2001-10-21-Humility of Respect

Session

Opening

Alana : So, you are grateful, and out of gratitude you would give to your world that which you are learning to give away. Love. And so, you gently peel away the layers of accumulated self-pride that prevent one from offering forgiveness to another. It is with the humility of respect that one truly will offer to everyone the same love that you would receive. Each of you knows the difficulties of loving even one other.

D : Indeed.

Alana : And you are learning, each of you, the humility of approach that allows for this love, not only to be established between one another, but also to be sustained. Humility, a greatly misunderstood word, idea, human condition.

Lesson

Humility, Human Condition

The young child has no difficulty understanding they are small. Each assertion into the greater world of "bigger and better" is accompanied with this small recognition of themselves as "little persons." As you grow and become "so big," you accumulate the many delightful moments of pride in accomplishment, pride in successful communication. This pride is a well deserved and healthy experience in the growing being. It becomes among some of you, like the bark on the tree, a crusty covering. For some, it is like the jewels on the crown, or the highly polished silver; it becomes the shining mirror that reflects away any information which would return the mind to the memory of being small. And then, you are a group of human beings, walking among your many fellow human beings, some pretending, some believing, "I am so big." And then, comes the reminder.

There are many ways to be reminded, but I would speak of two: one is the reminder of terror, a terror that penetrates the mind and the heart to rip away the shining armor, to tear the crusty bark off, and you stand shivering in your smallness, penetrated with fear and doubt. "What can I do? I am so small." This so often leads to searching and discovering and using methods to be big. This so often leads to the competition to be bigger. And this so often leads to, once again, that illusion of being biggest, or best, "I am no longer small."

Then there is another reminder, another way to be reminded: the reminder of love. In the remembrance, in the discovery, in the knowledge of love, you are reminded: "I am so small, yet love is great, love is big, love is strong, love is power, love chases away fear." There is no need to forget " I am small," "I am one among many." Love makes every little one of you great. And so, even between you, just one to another, the practice of love is the practice of the humility of respect for each and every human being.

This, my friends, is a daily practice, a daily effort, a humble task. You would, in your yearning, grab hold of the golden ring! The golden ring of love! In your yearning you would have it be yours. The golden ring of unconditional love. The golden light of God’s unconditional love for you, and you, and you, and all upon your planet. It is good to imagine, to visualize, this golden ring, this golden ring of unconditional love, this golden ring of light swirling about your planet. Yes. But I would remind you, you are small. Your smallness is no diminishment of your love. Your smallness is your condition, your human condition, your condition of human individuality, your condition of humanness in a conditional world, your small planet.

So, imagine the golden light of love, a ring around your world, and know your smallness as a singular opportunity to draw love down from the wealth of unconditional love into the unique conditional you. As the conditional you, you allow this love to fill you, and you give it away to touch, and touch, and touch the other. You do this as you practice. You do this as you work, and, yes, even struggle with your smallness of condition, which, beloveds, creates a conditional love; a love sometimes withdrawn because the conditions of your love have not been met; a love that sometimes beats one up because the one has not been loving. You do this beating, of course, for the good of the other, to teach, to show, to tell. (She makes a scolding movement.) I say this gently. No shame. No blame. You are small. Small human beings on a small planet beloved by God. Growing. Learning. Struggling. Yearning. Do not beat yourselves up for feeling small. Love. Pray with love . Understand this: every step you take to promote even the smallest understanding of love allows every other being an understanding of their place in the golden circle of unconditional love.

When you humbly reach out to another, with forgiveness, with love, asking forgiveness, willing to receive love, you break through the shell of pride: "I am not perfect, but I try. I know I am not perfect, so I listen to your cry, I listen to your anger, I listen to your fear, doubt, criticism I see and look and listen upon your difference. I offer my humble, little, small, conditional love. When you fail to love, or when I fail to love, I learn, I grow, and once again, I offer my little, humble offering of love, my tiny, little box of conditional love. I open the top. I let it out. I send it. And leaving the box open, I yearn, I pray, I imagine God’s unconditional love pouring down, filling, filling my box. And, being me, humble, small, little human being, I shut the box, hold it, keep it. It’s mine!"

