2002-05-26. Does Rebellion Have Value?
Rio Rancho #16
Topic: Does Rebellion Have Value?
Group: Rio Rancho TeaM
Teacher: Tomas, Paulo, Anatolia
TR: Gerdean
Opening
TOMAS: Good afternoon, faithful friends. I am Tomas, your companion in these experiential learning sessions, wherein we review what our life is about, according to our perceptions at any given moment, and today in this gathering I perceive the essential elements of Human Association in full sway, a “harmonic convergence” of happy souls, indeed One Happy Family.
Welcome, all of you who are comprising this family configuration in this Teacher Base this afternoon. No one is a stranger here. Everyone is welcome, as Our Father has prepared a feast for all to enjoy and those of you who have come to partake of our ambiance and association in spirit reality, are treasured participants in the experience of learning the Art of Living through good humor and self-mastery.
Well, savor this a moment, folks, and recognize how it feels, for this is truly a plateau of relative perfection which can be a photograph of your participation together in the Evolving Supreme, a photograph that you can refer to as exemplary of a family gathering, having Michael and Nebadonia as our Parents.
In such a setting as this, supported by one another in affectionate regard, inspired by the association of like-minded individuals whose imaginations are stimulated by the creative energies resulting from your social intercourse and the proximity to divinity, you would not feel any need to stir up trouble or agitate each other in an attempt to derive satisfaction at others’ expense. In this environment of the Family of God, you have only care for each other and a desire to further good will, by taking an interest in each other and their sundry concerns.
How can anyone see anything but potential greatness emerging from such a culling together of human beings who seek to do the divine will and live as siblings? Even so, there are evidently lessons to be learned in the alternative, as is elucidated in the Urantia text on page 51 where it discusses the inevitabilities. And so perhaps it is inevitable that we have a teacher with us who has made a specialty of his topic of study, that being rebellion, and so I introduce to you our visitor today, Teacher Paulo, whose words are a welcome addition. I will return.
Dialogue
PAULO: Paulo here. Don’t be afraid. I’m not coming in with pugilistic intentions.
Thoroah: Good to see you, Paulo.
Rebellion
PAULO: Good to see you as well, Thoroah, and all of this spectacle of individuals. It’s truly a pleasure to be invited to be a guest Teacher in your midst. Usually I am called upon in the throes of conflict. I unfortunately am a bit of a referee, if you will, in many of the situations in your world which require a faction of divine intervention. I’ve been very busy in the mid east and the holy land, and without going into that, I will focus my attention on my work today, now, and that is this class, these individuals, indeed you.
How marvelous to have a formal question submitted and to be requested. Thank you, Sir David. Thoroah will you please convey our brother’s question for the record?
Thoroah: “I have a question for Paulo, your resident expert on rebellion. It is:
“If rebelliousness is a quality that seems natural to us humans, is there a divine value contained or hidden in it? We know that it is natural for teenagers, when testing their wings, to be rebellious. We also know according to the laws of physics called entropy, that things at rest resist moving and things in motion tend to continue moving. “Our teachers are constantly admonishing us to welcome change with love. We know of the angelic orders of conservation and the orders of progress.
“So when things are out of balance, and the resources of power and the resources of wealth are out of balance, is it sometimes necessary for humans to rebel, to protest, etc, since we are the liberty loving sons and daughters of God, in addition to our heritage of being “Protestants” (read: protesters) and Americans who cherish freedom to speak out, to speak the truth? “To wit: I think this subject leans to the complex, but I would love to hear how Paulo cuts through it.”
Lesson
PAULO: Oh, you are a crafty fellow, aren’t you? You challenge me with all the muddled mental machinations of mankind at the moment. Well, I can cop out by saying, “Tomas has already answered in his introductory remarks,” and go back to work, but I won’t. I’ll stay here and chat with you for a while — not that I have any clear-cut answers! — and yet, insights are such savory morsels.
