1995-02-24-Swim Against The Current

Session

Opening

Opening prayer

DANIEL: Greetings my friends. I am Daniel, your guide, your teacher. As in the past, Tomas and I will again state our joy in being able to serve in this Teaching Mission and to serve in this capacity for this group.

Lesson

Thought

The environment in which you live is one that daily changes not only climatically but also economically, politically, socially and spiritually. It is a part of your plight/job as a mortal to walk the path in faith and trust despite the environment, its good or it’s bad.

And those of you who continually nurture yourselves through the stillness and the desire to understand a greater purpose are those who are able to allow the environmental changes and fluxes to not destroy you but rather only add to the experience of a mortal life.

As teachers we cannot be specific and give pat answers. We cannot say you must do this or that for that is not the decree in a system of free agency. Our mission is to provide for you an understanding that there is far more to the environment than the material finite awareness. Those who understand this dual nature and who incorporate as much as possible the divine aspect into their material life will find that there are serendipitous experiences and that the upholding of the universes is under the guiding hand of the First Source and Center.

This has been borne out for Gerdean this week in her experience of knowing connectedness. Truly as mortals you must become aware that the collective unconscious of your being is like a receiver of broadcasts from others. Likewise you are like a transmitter, transmitting your own thoughts and patterning. How wise of you to remember this. For if all could raise their attitude, their response, their feelings to a higher plane then the unconscious transmitting from their being would provide productive connections to others.

Tomas is here this evening and will provide some words. We jointly wish to welcome you here this evening. Tomas?

Initiative, Trust

TOMAS: Good evening my friends. We are, indeed, gratified by your presence, your congregation. The satisfaction we feel is sincere. I, indeed, do have words for you this evening pertaining to your sojourn through life.

In your recent studies of humanity, in your conscious noticing of inhumanities, indiscretions, and intolerances, you see how thickly your realm is layered with work needing done, needing to be accomplished. Children, your capacities are not such that you can do all that needs to be done. But I do call your attention to the part in the Urantia Book that speaks about 'Why the heathen rage' for their goal is immediate and many of these situations which you have studied of late you have seen where the offense is caused by your fellows stepping on the toes of others. You are not to ignore work which can be done nor are you to hide perpetually in the sanctuary of stillness. But how then to proceed and prevail when the energies are so great and you are so small?

Little tadpoles, we are teaching you to swim against a current. We are strengthening your muscles. We are gradually bringing you into stride as spiritual adults. You may take charge of your own system of being by acknowledging your dependence upon the power which will make your acts possible. Taking the Kingdom by storm is not myth, is not idle chatter, is not social grace but is made possible by your confidence in your supernal guides, your spirit cousins, your mortal peers, your Creators.

The assertion of truth has been long denied. It is an exercise which also requires toning of the spiritual muscle. Truth, you see, can be brought down to relative levels of functioning. And the truth of the Kingdom, the Fortress, the Paradise of your existence and your potential destiny is so great as to require great personal conviction, stamina and courage to withstand the whirling energy spasms which surround you.

In your doings, in your ponderings, in your submerged desires to affect your world for Him who sends you forth take stock and bravely assay that which you feel guided/led to do or say. Trust your responses. Trust your reflections. Trust yourself that your decision to follow His will has been made by a genuine human being and a unified personality. I conclude my remarks regarding Kingdom building for now. Again, I appreciate this wonderful opportunity to not only serve as a teacher, but to witness the out-workings of these growth lessons and to perceive those effects resonate on high. Daniel.

Forgiveness

DANIEL: Thank you, Tomas, for your strong and wise words. This evening we will again continue our series on forgiveness.

While many can and often do deem this as an easy action, one that can flippantly be put on a back agenda, one that does not hold many facets of understanding, they are in error, for forgiveness is an essential part of the experience of being human. My friends, tonight we will look at the aspect of forgiveness from the standpoint of change. I will not elaborate greatly but I do wish to make a point that I hope you will commit to memory, will commit to your inner being, and that is this.

Many people become stuck on a level where they cannot progress, cannot learn, and cannot experience the many opportunities afforded the material existence because they will not forgive. The act of forgiving frees the individual so that progress, growth, and steady movement forward can take place. How many times in your life have you stayed on a platform because you could not forgive?

