2001-09-18-Surrender Human Mind to Greater Mind

Session

Opening

T/R : Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Mother. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your peace. Thank you for your comfort.

Alana : Thank you. This is Alana.

David : Good morning, Alana. Welcome. It is a joy to hear your voice.

Alana : We would speak to many friends. John and Kim. We were present in your speaking with them. We would offer them the guidance of our love.

Lesson

It is difficult, always, to allow the tongue to speak the love at the core of the heart. So many habit patterns of human origin respond too quickly to the imagined slight, or words said in haste. That is the value of prayer, for prayer takes on a conscious decision to shape the tongue around the words of love. That is the value of the stillness practice, for in that moment of time in which your mind has surrendered to the infusion of love that is God’s love within your heart, the tongue, which has been so trained by the human mind, that is, the human mind which has been trained by other human minds, parental human minds, human minds of the traditional schooling, or the schooling passed down from generation to generation, in the stillness practice, the human mind surrenders to the heart, consciously chooses to be trained by that which is within the still point, within the center of the human heart, within the still point of the stillness which is your stillness practice. The human mind, having chosen to surrender to the embrace of God’s love, thus surrenders to the training provided by that embrace. Thus, with the choice to surrender the human mind to the greater mind which is God’s love, the human mind then surrenders the tongue to love’s guidance. Thus, most of you discover that the stillness practice provides for you at least ten minutes beyond the ten minutes you have devoted, and in those ten minutes that follow your ten minutes of stillness practice you will discover the tongue speaks with greater love and even with the delight of God’s joy within God’s love. With each ten minutes you practice, you have at least ten minutes of “fall out,” as you say, or a considerably more peaceful image, you have the ripple effect of the tiny pebble thrown into your human mind pond. And so you see the benefit of the stillness practice, contributing to the discipline of love, which includes the discipline of the tongue. And so you see how your discipline of love, which must depend upon the co-operation of the human mind, as well as drawing upon God’s love as experienced in the stillness practice, thus requires even brief moments throughout your day of prayer, conscious prayer, conscious prayer of gratitude for love, for joy, for God’s love, for God’s joy, for Father’s love, Father’s joy within you, Mother’s love, Michael’s love. As well as that mental commitment to follow the plan that you have understood to be the discipline of love. This co-operation between the stillness practice and the conscious choice to follow the discipline of love is our goal with you. As a couple, you have the opportunity to gradually uncover the additional aspect of co-operation between male and female, as well, the opportunity to discover the additional aspect of co-operation between one individual and another individual, and this co-operative effort to enhance your spiritual life, as well as enhancing the style and manner in which you place one foot before the other and leave the imprint of your footsteps upon your planet, you are practicing the co-operation necessary for the growthful life of social interaction and organization of individual will toward the manifestation of God’s love upon Urantia.

