2000-05-07. Evolution
SE Idaho #21
Topic: Evolution
Group: SE Idaho TeaM
Teacher: Daniel, Aaron, Minearisa
TR: Bob S., Bill K.
Opening
Aaron (Bob S): My children: How happy are we, your elder brothers and sisters here gathered, that you are meeting tonight in this format. I am Aaron, kicking off tonight’s festivities—welcoming one and all on behalf those of us from the other side. We have prepared a full evening and trust you will find our words helpful and meaningful, so let us begin. One moment please.
Daniel (Bill): I am Daniel, your teacher, your guide, your friend. It has been several weeks now since we have been together, and I have missed you all as a group. I have been speaking with some of you from time to time, so that it is not as though this group needs to meet in order for us teachers to be heard or be present in your lives. Nevertheless it is important to continue to gather together for the sake of fostering unity, sharing diversity, being creative, but most of all enjoying each other’s friendship.
Lesson
Evolution
I do wish to speak this evening around the topic of evolution as it has reference to the higher functions of human personality, mindal evolution, spiritual evolution, and their combined interaction with social evolution. Just as a living organism must grow in order to keep its life status so must you evolve individually and in interconnectedness to keep your vital energies active and the lifeblood of spiritual energy coursing through your veins. The one thing characteristic of all life is that it is not inert or static. If fact, once a living organism becomes inert or static biologically it ceases to be alive. The same holds true for mindal, spiritual and social evolution.
Always there is the desire in human nature to preserve the past in the form of tradition and custom. Always is there a resistance to change and evolution. This desire to retain the past has many benefits and is not in itself a negative reality. Indeed is life the delicate balance between the preservation of past good and the evolution of future good. Sometimes the tide seems to turn towards the preservation of the past, towards the conservative side of reality, and then the tide swings in the other direction and reverses itself so that forward momentum seems about to take the day. Always in mortal life there is movement back and forth between these poles, the pole of conserving the past and the pole of evolving the future. This is part of the reason that your lives cannot be fairly described as balanced and certainly not placid for long.
We have had a history of nearly ten years of this sort of gathering where we have been together, and you have been faithfully attending these teaching sessions. We have covered an enormous amount of material, between the teachers of this teacher base and you students. Our teachings have been spread to a larger audience than this mere grouping, and many have benefitted. This teaching base has been replicated in many places, but always with variations, throughout this planet. Even now groups are beginning to form for the first time and others are shifting their formats and their appearance. I am not saying that our times together have come to an end, but I am saying that, as with all things that are a combination of mental, spiritual and social, our formats must be flexible and we must be ready to assume new directions.
We teachers have not delivered all of our curriculum to you, our friends. We have wished more and more that we could give you more hands on experience, and we have entered that phase where we are training you to be teachers of your brothers and sisters. We see that you are scattering yourselves abroad this summer engaged in important activities, which by your choice and in response to your Thought Adjusters’ direction, you are accomplishing the things that God wishes you to do. Therefor it will necessitate a change in our format and we understand the decisions that have been made this evening in this regard.
I, Daniel, along with Andronason, Minearsia, Aaron and your personal teachers await humbly the future direction that Michael will give us. Rather than thinking our work has reached some sort of termination point, I would interpret this to mean that our work is changing direction and we have only just begun. Much spiritual growth has resulted from the ten-year contact with you mortals, and we have been very pleased in general with the progress that has been made. We ascendant, former mortals have learned much from our contact with this planet, so unlike most of our home planets. We have become humbled to be in your presence and we observe how it is that you have coped with the legacy of sin and rebellion which has so distorted the thinking and the patterns of society on this planet. Yet we observe your magnificent faith mounting day by day as you take the hand of your Thought Adjuster, the hand of God, and step forward to do that chosen will.
I wish to conclude my comments with one admonition, my friends. Please continue your stillness practice. Nothing, literally nothing is more important! This is the essence of the ascension career, to enter into the presence of your Indweller with faith, an open heart and full confidence; to so habituate yourselves to choosing the divine will that it becomes truly a lifestyle, one which grows ever more comforting and sweeter as the days go by. However your life becomes stretched to the demands which you have acquiesced to, never for a moment let those demands push away your precious, intimate time with God within. I wish now to allow you some time for questions or comments. The floor is open.
