[tmtranscripts] Michael 6.16.08

[JERRY LANE]

Michael--June 16, 2008

 

Marin TM Group--Mill Valley, California--U.S.A.

 

MICHAEL--T/R-JL

 

(Faith in oneself)

(Breaking unconscious identification)

(Changing fear into adventure) 

(Seeking the kingdom: spiritual unity vs. uniformity)

(Hope and faith)

(Actual experience vs. invalid generalizations)  

(Not a soul lost)

 

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit,    We thank you for your continuing interest in contacting with us this particular way.  Although we're not exactly sure how this happens, we do know it would not happen without your desire, your intention that it does.  We feel quite blessed to be in this time of the Teaching Mission.  Though we may not know exactly how this process comes about, we trust our own evaluation of what comes across.  We've tried your suggestions and find they work.  We've applied your insights to our understanding and find they have great validity.

 

But it is mainly this feeling of your presence here in our meetings, and then in our own meditation, our growing awareness of yours and our Father's input into our day to day lives, these little reminders of yours that spirit is always about us and a part of us, that we really treasure--these moments you've let us know you are nearby and always with us.  So we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Amen. 

 

MICHAEL:  Good evening, my children, this is Michael.  Yes, it is good to be together again.  It fills our hearts in a very unique way--this energy field we all create together.  This is that joy of fellowship, that Spirit Adjutant of Consul, of gregariousness, of enjoying each other's company beyond any economic need.  That was always good too, when people all through history banded together for food and shelter, or mutual protection.  But to get together like this is a result and a sign of individual freedom, to take time out of your busy lives to pay your love and your respect and your caring to the realm of spirit, to the origin of everything.

 

(Faith in oneself)

 

This is a new beginning for mankind when individuals can more and more trust their own inner perception of spirit, their own inner evaluation of truth, and not need to rely on some second- or third-hand recitation of dogma, or just some accepted traditions, for their guidelines on how to live.  This is to open yourself to that aspect of reality that is always new, always being continuously forthcoming from God himself, even if it is only a new day dawning.  To be open this way does require faith, a great faith in yourself, in your own spontaneity, in your own ability to come up--on the moment, at the moment--with the necessary, creative solution.  This is being fully engaged in a way that feeds your soul like no mere recitation of dogma, no reliance upon any kind of fixed notions of reality can provide.

 

This is really--as you say--being out there, being up front, being totally who you are, trusting in this full commitment of yourself with a kind of self-forgetfulness, laying all of yourself on the line without any reservation.  Even though you may not be able to do this purely in a total sense, just to approach it gives you such a feedback on your own spiritual nature: there is something in you that can rise to the occasion.  You come to trust in this spontaneous spirit of yours to meet what cannot be fully anticipated.  

 

This is to realize with all humility that even your best insight cannot entirely predict what will come.  Your foresight can never be entirely adequate, mainly because you have to deal with others who may be equally spontaneous, equally creative, and equally coming from their own point of view in what they see is their own best interest.  This confrontation has been enough to make a few odd, rare individuals into hermits, fleeing all that other contact, hiding off in some remote woods to have the assurance they know what's coming next; but then tragically missing the real adventure, the real joy of meeting others and together creating something even more spontaneous. This is that delightful dance that takes two--as you say--to tango, two or more; or to quote another saying: the more the merrier.  This is the joy, the delight in getting together that human beings have known in each other from the very beginning. 

 

Mother Spirit last time gave a lesson on how to approach yourselves and each other in this very fresh, spiritually grounded way; how, in a way, not to see each other in some kind of generalized terms, some abstract notions, but to be open for this spontaneous, very direct, immediate way of contact, way of perception.  It's being very much aware on what level of generality or specificity your beliefs and reasoning are affecting your perceptions.  You're using your insightful understanding to be aware of the limitations of any particular conclusions.

 

There are a lot of valid insights you can have into another peoples' culture in a general sense, but always keep in mind, my children, the supremacy of the individual.  This is especially important since this is also the direction in which we of the spiritual community are trying to nudge you--to come ever more fully from your individually unique experience.  First find your own genuine expression, and then in your reasoning, be aware of the limitations you have in knowing and assessing another unique individual. 

