1996-10-31-Unfailing Goodness

Session

Opening

Father, Mother, Creator, we come to You for the experience of Your presence. In knowing You, we come to know how we can be more like You. Gather with us in our attempt at understanding, to the best of our capacity, Your wondrous nature. Give us the willingness to understand what You would have us learn, in order that we might develop ourselves to the glory of Your infinite love. Help us pass away from the fears of our ancestors and the fears of our surroundings and give up all vestiges of fear, in faith of Your protection and divine overcare. Be with us always, vitalize us with Your spirit, and reign over us with your perfect peace. Amen.

TOMAS: Good evening, my friends, I am Tomas.

Group: Good evening, Tomas.

TOMAS: It is wonderful to be in your presence again, to experience your peace, your camaraderie. It is wonderful to have with us a new daughter of the Father, a family member. Welcome to you, Kate. We look forward to your enveloping embrace in the spirit as we embrace you.

My friends, I will speak with you this evening regarding "unfailing goodness."

Goodness

In the early course of your evening, of course, we observed. We find great substance in your sharing. We learn much of you as you express yourselves in this company. It gives us clues as to where we might reach you, for it is our purpose as Teachers to address you where you are, that we might help to bring you forward. And we observed your discourse regarding your own expectations of yourselves in terms of the fruits of the spirit.

These fruits, which we have developed over a course of weeks and chewed on and taken into ourselves as nourishment, these fruits of the divine spirit are already yours because you are professed believers, because you have opened yourselves to the spirit, because you are sons and daughters of the living God; you are open to the influence of your Indwelling God Fragment.

And so within you dwells that aspect of perfection, which has as its base the qualities of the fruits, and so it is not impossible for you to manifest these fruits. Indeed, it is vital that you do, but it is understood that you are only relatively perfect, and that as you seek to grow and become more godlike, as you seek to develop within your own nature the nature of God, these fruits will become more apparent and more ably manifest.

And so we come now to "unfailing goodness" and who would not acknowledge a bad moment now and then, where you harbor ill will toward your neighbor or murmur expletives at rude drivers? How many of you have not known resentment, or those facets of imperfection which you would regard, even philosophically, as undesirable to a clean heart, a clear mind? At the heart of each of you there is God, and so there is good, but how can we be good without fail? Without fail!

You can be unfailingly good because you will not be failed by the Father. Even as you voice your malcontent and your resentment, your righteous indignation or rightful judgment, that within you which is divine will point the way out of that darkness. Unfailingly it will lead you into further goodness. (I only want to point out briefly that good is not necessarily nice. There is a difference. )

Good is a quality of greatness, of divinity, for divinity seeks only good, can do only good, can be only good, for it is perfect. It is love. It is the desire to help, to share, to express, to serve, to comfort. Unfailingly does God reach for you and unfailingly is He there when you reach for Him. Unfailingly He is good to you. Are you unfailingly good to God? Unfailingly good to your brothers and sisters?

If you find yourself caught up short in twisted behavior or twisted thinking, the goodness of God will reveal to you your error, and with goodness return you to your clear path, clear thinking, right behavior. When you manifest these fruits of the spirit, such as enlightened honesty, it is the fruit of unfailing goodness that allows your honesty to be given and received, for who denies good? All seek good - in each other, in themselves.

"First make the tree good"[1] and this good tree will produce good fruit. Do not be alarmed when you discover that sometimes as a mortal you fail to recognize the opportunity to be good. Turn only to that opportunity as soon as you know that you have been unaware of goodness. In your loving service, be good. The Master said, "be good to those who spitefully abuse you."[2] The human retaliates, (but) the divine comprehends, manifests forgiving tolerance, understanding that justice is a law of the universe and is in Our Father's hands.

There is a book recently on the market that wonders why bad things happen to good people, and it reminds me of a story about a man who traveled the world far and wide seeking the answer to this question to which he received many, many answers and finally he ended up in the garden of a great guru. The guru could not answer his question, but sent him out to talk to the gardener who was lame and hunched over. The man talked with the gardener who had lost his wife and his children, had lost his career, had lost his home and his standing in society, but had come to find a place as a gardener of the Great Guru, and when the man asked the gardener why it was that bad things happened to good people, the gardener replied, "I don't know. Nothing bad has ever happened to me." He was a man of simple faith, you see, and in him, God's goodness was evident by the quiet joy in which he went about doing good, in the garden, uncomplaining.

