Nebadonia - Transmitting & Receiving - Mar 24, 2008 - Marin TM
Nebadonia--March 24, 2008Marin TM Group--Mill Valley, California--U.S.A.
NEBADONIA--T/R-JL
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, I must confess I feel a bit lost for words tonight--how to express some greeting unique to this particular time--I’m filled with so many memories of seemingly hundreds of hours now we’ve gotten together like this. We’ve known so much laughter and tears of joy, so many wonderful realizations that’ve led to some really deep understandings about our own nature--those Handbooks on Being Human you’ve helped us fill out, especially the spiritual parts. I just want to thank you for the reassurance you always give me at the last moment saying simply,"We’re here, my son, just step off." So here we go again. Amen.
NEBADONIA: Good evening, this is your spirit mother Nebadonia, in whose Holy Spirit you live and breathe. Yes indeed: we are here, and we do delight in communicating with you through our many transmitter/receivers. I enjoyed your discussion just now on how we appear to come from a different place, or be a slightly different personal being through each different transmitter. But in this we are just using those abilities and backgrounds that we find.
(Transmitting/receiving)
There is no special training for this ability to transmit except that it does help to have experience in suspending yourself--your reactions--to follow along where we lead. As you credit and trust us with a spontaneity you cannot anticipate, this becomes then a hallmark of genuineness, if you will, a way you can tell it is us. From our point of view, my children, and for our part, this is not something we do deliberately only to amuse you or to prove who we are. This is just the nature of our being. So the best training to be a transmitter, either for a group like this or to do your own journaling--sitting down and writing what of us comes through your own mind--is enhanced by your ability of faith and trust, trusting us, giving your spirit over to us for a while, going along on these flights we take together, trusting we won’t drop you. For we try not to.
As your spiritual parents we can anticipate, to a degree, what you will think, what you will feel to any given situation or stimulus. This gives us some insight as to what could be the next step in your evolution, that we can help you along by introducing. We can see what you need to do next to enhance the ability of your own spirit to come forth and meet all your circumstances more joyfully, more fulfilling-ly. And this we have assured you is possible by relaxing your grip on yourself in meditation, relaxing the pressing concerns on your self-consciousness of your busy planning for tomorrow. That is necessary, but spend some of your precious life solely being open to what spirit suggests.
You often wonder: what exactly is your own spirit; what is the input from your Father Fragment; and what part do I play in your mind? In other words, what am I contributing to the physiological thought processes of your physical brain? And what exactly is Michael’s Spirit of Truth doing in your mind?
These are fun things to explore and we welcome that exploration. We encourage it. As Michael said with respect to any particular state of mind--perhaps wonderings about ESP or different aspects of western mysticism--astral traveling and so forth--just be open-minded and explore. Put aside what fear and trepidation may occur and be open to any dimension you contact. But at the same time, my children, we also encourage you not to worry about it, not be overly concerned if you cannot differentiate all the various sources of what you can feel is spirit. Strange as it may seem, this is where your own spirit is so closely allied with us.
(The presence of spirit)
As we have said before, because it is true, spirit can be directly aware of spirit, personality of personality. At your present stage of development, don’t be overly concerned if all spirit comes across as a single entity, a single presence in your mind and in your heart. Our lessons on your own personal spirit have been to reassure you that this is a part of you; this is part of your own God-given nature. You yourself are a spiritual being, as well as having a physical body that obeys God’s natural laws, and a mind and a psychology that is so profoundly conditioned by the particular culture and time and language in which you find yourself.
Look around: it is your personal spirit that creates for you what you call reality, that unifies and makes real all this input from your body and mind, and other spiritual presences. This is why your perceived, experienced reality is always partly you. It is always in part your interpretation of all three major sources of input, physical, mental and spiritual, and how you uniquely put them together. Because of this creative, intuitive/interpretative power, even as a very small child you were able to imaginatively fill in the gaps in what you couldn’t yet understand. So even though your ability to real-alize is growing--life can become ever more real--your personality has presented you with a relatively coherent world all along.
