2011-01-20-Personality Survival

Session

Opening

Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, Welcome – Welcome especially Mother Spirit. There have been many requests for you to give the lesson tonight, so we will give Michael a break and ask you then to - oh do as you always do – just talk to us your children and let us enjoy your point of view for a while. The way you see things and see us. We do enjoy your continuing chapters on the handbook for being human. And we do try to take to heart, especially in our relationships with our friends and others, on these amazing aspects of being human, especially being human on this particular planet and this particular time. This has never happened before and, as you say, will never happen again. So thank you, thank you dear Nebadonia for these lessons. Amen.

Nebadonia: Good evening my children this is Nebadonia, your Mother Spirit. And indeed Michael is right here with us, always actually. He is much a part of you as I am. And we do enjoy so much sharing our lives with you. It is our delight when you choose consciously, with the full force and power and creativity of your own personality. You offer to have us understand, experience, feel your life. So, in this exchange, we give to each other, we delight in each other. For many years now we have been giving this handbook on being human. And there are some very tricky parts to it coming as you are to this handbook from each of your own separate, individual and unique points of view. What is important is that you feel these realities within yourself and initially this is not selfishness or self-centeredness but what you cannot experience within yourselves and give credence with your whole heart and your whole soul you cannot experience in others.

Lesson

Personality

So this is where it starts. You are not only as we say “focal point” of experience, a nodule of experience out here in time and space, you are a participant. You are in reality; you are reacting and out of your own essence acting. A lot of discussion lately I notice has been on this quality of personality. What is it? When does it start? What are its functions? What are its limits? What are its abilities?

And in this my children, those of you who are familiar with the Urantia book, I encourage you to read, and then after it has soaked in for a while, read again that chapter titled Personality Survival. For therein it gives the most comprehensive and detailed of what you are.

Interruption:

This is Mother Spirit again. To review this fathomless, bottomless, I should say this unfathomable mystery and miracle and marvel of what personality is it helps to read that chapter over several times because it is so condensed. And as you bring various notions of personality to this it make take several readings to really absorb, not just pass over those aspects you may might not be familiar with.

Identity

There has been some wonder as when personality is created. And some of you have forgotten that God not only exists in a very personal sense on paradise but he is also everywhere. Omnipresent in a transcendent way and fully ubiquitous within time and space. Personality is not created in paradise and then sent out into time and space. Personality is bestowed upon a living system that includes mind or spirit. In other words your human order. Even beings like Solitary Messengers who wrote that chapter who are pure spirit, but living pure spirit with personality. One of the hardest concepts to wrap your mind around is how personality is devoid of identity. It has the ability to unify that identity it gets from what ever living mind, or material, or spirit – in your case all three -what ever living vehicle it is bequeathed upon. That is where it gets its identity.

And this identity exists not only within every single reproductive cell. But when a sperm and egg get together that is also a unique cosmic event. A real event. That fertilized egg has identity. We used this example before. Look at one of your old fashioned photographs of a large family, like ten or twelve children. There you see the family resemblance, but you all so see the individuality, the identity of each one of those brothers and sisters. They are distinct even on a physical, body-mind level. So God in his everywhereness, in his absolute and infinite omissions comes up with, creates that personality to be associated with that unique living human being there. Upon birth the personality begins to experience, and though this experience is yet shy of being counter parted with a Thought Adjuster and a full soul, you have also been informed that in those individuals who are not capable of Adjuster fusion and who arrive on the mansion worlds without the Thought Adjuster, there is still that quality of personality that does retain experience. So they are slowly able to regain so much of their life experience even in the absence of a Thought Adjuster.

Soul

For most of you with Thought Adjusters this is the origin of your soul. The experience, the personality as a focal point is unique focal point of experience. It is like the Thought Adjuster eternal. But, the association with a living mind and body is a very temporal, provisional kind of arrangement. As your Urantia book puts it, the personality is changeless. It does not change and neither does the Thought Adjuster.

But, the relationship between them, in the soul, is incessant change – growth, evolution. This is what the soul is. The soul is repository of the personality’s experience, woven together with the Thought Adjuster’s experience of that experience. In other words the soul is just more than your memories. It has this extra dimension. It is a Morontia reality. We had to introduce that word. It had no previous existence in your world literature to designate this profound cosmic reality that comes into existence. And so we have given so many lessons on the enormity of your soul. Its being very contra-distinct from your memories. You can think of your memories of what your brain, what your material mind comes up with. Where you were on such and such of a date at such and such of a time. When you sit down in your stillness, and in your meditation, you go back to that time in the past and just let it swell forth and be astonished that all that is still there of that time in the past. Right down to not only what you saw and heard, and related with, but how it felt. How it felt to be five years old, or fifteen or twenty-five. What your whole take on reality was then.