It would behoove us all to sit around and chew some of these ideas of the obstreperous, the cantankerous, the opposing point of view, the necessity of pushing out walls, pushing back limitations, and the like, for those certainly are tried and true methods of getting from Point A to Point B – maybe even to Point C or D, but – invariably these instinctual techniques tend to give you odds of two steps forward, two steps back.
Let’s talk about the rebellion that is at the heart of most of your difficulties, and that is the rebellion engaged in which isolated your world for hundreds of thousands of years from your galactic kin — not that you would have been engaged in any in-depth expeditions with your galactic kin anyway, but — the Lucifer Rebellion is an epoch in your planetary history which has permanently – I say permanently – impacted on your growth.
I cannot think of another example current to you that would give rise to the same principle, but let’s just take a gross example of a woman who gets pregnant and in her second trimester becomes a drug addict, subjecting the foetus then to all manner of aberrant chemical contortions, and the child even so is born, appearing to be healthy, and yet having in it a predisposition toward addiction itself, as a result of its incubation in the womb.
All of you are altered as a result of the effects of Lucifer’s rebellion. In this context, it could be said that he in fact planted his seed in your being — not permanently superceding your true Father, but effectively altering your “genetic composition” sufficiently as to give one cause to wonder what bad seed this might be – taking after, as he does, his old man. All of you take after your old man, and we’ve come to shift gears, and learn, rather, to be like your Father — your original Creator — not that which has come to modify your behaviors forever.
That scenario, true as it is, is also relative to the perspective of time and space. By the time you attain Paradise, you will have by-passed, superseded, transcended, mastered, gone beyond these original moldings to be that which you can be, as you are becoming in this Melchizedek University. But that does not mean to say that every rebellion that comes down the pike rises to such a level or should be accredited to Lucifer or his associates.
Indirectly, perhaps, it could be said that a rebellious teenager is striking out against the traditions in which he was raised. In Tomas’ portrayal of you all here as a happy family, he suggested that none of you would rebel against the quality of life you have found here, that you create here, and he would be correct, but this small, isolated orb of light and life is a minute part of the overall and general reality that is in existence, that is still evolving, that has yet to attain such a divine level of enjoyment as this group enjoys here today. Rebellion is many times simply a matter of stretching one’s own wings and becoming more than that which was.
The difficulty with having a perpetual rebellious streak, buying into the concept that “you’re just like your old man” and that “apples don’t fall far from the tree,” you can justify your arrogance and stubbornness and justify the ill-effects of others who also act irresponsibly and unethically, as a natural act, and in fact it is, for in all evolving worlds, even those who have not had a mishap the size of the Lucifer Rebellion, are still growing from a lesser root value to a higher root value, and this growth creates conflict, creates turbulence in the mind, in the emotions and in the social expression of such changes.
So a teenager rebelling is, in the main, a healthy behavior. Even arguments for the sake of arguing is best regarded as an art form rather than an unhealthy preoccupation with disagreement. Again, getting back to the difficulty of rebellion, and what to guard against, is the effects of the rebellion on others. How extensive? To what extent? How far-reaching? Lucifer’s folly has affected you for hundreds of thousands of years for his folly was great, but whether or not you in your life and in your particular instance of rebelling against the status quo, may not affect all of humanity, may not even affect all of your household. You may not feel the need to strike out or retaliate. You may not feel inclined to manipulate the outcome. These are the negative effects of rebellion.
It is said that fear is a great motivator. And in the primitive days of your development as a race of people, the concept of food and shelter was indeed an early fear that motivated you to learn to hoard, hunt and herd in ways which would provide those necessities. So yes, fear does motivate primally, but the Art of Living is motivated by love and a desire to do good to others. It attains to the level of understanding the provisions of divinity. When you seek to do His will, when you trust the path He has set out for you, you need not revert to animal fear for your motivation. You need not respond to the fears of your fellows in the arena and play the games they play under the old rules.