 

We teased you before to reconsider that old saying that a person cannot see the forest for the trees; they cannot see the overall situation, they're so blinded or overwhelmed by the particulars right in front of them.  You have since a long time past--as individuals in your modern cultures, surrounded by so much media from the time of being very small children--you have long been in the exactly opposite situation: you often can't see the trees for the forest.  You often think and reason in such generalities, such self-assured notions of what the situation is, who the people are, you cannot see the individuals right in front of you.  You cannot credit their individuality, but rather you cling to your self-assured notions, your abstract generalities of what are really--as we say--a lot of little walking infinities.  That is your, and their, true nature.  That is the fundamental reality, the actuality, if you will, of any group of whatever size.

 

(Breaking unconscious identification)

 

Sadly, the major exception in turn to this truth, and one way in which you can make valid generalizations about groups of people, is when the persons themselves have either voluntarily or unconsciously given up their own individuality, just to belong.  These are folks who only feel comfortable when they can submerge themselves in identifying with some group.  And as Mother Spirit said, the process of breaking this identification, of seeing through their mistaken notions of the infallibility of some person or group, seems like some terrible disillusionment.  But always, my children, always the reality is better than the illusion.  You must always be ready to embrace the reality in order to keep growing.  This is that orientation, that courage that is necessary for a person to become an individual, to break down their group identification, to withdraw any support that is unconscious and unthinking. 

 

It is necessary for you to withdraw your support from those leaders who would rather callously and cynically use you for their own ends.  It is also sad to say that all through history so many supposed religious teachers and leaders were in reality politicians, more interested in their own self aggrandizement and social power over others than portraying any kind of spiritual insight and truth.  They derive their real power from the unconscious identification of all their followers--that unquestioned obedience, that psychological need of their followers for someone else to tell them that which they themselves really need to decide.  How many religious teachers have told their followers that they themselves--their congregation--have the presence of God within them whose guidance supersedes all ecclesiastical, all church authority?  How many religious teachers have encouraged their followers to question everything, even that which these teachers themselves have presented as truth?  

 

So this is one way to get a feeling and realize what is at stake here, one way for open-minded democracy, both within you and without, to grow.  Think of each self-knowing individual man or woman being spiritually grounded, based in their own unique experience, questioning everything, yet humble in the face of the transcendent nature of human reality and aware of their own limitations; at the same time being able to rest in my peace, being able to feel Mother Spirit's love, and being open to the fragment of the Father within them ever pointing the way forward. 

 

We set this ideal before you and ask merely that you entertain it.  Think about it.  See if you can't perceive yourself and your fellows ever more truly, even if ever more strange--(laughter)--OK, not altogether; maybe a little bit so.  Your modern media is such a wonderful tool to help you open yourself to the world.  You do have marvelous programs exploring all the different cultures of the present day world, and then too, your human history clear back into ancient times of all the civilizations come and gone, all the races of men and women come and gone.  You have your Urantia book with its singular perspective, it's unique story to tell starting several hundred billion years ago.

 

You do have all this marvelous information.  This is what can feed you.  This is what can help you realize by a kind of feedback loop, a kind of back-azimuth with your inner compass, telling you who and what you are.  Just don't be afraid to be still from time to time to get in touch with all you have accumulated.  Use my Spirit of Truth to help sort through it all.  Feel Mother Spirit's nudge towards wisdom, towards understanding, towards coming up with your own comprehensive philosophy that makes sense of it all. 

 

This is your inner spiritual life, your inner growth that adds so much to your soul.  Conversely this opens you to feel what your soul has to give back.  This is the wonderful balance of all the aspects of yourself--the physical, the mental, the spiritual--that helps you recognize all of this in each other.  

 

But enough for tonight.  I think you get the picture.  It's quite an adventure, this taking on and this giving up; this standing unique, and individual, and free; this fulfilling God's intentions for you--which always has been, fundamentally, that you be a free son or daughter of His.  This is His primary intention for you, my children, as it is my own and Mother Spirit's.  This freedom is not free; it does cost you: you must pay attention.  But the rewards are commensurate, even extravagate.  But enough.  Now for your questions and comments. 

