1996-11-07-Sincere Fairness

Session

Opening

Dear Jesus. It is known that when two or more are gathered in Your name, there You are in the midst, and so we trust that You are with us; that You have breathed into us the Breath of Life; and that You would have us follow You and live in trusting faith as You lived Your life and as, even now, You reign supreme. Be with us this evening, righteous Father/Brother. Unerringly lead us in the way You would have us go ~ for Your sake. Thy will be done.

TOMAS: Good evening, tender flock. I am Tomas.

Group: Good evening, Tomas. Welcome back.

TOMAS: I am glad to be with you this evening. I have been away on a short jaunt but I would not miss this opportunity to conjoin with you again in the spirit, in our regularly established format of this teaching platform of the Pittsburgh teacher base. Suffice my absence to say that there are many growths resultant from the many spiritual seeds planted, the great spiritual stimuli, and I commend you, my pumpkins, for many of your seeds have contributed to your surge forward.

We are quite excited in the Teaching Mission. More will be revealed to you as it is affirmed for us, but it is accelerated, and those of you who have prayed for an accelerated pace of upliftment, your prayers have been answered, for we were not prepared for the vigor with which you who follow him have jumped on the bandwagon of supporting each other in your appreciation of your spirit helpers.

In reflection, of course, it is no surprise, for long did we hear of the cry for help from many souls who had suffered long in isolation. Isolation has ended and the surge forward is truly triumphant, Be assured of steady growth, however, for there are dangers inherent in over-rapid growth, and so do not become impatient or demand signs, but trust that we are advancing.

In observing your conversations this evening, I will let it be known that it is likely you regard me, Teacher Tomas, as a rather dull sort, for the imaginations and creative aspirations of the spirit-minded mortal are (there is no word!). It has been said that there are as many ways to the Father as there are individuals who will walk the path, and so it is true. Even you, who sit here at the table this evening, have tales to tell of your encounters with life's wonders and mysteries which give your unique approach to your personal relationship with deity its own fingerprint, its own readily acceptable and undeniable truth for yourself.

Lesson

Sincerity, Fairness

In your intercourse with one another and with the world at large, in your sharing your inner life with others, remember to be fair in your assessments of the worth of another individual's experience. In keeping with my format of late I will attempt to discuss with you this evening the fruit of the spirit designated sincere fairness. How can one identify sincere fairness much less practice it as an attribute of a God-knowing, spirit-born individual?

You know from your text that one of the ways that you attain growth is through sincerity, sincerity, and more sincerity. That as a child who comes to the Father without suspicion, in total trust of guidance, your sincerity resonates from within. Even those beings you read about this evening who sincerely believed that the soul of the departed was in the stone or in the bone, were sincere, and so sincerity is a relative state. As I have said before in other groups, in other lessons, a person can be sincerely evil, sincerely deceitful, sincerely greedy, and so we must assume the sincerity of a faith-born child.

We must assume that your sincerity is that which is born of the spirit and not born of ignorance, and yet, since we are ignorant, since we aren't finished growing yet, since we have not attained infinite perfection, how do we know our sincerity is adequate to the task? Inasmuch as we acknowledge that we do not know everything, that our wisdom has not attained the wisdom of the Ancients of Days or One High in Authority, we must therefore be fair. We must be fair in our assessments -- in our assessments of ourselves and our own stature as an evolving being, in our stature as a fledgling soul, as a potential immortal soul, and we must be fair with others who are like you in that context.

No one has a total handle on ultimate truth here on Urantia. You have that truth within you which resonates with the Spirit of Truth and yet even your perception of that truth is relative to your capacity at the time, and this reflects upon why it is that you are in no position to pass judgment, for no one is superior over the other; no one is "chosen" above another; all offspring of the Eternal Parent are beloved, and each offspring of the Eternal Parent is growing.

In your assessments, then, of a situation or a circumstance involving yourself or another individual, you must be fair and acknowledge that you do not know all that has gone into comprising the situation or the circumstance, for you are not all-seeing, all-knowing. Only the Parent, the Creator, knows his children. And look at how sincerely fair he is on your behalf! He does not require more of you than you can give; he does not bless you more abundantly than you deserve; he sees your acts and makes the best of them and is happy for your desire to please him, no matter how faulty your application.

