2006-08-14-The Puzzle of Discovering New Values

Session

Opening

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, Well, along came a flu bug and wiped us out for a week, but: We’re back! We thank You for Your very practical and down-to-earth suggestions on how we can orient ourselves so that the spiritual dimension of reality becomes more conscious and perceptible in our lives. We’ve truly found this to be a wonderful, fabulous influx of value, day by day. The feeling of Your presence, Michael; then becoming more and more aware how You influence our thinking, Mother Spirit; and the contributions made by our own Father Fragment helping us connect our moments and suggesting those bright ideas of the next step to take: for all of this we are truly thankful for Your helping us understand what spirit is, and being able to perceive it. Amen.

MICHAEL: Good evening, My dear children, this is Michael. As Mother and I have so often said, it is such a delight to see you moving from your initial contact with Us to where you are now summoning quite a lot of nerve--to alter your lives, to entertain and try some of Our suggestions. Now you are having glorious moments when this spiritual reality of human life becomes so much more obvious, when you see yourselves growing along this dimension of increased appreciation and value.

Lesson

Here you are often face to face with somewhat of a puzzle of discovering values that are new to you and yet, in a way, were always there--the real spiritual dimension of human and extra-human reality--your whole Celestial Family. But remember, My children, you are experiential beings. Your experience of life is the basic reason why you are here, and it is this experience of life that, with the help of your Father Fragment--the presence of God in your mind--the two of you weave together your immortal soul.

So even though it seems you are often only discovering something that was already here, there is a great truth in this. This should not in any way diminish the discovery itself, the joy of the discovery, the wonderful consciousness of a pre-existing reality. In fact, it is only by keeping a real good, honest track of your experiences--how they happened, when they happened, why they happened, you avoid the curse of Monday Morning Quarterbacking We’ve talked about. This is when you may be feel stricken with guilt because you didn’t discover something sooner, or you didn’t take certain critical considerations to heart before you actually discovered them. So one more way of being truly kind to yourself is by keeping track of how you gained your experience, trying as best you can to keep in touch with your soul. It helps to realize you are just beginning, just taking the first few hesitant steps on an eternal journey.

You--your unique personality, created by God--did not enjoy a previous human lifetime. There in no way you can know certain things until you experience them, and every single one of you starts out as a newborn babe. True, you inherit the entire story of evolution of your planet right in your little physical body, and this heredity will be playing a game of leapfrog with your environment in determining partly who you will become. But with acquiring a fragment of the Father at a young age--the beginning of the soul, and especially if you were fortunate enough to be raised in a relatively open society that encouraged you to be a free-thinker, very early on you developed a sense of yourself and a strong desire to be your own person, to achieve a genuine freedom of thinking, of feeling, and perceiving. This has been the focus of Our last several lessons, telling you this is not only a lifelong process, but an eternal process, of constantly giving up what you know for greater knowledge, forgetting yourself to be open to all these marvelous beings around you.

I too once had to totally relinquish Myself, as self-conscious Michael, to be a human baby, a youngster, a teenager, a young man. Many schools of Oriental philosophy posit this as the Big Game--the Largest Event happening, where the One Being forgets Himself in order to become the multiplicity of the universe, all for the delight, after endless trillions and trillions of years, endless Kalpas of time, of rediscovering it is all One. We simply say that this is the supreme paradox to human reasoning: that reality is truly One, yet infinitely Diverse at the same time. Both are equally real.

So, to a very large degree, My children, you do recapitulate this Big Game. Your self-consciousness slowly emerges, generally with a great deal of anxiety and pain when, as a small child, your budding, immature mind first realizes that you are separate from your mother. Small babies will often cry out not just from hunger or needing to be changed, but with a true existential anguish. They are recapitulating the whole universe when it resounds with a cry: I am! And thus ensue all the dozens of stages of this singularly unique individual relating to his or her world.

