2006-06-04-The Floater, The Rock, & The Boat

Session

Opening

Nancy: Our Father, we thank You for this incredible opportunity that You have provided to us to learn more about You and how You want us to be, and for the help you have available to us. Help us to take advantage of this opportunity that You provide to us. Help us become more vulnerable; help us to grow and to continue on the path before us. Amen.

KLARIXISKA (Virginia): This is Klarixiska, and I would add one more thing to what vulnerability can be. Certainly an expression of vulnerability is experienced every time you serve someone else. Yes, the reason is because you expose yourself to their responses. You are not sure how they will interpret your actions. And, yet, Jesus, when he was on Earth, made it very plain that by service, which is an expression of love, shall all people know that you are indeed a child of God. That is all.

DANIEL (Nancy): Greetings friends, I am Daniel. You may have noticed that we are attempting to change the predictability of the format somewhat. We commend your willingness and ability to go with the flow even though it causes discomfort. Indeed does predictable structure provide comfort that comes from a sense of security, and so we have recognized this need and obliged you in the past. For this structure—security—was needed to assist your growth as was the kind of format that was being used with one or two designated TRs and then listening students participating in a lesson. We are attempting to broaden our use of both TR’s and teachers, and while we are in no way requiring this…

Greetings as LaReen arrives

DANIEL: Greetings, LaReen. Welcome. We are glad you made the effort to join your, my word is "comrades," Nancy’s is "friends," here tonight. I am Daniel. I was acknowledging a change in the format that in some ways was most apparent last week and continued into this week. Our purpose is to broaden the use of both TRs and teachers, and while this is the goal, it is not required or expected this evening. This is a trend we are attempting to promote, and, as such, we are removing the security of the format that you have used and understood for many years. With these words, I relinquish the microphone so that a lesson, possibly interactive, can be facilitated by another. My love to you all. It remains my thrill and my pleasure to be your teacher, Daniel.

AARON (Bob D): Greetings my friends, I am Aaron. It is my pleasure to be here with you tonight, and though I would love to engage you interactively, I would put that aside so that I might be able to share a story, or perhaps utilize imagery to create thought and understanding.

Lesson

The first character in this story we’ll call the floater. The floater rides the currents and drifts wherever the seas may take him. There is no tie that binds, no structure that contains, and so the floater freely moves not knowing what may be around the corner.

The second character in this story is the rock. The rock cannot float even if presented with the information whereby it could float. The rock would not be able to progress, for the rock is full of structure, knows exactly how life is, does not feel the need to travel, but rather rests in the comfortability at the bottom of the stream knowing all there is to know within its range of vision.

The third character in the story is a boat, a ship. This boat also has the ability to freely travel, to explore out on the seas and yet the boat has the ability to drop anchor like the rock, to sink to the bottom and allow for a stabilizing influence when needed in the journey.

The floater has an exhilarating existence—little security, but out on the edge exploring. The rock is full of security, while the boat knows security and exploration are both elements in the journey which provides for balanced growth.

And so while we encourage you to move out from the security of a stable pattern to not see your meetings as necessarily being to sit down with listeners and speakers, lesson, questions, answers, we do understand the value of not pushing you so far on the edge as to create instability and the perspective of not knowing what to expect, feeling uncertain about your role. But exploration in your journey should come from your desire to know more, rather than forcing the issues.

And so what we would like to encourage is for you each to contemplate what it is that you really wish to receive from this process—this collective coming together and engaging in spiritual exploration. Think about this. Is it just the comfort of coming to a familiar place, or do you want to, yes, enjoy the fellowship, but also explore further to deeper levels of spiritual attainment? A group is only as strong as the desires and interests of its members. Limitations are imposed not by ourselves, but only in our recognition of what you are willing to receive. And so more than a decade later, we would like to stir the pot and allow you to refocus on what you would like to receive from this process.

Do you want to be a rock, a floater, or a ship? For in the end, we will come to you at the level that you choose, regardless. For we know that even a rock can find influence in their realm of observation and growth. So I hope in this relation this evening that I have sufficiently stirred the pot and allowed some insight and some opportunity for contemplation of what you would like to engage in as you proceed in this Teaching Mission. At this time, I would gladly engage and interact with you as Daniel is present and others as well. I welcome you and your inquiries.