Dialogue
Tradition
Bob S (Jonderoch): Daniel, I have a question. If, as you say, evolution is natural for us, that we evolve or die, why is it that we so resist change? What is the cause of that?
Daniel (Bill): There are several reasons, Jonderoch. As I stated earlier and as the Urantia Book elucidates, there is value in conserving the good things of the past. It is not just a perversity of human nature to desire to continue that which one is comfortable with, for in many cases or much of the time, there is value in continuing those traditions, mores, ways of doing things. They are the tried and tested results of previous experimentations with change. The problem that occurs however, is when an individual or a group reaches the conclusion that all desirable ways of doing things have been exhausted, and only traditional ones retain any value. This precludes the possibility of new and better ways of doing things, of thinking, of acting, of being.
There is also, in addition to inherent value in tradition, the fear of the unknown, which is an animalistic fear. It springs from your very animal nature. It comes out of the organism’s protective strategies, for indeed primitive man would have not survived his battle with the elements and other animals if he had be not been cautious and used foresight and responded to fear. Therefor, it is an effect ingrained in your physiology or biology, this natural, protective aspect of fear. What the mind has to power to do when it is under the direction of the Spirit is to evaluate reality more accurately, for indeed you do not live in a jungle where your life is at risk any moment. But there are many jungle-like analogies in modern life which still arouse those reflexive fear circuits in people.
While children as babies can be as trusting as our little one here tonight (Bob and Nancy Devine’s 8 month old), as you encounter, growing up in childhood, new and strange circumstances, the instinctive, hard wired circuitry of the lower brain stem and the cortex unite more and more to tie you into the evolved mechanisms. Therefor, as an adult you have the task through spiritual growth of transcending the results of your upbringing as you learn to change the meaning of life from the transient, limited, self-centered, materialistic view held by many to an understanding of your true safety and security in the kingdom of God in the status of eternal life, so that you can eventually say in triumph, even as Jesus said, what does it matter to a kingdom believer if all things earthly perish? Has this dissertation helped you, my friend?
Bob S: Yes, very much. It was a marvelous answer. Thank you.
Daniel (Bill): You are welcome, Bob, and I would give you some personal words. Be more at ease with yourself and do not grow weary with your perceived shortcomings. You are doing very well. You are definitely making good progress. Be at peace.
Bob: Thank you. I’ll try.
Bob D: Do you think that there is still hope for the organized religions centered about his life today—the Christian Church? The Urantia Book has talked about the transformation of modern-day Christianity and sometimes it almost seems like they have so traditionalized their views that it is almost impossible, from my human perspective, to really transform from within that organization. The transformation of human kind almost needs to come from outside and I guess that perspective is taken in viewing (most) Christian movements that are more fundamental in their stands. I would be glad to hear any perspective that you have regarding whether there is a futility in trying to transform that church, or whether the transformation has to come from a different area of the world.
Ken: You are speaking of the Christian Church, Bob. Might I include the other churches of the world also?
Bob D (Simeon): Sure.
Change, Fundamentalism
Minearsia (Bill): Greetings. I am Minearsia. Welcome, my friends, to our group tonight. Yes, I am here with Andronason, and I am very impressed with the import of your question, Simeon.
In one sense we cannot answer your question. That is in the sense that we do not know the future. We are not God, Who does know the circle of eternity; but we still are of the opinion that the forces of resistance to chance, of darkness as opposed to light, are losing the battle. We observe in individuals who are struggling with issues of change that their greatest resistance to change seems to occur just before their walls are breached, just before they capitulate and get past the barrier they have perceived in the change-challenge that is presented to them. Recall how Thomas refused to believe in the resurrection of our Master, and Jesus addressed him saying, ” Thomas, your doubts are always strongest just before they give way”. Translated into your question… we see the resurgence of fundamentalism as a manifestation of the awareness on the part of world religions, Christianity, Islam, particularly those two, to the need for change. Fundamentalism can be perceived as a defense mechanism, as a way of trying to prevent the inexorable march of intellectual, spiritual, and social evolution.