It’s just that what you accepted as real as a child, as a youngster, as an adolescent, as a young adult, and what you are experiencing now with the added wisdom of knowing our spiritual reality too, the real will itself change and grow. As your Urantia book put it, the time units of immaturity are such slippery moving points of departure you no sooner arrive at any moment than you are immediately relinquishing it. You can literally feel yourself being driven along by life with very little choice in the matter. Whereas the time units of maturity are being fed and influenced by a whole lifetime’s growth of soul. These time units are expanded because you can see so much of the past in the present and understand why what is happening. You are able to use your creative insight from all this wisdom to foresee what will likely, if not certainly, happen tomorrow.
In a like manner, much of the fatalism of youth, the sense of being driven along to some predetermined future that is beyond ones control, can give way to a more open future with an increased sense of response-ability, the growing ability to respond and influence things by doing so. You can get more control of your own future, and this can be a valid feeling/evaluation because you are getting more control of yourself; you are being less and less fated. From our point of view, my children, a true concept that may be hard to grasp is that as you grow in wisdom, and worship, and the ability to sense the spiritual nature of yourself and the whole spiritual community, you’re actually becoming more real. Think of that: your life can become more real. To appreciate this you have only to recall some of those earlier moments from your childhood and adolescence. You have to remember very accurately how things all came apart from time to time and you could only sit there in the pieces, dazed and wondering what had happened.
Fortunately for your as-yet-un-comprehended but indomitable spirit, you got back up and tried again, and little bit by little bit, things started hanging together a little longer. Ever so slowly but inexorably you began to learn what were God’s natural laws, what was God’s will abroad in the universe; and right inside your own mind at the most practicable level, what worked and what didn’t from all the thousand and one bits of advice you were given. This became your soul. This is what is contributing to a greater reality for you now. This is the soul wealth we talk about, your only true wealth, and all you will ever need to grow on into eternity.
We enjoy informing that you are earning this human-type realm of existence day by day, experience by experience. Although you will transform far beyond your wildest beliefs in the endless ages to come as you encounter and become one with, in friendship, so many higher orders of personal beings--come to know and possess their grasp of cosmic reality too; still you will be able to see and feel and touch and smell--fully experience this reality you know now. In this you are truly blessed, for as you grow in spirit you also grow in appreciation of this realm, this realm from which you are beginning and destined to depart--in the sense that this is all you can know now, compared to what you will.
(Your unbounded potential)
This is the only way in all the universes of time and space to create the kind of being you will become, always and forever very distinct from the other orders of personal beings be they angels or Midwayers, Material Sons and Daughters, Melkizadeks or whatever. You will become of the order of completed, fully spiritualized ascendant mortals we call Finaliters, those one-time mortal human beings who have become, finally, fully existential as well as experiential. There is no other way to create such a being incorporating in themselves the full extent of living existence all the way up from the animal type of physical being you are when you are born, across the universe and the billion worlds of Havona to a sixth stage spiritual existence, living on Paradise and experiencing hundreds of dimensions far beyond your comprehension now. This is that spiritual potential that we tease you with, my children; but is a fact. This is what you are. The possibility for becoming this exalted, fully completed and finalized son or daughter of God is being put in your hands. It is upon the basis of your day to day choices, your desire to grow, your curiosity about what is God’s will, that your future rests. Ironic as it might seem, my children, there is no more secure basis than your conscious-self’s decisions upon which to rest it. This possibility was and continues to be God’s choice: to put so much of your future in your own hands. There is no safer and more just repository of this potential but in the human hands of those who stand to benefit so much by it.
This is our faith and our trust in you, and we are seldom disappointed. There will forever be more than you can know, but it is our delight to know this for you and to reassure you of this very thing--your potential for the endless encountering of infinity. This is our gift to you, my children, and it comes by way of your faith in us and your love for us--your very welcomed gifts to us. It is in this mutual reciprocity of deep calling to deep, spirit acknowledging spirit, and, in your case, even in your limited self-conscious self standing in humble obedience to your own deep desire to know God’s will. It is in this you find Him and His purpose for you.
