue
Student: I had a good experience because I really got into sort of a pickle, a kind of problem, and I really talked to Jesus like you have said, and I really told him that I was cross with myself and I really asked him for help, although I didn’t think he could possibly help me out of this situation, and he did – in such a wonderful way. And then I used the thing that you taught us and that is, if you’re sorry you can say, “Oops! Sorry!” without making everybody feel that you’re terribly distraught and making people uncomfortable, so it really was a very helpful moment for me and it was a real outstanding moment in this week for me that I trace back to your help, Tomas, and I thank you very much.
TOMAS: I am certainly glad that I have been able to be helpful to you and I am even more glad that you have called upon our Friend Michael for his companionship, guidance, solace and so forth. It is through knowing him that we are inspired to go forward.I myself had a wonderful experience this week in being able to work with my friend and yours, Welmek. It was an honor to be in association with him in our mutual capacities as Teachers in the Teaching Mission. It was a wonderful event for all of us and I am very grateful to this group of believers for your support and for your obvious appreciation of our presence in your life.
I am somewhat disturbed and saddened by H__ this evening. She is angry and resistant, and thus argumentative. I welcome a repartee with you, my daughter and friend, in private or in this forum, if you would be inclined. I am not unaware of your distress. I only wish to convey love to you and encouragement and suggest that much of the difficulty may be in definition of terms. (No response) I do not mean to put you on the spot. I am not requiring a response; therefore, we shall go on with our evening. Are there any questions?
Color
Student: Yes, Tomas. The colors predominantly in this room . . . are you able to give it . ..?
TOMAS: With respect to your appreciation for color, it serves no purpose in your spiritual growth…
Student: I understand.
TOMAS: . . . and I am here to facilitate your personal spiritual growth. As I indicated early in the lesson this evening, “inward and upward” is where we take ourselves for the journey. In looking outward, at color, it is a diversionary tactic, delightful in its presentation certainly and not forbidden information by any means, but I find my response would be valueless.
Student: Tomas, looking inwardly to color though, like when you’re healing, aren’t there healing colors?
Student: My soul keeps wanting this information. It probably has it on an inner level somewhere.
TOMAS: I will respond but not fully to your satisfaction. The colors of your spectrum are so rudimentary . ..
Student: Of the physical spectrum. Not of the spiritual spectrum.
TOMAS: Color is not spiritual. Color is an energy manifestation . ..
Student: Okay.
TOMAS: … sometimes of a spiritual force or field, but color itself is material and non-spiritual. In your mind’s eye you perceive color and you have been conditioned that red represents hot or passion or blood or things relating to red; that green represents growth and verdancy and leafy green vegetables and, therefore, health and so forth; that white is all color, all Oneness, perfection; and that black is absence of color, life, therefore dead, denial. These colors which fall within your color range perception are a method of communicating on a fairly rudimentary level.
The fact that blue can go all the way from deep, rich, regal blue such as you might find in an infinite sky at twilight, therefore representing strength and power and depth, that also, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is bird egg blue and ice blue which are fragile and gentle and breakable and not strong at all, these frames of reference for color are part of your psychological makeup and not bearing on spiritual reality. It is your perceptions that develop into spirit realities.
Student: Thank you.
TOMAS: You are welcome.
Student: There is a sentence in the Book that I was really wanting to ask you about and it was in tonight’s lesson where it says, .. their Son- and Spirit-fused brethren of the ascendant evolutionary struggle will be acceptably contributing to the maintenance of the experiential equilibrium of the perfected superuniverses while they stand ready to welcome the incoming stream of Paradise pilgrims who may, at that distant day, pour in through Orvonton and its sister creations as a vast spirit-questing torrent from these now uncharted and uninhabited galaxies of outer space.” Now, I didn’t quite understand that.
TOMAS: Neither did I. Would you please read it again?
Student: Okay. (Re-read paraphrased: ) The Son- and Spirit-fused brethren]] will be contributing to the maintenance of the experiential equilibrium of the perfected superuniverses while they stand ready . ..” now this is the part that I don’t understand. “… ready to welcome the incoming Paradise pilgrims who may, at that distant day, pour in through Orvonton and its sister creations as a vast spirit-questing torrent from these now uncharted and uninhabited galaxies of outer space.(40:10.8)
TOMAS: Spirit- and Son-fused you say?
Student: Yes.
TOMAS: I am responding, but parenthetically it might be interesting for you to note that this Book is written so that you might understand it and I have to re-interpret what they have told your mind, so that my mind might comprehend where they are coming from in their address to you. Suffice it then to say or equate it then to our work here, where we are experiencing the harvest.
The harvest is great and believers are coming forward and we are preparing; we are making ready for the many who are coming into an awareness of their spiritual nature. The spirit and son-fused beings are not to be deprived of the experience of being prepared for the work that will be forthcoming. As you experience your work, they experience parallel work. (Excuse the frequent use of the word “work”. To me it is a fine four-letter word. )
Student: Well, I think I understand your answer very much about having to almost reinterpret everything, because they’ve reduced it to something extremely simple compared to your understanding of it.
