2006-02-13-Soul Of Time & Space

Session

Opening

Prayer: Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, We thank You for these wonderful lessons shining the spiritual light of Your viewpoint on some of our modern attitudes. You’ve mentioned the validity and the usefulness of our scientific method, where one is required to demonstrate any proposition put forth. You’ve also shown us the limitations of this method and helped us rest assured in the reality of our inner experience, much of which can never be demonstrated or proven, or even repeated. So we thank You for this loving light. Amen.

NEBADONIA: Good evening, boys. This is your mother, Nebadonia. (latecomer arrives) I’ll say good evening again, My lusty sons. This is your mother, Nebadonia. I enjoyed your rather vigorous conversation just now, for it shows you are genuinely spiritually curious about these different aspects of your life, and what value you put upon a deep understanding of these relationships. This is definitely the way to go. You are experiencing how your understanding can actually change your reality. This is that irony of finding what you are looking for. For it’s a kind of a double-finding--of finding something, then too that it is actually real. But it wouldn’t be there for you unless you looked for it.

Lesson

(Inside and outside—again)

Once again we are at that imponderable demarcation between inside and outside, between your inner subjective experience and the seemingly purely exterior world surrounding you, yet how they both influence and give rise to each other. I think you are beginning to perceive an ever deeper reality. We gave this the name once of a chasm of the unknown, like standing on the edge of a cliff with nothing but a lot of empty space out in front of you, so that as you take each step forward, it’s as if you are stepping off into nothing and the ground just magically forms under your foot each step.

We appreciate how scary this vision is, and the courage it takes to perceive your life this way, to allow into your consciousness the intimations of all you cannot know until it happens. You just mentioned in your prayer that much of your inner life does not repeat itself. We’ve also pointed out that much of the universe does not repeat itself either. There are the regular comings and goings of days and nights, the weeks, the months, the seasons, the years. But each moment is unique. Each moment has never happened before, and the full awareness of this points directly at the amount of the future that cannot be known beforehand. This is due to God’s creativity.

(The soul of time and space)

In a very fundamental way, God does not have to repeat himself. We’ve likened Him to a fountain right out in the middle of the air, the whole universe blossoming continuously into now so that, perhaps, you might think of it as only roughly half continuing. The other half is this new permutation. Something is growing here, something is expanding. You can only imagine and feel for a few moments: something expanding forever, everywhere: the soul of time and space.

So yes, by all means do rest. Rest--assured within yourself: this is your home, and it was deliberately created this way. This is the adventure. This is the forever newness calling to you: Won’t you come out and play?

(The freedom of denial VS the particularity within eternity)

You are even so free you can deny this, for awhile. This is part of your freedom within yourself. Your own creativity of imagination is so great, you can create your own world that, for awhile at least, can somewhat ignore the whole reality about you. But you’ve all experienced, if only by stubbing your toe in the middle of the night, your body is in reality. It obeys very strict physical and biochemical laws, and perhaps now you’ve gained wisdom enough to see that this is not a curse, but a blessing. Even what you call old age and death, and other inevitable events, are final, unavoidable, irrevocable stamps of reality that give meaning to time. They give particularity to eternity. Thus each moment can be unique. This is the growing soul of The Supreme Being, just as is yours.

The history of the universe: think about it. Enjoy the notion for a while. For this discovery is also something that awaits you. But am I being too much of a tease here?--(group laughs)--promising you the fulfillment of your curiosity as to what exactly did happen at some point back in time?

(Your ancient spiritual family)

The spiritual family you are surrounded with, My children, is ancient beyond your imagination. Some day when you make friends with these neigh eternal beings--from your perspective--this too will be part of some now as yet unimaginable appreciation: you will slowly be able to perceive their souls. Just imagine the soul of a Melchizedek, dating from the early days of our Local Universe, some several hundred billion years ago. This is all real. It all exists right now. This is one meaning of space, that dimension of reality that can hold all these billions and billions of personal beings, all living their lives right along with you, each and every moment of time.

So We invite you to relax in your busy days, be still, and let your attention just go everywhere outward. (pause) This is that marvelous contact, marvelous because it is both still and alive. We are all living in the living body of God. You are surrounded, not only by His presence in the presence of the Supreme Being, and Michael and I, but also in that unfathomable presence We call the Unqualified Absolute--what you as a human being experience most directly as pure potential, possibility. For as much as has gone on before you, My children, the whole universe is always, only just beginning. This is the unfathomable mystery within pure potential: no limits whatsoever.