If you have any questions or comments this evening about anything we’ve brought up, or anything on your own mind lately, we are always happy to have these conversations.
Student: Mother, good evening. I was wondering if it’s necessarily to explore astral travel--I don’t know if that is a good word for it--by using the various energy circuits that we’ve got around this world and in the universe--that I, personally, could do it. I’m kind-of wondering why--for me, at the moment. What would be the purpose of doing all this travel, other than exciting adventure? Maybe that’s the whole point.
(The human adventure)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, and that is a good point. We’ve often teased you with what an adventure you’ve been dropped into. (Mother laughs) You had no previous existence prior to this human life you are enjoying now. You did not in any way choose this life, this adventure that has befallen you. And so we say, make the most of it; enjoy it; explore. Part of the benefit of your meditation is to let these various states of spirit-mind come over you and be unafraid to explore them.
I will not prejudge these various experiences as to the exact quotient of their objective or subjective reality, whether, shall we say, those who subjectively experience astral traveling are actually/objectively going somewhere in what would be a normal understanding of time and space. That is for each individual to evaluate to determine the exact nature of the experience and how it uniquely/individually relates to all their other experiences, waking or asleep and dreaming.
I will say that often it is the case where, especially during sleeping or altered states of consciousness, your Thought Adjuster’s spiritual input is so pure it must be interpreted like all other inner perception. The experience will be determined by your whole cultural, temporal background and understanding. As we have said before, it must filter down through these insofar as it can be expressed in words and thoughts and concepts, perhaps inner visions.
This is why we advise trying as best as you can to keep the pure spirit of the experience itself sacrosanct in spite of how your mind worries at it and needs to put it into words and ideas. Have both. Keep as much of the pure feeling distinct from any kind of contrasting or comparing with other experiences. Feel free to explore, then try as best as you can to stay out of arguments with each other, or judge whether another person’s experience is purely subjective or has some quotient of objectivity within it. Just be open and try in your discussions to feel for the reality, the primal feeling/experience that led to the words. As you would say, don’t get hung up in concepts.
So much is conditioned by your belief systems it’s a great part of wisdom that most of you who are set upon this path do try to understand what all these different belief systems mean with respect to each other--how shall I say: the nearly same prime human experience might be expressed so differently. For by doing so you can really share what these primal experiences are and why they have such enormous value for each of you. Does this make sense, my son?
Student: It will make a lot more sense when I read it again. (laughter) But what I’ve taken from it is, it’s OK to experiment. It’s OK to step outside of the boundaries that I think I’m confined to. It looks like--again--to be a part of this life is to step out of those boundaries and go.
NEBADONIA: Exactly. Don’t think all your adventures are only physical or even only physical/mental. There is a whole spiritual universe out there that you are variously in contact with. So feel free to explore; and be in my love.
Student: Thank you, Mother
Student: Yes, Mother, I was just curious about the teachings I’ve been participating in. They seem to be recruiting more people around the world each day, and they say they’re Infinity Teachings that have been around for over seventeen thousand years. They seem to come about in a certain form that the present day population can take in. It seems to be taking off like wildfire.
I still have trepidations even though what is being presented is Pure Deity, Pure Intelligence, Pure Space, Pure Awareness--how our nature is in reality timelessly pure. We are this wisdom body--which you have alluded to. We are timelessly free beyond freedom as a concept: it just is.
I am committed to my own experiencing and expressing my true nature to the best of my ability by being still and restful. But I’m not quite committed to this organization, having been betrayed by so many; and desiring to come from my own experience. But this teaching says that’s what they want--each person to choose to come from their own timeless awareness. I was just wondering if this too was part of the so-called Correcting Time. What is being corrected? Is it our own self-conceived separation from our source, which is, in a sense, illusionary? How can we be separated from our source when we are that source? They say there is a pure view and within that are our own points of view which are only mirages and have no substance.