It is a human tendency, to keep it. A human desire, to be filled with something so big, and to wish to keep it. "All for me! How wonderful, I am filled with unconditional love. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. So big! So great!" And sometimes, you will join with others in shining those boxes filled with unconditional love. "We belong together." You reassure one another, "We are loved."

This is human, your desire to eliminate fear, doubt and terror by keeping that unconditional love all for yourself. Until you are reminded: Open the box. Let the love flow. Grow. Learn. Allow. Let it fill. Open. Give it away . You close the box because of your conditions. Do you understand? You are human, your love, your human love is expressed humanly, conditionally.

But as you learn and grow and yearn to know unconditional love within, and you rest with that unconditional love within the still point of the stillness within you, and allow, allow, allow, then give it away, soon you understand: There is no shame in the humility of "I’m sorry, beloved one." There is no shame in "Forgive me, my friend." There is no shame in recognizing error, acknowledging mistakes.

The other side of shame is blame. So quick, the human condition, in the desire to have the love be "mine." So quick to point the finger, aim the gun of right and wrong. Each step you take to make your individual relationships loving, conditional as that may be, each opening you create to allow your love to flow, is an opening for others to see, for many to feel. Your simple little group filled with simple little desires and simple little faults and simple little fears and simple little doubts is an opportunity to allow others to know love, conditional as it may be, to see the opportunity, as tiny as it may be.

Do not doubt the power of love. Do not doubt that God’s unconditional love, pouring down into your conditional being, and being shared, even conditionally, will triumph. The fear that speeds around your world will be touched by love. The power of prayer is the power of the imagination to allow love to circle and embrace your world. Strengthen your imagination. Practice prayer. Allow love.

And now, your transmitter has asked me to open the way for your questions to interact with me. And so, I gratefully allow each one of you to take the floor as you wish.

Dialogue

Greed

S : Thank you, Alana. When you were speaking about human conditional love, I was reminded of something my ex-husband used to say all the time, "I’ll love you if you love me." Or, "I’ll forgive you if you forgive me." Which I think is a classic example of what you were speaking of.

Alana : Beloved, understand that you grow as a human being in the condition of time. The child learns, one, two, three, and me first, you first. The conditions of which you speak include conditional greed; a greed necessary for the child to learn, but also a greed to shed, like pride.

S : Are you using the word greed to mean the hunger for love which a person is unable to experience?

Alana : Unable to remember. Yes, you observe correctly the greedy expression of conditional love, but, you see, there is no first and last to love. There is no past and future to love. Love is now. Forgiveness is now. And if you must love again, forgive again, choose again and again and again to love, to forgive, to ask forgiveness, there is no shame, for this is the true condition of human love: to remember, and remember, and remember; to choose again, and to choose again, and to choose again; to allow, and to allow, and to allow.

Stillness

S : Something else I wanted to say when you were talking about being small: I remember how I feel when I take my walk, my walk is my meditation, my stillness practice, and I feel very tiny walking down the road focusing on the beauty all around me, focusing on you and God’s love. I feel so small, but so full of gratitude. For me, feeling small, feeling humble, is a grateful feeling. It is a feeling of joyful gratitude. I think that is what the stillness practice is meant to do for us. Can you comment on that?

Alana : Yes. In the stillness there is no pride of condition, but the pride of joy. Joy that is the joy at the very center of God’s love, God’s truth, God’s beauty, God’s harmony. By whatever means you enter into the stillness, the smallness enters with you into this vast opening of the infinity of love. The terrible difficulties of war, the impact of terror and fear, leave too many without the remembrance of love, without the ability to practice stillness and gratitude, without beauty, harmony, the gift of truth. And many filled with the adrenaline of fear, propelled by the blind force and pride of "my way is right," will throw their smallness, hurl their smallness, as if it were great, yet empty of love.

S : This war fills me with a great sadness, Alana, for exactly that reason. It seems we are going backward, not forward.

