2007-08-05-Reach Beyond

Session

Opening

Michael (Jonathan TR): I am Michael. I extend my arms around you all and share in the joy of our mutual recognition and the certainty of our fellowship. You have come to believe because you have experienced, and this causes you to know that you are in my fold. Just as fruit that ripens on the vine becomes sweeter over time, your experience of our relationship does likewise. I cherish that togetherness and will ever foster our relationship.

But you know from your studies that I manage this local universe, and you will sometime be sent on your way to the greater circles of experience, and I, just like the vine-master, will send you off to be taken to new lands that you may serve and grow. So, while you have come to believe, I am also keenly observant of and willing to minister to that which you do not believe, for this is the edge of your experience, the line of uncertainty, and the realm for the potential of attaining new levels of being, deeper insights, and broader vision.

I often say that “peace I give you”, and I do desire that all my children have that sense of belonging in the Father’s house, of being cherished and loved and cared for. But I also seek to have you experience uncertainty, to encounter disruptive, unsettling, experiences -- not that you may be harmed -- but that you may refresh your perspective and adjust your understanding and seek that you may add new wine to your wineskins. I told of the parable of the talents wherein one was too afraid to invest that he may lose his coin and disappoint the master. That is residing solely in belief, where the ones who took to the uncertain and invested, while each reaped a differing value of reward, both succeeded in the eye of the master, for they pushed that boundary and they attained a new level.

So, my children, when you do pursue new arenas, know that I support you. I will caution you and I will be your guardian, but I encourage you to reach up and beyond, for it is my goal that you reach up, out, and beyond even Nebadon that you may experience our Father on Paradise and in Paradise.

I am one with you always. I will allow for my ministering associates to share with you.

Lesson

Elyon: Elyon here, greetings. It is my desire to have dialogue with you, and so I seek your questions that we may pursue topics of your interest. We have gained trust in one another, and you know that I never look askance at your honest petitions. While I cannot reveal what you must come to experience, I can at all times assist you in the discovery and suggest approaches which may ease your investigation and hasten your attainment. But you know that all growth is had by oneself, and there is no substitute, no surrogate experience that another may have for you. I am open and receptive.

Mark T: How did Michael’s address to us relate to our pre-lesson discussion?

Elyon: For your records, you spoke of the viewpoint of the scientific mind and the viewpoint of the religious mind and the nature of reality as experienced both subjectively and objectively.

Michael did express in his lesson a pattern similar to your discussion. Both orientations of human perspective benefit when they are willing to venture into the unknown, be it the theological investigations of a philosopher, be it the deepsea explorations of an oceanographer. The compilation of understanding builds a legacy for generations, but it is the discovery at any time, in any experience that is of Supreme value to that individual and subsequently of value to civilization.

Regardless of your role as a human being in your cultures, this principle applies. You know that the playing of a song written by another is a wonderful experience but that the composition of a piece of music on your own is also extremely special. So this applies to all fields. A preacher who teaches from his word, his scripture, does well, but if he fails to enter that edge of experience and explore for himself, he misses the opportunity of an expanding spiritual experience even though he is an expert at conveying the truths expressed in the past.

Evelyn: Throughout history people have felt that they got contact from departed loved ones. In the Urantia Book they say, no, you really don’t get contact from the dead. Has anything changed in that? Or is there perhaps an indirect route messages are sent from the departed?

Elyon: First I will say to you that upon your exit from this world you have many tasks in which to engage, for instance, your registration on the sphere of your resurrection and the orientation of yourself into a world so unlike the realm from which you have recently left. You are substantially overwhelmed and are greatly distracted, if I may say in that way. The prior life appears faint to you because of the vividness and stupendous reality sense of your new realm. It will take you some time to orient and begin to reflect upon your prior stage of existence. So, even while you have the statement that one is not allowed to make contact to those from the world they have just departed, it is more correct to say one has little time and less interest because of the new experiences.

The personalities who remain behind are also growing spiritual beings, and they are attended to by ministering spirits. As you inquired, there are indirect methods whereby human beings may experience the comfort of contact and the sense of closure or a farewell when the departure was more sudden and unexpected. This is for the well-being of the survivors for their spiritual upliftment. On Urantia it is rare to have this occur unless enough spiritual development has been undertaken because your world is fraught with many legends of demons and ghosts and other haunting spirits that are of little value spiritually and are fear fostering. So it is unwise for such a contact to occur under those conditions.