(Different spiritual teachings)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, I feel your trepidation. It comes across to me as the desire of your spirit to be and remain free from any unconscious identification with one system of belief or another. I encourage this, and hopefully you’ll feel your trepidation as a righteous caution and price you are paying to be free. For you are also involved in enjoying different belief systems and struggling to see what they have in common behind what their different terms refer to. You mention the term timeless awareness, and this is pretty much what we mean by your personality, the essential, God-created reality that makes real, that real-alizes all your physical and mental and spiritual inputs, and unites them into a coherent experience.
Where we disagree most with what you just said is that your conscious self is not a mirage, and can indeed experience a profound separation from its source, leading to real suffering, disease and death. Everything is not happiness and light for, as Michael once said, that would be like trying to paint the landscape of your life with only one color. Your soul also reflects all the pain and suffering, all the anxiety and not-knowing and confusion that had spiritual meaning and significance in your life, perhaps as genuine obstacles you’ve had to overcome.
These are real experiences of a human being starting out in imperfection and immaturity. As your Urantia book put it, and we mentioned before: The endowing of imperfect, immature beings with even a relative degree of freedom leads inevitably to tragedy. Human tragedy is real. The pain you feel or see in others is not a mirage. There is a genuine progress here of the personality learning from the very start, learning by experience, earning this realm of existence. It will always be yours because it is real!
But if you identify solely with the beyond-time-and-space essence of yourself, as these teachings do, then the everyday life of your conscious self will seem to be, as they say, a mirage and of no substance, and the suffering within it an illusion. Historically this was the honest expression of, but then tended to perpetuate, non-progressive cultures that all too nonchalantly accepted the suffering of others as somehow in a natural order of things--immutable and fatalistically foregone. And why attempt to change what is only a mirage?
This distinction is critical! It is why we reassure you that everything that ever happens in human consciousness, has to: it’s real to the person; it has real causes. True enough, wonderfully enough, happenings do not necessarily have to extend through this present moment if you can realize your creative ability to change things. The purpose of your progress is, in part, to eliminate suffering by using your freedom in the present moment, especially by helping those around you. It does not help to see your or their self-conscious life as a mirage, but rather see comprehensively what leads to what.
As an example, your Urantia book cited many positive effects that warfare has had in evolving civilization--organization, planning, unity-of-command, etc.--not in any way to glorify it, but to show you what you must provide by other means in order to supplant it. To see that war and all the attendant suffering was not necessary, its causes of no substance, or that it never solved anything, is to disregard hundreds of thousands of years of human endeavor where, at that time, war was the way to resolve certain territorial and political disagreements; and did. It still is one way. We would rather say all of human life is real. Illusions, seeming mirages, are those aspects of human reality that are realized as such only after-the-fact of their being seen through and outgrown. At the time, illusions seem real--that is their meaning, their power to affect.
This understanding is critical, for you in your present moment--right now--there may be much of what you know as real, that you may some day in the future see--in retrospect--as illusionary. You can only hope and trust that that future you pays due respect to this person you are now--and what you are experiencing now is real, and will not consider your life now some kind of mirage of no substance. Respect your full human experience, indeed, relive moments of it in your soul; and let each moment be what it was in itself--real and whole and complete, even transcendent, like now.
We see what these different systems of belief are trying to express, however awkwardly, handicapped as they are without these critical distinctions, and we share with you your trepidation/caution in identifying with any one in particular--even with what Michael and I have to offer. Take it all in, and decide for yourself.
Student (with backhanded, ironic self-pity): Oh, great! (much laughter) That‘s really helpful! (but then with sincerity…) But what you said about illusion, and what the teachings talk about, is when we allow ourselves to rest--if we’re experiencing something like conflicting emotion, instead of allowing it to take hold of us, but rest and not get caught up in describing what’s going on--that’s the illusionary part; we’re making up stories about it. Instead we should rest and allow our own innate wisdom to take hold and guide us. So all the solutions we need are within us, within our own nature.
Other readings say that when Jesus participated in these teachings, and understood them, he took them another step forward by exalting what it was to be human. He showed that in his life.