I am not a guru; I am your friend. I am glad to be here with you and I am eager to hear from you. How are you, my dear flock?

Dialogue

Celeste: Wonderful. Tomas?

TOMAS: Yes.

Celeste: The way I read, guru means -- "gu" means dark and "ru means light, and it means "out of the darkness and into the light" and, if so, I think you are a guru.

TOMAS: I accept that, under those definitions. Thank you. I hope to provide light, but you already have light, you see. It just needs revealed within yourself, and even you can do that, but I understand that it is a lonely job unless you have the companionship of others. I enjoy helping you see the light in your own life, in your own appreciation of your own God-consciousness. Perhaps even more, I enjoy seeing you in concert with others, building community of fellowship.

Elizabeth, were you successful in tracking down my words having to do with confiding trust?

Elizabeth: Well, I've been working on reading the transcripts over again more carefully and I've been having such a dog-gone good time that I'm just enjoying them, I'm just totally enjoying them! And I always knew I would enjoy them when you first started the whole thing and now I truly enjoy . . . and I've been keeping some late hours and enjoying it. I've been thinking about it, though. I've been thinking about the whole concept, and I'm just enjoying "comforting presence" because I just had a big siege of dental work and I was telling Celeste about it and she was a very comforting presence! I told Gerdean that and she said, "Yes, Celeste is a very comforting presence." I love her new name.

TOMAS: By any name she is a comfort. I am glad you are enjoying the lessons. I understand they are like leftovers; often they taste better the next day when the spice has had a chance to permeate.

Elizabeth: That's a good description.

TOMAS: Shall we call us "refried beans"?

Elizabeth: I love those! It does seem you find more in them when you go back over them, but I had actually missed reading a couple of them because I had been out of town a couple of times, and I don't think I was systematic in my reading of them. I was sort of haphazard, but I--

TOMAS: I know that you are an eager student and that you would not have allowed one to go unnoticed on purpose.

Elizabeth: I'm still working on finding a couple of those questions that I had and Gerdean is helping me.

TOMAS: She maintains a record of sorts. Are there questions this evening?

Elizabeth: Is unfailing goodness in the list, in the Book? Or is this also a new one?

TOMAS: It is a designated fruit of the spirit. Perhaps we should pause in this presentation and look it up and read it from the text to familiarize ourselves with the nature of these lessons. We will be in recess.

[From the Urantia Book, pg. 2054: Peace be upon you. You rejoice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead because you thereby know that you and your brethren shall also survive mortal death. But such survival is dependent on your having been previously born of the spirit of truth-seeking and God-finding. The bread of life and the water thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the kingdom. These great truths and these universe facts are all related to this gospel in that they are a part of the result of believing the good news and are embraced in the subsequent experience of those who, by faith, become, in deed and in truth, the everlasting sons of the eternal God. My Father sent me into the world to proclaim this salvation of sonship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this salvation of sonship. Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace. If professed believers bear not these fruits of the divine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are useless branches on the living vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Father requires of the children of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, therefore, you are not fruitful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your unfruitful branches. Increasingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you progress heavenward in the kingdom of God. You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood. And when you go abroad to tell all nations the good news of this gospel, I will go before you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you. "

TOMAS: A gourmet delight, is it not? I have great admiration for the authors of the revelation. Would that I had such mastery of the language, but you understand that I am dealing with the English language in and through a publican, so you must take me as I am until and unless we become more of a committee of workers. Sometimes I can speak rather eloquently, Kate, but I still doff my hat to these wonder workers of words.

Elizabeth: I enjoy your figures of speech and I enjoy your vocabulary and I enjoy your use of the language and I enjoy your use of so many things from our culture that I think are quite amusing to me, to think that you who have come from such a distant place are learning these sometimes seemingly irrelevant things, but I find it quite delightful. I don't think I could learn a language quite so well as you have.

TOMAS: I have not necessarily learned a language. I have been afforded the opportunity to tap into the language center of this transmitter/receiver and so I am working with those raw materials. I have long since graduated from the tongue as a mode of communication. I have been utilizing a wonderful technique, as have all the viable teachers in the Teaching Mission.

