2007-04-23-Spirit, Science, & Mathematics

Session

Opening

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, We find ourselves evermore deeply immersed in both social and political moral evaluations, and so we ask your help. We ask you, Mother Spirit, help us feel your Spirit Adjutants of Worship and Wisdom; and Michael, help us experience your Spirit of Truth, so we can come to this greater spiritual sense of proportion you speak of—eventually, or ultimately, reaching for a world-wide inclusive sense of value and meaning. Help us be open-minded and bring it all back home to where we can continuously re-evaluate our own lives and what steps we need to take to be more healthy, more spiritually sensitive. Amen.

MICHAEL: Good evening, my children, this is Michael, your spiritual father, Creator Son of Nebadon—our Local Universe here in the galaxy. Let's pause a moment and feel ourselves to be citizens of such an enormous realm of God's creativity. For it is all real out here. All this actually exists, moment to moment, along with your own lives. This is your true home, these vast starry realms. They are your true future. You will come to know them, intimately. This is another one of those teasing proportions we invite you to enjoy.

And yet here we are moment to moment feeling ourselves living, all the past and all the future encompassed and tipping on our next breath. Can you feel this actuality, this completeness—now? For every moment not only leads to the next, but is a fulfillment of all that has ever been. And it is yours.

Lesson

Stillness—the ongoing discoveries)

Indeed this present moment is in motion, especially for your order of living being. Yet you can rest right in this motion. This is not an exercise of imagination, my children. Stillness is not something you have to pretend exists. Rather it is letting go even that most subtle activity in discovery. This is the closest you can come to being aware of yourself as a pure time-and-space transcended personality. You are the eye that sees, but cannot see itself. You are this kernel of experiential being, this God-created focus upon which is built an eternal soul—the story, the summation, by a fragment of God himself, of your unique experience.

Don't be discouraged, my children, when you discover this stillness is still, at your stage of development, so very relative, along with everything else. You cannot yet know either your physical, or mental, or spiritual dimensions in anything approaching a pure state, as if they were isolated from each other. But this is due to the power of your personality, whose main function is to unite all these disparate elements of such a complex being. The very unity of the life you experience is itself a spiritual triumph. It puts everything in a living context so that everything eventually, ultimately, does make sense, even those seemingly senseless or meaningless events--so-called—you must grapple with, and try to understand.

But your ability to experience stillness, to experience--when all else is relaxed and allowed to fall away--there is still something there: this is you. This in itself is an ability you must slowly and patiently learn by trial and error. For it is an article of faith that in this one endeavor there is no failure so long as there is a heart-felt attempt. So long as your try your best to achieve this stillness, as it appeals to you, and as you perceive it each particular time—for it too is an evolution—this attempt is spirit.

Think of how radical this is compared to any other human activity, and how it necessarily transcends an innate animal fear of doing nothing—so consciously; which is why it is a spiritual exercise, this attempt to simply relax any and all activities as they arise spontaneously. Consider how difficult, even impossible, this is for some people, how it can bring up an insurmountable terror of ceasing to exist. These are those folks who are precariously committed to hanging on to every desperate thought they fill their minds with in order to maintain even the thinnest sense of self-value and -justification. There are even those who can no longer hold on and are swept away in a terrifying deluge of hallucinations, and are truly suffering with various psychoses. For them there is no stopping, no pause, no peace.

Freedom

And so you can see how the achievement of stillness must be developed to where you have some choice, some way of relaxing right in the midst of the most demanding situation. Think what enormous freedom, what genuine spiritual creativity this gives you. This is the way you can take a break, refresh yourself in your actuality, your real existence, and then start afresh—not only from the blissful unconsciousness of sleep, but in the highest consciousness where you can connect with Mother Spirit and myself, and with the fragment of God that indwells your being.

Last week Mother Spirit introduced certain notions, certain concepts to help you understand the nature of evil actions, for it is our contention, our sure knowledge that evil is inherently different from goodness, and is only a transient reality born of a twisted mind that willfully embraces it. Also there was some question last week after the events at Virginia Tech as to whether, on balance, it was good to show the videos that the killer himself made. I can only ask you to see from our viewpoint how this was beneficial, in spite of the pain it may have cost some people. It is necessary for you to confront the reality of how such a person thinks, and sees himself and the world around him.

Justification

Here you are face to face with the universal need of every individual to see himself or herself, if at all possible, as sane, as living a meaningful and justified life—however distorted or spitefully painful that meaning is. Here you can get some idea of what sense this individual made of things, and perhaps from that, understand how this came about. For there is a distinct difference between a psychopath, who remains fully functional, and a psychotic, who cannot. You even have a useful term of social-pathology, or a sociopath, to designate those who single-mindedly, and with great intelligence and planing over quite a period of time, carry out such horrific anti-social acts.