Everybody rebels against something — some more than others — and in the main, it’s a reaction to the sense of being curtailed, constrained, limited, standardized, or ignored – which provokes your attitude. The better motivator is that which is to be found in this Family of God which stimulates the creative imagination and upholds the values that are dear to you all, without the need for fear to nip at your ankles. And this is the path provided by the Universal Father as compared to the shady lane that remains a result of “the old man.”
What else has he got there in that question? Something about Protestants. Protesters, yes. I’m only going to dwell a moment on the evolution of the human animal to arrive at a point of peace-keeping, and encourage those of you who must revolt against the political sway, express yourself as Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr., or Jesus, and persevere through patience, peace, love, negotiation, understanding and prayer.
And of course you can vote! You can get involved in the existing political machinery and learn to tap dance effectively. It’s a positive thing you can do. It’s a way you can turn the other cheek. It’s commendable because it gives you an avenue in which you can take action. It gives you a formidable foe to fight. It’s a principle to introduce and uphold as a superior way of going about experientially revealing the quality of win-win that comes from approaching your challenges positively, courageously, and constructively, as compared to a mere act of rebellion.
In other words, if and when you choose to rebel, rebel intelligently and mindfully rather than emotionally or as a reflex reaction to something someone may or may not have said. Anything else?
Dialogue
Thoroah: Not from this source.
PAULO: All right, then. I’ll go back to work.
Linda: Can we ask you about your work, Paulo?
PAULO: You can ask.
Peace
Linda: I’m sure it’s extremely difficult, given the mind sets that you’re having to work with. It would seem a little incomprehensible to us that they should seek such a dramatic rebellion. Are they coming around? Is it working?
PAULO: I will not predict the future. If I answer your last remark, it might give an indication of how the election was going to turn out and it would be unfair media manipulation on my part. The difficulties, however, are deep-seeded . You understand what that means? Deep-seated?
Deep-seated or deep-seeded, either one. The deep-seeded aspect is as I discussed in terms of how it was that Lucifer implanted in you these seeds of malcontent and which are a part of you whether they are for your own good or not, and that you must identify and rise above. Deep-seated is a racial and cultural condition, as if “from the seat of your pants” and you generally find this in nationalism or racism, and we’re dealing with both factors in the current global conflicts.
This is the danger of pride, whether it is racial pride, national pride, historic pride, commercial pride, or whatever. As you marry yourself to a value, and hang on to it for dear life, even at the expense of your own life, your own happiness and the life and happiness of others, you have committed the same folly as Lucifer. You’ve developed a love for what you think you are, over and above that which you can be by and through your divine inheritance. It’s an expression of desperation. It’s hardly evolved.
If warfare were highly evolved, I would be out of a job perhaps. Warfare is always a lose-lose situation. Always. Conflict may be growth promoting, but violence is destructive. If we cannot engage each other as elements of a greater reality than our limited perspective, any peace is doomed, and so it is our unceasing effort to promote communications, communications that can begin to be effective because they have, as their footing, a new paradigm.
As anyone reverts to the old paradigm of “the way it was,” that’s when hope for today and tomorrow evaporate. And yet, in having respect for humanity individually, one on one, it is very difficult to NOT factor in a background which has had immeasurable effect on the personality of the individual you are discussing things with and the value lesson he presents through his heritage.
It’s, again, why Jesus’ approach is the only approach that can work. I don’t mean to say that everyone has to believe in Jesus — That could be a real stalemate in some of these situations. — but what he taught, which is possible for everyone to appreciate — the path of peace by following the Prince of Peace.
Oh, yes, now I see a scripture jumping up about “plowshares” and Jesus even saying that following him would surely lead you into the pathway of trouble. Well, this is true, and I won’t recant my words, because who wants to be bored? Who wants to have such refinement that there are no challenges left? How can anyone in this planetary arena conceive of there not being work to be done? This is the challenge — that we can regard this as work to be done on behalf of Community, a Family of God with Universal Father in charge.
But if that’s the case, then your modus operandi will be flavored with love and mercy and ministry, and not destruction, violence, or rebellion simply as a reaction to unfinished growth. Let me leave you. I will return and visit again. I do enjoy our times together.