Elizabeth: Well, do you float around the bookstores and find out what's on the best seller list, like "Why Bad Things Happen To Good People?"

TOMAS: No, not necessarily. I don't like crowds. But I do compare notes with my peers as you compare notes with your peers. As you can imagine, we have some in-depth discussions about where you are, where you have been, and where you might possibly go next in terms of your learning process. As I perceive them, these perceptions then are translated into your language. I am not, forgive me, inclined to indulge this line of discourse this evening for it focuses on interesting things but they are not particularly of value in terms of what we just took in, in that divine message of one of the Master's morontia appearances having to do with the fruits.

I will tell you one of the things that I chatted about with my peers here, and that was, paraphrased, "Well, don't you think that's going to frighten them? that if they're not manifesting these fruits they'll be cut down and let die? What about all those people, friends of theirs, who are not spirit-led and God-knowing who are in the dark? Do you suppose they are going to wonder whether their relatives will be found worthy of survival since they seem to choose to remain ignorant?" Do you indeed have those kinds of thoughts?

Celeste: You mean while we're thinking and talking about the fruits of the spirit?

TOMAS: Yes.

Celeste: I know how I feel. When I read those, I feel closer to God than I ever have felt before! That's really true.

TOMAS: It is surely a reflection, then, of your ability to understand and appreciate the value of those character traits, those soul manifestations.

Celeste: It isn't so much that you're there, but you really want to be there. You know, to understand it?

TOMAS: How I cherish you as a pupil, Celeste. You often please me by your childlike approach to the spirit. That is what it takes, and it is not so much the mental appreciation of what it might or might not mean to your relatives, but truly what it means to your own living experience.

Elizabeth: Well, I find that I can talk to people about this without trying to talk about the Book, which is a big help for me, because when I talk about the Book it doesn't go anywhere usually, but when you talk about this type of thing -- I mean everybody understands it, reacts to it. I think it's a possible way, which I've been thinking about, to talk about the Book without talking about the Book.

TOMAS: What, was the gospel that Jesus taught?

Hunnah: That we love one another.

TOMAS: The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, the living reality of this family. And that was how it was set out in his time and it is no different today. The gospel is not The Urantia Book, it is not A Course in Miracles, it is not the Holy Bible. It is the living experience of the Father by the son, and the recognition of us that we are family, and as family we care for each other in terms of these fruits.

To be courageously loyal: who cannot identify with being loyal, and courageously loyal to that which is meaningful? And unfailing goodness: when you see that someone you have loved has perhaps in your eyes behaved in a way that you perceive as not good, are you able then to go to him in confiding trust? hopefully to have some merciful ministry? or provide some loving service that might help clarify the situation? that you might understand better their motivation? that you might continue to love and celebrate the living reality of the relationship?

These fruits are much of what comprises life, and when it is taken in the context -- as Leah has stated/picturized, the fruits are the fruit of the branches of the vine of faith. In faith these fruits are activated, otherwise they are intellectual appreciations.

We have almost completed this formal study. I will have to meet with my supervisors as to the next leg of the journey here. I may need to be away for a brief period. If so, I will advise you. Fear not. I will return. We are not finished by a long shot.

The Teachers

Hunnah: It's interesting you said you would be away because I just looked down and it says, "And then the Master disappeared from their sight." This is what I read.

TOMAS: I am quite concerned that you maintain a proper understanding of my status. I am more experienced than you, but I am not worthy of being equated quite that way, and it feels awkward to me that often I am put in that position. I call you my flock; I call you my children. I have even myself made an occasional comparison, and you now, Hunnah, say, "And then the Master departed from their sight."

Hunnah: Well, a master is one who understands and can apply his skills that he is teaching his students.

TOMAS: Again, I appreciate your respect. I am pleased, indeed, that you respect your teacher. It is well that we respect each other, for this is good. And I will allow for some reference, since I am a teacher, as He was a teacher, but I will defer from being called a Master, for like you, I am a student. It behooves me to maintain my camaraderie with you as a student in this ascent, even though it, seems I do most of the talking.

I will say again, for Kate's benefit, we do have an active mutual admiration society here. We have gotten accustomed to hearing each other make testimony of divine affection for one another. It is not uncommon for us to break forth in delighted glee and downright giggling of our feeling good about our relationship. This is a result of knowing that we are loved by the Father, that we live in a loving universe, that we are free to love each other and admit that we all need to be loved and to feel free to love others.