During your last lesson Mother Spirit mentioned a transformation within society of going from a very rigidly controlled, top-down autocracy, to one of true democracy including all the peoples there are. From the point of view of one of the rulers, the growth of individual freedom among their followers appears as some kind of threatening chaos. But this is unavoidable as more and more individual creativity begins to assert itself throughout the population.

Tonight I would like you to consider this transformation within the microcosm of your own self. For most individual human beings go through the same stages that societies have gone through as they matured, all through history, within all the various countries of the world. As social organization expanded from extended families, through tribal organizations, and confederations of tribes, to the beginning of city states, then large empires, on to some of the recognizable, more modern nations, so too your social consciousness expanded from your family and immediate neighborhood, to your city, state, and nation, hopefully on to the whole world. There has been a parallel evolution of individual freedom and the right to determine your own governmental organizations that has also, just so very recently within the last few centuries, emerged within some of the more developed countries of the world.

What I’m suggesting tonight, My children, is that as individuals you go through a similar process of maturation, from necessarily accepting the mores and values of your immediate family, then your neighborhood and your local school. As a young, immature person as yet lacking any extensive experience of life, you try to glean certain principles from what you do know, what you have experienced personally. And sometimes the harsh necessities of life force you to be a bit of a fundamentalist yourself. You feel a great imperative to believe in these hard earned early discoveries .

We mentioned a period of late-adolescent indifference you often go through when these fundamentalist beliefs of yours begin to be encounter a broader context--contrary beliefs in ways of looking at things. Often many individuals will form a kind of totalitarian relationship right within their own mind and, with feelings of hatred and denial, struggle to maintain an assurance they don’t need to entertain other viewpoints, since other principles of reality will surely make only relative their own cherished, but isolated beliefs.

And so We encourage you to keep going. It isn’t that you have to go through these various stages of your maturation that is the problem. It is that many folks get stuck somewhere along the way and, tragically, settle for a few small scraps of reality compared to what they are capable of achieving. And so Mother mentioned that when you have an inner certainty you have reality all wrapped up and tied with a neat bow, it takes great courage to entertain other viewpoints for the uncertainty this immediately causes.

You may have a feeling: Well, if I’m a democracy inside, full of all these different viewpoints and contending opinions, then what happens to "me." Am I going to disappear in some deluge of chaos? I won’t know what’s right. I won’t know what to think. I might even have reoccurring overtones of those very first childish, existential fears of being alone and separate in a gigantic world. Yet this, My children, is the profound difference between clinging to a simple-minded notion of reality, and someday finding true spiritual unity within a whole world of viewpoints.

Can you now see the necessity for letting go of yourself without fear, trusting you will pop up again to yourself?--but then in possession of a truer, much more enormously subtle comprehension of all these viewpoints you’ve come to understand? So think about being a true democracy within yourself. This is just another way of pointing you at the open-mindedness We’ve given so many lessons on; what it is, how to achieve it, how to maintain it and keep it growing.

True enough, it is a process that is never finished, but this is only to say the path towards truth is eternal, is without end. No being can put a limit on the potential on your personality to grow, and this is how you become your own person. There is nothing to fear. Your awareness of yourself actually grows as well, only now it is much more broadly-based, much more curious, much more mature looking back at all the one-time certainties you had that simply proved finite.

We would point you at the Infinite as your true birthright. It just takes some getting used to. You might feel the ground falling out from underneath you, crumbling beneath your feet, a kind of initial shock as you open yourself to how big It All is. And here I’m speaking of your day-to-day life, the great spiritual values that replace your feelings of mundane reality.

To be a true democracy within yourself, to be unafraid to consider any viewpoint that crosses your path, to be curious and actively seek to understand, especially those contrary viewpoints to what you may treasure; this is the constant stream of what is ever new in God’s creation. It is ever there for you to discover—a constant, but always a unique experience each time you do. So become one with the Big Game. Lose yourself to reappear. This is how you lose your fear. This is how you discover spirit, and embrace the adventure of finding it.