TOMAS: I will also state that it is an academic piece of information even for myself for I have not been there.
Student: Tomas, I want to say that I was reading the transcript of the past meeting where you told about the way that one could help a friend who has more or less lost their faith and needs to be uplifted, how we could send them God’s love and wash over them, and give them help that way, and I was very much taken with that because it seemed such a wonderful explanation and an easy way to help a friend.
TOMAS: I appreciate your remarks, my sister, but you and I both well know that it is not an easy matter to void yourself of all-concern for anything but the well-being of the beloved friend. It may be an art which is acquired through the years, but it an art that is hard won. So many individuals are so self-absorbed, they cannot drop their control over their own life and their own concerns adequately to allow the love of the Father to pass through them in such a loving direction as to affect the friend positively. I do take advantage of you here, you see, because you have helped me to teach, I thank you.
Student: Thank you!
Freedom
Student: Well, we’re coming up to the 4th of July and it’s a good time for thinking about our country and the blessings that we’ve received as citizens of this country. Would you comment on that for us?
TOMAS: I will comment to the effect that freedom from tyranny or bondage is indeed a victory worthy of celebration. I applaud the concept of Independence Day for it causes individuals to question what independence means. It causes thinking individuals to consider their freedoms. On occasion, it will impress feelings of patriotism and nationalistic pride, at least in this country; however, other countries have their Independence Day also, and they also develop their nationalistic pride. As we strive for one world, it is recognized that overmuch nationalistic pride is a block to world peace.
I, as a teacher, as a guide in your spirit quest, am particularly taken, on Independence Day, with those individuals who question what it is that they are in fact not independent of, but rather find themselves dependent and burdened by various relationships, behaviors, addictions and beliefs which do not give them a celebratory attitude. The work of the spirit realm is often accelerated on a day that celebrates a happy cause, because there are so many individuals who are not happy and who stop to ponder why not? why me? why God? and so forth. This is the value of Independence Day to me, my daughter, for as you are independent from forces which hold you back, from being dependent on anything but spirit, is cause for agitation in the spirit realms. We are busy on Independence Day. I will not grant accolades to your government, with all due respect. I am not here to do that.
Euthanasia
Student: Tomas, are you willing to talk about ending the life of a person who has terminal illness and is in great pain and wants to die?
TOMAS: Are you asking me if I am a fan of Dr. Kavorkian?
Student: Not necessarily. What if a person himself took something to end such misery? Then again, I guess we do have to include Dr. Kavorkian. I’m sure you’re not a fan, but you have to sympathize though.
TOMAS: I have a great fascination for the subject and truly great admiration for the good doctor. I am very concerned now about charlatans who do not have his integrity. The entire subject is quite electrifying (that’s the wrong word). I am not averse to discussing terrestrial escape. At one time we were cautioned against sanctioning suicide and that admonition still has great influence. I will not, therefore, make any blanket judgments or pronouncements or recommendations,
Student: If a person refuses to go to the doctor or to take their medicine, is that considered suicide? When they feel that it’s not going to do them any good?
TOMAS: I would have to revert to your dictionary terms to determine, since suicide is not a word we use in our language – unless you are referring to cosmic suicide and that, believe me, is a concept that far surpasses your understanding. A failure to medicate an illness is not suicide as I understand your definition of suicide.
Student: We were always taught that it was such a sin that it could not be forgiven, and because it’s such an offense to the Holy Spirit, and it was like a lost opportunity. To be wishing for someone to suffer as some kind of a lesson, and therefore when the person is in the illness, where they’re in the last stages, and certainly there isn’t going to be a cure, a miracle cure, and they know its a matter of time, that they are going to die, I would not understand why a person couldn’t either take medications that could alleviate that. Of course, if they were very medicated, they would be losing consciousness anyway, and so what would the difference be?
TOMAS: You have asked me a rhetorical question, my dear.
Student: Well, also, and added to what C__ said, if someone is extremely ill and has had an invasion many times with surgery and so on, they have been artificially kept alive in a sense, and so in a sense they have already been, if you want to say, they have already declared that this person is ready to go on. We artificially are keeping them alive with surgery and medication and therefore they should have the right to accept what was naturally their fate. Isn’t that…? Wouldn’t that be true?
TOMAS: I must take some exception or at least break that down, for that was rather a large category of individuals. There are, for example, some people who may have lost, for example, a kidney whose kidney was replaced and they went on to live a marvelous and happy and long life. The fact that they had one kidney failure does not mean that they should have died years ago. There are, on the other hand, some individuals who, like an old automobile, have become expensive to maintain and perhaps they might want to consider whether a new brake job would truly see them through the winter. Excuse my analogy, but . . .
Remember that in your all around picture here on Urantia you have many diseases that might not have been here had your forefathers acted according to divine plan. Since they did not, there are those elements of disease that unfortunately have not all been cured [Ed: eradicated]. Also, it is to be taken into consideration that many individuals, by their own abuses, have caused serious damage to themselves; and the psyche of the various individuals is a very important factor in addressing the merits or demerits of terrestrial escape, for is it truly an existence that they opt to take the easy way out? or is a situation where it is truly inhumane to continue?
