2005-12-18-Self Forgetfulness & Forgiveness

Session

Opening

RAYSON: Good afternoon, this is Rayson. (Group welcome.) It is good to be here with you, my friends, in this holiday season. Merry Christmas to you. (Thank you.) Today’s lesson can be quite simple, or it can be quite extended. It can be given in twenty minutes or twenty hours. I will strive to provide the most effective lesson to you in an efficacious amount of time. Today’s lesson has to do with self-forgetfulness and self-forgiveness. And my teaching team and myself have several means to explore this with you, but I will use our standard approach, which seems to be most effective and one that you can relate to, and that is to use the example of Christ Michael as Jesus, his lifetime, to assist you to understand these concepts.

Lesson

First, I wish you to make a distinction between self-forgetfulness and self-denial—they are quite different. Self-denial has been used by penitents of the church to seek a holy state of existence, while in earthly form — the denial of desires, even physical needs of survival, in order to become stripped of all physical natures as a means to seek that holy position of oneness in spirit with Jesus, Christ Michael, with God. Today’s lesson is quite different from that and we will not be entering into the aspect of self-denial, but self-forgetfulness.

Self-Forgetfulness

There are two sides, to begin with, to explain self-forgetfulness—at least two. One of which is that you know individuals who are arrogant, conceited, self-centered who exercise a form of self-forgetfulness—they forget who they are—they forget that they are one among many equal to others in importance. At the other extreme, there are those who are self-forgetful, who have forgotten that they exist, forgotten that they have needs, forgotten that they have a life and a purpose. They have forgotten who they are. They have forgotten that they are sons and daughters of God in physical form here on this planet to learn, to grow, to love, to develop, to become the greatest that they can become during this very brief lifetime. Self-forgetfulness, as we use it, is for the individual who is conscious of him or her self, a person who has self-awareness, the person who is self-aware of highest consciousness.

Self-forgetfulness is very similar to your exercise of the stillness—you are self-forgetful, forgetting your daily chores, forgetting your agendas, your instructions, your meetings, going hither and thither. Self-forgetfulness in the stillness leads to one consciousness meeting another consciousness—consciousness of a mortal, meeting the consciousness of the Divine. In self-forgetfulness and in the stillness, when you are in contact with your Thought Adjuster, your Thought Adjuster can speak with you, to help, guide, counsel, and show you in still, silent ways, how to raise yourself up to become a greater person —offering you higher alternatives of choice.

Now, my friends imagine living this way throughout your waking day, with this consciousness, this self-forgetfulness, being forgetful of your self-importance. Let me explain "self importance": The level of value and importance to yourself, which you hold throughout the day. In living-self-forgetfulness, you forget that your value is different from other people. In self-forgetfulness, you see yourself truly as one of an equal in the brotherhood and sisterhood of man and the sonship and daughtership of God.

In self-forgetfulness, you have set aside your cultural, ethnic, national, racial, and social biases. No matter what country you come from, what race you come from, what cultural orientations, ethnic group you come from—you are self-forgetful of those assignments, labels, and generalities that were given to you early in life by your societies, families, and by your communities. Self-forgetfulness strips you of all those labels, of all those artificialities of being. In self-forgetfulness, you are truly, truly a beloved child of your Creator, Christ Michael. You are an equal of others in the soul journey—ascension —that leads you to Paradise with all others.

Self-forgetfulness on this plane, this mortal, earthly plane, will help you immensely after you graduate from this world. When you arrive in the resurrection halls, you will begin to recollect who you are. You will begin piecing yourself together from the confetti that flies in your consciousness of who you were, and who you are now. And my friends, you too will pick up those assignments that your society, culture, ethnic group, and your religious groups gave you. Self-forgetfulness is important, because if you hold yourself in distinction from others because of these external assignments, you will have difficulty along your journey.

If you were a highly bigoted white person in this country, and you continue to hold those points of view in the afterlife, in the morontia worlds, you would have great difficulty. If, on the other hand, you had the self-awareness of a slave, owned by someone as property, material property, and could be disposed of by an individual decision, and you have this opinion of yourself, in the afterlife, you will have immense difficulty appreciating that you are equally loved as everyone else in the hierarchy of the universe.