Sometimes you try to get a grip on this reality and think of it somewhat correctly as chance, and We appreciate that you do try to respect this aspect of reality. You do acknowledge the limits of your own ability to project into the future, to know what is going to happen. Yet We assure you that from the standpoint of the Supreme Being, there is no chance. God’s ultimate reality is neither capricious nor whimsical. His meaning, His relationships are absolute. They’re just very large.

(I challenge your mind)

I challenge your mind with all these concepts in order to keep returning to the singular fact: this is your home. Reality was deliberately created this way, and it was created this way through the purest love. So when you think, sometimes with fear, about those impenetrable mysteries such as death, you can rest. Rest assured that what God creates, He creates from infinite love and infinite wisdom. So feel at home. Take time out in your busy days to rest--ever so consciously and knowingly, but still: rest. Feel My love and Michael’s peace. Whenever you do come to us, My children, please believe Me, you will have already earned it.

If you have any questions or comments this evening, our home also contains this possibility too.

Dialogue

Student: Mother, if it’s appropriate, would You explain more about the order of beings called Sordoms who remove negative energy from our bodies; and how do we avail ourselves of this service?

NEBADONIA: Yes, C, I’m not certain I can agree with your understanding of what negative energy is, that needs to be removed from your body. Would you explain your concept of this a little more thoroughly?

Student: Yes. I understood it to be negative energy left over from the Adamic Default and from the Lucifer Rebellion, but I have no specifics on it. I read it in one of the transcripts that came from the Minnesota team.

(Negative energy: the Lucifer Rebellion)

NEBADONIA: Yes, I see. These are not the terms I generally use. I like to keep distinct the normal usage of the word energy as pertaining to the impersonal manifestations of physical reality. Whereas what you are suffering because of the Lucifer Rebellion, and Calagastia’s joining it, is highly personal. It is a continuing culture based upon those erroneous concepts that Lucifer and his followers held as to the nature of Michael, and Myself, and the Universal Father.

If you have read His manifesto (Ed: Urantia book—paper 53) you know He professed a number of highly corrosive notions which showed not only a supreme disrespect, but an appalling ignorance of true spiritual realities. But He was only able to ignore these because of an exaltation of himself, a kind of willful blindness that came about from self-exaggeration—the very freedom I mentioned earlier. What He expressed as declarations of freedom were actually license, a denial and ignoring of profound realities simply because they were so much greater than He. He lacked humility in the sense We have been teaching--humility being the perception of something so much more enormous than oneself.

On Urantia this gave rise to a very distinct culture that, as you know, has lasted for many hundreds of thousands of years. And it is the persistence of this culture, which is still so prevalent on your world today, and not some impersonal energy within your body, My son. It is more fundamentally psychological and physical/behavioral: ways of thinking and acting; ways of perceiving with their attendant blindness, misperceptions, denials, and spiritual numbness. There are still persons deliberately training youngsters in the exaltation of ego and ones own sense of oneself, so that truly obscene acts of cruelty and violence cannot only be justified, but celebrated, even entertaining.

(The true spiritual wealth of your soul)

Living within this kind of culture can make you ill because it is all essentially a fraud, perpetrated on the innocent and the gullible. It’s a supreme exercise in cynicism. The most direct way out of this maze is by getting and staying in touch with your own personal life and the true spiritual wealth of your soul. And this is most directly done with the practice of stillness We encourage you to cultivate.

Do you remember I once recommended that to get some sense of proportion between what you call the positive and the negative in life, you sometimes have to escape from the competitive, entertainment aspect of the news and pop-culture media--a kind of horror-mongering one-ups-manship, and regain a deep sense of your own positive existence? Do you remember that, My son?

Student: Yes, Mother, I do.

(Renewing oneself: His power and self-power)

NEBADONIA: You can think of some negative influence on your life as a negative energy, if you wish. But keep in mind it is highly personal; personal in its origin with personal beings and, while true enough this culture persists in artifacts--in writings, in buildings, in monuments, it is mainly carried by living people and passed on from generation to generation. This will go on until there comes a time when one generation gains the supreme courage to absorb whatever negative karma impacts it, lets it die with them, and does not pass it on. But to do this you must constantly renew yourself, and this you can do with the help We have offered, Michael and I, and the presence of God within you. Does this answer your question, My son?

Student: It does make it a lot clearer--where the energy comes from and how it is appearing in my life. I like the idea of renewing myself, constantly, through You and Michael and the Heavenly Father. Thank You, Mother.

