2005-10-16-Addicted To Diversion, Part 2

Session

Opening Prayer

Father, we thank You that You are much older than these, Your children, and have no regret for age. We would pray that both the seen and the unseen will one day stand before You and be grateful that they have lived long enough to see Your face. As we listen to the teachers may that which we need be our reward. Amen.

Dialogue

MINEARSIA (Nancy): Greetings, I am Minearisa, instructor in residence.

Ken: Good evening Minearsia.

MINEARSIA: Thank you, Ken.

It is my delight to actively participate in your gathering in this essential time of validation for each of you. While spiritual growth must proceed through individual effort, it is in fellowship with like-minded people that these efforts are acknowledged and become more real. It is through fellowship that your experience becomes your reality.

Tonight, we wish to continue with the topic laid before you by Aaron last week, the concept of addiction to diversion and the many forms that members of this ease-seeking society find to avoid that which is so desired and yet painful. Before we probe this topic further, I wish to commend you for your thoughtful responses to last week’s lesson, and for your quality of group interaction preceding this time.

[ED NOTE: It has been the groups practice to read and discuss the previous week’s lesson before entering into the T/R lesson. Many of us discussed our version of addiction to diversion—the reasons for not practicing the stillness as often as we should. Things like: having noise, music or the like playing in the back ground distracting us, not taking the time, social busyness, not focusing on the spiritual aspects of truth, beauty and goodness occurring daily, or just being lazy.]

In my opening, I spoke of avoidance of that which is most desired and yet painful. Human beings, human kind, longs for connection, for a sense of belonging, wholeness, understanding, community and love, and, at the same time, individuals fear the intimacy that such connection brings and requires.

In fearing intimacy there are numerous fears that are different for each person and yet have the same common source, the rebellion of this planet and the subsequent default. As we work to understand the current society, by necessity, we will be revisiting human history and its pertinence to current conditions, globally and individually.

(Pause) PamElla wishes for me to apologize for her sense of gaps. She is doing fine. The gaps are in part mine.

This planet has undergone eons upon eons of betrayal—the ongoing repercussions and rippling effects of the original betrayal. And so fear of betrayal is deeply ingrained in the genetic coding of each individual. And these betrayals are both self-fulfilling and real, for your brothers and sisters have the same history and the same inability to function with continual integrity in all situations at all times. And, so, the experience of the first pain, the great betrayal, is re-experienced by Urantia’s children and is a leading factor in fearing intimacy, connection, love.

There is much, much more to be said in this area. But rather than delving further in this direction this evening, I wish to drawback, resurface and tie these comments to the concept of diversion addiction, which is where we began.

By remaining busy with the many diversions that are available, one can avoid intimacy with one’s self and with others, and, through these activities, avoid pain, both real and perceived: the [real] pain of addressing one’s reality, the [perceived] pain of reaching out…[expecting] to be betrayed, rejected once again, or, just not achieve the desired result.

I now open the floor. I desire to hear from you.

Virginia: Minearsia, it’s interesting because I kept expecting you to also use the word abandonment with the word betrayal. Because in the betrayal of the Planetary Prince, he was of course taken from us, and Adam and Eve, though they left the garden, were no longer the symbol or the focus that would show us where God is, the revelation of God. Therefore, there was abandonment there. And I think one of the great fears in human nature is abandonment. I don’t know if that equates or not. And I am also surprised that you said that the diversion kept us from intimacy with each other, and I ! really expected you to add intimacy with the Father. Because sometimes I know I avoid quiet time, because I know it’s going to be a very difficult, painful time for me.

MINEARSIA: Virginia, my dear, your words are well spoken. Indeed, do Urantians suffer from abandonment in the manner in which you indicated. And I do include abandonment under the banner of betrayal. For abandonment is a betrayal of the promise to be present. And, yes, indeed, does diversion help one to avoid intimacy with the Father, one’s self and one another. The distinction I make with regards to the Father is that the Father never betrays, never abandons. He is always there with what is most needed.! And often the pain that one experiences in intimacy with the Father reflects discomfort in the relations that one has with themselves or with others. And so in fearing intimacy with the Father, often the underlying fear is with themselves. For the fear that can be attributed to the Father is that of being seen, being known, and that is really the fear of having the spotlight turned on that aspect of one’s being that causes pain.

I appreciate very much your expansion and clarification of my lesson. Thank you, my friend, for your wise, sensitive and vulnerable words, for vulnerability is an essential key in the healing that must be had by this planet and her people.

Virginia: Thank you, Minearsia, and indeed I know that I certainly exposed myself and was vulnerable. And that I also realized that I never worried or was fearful that God would leave me. But rather when I’m with Him in intimacy, I realize how terribly lonely I am. And my heart cries out so much that I just avoid that pain. So it is not in knowing the Father… it is very much at looking myself.

MINEARSIA: My dear, if it were in my power to relieve your personal loneliness, be assured that it would be done. Your personal loneliness, while immediately the result of the loss of your best friend and husband, is also a reflection of the conditions of Urantia. In the loneliness resulting from the isolation of this sphere and the other rebellion planets, the loss of your Prince and, of course, the default of your parent figures, all of this is part of the intensity of the pain that you feel.