Student: I think it said in the Urantia Book that when you’re brain dead, you’re dead, even though the body can keep going.
TOMAS: You did not ask me.
Student: No.
TOMAS: I appreciate your commentary. The body does die. The animal realm has subsisted on this cycle for thousands, millions of years. We look forward to an evolution of the human race that will preclude violent deaths: war, starvation, violence of inhumanity to man among each other, and disease. It is far the preferred and indeed the ideal, barring fusion, to simply sleep the sleep of the ages and awake rested in the Resurrection Halls. It is also a goal of light and life to approach the passing of the physical body and, therefore, the graduation from one level of life to the next as a true departure into a new and glorified existence, therefore, [Ed. ergo] a happy event. Much education is required on Urantia to attain that understanding that leaving here is not the end of life, that indeed terrestrial escape is only the beginning.
Student: Would the comprehension of the intellectual of studying the Urantia Book, if a person were, say, put into the position where they had to experience a type of situation that would make them want to go over faster, would that knowledge of understanding, does that make it easier when they go over into the mansion worlds to reconstruct, or say if someone, as a contrast, didn’t understand and just wanted to be out for the out to be, or maybe they were diseased or whatever, or dis-eased in any way, is it easier for the one that comprehends a more broader perspective?
Student: She wants to get there fast.
Student: No, I’m not talking about me. I’m just talking about, say, one that would understand and one that wouldn’t.
TOMAS: I have been barred from responding to that question.
Student: Because I’ve had a friend that went over and was very, very aware of it, and so much tragic here that he just couldn’t deal with it anymore.
Student: After I go to the discussion of this subject on Saturday, I’ll probably have more questions for you next week, Tomas, because I’m sure that these people will be raising many questions, but I did want to ask you. Am I correct in assuming that a being — getting into the subject of abortion, but just briefly — is it true that a being is not registered in the universe until he has taken the first breath of life? I believe that’s in the Book.
TOMAS: I believe you are correct, insofar as the registry is concerned. I would ask you, for your mental piece of mind, to read it again. I am not so much concerned with that, for the registration is not related to the spirit reality of the being.
Student: Tomas, do you think that more and more people now believe that there is an afterlife?
TOMAS: As compared to when?
Student: Well, say, twenty years ago or something.
TOMAS: Yes.
Student: I seem to find that this is true. And there have been a lot of books written by people who have had experiences from operations and so forth who actually did not die but had these experiences, and they prayed about them and people who read about it seem to be very much impressed.
TOMAS: These are personal confirmations of a greater life, a greater glory . ..
Student: Yes.
TOMAS: . . . and they are not falling on deaf ears, and so these seeds are planting and they are contributing to the great harvest.
Student: Yes.
Student: Tomas, I get the feeling, today, that you are somehow more . .. you’re directing more urgency toward directing us. More precise direction than what I ever sensed before.
TOMAS: Consider that perhaps you are a more congealed and spirit-unified group than before, also. I have always had the same agenda. I am happy that you are beginning to sense, perceive and acknowledge that we are headed in a direction! I am also concerned, once again, about one of our flock. I am poignantly reminded of the Master’s parable of the shepherd who would go out to find the sheep who was lost, and I would ask that we here focus loving energy and prayer on a limb of our organism which is weak and afraid. I am afraid of being accused of meddling in the soul of my friend, and so I will not persist. I will ask for one more question and then I will leave.
Student: But you leave us puzzled.
Student: Is this person . .. Does anybody have any idea, or can they say what is disturbing them?
Student: Well, we can certainly go down the list of each person in our group and pray for each one of them especially this week and we’re going to reach the person, even if we don’t know exactly the person.
Student: Does the person know, Tomas? Are they aware themselves that they’re . ..?
TOMAS: Yes. Student: This one is choosing a decision. It is that choice.
Student: If the person is at this table, I’ll like to send them al1 the love in my heart.
Closing
TOMAS: Indeed. And it has been recommended that we love one another and therefor envelop each other in our spiritual awareness embrace. In fact, if you are adequately satisfied for our question answer discussion today, I will be happy to lead us in a group prayer, not only toward one individual but towards each one individual, for each child of God is a prayer in itself, is a rare and precious thing, is a life to behold.
Each child of the Father is potential perfection, is happiness in motion, is service in its display of its love for its Creator. Each one of you here, each one of us, each is a reflection of divinity, each strives to overcome that which would pull us back, which would lead us away from our eternal goal, our sublime happiness.
Prayer: Father in Heaven, be with us today and always, ever reminding us that your light shines to illuminate the darkness, to light the path, to show us the way. You are our guide, our creator, our perfect Father Mother, and we are the fireflies of your creation. Help us to keep our light burning, Father, that we may delight the darkness.
Help our lights to shine. Help us to turn on our own light switch, that we would ask for your constant illumination to help us undress those garbs of mourning and sadness and error and madness which we are heir to as we are heir to the human condition. Have mercy on us, heavenly Parent. Help us to learn to humbly bow before you as your fireflies, always looking to you for the source of our own light in the wilderness. Amen.
And farewell.
Group: Farewell, Tomas.
