2003-02-23-Being Reporter & Author

Session

Opening

Elyon (Jonathan TR): Friends, we meet again. I take great delight in the discharge of all my duties. I especially delight in the opportunity to be present with you and experience your enthusiastic investigations into the truths revealed throughout this Supreme universe and most especially as you discover applications in your individual lives that both enhance your understanding of these truths and foster your ability to present these truths to others, which is a form of revelation to any who stand in need of its reception. This is Elyon.

Lesson

Today I will speak about our Creator. It will be a short topic, for, as is implied, to speak about the Creator would entail great lengths of time to illuminate all elements of the divine Being. I am sure you are as well aware as I am that this would be exhaustive and eternal in its undertaking, for the Almighty is beyond our grasp in entirety. Therefore we must by force narrow to an element or two of that which manifests from God and in that focus attempt to assimilate truth elements that will copy and paste into other aspects of reality as you come to perceive it.

Authority, Teaching

We who work upon this world to bring about its upliftment are ever gratified and encouraged as we find human souls who are not only willing but engaging in the promotion of truth and beauty and goodness and doing so with a profound assuredness, doing so with an attraction to those in need. It has been far too long a period of time wherein the “faithful”, as we may put it, have continually relied upon others to assure them of their relationship with God to credit them with the authority to teach about God. While it is a potential danger that any individual may set aside the structures of authorization by human institutions and begin to teach as one who is above regulation, there is now the need upon this world for you to be confident and assured of your placement in the family of God and your qualifications to represent this relationship to all others. Honest recognition of the perfection and Supremacy of the power and the grace of a sovereign being, while instilling in the human soul the sense of humility, also ought to develop within you a profound sense of belonging as a child of God. Being a family member you are endowed with the inheritance of the divine and are sanctioned by your Creator Parent to represent this heavenly family to those who are discovering their spiritual ancestry. This is a delicate balance, the realization of your minuteness before an omnipotent Creator and your full and complete acceptance by this same God with the decree, the mandate, that you go forth and proclaim the saving gospel message of sonship with the Father and brotherhood with all your human kind and the angels and midwayers all around you.

To be an author of a work must entail original creativity. Otherwise one is not an author but a reporter. While we humbly worship the highest universe authority, He who authored all that is, we in our upwelling of the rush of the goodness that impulses us to serve face two potential approaches. One is to be a reporter and the other one to be an author. Many trained in the seminaries, many who have undertaken the disciplines of a monastic order, many who have gone through your educational systems, teach the congregations, teach the flocks, as reporters. This is good, for the information, the truths of the kingdom of God, are dispersed and find lodgment in hungry souls. But there is nothing more profound to the truth seeker than to witness authority, by that I mean one who authors these truths.

There have been on your world many who could not healthfully function in this mode and have become fanatical self-proclaimed teachers, even regarding themselves as divine and above all others. This is not the authority I speak of; this is not the creative authorship I indicate, for such imbalance is the result of the displacement of that humble worship of the divine replaced with the elevation of self.

You know that you are indwelt by the divine Fragment of God. This resident of divinity you passionately seek to feel more intensely, to understand more completely, and to share more accurately. That is the creative author that you are privileged to be, as a representative to access as your source of information, the well from which you draw truth that may quench the thirst of your fellows.

There is a plan that God has instilled within you by way of His divine presence. This plan begins in your discovery of God, continues in your accumulation of truth that defines, illustrates, and clarifies God; then develops into what I have spoken of as reporting, and finishes when you fully embrace your belonging; your identity is merged with God.