And so, my children, your soul is the fullness within your memories. We need never fear that even though if your memories fade through dementia, Alzheimer’s disease to whatever. To whatever happens to your physical body and what you normally think of as memories. What ever happens your soul is being held sacrosanct by an individualized presence of God. This is what your soul is. So your personality is what you are. You can understand why in so many philosophies and religions the soul is considered to be the fundamental reality. So many of these systems, of concepts and thoughts, there is no clear idea of what we mean by personality.

Freedom

There is some question as to what influence some kind of previous existence of either the personality or the soul, what influences it might have on your present life. In this eternal now in which you exist. Here we have to reassure you that the freedom of choice you have, the free will you have in this present moment, is only influenced by your own personal life. This particular life you are living now. This is a great relief to so many because they are free from interpretation of what is happening around them as being somehow beyond their control. Somehow beyond their freedom of choice there is this other operative. This other influence functioning in their life. It is strictly their own memories and their own soul with the creativity of their personality. This is that unfathomable aspect of you my children that is so hard to grasp is your own creativity of how, with certain concepts, certain ways of looking at life, your life. The interpretation and the understanding can be so profoundly affected. We like that expression that the personality is like an eye that sees but it can’t see itself. Your own creativity is so seamless. So much a part of you. It is so often hard to credit just how much of your reality is coming from you as an interpretation of what is happening.

This is why we have to reassure you that the only thing operating in your life is your life. This life that began when your mother and father conceived you. You had no previous existence that had any influence upon you. As your Urantia book states in that instance where Michael, when he was Jesus, approached a man who had been blind from birth and he was asked, ‘what caused this? Was this some sin his father had done? Some sin his mother perhaps had done? Or even some sin he had committed in some previous time?’ And it states there what difficulty Jesus had in convincing those around him, that a human being has no previous existence. But, you do have the ability to interpret reality along lines of belief and what you were raised.

Resurrection, Reincarnation

So tonight I would like to address that question of reincarnation by showing how much it has in common with what we have taught. First and most important is there is life after death. Your physical death here on Urantia is not the end of your personality or your soul. Your changeless personality finds identity in that soul. Your soul is what you carry with you. This is your only possession, your only necessary possession. This is the life you have lived and earned. This is you as you carry forward and keep adding to it. This is how the personality, though changeless, learns, adapts, and gains abilities. The other thing that is common with reincarnation is this process. We are just saying it begins here. You do go on to life after life after life on worlds beyond number. Even hundreds of changes in your body-mind make up as you go through the Morontia realms. It just simply begins here. And, as various concepts within reincarnation hint at a kind of universal, almost cosmic justice. If you live a good life here the life you go on to live, the next life will reflect that goodness. Or, if you are evil here, that next life will reflect that evil. The Urantia book breaks it down for you a little more specifically in terms of levels of connection with Deity. The psychic circles that explain, to a very small degree granted, what this next life will be for you.

Where the concept of reincarnation goes wrong is, as I just suggested, is that in its attempt with this feeling of cosmic justice. There is that attempt to explain everything that happens to people in terms of some previous existence. You won’t need to think of what we call true accidents of time and space. Shall I say that the people that are killed or terribly injured in an earthquake or recently in a Tsunami. There is no way that those people “deserve this”. This is no way a kind of punishment for something that happened before. As Michael said, it is a geological disturbance and an impersonal wall of water went towards the land. So, with this attempt to explain everything in terms of some previous existence can, as the Urantia book said, lead to notions of almost a loss of freedom. An inability to know what is happening. If you will a too facile explanation of what happens to people. Open your minds to wonder deeper, yet also with the courage to accept there are truly accidents from the human point of view. But, enough for the lesson this evening. I sense there are some questions out there to be asked or comments to be made about this or anything else on your mind, so please feel free to join the conversation.

Dialogue

Birth

Questioner #1: Nebadonia this is …. I have a question I’d like a little bit more clarification if you would please. You mentioned personality is identified when the egg and the sperm meet and you also mentioned the birth of where it gains it first experience. Is personality imbued more at the point of birth or at the point of conception?

Nebadonia: At the point of conception because this is where you have a living – it is not like a being, but it is a fertilized egg that is unique. It has identity and so the personality is associated with this living – it is a body in a way. It is a living creature. It has identity. And this is what it takes for the personality to be associated with.

Questioner #1: Thank you. That does answer my question.

Nebadonia: If you think of it this way there is no limit to what God knows. In terms of that sperm and that egg. Even in your modern science you get right down to the DNA. I use the illustration of a large family to say that even though this is coming from the same mother and father, that union of a sperm and an egg has identity, has individuality. That is what is required.

