Michael040306MarinTM_TheMeaningOfSpiritualValue_Jesus&HisTA
Michael—April 3, 2006Marin TM Group—Mill Valley, California—U.S. A.MICHAEL—T/R-JLDear Michael and Mother Spirit, Here in Marin we’ve kind-of had Winter hanging on, but the trees are budding, the flowers are coming out, and it’s once again a time of renewal. So this brings to mind what a wonderful springtime in our souls it is that You are initiating with Your lessons--giving us the ability to tap into new life, to feel ourselves blossoming, and best of all, notice how all the folks around us seem to be blossoming too. This is the most amazing and remarkable proof of the value of faith, and we thank You very much. Amen.
MICHAEL: Good evening, My sons, this is Michael. Mother and I do enjoy your spiritual discussions for, being human, you still enjoy and need some feedback, some proof that the spiritual efforts you are making, and these new desires in your hearts actually work. These are Morontia Mota or spiritual laws that you are discovering, and while they have parallels to what you know as physical or natural law, there is something distinct about the spiritual realm and what works there, and this is what you are discovering.
(Spiritual and natural {physical} law)
One fact that spiritual laws have most in common with physical ones is the degree to which both are not obvious unless you actually look for them. Your anthropology and your mass media have given you a much broader contact with different societies and cultures around the world, as was never available before, and so you’ve actually experienced interviews with the other peoples in these cultures, and can understand how the human mind is so creative that at every stage of development, the mind is capable of creating a context within which things do make sense--somewhat. Whether it was conceiving the world being balanced on the back of a gigantic turtle, or perched on top a tree where it required a balance of forces, that were disturbed by such things as storms and earthquakes, other cataclysmic events; all peoples at every time have been able to create the context to give their lives meaning and significance.
With empiricism later on you developed the concepts and techniques of certain tests to see what would work or not--the experimental way of checking these ideas for proof. What an enormous leap forward this was in finding new places to look for the explanation of phenomena, and in this spiritual law is very much the same. Certain causes and effects will not be perceptible to you unless you actually look for them.
So I want to encourage you to continue to do this. Be open to new explanations as to how and why things work the way they do, especially in the spiritual realm. I want to reinforce your outgoing willingness to experiment, your truly scientific discipline of being open to whatever results you encounter. For this is the only way you can grow into greater truth. At the same time keep a very clear idea and memory of where you’ve been, of what satisfied your curiosity at various stages of your own personal growth, for this helps you keep in mind some of the erroneous, or shall we say, more limited notions you’ve had to give up in order to arrive at a greater truth.
One example We have given in Our lessons is how you have to give up a purely materialistic notion of cause and effect if you want to go beyond describing simple physical phenomena and approach a larger understanding of human nature. You immediately encounter a whole mental realm of meaning and associations that are highly unique to each personality’s experience of life.
What you call history—dependant upon the development of language, has been the story of how human minds have been more and more capable of conveying thought to others, even transcending death, to where a living mind can communicate with another living mind across hundreds of years through this development called writing.
Student: Can You repeat that?
MICHAEL: Yes, My son, I’m just calling your attention to the fact that with the creation and development of writing, one human mind could convey its thoughts even after death, just as you now can interpret those who have lived thousands of years ago. Even through many translations, and the fact you are living such totally different lives today it does take an act of creative imagination to understand, shall we say, what Plato meant; still Plato can speak to you today. You can share to a large degree his very thoughts. And this is still just in the realm of mind, of meanings and associations expressing human experience with ever greater precision, developing language to communicate not only with each other, but right within yourself. This is the way reading and understanding helps you capture your own experiences, and then preserve them in ever greater detail in memory.
But then, overarching the mental and the physical aspects of your lives is the spiritual, and in this you transcend all the other animal life of your planet. For even animals enjoy meaning. You can think of your favorite dog or cat and definitely realize how much meaning there is in their lives--of places, of events, of the day’s routine--how opening the refrigerator door has great meaning for them, like getting out the can opener to open a can of their favorite food.
(The meaning of spiritual value—your intrinsic morality)
So let’s look at spiritual laws and how they penetrate and impact these other dimensions of being human. Very much depends on the meaning you put into the word "value." We speak of spiritual value, so when We say that you value some material object, or value the meaning and understanding you have of some person, this is a reflection of your spiritual nature. This is an exercise of your spiritual power of discernment. This is something that no animal is capable of doing. Your creative ability enables you to question and evaluate the meaning of things.