As with your beloved friends, John and Kim, you sometimes encounter the stumbling blocks of mental catch words and, like the snag upon a beloved garment, you sometimes discover yourselves in the behavior of pulling on the thread and creating gaps of understanding, rather than pausing and dipping into your practice of the stillness for the tug upon your heart that allows a light hearted response to disruptive fear or doubt. Devina’s tug upon the connection to your hearts is always one that leads to greater light and understanding. Always provides the perspective of love. Always raises your experience of love, even in acrimony, grief, or darkness of fear and doubt. So you will always have a moment of recognition, which is your opportunity to choose. In that moment of recognition, however brief, you will see the flash of joy that is love’s light heartedness, that is the heart filled with the light of God’s love. Thus the importance of regular consistent practice of the stillness and the incorporation of the stillness practice in your daily walk through life. Allowing, even, the opportunity for each step you take to raise the imprint of a brief moment of stillness, a brief moment of gratitude, a brief moment of the understanding that each step must turn toward love. And yes, I fully recognize the difficulty, as does Legion as he regularly brings to you both a reminder and his lessons on the discipline of love, which is the discipline of joy. We acknowledge that the human mind must continue to strengthen it’s ability to choose this discipline, strengthen it’s ability to choose to surrender to the heart room, to the stillness practice which leads the mind to that still point within the heart which is the opportunity to fully recognize God’s love. This is difficult because of the generations, upon generations, of human training, struggling with the departure from fear and turning toward love, struggling with the departure from instinctual animal fear for survival into the co-operative human effort toward survival into love. Every mind in the will toward individual human survival, or in the will toward mutual marital survival, or in the will toward group survival, or in the will toward individual social survival, that is, social survival that is identified as separate groups from other social groups, thus comparable to the struggle between individual survival and mutual survival as a couple or as a group or as a society. And now, the struggle for global survival. These struggles for survival are very demanding upon the human mind, especially at this time, for the question before you is always, survival toward what? Be this individual, be this marital, be this my church or your church, be this my country or your country, the question is the same; do I choose survival of love, or do I choose survival of hate? Do I choose survival of light, or do I choose survival of darkness, fear, and doubt? Would I have a God of love, a Father of compassion, a Mother of the loving spirit embrace, a son, a brother, a sister, a daughter of mercy, of the spirit of loving truth, of compassion, or would I choose survival of a God of anger, fear and retribution. And eye for an eye can be interpreted thusly: will I see through the eyes of love, or will I see through the eyes of hatred? Turn the other cheek may be seen thusly: will I greet my brother with the cheek of my pain pressed tenderly to the cheek of his pain?

And so, my beloveds, I am quite simply saying, yes, to your practice of the stillness. Yes, to your prayers of gratitude for God’s love and the joy that God’s love brings to you in the recognition of his love, and the joy that God brings to you by the regular practice of gratitude. So we have many other things upon the agenda. But now is the time to raise an opportunity for some discussion, or perhaps questions regarding matters that have brought to your attention in the time since last we spoke. So, my friend, Sir David, contemplate carefully what you would speak to me, and we shall respond, Legion and I.

Dialogue

David : I have a question for each of you. I will address my question to you, first, Alana. In your remarks this morning, you spoke of a period of ten minutes after the stillness practice as a particularly fruitful time. Do you have any suggestions about how that time could be maximally fruitful?

Alana : Always the greatest fruits result from attention paid to their manifestation. As I spoke earlier, it is not uncommon for you to notice an increased sense of well-being after any successfully accomplished practice of the stillness. Even one minute has its ripple effect. However, what we speak of now is the opportunity to pay particular attention to that experience of well being. Your conscious choice to pay attention to the out-pouring of well being that follows the stillnes practice, an out-pouring that we might call the fruits of the practice, is a means much like your “highlighting” with the pen upon the page, to cast a particular light. This light, I hope you will see, both radiates from the fruits, radiates from the after-effects of stillness practice, radiates from the ripple effect, radiates from the experience of greater well being, and also radiates from your applied attention. Your choice to focus the mind upon this “fall out” from the concentrated stillness practice brings light into the mind by the mind’s choice. You are training the mind when you pay this attention to the simple after-effect of well being. I must ask, at this point, if you understand what I am saying. The transmitter is seeing so clearly the light going in both directions; up or out from the practice of the stillness, and directed from the mind to the after-effects. You use the mind’s ability to focus it’s attention as a flashlight upon the keyhole in the dark of night as you fumble around to put the key into the door which will open upon turning your attention toward the light, the keyhole, the discovery. So, is this clear as mud, or clear as light?

David : Well, we have a feedback system operating, so we can check that out. I would epitomize what you have said in this fashion: attention is the name of the game. The mind is being trained, or strengthened, by paying attention to the after-glow of stillness. How’s that?

Alana : Thank you. You see in action the co-operation of teacher assistance, transmitter-receiver assistance, and the listening assistance provided by the students, the group members, the beloved partner, and in this individual case, you, Sir David. Yes? Co-operation is also the name of the game, as you say. Yes? And beautifully done, thank you. You have grasped that in the stillness practice, at least for a great number of you, you have surrendered the thoughts and feelings and emotions and fears and doubts in order to immerse yourself in God’s love. It is in the after glow, as you have so beautifully described it, that the mind reclaims all of those abilities to return to thoughts, fears, doubts, etc. In the choice to pay attention to the after glow, you extend the period of time before which you must begin to grapple again with the ancient and habitual tendencies of the human mind, it’s thought patterns and beliefs. You also strengthen your ability to say yes to love, and no to confusion. Thank you. Is there more you wish to discuss?