 

Student:  Father Michael, how do I change the fear that holds me back, into the adventure that leads me on?

 

(Changing fear into adventure) 

 

MICHAEL:  Yes, my son, a very good question.  As paradoxical as the answer may seem, it's by not being afraid to feel the fear.  Behind or within every fear is its root cause and these causes can be very complex, a whole conglomeration of very basic animal and primitive-human fears that have been institutionalized, incorporated and promulgated and perpetuated in traditions over the centuries and centuries by other folks not being willing to feel their fears and get to the root causes, but only pass them on.  So some of these fears of yours, my son, do stem from this conditioning that you and every other person have been raised with.  They may even have been valid at some point in time, but no longer. 

 

Others come from your own personal experience, the pain, the disappointment, the anxiety, the worry, the confusion, the uncertainty that you have experienced yourself.  As Mother Spirit said last time, you have to be willing to turn about from any running away from these and boldly, bravely trace them back, relax into them, and get down to their root causes, the original experiences.  You have to understand them in order to have them.  Otherwise they continue to have you.  (Yes) 

 

So that's the first step, my son.  Whether in your stillness or anytime fear occurs, be willing to explore it, and automatically!--you're in an adventure.  (group laughs)  Believe me, this is how you turn fear into an adventure.  Because don't forget, my son, the very essence of adventure is not knowing what's going to happen next.  (more laughter)  When it gets down to seconds not knowing what's going to happen, then you're really into an adventure indeed.  So see the adventure right in confronting these fears, exploring the past and what it was that gave them origin.  

 

This is how you get free in the present, with your presently accumulated greater wisdom.  I'm not saying they're not tenacious, these little cling-ons, but you must slowly pare them away, kind-of laugh right in their face, if you will, of these fears.  In time they become like old friends; they no longer affect you; they are merely cautions and actually good company.  (more chuckling)  They are those cautions you've learned in all your accumulated life's experience.  Does this help answer the question? 

 

Student:  Yes, Father Michael, it does.  Fear--a lot of times for me anyway--shows up like what I don't want to do, rather than what I would consider a fear, and I've learned a little bit to confront the "I don't wannas."  Some of them persist; some of them don't; but I've learned to recognize what really is fear, and what's a caution.  Looks like an adventure to me.  (laughter) 

 

MICHAEL:  Well, sometimes too you have to realize there's a bit of inertia, or pure laziness, in the mix.  (Yes)  Sometimes the task of confronting a very severe fear is monumental.  But as we've advised before, seek the moral courage and the strength to keep finding and accepting what is right, what is the best thing to do next, even if you cannot yet do it.  This takes enormous self-honesty, but you've already exhibited so much just by recognizing that the right thing is there, you just don't want to do it. 

 

That's the first step.  Keep the bright idea of what is there to do next and, as I've said before, lean in that direction.  Do what you can moment to moment, yet truly rest in my peace; truly accept yourself moment to moment; stay with the real you, always.  Don't buy into any kind of guilt.  Don't let your spiritual need to go forward, to grow, to evolve, drive you into guilt, for you must stay with what is real--the moment-to-moment you that is already complete.  So many well-intentioned but guilt-driven folks cannot escape from the sense of never being who they should be, and so they miss or devalue the life they actually are.   

 

Student:  Thank you, Father, I will.  It looks like I'm going to do a lot of leaning. (laughter) 

 

MICHAEL:  Well, that's the adventure--to see what gives, and what remains stubborn.  This is the true way of growth.  This is your real spiritual task as a human being for, as your Urantia book puts it, in a more enlightened society those who have conquered themselves deserve and receive greater praise than those who conquer others. (Yes)  So keep fighting the good fight to become who you can be, and then take a break from it from time to time.  Be still and rest in who you are.  Seek and find my peace.  

 

Student:  Thank you, Father Michael. 

 

Student:  Good evening, Michael.  (Good evening)  I was reading in the Urantia book about your instructions to the Apostles about prayer, and one of the things to pray for was the extension of the kingdom.  I guess I'd like a better understanding of what that means, in that it's a spiritual kingdom.  What would it look like in another person?  In doing the work of extending the kingdom, how much of it is a part of them recognizing spirit, and how much of it is a part of recognizing the existence of God the Father, and you, and the universe?  How much of that work is about being really spiritually present, as you spoke of tonight?