Astrology

Questioner #1: I do have a follow-up question about personality. It has to do with some of the changes that have to do with how we think of personality. As it relates to the study of astrology and personality. Is personality at all influenced by motions of planets and position in relation to other celestial bodies?

Nebadonia: No, except (laughter), then again this is an enormous exception. Somewhat parallel to what I taught on concepts and whole ways of interpreting things in terms of reincarnation. For those who believe in astrology, it is a centuries old, highly complex psychology if you will. And, in relating human behavior to the position of the stars it has evolved. It has evolved to psychology explaining human behavior that is been growing and evolving ever since it was first introduced. It is no minor thing. A person who believes in astrology can other words can interpret reality in that way and learn a great deal from it. It gives a way of expressing cause and effect on a psychological level. A way of explaining human behavior. Like any other belief system, the more it is believed in the more it has influence, and what you call self fulfilling theory or self fulfilling philosophy. But, there is no direct causal relationship between the position of the physical universe around you and your qualities of your personality or soul that come out as behavior.

Culture

Questioner #1: Are there patterns of personality that we may see relationships between? Different patterns between people and relationship as to when they were born or when they were conceived?

Nebadonia: Only in so far as what we call - - we have given so many lessons on the enormity of culture right down to language, words and concepts. All this you absorb in your first three, four and five years of your life. That is what influences the individual more than anything else. You have a, shall we say, a number of people in a neighborhood, who have no knowledge what so ever of astrology. It has no influence on them. Does that make sense?

Questioner #1: I don’t understand your last comment there. If you had a group of individuals who didn’t know about astrology they would not -?

Nebadonia: If they do not know about astrology, they are not interpreting their own human behavior in terms of what sign you are born under with the whole different parts of the personality as it is defined in astrological terms. They have no knowledge of this whatsoever. They don’t interpret what is happening to them, shall we say what sign are you? What is your rising sign? All these different constellations and things. If they have no notion there is no way astrology is affecting their life. It is only a belief system and has all the power and limitations of a belief system. For those who believe in astrology it is obviously apparent. This is what is determining so much of what is happening to them and to others. But, it is only a belief system.

Belief

Questioner #1: A belief system would have nothing to do with a scientific reason.

Nebadonia: Exactly it has no. .. It cannot be empirically demonstrated in that sense.

Questioner #1: So if people that were born on the same day if they may be exhibiting some kind of common personality trait, that is something we are reading into it, not something that is actually there?

Nebadonia: It is both. It is both there but it is your interpretation of what is there. So as your experience it is both. You aren’t actually making something up. You are interpreting behavior in a certain way according to a certain understanding of cause and effect. There is that implied causal relationship, shall we say if you were born in a certain, under a certain sign, the heavens were in a certain relationship when you were born, there is that implied thing that is some how effecting you. The stars do not compel, they comply but they do not absolutely determine who and what you are. Of course through out all of this you have free will.

Questioner #1: So there is no repetitious pattern to personality at all relating at all to time?

Nebadonia: Relating to time?

Questioner #1: Time, yes, as in cycles of earth. Yearly cycles, monthly cycles and anything to do with a time base?

Nebadonia: Oh no. That is another whole thing. I was thinking of astrology strictly with respect to the stars. The position of the stars and things.

Questioner #1: I’m talking about time as maybe the planets fall into certain patterns that relate to different cycles. I just think of the planet and stars and how it cycles. Personality, does it have cycles that are consistent….in a time basis where people would have certain personalities - have similar characteristics on a certain time base?

Nebadonia: No, in this case my son, it is like the seasonal changes and what the climate and things like this. What part of the earth they are born and raised in. These kinds of cycles have enormous influence you know, over childhood development shall we say. When you talk about just the relationships of planets and shall we say, empirical forces, gravitational and so forth like this on the earth now you are getting out of astrology and getting into actual astronomy. But, I can say with the respect to the starry heavens and the stars and the planets, there is no direct causal relationship between them and human behavior. That is implicit.

Questioner #: Take away the planets and I’m just talking about cycles of personality. Are there cycles of personality where a particular trait may be greater or lesser than individuals that are born at a particular time?

Nebadonia: Yes, that is what I meant to answer. We are getting back to heredity and environment. In that sense of just the general environment. Where you are on earth, what the seasons are, this sort of thing has a lot to do with childhood development and behavior. But that is all. There is no other implied causality.

Questioner #1: I don’t want to mix personality with nurture. I’m talking about the imbuement of personality with nurture. Maybe I don’t understand.

Nebadonia: You have to keep in mind that each personality is unique. And also, this changelessness of personality. Personality does not change – ever! Personality gains identity by way of growing of soul. As we say you earn experience through living. By living experience you are growing a soul and that is what constitutes your identity. The personality itself does not change. Personality does not come in types or anything like that. It is changeless and in each one unique. When you get into astrology you are talking about influences of behavior. So I am not sure what you mean by cycles of personality.