Dialogue

LaReen: Aaron, this is irony in its finest. I have spent three days in Salt Lake on everybody else’s schedule, and today from 7 a.m. till I got to Clearfield, the schedule has changed every half hour on me with other people. And I thought, okay, I just need to get to class where it is stable. Excuse me if I just let it soak in that I know with growth you have to shake things up, but my thought on the road coming here was thank goodness for the stability of the teachers and the group. But I guess I am going to change and grow whether I like it or not. Personally, I like the interaction and I like the honesty and the love of the teachers. You do push us, you help us, or you reach that hand down to us and growth is good.

AARON: Dear friend, I would like to add a few thoughts. The stability is still here, for we are present and not about to pull up our anchors, and, yet, change is the greatest element in creating growth. So we will always encourage you to look beyond. I hope that the relation about floaters and rocks and ships helps you in your awareness today for you are not required to be tossed this way and that way and every which way, but rather can ultimately decide these things and make choices for yourself.

Nancy: Aaron, when I think about floaters and ships and rocks, part of me wants to know what is the best? Mostly I am evaluating ships versus floaters. On the one hand, I can’t even imagine being a floater right now, but what is appealing about the idea of being a floater is that a floater has really just surrendered. There must be this incredible sense of peace and ease with being a floater. You know there is a bunch of philosophies around, and I am very attracted to that because I feel so tired, and this would be the idea of just being out on an air mattress almost and being kind of rocked this way and that. It is incredibly appealing though I can’t imagine surrendering in a way to have that happen in my life right now.

The concept of the ship is nice in that it is balanced, except the security of the ship is false because it will get into a terrible storm, and you can’t drop anchor when you are in the deep ocean and, you know, so forth. And the other thing about being a ship is there are all these choices you have to make. And on the one hand, you can be the captain of the ship and guide it and everything, but there is an awful lot of responsibility with taking that on.

Then you know there is being a rock and just enjoying watching the water, the world go by from your secure little place. And things change when you are a rock because the water changes and the creatures change and so forth.

And, so, I guess I am looking for a little more guidance. What are we supposed to be becoming? I don’t think it is the rock, but I don’t know if it is the floater or the ship, or how the ship can take the aspects of the rock and the floater that reflect God’s will and put them together and maybe that is the very hard task that is in front of us. I don’t know, so I would like a little more from you.

AARON: Thank you for your words. I would lovingly throw out a phrase that is not meant to chastise, but perhaps you are over-thinking it, so to speak.

Nancy: Me? Not possible. (Group is laughing.)

AARON: In relating concepts, remember that you must adopt the definitions of the story teller rather than think about everything a rock might be, or everything a floater might be. And in essence, the story is to relate a point more like a parable, where there is a central point to be made and not necessarily having every element of the story have some underlying meaning. In that vein you can understand that the rock is stuck in its own perspective. I am willing to even acknowledge the new fish and the new surroundings as being there. It cannot see beyond the comfortable, rigid parameters it has set for itself.

The floater is at the whim and mercy of the elements. It cannot truly control its surroundings, whereas the ship or the boat has the ability to make decisions, choose whether to float or become like a rock and in some sense adapt to the environment. A ship in a storm would be much safer than a floater in a storm, even if there is still peril for the ship.

And so I hope from this relation that you can see that all possible definitions may not apply in the story, but rather the symbolic imagery is to help you to understand a perspective on balance between freedom and structure. Does this help you?

Nancy: It helps immensely. Thank you. I did over think it, and, in so doing, I did miss the point. So thank you for clarifying.

AARON: We live in a world where everybody wants black and white, but everything is gray and therefore it is easy to read meanings into just about everything. That is the reason why Jesus adopted the use of parables rather than using allegories. An allegory has an underlying meaning into everything. And so, perhaps it is better to view the world from the viewpoint of parables rather than looking at it as one big allegory.

Nancy: Thank you.

Virginia: Aaron, when you were describing these characters, the rock certainly is a black and white world and it is truly a secure place to be. I have been there, done that. I have never been a floater, but to me I like the sense of the boat. I think it is because I can trust the boat more than I can the air mattress on the ocean. Because the boat would provide a certain amount of security and you can direct it to new shores, new ideas, and maybe even put your anchor down for awhile and enjoy the security that is there. When you were speaking of the storms, I could see me pulling down all the sails so that the boat would not be as moveable in the storm, because security would be very important in the middle of a ravaging storm.