This week Tomas and I ask you to consider the importance of being able to change and grow, and the importance of being able to let go and forgive in order that change may occur. I ask you to commit this idea to memory, for history and human psychology has proved time and again that this is a great stumbling block toward growth. The floor is now open for questions.

Dialogue

PamElla: Daniel, I thank you very much for your statements on forgiveness and change/growth. I felt like they struck home. My question is a practical question, how to do that. I know that this is a stumbling block in my life I know I pray for the willingness to forgive and I pray for the recognition of the situations I need to forgive. It all becomes very overwhelming and I don't feel like I am forgiving or moving or progressing at all! I am wondering if I really don't have the willingness and I am only fooling myself. I don't really know what my question is other than that I do recognize in my being the importance of forgiveness. But I am not really sure what it is and I am not really sure how to do it.

DANIEL: Question understood. In answering this question there are many approaches I could make.

First to you, PamElla, and to all of you: the ability to recognize the need to forgive is a great step in that process. The ability to ask, to be led, to know what needs to be forgiven and how to go about it is also a great step. For in recognition of such you are placed on the level where action can then be taken. The inability or non-recognition of the need to forgive places one down into that area where change cannot occur.

Often in the process of forgiving it is necessary for you to have understanding of the causes, the events, and the situations. Understanding gives you perception of the action and how it originated, what precipitated the action, etc. It helps one to know in order that you can place yourself in a zone of trying to be compassionate, trying to be tolerant, trying to be understanding.

Once you are able to afford some understanding then trying becomes passé and actually doing or being is the next step. When you recognize that much of the hurt or the situation that needs to be forgiven stems from another's inability to love themselves, or love another, from another person's inability to understand themselves as well, from the other's lack or self esteem, then this helps you to depersonalize the nature of the hurt. Depersonalizing the hurt aids you in being able to rise above the infraction and eventually to get on with forgiving.

It is not uncommon; it is natural for you to experience many kinds of emotions: anger, hate, fear, unknowingness, and even revenge. This is part of your animal nature. It is part of being human. This is where the ability to choose how you will react comes in. You will have these feelings, but you can choose these or you can choose the opposite of anger, the opposite of revenge, the opposite of hate. When you have raised your consciousness to this level you undoubtedly are working through inner guidance.

The process of forgiveness can be very quick or it can go on for a long time. Inner guidance is direction, when it is called upon to be, when one sits in that space and asks, listens, and then trusts. It is the experience of truly working through having to forgive a real hurt that gives you much soul growth, builds much character, tempers the spirit in those wonderful attributes or tolerance, compassion and seeing a much broader picture. It helps one to see past the action that was done by realizing that the action that was done, even though it was done by another person, was just that, an action; that the other person, like you, is struggling, is learning, is trying to come from a lower place to a higher place but often gets stuck and does not know which way to go.

Being able to forgive a person or a situation does not necessarily mean that you condone or support that which was done. Even Christ Michael realized that there are certain evils, sin, and iniquity which even He could not find to forgive, however, the person who committed such could be forgiven.

Often in your dealings with forgiveness you do not have the real dramatic or traumatic, but life can be fickle here. These traumatic things can be easier to forgive than the common everyday irritations. Which ever it be, the dramatic or the commonplace, seek the silence first, recognizing there needs to be forgiveness, working through and questioning and through guidance coming into action. Has this helped?

PamElla: Yes, Daniel, this has helped very much. As you spoke first about needing understanding I realized my reaction sometimes is that I do have understanding about all of the things that you said and my reaction is to be angry about it because it doesn't fit in with how I would like things to be. And then when you talked about the anger and the animal stuff and getting to choose I realized that perhaps I am preferring to remain angry and not really wanting to forgive. The other thing that I noted as it was discussed before is that I find it so much easier to forgive what other people also recognize and will apologize for or make claim to or acknowledge. I find it hardest to forgive and where I want to remain angry is in what is not acknowledged. I guess that is what I need to overcome in myself is that desire to remain angry and justified in the lack of acknowledgment of situations or transgressions or whatever. And certainly you have said very, very much. I went through a series of emotions and then I realized I still have a long way to go in my willingness. I need to work on that. Thank you.