David : Yes. I would like to put Legion on line, but perhaps not at this time because I see someone wandering around in our front yard with an umbrella, and I don’t want to interrupt the session to deal with this human being. Would it be permissible to take a break and check in with you a little later? I have some heart problems and want to ask some advice in dealing with how to love my fellow brothers.

Alana : Yes.

David : So thank you so much for the warmth of your concerns today, your pointing us in the direction of love, once again. And the sharing of your presence with us.

Alana : Thank you. We see no impediment in returning. Thank you.

Later:

Legion : Yes, this is Legion.

David : Welcome, Legion.

Legion : Thank you.

David : I have been growing in my relationship with my brother, Mr. Practice. As you well know, he has certain tendencies that from time to time rub against my grain, and I have various responses to that…but my space this morning, my heart-mind space is opening to you to find new ways of being a brother to him.

Legion : Yes. My friend, you do not need to rescue your brother.

David : (laughter) I think I got that clear by now, at least I hope I have.

Legion : He is not your responsibility in that way. You do not need to straighten him out in the sense of trying to take his mind and grab it and pull on it until it is a straight string that you can understand and that matches with your understanding of resonable, rational thinking. Discourse, yes. You recognize that this is a human being and a mind that has been shaped by many factors which you have in common, but also many factors which you do not have in your lexicon of common human training.

My friend, you have much more to do than spending your time and your attention trying to straighten out the thinking of this one human being. As you recognize, I have my own investment in where you put your attention. I have my own assignment for you. Although there are many benefits to you spending an exceptional amount of time focusing your attention on this one individual and his pattern of thought, I must admit that I prefer that you devote that attention to the task that I have given you, or other assignments that have been given to you by the teachers.

Your friend’s pattern snags you.

David : Excuse me, I am also concerned because it snags my partner. But I’ll grant you, it snags me.

Legion : Your friend’s pattern has snagged you once again. Snags you directly, and snags you indirectly; indirectly meaning your attachment to his effect upon your beloved.

David : Yes.

Legion : Limit your interactions with your friend to calm, loving, reasoned responses based upon the limitations you must place upon him, or I might add, any other human being, any other friend, in order to protect your own boundaries and time frames, in order to allow for you to accomplish the tasks I have given, or that have been given to you by your inner guidance. His arrogance, you might say, or the arrogance that you perceive, and even more particularly the arrogance that you perceive as intruding upon or disturbing your tranquility or distressing your beloved partner, is an opportunity for you to look into the mirror, shall we say. It is not necessarily an opportunity for you to straighten him out, that is the mistake. It is an opportunity to look in to the mirror. How does this one snag me? How does this one grab so much of my attention that I am busy wanting to wipe out his imprefections of arrogance. Ignoring that it could quite possibly be an insurmountable task for you to accomplish. Whereas, when you see what you perceive as his intrusive arrogance, is this not an opportunity to recognize that if it did not ring your bell, so to speak, cause you endless echoes of disturbance, you could quite simply say “enough of that,” as you have in the past both with him and others of your male companions who from time to time wag their big sabers at you, and you simply set it aside, blow love upon it, and do not jump into the fray, do not allow them to snag your attention in such a way that you spend a great deal of energy sorting them out, as opposed to surrendering them to their own guidance and returning quickly your attention to the matters at hand that are matters that have been given to you to attend, given to you as accomplishments to be done. In other words, their trumpet hails you to a scene that is not yours to simplify or handle or rescue. Return to the trumpet that calls you to the clarity of your own path given to you by me and others of this mission by Michael and by God. In this way he becomes a lesson for you. A lesson in the discipline of love which is the discipline of joy, which is the task I have given you to focus your attention upon. Yes?