The thought I had when you were describing the rock was the Parable of the Talents that was told and how the one who buried the talent and was not willing to change that talent is something else that came to my mind because it isn’t just the matter of the returning, this is of course the Urantia interpretation which just floored me when I finally realized what it was saying, that the person was being chastised not for giving back the coin, but for not changing the coin. And so, you know the rock is far more secure, change is the name of the game. And I guess that is really the experience. It would have to be either the air mattress, the floater, or the boat and I guess I would choose the boat because I would have more choice. But thank you. I will be thinking about those descriptions this week without a doubt.

AARON: And recognize that the very nature and evolution of boats coming into existence and being fine tuned is also reflective of one honing their talents and changing their environment to adapt and make themselves more successful when battling against the elements.

Thank you for your own level of teaching brought into this group environment by sharing the thoughts and experiences that stem from my stimulating you. The one aspect of the group process that could evolve more is to have this freedom to share from your experience some of the insights and lessons that come up as a result of our interaction. And yes, this has occurred in the past, but yet we do perceive sometimes that you are all somewhat reticent to throw your hat in the ring, so to speak, and really engage the process.

Marty: Could you also look at the boat as a place of rest as well, too? I think of boating as, especially if you have been out in a storm or whatever, you come in to anchor then you can kind of rest and regroup yourself ready to go back out at a later time when you are rested, revived and ready to face things again if you want to use the term, and so to me the boat gives you the best of both worlds, and you can float and change, but when you are tired and need a little bit of rest and relaxation, you can put down anchor and it gives you some security while you do that.

AARON: Absolutely. You do get the point and alternating possibilities that the boat affords by having both an anchor and whatever propulsion that allows it to move and be directed. One is not required to battle the stormy seas continuously and this may also relate to Nancy’s early inquiry in the sense that the ship can be the rock at times by laying anchor and jumping overboard with your flotation device to lay in the sun for awhile. Withdrawal and reflection are not only acceptable, but encouraged when you are engaging an active world. The extent of the withdrawal can lead to becoming too comfortable, not engaging however, and thus there is even a balance necessary in realizing how long of a respite to take.

Hopefully, with these three characters you can see that there is truly a middle ground that is being asked for, and we bring this up tonight because of the changes in group dynamics that are encouraged. You have changed the frequency of your meetings and in making these changes there is potentially a period of instability and often groups can dissipate and dissolve in the midst of instability merely out of the desire to not feel uncertain. And, so, we ask you to proactively make decisions for how, when, how long, how often to have your meetings, but also to take into account that these decisions should not interrupt the dedicated focus, the spiritual growth, regardless of how often they occur.

Are there other questions tonight?

LaReen: I have been a floater most of my life and a rock, never a ship, and that makes complete sense to me, because my thoughts today being here was I need more stability. I don’t handle change as well as I used to, I could roll with it, but wouldn’t the stability of our father fragment, or our Spirit of Truth, our communication with our Fathers and Mother, wouldn’t that be the ship?

AARON: I would see the ship being your vessel and the indweller being the pilot, or rather the copilot. Therefore the decision making process is still yours and the vessel is your body that which contains you. You could even see yourself as the navigator with the indweller being the pilot or vice versa as these roles become interchangeable. But in no instance are you able to jump ship and abandon it, for you are the ship. Unless, of course, you move out of the material into the spiritual and then we could become more and more figurative and symbolic which would be fun to do, but may lose the impact of the point.

LaReen: Thank you very much.

AARON: I am trying to be humorous.

LaReen: Keep trying.

AARON: There is another who would like to close your meeting today, so I will step back and thank each for listening to my words and look forward to further conversation with you in conjunction with Daniel and Minearsia and others in the weeks to come. Good Evening.

Nancy: Thank you, Aaron. It was very helpful.

Closing

MICHAEL (Nancy): I am Michael. I desire a word. My children, I understand the desire for stability. I also understand the desire for the exhilaration of no bounds for I lived a mortal life in which I knew extreme uncertainty beginning with the uncertainty of who I was that I grappled with as a child and a young man. And then I certainly knew the confines of structure both personally, as a provider for my mother and my siblings, and socially within the rigidity of Jewish culture and law. In those times I longed for freedom to pursue my destiny, to achieve my status and to reveal my true nature.

Beloved children, you can talk with me, you can sit up on My knees, rest your head upon My shoulder, hold My hand and walk with Me, and I will walk with you. You are not alone. Abundant help is available to you through Me, through your Mother, through our Father, through our abundant children who work in service to us and thereby to you. Be at peace. You can find this balance. You are my beloved children. I wrap you in my arms and give a big hug, a warm embrace. That is all, dear ones. Go in peace.