We applaud how quickly within your mass media you did regain some composure and sought to know the true psychological causes for such an event, how you struggled to make sense of what at first seemed so senseless. You are striving to be open-minded as to the causes and the possible ways of preventing such occurrences in the future.

This is quite a challenge, for each individual's inner need for meaning and sense require such self-justification, I'm sure you can feel the main difference here is that most of you, very early in life, accepted the necessity of conforming yourself, by admitting within yourself, the viewpoints, and feelings, and attitudes of others. You accepted the pain of rejection involved when your advances were rebuffed, or you failed to get any advances from others—all the way back in the sandboxes of childhood.

Evil from the inside-out)

Yet for some excessively shy and inwardly fragile individuals, this risk of failure is not acceptable. On deep and unconscious levels very early on they are determined not to so engage their fellows, and thereby miss all the social skills that come of this trial and error. They end up justifying themselves as having the true integrity, for to them this social intercourse is a compromise of weaklings they are not willing to make. They see themselves having the strength to be alone, and can only regard with a growing contempt and disdain what they consider to be weak people who need each other. Deprived of the feedback from dozens upon dozens of other viewpoints, all this wealth of individuality you have to offer each other, they become arrested and locked up in their own world, meeting the fundamental demand for growth by cultivating excessive self-pride and self-flattering cynicism and narcissism. They end up masking their real insecurity by denying their most essential nature—that of being an experiential being—by refusing broader experience and genuine growth.

Sometimes such individuals willfully and consciously embrace notions of evil actions just for the thrill and self-satisfaction of it. Others indulge a bottomless hatred and anger toward the more socially successful individuals around them.

I only go into this, my children, to show you what is needed to contact such a person who had spent years in this kind of mentality, who willfully rejects as weakness or compromise your overtures of friendship. You can only appreciate the challenge—as they would see it--of having their whole world collapse by acknowledging how many years were wasted ducking this larger social reality. If you apply this challenge to your own life, it would be like admitting that from very early childhood on so much was a horrible mistake, a tragic and stubborn, stunted nowhere-ness. But this is empathy, my children, this is appreciation for the lives some folks live, and why they are so terribly dangerous.

Peace (The blessings of peace of mind)

I thank you for opening your hearts and your minds, to feel and try your best to understand what I had to offer this evening. You can feel truly blessed if you can touch upon what is meant by peace of mind, for indeed, what a triumph of spirit this is. If you have any questions of comments, let us welcome them.

Dialogue

Student: In the context of previous information about redirecting the coming cataclysm that our planet is facing, I have a few questions. What are the key factors or features of the spiritual/scientific synthesis which will characterize the new era?

MICHAEL: Yes, my son. You're sitting in the middle of it right now.

Science (Spirit, science, and mathematics)

In addition, this is why the Urantia book goes to such lengths to assure all seekers of truth there is absolutely no conflict between the scientific method and true spiritual seeking. They are just two different modes of discovering truth—God's will, the way of the universe, universal or natural law. One pertains to empirically demonstrable facts, whereas spirit is the living context within which you experience and value these facts. They are like your two eyes that give you depth of vision, your two hands that work together with your marvelous tools, your two feet that carry you forward.

This combination of spirit and science has been coming about for quite a few years now. There was initially a need to segregate them to establish a realm of agreement as to what was a fact, and what was mere superstition or opinion. How could one demonstrate some assertion of natural law? How could one separate out what was unique and personal to the scientist? As you know this lead historically to a kind of mindless materialism and gave rise to all sorts of short-lived utopian notions of the perfectibility of the human condition—now people had some kind of proof upon which to agree; only to find this proof covered just a portion of human experience. There was still a need for a science of mind, or psychology. Lately science has come to the point of realizing how much the scientist himself is inextricably tied up in his own observations. Does this answer your question, my son?

Student: In the context of the previous question, what are the main limiting concepts in the current scientific conceptual frame of reference, and what new concepts must replace them for us to gain access to the full range of our spiritual potential and the abundance we are already imbedded in, in infinity?

MICHAEL: Here, my son, I think you've almost answered your own question. That very perception of the reality of spirit, that experience—not a concept, not a speculation, not an imagination—but that personal experience is the human reality of spirit. It cannot be empirically demonstrated. It is not concepts that limit you. There is no need to replace concepts, unless you consider as a concept this need for spiritual experience. Once you have the experience the concepts will follow, as they need to.

We've pointed out that your most fundamental human experience is one of feeling.

Feeling

From this point of view thoughts, concepts, relationships, all what you might consider the realm of mind, are just extremely finely articulated feelings. And so being open to feelings you may not yet be able to understand, or even articulate, is the way to go. This is what we mean by stillness, by relaxing as much as you can all your habitual concepts and trains of thought, to experience what your spiritual home base has to offer—this time. This is how you achieve spirit and creativity, by real-izing—making real--that your intrinsic personality is not necessarily bound by antecedent causality. It seems, my son, you've already had some feeling, some intimation of spirit and infinity. Does this answer your question?

