[tmtranscripts] Lesson Review (10-22-96.BUT)

[Gerdean]

DATE: October 22, 1996
LOCATION: Butler, PA, USA
T/R: Gerdean

TEACHER SESSION:
Reviewing Earlier Lessons

TOMAS: Good evening, everyone. I am Tomas. I am your Teacher.

Group: Good evening, Tomas.

TOMAS: I have a new name for you. "Little rascals." (Group giggle)

Hunnah: You're getting' street smart.

TOMAS: I have been around the block, and so I am becoming street smart, but I assure you my nomenclature is born of affection and not derision. How you play with one another and among each other is so entertaining! How you pull pranks on one another and cry and then laugh, is a part of your heritage which, although it is cumbersome, is also according to your stature. You are not alone in this descriptive phrase, but your rascally ways are truly harmless by comparison to those who would do evil. Yours is the orneriness born of children who have known plenty, who have known affection, who have known forgiveness, who have known play and joy and laughter. As you have mercy and patience with one another, as you behold others' behaviors, those who are perhaps also rascally, look upon them with kindness and tolerance and patience.

My dear friends, I am fully apprised that you have been fed abundantly and consistently of late. Indeed, our lessons have been so fruitful and so plenteous, there has barely been time for you to digest one course before we have brought on yet another. And so this week I would like to take a break from our customary perseverance into realms of thought and meditation to reflect and review some of those things which have come to your mind as if a belch from the plenteous feasts prepared and served for you of late.

I know we will have much to consider, and so I open the floor to you already. Hunnah?

Hunnah: Oh, wow. What I understand is that you're asking us to reach into the lessons that we have received in the past and, if we have been applying them in our life and if we have seen -- Is this what you want? to make reference to it?

TOMAS: Rather. I have seen and heard you all make reference to various lessons and to pull questions and discourse from behind your ear and I thought perhaps you might want to ponder these questions and discourses aloud for further clarification. Before we proceed however, I would like to be introduced to our guest, that is to say, that I have not met...

Hunnah: Sorry. I hadn't realized you have not met him. This young man is part of our larger family and the last name I heard he was David (pronounced Dah-veed'). This is my son, Barry. We're real pleased to have him here this evening. Instead of cleaning, doing chores, he's up here almost at your feet. Barry, this is Tomas.

TOMAS: Hello, Barry. I am very pleased to meet you. Charmed indeed am I to have your companionship this evening. My flock has rather touted you as a folk hero among them and it is my pleasure also to make your acquaintance for I know that your music has stirred the imagination of many, and so you and I have something in common at the outset. It is truly a pleasure to meet you and to honor your presence here. Thank you for your indulgence.

Hunnah: He is really not closed-mouthed. He'll say something.

Barry: I had my name changed.

Hunnah: I thought you weren't supposed to share it.

Barry: I can't pronounce it. (Group laughter) My old name is [indecipherable].

TOMAS: I shall call you Dah-veed'.

Hunnah: I think we all suffer from a human condition called, "What are we supposed to do now?" and part of me knows that what we are supposed to do now is practice what we heard, to put these principles into practice, but we all came back from this wonderful conference kind of expecting to find a note on the door saying, "this is what's going to happen" and it doesn't happen that way, of course, but I have personally still been dealing with letting the other fellow live his life and minding my own business and it's probably just going to be biting at my heels all the way to forever, but that's one of the things . so I guess that falls under the category of tolerance.

TOMAS: No. (Group laughter) It puts you in a position, my dear, of other people having to tolerate you, and that (group laughter), I know, is not your desire.

Hunnah: Oh!

Ruth: Follow that!

TOMAS: You are guilty of a common human foible -- of attempting to manage the show, of opting to be the director of the production -- for if they would simply do their lines as you see them written, the show would go well, but, you see, everyone has their own interpretation of how their lines should be read. Some even follow the guidelines of the Master Scriptwriter, arid so, as you can relinquish your control over these little rascals and allow them to learn by their own experience, they will indeed be brought to the guidance of that which sincerely enables them to speak their lines most clearly, that guidance being the God of us all.

It is certainly not that you stand alone in this character defect. Your planet is rife with such ignorance. It makes life difficult. I did riot intend to chide you in my remarks but rather to help you realize that this is something that, in illumination, you could, as you are wont to say, allow to evaporate in the light. Many times awareness of a situation is truly adequate to bring the light of truth and therefore correction into play.

It is no wonder, I would add, that you and many others have this propensity, for so many individuals seem to have and truly do have no meaningful direction in their life, and perhaps as a mother and through the Mother Spirit's influence you feel compelled to gather your chicks around you and feather the nest and protect them from the storms of life, but they will not learn this way. They must learn from their own experience, even if it to you appears foolish or ignorant or abrasive or immature.