NEBADONIA: You are welcome, My son. Let Me note for the readers, that in your lively discussion earlier this evening, you were all reaching for a feeling and an experience of what you yourselves are--the fundamental reality We call your personality. While this is not your ego, and can never be an object of direct perception, it is intrinsically minded and has its own spiritual nature. So this too you all have--you all are. You are a creation of God with the power of free will. Granted, it takes a lifetime learning how to use it, but you can exercise it, you can choose to do your best to perceive and follow God’s will, trusting that His fountain of creativity is what renews you.

In addition--now don’t let this go to your head, so to speak--(group laughs)--this is not to feed your ego; but you yourself also have power. This is what free will is. We call you a creature of will dignity. You manifest this dignity by choosing, as highly consciously as you can. So never lose sight of this too, My son. This is how you renew yourself. And be in My love.

Student: Thanks again, Mother.

Student: Mother, would You be so kind as to indicate what the upshot of today’s lesson was for us, maybe in its practical implication of what You were saying about time and history and free will, and all these great things? It would be helpful to perhaps get a restatement in a succinct way.

(Mother Spirit: Recapitulated)

NEBADONIA: Yes, B, it has been the object of many of Our lessons simply to introduce you to yourself. Here Michael and I have decided to articulate dimensions of human reality. Some of these you already know and are quite familiar with, and you can use the lesson as a kind of checklist. Others may be quite new to you, you have to read and re-read over and over, and really stretch your imagination, to get some feeling of the reality that Our words can only point toward. (Yes)

This is, in part, to assuage your fear of the unknown, of inklings you get from time to time of being lost in a maelstrom of space and time beyond comprehension or grasping. (Right) And so We reassure you this is simply your home, not some hallucination or kind of boogey-man chasing you in your moments of depression or exhaustion, (Yep) but real perceptions of a reality that is quite unbounded. (Yes) And as I mentioned to D one time, there is much We can say knowing it is being recorded and will be capable of being read and studied to your heart’s content later. So I am aware that I do stretch your attention at times. I can only hope you enjoy the stretch.

In expressing some of these truths, I anticipate some of the erroneous concepts of reality they seem to contradict, and also I try to put them in a new and fresh way for your comprehension, rather than just reshuffling the old deck of previous concepts. (Yeah) If I do so at some length it is only to afford you some longer time in My mind. (students laugh) So bear with Me, My son, We do appreciate the human quality of patience, and hope We are not requiring too much long-suffering. (students laugh)

Student: I think You are the one that’s long-suffering.

NEBADONIA: Well, as Michael and I have said before, We are quite fortunate in not needing such human virtues. (students laugh) Were there any other questions, My son?

Student: Yeah, I think so. What rises to the surface is all my concern about the moves that are being made now on the planet by what would appear to be the last breath or the last stand of the Luciferic forces, and I wonder what… You mentioned that there is a culture of the Luciferic forces that’s survived for hundreds of thousands of years, and I’m always curious, after studying The Urantia book and listening to transmissions, as to whether there is a way to point to any given institution or any system of some grouping of men, or some government or some identifiable entity, some secret society, which one could look at, to study to see this force as it now exists on the planet? Or is it really just an attitude that you can find anywhere, You know, in any place, in any government, in any family, in any institution that one could call the Luciferic culture?

Could You recall if that’s what is meant by the Luciferic culture--as a very loose application of the term culture? So I wonder if You could help clarify as to, You know, how one could identify that culture if it survives today?

(The Lucifer Rebellion’s Persisting Culture)

NEBADONIA: I can’t answer exactly in the categories as you delineated them, but it’s mostly an attitude--in The Urantia book sense--the willingness and the ability to relate to reality. And here I’ll emphasize the individual’s ability or inability to relate to full spiritual reality. This is very much an individual thing that permeates all the different races and nation states of the world. You can very easily get a grasp of it if you think of human beings along a dimension from the most spiritual, in the sense of truly serving their fellow human beings, to the other extreme of those who are most viscously and cynically depriving their fellows of happiness and life.

So within every nation state, within every race of peoples, there are those organizations of individuals gathered together to truly spiritually serve others, and there are other organizations which have as their reason for being the exploitation of their fellows. (Yes) And this culture, this learned behavior, exists to some degree in almost everyone, excepting only someone you might think of as a pure saint, an individual who gives their total life to others. (Yes)

On the other extreme are those who are turning out what you call acts of terrorism, and not only physical violence, but those who perpetrate economic slavery, or different kinds of racial or cultural warfare. (Yes) When you think of human governments, and you can see the individuals within, they cover this whole spectrum, plus all varieties of those who may be quite naively doing great damage unintentionally, and even those who may be bestowing some benefits quite unknowingly. There’s certainly no lack of irony in human behavior.

