Michael - The Seasons of Your Soul - The Reality of Separation - Sep 19, 2005 - Marin TM, Mill Valley, CA

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

Michael—September 19, 2005

T/R-JL (Jerry Lane)

(The Seasons of Your Soul)

(Pruning Away the Dead Wood in Your Life)

(The Reality of Separation)

(Preparing the Way for Monjoronson)

(Michael’s and Mother Spirit’s Limitations)

(Self-forgetfulness and Experience)

(Spiritual Healing)

(Letting Go into Sleep and Prayer)

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, We thank You for these insights that feed and shape our understanding. We’ve come to understand that our growth in spirit is not so much something entirely new--right out of the blue, so to speak, but it is seeing familiar things in a new and fresh way. As the spiritual part of our life relates directly to the value we put on things, then our growth in spirit must, of necessity, mean a willingness to reevaluate all the aspects of our lives. So we ask You to help us with the courage to do this, to let old, disused parts of the past fade away, be pruned away from the living tree of our life so that the source of our life comes through ever stronger. Help us remember that spirit is the source. Amen.

MICHAEL: Good evening, My children, this is Michael, your Father and your Brother. I welcome your prayer this evening for it means you are letting our lessons impact you and affect your lives. This is not always easy, this process of renewal. So yes, it does help to think of the various ways the plant kingdoms here on Urantia renew themselves, attuned to the seasons--how they have their moments of bursting forth and exfoliating wildly in all directions in a kind of glorious springing forth, and then enjoying this for a period before the winter sets in.

The frost comes along and nips at the new growth, and the winds begin to blow and the pruning away of the dead branches begins. Now the animals too are so attuned to the seasons that they also have their joyous times--of mating and expanding, often coinciding with food for the youngsters, giving the youngsters time to grow and get a small foothold on the earth, before the winter comes to challenge their life.

(The seasons of your soul)

But when you get to human beings, your deeper life is no longer so dependent on the seasons. You speak of a winter of the soul that can be quite independent of the month of the year. And so it is helpful to understand what season your spirit and your soul are in. For you too can know a springtime where ideas and notions are sprouting wildly in all directions, and you are expanding somewhat haphazardly for the sheer joy of it. New life has come to you and it is altogether fitting that you rejoice and feel the pure essence of it coursing through you, renewing you, teasing you out of yourself into trying things you never dreamed of before. This is the springtime of your spirit, when you are so busy blossoming there is little time to give heed yet to fully evaluating what is happening to you.

And so you go into a kind of summer as this newness settles in and finds its place in your soul with what has gone before. You can glory in the sunshine of this new growth and look forward to a harvest of new concepts and understandings based on this. But insofar as you are not a tree or a bush, this new growth, these new perceptions can cause your center to shift; and you can feel this. If you do not understand the process, it can be quite uncomfortable to feel your center shifting.

Then comes the winter of your soul. This, if you will, is the economic aspect for even your spirit at your current stage of existence is not unlimited. This is that re-evaluation of all you have just gone through, for as your center shifts to incorporate the new growth, former interests and great passions all of a sudden seem to be rather flat or lifeless. Life has flowed to the new growth and now there are dead branches in your day-to-day life that, if you are a good spiritual gardener, you know must be pruned away.

(Pruning away the dead wood in your life)

These you can think of as the unthinking, repetitious habits of your life that are continuing on a physical level--biochemical impulses which are quite unhealthy and are robbing you of life, or they can be mental habits, habitual ways of thinking and perceiving that this new perspective, this new life has enabled you to see lead nowhere, or are simply no longer valid. For the world around you is also growing and you need to keep up. You find yourself hesitating half-way through the next step as feelings of uncertainty threaten to overwhelm you. And since, My children, this is what you are going through--even more, this is what you are choosing to go through, this is what you are welcoming into your life.

We have tried to help you be conscious of when you are uncertain, and not fear it, but recognize it as necessary, even enlivening. For through all these processes, as you grow in spirit you are growing towards the source of life. You are re-evaluating what you are doing in terms of what truly feeds your soul.

Do not think that the pruning must necessarily be painful. If you keep your eye on the new growth, and the sturdy core of your being, the pruning is actually delightful. You are so full of the new life that things of little value can be allowed to drop away into a warm and happy nostalgia. Now they are simply how and what you once were, and understood as such, pleasant to reminisce--but no longer useful. So look to what is living. Look to what is truly healthy and strengthening. Keep in touch with how you are growing, for wasn’t this the original purpose? Wasn’t this why you embraced these new-found spiritual dimensions?

