2002-06-16-Universal Father, Cosmic Connections

Session

Opening

• Music: Dorenda playing, "In the Garden"

TOMAS: Good afternoon. I am Tomas. I am proud to be here in your midst today. You are beauteous blooms in the garden of the Master Gardener, the Creator of all truth, beauty, and goodness. I walk among you and see your beauty and my heart calls out to yours to embrace your spirit; thus we come together in a communion that gives rise to increased bonding of spirit fellowship.

Lesson

Fatherhood

Once again you holiday. And now we honor the Father. Thus I will spend some time with you today in honor of Our Father, the Universal Father, whose nature is revealed in the character of his Sons, and the sons of the Sons. Now let me not exclude you women, for you, too, have the nature of God. You, too, can reveal the Father. You, too, can know a fatherly affection, for the Father is the father and the mother in one.

The nature of God is so all-powerful, it is often that you find Him impossible to comprehend. His omniscience, onnipotence, and omnipresence put Him so far removed from you that you feel insignificant, for surely He must be busy upholding a universe. And while that is very true, it is also true that He comes to you each and every one and he tells you "you are his own" for He has implanted in you a part of Him, that part which will help you reveal His nature in your very lives.

From the human father you learn the first early lessons about the Universal Father, just as, as an infant, your first impressions are found in the loving nature of the mother, the Divine Minister and nurturer of your care. The pattern of mortal life at this juncture in your development as an evolving race of humanity may depict many views of the Father which are so varied as to offer little commonality for you as brothers. For some, their earthly fathers are severe disciplinarians, reflecting their belief that God is a strict disciplinarian. There are those who have no belief in God and who have no supernal value to offer their young. There are those fathers who are capable representatives of the nature of God in this form of existence that adequately testifies to the nature of the Father in heaven. The offspring of these fathers all will have an interpretation of Our Father in heaven based upon the influence of earthly fathers. And thus the relationship of Father is of great importance to you and the condition of your world and its future.

In full recognition and appreciation of the greatness of this infinite God, our Universal Father, who indwells each of you, even those whose first impressions of the nature of a father have been less than ideal, are afforded many opportunities in their life by the unstinting service of the Indwelling God Fragment, to experience moments of reality - a reality greater than the temporal reality of which you are a part - in such a way that these glimpses of divinity and perceptions of eternity are often able to enable these sons of God to appreciate the divine nature of the Father in heaven, and when this occurs, it is then possible for the sons of the Sons of God to lavish upon their own earth fathers the affection that the Father in heaven lavishes upon His children far and wide.

To say that the role of a father is a responsibility is truly redundant. There is no way to overemphasize the importance of a father's impact on his children, and so, how you fathers approach fatherhood is a measure of the degree of maturity you contribute to your civilization.

It is so important that you appreciate the nature of God through knowing Him, through feeling His infinite, divine, and personal love for you, that you long to know Him and learn from Him. You want to serve Him because of His goodness and His greatness. Out of respect and love for Him, not out of fear. You aim to please Him and worry not about His judgment for His counsel is always steeped in wisdom and in mercy. This attitude of the Father, when learned by the Son, is the attitude that we will use in our relations with all we know.

To love one another with a brotherly affection is the level of love possible for those who have not risen to a full appreciation of the limitations of mere brotherhood, for how often are brothers and sisters engaged in countless acts of sibling rivalry and competition for Father's attentions and Mother's affections. But as you have a fatherly affection for all you know, and all you see, you bring with you into your environment the qualities of the nature of God which are not jealous, not judgmental, but a reflection of infinite and divine love.

That may seem like an impossible challenge, and yet it is entirely possible for you to know the Father and to feel such affinity with Him, that He will enable you to represent Him in the world as you pass by, much as He has manifested Himself in the lives of other great and humble men and women of God.

The final quality of Fatherhood I'd like to pause for a moment to appreciate, is the nature of God that envelops even those rebellious sons and adventurous youth who would turn their back on His plans and dreams for the sons' best interests, and who does not alienate Himself, but holds himself open to receive his wayward offspring and embrace them even before they think to return home to his bosom. How forgiving the Father seems from our perspective, but from the divine point of view, the lost sheep are simply that - and thus he sends those of us who will, into the field to aid the Good Shepherd in finding the lost sheep, in embracing them back into the fold of the Father's love and the Mother's family.

Happy Father's Day to all of you. Let us all lift our voice in praise and thanksgiving of the Father of all who has created such a wondrous universe that we might experience life and share the creative nature with Him.