 

(Seeking the kingdom: spiritual unity vs. uniformity)

 

MICHAEL:  Yes, my daughter, you just--as you say--hit the nail on the head: that was my whole lesson tonight.  The key that unlocks the answers to all your questions is that the kingdom is within you.  That is what I addressed this evening.

 

The kingdom is within you.  Not only are Mother Spirit, and myself, and our mutual Father--in fact the whole spiritual community--around you, your Father Fragment, and Mother Spirit's Adjutants are right within you, part of you.  And you yourself, my daughter, are a spiritual being, a God-created personality--this changeless, unique essence of who you are.  This is the kingdom within you.  Now: what sort of kingdom do you want to be?  I think you would prefer the freedom of being a democracy within, open to all possibility coming from your own higher consciousness and your Father Fragment's guidance, rather than being a closed-minded, petty dictatorship of an immature and insecure ego.  All spiritual influences are nudging you towards the democratic end of that spectrum.  

 

Being open-minded is none other than being willing to entertain anything, anything whatsoever that occurs to you, however distressing it might be momentarily.  You do live in a mass-media culture that still finds so much entertainment in the obscene acts of violence--all the crime melodrama, the spies and counter-spies, the endless glorifying of warfare that fills your television and movies and video games.  You have this all around you, and therefore within you.  So it takes a kind of inner strength to let it all just pass through you without affecting you.  You have all the subtle and not-so-subtle manipulations of church and state trying to get your obedience, all the media-sponsoring advertisements of your consumer society vying for your attention and money.  But to trust yourself, to trust your spirit; to trust in your own creativity and spontaneity rather than clinging to some dogmatic, simplistic notions of who or what you should be; to be this feeling/living being, my daughter, is the kind of inner kingdom we would wish for you.

 

So imagine now a society composed of such mature individuals.  Here you are face to face with the distinction between such individuals being unified spiritually in their very essence--their inner democracy, their inner freedom--while manifesting this essence of their unique personalities uniquely, outwardly differently.  This is the difference between spiritual unity as contra-distinct from some outward show of uniformity so demanded by your social and political and religious hierarchies.  To timid, insecure souls, this kingdom of free spirits I mention would appear to be chaos.  Who's in charge?  Who's telling everyone else what to do?  Everyone's just running around doing their own thing--as you say: yet always with response-ability, the mature ability to respond to each other.  To one bereft of spirit, there can be no perception of the spiritual unity than can exist between very disparate people.  In this too I cautioned my apostles and disciples: don't demand or rely upon outward shows of uniformity.  

 

Does this give you some further notions of the spiritual kingdom, my daughter, and what it might feel like in yourself and look like in others?

 

Student:  Yes, it helps me to see that as I build the kingdom within me, in my inner life, and the spirit grows within me, then I'm better able to recognize it in others, and spiritually expand out into the world.  I could be a spiritual presence for those who are less aware of it.  Is that what you mean?

 

MICHAEL:  Exactly.  You yourself become that guiding light.  You have that wonderful expression that: deep calls to deep.  I'll extend it and say that deep recognizes deep.  The more you have this open, gregarious, cheerful and supporting spirit yourself, the more you can recognize it in others; the more you can kind-of induce it in others.  Then a really lively dance can ensue.

 

Student:  Then that's what kindles the light within the other person.

 

MICHAEL:  Yes, just as you too are drawn to that light you can recognize in someone else.  We mention this soulful quality because truly spiritually adventuresome folks do accumulate great souls.  They're not caught in some rut for years and years, they're out on the edge, living the adventure, knowing the variety our Father has in store for everyone who welcomes it.  This you can recognize as character; and as you're drawn to theirs, so others are drawn to yours.  

 

Student:  So this is where you have faith in another person's spirit--spirit capacity.