I’m always right by your side giving you My company. I ask you to consciously welcome Me as your friend, and share your life with Me. You are safe in Mother Spirits’ arms, My children. You have a fragment of God himself right within you. Bringing more spirit into your life is largely a matter of understanding what it is--so you can recognize it everywhere.

If you have any questions or comments this evening, I invite you to feel free to express what your heart longs to know.

Dialogue

Student: Father Michael, a friend of mine has some unusual happenings going on in the house she just moved out of. I’ve talked to her about there are no such things as ghosts, and there is no such thing as someone hanging around after they die. But she’s wondering if there is some sort of energy manifestation that’s bothering her? They glimpsed--they meaning the family--a son and daughter and herself, they’ve from time to time glimpsed something, but not actually seeing--like I see another human being. I’m just wondering if You have any comment on that?

MICHAEL: Yes, C, We’ve had many lessons before on the phenomenon of psychological projection, yet it’s sometimes hard for you to credit just how much this is a normal and persistent function of your mind, happening incessantly. I just offered the example of how your understanding of what spirit is, and what it does, actually enables you to perceive it and its workings in your day to day life.

We’ve had some lessons on the nature of empirical method as a kind of perceptual discipline that certain cultures of the human race evolved many centuries ago as a way of settling, if you will, certain arguments about reality. This is the self-discipline of accepting that any proposition you put forward, you have to be able to demonstrate.

Of course, this is most easily done with physical reality. All the laws you learned as physics and chemistry can be reliably repeated and, indeed, most of you have had your laboratory classes, either in high school or college, that trained your mind along these lines. Not accepting something as real unless it could be demonstrated, historically led to an apogee of materialistic thinking, of individuals so enamored with this method that they tended to disregard as some kind of squishy or nebulous reality what was merely psychological.

Indeed, there were great illusions in the Nineteenth Century--of some soon-to-be discovered utopia, simply because they were disregarding the whole mental or psychological dimension of human reality. They thought that certain profound mental and spiritual realities to be demonstrated as easily as the laws of physics, or discounted. This kind of materialistic fundamentalism—soulless materialism-- still rules many peoples’ lives.

But there is another kind of modern mentality that not only embraced this empirical discipline, but then went on to use it to accept and articulate the psychological dimensions too. For scientific method did create, actually create in peoples’ minds, an understanding of natural law that has gotten you to standing on the moon, people living in outer space, or exchanging living body parts: all you know of as science.

So the psychological realm was also brought into ever sharper focus by the contradistinction. Without a thorough understanding of these two realms of human experience, My son, individuals can credit a whole number of what We could call fringe phenomena of perception, and give them reality. A little streak of light seen out of the corner of their eye, an inexplicable sense of energy, can become a person or a being. I am in no way belittling this kind of mentality for if this is your orientation, if this is your starting point or point of departure, these fringe phenomena will be experienced as real. This may seem like I’m going a long way around to explain why some folks truly believe they are experiencing ghosts or other beings, but these were common experiences of people before the disciplines of science and the discoveries of psychology.

I’m only pointing out that in terms of projection, all your reality is colored by your own notions as to what is real. A person who does not believe in ghosts will simply never perceive them. Perhaps by understanding these different stages the human race has come through, and how each stage is necessary for both individual and social development, individuals can understand the need for these disciplines of thinking and perceiving. Does this help, My son?

Student: It seems to me that projection is a lot more powerful than I thought. I understand that everything I see is a projection in my mind, but I hadn’t seen how powerful that was. I just assumed that was the way things are; and what I’m getting at is: I’m not quite sure, until I read the transcript again, what the explanation is.

I think that You’re saying that people can believe these things as if they are real, and other people won’t even notice them, depending on their outlook on life.

MICHAEL: Yes, My son, this is exactly what I meant. As Urantia is rather unique because of its history, because it is far from being unified on a planetary scale, you have all these stages of mankind’s slow maturity still existing on the planet. You still have ghost cults, and voodoo, and magic, ruling some peoples’ lives. It took the scientific method to actually create, for you, a very precisely determined material realm, for before that, human physical reality was hopelessly mixed-up with psychological and spiritual effects. Once you could clearly delineate what was the physical realm, only then could you fully appreciate the psychological, and now, their inter-relatedness.