Student: Yes, that's very helpful. Could you give me any insights into what are some of the key features of new mathematical structures or models which will better reflect or give us access to our intrinsic wealth that can support and enable new love-based sciences to come forth?

MICHAEL: Let me ask you where you got these concepts or notions of intrinsic wealth?

Mathematics

Student: From direct experience. I've been frustrated by the inability of that notion of intrinsic potential or wealth of spirit to penetrate into the community and the conceptual framework of science which relies so heavily on existing mathematical models of reality. It seems to me that there must be a higher mathematics that could reflect the nature of that experiential domain that has highly non-linear qualities the current framework cannot express.

MICHAEL: Well, my son, you have your work cut out for you. I don't mean to dodge your question but this is a realm that is impossible for me to convey at this time, this way. Mathematics is one realm that is almost opaque to transmission, for example I cannot transmit to you the exact number of light-years between Salvington and Urantia. Also we are limited somewhat by the very conceptual framework you wish to transcend. I'm sure you can appreciate how thoroughly you must comprehend the existing mathematics in order to offer something new that is, however, still comprehensible, or lucid within that framework. But this I must emphasize is the nature of all great art: to be both at one and the same time unique—really new, and yet also lucid, or you will merely be talking to yourself. If you want this new mathematics to be understandable, you must find a way for it to be recognizable, of some meaning. Beyond this I cannot help you except encourage you to continue. If you are successful it benefits all mankind. Next? (laughter)

Student: How can we best start implementing some of these new models now, to prepare for or mitigate the shock and trauma so the cataclysmic shifts will not be produced on an unprepared humanity?

MICHAEL: Here you must work with what is closest at hand—your own life. In so many of our recent transmissions we've been encouraging folks to see themselves involved in true life experiments. Go out to the periphery of what you know and peek over the edge. This requires some sense of what you can intuit, or get some inkling for, which can often come to you in your meditation. Just relax all you do know and ask of your Father fragment, or of Mother Spirit, or myself, what we have to offer. It is also a way of tapping into your own higher consciousness.

But you have to try it. If it is a new way of life, a new mode of living, a way of being more thrifty of your rapidly diminishing resources, you can only offer others what works for you. You have to do the preliminary work of trying to live to the best of your knowledge to be that example of what is possible. Otherwise you are lost in mere abstract speculation. You are an experiential being surrounded by other experiential beings. Your words and concepts have to have some experience behind them. Does that answer your question?

Student: Yes, it does. Thank you. It covers what questions I brought.

MICHAEL: You are very welcome. I thank you for your interest and your sincerity. I think you probably know from your own studies of great scientists how they often had no idea, and readily and humbly admitted so, where some of their great concepts came from. But you also know the enormous amount of work and effort that proceeded these breakthroughs, so that when that great idea came it was recognizable, and applicable. So carry on, and be in my peace. (long pause)

I can feel you are all hesitating to break the peace we've established here. It is true that sometimes we can achieve a greater stillness together than any of you can know alone.

Student: It would be great to revisit the distinction between stillness and worship as you have covered before. But in the current context, and especially because in the Urantia book the distinction is not drawn with any detail, would you be able to say more about it? Sometimes I do wonder if, in stillness, I'm transitioning into something I feel is worship. And then sometimes in worship I'm going back to stillness. Or is it really a helpful distinction at all?

Worship

MICHAEL: Yes, my son, both these terms—stillness and worship—have such depth of meaning and significance we do end up talking about them quite a lot. Stillness is this very strange activity of relaxing all other activities, which is why some folks refer to meditation as a not-doing. This leads to all sorts of seeming contradictions of an intense not-doing.

The fundamental nature of worship, getting back to feeling here, is a feeling of gratitude, of thankfulness. It can be so profound as to be overwhelming. It is simply a joining with your Father fragment, with the presence of God within you. The love is both his and your own. In this sense the two activities are similar, because stillness is this same process by which you let go of your self-awareness and open yourself to…whatever might come!

So one is more a living process, the other one is a kind of culmination, a spiritual triumph of experiencing the reality of God. This, as you've been told, is where Mother Spirit herself, very literally her mind, transcending time and space here in our Local Universe, actually assists her children in this experience. So this experience is also partly her. She is the daughter of the Infinite Spirit, the origin of the Cosmic Mind, helping unite your living material—your bodies—with your personalities. Worship is this profound joy of being. We call it experiencing your cosmic actuality, the fact that you are! Does this help define the indefinable?

Student: That does explain the ineffable—a bit! (more laughter) I appreciate it very much. Thank you, Michael.