Alana : And so you see history repeating itself. Just as time and time again, you step on your beloved’s toes, or your friend bumps your elbow once again. The difference, my friend, is not that you go backwards, but that now you have the capacity to see. (We see what is happening around the world as we never have before.) What you see frightens you away from learning.

S : Learning is our only hope.

Alana : Learning, actual learning, is real. Communicate what you know. Communicate what you have learned. Do not allow fear to take away what you have gained in the ability to love.

S : Thank you for that reminder.

Alana : Thank you. And so, I am nudged once again by your transmitter. She becomes anxious, nothing makes sense to her. She would have me speak more of joy.

S : Please tell the transmitter she is making beautiful sense and there is no need for her to be anxious.

Alana : Thank you.

Legion : And so we have Legion.

S : Welcome, Legion.

Discipline, Joy

Legion : Thank you. The discipline of joy; such a difficult thing to understand in times of war, yet such an opportunity. But let us bring it down, shall we say, to the smaller arena of relationship, one to another.

The discipline of joy will always look for an opportunity to express love, the smallest amount of love no matter, the greatest amount of love if possible. Still, the discipline of joy will always seep through the slightest opportunity to love. And in that loving, joy will pass from one to the other, no matter how small that moment of joy. Greater, if possible. Laughter. Boisterousness. But even if there is only the small flicker of a smile, the slight glistening of joy in the eye, this, my friends, is the discipline I ask you to learn, to know, to understand, and to practice.

So, there are those moments when only a slight touch of the hand upon the knee is possible. There are those moments when all you can do is withhold the quick, biting retaliation, the clever put-down, as you say. This, too, is the practice of the discipline of joy, for in the touch, you allow the energy of love which carries the imprint of joy to pass through. In the loving quietude of the willingness not to be so clever, or not to be so gol’ darn right! In the loving quietude is the stillness transfer of love which carries within it the essence of God’s joy.

Practice the stillness however you do, walking, sitting, playing music, looking. Practice the stillness that you may in those individual moments of relational war have the stillness in you and with you, which allows you to open the door to love, for love once again to flow, and even if it is only a tiny speck of love, it is love, and it will bring joy. Like those tiny little bits of disrespect that may create, especially accumulated, great war, so it is, those tiny little moments of love, especially accumulated, may create great joy. I have said, practice the humility of respect for love. In this practice, you will practice the discipline of joy. Thank you.

N : Thank you, Legion.

Legion : Yes, others wish to question.

Stillness

O : Legion, I can visualize God’s infinite love as an energy that is always there, that is always present, surrounding the entire planet, surrounding us tiny ones individually. It becomes a question to live in the now in order to get that love. If I go through my day, and never remember this incredible love, I can not tap into it. I can only tap into it now, in the here and now. What prevents me from tapping into it is all this stuff that my mind is busy with at times. So I understand the need for stillness. The other thing that is happening to me is that once I get upset, once my emotions get going, I totally loose this connection, this connection to the infinite love that surrounds me at all times, even if I want it so badly in the here and now. I call that my adrenaline fix, that I co-create, definitely, and that prevents me from making contact with God’s infinite love. I haven’t had that experience in the last two weeks, so I feel good about that, but there are those times when I loose contact. How can I help myself in those times? In those moments when the adrenaline takes over, when the fear trip that is part of my programming as an animal origin being takes over my mind, is there anything I can do?

Legion : Correct your thinking, my friend. I say again, practice, practice, practice. Now, we shall look at some of what you have said. The stillness, like the love, is always with you. It is the practice, we would have be always with you as well. The practice of the stillness within. The practice of the stillness of love, now. The practice of listening to the love in the stillness, now. Your history means nothing in the practice now. Your history books, your books about love, may be beautiful and may give you ideas to follow, stimulate your imagination, but they mean nothing in the practice of the stillness, in the practice of love, now. Do not speak to me of programs. Practice. Practice the stillness. Practice choosing to love now.

And yes, my beloved, I understand that you have practiced many years the adrenaline of distress, the habits of fear and doubt, the misunderstandings and confusion of rights and wrongs.