It is necessary that the young learn how to live by their own experience. When you have thus allowed humankind to go its way, to learn its lessons in its own time, in its own course, you have released yourself to be free in your own sphere, to then play and reap the benefits of your own priceless experience. In this way you find you have more time and more clarity in seeing how to do what you would do more graciously.

Hunnah: I knew that you would just take that and do something really wonderful with it.

TOMAS: And now the ball is in your court. (Group chuckle) I know Leah has had some difficulty with the lesson lately having to do with forgiving tolerance. Leah?

Leah: Well, as I spoke to Gerdean today, I was just saying that I just found it hard to believe, when the words were spoken, that God has a condition on love and that was that we know him, and I was just, oh, I was just thinking that there are a lot of people that don't know him. I'm sure that he loves them anyway, and then Gerdean informed me and I should have thought of it, you are speaking to people who know him and perhaps the main -- you were speaking of people who know God but choose not to know him. That's something that was on my mind.

Another thing that was on my mind was a similar question to the one I asked last week and it was a discussion on that, it was about undying hope. Is that the same thing as faith?

TOMAS: Again, no. But let me pause a moment before I launch into a response, for I see here how your intellect is undermining your attempts at soulful understanding. You often, Leah, catch a glimpse of a concept and compare it to another in your mind rather than allowing the experience to become a living reality within you. Therefore, faith is a blanket, an umbrella, which covers all these fruits of the spirit. No fruit can stand without faith. Is it the same as faith?

Leah: I see. For a moment I see. Now I lost it again. I had a glimpse for a second there!

TOMAS: Your brain is your enemy here, Leah. You believe that understanding is done with the mental faculties when true understanding is born of the spirit. As you are born of the spirit and become responsive to the First Source and Center, the very Cause of your essential existence, you have within you a natural desire to manifest those qualities of God which are in you and of you now that you have made the eternal association with divinity.

These fruits of the spirit are not something we bring out as if they were plastic fruit to polish and set upon the table for our admiration and for the admiration of others, no. These are living fruits, which sometimes are difficult to digest. The fruit of "forgiving tolerance," for example, is difficult of understanding when you do not realize that your perceived offenses, or the perceived offenses of your siblings, are bothering you because you have not approached them with Fatherly forgiveness, and so that fruit can be chewed upon, can be pondered in your heart, in your soul .

It does you little good to analyze these fruits in your mind for the human mind can rationalize anything, can justify anything in defense of its own ego existence. In turning over your very being to spirit reality, these fruits can be seen clearly in that knowledge that lies deep within you, that goes beyond your brain but that is at the very seat of your existence.

How then you manifest these fruits becomes a science, an art, and this process can be shared with others from your heartfelt soul stance and through the ministry of your intellect, to share, to realize, to make actual the living fruit in your life and in your relationships with those around you.

Hunnah: While you're talking, you kept saying "living fruits". This week-end we got on the subject of "vibrations" and what I pictured was that faith was like a decibel of ... like a level that we expressed in consciousness and it is always what it is. I don't know if I'm making sense, but that intellectually we cannot have it, we cannot manipulate it or do anything. It simply is a state of being. That when you come into faith, it does what faith does. We don't apply it or manipulate it. Am I on course here?

TOMAS: How can I say whether you are on or off course? You have presented-- 

Hunnah: Too abstract:

TOMAS: Yes. You have presented, shall we say, an abstraction for us to ponder. I will ponder that abstraction.

Hunnah: I have to ponder it. Maybe it's too immature.

TOMAS: Let me help you. You introduced the subject through the term "vibration". You augmented that with the word faith. Let me help to clarify by pointing out that a vibration is not faith but a vibration is harmonic. It is, if you could see pattern -- which comes from Paradise -- there is pattern, perfect pattern, and imperfect pattern, but as something harmoniously strikes chords of spirit reality or cosmic consciousness or soul unity, a certain vibrational level may be experienced. You can then understand if this is a good vibration or a bad vibration based on your experience previous with vibrations. It is not faith.

You may stand back, in faith, and acknowledge the vibrations of the situation, even discuss what went into comprising the vibrations of the situation, but only through faith can you be assured that the reality and the good of the instant of the vibration will survive and elevate if it is true reality. By faith you will know that any unreality will cease to be. Even good vibrations can be sometimes equated to scaffolding which, in the long run, is only temporary.

Faith is eternal. Faith is permanent. It is from the Father. It is yours. Through your faith you can create vibrations. You can establish an environment by, yes, manipulating your environment, by-establishing certain internal tonal qualities, which will impact on the environment, and thereby establishing a vibration. Has that been helpful?

Hunnah: Yes, it has. While you've been talking I've also been picking up an interacting word which is trust. 