Fairness in the material realms is not honored. Life is not fair. And many things that happen to one do not happen to another. How many children have said, "That's not fair!"? How many adults look at a situation and say, "That's not fair." And it is true that there are gross injustices, but these are not the realities of the Kingdom, for in the kingdom, the Paradise Trinity is unerringly fair, and Jesus is sincerely fair with his children.

It may be necessary, as Jesus did, to become firm with a wayward child, to bring him back in line, but He is fair and will allow sufficient space for the erring individual to determine which way he would go. And so in your dealings with others, be fair. Be sincerely fair. Not just socially fair, academically fair, temporally fair, no, but sincerely fair -- as a faith-son -- understanding the relativity involved.

How are you this evening? You were quite attentive to my words. I wonder if perhaps I did not merely provide a soft blanket for you to rest upon, following the rigors of your lively conversations earlier?

Dialogue

Elizabeth: Oh, no. No. I think we're just all really interested in our study of the fruits and we know when you announce the weekly subject it 's going to be an important part of our coming week and it's going to enrich our Inner relationships with other people, because last week-- well, today! . .. I went to the doctors and there was a lady sitting there and I was thinking, "How could I be of some comfort to her?" because I could tell that -- this doctor has a lot of very ill patients, and so (I was not one of them, but) I was leaving and was wondering how I could be a comfort, and as I sensed her difficulty and was watching her, she began to fall and because I was looking at her, I was able to run over to her and partly break her fall, and so it was a kind of a moment when I thought, "Well, that, was a good thing to be able to do that!"

TOMAS: I am very happy that you have relayed your experience, for it is a clear testimony to everyone that you are sincere in your own growth and in the application of these fruits of the spirit which are born in your life, and now you are conscious of these fruits and looking for places to be of service. I am happy personally for your telling; it makes me feel that my lessons have truly taken root. And, last but not least, is the lady that you helped, that child of God that you were able to give ministry to, Elizabeth. It makes for a much richer life, does it not, than merely going around thinking only of your own little agendas that can make for a mean life.

Elizabeth: Well, truly I've always loved words and I think I may have been thinking along these lines, but having a word for this coming thinking is helpful. I think, to me and I assume it would be so to others.

Leah: Well, you were a comforting presence to her.

Elizabeth: And I've been talking about it to my son because it's more effective than just talking about the Book. And he needed to be a comforting presence to somebody. One of his young friends is very desperate because his mother is suddenly seriously diagnosed as extremely ill and will not live for a very long time and these young people are in a complete quandary over this and I was talking to him about it and he was listening and I was mentioning that he could be a comforting presence to these young people, as you had said, to think of her as she will be and not to think of her material self. You said that in one of the papers, and I think I explained that as well as I could.

TOMAS: You are being effective, and this is pleasing to your peers in the spirit. You are a worker in the field. It is how we plant those seeds in His garden. Are there questions this evening?

Tradition

Elizabeth: I have a question. I was watching this description of this new kind of Mohammedism called Tomin (?) where they are very rigid and very fierce and hostile to their women having any tiny bit of freedom and I was trying to figure out -- I don't want to be judgmental about it right off the bat. You had said something about, scaffolding? Is this use and other hurtful . . . but maybe perhaps a primitive philosophy . .. a scaffolding of some sort?

TOMAS: I do not perceive of it as being scaffolding, no, but I will attempt to assay it fairly and call to your mind the pendulum. In psychological terms you understand that in cultural change, or psychological change, it is not uncommon for the pendulum to swing very far in one direction and then again very far in the opposite direction before it finds a stable center balance, and it well may represent this fundamentalist Islamism as stringent in their need to maintain the security of the sacredness of their roots -- as some of the fundamentalist Christians or even fundamentalist Urantia Book readers -- to help balance the other side of the pendulum which is becoming quite liberal or New Age or unorthodox. This is part of the cultural growth of the evolutionary aspects of spiritual growth.

Elizabeth: Thank you. I think that's a good help for me to think about that.

Kate: Tomas?

TOMAS: Yes, my dear.

Pattern

Kate: Earlier we were talking about reincarnation?

TOMAS: Yes.

Kate: And I mentioned being multidimensional…

TOMAS: Yes,

Kate: … in relation to the concept of reincarnation? I was wondering if you could talk about that?