David : Yes.

Legion : Is there another avenue you would have me explore for you in terms of understanding how you might relate to this beloved friend of yours? And co-hort, you might say, in the desire to follow the will of god and to absorb and manifest the lessons by the many teachers in this teaching mission.

David : Your question is, are there other avenues. I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that one of the things that jumped out to me in what you are expressing Legion is, he has a perfect guide. I know that. So there is a certain power of the logic that he has this guide, and if he has perfect guides, then I don’t have to worry about him. It’s just a question of hooking up. That’s a kind of a nice hand rail this morning that I don’t need to worry about him, and…I see him enmeshed in a lot of relationships that I consider to be dark, and while you were talking, I let go of that, too, of having to inform him or straighten him out, or anything. I just let go of that.

Legion : Thank you.

David : I just let go of that. I was very disappointed, as you know, that he was involved in what I consider his dark little, dark little rum hall,

Legion : My friend.

David : and missed this chance to be in the light and the glory and the beauty of the Badminton’s household to which he was invited, and I was so delighted about that, I was disappointed that he didn’t avail himself of the wonderful opportunity to be there yesterday.

Legion : Yes. Your disappointment was shared by some, and is embraced by me. Surrender it now to the light hearted delight of Devina.

David : (chuckle) You got it, Devina.

Legion : Thank you. My friend, yes, correctly you have understood Devina tugging upon you in that moment. My friend, has your worry nourished you? Has your worry guided you effectively in your communication and interaction with this friend? So, you discover one means by which this friend may serve you. When his communications of any sort trigger within you this habit pattern, this mental structure you call worry, you have immediately the opportunity to recognize what you call wrong direction. We think you will find a great deal of useful information if you choose now to study this habit pattern called worry.

David : Yes, I took it in with my mother’s milk.

Legion : Yes, indeed. And it is therefore connected in your human habit patterns, from the mental training received, both directly from your human parent mother, and indirectly by observation. Therefore it is connected in your mind with the feminine aspect of your personality. You, having been a male child, like all male children, begin with the absorption of both the human patterns of the female mother and the male father and at some point in your growth and development you attempt to reject the female in order to become the expected and respected male individual, adult male. And then, as the adult develops, the male must then sort out by keen, love guided, discernment, that which he would retain from the male pattern inherited from the male parent, as well he must balance in, reclaim, those beneficial aspects of the female parenting. You, my friend, by the vast opening that followed the cataclysmic destruction of your life as you had, even unwittingly or unknowingly, assumed would always be, in one form or another, simply changed by time and growth, this catastrophe, if you will, this cataclysmic destruction, created an opening in which you, having lost faith and trust in your understanding of the female, as well having shed the more fear inducing and love inhibiting aspects of the male, you also found yourself in a particularly beneficial environment for turning to what you called the Mother, the mother goddess, and/or the path of love, which you did not completely assign strictly to the mother, for you did recognize, after a certain degree of growthful evolution, that you sought the path of love in your childhood love for Jesus, our Master and yours. However, you did first turn to the mother spirit for her embrace, her guidance, her loving leading, her leading ever by love, her taking your faltering feet and gently training them first by giving you an unusual human situation of protection and freedom from ordinary daily concerns, second by presenting you with the opportunity to discover her love and light, effulgently, repleately, observable in the simple task of growing a garden. And next by allowing you to discover that even female betrayal can not destroy the strength of heart that is dedicated to the path of love. And so what could have been repeated in your human life, and by some might have been judged to be male repetition, became instead a leap forward for you along your wish to pursue the path of love and to reclaim for yourself, as you have put it, “What is it about Jesus that I loved so much as a child?”