There is something deep down inside of you, perhaps even My Spirit of Truth--telling you that this growth in spirit is the solid stuff. This is ultimately what you are standing on, more secure even than the planet. For this is what you’ll have with you when this planet is but a distant memory. Welcome to God’s way. Grow in Him, grow with Him. If you’re feeling your very center shifting, be not afraid, but realize it must do so to embrace this greater life. Recognize uncertainty when you’re suddenly in the midst of it, and it is all around you. Trust in the upwelling of spirit that spontaneously arises to meet the challenge. Know that you are approaching another Springtime.

If you have any questions, My children--or comments, I’m always happy to hear them and answer as best I may.

Student: Father Michael, a friend of mine’s father is in the process of dying, which will be anytime now. I’m wondering what I can tell her to ease the pain of that, and how can I pray for her to ease her pain and understand what the process actually is? Another part of the question is: she asked twice now if, after he dies, is there any way he can come back to help her out? And I don’t know what to tell her. I know what goes on--the Urantia Book is pretty clear about it. But I don’t want to disappoint…not disappoint; I don’t want to upset her and have her lose faith.

(The reality of separation)

MICHAEL: Yes C, the loss of someone so dear, especially a parent from whom you can feel you have derived your own life, challenges your concept of God’s wisdom. Why did He set up human life this way? Why is there such a thing as separation? For even if you know in your heart that life does not stop, but just undergoes a very—granted--major modification, still there is separation. There is separation right within life, all the more so for your highly mobile, modern society.

So ask her to think about it in these terms, and reach within herself for her own trust in God, her own trust in His wisdom. He represents us with this necessity to separate even from those we feel to be so much a part of us. Why is this? What does separation ask of us? And just what is the necessity for it? I think this is the heart of the matter, regardless of ones faith that life goes on even greater and much more glorious than what you know as a human on Urantia. Could it be that God wants us to be self-reliant and at least somewhat self-sufficient, self-governing and distinct; in a word—autonomous, needing fundamentally only our relationship with Him to really know, to really experience our completeness?

You remember We had a few lessons on how, though you are still imperfect beings, created as such so you may share in creating in your own perfection, you are nevertheless complete moment to moment? Yet pain and suffering and separation challenges your experience of this completeness. You lose someone you love and suddenly you feel as if you are only half of who you were just the day before, like part of you is missing.

But then you have the opportunity of discovering you are still complete. And how else could you experience this--completely real? Some of your philosophers have postulated that God deliberately created separation simply for the joy of the reuniting, for there will be a reuniting, and the truth of this can sustain your hope. Hope is, after all, a spiritual strength that can help you in your hours of suffering the separation. But more immediately is this challenge to your feeling of being complete, which is why you will all experience someday loosing what you know of as life itself, to really discover what life actually is beyond death.

So perhaps for this reason the separation of death is rather absolute for you until that reuniting. You are given the opportunity to rediscover who you are: evermore alone, evermore needful of your primal Father--God himself--for company, yet closer too—to finding Him inside you. Mother Spirit and I are also right with you. We invite you to rediscover Us. Does that answer your question, My son? Student: Yes, it does, Father, it eases my heart quite a bit. Thank You very much.

MICHAEL: You are very welcome. As in Our lesson on pain and suffering, do your best to acknowledge the reality of these difficulties within your life so you don’t slight them in some superficial or cavalier way, especially when they are challenging someone else. And be in My peace.

Student: Dear Michael, several of us are trying to grapple with the idea of getting ready for the Magisterial Mission in the sense that we are to be tethered to it, and I know this requires a higher ethic. I know it’s similar to, maybe, advanced Mansion World training or some harmonic of that, and I’d like some help with the ethics of that, and the expected joy of that. It will help several of us gird our loins, so to speak, to be comfortable with being tethered in service with Monjoronson. Thank You.

(Preparing the way for Monjoronson)

MICHAEL: Yes V, I would ask you keep one concept supreme when you think of My Brother and this very welcome mission of His to Urantia. The small English word for that enormous concept is: mercy. Mercy is often counterpoised with the concept of justice. Whereas justice implies a kind of absolute moral cause-and-effect, a kind of impersonal relationship between cause and effect—actions and reward or punishment--so as to be absolutely fair in the sense of uniform, uniformly applied to personal beings—mercy implies taking cognizance of the uniqueness of each person and each situation, which is that other great aspect of God’s creativity. You are taught, for example, that the Trinity, acting impersonally in the realms of justice, is however superceded by the Father’s love and the Eternal Son’s ministry of mercy, coming all the way down to your human lives. You have been taught that justice, or judging is never to be a solitary or individual affair. Think of all the centuries upon centuries of law that you have evolved so that justice can be administered by the group. And so in this sense mercy emphasizes the personal, the unique, taking into account the special considerations of each situation.

