Linda031803Family_BeliefSystemsAndFaith

S. E. Idaho TeaM

Linda (A personal teacher)

The Chosen Family

Belief Systems and Faith

March 18. 2003

Linda(Bill): Take us down the road that leads to Home with greater confidence, greater joy, with greater fellowship of love and peace. May these, my students, be blessed tonight as we meet together. In the name of Michael. Amen

Linda(Bill): My dear friends, I am Linda, Nancy's teacher. It is only appropriate that once in a while we private teachers, we personal teachers, are encouraged to take part in the larger prospect of group teaching, and inasmuch as this meeting tonight is in this home, I have been asked to greet you and share some thoughts.

I am very intrigued with the material from last week which you provided as participants, your understanding of the importance of the chosen family of the Teaching Mission and what that has meant to you. It is salubrious that you meet together for it lubricates your social facilities. It enhances your boundaries of ego and diminishes at the same time the loudness of its voice. As was spoken last week, the greatest thing in the universe of Nebadon and other universes of all seven of the gigantic superuniverses is the reality of the emerging Family of God, which is another way of saying the completion of the Supremacy project in the Supreme Being.

For the record, let it be known that our emphasis on your membership in the Cosmic Family has never been presented to you as a substitute or an either/or presentation. It has always been to enhance the reality that you feel when you have functional family relationships. True, The Cosmic Family is a larger concept; but it is also a more superlative concept. Not only is it greater in scope, but higher in quality. The nuclear family, whether or not it is in jeopardy, is still the most significant social unit in any evolving planetary culture. Certainly, this is true of Urantia. It is also wise to remember that a family is balanced between the parents who are the co-creators of the children. A functional family makes no substitutions. The children are not more important than the marriage bond, so that if the marriage is poor and the spouses find their fulfillment in being parents, we cannot say that it is a fully functional family. The degree of compatibility of just and fair interactions between the mother and father, husband and wife, will, indeed, set the tone for the entire functioning of the rest of the family. Your chosen nuclear family of the Teaching Mission was appraised by Daniel and Aaron as a functional family, and I agree with their assessment.

I would also point out that the most important aspect of the functional family is not so much our purposing to go, as the direction, the sincerity and motivation of their commitment to this end. What this means for you, that are here tonight, is that you need to continue to honor the importance of balance in your relationships and to understand that the degree to which you extend an effort to be unified with other people is also a measure of the degree to which you desire to be unified within yourselves. Or we could say, conversely, the degree to which you are willing to work on self knowledge and balance of personality is also the potential you manifest for effective functional relationships with other people.

And now a few words about belief systems and faith. It is impossible to avoid the reality of formulating and living by a belief system. It is simply not possible for normal minded people to function without a construct of the world in their minds. Everyone does have a picture of how reality manifests. Of course, the wiser among you recognize that no reality picture can be completely accurate, that in a relatively imperfect universe no individual part can be more than relatively imperfect. Therefor, all of your belief systems are only partial, necessarily incomplete, but nevertheless essential to your mental functioning. Certainly, there are relative degrees of validity among different belief systems. Some are clearly more immature, more partial, more inaccurate than others; and intelligent and fair minded people can, to some degree, discern this difference. Belief systems are mental constructs. They are not the same as reality.

Faith, on the other hand, is a word to express a different kind of knowledge than that of hypothesis, which is necessarily characteristic of belief systems. Faith is much grander. It is that bond that ties people together. It is that primal assumption that there can be a reasonable trust in the behavior, commitments, and social contracts of other people. It is also that connection that you have with another individual that you might describe as "gut to gut", rather than "head to head". It's an intuitive sense of the worthwhileness and the faithfulness of another person, so that you can commit to them a certain degree of the secrets of the heart and the promises of your future. Finally, faith is that greatest connection which you intuitively sense within you to that greater power and higher power that you call God. This higher power is not an impersonal Force, but is an intelligent Loving Ground of your being, is a Fatherly, Motherly, Parental Personality that you can trust. You could say that faith is intensely personal, that it is larger than the mere speculations or rational conclusions of the mind. It is not irrational or anti-conceptual, but it is more satisfying.

You may have a discussion with another about the existence of God and that other person can say to you,"Give me proof; show me reasons why I should believe in Deity". You may give your reasons but you will not convince that other person by intellectual argument. They may say to you, "How do you know that your faith is truth?". Again, you will not satisfy them by citing the proofs of St. Thomas Aquinas. All you can say to them is, "I have experienced God in my life as real as any other person that I know. I can't prove it to you, but I know it for myself".

My dear friends, I am so happy to have had the opportunity to add my words to this discussion of family as well as belief and faith. I welcome you to this setting where Nancy and Bob have a family now that brings us great joy as it does them. Indeed, are you all very blessed! I have finished my commentary. Do you have comments or questions?

Nancy: Linda, I sincerely thank you for taking up this topic and for your commentary. I will carefully consider your various topics and work with you to expand the lessons that you have in mind for me. I thank you for being here. It was a joy to hear you through another mind, tonight.

My dear PamElla, if I may call you by that name of affection, you know how much our

relationship means to me and I know it means a great deal to you as well. Yes, thank you for your

sincerity in what you just now stated. I ask you to think about something that has troubled you in

your relationship to transmitting/receiving. May I comment on that?

Nancy/PamElla: Sure.