Self-forgetfulness is essential to who you can become; it is as though your culture, society, family, and your ethnic group—everything about you—your national identity—is written on a tablet with a pencil, and self-forgetfulness erases those things. You must consciously do this, my friends. You must erase your identifiers of who you are, those externalities of your identification. The spiritual journey is a stripping away to the bare essentials of who you are. This naked truth of who you are is an existential challenge for many of you. Some of you cannot do this in this lifetime; some of you will take many, many, many journeys in the afterlife to do so. It is no easy task. It is as difficult for those who have put the mantle of greatness upon themselves, as those who live in the sackcloth of poverty, and have an impoverished sense of themselves. Both distinguish you as individuals who must rid yourself of these garments of identification.

You are a unique individual, created by the First Source and Center. You are a unique personality, that personality given to you by the Creator. You are you, and you always will be you. You are unique. You are truly appreciated for that uniqueness, and in this uniqueness you will find who you are. Simplicity of the journey is in this simple relationship of the child to the parent, the Father/Mother God, who has created you and has placed you at the very beginning of a long journey of growth. If you get caught up in the social accoutrements of each level, you will stifle your growth. You must forget who you were—as others would see you—and remember the true self who you are. Self-forgetfulness! It is as though you are living the stillness in awakened consciousness. I could not give you a more clear definition to live that way, consciously, day-by-day.

The learning process for self-forgetfulness is most forgiving. Those around you will not shame you, as some of you have been shamed in your childhood. You have received statements as, "Who do you think you are?" "What do you think you are?" "Who made you that special?" You will hear none of this, my friends, in the afterlife. You hear none of it now through us, do you? Surely, you do not.

There is no shame and no guilt in who you are; it is a simple process of making decisions, to forget those identifiers, and take on new, wholesome, immortal identifiers, to help you proceed day-by-day, stage-by-stage in your growth. It is far more helpful for you to have come from humble origins on this planet, than to have been born a king or queen, prince or duchess, or any of the hierarchy of royalty. You are blessed by not having been a part of a militaristic hierarchy, whether in government, in the military, or a religious organization.

Your power as an individual is solely in your expressed capability, in your ability for participating effectively in your growth, in your journey, to make decisions that assist you. Being forgetful of "who you are" and "where you come from," you will be able to travel more quickly, grow more quickly, and take on new assignments. In the mansion worlds, remembering who you are is what you call "baggage" in this lifetime. Those are the things that hold you back, those suitcases of identification hold you back from traveling easily.

Let me give you some examples of expressions of self-forgetfulness during this holiday season. Were you to give a gift to someone, with the thought of receiving something in return that would not be self-forgetfulness. That is a conditional gift-giving situation. Giving something without thought of return, simply out of the goodness of your heart, wishing to share your abundance, wishing to share the beneficence of the universe, as it has bestowed itself upon you, and you pass it on to others—this is truly an act of selfless forgetfulness. You are blessed to do so. There are numerous examples that Jesus used in regard to that. You could interpret many parables in terms of self-forgetfulness. The humble individual who gave their last bit of means to support themselves, or their last bit of prosperity to the church, or to the synagogue—their gift was far more precious than the rubies and stones and rings and jewelry, and great amounts of produce from the fields, that others gave. Self-forgetfulness—is an expression of humility in your daily life—you are humble.

And likewise, the essential ingredient of self-respect is much different from self-admiration. Self-respect is the recognition that you are an individual who has the equal right of life and it’s expressions as anyone else. Self-respect is appreciating who you are, forgetting the references to your society, those identifiers, those labels that have been given to you. Self-respect is a self-recognized signifier—you do not need others to identify you as being self-respecting. It will be obvious and apparent in your life.

The state of self-forgetfulness is a balance: Too much self-forgetfulness, and you will forget who you are. Self-forgetfulness does not forget that you are a child of God, a significant contributor to God the Supreme, the experience of the universe. Your life is meaningful; it is needed; you are necessary to help fulfill the universe. Your life makes a difference—not by who you are—not by who you say your are, or who your society says you are—but simply that you live life simply, meaningfully, humbly, respectfully.

This first part of the lesson is necessary for the fulfillment of the second part, that of self-forgiveness. In the first part, you learned to maintain a consciousness of stillness in your daily life. Forgetting your social, cultural, ethnic, political identifiers, and on the other hand, recognizing, appreciating, and respecting that you are a child of God, that you are unique. In these regards, only then can self-forgiveness be fulfilled.