Indeed, He has prepared a feast for us today! I behold your personality presence in this configuration and yearn to reach out to touch you all as the Father has and come to know you better. In this way our family is embellished and emboldened to go forth in confidence of our kinship in spirit reality. How are you all this afternoon? How can we engage one another in communication and communion to the greater delight of us all?

Dialogue

ELENA: Tomas, you know me. I usually am the first one to pipe up. I just wanted to make sure that you were introduced to some new people who are here, and I'll just go from my right, around, but I wanted to introduce Carrie and Aaron. I wanted to welcome them and I'm just so glad that they're here. Of course, you remember Emily. And then Barrie and Rianna. I wanted to welcome them to the group, too. So… mother usually does that but she's not here so I thought I'd do the honors of that. So I hope Carl and Janet don't mind me doing that, but I wanted to introduce them to you and to welcome them.

TOMAS: I have a full heart in having your added energies in our midst. I am glad to meet you all and, yes, Emily and I are acquainted. Old friends already. I anticipate getting to know all of you better in the course of eternity, but how I look forward to these days of mortal sharing, for this is the arena to which I am assigned and in which you live. Thus, it is here we have our many adventures. Do also convey our affections to Esmarelda who is missing from our configuration today, and her energy is conspicuous by its absence.

ELENA: I will. Thank you, Tomas.

TOMAS: Are there questions? Let's hear from the e-mail, and that may give you time to formulate an inquiry. If so, we'll have that to look forward to. Thoroah?

THOROAH: Thank you, Tomas. This is from our friend John whose wife and family we met last weekend. They are going to be coming down occasionally. They couldn't make it today, but while discussing that with him, I mentioned to him that I talked to you and you said there was no problem if they couldn't make it today, so I think John half took me serious. I had to explain to him that I hadn't really talked to you but you had probably talked to his Thought Adjuster, so he got all kinds of interest out of that, and he wrote back:

"Has Tomas given the name of his home planet? I'm wondering what it's called." He goes on. "If he has met our Adjusters, has he been here?" (To Los Alamos, where John and Suzanne live.) "Or does he actually have to make the trip? I do believe it's possible. I've just not had the experience of overtly conscious contact with any being, even my Thought Adjuster. I have had some pretty incredible personal experiences. But they happen infrequently. I don't have experience with fully conscious, at-will communications with spirit guides. So that is why the questions. Thanks in advance for any insight."

I didn't pretend to give him any insight, Tomas. I thought I'd let you handle it.

TOMAS: I perceive our friend John is reaching out to you to me to the Father and His agents in a need to know how he might be experiencing spirit reality unawares. I will get back to that.

First, I would like to greet John, since he has been introduced, and say, indeed, we have met through the Spirit. A part of my allowable purview involves a lot of people who you know because they have a profound effect on you, one way or another, and this gives me an appreciation of what influences you are subject to. And, what influence you have to bring to bear on others. And so there is a large periphery or outer lying realm where I am able to have some degree of awareness, but only as I am in touch with you personally and/or brought into an awareness of your desire to be connected to a greater reality, am I able to effect much influence. That, of course, is the same for you.

You are a brother in the spirit, John, and these are your brothers and sisters and your consciousness of your spirit kin will increase as your desire to know the Father increases, and you will then have opportunity to practice your Fatherly skills and divine affection in the arena of your mortal life, and that will include these fellows who regard you already as one with them.

I have been to what you would call Los Alamos, but my sense of geographic boundaries are not the same [as yours]. I have been to all your homes, so to speak, because I am working with your presences. I don't pay much attention to your physical dwelling places. I am interested in the light that you are. But there are others who are interested in your environment, and often attend to you in your home environments. The various orders of angels having a great influence over the midwayers - those beings who are midway between men and angels - who are your closest spirit cousins, who interact with you in your lives, even now, and of which you are largely unaware.

But this is what I wanted to come back to. The fact that the universe is astir with life, and as you allow yourself to begin to perceive through spirit eyes, as Jesus admonished his followers to see with eyes to see and to hear with ears to hear, you become aware of another dimension of living reality, and this dimension is filled with celestial guides and ministering spirits and messenger hosts, many of whom are exclusively devoted to your upbringing as extensions of the Father, as we hope to instill in you a similar sense of your Selves that will radiate out into your environment and reinforce the reality of God in the material world as well.