Projection is nothing you escape; it is simply how you are interpreting reality. Objectivity, the great prize of the clearly-thinking mind, is only relative. It is only by becoming aware of your own subjectivity can you arrive at a greater objectivity. It is only by understanding, and distancing yourself by that very understanding, can you avoid unconsciously identifying with the meanings and values you were raised with. Instead these meanings and values become conscious choices, real personal events. By striving to be objective, striving to be a citizen of the world with all its many cultures and stages of civilization, you can appreciate that someday you will be called upon to become a cosmic citizen, and outgrow the parochial attitudes of your birth planet, Urantia.

Student: This seems to me to be a very exciting time to be living. The quest for objectivity is the quest for spiritual growth, I would think. Is that correct?

MICHAEL: Absolutely. Mother Spirit said, be curious and entertain all viewpoints that your mass media and your relatively open, pluralistic society makes available. Treasure and respect this freedom of your media, and do your best to see that it continues to grow. This is the engine of the truly gigantic changes taking place in the world today. This is the great challenge before all peoples everywhere, in every country and social organization—to be a true democracy within, delighting that God has made so many unique individuals. For it is the essential fatherhood, the person-hood, the loving nature of God the father, that makes us all brothers and sisters.

Student: Thank You, Father Michael for being here, with us, with the wisdom and the information You give us. We truly appreciate it.

MICHAEL: You are very welcome My son. It is Our great task, Mother Spirit and I, as well as Our children’s—the Melchizedeks, the Voronodek and Lanondadek Sons, the Angels, the Material Sons and Daughters, the Midwayers—Our purpose to instill in you a profound hope, a really tough and resilient faith, that can enable you to perceive the enormous outworking of Spirit on Urantia, these days. There is that wonderful Christmas carol, "The hopes and fears of all the years," that were met in My birth. And so it can be also your rebirth, day by day, as you grow in spirit and the value of this whole gigantic enterprise, paradoxes and all, coming to fill your soul. (Yes)

We thank our Father for making it an adventure. For even this necessity to let go and courageously loose ourselves, for awhile, in His sheer multiplicity, enables us to discover the meaning and value of being truly democratic within and without, starting within. It starts with the inner delight in discovering the uniqueness of individuals, taking in a multiplicity of viewpoints, rejoicing in the plurality within society. Enjoy it well, My son. It was made for you and you were made for it.

Student: There are times I feel life is burdensome, but more times I think life is a joy. The discovery is what life is all about, and that’s what I want to do. So I thank You for the Correcting Time and the Teaching Mission, and all the help You‘ve given us in this world; and the Heavenly Father for putting all this together.

MICHAEL: That, My son, is the truest worship—giving thanks that actively gives back in appreciation, does it not? (Yes) The greatest shame would be that all this is happening and no one appreciated it. So feel the value in the dimension of spirit going forth. See the masses of people giving way to this person, and then that one, and another. Embrace all the strange, new ideas that can pop into your mind, for your enjoyment, and decisions. Be unafraid. Be unafraid to feel the burdens, My son. Don’t let them scare you, for they are real. It takes real effort to encounter them. But this too is the very stuff of life. It makes possible the ultimate triumph. So we thank our Father too, not only for His spiritual value, but that through the Infinite Spirit’s Cosmic Mind, the Mind-Spirit Adjutants of Mother Nebadonia impinging upon your own personal mind; there is also meaning in your life to be discovered and cherished.

Student: Thank You, Father Michael.

Closing

MICHAEL: It’s been a wonderful evening. (Yes, I agree—{both laugh}) It is My joy to help you take the next step, to grow a little more free in your mind, a little more thankful/worshipful in your attitude, a little more delighted in your soul. Be in My love, and peace. Good evening.