NEBADONIA: It is true that Jesus never wasted his time, or that of others, simply confronting or denying what they believed, but, much as we do here with you these evenings, did his best to tease and lovingly show the next step to take. What you are saying is what I mentioned tonight, that all true teachings do endeavor to make your life more real to you. This is possible; and another way of saying maturing--seeing through those only-temporary determinisms that can be outgrown, to arrive at an ever greater consciousness of spirit, which is always an enormous encompassing, always a surrounding greater than your conscious self. It is God’s living handiwork.
Student: You’ve mentioned that I, in myself, am unique, like there’s no other me anywhere in the world. What does that mean? In my body and in my mind there is a me that is unique. What does that mean? Does that make sense?
(Being unique)
NEBADONIA: Yes, it means there is not another D anywhere in the universe. There is something to you that no other being has, or shares with God. This is your personality, and what constitutes you a personal being created by God. It also means this is the true continuity of you, not only through your human life, but also on into the Morontia phases where you can fuse with your Father Fragment and gain that pure spirit stemming from eternity. You will still be you. Millions of years from now there will be a part of you absolutely unchanged right from your beginning here, a pure continuity of D. This is why only God is capable of such infinity of creativity--to create a near infinite number of such personal beings.
We hope to give you some sense of this personal reality, this reality of person-hood, through our recent series of lessons, so if you cannot totally comprehend it, you can have at least some inkling or intuition of what this is within and without you--as you.
Student: I guess this is where my trepidation lies with this other teaching. It doesn’t acknowledge my own uniqueness in the grand scheme of things. It says we’re all One Mind, One Body, One Being--and all that. But I guess I’m like one cell in the body of God, of the universe.
NEBADONIA: This is why we’ve given so many lessons on what constitutes individuality. In many belief systems individuality is an illusion. They can see only how everything is God, even saying that God can only create God. Such statements approach the absurdity of pretending to limit God’s creativity. As we’ve said, it is one hallmark of God’s absolute and infinite creativity that He can create beings like humans and endow them with a relative degree of freedom--even from Himself, hence the possibility--and actuality--of real, un-Godlike behavior.
As an individual you can even deny God and His universal laws to the point of ceasing to exist as an independent being. This is part of your freedom of choice; conversely, your eternal life depends upon those choices you make consciously with your individual self. This is the absoluteness of your individual being now, the way in which you already are, even as a human just starting out in eternity, part of the Deity Absolute, the sum total of all personal beings.
You absolutely are--as an individual, irrespective of how much you can yet realize this. Realizing your unique individuality is a progressive possession of your life, of your soul. Yet as we’ve said, the very experience of feeling one with God--of having God in them experiencing everything they do, is such a humanly profound, life affirming experience, it leads so many to believe that they are only God. Unfortunately this can also lead to their failing to realize, and take responsibility for, that part of their reality they are co-creating from their unique, individual point of view and their own spirit’s creativity. People can indulge such enormous irresponsibility in wanting to believe they are only carrying out God’s will while denying their own, highly active individual purposes and desires.
Student: Let me let that sink in for a while.
NEBADONIA: It might help to reread some of our last few lessons on this very point of how you are distinct as an individual from all others, and God, by dint of His absolute creativity.
Student: I do sense and feel that distinction, and honor that in everyone else as well. I do have the capacity to experience God’s pure view and primordial intention of who I am; and live and thrive from that. I try not to put limits on my own self-expression and that of others. So, I thank you.
NEBADONIA: You are very welcome, my son. What you just said is the real heart of the matter, not to put limits on what is a pure potential. So many of these systems of belief do not make the distinction between a God-created personality that is changeless, and an evolving, self-conscious self which is almost nothing but change--at first; or realize that both are real. So many believers have no understanding of a Fragment of God bequeathed to them that has influence within them, yet how this pure spirit is also distinct from them. But: to be continued. Be in my love. (Thank you)
Student: Mother Spirit, this is C. All this talk about absolute mind, and higher mind… My difficulty with my mind is much more practical, and affects my everyday life and structure. I have a really difficult time carrying out plans, being able to keep track of time, and doing the kinds of structuring I need to, to keep a household and live in this world. I kind-of know what I’m supposed to do, but I keep forgetting it in the moment--it’s so much easier to be in the moment. I want to ask your advice or instruction on what I can do to deal with this. That’s the question.