Student: Yes, Michael. Sometimes it is quite difficult to experience my cosmic actuality while having to do things like…taxes! And having to do such mundane things that seem so unnecessary, when we are so enormous in our potential. I'm quite curious about this, because we are enormous, and we seem to demean ourselves by doing such mundane tasks. But my idea of stillness is one of resting naturally in our awareness, and allowing ourselves not to get caught up in dialogues of points of view, and stories, and melodramas, and what we think; but allowing ourselves to experience our cosmic wisdom. When I allow myself that experience there is great joy and relief.

And so what I've been pondering is the display of my life. And if my outer life and my inner life are not two, is this display a reflection of my understanding, of my cosmic actuality of who I am?

'Mundane'

MICHAEL: My son, let me offer an notion for your consideration: that this mundane world you perceive is a personal illusion. We've teased you with the concept that you are surrounded by infinities in every direction and dimension. And so there is no reality to this mundane-ness other than a kind of mentality that comes about when you are most two—as you say—and not one within and without. When you are self-removed and perhaps a bit bored in one part of you with what this other part of you is doing, you are losing sight of the uniqueness of each moment and each event within it. You never really sliced this particular onion before; you have never pulled that particular weed.

And yet there is no way you can directly create the perception of a bottomless and infinite immediacy. All your attempts to do so—being self-generated and therefore finite and limited by your own creative abilities--will stand in the way of this primal perception of a preexistent, encompassing reality. This is why you must practice your meditation in the midst of your most frantic and intense activities, but especially when you are being bored to tears by any seemingly mundane--because unaccepted--necessity.

It's all part of being the kind of being you were created to be, with this freedom. And if I might say so, this is one of the prime lessons you have to learn here, being so bound up by time and space. As Mother Spirit once said, time can be a terrible agony just dragging by; and there can be no bottom to that terrible-ness. This is where your will comes in, and your sense of recognition—to recognize when you are in this mentality, and simply rededicate yourself ever anew, over and over and over again, to paying attention, complete attention, forgetting yourself to become one with what you are doing. The uniqueness will emerge—because it is there!--even though it may still be an article of faith for you that it is.

Dedication

But this is an ability, my son, you will practicing for quite some time, because it is also a striving for a perfection that is, as you intuit, itself enormous, and not accomplished overnight. So don't feel put off that you cannot just do it once and have it be forever. The dedication, the re-dedication must also be continuous. Ultimately you develop a tenacity of character, a tough oneness between your still home base in spirit and your activities. Your personality will finally be able to unite even these two.

Student: Yes. Thank you for that…(much laughter)…that kick in the rear end, I guess. Like only part of my own existence is in taxes. On a serious note: part of me, when I do feel drained, or even melancholy, when I feel my ideals are ahead of my reality, that's when I feel I'm two. I feel I'm not living even an iota of my potential, and I seem to be experiencing—for lack of a better word—mundane existence. That's when I feel pulled; I feel the two extremes. But I also understand that when I allow myself to rest and experience stillness, then that pull ceases to exist. I can feel my completeness. So I will rededicate myself—to my enlightened intent! Thank you again.

MICHAEL: You are welcome, my son, be in my peace.

Student: Michael, much of our conversation this evening was based around experience. Today I was reading another account of a woman who had a very unique experience with you. And as usual that little tinge of jealousy sneaked to the surface. I have such a strong desire within me to have my own personal and unique and enhanced experience with you. And so I just look forward with great anticipation to growing to reach a point where I too can have these types of experiences with you—actual visualizations--like a little kid just wanting to see something more. I just wanted to share that with you.

Communion - with Michael)

MICHAEL: Thank you, my son. You do me a great honor in valuing me so. Please know I do feel your yearning, and as hard as it may be for you to credit yet--because your own notions of who and what I am, and what contact with me is, stand in the way of that very thing; it will still be a matter of faith for you in a progressive process of elimination until you can realize how much I am already a part of that yearning.

Journaling

So keep reaching toward me, my son. I appreciate it very much, and am doing my best, as your spiritual father, to help you experience me. If you want a particular activity, try what you could call journal-ing. Deep in your stillness just ask if I can speak to you this way, then write it down. You've already successfully transmitted other beings; see if you can recognize me right within you this way. For sometimes the thoughts I can express to you are too fleeting, too ineffable, to remember. Whereas actually writing down this discourse might help you sense and realize that part of what now seems to be only you, is actually extra-you—myself, along with your Father fragment. Don't be discouraged if you cannot segregate us: very few human beings can, or even need to. But you can have those unmistakable flashes of recognition that are part and parcel of your worship. So I thank you again for your devotion and your honoring me so. Be in my peace.

Closing

Thank you all, my sons, for opening yourselves so, for suspending your dis-belief and having the courage to ride along with me and entertain what I am able to express this way. These have become truly memorable moments in our lives. We can each appreciate—together--what we've shared tonight. What a marvelous thing this is. Be in my peace. Good evening.