The departing soul has much to do and a joyous adventure ahead. While you know that the love they have for you is great and they would love to give you one more hug, they are off on a grand adventure. Their angels and yours are also sensitive to your loss and will assist you in receiving comfort and the sense of continued contact with your departed beloved.

I hope this helps.

Dialogue

Evelyn: Excellent. Thank you.

Mark: In the next realm, the morontia realm, is an Alzheimer’s victim’s memory restored to him or her?

Elyon: That which is retained upon your resurrection that may be regarded as memory is soul substance, the valuable experiences which cause growth. While one may be tempted to think those values would be few, such as love and trust and other religiously thought of conceptual experiences, it is more complex, for your temporal lives have many interconnecting associations which contribute to soul growth. Many details of your temporal experience will be retained for they are the associative artifacts which reveal the state of your soul being.

If there is soul growth while the human brain is impaired by a disease, that memory will be retained, for it is part of the soul. But if there is impairment to growth, then growth is suspended until release from the human form. There will not be those memories, just as many of your earliest memories subsequent to birth are no longer because soul growth was not your important undertaking; physical and mental growth were your primary tasks at the time. Others will retain their memories and they can be shared, but it will be secondary. You will learn about yourself in this manner by the expressions of others who were more broadly conscious during those experiences which you did not retain in memory. So again it must be stated the value of fellowship, of brotherhood, for you each support one another even in this way.

I hope this assists you.

Mark: Yes, thank you, Elyon.

Elyon: I will insert one more comment. Brain function is a physical interface between your body and world and your mind, your personality, and the divine spirit. While one may have a disease, as you mentioned Alzheimer’s and brain functions are impaired, there may be direct personality and spirit fragment contact in the realm of the soul which does not require the function of brain. Experiences of that level can occur even while, from the outer perspective, such an individual appears to be static.

Kathy: A recent discussion of our Urantia Book group was about the mind not being part of the brain, that it was operating in a greater area. Can you address that?

Elyon: Yes, your discussion does draw out a proper observation, and I will illustrate it by also using your nervous system, your neural network. It too may be considered part of your brain, though you know it is merely extensions, feelers, from which your brain acquires feedback and information, sense data, and that the brain is the central processor for all these feelers. You are in a sense one big anemone in a neural way with many tendrils extending into your environment, protected by your flesh and bones that you may come to know what is out there.

The mind is the next level up, and it is using your brain as your brain uses your nerves that it may acquire information and feedback from the external realm. But the mind can look inward as well as outward, and so it does inhabit a realm beyond your brain. I would not say outside your brain but beyond the confines of organic function. The mysteries of creativity and the instantaneous awakenings and the intuitive realizations that occur in the mind can be shared in brain consciousness and expressed in physical actions, but their origins are above and beyond the organic link, but not necessarily wholly independent of those links, for it may require physical objects to assist you in the creative surge.

Your mind is anchored in Mother Spirit, that is the central residence of your consciousness, and your next focal point is your organic brain center. So you are two- minded in a sense, divinely supported and physically assisted.

I hope this addresses your inquiry.

Kathy: Yes, thank you, Elyon.

Mark: Planetarily speaking, how are things looking since the “fire the grid” experience?

Elyon: It is thrilling to the volunteers of celestial realms resident upon your world now to assist this planet to have so many on your world so willing to pitch in and bring upliftment to the world. One of the prime purposes of our outreach is to instill in you the confidence to bring change and to expand your understanding that this growth is orchestrated and planetary in scope; and that you do not struggle hopelessly and powerlessly as merely inspired individuals but that you are a powerful collective. To have you do this so willingly assures us of the progress of your world and that, where over time in the past we fostered the growth and you would respond evolutionarily slowly, the turning has come where you are now fostering in sympathy with our undertakings, and we are one as a team. The grid is alit and the energy is circulating and will concretize as time unfolds and more humans become receptive anchors and demonstrators of the reality of the harmony of the divine destiny of this world and the human unfolding of awareness.

Closing

My dear friends, I am just overjoyed to be able to converse with you this way. I am always willing to give you a lesson, but truly it is your own input into our connection that stimulates me and fulfills my goals as your instructor, for it is what you truly seek that I want to be an assistant toward. While I do endeavor to stimulate your thinking and your reach beyond where you reside in awareness, you by asking your questions give me insight into that which is pertinent to you in the current moment. It is delightful and enjoyable. I will now release the classroom. I thank you for your attentiveness. As Michael says, may peace be with you.