Now my friend we have the opportunity to, as you say, come full circle, for I think you will, upon reflection, discover that what the child, David, loved, in his relationship to Jesus was this, in the heart of Jesus there is no worry. There is only love. And absolute faith and communion with his Father’s love, and his Mother’s embrace. You learned worry from your beloved mother human parent. A beloved woman indeed. A devoted woman. Devoted to the God of her understanding. To the partner of her life’s journey. You learned worry, not from your father human parent’s demonstration, for he always deomonstrated his faith before you. But you learned it from his message, limited by his limited understanding of our Father’s love, and so, even as you prayed in pure hearted devotion as a child, you so often prayed your worry; please, Father, God, save those who will not have your love, save those who are on the wrong path, save those who are headed towards…well, you understand, I suspect, your childhood understanding of hell fire and brimstone, of being lost, of not being washed in the blood, shall we say. (David chuckles.)

So, as a beloved blind one once put to music, Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Yes?

David : I don’t know who that was. I am following your narrative line with a great deal of attention, and it opens up my heart. I’ve lost track of what we were talking about, but I’m exceedingly grateful for the nudges and the clues that you have given to me about my love, the love that prompted my understanding of Jesus.

Legion : Yes, I would take you back a moment to understand that not only does this one individual trigger your learned pattern of worry and needing to save the world, or straighten the mis-guided out, but this person triggers those responses when you see distress in the eyes of your beloved partner, and wife, my beloved partner in this transmission. I would say to you, she, as well, can become the means of serving your discipline of love, rather than following the mind pattern that would drag her away from what is hers to handle, or following the mind pattern that would immediately sit down and spend hours in order to deal with and handle the problem which has disturbed the tranquility of your beloved, which is to handle him, your friend, Oliver, let us say. Instead, I would counsel you, be as Devina. Tug gently upon her heart. Gently into light heartedness. Or be as Alana, put the problem in the heart room and blow love upon it. Or be as Legion and exercise the discipline of love. And turn your attention to that which is yours to be attending to. When you find yourself snagged by this problem, whether it comes from her, your beloved partner, or him, directly, speak to what you can directly and surrender the rest to the heart room, to God’s love, to their own guidance, and turn your attention to the tasks before you. Thank you.

Is this useful to you, my friend?

David : Yes, exceedingly useful. Now I would like to get an update on my grade. I approached my beloved this morning. I went from the shower to the computer, and when she saw me, became aware of my presence, she had an expression upon her face that is hard to describe, might be described as dismay. And feeling vulnerable, naked, and intruding upon her concentration, I felt I was able to be quite light hearted this morning, and not get snagged by anything. I did not criticize her, but simply reminded her of something. I felt good about that. I am looking to see if you would affirm that appraisal.

Closing

Legion : Yes. Each of you demonstrated a willingness to turn toward the discipline of love, which is the discipline of joy. Each of you demonstrated a willingness to feel the light heartedness always available to you, even in moments of reactivated distress. It was a quick alertness in you that I would acknowledge. An alertness to surrendering your previously held expectations regarding your mission, as you stepped nakedly before her, and your willingness to surrender your disappointment at what you call her look of dismay. It was this readiness to allow her dismay, this willingness to surrender your thoughts and emotions, which guided you quickly into the joy. A plus, my friend.

David : Thank you, Legion. You made a marvelous metaphor…there was a trail that you laid out…in the midst of our despair, to be able to access this quick light heartedness. I don’t really see how I did this except by the accumulated gift of my practices and things that I’ve worked through. And I felt expecially good about the contract I made with my beloved the other day. I don’t know how it happened, except I felt free, I didn’t get caught up in stuff.

Legion : Thank you. Gratitude may be expressed here by me, for in your accolade of your self, and I mean that most lovingly, you have, quite in the manner of testimonials, underlined the importance of practice. It is those who have taken their commitment to learn how to love mentally seriously, and heartfully completely, whose practices will benefit now with almost instantaneous fruits of love such as you have just described. This is the call of all prayers now, for your troubled societies upon your planet. All prayers calling for those whose practice of the ways of God’s love is so great that even faced with extreme catastrophe they have the maybe only brief, but nevertheless brilliant flash of sight and understanding of the light of God’s joy, yet present and available. Thank you.

But you must, ever and always, as a human being, step carefully along your path. Yes? I return to your friend, Oliver. You can not indulge in words, either mental psychoanalysis, or emotional….(tape goes off making a strange noise)