I would just caution against any kind of simplistic attempt to assign this or associate it in a generalized way. You have Our cautions about the limits of generalizations. (Yes) In evaluating individuals or organizations, My son, simply look for the effect. (Yes) A tree is known by the fruit it bears: you have many sayings that point this way. (Yes) But just generally speaking: there is no whole race or group of people either purely evil or purely enlightened. Does that help you get some grasp of the situation?

Student: Immensely, thank You so much.

NEBADONIA: This is just one more instance, My son, in which, when you think deeply about what you are confronting, you are immediately face to face with the limits of your own ability to comprehend so many thousands, even millions of unique individuals out there. (Yes) This is very humbling. But don’t let it stifle your desire to understand. (Yes) Keep reaching, keep trying to be as open as you can. This way you keep growing. Were there any other questions?

Student: That will do it for the moment. Thank You so much.

NEBADONIA: You are quite welcome. Be in My love. (Yes)

Student: Yes, Mother, there is so much churning on inside of me right now. One of the things I thought about in the discussion with B was, what we see in the world today is, in a sense, a perversion of God’s reality, to allow ones agenda, ones ego to prevail. But there are, such as You say, these millions of unique individuals in this world, and no matter how sinister they are, and as You and Michael have pointed out, they are infinite potential as well; and that there is a bond within all of us, and that is God’s reality, God’s truth, God’s love. That’s how I kind-of grapple with what I read and hear, the terror and the genocide and the evil, is to know that beneath all that, and beyond all that, is God’s intention for each and every one of us; that these constructs that we are experiencing are parts of the perversion of His wholeness and His love and His will.

My thoughts on driving here tonight, and You alluded to it as well, was the idea of freedom, and what that means to me, and all of us. As You mentioned, we can even be free within the confines of our own limitations--of what we have come to understand. So I’m kind-of grappling with what that means for me in the choices I make, and sometimes I feel, I keep on thinking of this, this game show that was on: Let’s Make A Deal, where you have three choices. Now if I choose, one choice has everything I could dream of; one where it’s not helpful at all; and there’s one that’s just complacency. So I’m afraid sometimes of making a wrong choice, not congruent with my best interests at hand—my soul. I’m facing that dilemma right now. Also I’m afraid of conning myself into believing that something is going to turn out a certain way; my idealism gets in the way of my realism, even to the point of pain. It’s like the Zen koan I mentioned before, about the monk who keeps picking up a scorpion in the hope it will someday stop stinging him. And You mentioned: let a scorpion be a scorpion. Yet I keep getting caught up on the same dilemma. I hope I’m making sense out of all this.

NEBADONIA: Well D, it certainly makes sense to Me…

Student: May I say something? (Certainly…) It’s what You said to me two weeks ago, about the wisdom of…how I said I was always getting an understanding after the fact, but I needed to be wise as I’m going through what I’m going through. That’s what I mean about conning myself. I don’t what to con myself into thinking a certain thing will happen. Because I know I have this pattern of holding onto things beyond their value.

(The nature of decision: hindsight and foresight)

NEBADONIA: This is very understandable to Me for you are expressing the living nature of decision, and how being open requires all these considerations. But what I was trying to convey before is: how does one gain foresight from clearly understanding hindsight? Hindsight is just understanding what you’ve experienced so far, and foresight means being able to project this into the future so you do not—as you say—fool yourself. This is most easily understood in terms of bad habits, such as drug additions, where you know from long experience there is a certain pleasure associated with this behavior, but afterwards the price to be paid seems to be overwhelmingly negative compared to the good derived.

This could be an addiction to love--or what you mistake for love, as well as any chemical. It could be for power; all the things that have enormous promise before the fact, then appear afterward as if you’ve allowed yourself to be fooled one more time. You have the feeling you should have known better.

(The need for feedback)

So tonight I want you to look at this. There are some things you cannot know before you try them. So you have to be very careful after the fact, when this particular experiment did not go too well at all, be very exact here as to whether you could have known this before, or not. Then with this in hand, this knowledge, you can more thoroughly assess what you call "hanging on." This is peculiar because sometimes you feel you are being overly positive in terms of generosity, or giving folks a second, and third, and forth, and fifth chance when they don’t appear to be responding. This is that hard reality to accept—the concept of tough love where you deliberately hold individuals accountable to what they themselves have promised you—not out of vindictiveness, but because you realize they need the feedback. They need to experience the consequences of their choices, and you only encourage their immaturity by acting as too much a cushion between them and reality.