Practice the stillness now, and now, and now. Use your friends, your circle, let them remind you, now, and now, and now.

You speak to me in the stillness without fear, but it is your fear that would have me give you the solution. Surrender your fear. Surrender your fear that you are too small for the task of love. Surrender your doubt that your conditioning is too great to break through into love so that you may allow love to permeate your human condition. With your willingness for it to be so, it is the practice that will, now, and now, and now, overcome your belief, your thinking, "I can not control the outcome." It is the fear that creates the idea "I can not." It is love that creates "I can." It is in surrender that you understand there is nothing for you to control, only love, flowing. Do not try to control. Allow. Allow. Allow. It is in the allowing that love grows between you and is known. Has this been useful?

O : Yes, Legion, it has been useful. It is in the remembering that I am falling short. I don’t want to be obstinate by talking about programming, because you don’t want to even get into programs, but I am saying there is at times, and it does become more and more an exception, when there is a clear chemical reaction that I experience from fear. Once I am fearful, to get out of the circle of fear, even remembering stillness, even remembering the love of God that is present, I still feel very much cut off in those moments. And you are saying just keep on practicing, the fear goes aside. And that is true, there come better times.

J : If I could add on, I think in some way I fear the stillness. Because I seem to want to take myself out of that whenever I get close to it. The impetus into the space is often, but I think of a substitute activity to take me out of that space. I think I must fear it somehow.

Legion : Do not fear falling short. You do fall short. Do you understand? There is nothing to fear about that. No shame. You do, you have, you will fall short.

And yes, it is the stillness you fear, even as you have known the stillness to be beautiful. And yes, it is the infinite love you fear, even as you have had moments of understanding and knowing that love to be glorious.

And so you cling to, as Sir J said, activity, entertainment, distraction, adrenaline, fear, repetition of falling short. You cling to the falling short proof that practice will not make perfect!

Still, I say to you, practice. Practice the discipline: the discipline of respect, the discipline of the stillness, the discipline of love, the discipline of joy. The living water of God’s love pours down upon you. Be saturated in your practice.

(Break.)

Legion : If you would practice choosing to love as often as you practice choosing to fear, choosing to doubt, then, my friends, I might become for you the Legion of your blood, the Legion of your nerves, and, hopefully, th e Legion of your delights. Yes, practice.

Sir D, practicing patience (laughter)

D : I don’t know why they find that so humorous. (Legion smiles. More laughter.)

Legion : You would speak to me.

D : Yes. I have just experienced the passing over of a niece, who is about 40 some years old. of cancer. I have learned to love her in the past year. She is very much a woman of faith, courage, a marvelous human being. I guess I would like to hear if you have any reports on how she is doing.

Legion : (Gave the T/R the feeling that this woman had not yet passed, which turned out to be true. D had been told she was going the day before, probably would be gone by night time, but she rallied.) This is one whose commitment to love, whose practice of love became profound. She did not allow fear to become her bible. She did not allow doubt to confuse her ending. She gave her courage away, as she gave her love away. The light that poured from her eyes, even in pain, even in difficulty, even in discomfort, even in the throes of perceived betrayal, was the light of the joy of knowing God loves, of knowing she is loved, of knowing you are loved, and that light shall shine forever. She has given her light to you. Her light will shine through the grace of a daughter, knowing the pain of loving and loss so young. That light will shine through. Remember that light and in the remembering of that light, she lives. There is no need to fear for her. In the element of spirit that is your beloved niece, is the spirit of our Mother’s love, and she embraces her. Her spirit is well. Her spirit is strong. Her spirit is welcome. She is growing, growing, growing. She gives all of her growth away in love.

Closing

So grow, my friend. Grow from the love you shared. Grow from the love you gave. Grow from the love you allowed between you. And in your growing, so grows she ever more. Remember the light you saw in her eyes. That is the light, that is the love, that is God’s joy that is her. Does this satisfy?

D : Thank you, yes.

Legion : Do not fear the death of the body. Many in their fear fail to love. Allow yourselves to love. Thank you.