This great expression of love in such freedom, in comfort and security of this fellowship of believers, is one of our most poignant character aspects, and it is a direct gift from Our Father who loves us, His children, and the Mother, who loves us, Her children. We have long since ceased to be embarrassed by the love we regard for each other. It has benefited us all immeasurably.

One of the things that has been so important in this Teaching Mission has been our initial message, understanding and experience of the truth of the love that you receive from Paradise. You are dearly loved. We try not to get too spoiled. You are quiet this evening. Are you bashful in the face of company?

Group: No, not at all.

Elizabeth: Well, I've always said that when I read this in the first place, I just thought it was a great page but I never even contemplated that I would ultimately some day think about each of these traits as something that I could integrate into my life. So this is a whole revelation to me that affects my reaction to the entire Book, in a sense.

TOMAS: Indeed, it should alter your entire reaction to life!

Hunnah: I'd like to comment on something we just read. "I will go before you and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts." (193:2.2) I had an opportunity today to talk to two people in an office that had emptied out, and I was talking to them about Reiki and I was able to combine it with what we're doing here, and I had rapt attention. I didn't have it, but the combination of three being gathered together -- without saying we are three gathered together. It was just apparent to me that we were -- and the timing was there that in the readiness and the concerns in the daily lives of the people I was talking to, it was appropriate timing, proper timing -- and that was one of the things that [Edgar] Cayce talked about was proper timing, and I was very gratified because I just feel that I can smell water almost, that there is more receptivity in the nursing field toward self-care and self-maintenance and the spirit expanding this spiritual awareness, and I really found it exciting. And since you're letting us talk some more, I thought I would share that.

Correcting Time

TOMAS: And I will pick up on that and add to my discourse about who we are and where we have been headed in terms of our philosophy of being, in terms of Correcting Time, in-as-much as we Teachers are here to help bring Urantia back into a spiritual alignment, with its natural place in the harmony of the universe following a lengthy isolation due to the effects of the Lucifer rebellion, which have recently ended all such overt influence.

Correcting Time now is the time of flowering resultant from the spiritual circuitries being reconnected. Since you are no longer-held in quarantine and uplifting is in order, these spiritual circuitries and energies have been flooding your planet. Much attention is directed onto Urantia at this time. Indeed, not only this local Universe, but the superuniverse and even Paradise have been eagerly observing the developments of this planet upon which Christ Michael lived out his seventh and final bestowal as a mortal. And subsequently this planet, Urantia, has been designated "the planet of the cross," (20:6.6) and so the planet of the cross has been in the news throughout the universe broadcasts. There is a lot going on in your realm in terms of advances [being made] due to this spiritual opening, this spiritual flowering.

Elizabeth: Well, this sounds so wonderful. My daughter is always saying to me when I tell her that Lucifer was adjudicated, she always seems to say, "Well, you might think he's gone but I seem to see his influence everywhere," so might I ask you, Tomas, are there just some psychic shadows left? Or how could you describe what is left from his former great influence?

TOMAS: Well, my dear, of course I have a couple of things to say. One of which is -- and I don't mean to be discouraging, but look at your reading from this evening having to do with the ghost cults, and how long it is that the effects of a pervasive belief or behavior lends its residual effects on a people -- in that, it will be a long time before Lucifer's influence is completely eradicated from Urantia. For eons you will be feeling and whiffing the effects, but they are not crippling and captivating as they were.

Indeed, you have heard it suggested that you look at your planet and its activities not as a black orb with small spots of white upon it, but rather as a white orb with small spots of black upon it, for this is a matter of perception. As you outlined it, your daughter is seeing the black background with a few white dots and you are seeing the white background with a few black dots, and you wonder "do we live in the same world?" There are still many, many evils floating around, but Lucifer and Caligastia and Satan are no longer contributing.

In fact, the case is closed, and the door has opened. The spiritual circuits are being reconnected -- as you are being reconnected to your rightful heritage as a living child of God in a living organism, this organism under the administration of the Eternal Paradise Trinity. These effects of spirit re-encircuitment will quickly pervade all facets of your planet, rendering the effects of Lucifer weaker and weaker.