TOMAS: Yes, I can. I am not proscribed from discussing it. I have discussed the concept of reincarnation a number of times. The multidimensional aspects of it lends a bit of abstraction which I find more delightful than the regimental approach which I have been presented with before, but you, even so, are discussing something akin to quantum mechanics and these reflect a mental state of understanding a concept of on-going and eternal life.

There are, to be fair, many facets of the cosmos that relate to energy and pattern, including life, which is repetitive and mechanical and exciting. It is not unlikely that in grasping for higher realities the evolving mind will grasp those reflections of Paradise pattern and energy and so forth and incorporate them into their own DNA aspects of reality, thereby eventuating a philosophy which incorporates a vast -- and to all intents and purposes -- an all-encompassing interpretation of infinity and reality.

For it is true that in some ways you are capable and some do live on several different levels of reality at one time; it is also true that your genetic compounds maintain memory all the way back to the first life implantation here on your material world; and it is also true that the God fragment that is resident within you is aware of its pre-personal existence. And so it is not any wonder that these concepts not only hold great fascination and provide great validity, but also (as many elements of a philosophy will do) allows the mind great latitude and great joy in its own comprehension of a reality which is well beyond the reality of a zip code.

In discussing the Eternal Mother, the Infinite Spirit, Paradise pattern perfection, we also consider Infinite Mind, and as I said earlier, there are as many ways to the Father as there are individuals who will take the path. The mind is a gift from Paradise Deity and it works in harmony with Itself. The Infinite Mother Spirit would not give you a mind that would deliberately work in opposition to the indwelling God Fragment of the Eternal Father for they work harmoniously in everything, and this greatly augments your creative appreciation for such concepts since you are allowed to do so.

Your mind is there for your utilization, and what wondrous worlds we create! We have built civilizations on our co-creative imaginings, all under the sanction of an experiential life on a decimal planet, all looked over, all looked after, all held in the palm of His hand. And so in sincere fairness of the millions of minds, which are the offspring of the Mother, who works in harmony with the Father, you have indeed, a relative truth!

How shall I discuss it? How can I help you in your comprehension of what you presented to me?

Kate: I think you did give me an awful lot of information already.

TOMAS: Indeed, I have given you a lot of information. I have not, however, infused you with the spirit, … and this is not my prerogative, but it is where I would take you. For you to then ask in your heart (that heart which opens to divinity) to be shown the Way, for the Way is alive and living (as you have experienced, as you have thrilled to) and the eternal career is a thrilling eternal adventure -- onward and upward and forward! When the soul is born it begins. You begin.

And isn't it amazing that all of this magnificent cosmos of divine pattern and energy, mind and matter has been provided that you might, come to be, that you might find yourself a living part of this organism of the universe, to take personally as a child to its Father, to its Mother. It is the personalization that removes it from the realm of science and philosophy into a living reality. Has that been helpful?

Kate: Yes, it has. Thank you very much.

Faith

TOMAS: I have an answer to another question, having to do with faith. What does it mean to take a "leap of faith"? To make a leap of faith is to leave behind the solid ground that you have known; it is to dive into the unknown, knowing that you will be caught or carried. It is not stepping off a cliff and falling down (although even there you would be comforted); but it is taking a leap across a chasm, from one known reality to another and hopefully higher reality.

To take a leap of faith is to promote your own growth, to contribute to your own reality, and in some ways perhaps to lead the way for others to follow. If you have been asked by the Master, "follow me," then take that leap of faith, knowing that He is holding your hand and you will not fall; that if you stumble, He will help you up; if you act in faith that it is His will, it will be revealed. But if you stay put, if you deprive yourself of that experience of that leap of faith, you will never know; you will never know within yourself the exhilaration of contributing to that extent to the Evolving Supreme.

Thank you for bearing with me as I answered a question from one outside our group. Are there other inquiries of me this evening?

Elizabeth: Thank you, because that gives a whole new meaning to "a leap of faith" for me, and I appreciate it.

Leah: I'd like to thank you for the wonderful answer you gave to the group in Canada. I believe they look forward to meeting you soon and having maybe a Teacher of their own.

TOMAS: Indeed, we are quite excited. Perhaps I should not say "excited" for excited connotes an emotional condition and emotions can be exhausting; therefore, I will not say, "excited." I will say we are "gratified."