But you express well the living moment-to-moment quality of these decisions. The only way out is the slow growth of wisdom and self-knowledge. This is the definition of not fooling yourself. Does this make sense?

Student: (laughing) Very much so. I do have this problem of giving folks fourth, fifth, sixth chances, in spite of my own pain and anguish about it all. I seem to be one of those "grin and bear it" types, and chalk it up to experience. I try to learn from these things, and experience the presence of God at the same time. Michael asked last week: where is the freedom in all this? I should question: where is my freedom? There are numerous possibilities confronting me, of any which way I could go. I don’t want to limit myself, or another person’s freedom.

NEBADONIA: My son, there’s no shortcut through this thicket. (Yeah) This is the living nature of decisions, and being aware of how much you yourself are choosing your own future. Some have very wisely called this the fear of freedom, which has so often lead great numbers of people to choose totalitarian, rather paternalistic social and governmental systems—the root of fascism, if you will.

Student: Where does this idea I have in mind come from, that I need to suffer this pain or this suffering—this is what God wants me to do: that God wants me to be in this relationship, or God kind-of tests me, tests my mettle? I mean why do I have these thoughts? Why do I give people four or five or six chances?

NEBADONIA: I would say it is even more fundamental than that. Why is it abrading you that you do so? (Say that again?) Why does it abrade you, why does it cause you pain to do so? This is just the mechanism by which you are evaluating what you are doing. When I say there are no shortcuts through this thicket; another way of saying this is: this is going into the battle, going into the fray of choosing, that’s unavoidable if you wish to be free, and know yourself. This is all highly commendable, except you need to take a break from it from time to time. You can’t let it get too relentless, or you are just adding one more self-abrading loop. (Yes—I feel that ‘s been going on) So We say: take a break! It will come around again…(I know, I know…) but you need to rest from time to time. Rest deeply. Let it all go. Be satisfied. This is loving yourself. This is supporting yourself. Then go into it again, and try to understand yourself as best you can, and evaluate things. So you will know moments when everything is wide open, and you cannot know yet, you do not yet have this evaluation. But then you evaluate and decide, say: OK—this person has to go, in my life. You make that decision, and act upon it. Then you stay open to the consequences. Take a break and catch up to yourself: re-unify.

Student: I do understand the responsibility is up to me, how I handle it. It’s me no matter what environment or situation; it’s always me, and I can’t run away from that. But it’s daunting when You and Michael point out some decisions are irrevocable, like the past is the past and can never be changed. So that’s a lot of responsibility resting on the understanding of the choices involved.

NEBADONIA: Never forget, My son, the root meaning of responsibility is the ability to respond. It is a real ability. (long pause)

(The value of flexibility)

One final thing is a way of visualizing your dilemma. See yourself getting more and more flexibility in the intensity of your questioning. In other words, rather than having a kind of steady, monotonous and enervating go at it, stretch out to the extremes by taking a break of no questioning at all; then other times even intensify this penetrating evaluation. This is a further ability to gain as part of a growing maturity: flexibility. For it means at one and the same time becoming more decisive, and yet ever more sensitive to yourself and others. It’s a goal, an ideal to think about.

Student: Thank You very much.

Closing

NEBADONIA: You are welcome. Again, I think it will help you to reread this. (Yes, it will—Yes, it will. [laughing—heavy sigh] I just desire to live in truth…) Well, rest assured that while the desire does not guarantee the result, there is no result without that desire.

I feel it has been a wonderful evening…(group: Yes, Yes) We’ve once again thrown a big loop around human reality and tried to make more complete your philosophy of life. This is another way of loving life. Do you remember Welmek’s lessons years and years ago, of learning, and loving, and life, and all the combinations: learning to love; loving to learn; learning to live; living to learn; loving to live; living to love? This is the spiritual value of your human philosophy and, as your Urantia book tells you, one of the first things you will be taught over on the other side are what are called Morontia Mota, or spiritual laws, that begin right where the highest human philosophy leaves off. This is how you know, My children, that this philosophizing is worth it; when it actually does something! It is the moment to moment grasp that, however you realize with your growing wisdom you have to let go again the next moment to reach for more, still these are little, temporal way-stations of having something you will enjoy throughout eternity—these unique realizations in time without which eternity would be a monotonous hell of sameness. We can thank God it is not. Go in My love, and allow yourselves to rest. Good evening.