Jesus said, “He who would be first will be last, and he who is last shall be first.” Comprehending the magnificence of God does contrastively reveal the minuscule-ness of an animal origin human with his frailties, insecurities, and ignorance. In the realization of your humanness, given the presence of your Thought Adjuster, there begins the transformation of last into first. By first, I mean cherished by God. He who cherishes himself must first, before realizing the divine affection, come to the realization of insignificance, the first becoming last. While this statement may appear judgmental, a condemnation of those who hold themselves superior, it is in reality part of a full-circle cycle, for in the humbling as last, one is prepared to rise to the truly first position of cherished as a child of God. This is difficult balancing act to perform especially on Urantia. When in doubt it is safe to assume that you are a reporter relaying what you have observed and experienced in the field so that another may benefit therefrom. As you undertake your spiritual discipline, develop your soul, hone your character, discover deeper the qualities of your personality, you will develop that authority, that authorship, that sense of being as one who knows God, one who is God. You may ask, “How would I know that I have attained such a state?” I would respond by saying that by way of the illustration of Jesus in service not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. If you are uncertain, be a reporter. When an incident arises where you are author, when you have authority, this will unfold in spite of yourself, naturally, as naturally as you are a child of God. Any strain, any attempt to manipulate, is a fall into a wrong understanding of authority. This is the safety mechanism. The more that you become, the greater is your revelation, and the less you will perceive that you are manifesting in this manner.

We have undertaken many lessons all of which are designed to transfer you from a reporter to an author, each lesson given with the hope that you will shift your identity from the temporal and imperfect to the divine Fragment within you that is eternal and perfect. We have surrounded these lessons with many safeguards that are designed to eliminate erroneous assumptions, those hasty conclusions which give you the wrong interpretation of your personal power, of your spiritual importance. My survey of our efforts indicates to me that this is going well, for we have witnessed very few fanatical deviations within this Teaching Mission.

I will summarize by saying that the time has come for each one to finalize their transformation of view from one adopted into the family of God to one who is truly a native child. While you saw yourself as separate from God, the adopting arms of the Father were always open. Every adopted child is loved as one of natural origin in the divine family. All are natural children. The separation is in the nature of those reared upon a world wherein this teaching of the spiritual family and your belonging has been absent. Only on worlds like Urantia do you grapple with the sense of having to find God. On all other worlds of natural unfoldment God is given, and the accurate understanding and outliving of this divine presence is the challenge of life.

As I said, to speak about the Creator I could go on for great lengths of time, so I will draw close here. I would be more than delighted for you to interject your thoughts into this meeting.

Dialogue

Balance

Kirk: The paradox I see is that, when you verbalize God, concepts, to a brother or sister you feel godly. When you feel godly you fall in love with yourself. If you don’t have self-love you don’t have the energy to say what you feel. If you don’t feel important, that you don’t know it, then you don’t feel it’s godly. On the other hand, if you feel like you know it, then you feel better than the other person.

Elyon: You have very well expressed the dilemma that is woven into our lesson today, and it has been illustrated by Jesus in many of his parables. I call to mind another phrase of his, that of taking the beam out of your own eye before you take the splinter out of another, for if you carry the beam of false assurance or false insecurity you cannot remove the speck from another’s eye. But when you have discovered your divine birthright sanely, you then are best equipped to take that speck from another’s eye. In a twist of phrase I would say that by your discovery you are beaming and therefore can see best how to bring illumination to another.

If I may add one more point, the potential peril of the sense of superiority from spiritual knowledge can be placed in check by remembering the delight within your own being as you came into the discovery of a new truth or your orientation to an existing truth, the satisfaction and joy it brought you. Orienting yourself back to that sensation or experience places you on an even level with that being you wish to minister to and prevents the sense of superiority that would be in danger of talking down rather than sharing with another.

This that you speak of, the paradox, will remain a challenge forever.

I am aware that each one of you assesses my personality traits. You do so understanding that the transmitter/receivers through whom I present myself have colored my personality manifestation. Yet given these avenues of expression you do discover elements of my character and define them. I do not rank among you in the same way as does Lester. With some of the teachers you find a chumminess and others you regard in a relationship of teacher and pupil. I say this to confirm that even I must grapple with this same paradox.

Self Forgetfulness

Kirk: We’ll never have that assuredness; it’s just moment to moment, person to person. Everyday is different. So we’ll never have that assurance that we are going out and doing God’s will and do it? It’s just day-to-day is what you do. We look for the day we can go out and preach, but that day we are being self-assured and maybe self-elevating and egotistic. I guess you just wait for the moment, live for the day.