 

MICHAEL:  Yes.  Faith is that extending yourself out beyond your perceptions, your certainty, just trusting there is more to someone than you can yet perceive; whereas character is an actual perception.  Faith is going beyond, trusting, acting as if you could see what you really can't quite--yet.  It's why faith is another kind of courage, another kind of trust, often defined as acting on the evidence of things unseen.  

 

Sometimes we refer to the quality of spiritual generosity, when you just credit folks with good intentions they may not yet show.  You give them the benefit of the doubt, as you say.  How wonderful when they respond.  

 

Student:  Isn't that what God does with us?--gives us the opportunity to grow into this beyond?--with faith?--like a parent does with a child?  

 

MICHAEL:  Yes, right as part of His creation.  There is always a "beyond"--the next step, there to head toward.  You will never exhaust it.  A wise parent literally creates the room into which their children can grow.  

 

Student:  Yes, I can really feel the safety of that room that God provides so we needn't fear.  Thank you.

 

MICHAEL:  To be perfectly frank, some of that room comes in the form of what you call a challenge.  (laughter)  And so the adventure, at times, becomes quite severe, depending in part--as you say--on where you're coming from.  But yes, you can trust that the way is there if you are open to it.  The Father does maintain His presence right within you, ever pointing the way.  You have an absolutely true guide, and you are surrounded by a whole spiritual community, a whole hierarchy of angels, if you will, holding out their hands to give you a hand up.  The way can be fraught with fear, but as I just mentioned with C, that fear may be a righteous caution to pay attention, to respect yourself and what is being demanded of you that moment.  This is not something little, but neither are you.  So keep the faith, my daughter, and be in my peace.  

 

Student:  Good evening, Michael.  It's so nice to be here.  Your humor is just so, so delightful; and of course your wisdom.  That about fear is right up my alley because it's been my mission now for many years to understand courage.  I think I'm finally learning that only I can deprive myself of anything, and if I'm fearing not having, not enough, that fear of lack, of scarcity--that principle, fear of death: it becomes so clear to me that only I deprive myself of something.  So how I feel full--I just keep leaning toward understanding.  I have to focus my attention--and pay attention--to what I have, and not what I don't have.  And it's bringing me a lot of peace.  

 

It's the idea of detachment, and not clinging, and staying in a free way of thinking, and feeling the rewards of my struggle for courage.  It's almost like it's a natural occurrence when I don't cling.  It's finally...it's wonderful!  It's finally working!  I fill up with joy, and excitement, and talk about adventure, and turn fear into fascination.  I mean that's the key right there--being fascinated and staying in the mystery.

 

I get so much strength when I come here; and focusing on courage is a big thing for me.  Also I wanted to know if you would speak on faith versus hope, because I feel hope is good for humanity, for everyone.  I think you nailed it when you said something about trust.  Faith has more to do with trust, while hope has something to do with longing for truth, beauty, goodness--extending the kingdom from my inner joy to others.  So if you could speak on those.  And thank you again, especially for your humor.  I'm paying attention.

 

(Hope and faith)

 

MICHAEL, laughing:  Yes, my daughter.  I don't know if I can add much.(much laughter, bubbling over)..you've got a pretty good handle on it there.  You are most correct when you intuit that hope is a great yearning--having the courage to allow yourself to yearn this way; to yearn for that which is not yet, but, hopefully, possible.  This is a very positive self-motivation, as contrasted with guilt which is more like driving yourself along with a bullwhip of aversion to what you don't want to happen.  

 

Hope is positive, but it does take courage to embrace.  Sometimes in a hopeless-seeming situation you may try to avoid it because of the pain of reality it brings with it--the intense realization you are in such a dire straight.  There is then a kind of giving up, a resignation that is possible--psychologically.  There is even a kind of back-handed courage in trying to accept the situation is hopeless, but not when it leads to a deliberate numbing-out to life itself.  This may seem easy for me to say, but I do hereby acknowledge the enormous pain you may feel when you awake from this numbness and begin to embrace hope.  