Having a knowledge of the spirit influences as extensions of divinity, as appropriate and divinely decreed orders of beings who administrate and minister to the worlds of time and space, as seraphim and other entities do and have done since the beginning of the universe, often you forget yourself. Although most of you live quiet lives, unaware of how much the Father does indeed penetrate into the lives of the material beings, how much His influence prevails in the material world, you are occasionally made aware of another level of reality. A door of perception will open affording you a peek.

Many minds have that moment and abruptly close the door and never seek to open it, and there are those who are positively haunted by the memory and restlessly seek to regain entrance to that door of perception that will give them a greater glimpse into the wonders of the greater universe. There are indeed those who have sought and found these new dimensions and have made themselves quite at home therein, and they have, in many ways, found the greater reality to be the true reality and the material reality now is a mere shadow of that wherein they dwell.

There is no judgment as to who chooses how much to absorb in this existence. There will be other and future opportunities to determine your course. There are some who feel that this life is more than enough to handle, and those of you who have young children, homes, careers, loving families, are happy enough to let the love of the moment be the eternal reflection of God in His greatness. And this is appropriate. For there you are able to reveal the divine nature to those who have not got the happy perspective of the relationship between the Father and the Son that you do.

Those of you who are in full bloom of youth and happiness, of health and potential, have an opportunity to radiate the love of the Father to all those you touch. [Those of you] knowing that we are here in support of your godlike qualities, are emboldened and strengthened to be even more effective. Yes, I know you well, young man, and your family. I know you are a son of the Father and that He is in your life and in the lives of those you love. And thus I will not count noses. Those of you who come to sit and listen to these words, these mota, these messages - those of you who pause to embrace the love of infinity for you each, and to share this unspeakable joy with your fellows, enjoy a family awareness that transcends an earth family but is not a substitute therefor.

And those of you who are blessed to enjoy both a sublime human and joyous spiritual family, are truly fortunate! And, inasmuch as I am assigned to you, to this group, I will underscore my words with the admonition that you well know, those of you to whom much is given, much will be expected. And so when you grow weary of the work, come and sit with us, and we will reinforce your energy and bind up the wounds of your disappointments, in able to return again to the field in the good fight of faith and for the victory of vanquishing the darkness.

THOROAH: Thank you, Tomas.

TOMAS: You are welcome. How is everyone doing? This is a long period of sustained quietude and attention for some of you. Are you getting uncomfortable? Are you ready for a stretch? Or are we able to endure another moment for another morsel of edification, enlightenment or entertainment?

The Teachers

There was a question, yes, about my home. Often, after the meeting, my students will wonder about me. Where do I come from and the like. I have managed to side-step your questions for nine of your years. But I am not adverse to telling you something about myself. I am not from this planet, no, nor am I from this system in which your planet revolves. I am from another system.

Our language was different, obviously, by far, on my world. We had evolved different sounds and the name of the world itself would be foreign to your ears, perhaps, but I can tell you that my home world was under the guidance of our original Material Son and Daughter, our planetary Adam and Eve. And I lived at a time when they had managed to civilize a great percentage of the globe. Outside the land masses were other lesser evolved tribes, lacking in civility and grace. By comparison our country (you would say) was highly evolved.

I had a wife. Her name was Janus. We had four sons. I was a Cultural Anthropologist. I studied the peoples on the outside and brought back information that was used to lend a hand in attempts to civilize and uplift those more primitive and rather barbaric peoples, but I found them also to be fascinating and oddly endearing. My planet might be compared to a word you would understand as Almaria. The name of my home world was Almaria, as your home world is Urantia.

Our planet had not yet had a visit from an Avonal Son. It would obviously not be the Creator Son. The Creator Son had chosen to come to Urantia for his final bestowal, but those other worlds in a universe that do not get to host the Creator Son, have the opportunity to experience an Avonal Son, and he had not yet arrived by the time I made my way out of the flesh and began my ascent through the mansion worlds. So in effect, my world was much younger than your world, but it was in a way more advanced because it had not suffered from the Lucifer Rebellion, it was not isolated, and our Adam and Eve had not defaulted. That perhaps gives you some background on my human experience.

My classified area of study and, if not expertise at least interest, is in the realm of character. I am most intrigued by the nature of character -- human character and divine character -- and how to effectively upstep human character to reveal divine character. It's rather how I amuse myself with you in this assignment. I hope you will take advantage of all I have to offer. And that you will also learn how to take appropriate advantage of each other. And I say "appropriate" because in this world, it is an unfortunate common fact that usury is a way of life and not always for altruistic purposes. I am eager to help inject a degree of character into the environment in which you life, beginning in your mind, in your behavior, and in your society, for in this way we will advance the nature of your world and our goals will one day be met.