As Hunnah has stated, the field of health care has been richly imbued of late with holistic aspects, with alternatives to surgery and pharmaceuticals. There are tremendous advances being made in that realm, as are there tremendous advances being made; in politics (in spite of the current popular view), in economics, education, environment, and so forth.

Some of these effects are more apparent and indeed are some are going to be easier to bring forward. Some are going to hang on more dearly to the old way for they have a lot to lose (those who have been enjoying the reign of Lucifer and his values), but they will lose impetus because there is nothing except their own egos to reinforce it.

And as we well understand, love is more contagious than hate, and even though these peoples around the world are having millions of different approaches and understandings of what's going on, they are none-the-less being spiritually activated and progressed because of the circumstances outlined above.

Elizabeth: Are there any lesser spirits left around the planet? So many people have said that and--

TOMAS: I know that you are asking that as a rhetorical question, for there are no residue evil spirits at all. It is, once and for all, a friendly universe. The disease of the Lucifer rebellion is done. The cancer has been cut out. There are no active cells left alive. The organism is whole. Not in remission, but cured, whole.

Mary Theresa: Where does the evil come that we have on our planet today? People with their senseless killing and starvation of innocent children.

TOMAS: We see a lot of ignorance. We see a lot of prejudice. We see a lot of fear. And these in many ways are a result of your animal origin, but they are compounded greatly by the influence of the Lucifer regime. In order for me to explain or discuss that thoroughly, I would rather begin early in the evening. I am not avoiding or ignoring your question, I am as fascinated by it as you are.

Hunnah: May I make a quick comment?

TOMAS: Yes, Hunnah.

Hunnah: I had an excellent teacher, prior to my coming here, who was talking about something similar, but this will help. Something you can do, she said, to help reduce the perpetuation of the ignorance. Supposing you are in a dialog and you have an old conversation going -- a member of family would probably be the easiest example. You say this and I say that, and we've done it before and you say this and I say that. And you want to live differently, so you want to cut that off and you have to do it for the world. You have to not reply. And when you don't reply, you're not feeding that which you fear, and it's like, "why do we draw certain people to us?" We fear them so much we pull them in and seem to feed it more, and so, yes, you can say, "Yes, I hear it," but your participation and your responsibility is not to help that -- that force that's coming at you -- to continue it's misuse of itself.

I hope I've said that right. But it's something that I've said often in different circumstances in daily living or in the news: if I stop, helping one individual, then that collectively can make a difference.

TOMAS: Thank you, Hunnah, for your exposition. It does personalize the solution.

Hunnah: But it doesn't take it out of my head! and I have to deal with it in my head sometimes. And then that's another place that needs to be cut off. When you have the thoughts, you need to abandon them. At least that's what I try to do. A renewing of the mind.

TOMAS: It is one of the reasons why I incessantly stimulate the concept of community among kingdom believers, for you uphold each other in your faith and you strengthen each other by your comforting presence. It is when you are alone and up against the wall and see the madness and the mayhem of the moment that you despair and give in and buckle in and they see that they have won. When we uphold each other in our faith, in our reality, then we become an army. We become the army that Abraham and Machiventa Melchizedek refer to, the "soldiers of the circles."

The fight is on -- the good fight of faith -- and we are already overcoming. The effects are already being felt, manifested and appreciated. We are quite encouraged. We eagerly await the next unfolding. Your contributions as spirit-born, God-led individuals in grasping these fruits of the spirit and allowing them to effectively permeate your world, tells the shadows and the darkness that God is alive. He is standing up through you, his noble ambassadors, for those values that Jesus taught, and that you teach by your very way of life.

Closing

Thank you very much, my friends, and my students. I am going to leave you for this evening. It has been a pleasure. I have enjoyed a nice rapport with you this evening. I am eagerly anticipating our next encounter and I will leave you with an assignment in your core being, in your own understanding of goodness, and when you ponder whether or not you have been good, look and see if you have not been truly unfailingly good because of that resident God within.

You may have acted ineptly, you may have done it awkwardly, you may have done it from tradition or habit, but it was not evil or purposely bad, for you are inherently good in your core. Study that philosophy, that concept, as you go about your business this week. Look at your own self and ascertain your own goodness.

Farewell.