So first of all ask yourself, how can I always be a person to those I come in contact with, especially if your relationship is somewhat formalized where you are the boss, or the worker, or the parent, or the teacher. Over and above all these roles you play of necessity, and are quite genuine, be a person--be personable. Give this other person someone to relate to. And of course see them the same way, beyond whatever title or position they may be holding. This shared humanity is the heart of mercy. This is the essence of forgiveness. This is the generosity of spirit with which you give of yourself with strength and courage, independent of any expectations of result.

I think these things would bring a smile to Monjoronson’s face, don’t you? An Avonal Son of Paradise is concerned with seeing such a transformation on this rather cynical old world. Think of all the forgiveness it will take. Think of all the generosity it will take, right within your own life, to say: the tired, old, negative karma that I encounter everyday stops with me. I will take it in, not denying a speck of it, but then let it go. And I will spring up fresh, and present myself a complete person to the next person I meet. Does that interest you, My son?

Student: Yes, it does! I feel I’ll be a better team player, and less dangerous to my teammates… (laughter) while I’m tethered.

MICHAEL: The only tethering here is to this transcendent purpose. Actually it will require you to be rather un-tethered in your creativity, your curiosity, and your acceptance. So be in My peace.

Student: Michael, I would like to express my joy for the springtime that is now upon this planet, for the depth of love and creativity that is in this plan of correcting this world. I am in awe as to what is being offered us now. And I thank You for Your part in this.

(Michael’s and Mother Spirit’s limitations)

MICHAEL: My son, you are very, very welcome. If Mother Spirit and I sometimes seem to be a bit standoffish, or if We seem reluctant to directly help you in what you feel you need to do, We ask--most humbly--for you to trust Us! Trust in Our wisdom. Trust in Our farsightedness, that We may know better than you what you are capable of doing. For this is the only thing that limits Us. We are a Creator Son and Mother Spirit of a Local Universe of some millions of worlds at every stage of development, from the most primitive to those with cultures millions and millions of years in development. And so We have the power. Now you must trust that We limit ourselves only for the highest good. And this highest good absolutely includes you!

As We have been reminding you, you have never been alone. You know the part that Mother Spirit and I have played in your life, right along with the presence of God in your own mind, helping you think those good and necessary thoughts in order to take the next step. Even your guardian angel truly guards you, by guarding your ultimate destiny.

So We thank you for your love and your trust, and remind you, you are capable of growing--always capable of being more than you are. So be at peace in your heart, My son. Let each day be full, then let it be sufficient unto itself. When it comes time to rest, let it all go. Think of it as practicing being extinguished… (laughter) completely, so you can marvel that you just…pop up again. We are all in good hands. And yes, indeed, isn’t it a delight to feel these first stirring warm breezes blowing through some of the colder, starkly impersonal aspects of this old world? Urantia is very much in need of a Springtime of forgiveness and mercy--letting the past be past. Then you can let tomorrow truly be a new day. Do you have any other concerns my son?

Student: Michael, at this time I wish simply to be extinguished in Your peace. (laughter)

MICHAEL: Then so be it! Just remember: you are the one holding on. You are the one who has to let go. But I’ll be right there with you, always offering My peace.

Student: Yes, Michael, it’s interesting watching the various seasons unfold within the personalities of my household. And seeing, in a sense, the Divine Plan being orchestrated within each person, in its own time and its own way. And it’s just really interesting watching the growth that is happening within the various humans that I live with, and work with, and work for. And it seems like the more the balance between being full for myself, and being empty--the more I empty myself of preconceived ideas and notions and expectations I hold for others and for myself--the freer the environment is within myself and around me, even for the more resistant in my sphere--in my universe. And ironically, the more I empty myself, the more I am filled with Your peace and Your love, and Your joy. And I feel Your heart pulsating within my heart. And there is a freedom there, that You have talked about in the past. And what You alluded to the last time, where I brought up the story of the monk picking up the scorpion and being stung; and the monk saying, hoping for the scorpion to trust him: and now I no longer wish to do that. I no longer wish to be wounded in that way by other peoples’ values and misperceptions. I allow them to be themselves, and to allow God to work within them in the way that they are able to come to grips with, and comprehend, and be open to. So it’s quite interesting, watching all this unfold within myself and within all these people. And as You said before, there is an eternal life. We are all eternal living expressions of life with God. So there is not hurry. So I thank You for allowing me to be patient, and to grow in this patience. And I keep being patient. And there’s a process, because I have no idea of what is to happen in the coming days or weeks or months. But I do know, all is good in the plans that are happening now and into the future.