Forgiveness

Self-forgiveness is the act of forgiving yourself as a child of God, respecting your self with the capacity to live life in the future, making better decisions. Self-forgiveness is an empowering capacity that empowers you to move ahead without the weight of past actions, which were detrimental to your life. You have read, have you not, in the Urantia Book that when you forgive yourself, you also must forget what you forgave! Were you to remember those issues again and feel guilt or shame, then you must forgive yourself again. Forgive yourself many times over, as many times as Jesus stated you must forgive the individual who sinned against you, whether it is seven times seventy, or seventy times seven thousand—whenever the feelings of regret, anguish, guilt, or shame arise in you, it is time to forgive again.

We know that it is impossible for you to forget these issues, but we also know that through continued and ongoing genuine self-forgiveness, the power, the energy of these past transgressions will diminish and eventually disappear. The memories of them will be hollow, they will be as though you see an egg shell, but there will be no yolk or white inside—they simply are empty. They are non-energetic, non-viable encapsulations of a past experience, where you have no regrets, no shame, and no guilt about them, or your role in their acts. So, forgiveness is essential for you to move ahead as a child of God, to move ahead powerfully on your ascension, on your journey.

Self-forgiveness is essential as an exercise to understand your difficulties with living life, and understanding the difficulties of others as they lived their lives when they injured you. So, self-forgiveness is essential to forgiving others. You individuals who have so much difficulty forgiving others, we also recognize that you have the same difficulty forgiving yourself. The individual who is able to appreciate this is on the cusp of moving ahead to the space, the place, the consciousness of self-forgiveness. The individual, who is arrogant and feels that many have sinned against them, is not capable, yet, of consciousness to appreciate the act of self-forgiveness, for they see nothing to forgive. Their journey is long and hard.

So you, who recognize this difficulty of forgiving yourself and forgiving others, are on the cusp of much growth. Appreciate where you are; give yourself a pat on the back, my friends, you are coming along. Whatever it takes to forgive yourself, do so. Whatever you need to do to forgive yourself and others, so that those actions do not exist with any energy, do so now. Some non-traditional, therapeutic exercises are very helpful for this. We do not espouse any at this point in this lesson—that would be for another time, another lesson.

Self-forgiveness is essential to live in a stillness of conscious, daily life. Do you understand that? Do you understand that the chaos of guilt, of shame, of past actions against others, against yourself, runs riot in your thinking? You are literally bedeviled by your own thoughts—it is then time to go to the stillness—literally—sit in a chair, become still, forgive yourself. Stay there until all these thoughts have been stilled. For some of you, and for this one, it has taken hours at a time to do so, but a necessary exercise for training your mind to forgive, for you to consciously and willfully forgive your self.

You are in charge of your life and your mind; exercise your will to forgive yourself totally, thoroughly, and completely. It is time to move ahead. It is time to engage a new year; it is time to engage a new level of consciousness in your self. You can only do this thoroughly and completely through self-forgetfulness and self-forgiveness. Then you are stripped of all of your old baggage of guilt and shame. You are stripped of your labels, and you are truly as an arrow of light ascending rapidly into the skies towards Paradise.

To carry that metaphor a bit farther, imagine your Thought Adjuster as the archer, honing your skills to move towards Paradise, preparing you for the journey. You must strip yourself of all the issues of guilt and shame—and labels, and titles—in order to fly freely, clearly, swiftly ahead. Take a few moments to reflect upon these things, if you wish, and when you are ready, you are welcome to ask questions.

Dialogue

Student: Rayson, there was a time in my life when I took very seriously, the biblical statement about "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me." It took a long time for me to begin to overcome that, because it gave me more of a sense of worthlessness, and has taken a long time to develop a sense of self-worth and value. So the teaching about us as valued sons and daughters of God, the beloved children of God, has been very helpful. But I suspect that a number of people who are trying hard to be good Christians get caught up in that.

RAYSON: Yes, that is so. Your associations, the institutions that you belong to, whether they are social or religious or economic or political, all want to give you titles and have you work for bigger titles and positions, and it is difficult for you to remember that you are on your journey. Organizations have little leverage over your life, if there is not a dualistic way of thinking about your existence in the organization. You must strive to fulfill the organization’s goals and gain titles, in order to prove your value and your worth. And of course, none of these things are necessary for you to succeed quickly in your journey, as a mortal.

