2001-02-10-Perceptions

Session

Opening

PAULO: Good afternoon, funsters. This is Paulo. I'm going to hang out with you for a while today.

THOROAH: Greetings, Paulo.

PAULO: Greetings, son. Thank you for coming.

The intercourse you engaged in prior to our connection, having to do with perceptions, is my topic this afternoon, and like illusion will vanish as vapors in the mist, so will perceptions. But even so, as you perceive it, is how it is.

Lesson

Let's look at this nursery of fledgling souls which has recently come to be babysat by a plethora of phantom personalities, singing lullabies, bouncing you on their knee, as it were, and offering your encouragement in the face of the fact that you have a sense of cosmic orphan hood, inasmuch as your planetary government has run amok and your Material Son and Daughter parental figures have gone awry.

We thus have a wondrous room wherein you safe toddlers amuse yourself in company with one another, are dependent upon your own perceptions of what reality is, and I ask you: how can you have anything but compassion for these babes?

Assuming that this lot of young souls are all being well fed (which is, in this world a goodly assumption), are warm and comfortable, their perceptions may be visions of sugar plums; they may be the fairy godmother / the Divine Minister herself; angels / mythical fairies; midwayers / tinkerbells and the like, that are amusing, comforting and pretty. But at the same time, these phantasms can also be ogres and boogie men, phantasms of fear / insecurity, reverberations of things that go bump in the night. What do you do with this room full of toddlers? Do you gather to your breast those who think the fairy godmother reigns supreme and grow weary of the tot whose sleep is disrupted by bad dreams? No. If you are a good parent, a trusted steward, you will offer tender loving care to each in your charge and help to wash away the bad images brought about by the darkness and instill the child, the children, with the assurance that faith brings.

Why are some children more sickly than others? Well, we could ask ourselves that all day long, but what comfort is that to the poor waif who feels - because of his or her own erroneous, perhaps, but real nonetheless perceptions - that they are in some way overlooked or under-nourished or malfunctioning or less than or different or puny or whatever that erroneous perception may be? Who knows why some children are just buoyant and plump, precocious and cherubic from the beginning? It may have to do with genetic composition; it may have to do with error of integration of thought; it may have to do with less than perfect parents, less than ideal living conditions.

And yet at bottom is the fact that every mind is subject to perception, and like shadows, sometimes these perceptions change when the sun comes out. Sometimes they're not there when the belly is filled. It's amazing how quickly perceptions change when everything is going good, and how quickly perceptions can turn to nightmares when things seemingly turn sour. It is astounding how a fully-adult mature man or woman of the realm can be reduced to a trembling shadow of its former self by the influence of a mere memory, triggered by a musical chord or a scent.

The mind is such an amazing miracle. In truth it is quite strong and resilient, but that is not to say that it can take unwarranted use or neglect. It is like any other organ of a material creature; it needs fed good things, good thoughts, good nourishment, solid food. It needs to be a healthy organism, as does the physical plane. The mind is the arena wherein these soul-developing decisions are made. You therefore must see to it that you develop and foster a healthy mind.

Associate your mind with other healthy minds. Stimulate your mind with that which will enable it to grow and be strong. Just you would not feed your body on an unregimented diet of sugar or fat or other potentially undermining elements, give your mind good quality substance and eliminate any of those elements that would undermine your mind such that you would find yourself falling victim to your own phantasms of horror and fear and other elements of non-faith.

I don't mean to suggest that truth is unsavory, even though truth is sometimes frightening. It may burst your bubble of illusion and leave you gasping for air; however, truth is such a valuable commodity in terms of your eternal career, it is something that you can hold onto, even while the other illusions of time and space erode away around you. Truth is like stainless steel when every thing else is like fog. If you must have a crutch, use truth as your crutch. It will not allow you to sink into a quicksand of illusion, which can otherwise happen when you have faulty foundation upon which to stand.

Let the Spirit of Truth be your companion. When you walk in the abyss of instincts, floundering for courage, yearning for knowledge, seeking counsel, lacking understanding, having nothing of substance to worship and acknowledging how far removed you are from wisdom, clutch hold of the Spirit of Truth. Use it as a cane, as a staff, as a mighty sword and let it, let Michael banish your dragons and demons; let the light and truth of the Master Son illumine the darkness and melt away the haze and fog of mortal confusion. Rise up in the stature of sonship and in this strength, gather the babes suffer the little children even when you find that, for a moment in time, it is yourself. Perceptions. They are as varied as a kaleidoscope, changing with your eye.

I am glad to be here today with you to share my perception of the moment. What have we got on the table today besides illusions of reality?

Dialogue

THOROAH: We have a couple of follow-up questions from our friend to the south of us who had a question last week about the relationship with sciatica to pent up anger, and the response that she got had to do with having a unified personality as the best medicine, and she says,

"Now I have a couple more questions! The above . .. indicates that personality unification is essential to the development of the individual. Given my fractured childhood I would not be surprised if this were indeed the case; however, I wonder how do I now unify my personality so as not to have a misguided conscience? I do tend to take on the troubles of the world and they do cause me much conflict and sorrow. I would like to be ‘balanced’ and I'm hoping Tomas or someone else might have some advice in this realm."

That's the first part of the question.

PAULO: Yes, we can deal with this, child, but it will take a few moments for me to gather my tools for this formidable task. I'm going to persist in the picture, if you will, of the nursery for I see here you among the many toddlers who would be happy in your playpen, who would foster a healthy and vigorous mind and body, who would grow into a well unified personality, yes, and so while I'm here, will you remember from your exposure to the human condition, realize that young children have a perception that is limited because they themselves are limited and remember too that many times when a child's first impression seizes his mind, he maintains that impression even throughout a lifetime. It is sometimes necessary to undergo what we could call psychic surgery in order to let go of that concept that grasped/clutched that little mind so fiercely so long ago.

So let's say for example a little one who sees something bad happen can take on the sense of responsibility for it happening as if his very presence was the impetus for such an act. And I ask you, in your reasonable mind, to ponder, "Why do you suppose it is that child mind would think such a thing?" Because it is the only reality in the universe! Is it not true that at that age, before you've even learned to share appropriately, you are singularly interested in having your needs met? Your needs, your survival, your comforts, your reaction to the universe is all that matters, is all that is. And so many of these impressions that gain sway with the child mind are frozen there for a lifetime.

It is unfortunate that anything of this nature should occur at all but it does, and in some cases it is more serious than others. But don't think that you are the only one who feels a sense of responsibility for all your planet's ills. This is a common perception among humanity, at least those who are not anti-social, for all children are at least in some ways vulnerable to impressions of both good and evil and they are very sensitive to injustices. Their compassion levels are very high, and even while their compassion levels are high, their vulnerability levels are also high and they can be shot down in a moment by an unthinking adult, thereby submerging his or her desire to manifest compassion or to be vulnerable for the rest of its life.

Therefore, many of your impressions are old have been with you a long time. Even so, you can be released from that perception by reviewing the truth in the light of the adult mind instead of the child mind.. . . .