I apologize for talking so much today. Are there any questions? Are there any comments?

Character

MYRA: I have a question, Tomas. Since you like to study character, are the qualities of character that we find important on Urantia, are those same qualities of character important in the whole universe? Or do we have some that are particularly important the space that we live in.

TOMAS: These qualities that have value are value throughout all the universes, but how you interpret value differs. For example, there are those who value human associations more than material possessions. There are those who feel a career is more important than parenting. These values therefore are of interest to everyone in degrees. Character is that which is of God. True character is the divine nature. And animals have their own character; it is not necessarily divine. And making the adjustment from a lesser character to a higher character is sometimes accomplished in a lifetime and sometimes not.

Spiritual rebirth activates godlike qualities. Fear of God, in the more primitive worlds, attempts to modify behavior, but it does not necessarily enhance character, for that which is done out of fear is transient. Only that which is created out of love is permanent, eternal.

This makes for an interesting study, your question. It gives meaning to the yearning to understand the nature of God, the Universal Father, His qualities that influence your way of perceiving life, meaning, values, and those which surround you, those values which are of the evolving civilizations, for it renders it necessary for you to have perspective, so that you can understand the different natures and what motivates those natures, whether those motivations are productive or destructive of the next increment of values, of value potential.

It might cause a thinking human being to ponder his own character or the character of those he associates with so as to see how character interacts and how it abuts. It is an essential meeting of the minds, in terms of communication, and so all the qualities of divinity are true character, are what comprises character. And all the underlying scaffolding attempts to develop character are a reflection of how far humankind has come in its ascent.

Even here you can be fatherly and look at those who are lacking character and see them as immature, as babies who need more experience in order to develop real character, enduring character.

ELENA: Tomas, earlier in your lesson, when you were talking about Father and were saying that of those can feel the lavish love, then it was easier to spread that love to the others, and I don't remember the exact words but you were saying that sometimes that seems impossible. And I can think of a couple of examples that would make it more difficult for me, but your comments on, I guess, to the degree that you are open to the love that is lavished upon us, then as we increase to do that or are more fully exposed to the character and the divinity within our Father, then our character is developed and our love is possible to extend to our fellows. Is that right?

TOMAS: Absolutely. And you've learned to love the Father more by spending time with Him. If you bring your ill will and bad faith and problems and disappointments to Him in trust of his guidance, if you reveal yourself openly to Him, He will counsel you in love in such a way as to enable you to handle your circumstances wisely and lovingly, and the success that transpires in your life, by following His guidance, is so inspiring and personal, you begin to prove to yourself the love of God by your very life.

This begins, perhaps, in fear. But in faith, if you persevere, you will begin to work for and with the Father, and He will work for and with you to enhance Reality by releasing love into those situations which were fraught with confusion, frustration, anger, alienation and all those anxieties which flesh is heir to. It is the peace which passes all understanding that Jesus spoke of - that still, quiet place within -- the Kingdom that is within you -- that gives you the realization of the presence of God in you in such a way as you are filled with affection for the divine and that will thus in turn inspire you to reveal it to those who have not yet known this incredible, wondrous Fatherlike nature that is the greatest Reality in the Universe.

Even though it may be understood by you each from the relationship you had with your earthly father in the beginning, it will in time accrue to the understanding that the Universal Father, the First Source and Center, the Original I AM, is Life and Love is truth, beauty and goodness.

ELENA: Thank you.

RIANNA: Tomas, this is Rianna. I just wanted to say as a comment: thank you so much for explaining the nature of God the Father in the first part of your lesson. I really appreciated that so much. And I feel that essence of the presence in me Very Big and Colorful right now. And I also have to say this human body wants to get up and use the bathroom, so I think I need to take you up on that invitation to stretch and move.

TOMAS: Yes, Rianna, I have been expecting this. (Group giggles) However, I am so glad for you, daughter, to have come forth and acknowledged your divine Source and to reveal Him to us in this we may honor the Father in you and it then may acknowledge the Father-like presence of God in each here. Let's party. (Group laughter)

Closing

I reveal my love to you as you reveal your love to each other. Go in peace. See you next time. Farewell.

GROUP: Farewell. Thank you, Tomas.