(Self-forgetfulness and experience)

MICHAEL: Yes My son, I think you are finding that unbounded nature that Mother Spirit recommended last week. And it is somewhat ironic, that when you give up all notions--even of joy--as to what you are and what you are capable of, and you enjoy the spiritual courage of self-forgetfulness, you actually experience more. You’re discovering how this "more" becomes part of your soul. There’s a trust in the process. In this you are approaching the nature of God who has divested Himself, of Himself, as much as is Godly possible--absolutely and infinitely--else there would not be this gigantic cosmos happening, full of all of us. It seems strange at first that, as you enjoy more and more self-forgetfulness, your awareness increases, because all the essential parts of you are still there--and operating very nicely, thank you: your curiosity, your imagination, your creativity. What a delight!

Student: In a sense, being self-forgetful, like this, allows you to see the person in front of you more clearly. And you treat them with respect and with honor for what they are in their own lives.

MICHAEL: Yes, and then you have them as another possession of your soul.

Student: I do have one question--and I know it’s getting late--of the idea of someone being wounded? Can a person be healed without having to go back to the source of that wound; in a sense, not relive it or re-enact it or bring it up into memory? Because some people have secured a vault around the source of their wounds. Can they be, instead of going through years of therapy and counseling, and whatever…other means of healing, can they be healed right here and now, without going back to the source of their wounds?

(Spiritual healing)

MICHAEL: Yes. This is actually what happens in all spiritual healing. It’s always now; but this is often unrealized. The realization—the coming into reality of this is the healing. A person can suddenly discover their completeness, even though there may be physical parts of them, or former abilities missing. For this is a spiritual triumph without peer. But no one can say exactly how this will happen, for it is the very essence of individuality and uniqueness, in which a person in concert with Myself, and Mother Spirit, and God is suddenly able to achieve the present--achieve the spontaneity and the creativity of realizing their complete spirit, and literally be reborn. From that moment on they can start to grow again--including all the memories of what went before, but are no longer so determining their freedom. The personality suddenly begins to act, and is no longer satisfied with just re-acting.

But how this happens, and when it happens, is a mystery within each personality. You can see that this is something each personality is always striving for. For in a way, not one of you--especially on Urantia--is completely unwounded or un-afflicted. This is why your textbook assures you that those who have never been challenged this way are not the fortunate ones. It is those who have been severely challenged and yet rose above it triumphant, who have been tested, who can subsequently consider the testing their most prized possession. This is that trust in God’s wisdom that we looked at with respect to separation, and pain, and suffering. Does this answer you question, My son?

Student: Yes, it does! Yes, it does.

MICHAEL: Then be in My peace. My daughter, have you any questions for Us this evening?

Student: Not at this time.

MICHAEL: I say Us, because I think you’ve gathered that it’s always Mother Spirit and I here together. But We welcome you joining Us. And you’re always encouraged to venture your questions, or even any comments you may wish to express or share with Us.

Student (laughing): Well, I didn’t understand when this other gentleman was talking about being extinguished.

(Letting go into sleep and prayer)

MICHAEL: Here we were talking about a profound trust in God so you do not fear letting go of yourself, most commonly when lay yourself down to sleep at night, but also in other situations where you simply confess, not only to Us, and to your Father, but more importantly to yourself, that you just don’t know what to do. This is being extinguished in prayer--expressing your situation or concern as best you can, but then letting that go. You let go all of yourself to be open for the answer that can come.

This is like when you go to sleep at night if you allow yourself to let the day close. It’s past now; let it be past. It’s there in your memories. It’s there in your soul. But let there be a break in your self-consciousness. Take a break! Let yourself be extinguished utterly in your trust in God so that in your rest, or in the depth of your prayer, your Father can renew you. You can hear what My Spirit of Truth has to offer. You can let Mother Spirit’s dimensions of wisdom and worship sustain you. You can start again. The more completely you can be extinguished in stillness, the more complete can be this renewal.

Student: Well, that makes sense now.

MICHAEL: Well, that is how We meant it. It is what I mean when I say, rest in My peace. However momentarily, just let go…everything. Take a deep breath, if you want. Feel your heart beating. And just let everything go. This is My peace!

And so My children, how blessed you are to feel these first warm breezes of Urantia’s Springtime of transformation blowing through your souls.

Do not fear the changes that are coming. We’ve talked about the polarizing effect as this world struggles to become one, and peoples are required to confront differences of culture. Welcome the pruning going on within your own lives. Give your energy and determination to stand by this re-evaluation going on within you. Let the dead wood of old habits drop away. Think not so much of revving yourselves up to go forward into battle, but rather, calmly offer mercy to all those about you who are already wounded and limping back from the front lines of their lives. Offer hope. Always be a person. Give of yourselves, and find yourselves growing because of it. And be in My peace. Good evening.

END