DANIEL: To add to your comments. Indeed, it is much easier, as you said, to forgive one who is willing to admit error. It is those who do not recognize error or are not able to admit error or concede, etc., that are the most difficult. These are your brothers and sisters that need your prayers and understanding the most. Those of you who have raised children recognize that when a child is at its worst is when it is the hardest for you to hold back conditions and to love unconditionally. Yet at that moment of a child's life is when the love is needed the most. Can you not see that your brothers and sisters in these kinds of situations need your love and support even more? Prayers that they can begin to question, that they can delve into their own aspect of who they are and the purpose of life.

PamElla: Yes Daniel. I can see that. Thank you very much. It has been very enlightening.

Communication

Leetah: Daniel, I appreciated your phrase that forgiveness is not just one shot. I sit here thinking in terms of what you have said tonight and I surely do realize that forgiveness comes and goes in a relationship. And I know that is dependent sometimes on communication and understanding that is going on. So I just appreciate so much your comment and the fact that I can sit here knowing that my humanity must forgive many times so that...I guess I feel imperfect right now. Because of that I need to be reminded or remind myself that forgiveness does come and go in relationships.

DANIEL: Indeed, a relationship is an ongoing thing. A relationship changes moment by moment. Therefore your ability to remain in a relationship requires change and moving forward as well which often does require forgiveness. Let me add also to your comment regarding communication.

This is a very difficult topic. Even the teachers in this mission realize how important the chosen word in communicating can be. All of you must realize that in relationships with one another each individual is coming into your life with a different set of experiences, a different set of values, a difference sense of phrasing and communicating. Therefore it becomes very important that when you deal with others and you communicate with others that you are clear about what is being said and what isn't. Reading information into a statement that is not there can trigger many, many instances where forgiveness must play a part. And so be mindful of how you speak, what you speak, and also be mindful of your brothers and sisters when they speak to you. Often what they say lightly and airily can come across to you as being something different because of your perspective. Communication is also an ongoing process that you will find quite exciting as your traverse the universes! The ability to make that connection of what is and what isn't treads a very fine line.

Leetah: Thank you very much, Daniel. I do have one other thought. And I think I probably misunderstood but I would like it clarified for myself. Did I hear correctly that people were forgiven but even Christ Michael could not forgive? It just kind of was a red flag to me because I can never conceive of Christ Michael as unable to forgive. I don't know if I just misunderstood or that was a communication problem!! Thank you.

DANIEL: It was TR interference. Christ Michael cannot condone certain actions. Being able to forgive the person who perpetrates such an action is readily forgiven. There are errors and evils within the framework of society that do not belong or cannot be part of the First Source and Center's domain. Therefore, there rests upon the Ancients of Days certain judgement calls to be made and those who cut themselves off from the flow to the First Source and Center are no longer a part of the ascension. Extinction is the bottom line. Those actions that perpetuate [one] being closed off from the Source time and time again into iniquitous reality are therefore in great trouble. While they can surely be forgiven, these sins which they have perpetuated are not able to be a part of the realm of the First Source and Center. Is this communication clear enough for you?

Leetah: Yes, Daniel. That is what I thought was meant. I just needed some clarification and I thank you very much.

DANIEL: You are most welcome.

Memory

Paula: Daniel, last week when we were talking about forgiveness and the pain of unforgiving or unforgiveness, and I think I want to talk primarily about the pain of being unforgiving, when we have forgiven then we can remember the incident but we don't remember the pain. I guess I would like to have you talk a little bit more about residual pain, what that might be after the forgiveness. I keep wanting to go back -- well if there is still pain then you haven't forgiven, but that doesn't sound right either. Could you say a little bit more about that please?

DANIEL: Certainly. For all of you there has been in your lives some kind of physical pain. I use this as an analogy. For women who have borne children, the pain of childbirth is a prime example that while time removes the sensation and the immediate feel of childbirth, when you stop and remember, you can remember the pain even though your don't feel the pain. In forgiveness it is often this way. You have this residual back-flash. And there might be instances where you might even begin to experience the pain, but it would never be the full intensity of what you felt prior to forgiveness.

Part of your being at this point in time is a brain that does have memory. Your body is a living organism. Living organisms always feel. You as a living organism are able to feel and recall. You have memory. The memory is what you are feeling. You are not feeling the actual event; you are only recalling and feeling a memory of that actual event. Therefore you may have completely forgiven and still be able to recall and have that memory.

That is a gift, the gift of memory, for it helps not only to bring back that which was painful but also that which is joyful. Your memory helps you to realize and keep you on track of who you are and your purpose. Does that help?