Thank you, Tomas, for sharing your platform today. However, I will return the podium to you, good teacher, to bring these ardent ears into a more musical composition to encompass the balance of the afternoon. Enough work for now. Good bye.
Group: Good-bye. Thank you, Paulo.
TOMAS: How is it that in hearing about rebellion, it sounds so ponderous, but as you are rebelling yourself, it feels like such fun? What has our Mother got to say about the situation, Thoroah?
Thoroah: From the Urantia text [Random Quote for Saturday May 25]:
“The Divine Minister of Salvington issued as her third independent proclamation a mandate directing that nothing be done to half cure, cowardly suppress, or otherwise hide the hideous visage of rebels and rebellion. The angelic hosts were directed to work for full disclosure and unlimited opportunity for sin-expression as the quickest technique of achieving the perfect and final cure of the plague of evil and sin.” (54:5.11)
TOMAS: Now, that’s what you call perspective. Only a Divine Minister, a reflection of Infinite Mind, would realize that value and propose it as the best way to go about perfection attainment. This is in response to the Lucifer Rebellion, and the mercy of delaying punishment for rebellion; indeed, the value of evil as a reflection of divine perfection.
Here’s a notation from this mind, that a mother, in keeping house, will not have you sweep the dirt under the rug, but rather would have you take the rug outside and beat it for all the neighbors to see how dusty it is in your room, and that’s why it needs cleaned. However, at your level of influence, it’s unlikely the dust in your room would pollute the entire neighborhood. In fact, perhaps the neighbors wouldn’t even pay attention to the fact that your room needed straightening, thus the remark that the Divine Minister’s perspective on things is one which we might do well to appreciate, for how much the sanctimonious mortal enjoys his supremacy over the evil-doing of his fellows.
Indeed, this method of revealing the sin-expression potential is the way to human will choosing intelligently to do the divine will. Why eat burned cookies when nice warm ones, fresh from the oven, are also available? But you don’t know a good cookie from a bad cookie unless you’ve had a taste. Nebadonia, our Mother, is a smart cookie. (Group giggles) Don’t you love it when women make proclamations and they end up making sense?
Dorenda: Always! Angus: Perplexing!
TOMAS: Do I detect an underlying thread of rebellion here? (Group laughter) It is said that the relationship between men and women is a largely antagonistic existence, and this, I daresay, is an old wive’s tale from the legacy of the old man.
Janet: You’re so right!
TOMAS: The compatibility which has been built into the perfect balance between the male and the female is a gift which infuses the universe, which is not antagonistic, but through self-mastery and the Art of Living, is the standard for harmony and relationship throughout the spheres. There is another holiday now on your calendar. You humans have a new holiday every Sunday, it seems. What are we celebrating today?
Angus: Monday! We’re celebrating Monday. Dorenda: Memorial Day. We celebrate those people who have given their lives to secure our freedom.
TOMAS: Along with that acknowledgment, let’s celebrate those today who advance spiritual liberty. Remember those who work to overcome the spoils of war, who work for peace, prosperity and perfection. Celebrate the steps you’ve taken to attain this plateau of light and life for yourselves and for your peers. Enjoy! Weep no more! Advance. Farewell.
Group: Thank you.
TOMAS: One moment, please.
ANATOLIA: I am Anatolia, an associate in this Teacher Corps. I associate often with Matthew, my friend. You see him here today in your midst as Willie.
Elena: Hi, Matthew.
Closing
ANATOLIA: I and Matthew have been co-workers, co-creators, co-conspirators, and we will be able to bring our energetic contribution to your Teacher Base here in due course, as we are a growing community here and it benefits us all to share the wealth. The saying that “love is the currency of the universe” is certainly in keeping with my understanding of prosperity, and I delight in the treasure chest of riches I find here in your midst. How we will enjoy this abundance and this association. I will, however, withhold much of my anticipation and reveal it when and as I have another opportunity and transmitter. Until we meet again, farewell.