 

The next step is to act on that hope.  And this is faith.  Faith is essentially an action, a doing, even if only the mental doing of entertaining possibilities that bring into painful relief your present situation.  To allow yourself to feel hope; to allow yourself to be motivated by truth, by goodness, by beauty; and then to begin to act on what is not yet perceptible, but only possible; to extend your spiritual generosity, your helping hand to another--even when you know it may not be appreciated, but to have faith in basic humanity: this is trust: trusting spirit is there--in you, in them: spirit surrounds every situation: no painful or evil situation can last forever.  Is this definition enough for you? 

 

Student:  Yes, it's very interesting how a lot of our pain, because it's so self-induced, can be eliminated with just a change in perception.  So I've noticed I've gone through a lot of emotional roller-coasters lately to learn the difference between romantic love and that love I make for the benefit of others.  When the romantic love is only for me there's so much pain when it doesn't go the way I want it to go.  I'm trying to understand that the love that goes out from me to others, there's no pain, no feeling of loss.  So I'm trying to pay attention to areas when I feel, Oh!--I'm not worthy!  My ego wants to over-analyze everything.  I just need to accept everything.  Thank you for all your input; thank you so much.  

 

MICHAEL:  Well, if a Creator Son can give you some insight into romantic love--(much laughter)--not speaking from my own human experience here--but I did notice--there is often a difference between falling in love, and loving.  The romantic state when two people fall in love can be an abnegation of responsibility, entering into a state that, ironically and often tragically, ends up meaning that falling in love was not a very loving thing to do to each other.  It's a kind of addiction you call co-dependency.  Two people become addicted to a state of mind that glosses over a lot of irresponsibility--not responding to the whole situation in a truly wise and selflessly loving way.  There's too much--even if mutual--clinging, whereas truly loving is freeing, liberating, letting each other be.

 

So there is that distinction I feel you're reaching toward: how to extend your love irrespective of what you get back.  You're not entering into some kind of contract, some co-dependant contract.  I appreciate your distinctions, my daughter.  Keep going in this discrimination, this understanding.  It is liberating, is it not?

 

Student:  Yes.  And I love how you said to C, freedom's gonna cost ya!  That was beautiful; truth is beautiful.  Thank you.

 

Student:  Yes, Michael, I'm just sifting through all that was talked about tonight.  I remember I once asked you or Mother Spirit why I've had such a hard time getting involved in groups; and how I wanted to be this teacher in a group--teach and travel around the world, that kind of stuff.  But there's always been this hesitancy about doing it.  In this group I've been in lately, I said I was committed to awareness, not necessarily to the group itself: committed to the kingdom as you just said.  I too desire to come from my own experience; it's all I really have.  It's all we all have.  But what I've come to understand is to pinpoint the kingdom is folly; it's indescribable.  It's who we are that cannot be talked about because it's the pure view of who we are.  It's only our points of view within this pure view that is who we are in the world, what we identify with. 

 

So I just open up.  I have no idea what my future will look like.  I could pass away before the end of the year: who knows?  But that's fine too.  I do have the faith--not just the hope, but the faith--which is certainty--that my life is beneficial, and will continue to be so, alive and intense as I allow myself to become familiar with the kingdom that already exists.  And that is my commitment.

 

I know that at times I get caught up in the folly of points of view, of what I identify with--i.e. romantic love, materialism, whatever.  But I know deep down in my heart the reality of who I am and who we all are.  So I'm hesitantly opening that Pandora's Box of experience, of knowing that I am on a ledge, but you are there with me.  I have no idea what the kingdom looks like because it's a felt experience, it's a vision I've only had glimpses of.  But.I could go on and on.  So.

 

MICHAEL:  Yes, my son, I second that certainty you have experienced--primarily in your stillness, in your meditations, when you allow that seeming paradox, or Pandora's Box as you called it, of your own ungraspable soul to open up and give you fresh insights from your own genuine experience.

 

(Actual experience vs. invalid generalizations)  

 

Reflecting back on the last few lessons of Mother Spirit and myself, I would caution you mainly about that which is in you which is not your experience, that which you erroneously extrapolate into invalid, often fearsome generalizations.  The one that stands out: you mentioned once that God's intention could not be that someone would be a steelworker in a factory all their life, only to retire and die--something to that effect.  (Yes)  I think you can see now how that was a genuine sentiment at that moment--you were definitely sincere in trying to understand God's intentions, but I see how you are tormented by such abstractions.  I can only ask you to take to heart what was Mother Spirit's next lesson addressing abstractions like that.