Questioner #1: I’d say cycles of personality having to do with whether people have a certain personality trait like as defined by astrology, more stubborn, or more fixed or emotionally wavering. Just personality traits that seem to have cycles of ………… Does that make sense?

Nebadonia: Yes my son that is what I referred to as human behavior. And also, astrology is a highly complex and very comprehensive psychology, which is the explanation of human behavior. What gives rise to and the inter-relationships. So, you are asking if all Virgos or all Gemini exhibit because of that, certain identical kind of traits that gives them identity as a Virgo or as a Gemini. And, I am saying in so far as they believe in that system of behavior interpretation if you will.

Questioner #1: Thank you very much. I don’t want to dominate all the questioning.

Jerry: Are there any more questions or comments this evening? Michael mentioned before that sometimes there is hesitancy to disturb this marvelous stillness, that we can share.

Personality

Questioner #2: I think that you just gave us so much to think about. I'm trying to understand the personality being unchanging and unique. It must be that part of us that comes together when the sperm and the egg meet. When we're told we're unique, that must be the unique part because if I understand your conversation tonight Mother Spirit, that personality is constant and unchanging.

Nebadonia: Yes my daughter, the personality is, you can call it, bequeathed or associated with a living, in this case, a living fertilized cell that has identity. This is the hardest thing for so many folks to realize, that the personality itself is devoid of identity, that it has the innate ability and function of unifying whatever living organism it is associated with. [Thank you, that is very helpful.]

We call you a nodule of experience, a focal point of experience. In some systems called monism where everything is one, everything is God, there is absolutely no...everything that shows you.. every experience or every perception that something is not God or is even dual, is a kind of an illusion like God forgets Himself in order to be an individual, and upon death or an enlightenment experience that gave rise to these concepts, the individuality and the personality. This goes back to God. God just realizes He's been acting as this being and upon death the individuality and the personality just go back to God as like a drop to the ocean. Whereas we're saying no, there is an enduring entity here, there is an enduring cosmic quality of individualized being, this personality.

Even in the Urantia Book there is this statement that it would be presumptuous, even for a solitary messenger who wrote that chapter, for this pure spirit being to try to exhaustively define personality. Like you say, there's certain things we know about it, because personality is an eternal, discrete individualization. In other words it is endowed with this potential for free will, even to go against God's will, for you do have some very ungodly behavior that comes right out of the personalities creativity. This personality being eternal and changeless does however evolve by gaining a soul. So the personality and the soul are distinct from one another. I think the Urantia Book puts it; personality is the one thing that can be added to spirit, showing the primacy of the Father over the Eternal Son of Spirit. God is personality. He's not only a personal being, He is the origin and the essence of personality, this is where personality comes from. He is able of His creativity to create an individualized personality and in this sense, set it free. So you have that statement that God is just beyond time, He sees the end from the beginning, He inhabits eternity. At the same time you have that statement that God's will obtains in the whole, because literally He is creating the parameters for each order of personal beings.

Yet God's will does not obtain in the individual except by that individual’s free will choice to discover and follow God's will which gives rise to all the ungodly behavior of personal beings. That's the freedom, that's the individuality or the uniqueness of every personal being. It's not just God pretending to be some other being. That is the eternal prospect that you have as a personality. You need never end as a discreet being growing a soul forever. That is God's gift to you. God's gift my daughter, is you. You get to have your life forever, you are real.

Questioner #2: Thank you very much, you have been very very helpful.

Nebadonia: Again, we are dealing with some unfathomable mysteries here but I hope it teases you to wonder and marvel and bring forth your other most wonderful gift of God, curiosity. Who am I, what am I? That is why the Urantia Book gives you so many orders of personal beings, seraphim and midwayers and melchizedeks and on and on. One of these days Michael and I will have to give a lesson on time, of the eternal now. The only thing I would tease you with tonight is that through all your marvelous science fiction, going back in the past or going up in the future and looking around and dodging all kinds of time paradoxes that have been around since, I guess it was Mr. Wells that started this whole thing, it is very difficult to conceive that the future does not exist, it has not happened yet. So I will leave you with that. Are there any other questions or comments?

Closing

Well now my children,let me bid you all a good evening. I hope you've had as much fun as I've had. This is our delight, you are our delight and we are blessed to experience you, your personalities, your souls and still as you can give a gift to God of seeking His will and doing your best to live by it and actually becoming more real by doing so, so too we delight when you turn your minds to us and simply say hi Dad, hello Mom, thank you for me, thank you for being with me. It really does set us aglow. I bid you a good evening, be in my love.