It has been spoken of in your text that it is possible (when the Urantia Book was written) that the world may need to await those men and women who would valiantly serve and devote their life to Jesus, and those men and women are now standing up. They have been so infused, they are so consecrated, they are so devoted, they have stood up to be counted among those who will follow Him, who are willing to count the cost, who are the vanguard of the Age of Light and Life. They are those who have opted to step out of the religions of tradition into the living Love of Christ Michael and his plan of ascension to the Father.

Think not that the Father loves those who do not stand up any less, but he appreciates, as we appreciate, those who do. And thus I correct myself and say, we are not excited but we are appreciative, yes.

I have been in contact with our sister cities. As I indicated earlier in the evening there was much activity afoot. You might also be interested in knowing that Columbus [Ohio] is getting a teacher, and so the cities of Indianapolis [IN], Cincinnati and Columbus will comprise a new triad of communities.

It is our hope, of course, that a triad of cities could develop with Hamilton [Canada], York Buffalo [NY] and Pittsburgh, but these goals, these aspirations are entirely dependent upon the free will, choices of the mortals, and I will remind you -- at one point when Jesus admonished the throngs that if they were not willing to be his apostles, then they should turn back in peace, and those who turned back in peace were not banished from his sight, but I make the analogy to show that it is free will and we cannot interfere with free will.

Leah: Thank you. Those words will be very comforting.

TOMAS: I hope they don't construe that as some kind of cosmic political pressure!

Group: (Laughter)

TOMAS: I will state that it also says in the text that there is indeed "a conspiracy" and I myself have been known to be a bit of an opportunist. In fact, I have often referred to myself as Tomas the Opportunist, for I am shameless in my aspirations to evolve your world into a loving orb, worthy of its Creator. It is an ambitious undertaking but that is why I am here; otherwise I could be somewhere else doing something interesting. How about you?

Leah: This is where I want to be.

Loreenia: By the way, Tomas, rules were made to be broken. God's laws aren't broken. Rules are made to be broken.

TOMAS: Whose rules?

Loreenia: Man's rules.

TOMAS: They are easily broken. They are indeed almost made to be broken for the mortal is a defiant little rascal and will test his boundaries.

Loreenia: All children do that when they're little.

TOMAS: Here, here.

Loreenia: Can you tell me who came into me, Tomas?

TOMAS: No. I will point out that phrase about "invasion of privacy." Be assured, however, that there are (as always) many beings in attendance. Some come only to look in and sniff, the atmosphere, if you will, and go on; some stay for the duration; some wouldn't miss it on a weekly basis.

Hunnah: Cosmic TV.

Celeste: Tomas?

TOMAS: Yes.

Celeste: [Indistinguishable] … but I was at a church healing service this morning that was just absolutely beautiful. There were just nine people there. We were sitting in the area where the choir normally sits. It was so simple, so beautiful. Everybody that was there was there to pray for somebody else. It was absolutely . . . and I've been floating ever since. I was so happy to be in a church and to find such simplicity and such love.

TOMAS: I am happy, too, that you had that experience and that you shared it with the group, for it is easy to get the impression sometimes that the churches are not an advanced place of spirit, and obviously your testimony proves that is not the case. It is important to remember that the sincere believer attends all types of worship services, even many which do not lie within Christianity, and their faith is simple and pure. The sincere believer occupies all strata of life and attends to all religious orders.

It is they who are the children of God; they are not the problem. They are your brothers and sisters with whom you can share your understanding of the fruits of the spirit -- perhaps one day, and even one day soon, to help build an Interfaith family, a oneness of spirit which would transcend the differences in dogma and ritual . . . but I wax rhetorical, for that is an understood goal coming from Michael.

I am glad for your experience, my child. I am glad as always when yon know and see the spirit of God reflected in and through others back to yourself to reinforce your own reality, that you might then give it back out and keep the mighty flame of faith alive.

Closing

Dear ones, I sense that you have been filled for now, and I will take my leave with some reluctance for as you know it is satisfying to me that I spend this quality time with you in your embrace, in your comforting presence.

Be sincerely fair, now, in your dealings with one another in this upcoming week, and I leave my love with you as you go. Farewell.

Group: Thank you, Tomas. Our love is also with you!