[tmtranscripts] 08-11-01 SPOKANE TEACHER BASE

[ZooidODell at aol.com]

Date:  August 11, 2001
Location:  Spokane, WA
T/R:  Gerdean
TEACHERS & TOPICS:
       DOLORES:  Human Associations 101
       TOMAS:  More on Friendship

TOMAS: Good afternoon.  I am Tomas.  I'll be here for just a few minutes and 
then I'll give the group to the Teacher assistance of Dolores today for our 
continued discussion on Human Associations.  The highlight of my message to 
you today is in reference to comfort zone.  You may envision me this 
afternoon in my chair with a glass of iced tea, having no apparent discomfort 
from the oppressive heat of your local climate.  The climatic extremes of 
Urantia are a short-lived chapter in your existence.  As you know, the 
mansion worlds are more moderate, and infinitely less dramatic in their 
geologic scope also.  

However, the rigors of material life are made in such a way as to allow you 
to overcome a lot of these seeming handicaps through mastering the forces of 
nature.  Climbing the highest peak, shooting rapids - these sport-like 
experiences to the more athletic are not possible on the more developed, 
advanced worlds which have begun to temper and also on the morontia spheres 
where such feats of accomplishment pale in comparison to the feats of 
accomplishment you will approach in that reality.

The Teachers on assignment here with you observe with fascination your lives 
as you live it.  With the exception of Abraham, all of us have come from 
other worlds, and while there are similarities, Urantia is unique in itself.  
As you know, my home world was one which was extreme, weather-wise, which was 
a contributing factor to our adaptation to each other and to our way of life 
which was contributory to our being able to elevate our behaviors into the 
spheres of fraternity which ultimately gave us an environment approaching a 
quality of life you might call light and life.

I mention this as an indication of how it is possible that you can reach 
great spiritual heights of accomplishment even while in the flesh.  You can 
master your environment sufficiently to allow your higher selves to rule the 
day and overcome the down-pull of the heat, the cold, and other weather 
constraints.  You will think me a fraud for chatting about the weather.  
Well, this is perhaps a preliminary to your on-going session now about Human 
Associations, for when humans have no other idea of what to talk about, they 
talk about the weather.  This is one way of establishing a Human Association. 
 Let us then commence.

DOLORES: I am Dolores.  Good afternoon.  I take up the pointer and my place 
at the podium.  I greet you.  I thank you for attending our time with you in 
joy and anticipation even in delight of our association.  We have become 
friends, yes, in our association and I'd like to stress today the human 
quality that you all recognize as friendship.  The fraternity born of 
friendship is essential to having the platform readily available for you to 
bridge the gap from this world to the next, from this reality to the higher 
ground, from the awareness of the life in the flesh to the awareness of the 
life as it is lived in the spirit.

Let's go back, then, and look at your friendships throughout the course of 
your life, the childhood associations.  Have you a favorite memory of your 
pals you can call up?  Gerdean, what about you?

GERDEAN: Yes, my best friend in childhood, or my best friend at one point in 
time, was a gal named Donna and we took the bus together.  We were probably 
what you would call "school bus friends" because I didn't see her at school 
that often and I didn't see her at home that often but we rode together 
loyally on the bus every day.  It somehow made the transition from my home 
life to my school life more meaningful because she and I always shared a seat 
on the bus.

I can't remember having large numbers of children as friends.  I had another 
friend, Debby, but she was what you might call "painfully shy" and she would 
never spend the night at my house, although I often spent the night at her 
house.  One time she did muster up the courage to spend the night away from 
her home and in the middle of the night my dad had to take her back home, so 
we didn't do that again but I visited her often and we had a good time.  We 
colored mostly, as I remember.

And I had a fellah friend, Stanley, who lived across the railroad tracks in 
another community we lived in when I was a child, and he would always come 
across the tracks and we created this great building out of, I don't know 
what they were, chicken crates or orange crates or something.  It seems like 
there must have been hundreds of them and we made a huge structure.  It was 
like a fort, I suppose, but we would play there by the hour and that was fun. 
 Most of my childhood friends were one-on-one situations.

DOLORES: Thoroah?

THOROAH: I think that my childhood was almost replete with sort of unrequited 
friendships.  Friendships always seemed to end up with getting hurt by each 
other a lot.  We'd get over those things, but I think there was a lot of 
disappointment in friendships when I was young.  My two closest friends 
(besides my sister, Carol) and all the way through high school, were my 
cousin Kent and my friend Tom and they both shared with me more of the 
spiritual kinds of things than anybody else had.  But I didn't have a lot of 
close friends, and still don't, but I think I was vulnerable to being taken 
advantage of, which wasn't necessarily my friends' fault as much as myself.