You, as a conscious individual, living the stillness daily, have a singular way of living, and that is to live in the world, but not be of the world. To know how to use the worldly organizations and relationships to your advantage, but not be caught up in them, not to have them dominate who you truly are is difficult if you do not see your life as having a single purpose – to become like God. And not too oddly, this same pattern does continue for some in their ascension lives; they get caught up in the position of who they are and their importance in their work in their spiritual journey on the mansion worlds and after. Truly, their most important journey is the journey of their soul in the union with their Thought Adjuster and themselves. In this oneness towards completion, the embrace with the Divine. Thank you for your statement. (You’re welcome.)

Student: Rayson, I have discovered that when I am working on forgiveness issues, I frequently employ justifications in order to be able to forgive myself. (Rayson: Explain please.) For example, using the justification of being immature at the time that that action took place, or not having been aware of the complete situation—things like that.

RAYSON: Those are hindrances, as well. It is an action of the mind to strive to rationalize forgiveness, and there is no rationalization for forgiveness. Your participation, your shared consciousness with your Thought Adjuster, its expression is forgiveness. You do not have to justify forgiving, rationalize it—simply act consciously to forgive. It is another crutch to support one along this journey that is necessary, until you can throw that crutch away. And in throwing the crutch away, you forgive knowing and saying that "I am a beloved child of God, and I have the capacity of the Divine relationship in me, to forgive myself, and to forgive others!" And that is not only a duty, but a right, a privilege to forgive. It is an exercise that strengthens the muscles of the afterlife. Thank you. (Thank you!)

Student: Your lesson on self-forgetfulness reminded me of something I was reading in a transcript this morning. It talked about how Jesus was able to really understand people because he listened to them thoroughly. His mind wasn’t busy thinking about what he was going to say next, instead of listening to the person that he was conversing with. I see that happens so clearly in our society, that when we hold a conversation, we don’t always listen to what the other person is truly saying because we are formulating our own thoughts to interject into the conversation. Today’s topic was very appropriate for me.

RAYSON: You are correct. One of the great benefits of self-forgetfulness and self-forgiveness is that you are then, you have the ability, you have the presence of mind, to live in the moment. Your titles, your labels, your positions keep you in the past; those all come from the time before. Forgetting those, you are now able to live in the moment. Forgiving yourself, you are able to empower yourself fully as the Christ Presence—if you wish to call it that—in the moment with that other individual. You can be fully present, without having to project yourself, your labels, your identity, your power, to others. This is a wonderful thing to remember, a benefit of these two actions. Thank you. (Thank you.)

Are there other questions related to the lesson today? (Pause.) If not, are there questions related to other topics you wish to discuss or ask about?

Evolution, Eugenics

Student: Rayson, I do have one that was sent in by someone outside of our group. It is a question for the Life Carriers: "Life Carriers, can we anticipate that our species will eventually evolve to have a three-part brain? If so, please expand as much as relevantly possible."

RAYSON: Certainly. As one of the teachers of the teaching corps, we have been given synopses of other areas of expertise, such as those from the Life Carriers. These are encapsulations of larger program developments for the planet. (One moment please.) There is the anticipated eventuality that this may come into existence.

Unknown to you, through the great populating of your planet, with approximately six billion individuals living upon this planet now, is that there are many variations of your species existent now. You, as a specie, are not as homogeneous as you might think. There are variations that are very "Neanderthal" in character . . . (Tape change). . . in regards to Homo sapiens. We have spoken in the past of the possibility of "Homo spiritus," or individuals of a more evolved nature.

Considering the mechanism of the mind as a material entity, this would require the advent, the development of a budding aspect of your current brain system. There is within most of you, the bud of a three-part brain. This aspect would more rapidly develop, were it not for your penchant to mate with whoever was conveniently available, rather than having a program of evolved species, which you have a great bias against, called eugenics. Currently, this program is under the joint collaboration of the Life Carriers and the angelic corps, and is dependant upon the serendipitous arrangement, a meeting of individuals of literally like-mindedness.

These statements are only generalities—we have no timelines for this. There is no obligation for it to be completed, there is no demand by the supervisors of the Life Carriers that this come into existence in any particular era of your planet, but would be a most advantageous development for your species and for the days of Light and Life, which would be more easily administered by mortals themselves, and even more so easily with the conscious collaboration with spiritual entities in that era. I have permission to state that you as individuals can enhance this capacity of your mind by seeking the wisdom factor of your thinking.