With the Correcting Time over many millenniums, this palatable pain known to all Urantians will be lessened. Lessened, does not describe the degree of the "lightening"[effect]. On normal planets loneliness is identifiable, there are words for it, and yet the experience is almost a difference in "kind" rather than in "degree." This is the goal for the peoples of Urantia.

Virginia: Thank you, Minearsia.

MINEARSIA: I appreciate the opportunity you provided to me, to interact with you, and to share perspectives that others may also find useful in their ruminations.

Is there another who would interact with me this evening?

Ron: Yes, Minearsia, I know, you know, who I am.

MINEARSIA: Indeed, I do, my son, welcome.

Ron: I’m not sure if you said it or it was said by another, but it was said that spiritual growth came by "hanging," or "fellowshipping," I guess that was the word used, with "those of like mind." And I really don’t see that, you know, personally. I’m not saying I’m wiser or smarter, but in my understanding, here on Urantia, I don’t see that as spiritual growth, hanging with just those who believe and agree as you agree and believe. To me, spiritual growth would come from stimulation of not always hanging with people who believe what you believe but in entering, but not argumentatively, but for the purpose of understanding and the finding the truth; that spiritual growth would come in that sense. Unless I misunderstood what you were saying. Can you, please, explain it to me?

MINEARSIA: Thank you, very much, my son, for providing the opportunity for me to clarify my meaning. NO, indeed I am not suggesting that one should just hang with like-minded individuals, NO! There is great benefit in the diversity that the Father has created. And through ascension, individuals with very different backgrounds, perspectives…

Ron: Ideas?

MINEARSIA: …ideas, yes, great diversity, learn to experience unity, while retaining individuality.

So no, this was not my intention. My focus, my purpose, in my statement, was to express the significance of fellowship. For it is sharing with one another that one can more easily perceive themselves. I was talking about the validating experience of you all going out, during your weeks, having your individual experiences, and coming together to share. And how that validates the reality as you share about your common areas of struggle, as you share about your attempts to know the Father better, to serve His children, to love one another, that this experience together underscores and makes more real those individual efforts. And so I was contrasting the individual effort with the group fellowship.

My reference to like-mindedness had to do with the comfortability in sharing the experience for the purpose of validation. Certainly one can share with individuals that may not be like-minded. And the power of that experience, the power of the connection with the Father can be validation enough. But sometimes this can become wearing and doubts can creep in. And in the experience of sharing the wear and the doubts is the sense of being on the path reinforced.

Have I done a better job of explaining my meanings, or do we have a ways to go still?

Ron: Well, I [don’t] think it’s a sense of you doing a better job, I think you did a good job the first time. I think it’s more so with maybe my understanding and my receiving what you were saying. Because in a sense I saw, maybe through my [own] experiences, that even in the state of what you were talking about in the earlier lesson of diversion and abandonment, I think that’s why people do go to groups of like mindedness even in their teaching and doctrine, because they are afraid of being left or abandoned or not received. So they use that as a diversion. But I do understand that; I do agree. I think I do understand that what you are saying is that the unity can be in the understanding, should be in the understanding, of who we are with the Father in the spiritual sense, that He is the Father, we are the son. And it’s not that we can’t have individual thought. It doesn’t have to always agree. But our unity in our commonality, if that’s the right word, is that of the spirit, the oneness we have as children of the Father.

MINEARSIA: Yes, very well said.

Ron: And then, if I can just inject - even at times we also pervert or retard that because of the ideas or the images of who the Father is to us. I think sometimes, you know, I have mentioned to some people, they kind of didn’t like it, that we in a sense worship the image we have of God and not the true God himself. But what we do is we worship, and Father will receive it, because He knows that’s the highest concept to understanding at that time. But what we are actually doing is worshiping the idea or that imagination of who the Father is.

MINEARSIA: My son, your words are wise. Reality is relative while the truth with the Father is absolute. The understanding of His/Her nature by imperfect beings is imperfect and incomplete and unique to each individual. The Father/Mother draws all children to Her/Him through His divine gravity, through the desire of the created child to become more than the child is. The understanding of God for each child is continually in flux for eons, upon eons, upon eons, upon eons. All that matters is the desire to experience that communion. And so it cannot matter tha! t one’s perception of God is imperfect.

Ron: Thank you, Minearsia.

MINEARSIA: Thank you, my dear friend.

LaReen: Minearsia, we were talking earlier about how you don’t know how you affect somebody. Could you give us a grade (group laughter)? How are we doing? (Group comments: not wanting grades – maybe as a group – maybe on a curve – intention)

MINEARSIA: My dear children, every time you put God in your thoughts, every time you take the time to find quiet, you affect the whole. I will let each of you grade yourselves, of your individual growth. Do you respond in situations differently than you did before?

Ron: Sometimes in the worst way; sometimes in a better way.

MINEARSIA: Indeed, the nature of growth can often be two steps forward and one step—or a fall—back. It is the direction that counts. It is the ability to continue to look for new ways of responding, of interacting that matters, not the times when one goes on automatic, when the perceptions and emotions of a lifetime well up and become the current reality.