From the time you were a small child you have been creating for yourself a world view by which you evaluate everything that is happening to you throughout the day. It is this very pervasiveness of spirit that, ironically, makes it seem invisible to a more materialistically-minded individual. This is more than just the presence of mind. Your consciousness enjoys Mother Spirit’s Adjutants of Mind/Spirit, so as you go through your day you are actually using another Being’s spiritual power to assist you in this evaluation. And it is by way of this evaluation that you are feeling your way along, moment by moment. This is more than just emotion, though emotion is very much a part of it.
This is how you experience the moral dimension of your human personality. This is how you are evaluating whether what you are doing is right or wrong. Most fundamentally, since what you have most to spend, or waste, is time, you are constantly asking yourself: is this the best use of your time right now, this very minute--whatever it is you are doing. It is this hunger for perfection in your personality that at the very least wants to feel that you are really living, you are really alive.
The situation can be very complex on the mental level because, as We have pointed out, one aspect of your mental freedom is what you call denial. This too starts when you are very young and helps keep you from being overwhelmed at times. You acquire the ability to set critical considerations aside for the moment and be content with where you are; and these choices can be ingrained into habit. And so you can persist in an unconscious denial of what, to another person, might seem to be obvious, and necessary considerations.
So We have had Our lessons on being aware of this fact, and genuinely wondering what there might be in your situation that habit has been hiding from you. With faith and genuine curiosity, along with the help of Mother Spirit’s Adjutant of Courage, you can begin to expand and break out of your bubble of what is simply familiar to you. Embrace aspects of reality that have long been self-hidden. These truths are all spiritual law, My sons. They transcend and condition your physical and mental life.
They point to an intrinsic moral dimension of being a personal being, and so you have to welcome this dimension into your lives and find a way of being comfortable with it. Let this come more and more into your consciousness as you go through your days. How are you evaluating what you are doing--on the basis of what? Where and how did you acquire all these various measuring values from your society, your family, your culture? For how else how could you possibly transcend these accidents of your birth, to grow into being a true, unique individual?
For this, My children, is what you have to give. While you enjoy the comradeship and the society of all your friends with what you have in common, still what you have to give to the group is this unique essence, this viewpoint, these realizations that belong to you alone. I think you can see now how these Morontia Mota, these spiritual laws have their origin in that part of you which already has, shall we say, one toe in the Morontia realm, and that, of course, is your soul. Isn’t this truly what you wish to know of yourselves, this essence of your life co-authored by the presence of God? Isn’t this treasure what you most deeply desire to share with others? And so We show you where to look. This is the true treasure hunt, and I really enjoy the enthusiasm with which you are looking. I enjoy your lively discussions on what you are finding. So carry on. If you have any questions or comments this evening, that too is part of the adventure.
Student: Michael, perhaps I can start off with some questions?
MICHAEL: Certainly.
Student: There are quite a few different passages in our text, the Urantia book--we’ve spoken about this before--quite a few passages that speak about the ability of the Father Fragment, the Indwelling Spirit, to truly communicate with us on a conscious level. It seems now I discern that as we go through the re-patterning of our mind circuits, our abilities to have a conscious communication with our Adjuster have been enhanced.
But more and more I recognize, in my brothers and myself, this ability to have a conversation with that Indwelling Spirit, as we are doing now with You. And so I would just like to know what I am discerning, what truth is
there in that--this gift of the re-pattering of our mind circuits that is taking place on the planet now? Is it helping us open up circuits of communication to a higher level than we have experienced in the past?
(Recognizing ones Thought Adjuster)
MICHAEL: My son, the most critical thing you touched upon, and what I tried to address this evening, is this quality of recognition, of recognizing the source of what you are capable of perceiving and thinking. If you recall, in many of Our lessons We have stated that the Thought Adjuster is so pervasive in your life, it is hard to isolate what this Presence has done for you.
Because it has always been there. In your formative years, its main function was to suggest connections that work more on a physical-mind level just to help you understand how things are connected through time. In doing so, you as an individual were somewhat recapitulating the recent history of your race. As an adolescent and teenager you relived the recent history of mankind’s understanding of natural law. This was obviously very necessary--surrounded by the physical machinery and the electronic world you grew up in.