DOLORES: You've both had the experience of Human Associations in your youth, 
yes.  The disappointments you mention are, in the main, because you are 
molding your personality as children and adapting in ways that are not 
required by your family.  There are also family constraints put upon children 
in their friendships, but I cannot help but notice that you both stressed the 
reason for your friendship, the activity that bound you.  The common interest 
you shared.  This common interest may have been temporary, but the congealing 
factor of your association was because of your common love for a thing or an 
activity or your common need.

The fact of friendship has not changed that much in adulthood.  You still 
call those who are your friends those who have with you a commonality that 
binds you or allows you to have sympathetic feelings.  This is the basis of 
clubs and social groups - stamp collectors, cheer leaders, canasta players, 
hockey players, other fraternities and sororities of like-minded people which 
constitute Human Associations.  

Many of you have asked about how it is that you can better promote the higher 
reality in your daily life.  The challenge is to look for openings, while the 
more zealous begin to attack the problem with evangelical overtones, and even 
while it may appear too simple, a one-on-one association is still the most 
effective route to proselytizing.  It is still the most efficient method of 
bringing man to God and thus God to man.  This is fortuitous, for not 
everyone is as gregarious or as popular as those kids you may have looked at 
with envy in grade school, those who were constantly swarmed by admirers or 
supporters.  

But in those situations where you are in a group because of that group 
purpose, it tends to constrain you in your attempts to open up the level of 
communication to include the spirit interest.  It's as if society isn't set 
up to give God an opening, and here is where you feel your responsibility 
lies, that you would bring truth, beauty and goodness to your more routine 
affairs and associations rather than to make a public pronouncement or a big 
noise about ministry.  

Well, you're on track.  The key is in you, that same key that is in the story 
about Jesus who would seek the key wherewith to unlock the door.  In this 
parable you can see that he, too, had to seek to find a way to open that 
door.  He was known to have said ‘knock and the door will be opened unto 
you".  He is depicted as standing at the door poised to knock. You are all 
standing at the door of your friends, poised to knock on their heart in order 
to let Him in, in order to open to spirit reality such that they will be 
personally affected, and it is indeed a fine art form to be able to find the 
key and open the door such that they will enter into the kingdom.

How would you do this?  What is your technique?  Each of you have begun to 
develop a technique that is reflecting a degree of success.  Each of you are 
aware of how you have attempted to approach the spirit in your Human 
Associations only to have the door slammed in your face, and in these 
experiences you have been able to review and ponder what it is you have done 
that is offensive, how you could have done it better, or you have gotten 
deeper insight into how resistant your fellow is to a new dimension, a 
thought, or a purpose.

This is not any different than when you were a child and your friend and you 
had a parting of the ways because of a misunderstanding or hurt feelings.  
Children aren't sophisticated in analyzing a behavior, and they are only 
concerned about how it can get back to where it was when you were friends, 
before their reactions or responses to your behavior or your comments caused 
them to react or recoil.  Sometimes the parents intervene on behalf of their 
child and thwart your attempts to reconcile the friendship.  

In this adult life, too, the "adult" of the mortal sometimes interjects, 
interferes, intercedes on behalf of the mortal and the association is 
disrupted.  The "adult" may be their own intellect, may be their own fears, 
may be a reflection of their foundations, their own organizational loyalties 
such as to their club or their church or their political ideologies.  And 
when this happens, the only recourse of the child is to mourn he passing of 
that moment in time wherein their friendship was whole and go on to a new 
phase of life, opening other doors to other adventures and experiences, other 
Human Associations.

The tendency is to stick with your own kind.  This is one of the lessons from 
childhood from the clan mentality.  This is a cultural conditioning that 
comes from antiquity, but it seriously limits your horizon in terms of Human 
Associations with those outside the familiar.  As you embark into 
individuality and adulthood, it's possible for you then to develop a taste, 
to encourage the propensity, to seek out that which is unfamiliar, bizarre, 
or in contrast to that which you have always known, in order to exchange your 
cultural composition with others.  

This ability greatly enhances the opportunity to minister "as you pass by" as 
you can readily perceive from Jesus' experiences as a youth in the comings 
and goings of the caravans with their strange scents and sounds.  Thus 
opening the doors of perception into other ways of life and in this wide-eyed 
wondrous exchange of human associations, there is the wide-open door of 
amazement and complete sharing.  It's in so many ways so much easier to 
approach the spirit in company of strangers than it is those whose company 
you have long known and whose limitations are already familiar to you.  