Elyon: You recall the story in your Urantia text when the imprisoned John the Baptist uttered a statement and, as he finished, he realized he had made prophesy. You will be sensitive to your assurance usually following an episode, for the human mind is not quite swift enough to keep up with time, or, I should more accurately say, to rise above time and perceive its spectrum. So, as the event arrives, transpires, and unwinds you will have undergone the enactment of the will of God only to realize it in hindsight.

So, it raises in importance the many admonitions I give, and others who tend to your meetings, the practice of stillness, the review of your lessons, your efforts at service ministry; for each one of these undertakings are preparatory to an event wherein you are in ministry fulfilling the will of God and not aggrandizing yourself as one who is enlightened for another to be benefitted therefrom. To be assured requires preparation, and that is a self-focus. To feel assured following an episode as you speak of also is a self-focused reflection. But during the event forget the self, allow the divine Resident to expand within you and radiate from you. Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing, and you will fulfill the will of God.

I might give illustration. You stand on a high diving board. You look down at the water. The surface of the water is this service event that you are approaching. You see it coming. You are aware that you must dive. Your eyes are open. You jump. You hit the water. Your eyes are closed. After you have entered fully you open your eyes again and see where you have gone, but at the instant of your service your eyes were closed. This is self-forgetfulness, not that you completely erase your being from the stage of the universe, but in that instant of time you have shut down your focus on self and plunged into the experience.

I hope this helps.

Kirk: You’ve got to take the plunge.

Elyon: You’ve got to jump.

Kirk: Thanks, Elyon.

Experience

Evelyn: You were talking about two things, reporting and authoring, so I was looking for a third. Take fact, meaning, and value. Reporting is sharing facts. An author shares meaning, so the third would involve value. I don’t have a word to sum it up yet, but I see the moment you are sharing having that divine content right there present. It’s not the sharing of something from the past; it’s what is happening right then. The plunging with your eyes closed. The exchange is the value. Jesus shared facts, meaning, but for many just being in his presence was so uplifting. He’s an example of that third corner of the triangle.

Elyon: I enjoy your insight. I would, in searching for a word to complete the triangle, offer perhaps -- though yet I am unsatisfied with the selection -- that word being experience. I have cautioned -- or should I say discussed? -- two sides of authorship, the self-proclaimed human author authority and the divinely bestowed Author within you. It is when the human allows the divine Author to reveal that the human experiences that connection of self with God. This experience is what another truly resonates to. You have perhaps experienced many times, whether reporting or authoring, a revealed truth that the information does not necessarily take hold, but another’s experience of encountering that revelation holds, sticks, lodges. You likewise have that same experience as it applies to your growth.

I hope this has supplemented your efforts to find a three-fold balance in this discussion.

Tom: Your mention of closed eyes brought to mind that in a musical performance often one closes one’s eyes to be more focused on the material. Whether you are the author of the material or just the reporter, the transfer of information is best served if you employ the tools of: you are not better, and you are not necessarily right. You aren’t trying to be the greatest ever; you’re just trying to fill the moment. That’s rewarding; you feel part of the flow as reporter or author.

Elyon: Indeed, whether the song is yours or written by another, that experience you speak of is what fills the tune with magic. This connection is the vital transferring link in the transfer of any information or, as you have illustrated, making a musical performance be infused with a living energy and not merely the repetition of sound in relationship.

Closing

I am always blessed by contact with you. Though I reckon time by another system of counting than you do, from your perspective I can honestly say it makes my week. I will close this session. I love you all dearly, and I observe fondly your weekly activities. I am not omniscient. At times I am away, but I see your angels. As you would relate to it, it would be as if I see them physically, and this I do, but I also see your angels in the sense that I visit with them. It is in their retelling of the episodes you live that I come to know you even better even while I may be assigned to other tasks and out of this location. Farewell.