This is why We feel it is so important for you to recognize the spiritual dimension of your lives. Then you can realize when your Thought Adjuster is suggesting to your more fully mature personality--its full dimension of morality, of what is best for you to be doing with respect to your spiritual growth. This is what you are asking, My son. Is it working? Is it leading you to greater value? But here is where you yourself were given by your Creator, not only the ability, but the need as well to make this final evaluation.
This is such an aspect of your free will, you have to decide if you are advancing or regressing. Within this marvelous spiritual realm you are encountering and embracing with such enthusiasm, you have to decide what is real or not. Because you yourself are a spiritual being, you give it as much reality as it intrinsically has. The whole spiritual Celestial Family has its own totally objective reality. It exists entirely independently of you. So you have to give it reality for yourself by recognizing it. Does this answer your question, My son?
Student: Quite uniquely, Michael. It gives me a wonderful expansion of my understanding of my spiritual growth, and that’s all I can ask. I would like to ask a more personal question along these lines. In your human life as Jesus, I don’t recall from the Urantia book at what point were you able to consciously commune with your Adjuster. The last time I spoke to You about this, You told me about when You would go off into the hills with this comforting Presence that You could recognize. What was the point of transition where this comforting Presence could be recognized as a personality that You could communicate with and talk to as a friend?
(Jesus’ relationship with His Thought Adjuster)
MICHAEL: Well, My son, in this I was most human, just like yourself. And so, as for you now, the development was, even at its very best, so gradual I never gained a complete understanding of the full nature of even My own Though Adjuster until I regained Myself fully--as Michael. But at that moment--when My Thought Adjuster was detached and became a personalized being--that was, as you could imagine, part of an enormous event for the both of us. For it was only then that My Thought Adjuster achieved personalization. But this had always been the presence of God, and for the most part I had always considered our conversations as talking directly to God, My Father.
And so it is with you. This is a pure Presence. It is a direct link to your Creator, My son. Sure enough, it is an individualized, pre-personal fragment, but these are just English word symbols that can only begin to approximate something that is quite beyond any language the world has yet evolved, or even will evolve for some time. So you may consider communicating with your Father Fragment, just as I did Myself, as communicating with God, for this is why it is also called a Mystery Monitor. It is just one facet of God’s personality circuit by which He experiences everything you do. For Me this was a growing, ever more palpable Presence that, however I found it necessary to go off my Myself in order to feel it more fully at times, meanwhile I was, as you will be, able to perceive it more and more in those around Me. Does this help your understanding of My experience?
Student: Yes, it does. And I want to thank You for paving the way--such a remarkable journey!
(Finding and sharing the joy that sustains you)
MICHAEL: I enjoyed Myself in doing so—it’s indescribable. If there is any part of My life that has not been captured so fully yet, it is this profound, unbelievable joy we shared—I and My followers, My friends, My brothers—and I mean My real, biological brothers, as well as those who later devoted their lives to what we shared. If you will, it was the fun we had, the joy of discovering and actually doing God’s work. This is truly what sustained them later, when I was gone. It was the remembering of these wonder, joyful moments we shared that enabled them to keep going. And so it is My heartfelt wish that you too can know this joy that will sustain you, and help you carry on. So be in My peace, My son, and be in My joy as well.
Another Student: Father Michael, You said something that complimented what I found out in a discussion with Welmek earlier this evening, and that is: do something and see what happens. I’ve been caught in a bind of not wanting to do something and make a mistake, but it kind-of freed me of that. So...thank You!
(The need to experiment)
MICHAEL: You are very welcome, My son. It is why Mother and I encourage you to keep, and actually expand all the so-called scientific discipline you’ve been raised with; and why matters of faith only require a suspension of your dis-belief in order for you to try them. So yes, you must experiment, especially with what you do not know. You really exist in ways you are still discovering. You really exist in a here-and-now that is transcendent. All you once knew, and all you are now experiencing, is, in a way, constantly being swept into the past… (laughter)…but ahead of you is that chasm of the unknown that has not happened yet, and is to a certain degree impenetrable—try as you might. Wonder all you can about what is going to happen next. There will be some quotient of what cannot be predicted, or anticipated--even—if you are paying attention—even your own thoughts. But as you are discovering, this is partly due to your Thought Adjuster making suggestions. (Yes)
But you have to step off and try them. This is the true scientific spirit; and it is spiritual, it is an evaluation and appreciation of all you cannot know until you try. This is the adventure that saves you from yourself, and any notions that you’ve already encountered all there is. You’re actually just getting started. You will find this is very true with contacting other spirits, say, writing down what your Celestial Friend wants to tell you. This is precisely what you cannot anticipate, and that’s its very value! You have to simply step off and trust there will be ground under your foot when it lands.