TOMAS: Indeed, faith and trust are interacting. Let me state something you already know, to remind you that faith is something you receive as a gift from the Father; it is part of the eternal reality. Trust is a subsequence. Trust is something you do. For whereas you are given faith, you decide whether or not to trust. You decide how much to trust, how far you will trust, and as you allow your faith to develop, as you trust the Father to provide you with situations and growth circumstances and service opportunities and insights, your faith becomes more well established, your trust has been upheld. Your trust, then, becomes greater also, and so they work together, but they are not the same. I am speaking in the affirmative, you understand.

Hunnah: Thank you.

TOMAS: You are welcome. I will add that when one is born of the spirit and life's circumstances pit themselves against an individual and they struggle in spiritual isolation from their peers, when life gets hard, it is easy for the child of God to withdraw his trust. He may still have faith, but faith without works is dead.

It may be required, it may come to pass that the shepherd will find his sheep and return him to the fold. It may be that the shepherd will give a visitation to the isolated sheep, reassuring him/her of sonship/daughtership, thus reinforcing the reality. And it also comes to pass, as workers in the Father's vineyard, that you must shine your light so as to reflect your reality to those who have lost their sense of association with the Universal Parent, and thus re-establish their faith connection.

This is merciful ministry. This is forgiving tolerance. This calls for confiding trust, in loving service. These (are living) fruits that you use to minister to each other and to those who hold back in fear, those who have dropped a veil between themselves and the light. 

Hunnah: Confiding trust. When that is being applied, does that connect with prayer? You just mentioned a call to working at the daily interactions ... I'm having trouble co-operating with you to getting quality receptivity, and everybody was fed too much before you came and I hope it isn't affecting the talk.

TOMAS: You are having trouble dealing with me on understanding something. Let not your heart be troubled regarding your friends here. Remember, too, the twins who slept through Jesus' lessons. "They do well," and look how well you do.

Hunnah: Yes, we do.

TOMAS: So do not worry. When one of the others has an urgent desire to communicate, I will sense their soul's urgency and respond. I do feel life stirring; do not despair. You are all with me, I know.

Hunnah: Thank you. That makes me feel better. But I still can't get used to this great opportunity and act as if we're watching' TV and we can get up and go get popcorn. It seems so disrespectful and I'm guilty of it myself, as you pointed out, so thank you for your understanding.

TOMAS: I hope you learn to acknowledge me as your uncle, your older brother, your favorite cousin or some kind of demarcation that will enable us to develop an eternal friendship. I am not sublime by any means, nor am I worthy of adoration, so let your mind rest on that count.

Hunnah: Well, I have something. We honor Gerdean when we give you our total attention because it is such a unique opportunity to be able to communicate like this and by being attentive, it is also a way of saying Thank You to her and it shows respect.

TOMAS: It is appreciated.

Leah: Tomas, are you saying that like Jesus said, "I am the vine and you are the branches," so faith is like the vine and the attributes or the fruits of the spirit we're speaking of would be like the branches? Or am I just getting too intellectual again?

TOMAS: I was smiling and saying, "What a mind you have!" You seek for comparative analyses everywhere without ascertaining the core reality of any of them. You are an artist like Salvador Dali.

Leah: I always liked his works.

TOMAS: You might try putting your mental impressions on canvas and looking at it to see how it works, for indeed, there are some fascinating shades of color and form there which you would find very meaningful and entertaining if you could but see, for as intellectual as you are, as cerebral as your propensity is, you do not see your mind clearly. Much of your difficulty in tackling life's simple problems is because you complicate your life overmuch by your overactive brain cells.

Again, I do not say this to upbraid you, but to help you realize that comparing one reality to another does not give you an experiential understanding. It is for you to determine whether you prefer sincerity or confidence, although it would be very difficult to have one without the other. Indeed, all reality is tied in.

Hunnah: When you discuss the way Lean operates, you were talking about people like Leah also who operate the same way. Yeah! This is a way of human conduct.

TOMAS: Modus operandi.

Hunnah: Yeah, that's it. But you talked about "the core." Would that come only -- would that connecting with the Core Reality come through meditation, so that the left brain could shut its mouth, so to speak?

TOMAS: The Core Reality is developed -- Your relationship with the Core Reality is developed through meditation and prayer, through Stillness, but I will refer you back to the concept of rebirth, the total consecration of the will, the being washed, baptized in the spirit. Rebirth is a literal occasion, and once this occasion has been had, it is recognized in the archives as actual and your experiential life is henceforth altered -- eternally!

Some individuals dance around this fundamental experience their entire mortal life. Many of them, in their desire to succeed, indeed even to succeed in spirit reality, make great offerings and perform great services by and through their intentions and their motives which are good, but they have short-changed themselves of the actual experience of being reborn of the spirit. This is the unfortunate lot of most of moral men and women. I stress to you that as you bow humbly before the reality of your Creator Father, you are brought into a new awareness and the fruits of the spirit become a natural part of your approach to life.