Linda: You have thought in terms of accuracy and error. It is now becoming more apparent to many transmitter/receivers that this whole way of looking at transmissions is inaccurate. It is, in fact, erroneous. Transmissions are inevitably a blend of the two minds, the transmitting mind and the receiving mind. They cannot help but be a construction from the vocabulary, the memory, the knowledge, the structure of the mind of the receiver as well as the structure of the mind of the transmitter. In evaluating the accuracy of a transmission, one should shift gears to think of this as an exercise in discerning truth. Remember that truth is always greater than facts. So, while there may be factual errors at times that come into transmissions, the important thing is the truth level that exists. I recommend that you come back to a level of confidence, when it is your wish, and rejoin the corps of TRs that would gladly welcome your assistance. I know this is somewhat personal and we can delete this part from the transcript if you wish.

Nancy: No, no. That was lovely. I am sure many people will benefit from your discussion of that topic. Thank you.

(Then follows a few jocular comments on the value of crying when you feel like it instead of holding back the tears and getting a sore throat, also much laughter.)

LaReen: I just want to comment that this sounded like a beautiful re-commitment to me on your part to the teacher connection and work together. That was beautiful.

Virginia: Linda, I do have a question on that very thing, that transmitting is a discernment of truth. Am I correct? Is that what was said?

Linda: In evaluating transmissions, the thing that is important is the discernment of truth.

Virginia: Yes.

Linda: Whether or not on some occasions there might be some factual errors.

Virginia: My concern is that, I think that whenever we try to(and I am looking at myself and I have heard other TRs say this) hear the issues of truth and reality that will help us to grow spiritually, it is possible to have less error when we don't wish to have something happen in our world. That's when I think our wishes get mixed into what we think we are hearing, because we are looking for reality, as such, to change, rather than discernment of truth that will help us grow. Did I make myself clear on that?

Linda: Yes, to me you did. You are saying that in the process of Tring it enhances the truth value of the transmission if the personal wishes of the transmitter are set aside as much as possible.

Virginia: I would say, definitely! In fact when I find myself wanting something desperately to happen as in our world situation now, I have been very careful that I don't let my emotions interfere with what I am hearing. As Klarixiska said this morning, " Virginia, no matter what happens, good is going to come out of this chaos and turmoil that you see in the world. I did not hear what I wanted to hear, that war and death would not occur. I guess that is what I am trying to say, that I cannot interfere with listening.

Linda: I would say it is always best to have the intention of not letting your prejudice and your wishes color what is being said, just as you have described. On the other hand, on some occasions your wishes and desire can be sufficiently altruistic in nature that they would not distort, in a sense, the value or the truth, or dilute it. So, sometimes the very passion that a transmitter has can be a plus, if it isn't an aggrandizement of self or isn't a wilful assertion. The rule of thumb is that when the material presented is more materialistic in tone and tenor then it may be that it is being altered by the preconceived ideas of the transmitter/receiver.

The final point is this. We are not delivering to you Holy Gospel or Sacred Scripture, infallible and God's very Word as it is imagined by fundamentalists of all religions. We are bringing you truth which is relative, even as your belief systems are very relative. It is your responsibility to exercise your best judgment, your truth discernment judgment. Truth as you understand it, is the only truth that matters to you. Each person has that sacred responsibility to exercise their judgment on what is truth for them.

Bob P.: I have a comment also. In listening to what I think I remember, things both in the pre-discussion and the lesson tonight, again, the practice of developing relationships in the larger context, be it celestial or cosmic or even earth wise is excellent practice in skill development for focusing those same types of relationships in narrower context like family relationships, friend relationships, and profession relationships or working relationships. I think the level of affection between the parties obviously differs. The ways of dealing with those relationships remains constant. That's where I can see that in essence they are all the same. I know that some days I am grateful for my professional relationships because of the way they work. Some days I am grateful for spiritual relationships; and all days I am grateful for my family relationships. For me that growth has been somewhat simultaneous. I know we talked earlier tonight about it being broader to narrower, bigger to smaller, but I can say with some confidence that I think it works the other way, also, in that the loving and nurturing experience at the smallest family level can easily translate itself into the broader loving and nurturing relationships otherwise. The point that I think connects all this is practice of the relationships, where all relationships benefit. To me, the order is more philosophical than real. Again, I don't think you can experience very solid relationships without a spirituality of some sort. In a sense, I guess that is what comes first, but is simultaneous with the others. I really believe it is a fairly complex and oftentimes simultaneous development that occurs. I am truly grateful for allowing this long comment. (Laughter)

Linda: My dear friend, your words are truly eloquent and they have added significant clarification to the concepts presented. Our team has just voted to include you in the teaching corps. (Laughter, applause) You already have the distinguished job of teaching on this planet. Thank you very much, Bob, for those clarifying words.

Yes, you are right. It is all the same thing, whether it be in a cosmic sense or in the intimate sense of family. It appears to be philosophical to you, perhaps. Yet when ascension becomes a real experience for you after the gateway of death is passed through, you will see that...

Bob: Give that a little time!

Linda: . ..you will see that it is real as well as philosophical. But, the most important thing that anybody does is the work of the realm in which they live. You live on this mortal sphere, and this is the realm that is most important. If one assumes to be spiritually advanced and cannot apply that alleged knowledge in their mortal lives, their actual day to day interactions, then their alleged spiritual knowledge is just that, alleged and not real.

Well, my friends, I thank Daniel and Minearisa for the chance to be on target tonight. Know that all of us on this side of the veil in the Teaching Mission love all of all you, and are very impressed with your continued growth. We will conclude tonight with a prayer that you are perhaps too familiar with. It would be wise tonight to repeat the prayer that Jesus used in His family, a prayer known in your religions as the Lord's Prayer. I ask you to stand and hold hands.

Group: Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever and ever. Amen.

END