Student: As You were speaking, I was just realizing how much of this fear I have of experimenting and taking that step comes from early religious training where you don’t stray from the straight and narrow. And I’ve found that off the straight and narrow is were the excitement is, where the valuable growth is. And I don’t want to be on that so-called straight and narrow path, even though it’s safe. (heavy sigh)
(Departing from dogma)
MICHAEL: That‘s the irony, is it not? It’s not safe. It can end up killing you long before you die. I can only ask here, My son, you open your heart and truly forgive those who so indoctrinated you, for they meant well, even while they made the colossal, and somewhat egotistical error of thinking they could capture a living, expanding reality in their dogma. Open your heart and forgive them, and wish them well, and trust, as Mother mentioned last week, God has a few surprises in store for them—delightful surprises--to save them from themselves. (laughter) It is nice you are finding other paths.
Student: Yes, I find there’s another area of goodness I have to look into, that never even occurred to me before. And I will do that. Thank You, Father.
MICHAEL: You are so welcome, My son. There is a great amount of forgiveness you all—collectively—have to engage in, both with respect to others who truly meant well, and also toward all your own, immature notions you entertained along the way to here. (Yes) This is how you embrace your souls, and all they contain. It is why Monjoronson’s mission of forgiveness is so critical right now. So be in My peace, and share in My delight you are discovering this adventure.
Student: Thank You, Father, once more.
There occurred a very long and palpable pause…
Student: Yes Michael, I’m just experiencing…You, and this expansiveness of consciousness—our consciousness.
MICHAEL: Yes.
Student: I was contemplating, over the week, what Mother Spirit said to me last week about risking everything. Then I asked, what is everything? And Mother said—if I remember correctly—whatever is familiar to me, and what I think I know. Then I was thinking about that, and I thought about what You and Mother have expressed before about God’s reality being all there is. God’s reality is absolute—love, and truth, and beauty, and wealth, and prosperity, health and wholeness; and so much more than we human beings can possibly conceive of. And I thought to myself, that if God is the only reality, and is absolute reality, then all I have grown up with, and learned through school, and family, and religions, media, it’s all erroneous! It’s false! It’s based on falsehoods. Because God’s reality is absolute reality. And…so it’s like…I don’t want to live in that place. It’s so limiting, so lifeless. I want to live as God created me to live—here and now. I don’t want to live an erroneous life.
(Falsehood and relative truth)
MICHAEL: My son, I‘d like you to entertain as best you can, now, the very deep and spiritual distinction between something that is false, and something that is only relatively true. For this is exactly what I just mentioned to C in looking back upon your own immaturity, looking back on all the phases you had to go through to get to where you are now. Think of these things not so much as false—which deprives them of the reality they had at each step of the way—but see them as being only relatively true, for if you attempt to measure everything from the viewpoint of God’s absoluteness, this would be the most colossal error you could make. (Yes…) Number one: you cannot even begin to assume that viewpoint. As We have pointed out, there are only two other Beings who share with God His absolute realization, His absolute reality. Second: this is not how God sees your past life. He sees as falsehood only that which was deliberately and knowingly misrepresented, for as We have also pointed out, even denial, even the times when you denied some reality to yourself, were, at times, a necessary aspect of your freedom just to keep from being overwhelmed.
Keep in mind all human beings start out at birth with a full compliment of the whole planet’s history of evolution in their little bodies, in the very structure of their cells and DNA, but with zero experience. So obviously, everything starting from zero—experientially—can only be relatively true. And yet it is real for that little baby, that small child, that adolescent and teenager. At every step this being is complete and, when you include the Thought Adjuster and the record being made as this being’s soul, this human being--still so far from perfect--just taking the first few hesitant steps into eternity--is nevertheless a complete reality, a personality created by God.