Paula: Yes, thank you.

PamElla: Daniel, that was very helpful. I just want to clarify then between tonight's answer and last week's lesson. Is that prior to forgiveness, the pain we are experiencing as if it were still happening to us? And that after forgiveness the pain we might feel is the memory of the pain, and it's different than the actual pain prior to forgiveness, is that correct?

DANIEL: Your statement is mostly correct. I will caution you here though to remember that time also plays a factor. If you are needing to forgive something that has happened in your past there is often because of time a dulling of the initial pain. However, the pain that you feel is still real, indeed.

PamElla: Thank you, Daniel. I think I will need to think a little further because now I am confused about when we know we have, in fact, forgiven, if we are talking about forgiving old pain, if old pain prior to forgiveness is dulled by time anyway, and then if after forgiveness we still experience the pain. I guess I had been under the same impression that Paula had that if we still had the pain we hadn't completely forgiven.

DANIEL: Let me step in here and remind you if you have worked through forgiveness you may, as we stated before, have to forgive in increments, that the forgiveness may not be all in one time frame, but may take a while. That is one forgiveness. If you have forgiven totally or have worked on forgiveness then little by little you lose the sharp edge of the hurt and little by little you are forgiving in increments and part of that which you are feeling can be a memory.

It becomes very confusing, becomes almost a twilight zone in deciding what is real and what isn't. What is real is the moment! If you wish to continue to live in the past then you will feel the recall of the past hurt. If you have already forgiven then you are in the moment. If you have forgiven you will be able to move on, you will be able to leave the past behind you.

Do not confuse that with coming to terms with a forgiveness that you have not dealt with but you are now realizing needs to be done. Do you see?

PamElla: Yes, Daniel. That was helpful. Thank you.

Paula: Daniel, it occurs to me that if it is so I am very grateful, that the pain is not the only measure of whether one has worked through forgiveness. I would suspect that the peace that you were talking about last week is also an indicator as well, so that it is nice to have more than one reference point for whether forgiveness has taken place or not.

DANIEL: Certainly. There are other indicators besides peace or pain to forgiveness. Each path is individual. Each grievance and each ability to forgive is different.

Paula: I was wondering what those indicators were when you were mentioning others. Can you elaborate on that?

DANIEL: There can be anger; there can be hostility; there can be desire to seek revenge; there can be intolerance; there can be deliberate misunderstanding or misinterpretation; there can be immediate wall building. And of course I have reported the negative here. The opposite would be a way of knowing whether or not one has forgiven: one who has hated and now finds love. Are you seeing?

Paula: Yes. My question was about other indicators that it had been worked through. I do see the opposite of that. The other thing that occurred to me is that in your talk I believe you mentioned something about – um... I can't remember exactly what it was but when you were talking about the opposite of revenge and those sorts of things, I kept thinking about the word love. But then I thought that maybe the opposite of revenge is forgiveness. Maybe the opposite of hate is forgiveness. Love would be that vehicle and that all inclusive circle of the First Source and Center that would accompany all that. The fact that forgiveness was the opposite of hate was new to me. So that was interesting for me.

DANIEL: There are many connections when one tears apart a concept. Whenever concepts or ideas are torn apart not only is there diversity but there is also a great unity.

Paula: That is certainly evident, isn't it; from all the things we have talked about, the diversity of how it is expressed and then the unity of that love. Thank you, Daniel.

DANIEL: It is a joy for us teachers when students can recognize and see that which we are presenting in not one puzzle piece but in the whole puzzle; that it is not just in the box but also the paper and the bows that wrap the package. Tomas and I are blessed with students who enjoy the wrappings as much as the box. (Laughter) Tomas, will you please close this meeting?

Closing

TOMAS: Gracious listeners and comrades in the Spirit both visible and invisible, we have again attained a modicum of mota for mastication. It is with murmurings of affection that we draw to a close. The bit on communication has intrigued me for I wish to say that no matter how eagerly we apply our concepts to you, no matter how diligently we construct our concepts and propose them into sentences which are receivable to your ear it is in how you perceive what we have said that measures our success as communicators. We therefore gratefully acknowledge your attendance and your efforts to understand and adopt as your own these teachings from your loyal supernal teachers. We go with you as you go about your affairs until we gather again. Good night.