Ron: Minearsia, can I ask you a question, if that is ok? Does anyone else have a question?

MINEARSIA: Proceed.

Ron: I would like to get your advice on something. Something that I’ve been having trouble with for a long time, and I finally said something to some individuals and it kind of stirred the waters up, within the Christian religion. And which I ….you know, a lot of people believe me for twenty five-years that I believe what according to how they believe, but not even because… this is why I haven’t been around for awhile, because I didn’t want to be around any individual in particular. I had to make sure I was receiving and believing, not because I read a certain thing, and now I was influenced because I read another certain thing, so I wasn’t reading [the Urantia Book] either. A! nd [I] came to my own conclusion that, you know, the Father did not "sacrifice Jesus," you know, the Son, for the sins of humanity. And so my thoughts… I had the opportunity to share this with some individuals, and they didn’t like it too much.

But, I also feel within my spirit that, and this is part of a journey that I’m going to be going on in some way shape or form, and, then again, there is also that fear of being rejected, even by them, because of what I believe. But, you know, I want to walk in… I happen to still know them, and they are my brother because God is our Father, no matter how they believe. But it’s just the opposite, you know, you don’t want to reject, this kind, you know, one as their brother, because they don’t believe according to other (unclear).

So do you have any advice? I believe I should continue to pursue this avenue and if I’m wrong then… I’d like to know. The avenue of sharing the truth as…

MINEARSIA: Understood. PamElla is hesitant; I am allowing her to work through her personal fear. My son, you know that you know. Separate from what is written in the Urantia book—that the Atonement principal precedes Christianity and was in fact a compromise made with Persian religion to broaden the base of believers—you know that the Father could not require the sacrifice of any child and be the loving Father that you know. This is indeed an appalling contradiction at the heart of the religion that calls itself Christian that must be rectified. For the concept of the type of God who would demand a blood vengeance leads to! atrocities of the worst proportion. The concept of a loving Parent and a blood sacrifice are incompatible.

Do that which you feel compelled to do. Continue your quest. Continue your stillness. Allow the courage of the spirit to help you forbear the consequences. At all times recognize that this concept is deeply embedded in the whole and that as you try to alter that piece in the thinking of your brothers and sisters, they may find it too hard. Be gentle; be loving; if they are not receptive, do not push.

I wish to share an experience from PamElla’s memory bank. At the time that PamElla came across the Teaching Mission, and, through it, the Urantia book, she strongly held to the concept of reincarnation. It was a part of the package that had allowed her to make sense of the world and find a loving God. In the transition to the acceptance of the Urantia Book, she underwent much pain, for it meant relinquishing the mental constructs that she had created to experience a loving God. Your brothers and sisters know this loving God, and this loving God, in their minds, is tied up with this incorrect doctrine.

Be aware that in attempting to change a doctrine, it may feel to your brothers and sisters as if you are tearing away from them their loving God. That is certainly not of service, and it is not helpful. So while it is important to share your experience as you pass by, never attack the beliefs of another. For it is the attack they will feel, not the loving gesture. There is a balance that must be maintained. Do you understand?

Ron: Yes, you know, as [does] my brother Michael, I want to enhance, I don’t want to take away from them. But I want to enhance what they believe. And [in] doing so, maybe enhancing and hopefully allowing the understanding of the love of the Father, become a greater understanding that they could see that He would not need a blood sacrifice. He is not like the God of the Pagans that surrounded the Jewish people at the time.

MINEARSIA: And I would draw your attention to Jesus’ life as a model for your own in His approach to the killing of the lamb at Passover. While He, himself, preferred to celebrate the Passover without the sacrificial lamb, He did not impose this perspective in all situations but, rather, [only] with His closest friends and companions. A reading of this part of the text might provide a helpful model for you.

Ron, do you have further thoughts or questions?

Ron: I always have thoughts and questions. Thank you though for, for basically… I want to walk in love and wisdom. I don’t want to force anything upon anyone. You know I just…. If I enter into arguments then it is not of the spirit in the first place, it is according to my wanting them to believe as I believe and not the working of the Father Fragment within. And that’s actually what I want to do. I want to be used to stir that up within them.

LaReen: My sister and I didn’t talk for a month over the same subject.

Ron: Thank you very much for conversing with me and sharing with me. And I apologize to the rest of the group for taking some of their time up.

MINEARSIA: Thank you for the platform and on this I give you an "A". You did not desire the grade, I know.

Ron: Thank you. You’re right.

MINEARSIA: In a different manner I will say: "my son you do well." Continue.

Ron: Thank you.

MINEARSIA: My friends, the hour does indeed grow late, and many of you have a ways to go, yet, to get home. So I will bring this session to a close. I ask that you close in your usual format. Another will provide the closing prayer.

Closing Prayer

KLARIXISKA (Virginia): Father, in spite of our feelings of inadequacy and lack of perfection, we would pray that we the teachers and these your student children will prove the test as they spend their moments and their days in this next week. May they be aware of their inner spirit and the strength that is theirs to love in every relationship. Amen