Thus there is provided a range of opportunities, depending upon how far 
afield you allow yourself to go from your home base.  The child, Debby that 
Gerdean spoke of is destined to live a sheltered life if she is of such a 
nature as to cling so fast to her home scene.  The midwayers may be able to 
provide her an opportunity as a youth to reveal to her an adventurous side of 
her character, but it will be her Adjuster who leads her into those 
experiences which will be necessary for her to experience in order to open up 
to that which is unfamiliar.  As is true for all of you who have set out on 
your path toward perfection attainment.

The field of Human Associations is unlimited, especially today in your world 
of mobility and technology.  Each face on the TV is another story.  Each 
person you pass in your car is a story, a personality, a soul, a possible 
friend.  In conclusion today, I would like to add this element of Human 
Associations, and that is that the spirit can be fostered without ever using 
such terms as would be denounced by a mind protecting itself against 
spiritual propaganda.   The presence of God is within you and within them as 
well, and that communion of spirit may be had, may be acknowledged, and may 
be encouraged even in the simplest of communal activities.

A moment in time can be made into and realized as a moment in eternity simply 
by the quality of the sharing that is enjoyed by each of you.  An instant in 
time wherein you mutually share the expression of a child as it crosses her 
face, and appreciating all the wonder and awareness of a youth coming into 
its own as a life, is enough to bond your spirits and eventually this 
encouragement of refinement of sentiment is adequate to support the courage 
to broach upon other discussions and ideologies that may one day lead to an 
acknowledgment of our Eternal Parents and a sublime worship thereof.

But as you well know, a pint cannot hold a quart.  Best to enjoy the cup as 
it runneth over.  In this way its capacities are made greater for yet more of 
the living water.  In this way, too, you are regarded not as a preacher and 
not as a proselyte, but as a friend, and friendship is the pinnacle of Human 
Associations, whether it be a "riding on the bus together friend" or a 
"marriage partner for life friend" or a variation of all of the above.  The 
supreme compliment Jesus paid his apostles was to call them his friends, so 
the assignment is to go enjoy your friends, and enjoy new friends as well, as 
a part of our on-going course in Human Associations.

Thank you for your time today.  I return the podium to Tomas.

TOMAS: The realm of friendship is a side-effect of divinity, whether you are 
conscious of it or not.  I would hardly be your friend if Our Father had not 
brought us together.  I just wanted to sit here with my iced tea and ask if 
you have any questions about anything or have you got anything you want to 
talk about?  It's a measure of friendship to not always want to take the 
floor and focus the attention on yourself, and so I like to give you the 
opportunity to express yourself and let your interests be known.  In this way 
I offer myself in a friendly manner.

[No questions.]

Yes, it is possible to be friends in the political arena.  It is possible for 
those of you who are political to also be friends or those of you who are 
friends to also be political.  The reality of politics is not limited to 
Republicans and Democrats.  It is a part of the constitution of any group of 
entities engaged in a cause or a purpose.  Your identification with TeaM 
inherently involves you in TeaM politics.  And this is a part of association, 
a part therefore of friendships.  

The politics of Jesus' time was not only about the Romans and the Jews and 
the Essenes and so forth.  It was about the mental configurations of each of 
his apostles and disciples and associates. Even though his agenda was an 
agenda of friendship with God, it was regarded as a political stance which 
indeed got him crucified.  But you do well to be mindful of the politics of 
others, the individual and independent mind-sets of your associates that they 
have committed themselves to, consciously or unconsciously, which give them 
the identification with their mental support systems which help them 
constitute who they are.

We will have more opportunities to investigate human politics and Human 
Associations in our adventures into experiencing the brotherhood of man as 
time goes by and as time allows.  This season ahead is astir with celebration 
plans in honor of Jesus of Nazareth who lived the perfect human life. How he 
inspires us in his sovereignty today is no less remarkable than his portrayal 
of Jesus.  The lessons that he lived and taught are as poignant in your 
lesson plans as they were then, and even more so, since it is your life 
indeed that you are living, and sharing this life experience with the Master. 
 The religious life of Jesus and how he lived it is indeed a curriculum well 
worth studying and applying to your own applications of your ministry as you 
pass by.

Enjoy your upcoming festivities and acknowledgments of your appreciation for 
his gift of nativity to Urantia, a gesture of friendship indeed, that you 
have the Human Association with the Sovereign of the universe -- you both 
shared this earth as your material incarnation.  

Sort of like riding the bus, together.  Wouldn't you say, Gerdean?

GERDEAN:  Sure.  A lot like that. Thank you, Tomas.

TOMAS: Thank you, beloved friends.  See you in our next session.  Good 
afternoon.


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