I do not intend to bring shame or guilt upon anyone who has not had this experience -- do not mistake me. I will only unceasingly encourage you to attain this understanding of kinship in the kingdom, the spiritual kingdom, for this is where the living reality resides. Otherwise you are seeing only shadowy manifestations of the living reality. You are observing delightful illusions. It is a process, for even after having experienced this rebirth, it is an on-going evolutionary struggle to master the mortal propensities that the fruits of the spirit may excel in your lives.

It is a marvelous adventure! An unparalleled opportunity, fraught with challenges and ripe with rewards. And so I hammer at that same old tin cup, for it is the only cup worth drinking from.

Loreenia: Tomas?

TOMAS: Proceed, Loreenia.

Loreenia: I talked to Doc last week. I requested he hang around for a few days until I had time to have an operation in the physical, spiritual, mental and emotional levels. This weekend I have been so extremely sensitive to things. I can't exactly explain it. It's like my mind has taken a leave of absence and something else has taken over to -- logical mind, like going for a job interview, everything was forgotten, helter-skelter, and I've

noticed this weekend that I overreacted to some simple notes of communication purposes, and at the same time I was overreacting I could stand back and see the overreaction to it. My feelings were solid on the fact. I seem to be super-sensitive and overreacting all weekend, to little things. And I can't remember things anymore. I mean, what's going on? The other day I couldn't even remember my social security number, which is something -- that's the first time I've ever experienced that! Is this normal?

TOMAS: Let me respond. Yes, Loreenia, it is normal, for you have asked for a surgical procedure to take place and as with any surgery, when you come out, you are tender. Like any snake that goes through molting, who leaves its old skin behind in the crevice, the new skin emerging is brilliantly clear and reflective. Your new skin is sensitive.

Your sensitivity is temporary, but let me discuss sensitivity for a moment since you have brought it to the table. Sensitivity is truly a two-edged sword. Sometimes your sensitivities are such that you are too easily wounded and your mind takes off on tangents of what its own interpretations are.

Loreenia: Like electric shock!

TOMAS: On the other hand, sensitivities are necessary for you to appreciate your spiritual nature and your divine associations as well as your relationships with others. To rule out sensitivity entirely is to become a machine, and so balance is necessary in appreciating the quality of sensitivity.

Loreenia: That's why specifically I've asked for balance in all bases.

TOMAS: You have asked well arid wisely. Have patience with yourself now as you are brought face to face with certain sensitivities. Rather than give it a blanket dismissal as these sensitivities come to your awareness individually, take a look spiritually, emotionally, psychically, and so forth, and ascertain why you were sensitive about that particular ort of information and dwell on it so that you can know yourself better and so that you can improve your associations with others, or that you may file that one as being an over-sensitive reaction and let it pass.

Sensitivity is and can be a great asset. Consider the antennae of the insect realm. Being sensitive to movement and to light and to sound can determine life or death, and so it is with a newborn being or with a being who has gone through a significant growth change, which, I would add, is also a rebirth. These rebirths are also on going. Determine with each sensitivity its value and savor then your experiences.

Loreenia: What about the memory? Time being lost?

TOMAS: If your mind is healthy in terms of getting adequate rest, adequate nourishment, adequate freedom from stress, adequate time in stillness, in meditation, your mind will work for you, and you can forget things for long periods of time, knowing that it is appropriately filed and your mind, your friend, will flag you when it is time for that fact, that date.

Loreenia: That happened this week!

TOMAS: It will happen. It, too, is natural. It is not required that you keep all these things in the front burner of your mind at all times. If you do, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to experience the more sensory and aesthetic and spiritual aspects of this marvelous existence.

It is always wise to have a friend with whom you can check in for a reality check. If your friend does not reflect your true nature in loving kindness, in loving service, in confiding trust, in forgiving tolerance, in enduring peace, in undying hope, then perhaps they are not your friend. It may be, then, that you have your own reality and you are the one who can manifest these fruits to others who are lost.

Loreenia: Also, Tomas, my daughter called me this week. I've left my children in my Father's hands because it's beyond my care. I would appreciate extra help.

TOMAS: So noted. 

Loreenia: Thank you.

TOMAS: My dear children, 1 see now you have curled up in your nests and tucked your feet around you in postures indicative of comfort, happiness and care. I will leave you thus. I hope you do not find that my words were too severe. I have been privileged to have these moments to reflect with you on some of the more refined aspects of our slaughterhouse of information lately. I am again happy to have enjoyed your1 companionship, Da-vid, Evangel, Ruth, all of you, blessed ones, go in peace. Farewell.

Group: Thank you, Tomas. Farewell.
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