It is easy to grow weary in one short life and wish that more change could come about, and when this happens on a large scale people are ready to embrace the apocalyptic, which says basically what you are proposing, that there is not enough internal momentum to produce significant change within an institution and the only way is by an outside, dramatic event which will shatter its boundaries and definitions. No, my friend, we are still of the opinion that one by one the leaven of the virus of love is spreading, that change in the upward direction is continuing, that spiritual growth is coming to many more people. Whether or not individual religions, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, whatever religion you want to talk about, can gain enough spiritual strength to change and flex, or whether they will become so rigid as to be shattered, remains unknown. However, I am of the opinion that the former will be the case. I am curious what your thoughts are on your question, my friend?
Bob D: I wasn’t really sure. Maybe the catalyst for change will come from inspired people, and even though it may inspire, there will always be some desire by this body of control to manage that into something else, rather than allowing it to be free and progressive. So I tend to see it hard for transforming change from within, but I can see there being progress, just at a lot slower pace than I could ever be satisfied with. So maybe it’s good that the world has some people that look forward to upholding tradition. That way the people who try to make massive change won’t destabilize the world, and at the same time they will probably pull the traditionalists kicking and screaming into the future, while at the same time, it is kind of like the angels of the churches and the angels of progress both are doing a function, but progress is still happening nevertheless. It is just slower than the angels of progress would like and faster than the angels of the churches would like. So in a sense that is what I kind of feel.
Minearsia (Bill): Thank you, Simeon. I have the same opinion as you do. Both are necessary. Lucifer, as you know, advocated unlimited freedom and wanted to see his goals achieved quickly. We are among other things grateful that his errors have shown so clearly the importance of evolution as opposed to the erroneous ideas of revolution. In the universe of Nebadon this issue has been rather clearly clarified. Therefor, we all think rather often of the implications of the Lucifer error, the desire to have now that can truly only be had in time, and also of the lesson from Adam and Eve with their discouragement and short-circuiting of the divine plan.
Moment
My words to you, Simeon, are these. Enjoy the present moment to the fullest so that you don’t feel a sense of longing for the future to come now because the “now” is so satisfying. Believe me, all of you, as you approach the end of your mortal lives, will discover that they seem to be merely a few moments in length. And yes, as you get older and move beyond mortality you will begin to appreciate what it means to have no boundaries in the future. One of the reasons mortals are in a hurry is they do not believe in eternal life, and they must get it all done now, in this life, for the rest is only shadowy fantasy at best. But once your have tasted the reality of eternal life as it intersects with your life now, it changes forever your attitude about being in a hurry.
Now please understand I am not counseling sloth (laughter), but if I could characterize your culture as a whole in general terms, I would say you err in the other direction, so that even those who are truly slothful can’t enjoy it for they feel pressure from the work rate of their fellows. (More laughter.) Are there other comments or questions?
Ken: Daniel, your opening words, as chosen by the TR this evening, sounded kind of mournful in the respect that we won’t be meeting too much for this summer; and your comment that we will be stepping into another phase; and the other comment was that we have not completed the lessons that you had prepared for us–have we done fifty percent?
Daniel (Bill): You misunderstood me, my friend. (Comments and laughter.) When I said we have not completed our lessons, it was not a judgment on your inefficiency as students. (Comment.) It was rather a statement that we are not through with each other. (Comments and laughter.) We will continue to be together.
If there was a mournful tone in my voice, I admit to missing our more frequent gatherings. But I also am aware that everyone’s paths are diverging with good reason, (I believe that I indicated that.) as each one attempts to follow their leading from within. And no, do not worry about me, my friend. (Comments and laughter.) We will be continuing as a group. I support the idea of your getting together, (a summer barbecue) for the wintertime is so full of activities and the leisure of summer allows you to take more time together. Are you clear that I was not grading you down for your efforts?
Ken. Yes. I never took it like that. It is just that we probably had reached a phase, and you used the phrase training us as teachers, (Comments.) and I thought after this last little sojourn that I had on the East Coast, I am not prepared to be a teacher.
Closing
Daniel (Bill): Yes, so we will keep working on it! (Comments and laughter.) Well, my friends, I believe that there is a time limit now that I will observe, and once again my deep, heartfelt love goes out to you all. Seek the Father daily. Watch for opportunities to serve. Ask for guidance, and think of us, your friends. Good evening.