So let us fast-forward to right now. Here I applaud your desire not to live falsely, your desire to wonder what might be false about you, and sincerely wish to give it up—whatever it might be. This is what Mother says you give up each moment. You keep in mind the truth of how relative all of your precious knowledge and hard-earned experience is. You give up any notions of being perfect already, or of already knowing what is some greater truth that you yourself cannot perceive. This is constantly giving up any inflexibility of what you have already learned in order to step off into the unknown; constantly giving up everything in order to be open to this gigantic universe. Because here it comes!—ready or not! (laughter)
But if you choose with your power of will to open yourself, this is what We call the attitude of humility, of realizing your limitations by opening yourself to the enormity around you. One of your very celebrated scientists once stated how tired he was of being venerated, for he felt himself to be, with all his knowledge, "a child, playing with a few grains of sand on the shores of an illimitable ocean." So think not so much of a younger D as having lived in falsehood all his life, but more as a tadpole (laughter) swimming around, doing the best he could, and slowly sprouting legs!
Student: What I want to say about that, (laughing) is that, if I had been exposed to some of what I’ve come to experience the past few years--when I was younger—my whole life might be totally different. And I realize You’re probably going to say I wasn’t ready to have this knowledge or understanding, these experiences at a younger age. I just feel that if I’d had access to what I’m experiencing recently…but I didn’t.
(You live in a historical context)
MICHAEL: True enough, My son, this is how you are now feeling your life existing within a historical context, which is not only you and your immediate family and companions, but the evolution of culture, the maturing of culture and society. If you had been born a hundred years ago, you would never have heard of something called an Urantia book. And yet if you were to be born some years in the future, when certain truths of the Urantia book will be taught in grade school, then again, you are correct—you would be a very different person. (Yes) The thing to do is to appreciate all you are now, especially, in all humility, realizing how much greater your soul is than what you can yet encompass. Just take Our reassurance that it is there, and you will experience its fullness someday.
Student: I think that more and more: by touching the end of Jesus’ robe—that’s enough, even though there’s so much more cloth.
MICHAEL: Above all, My son, We would not have you see your life to date as being all wrapped up in some kind of falsehood.
Student: No, I don’t feel like that. I feel excitement for the path that is unfolding in front of me. I don’t know what is to happen, but I do feel—as I mentioned to Mother last week—that my life is unfolding perfectly and harmoniously and creatively. That’s the natural way as we become more aware of the Presence within us. It’s naturally wanting to expand, to create, and to unfold positively. So I do have that faith and understanding and perspective, that I and every human being is being propelled at their own pace toward wholeness of expression, even though we do not now how that looks.
MICHAEL: My son, you’ve just touched once again on My lesson for this evening, of how this spiritual evaluation becomes ever more conscious.
Student: And also seems, that because of this awareness, that we treat every human being as that potential You mentioned other times--that they are also expanding and growing and progressing at their own pace—whether they realize it or not. So you treat them with respect and integrity.
Also: what’s the next step after being a tadpole? (laughter) You’ve said that’s the first level—what’s the second level?
MICHAEL: Well, you start to sprout legs and…
Student: I mean—in the spiritual context… If You can expose that… Or will I just know…when it’s come?
MICHAEL: You are already well into it, My son. The growing of legs corresponds to your getting ready for a big transition from the watery life you know now, onto a whole new kind of land. To the degree a little tadpole lives off its tail and the initial life-energies imparted to it, long before it is able to eat and get nourishment, so your growing soul is somewhat similar to its legs. You are already in possession of a Morontia reality, a spiritual reality that will enable you to realize a fantastic explosion of abilities and perceptions in the next phase of your eternal life. We just call you a tadpole to remind you, you are still in this first phase of your life. You haven’t even died and been reborn yet—except, of course, symbolically.
But I sense the evening grows late. Perhaps we should be wrapping it up, unless there are more questions.
Student: No—I’m fine. I feel legs sprouting out! (laughter)
(Living in spirit)
MICHAEL: I do believe we have touched on a bit of joy this evening. It is My deepest hope that this too sustains you, because as Mother points out, for you human beings it’s a constant process of leaving home base in order to rediscover it, just as you leave your home most every day to go out and make your living, and then return with another day’s experiences in your souls. Some Oriental philosophies see this as the biggest game being played—how the One Being forgets It is One in order to become the whole multiplicity of the universe, only to rediscover after some billions and billions of years, that It is One again. You are able to do this each time you tune into spirit; your stillness helps remind you of its reality. You may feel you need to let go this awareness to re-immerse yourselves in the physical or mental situations confronting you, but still--you are growing, you are maturing—you are learning how you can take this spirit with you. You are learning how you are this spirit, and how it penetrates all aspects of your life. This is what is meant by living in spirit, and seeing it everywhere. So welcome those little soulful legs sprouting out, and be not worried that your materialistic tail is getting smaller. Good evening. Be in My peace.
END