You now have a bi-polar mind mechanism—you have the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere—which you may identify roughly as the analytical mind and the intuitive mind. These collaborate to make decisions, and of course, a two-sided argument often goes awry by not having a third factor to stabilize or to assist each mode of thinking, to rise to higher levels of awareness. Your thinking, as a conscious process, can raise the "genetic bar" of your species. What you study and foresee and work on as individuals, before the procreation of your children, is oftentimes passed on to your children. This is a means of conscious, genetic imprinting, which has not been practiced widely on your planet. You most generally think of it in terms of being helpful to you at this moment by making positive statements of affirmation as, "I now have a photographic memory! I now remember dates and times and figures, and whole pages of books, as though they were right in front of me." And so you will perhaps beget a child who has that capacity. By seeking higher reasoning within yourself, you assist the race consciousness of your species. Thank you for your question.

Race

Student: I have a question concerning your answer: In terms of raising race-consciousness, is that just for those who then go on to procreate, or can us older citizens raise the race consciousness too?

RAYSON: The answer is both. For those of procreative age, or before they are procreating children, this will have an influence immediately upon that next generation. It will also have an effect upon mankind and race consciousness throughout the world as well. For those of you who are older, who have raised your consciousness, you are truly making a contribution to humankind all over your world. This is doubly, trebly, quadruply powerful in regions where you have like-individuals living in the same identifiable geographic area. This is why you see that some cities have greater expertise than other cities for certain industries or certain arts. Thank you. (Thank you!)

[Daniel: We have a guest.]

Grief

Student: Rayson, I came across something in a transcript recently that kind of struck me about the word, "grief." And I wondered if unresolved grief is something that is also a burden, similar to your earlier discussion about self-forgetfulness, an emotional burden in our spiritual progress.

RAYSON: Yes it is, thank you. That is a very excellent question. The expression of perennial grief surrounding some event, whether it is a failure to accomplish or it is the passing of an individual, or the ending of an era—whatever it may be—the expression of grief without resolution is a very detrimental behavior. It unfortunately affects the mind mechanism and the emotional structure of the individual, as well as their spiritual progress.

When a person is in perennial grief, they have literally hit the "pause button" of life. They are going through the motions of living, without being a spiritually active being. Perennial grief sometimes occurs as a habituation, a recurring theme, that one has done daily as they come home from work—let’s say—and thinks about the loss of a partner, or a pet, and every day they come home and they grieve pitifully, and do this daily for years. It is not much different than the individual who comes home from work and picks up a drink of alcohol or drugs, and uses this—it is a habituation.

On the other hand, or at least in one other aspect, we can look at this and perhaps see that it is the result of an ongoing, unresolved issue or element in their life, something that they did not bring to closure. Their grief may involve wishing they had done more, or less, or not at all to have prevented their situation of grief. And so, this is a time for self-forgiveness, [and] also, active forgiveness of the individual who has passed, or the relationship that has ended, or whatever has occurred.

It is time to move past that, to move consciously, willfully into the Godhead of clear decisions. One must, at that time, ask Christ Michael to place his mantle of consciousness upon their shoulders and in their mind, to clear themselves of these issues, so they may move ahead powerfully, clearly, in their life as a spiritual individual, as a vital emotional and social individual, one who can participate with others, clearly and cleanly in the affairs of daily life. Thank you so very much for your question! (Thank you!)

[Daniel: Just a moment…let me get clear to see who’s here. Oh my! It’s Gabriel!]

Closing

GABRIEL: Good afternoon, my friends. This is Gabriel. (Welcome!) It is a distinct pleasure to be here, to be among you. I am not here today to announce any great advent of any program or development of Christ Michael’s…no you are not going to be visited by another world, . . . it is simply that, know that you are loved, that we are among you, the administration of Salvington is with you, by you, for you, and supports you. Know that you are not forgotten in these times of great turmoil upon your world. There is the presence of greatness here with you. Our Lord, Christ Michael is with you. I commend you for maintaining the Christ consciousness, the daily awareness that you are with him, and more so, that he is here with you. You are not forgotten; your needs are not forgotten, whether they are social, whether they are spiritual, whether they are emotional.

You cannot grow to become all that you can be when your world, when your life is in great turmoil. We can be, and are, of exceptional executive assistance to you when you make meaningful decisions about your life. You are aware from history of my presence on this world and why I have been here at times. Know that those were not assignments to come and go and leave you alone, but that you are appreciated, that you are not forgotten, that you are loved, and that you and we maintain a partnership of exquisite grandeur. Know that we hold this relationship, not as an obligation, but as a sacred privilege. Good day. (Thank you, Gabriel.)