 

The way out is by realizing that you've just created a cartoon with which to frighten yourself.  For which steelworker were you referring to?--this older man who is about to retire with a whole career working up to handling that thirty-ton ladle of molten steel; is it the fellow working in the metallurgy lab who hates his job, or the young man who is looking forward to going into all that enormous noise and activity, following a three-generation family tradition?--all those thousands of unique individuals.  God's intention for them is to be free-willed, to be creatures of free-will dignity, and each one lives somewhat differently and ever-changing along that whole spectrum of being conditioned or being free.  The idea of someone just retiring and then dying, as you've mentioned a few times; there's very possibly twenty or thirty or more years there--children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren; moving here and there; hobbies and interests, lifelong friends; decades of soul-growth, of wisdom.  

 

So this--to me--can be a major torment you put yourself through giving credence to these baseless abstractions that do pop up in your mind.  The way out is to realize they are such.  Ask yourself: how many actual steelworkers--or whoever, or whatever you're generalizing--have you known?  This is sticking to your personal experience in order to avoid what you also said--feeling like a mere shadow, subordinating your real, living/breathing self to these conclusions.  (Yes) Human belief is so powerful you can literally put yourself into an abeyance of yourself.  Your asking what reality is can actually put it--you--into question.  

 

Student:  I guess.and I do appreciate what you just said.  I think it's sometimes just a projection of what I'm feeling.  It is my own feeling, and I'm just seeing it in society, and thinking about the people I work for.  I think I'm saying that sometimes people don't think they have a choice.  But the point is too: I know I have a choice, and I know I have free will, but still at times let fear kind-of put a cloud over that free will--and that's my discernment.  What you and so many other teachers have said is to be still, and to rest, and not get caught up in all these abstractions--peoples' stories.  Because that's where the kingdom lies--in that stillness, that rest, that peace beyond points of view.  It's that pure view that's indescribable.  So I do thank you for that wake-up.  I sincerely do not want to be tormented.  I am tired of that in my gut.  (much laughter)

 

MICHAEL:  It helps being cautious whenever the thought occurs to you as to what God's intentions are.  This is the basic humility/recognition of how enormous, subtle, even absolute and infinite His intentions are, especially when it gets right down to any particular personal being.

 

Student:  Yes, I understand.  So thank you.

 

(Not a soul lost)

 

MICHAEL:  Even on tired old Urantia here, this planet of my incarnation, this planet which has gone so terribly astray from once possible divine paths; even on this old world there's not been a soul lost who wished to carry on.  Every man, woman, or child who ever lived here, from the most primitive caveman on, had that human potential, that transcendent potential you are all wrapped in, that is even now providing them life, wherever they are in their ascending career.  

 

I know this is hard to imagine or visualize, but entertain the fact, my children, that they're all still alive.  They're all still out here, moving on.  This is also God's intention of their free will, of their choice to keep going on, a choice always made after the physical death you will all go through.  It will be a clear, unequivocal, fully understood choice that is only possible after you have achieved a little more spiritual/soulful maturity and perception on the Morontia level of life.

 

This is that present actuality that is the basis of the potentiality.but now I'm getting rather abstract.  (much laughter, Michael included)  I congratulate you, my son, on that persisting desire of yours to see through it all, to get at that pureness of vision, of spirit, that is the enlivening, the life throughout it all.  

 

It's been another wonderful evening.  I really had fun tonight.  This is such a delight to be a father and have fun with my children.  As I've said before, this is the one essence of my relationship--as Jesus--with my fellow human friends that's been missing through the history of Christianity; understanding so, because all the centuries of evolving civilizations the church has come up through have been rather scary ones at times, indeed.  Back in my day we did not know so much laughter, so much outward fun--if you will.  Folks had to be pretty serious.  But there was this deep, abiding joy that we shared, that truly enabled my disciples and apostles to carry on after I left.  They were the times that filled our souls with such wonder.  And so I thank you, my children.  Be in my peace.  Good evening.                                                                                                      

 
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