(Being in the moment)
NEBADONIA: Yes, my daughter, first allow me to point out the wisdom in what you are doing. As Michael once put it, almost no human beings have a persistent devotion to the truth of what is right, what is God’s will, in any kind of real duration. You can only rededicate yourself as often as it occurs to you. You can sit down and meditate and get a feeling of yourself in your present moment, a real sense of yourself as a living being other than all your concerns coming out of the past, and achieve a degree of freedom of here and now. But you have to let this go to stay in the moment of some new activity, and here is where your wisdom comes in, keeping you one with the new moment and totally committed to what is at hand.
For there are those who think of enlightenment or an ideal life as holding some kind of consciousness or blissful state of mind at all times, through all activities. What you are experiencing is the necessity to let yourself go, to forget yourself, and this is by far a greater, wiser accomplishment than trying to hold onto some ideal notion of being enlightened--no matter how subtle and profound you think of it. It will still and always be shy of what your whole being is capable of doing spontaneously when you do forget yourself.
We recommend that you return as often as possible to stillness, even if, at first, only on principle--at a set time; but then with experience, as often as it occurs to you throughout the day. Use these mini-meditations as punctuation; sometimes a period--a full stop to remember what you’re about; sometimes a comma to pause after one activity and start another. Step out of your present situation and reflect a bit, then return whole-heartedly, refreshed with another touch of spontaneous spirit.
It’s a wonderful way to start your day, which means you have to get up maybe twenty minutes or a half-hour earlier than otherwise. It’s good to do at regularly occurring times of the week like getting off work, or before the kids get home from school. Sit down for even ten minutes to be free and get your head present, let things occur to you playfully from your own creativity, consider what best to do next--rather than following the same/old routine out of habit. All through the day have little worship-moments, some thankfulness to God for your life, for what is happening. All these moments, my daughter, give you spiritual strength.
(Acknowledging and appreciating spirit)
These times can be your self-conscious self acknowledging your spiritual being, paying some respect to your personal spirit and the fact you have to devote a part of your life to spirit. This is how you encourage this part of yourself to come forth on its own, spontaneously: and then be taken seriously and followed! This spontaneity becomes--strange as this sounds--a new continuity you cannot consciously create any more than you can hold some state of mind forever, but you can invite to come forth, and appreciate by obeying.
States of mind, specific mentalities, are appropriate to specific activities--driving your car through fast, heavy traffic; using a sharp knife to cut a carrot; watching TV. Trust all these different mentalities as you go through your busy day; it’s taken you a lifetime to learn them. But choose to take a respite from them and dedicate yourself to some re-acquaintance with pure spirit. Have your little mini-meditations to feed yourself with spirit and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how they’ll start popping up on their own to keep you company. Does this seem to make sense?
Student: Yes, it kind-of does.
NEBADONIA: These suggestions might seem rather ethereal or other-worldly but they are the most practical things you can do, the ways you can most immediately contact those concerns you mentioned you’re having difficulty with--bring them into consciousness to remember and re-evaluate. This is how you get some more you there to help. (Yes) It is possible to have simultaneously a full dedication to what you’re doing and also a reflective awareness of yourself, but it takes some practice; the letting go, the being in the moment comes first, and you’ve got that.
So let these spontaneous questions pop up, even if they disturb you. Each is an opportunity to grow, to re-examine and improve your technique of living. This is the real, practical basis of self-confidence. This is finding what works, and combing out what doesn’t. So try it. No one can make you do it. Welcome this challenge, and worship--being thankful right in the midst of your difficulties. Get a sense of growing and getting better at whatever it is.
Student: Thank you. That makes me feel less alone.
NEBADONIA: You do have spirit within you, my daughter, and this practice is the true genesis of being conscious of it in your life. This is where that better life you envision, you hope for, springs eternal. So give it a chance. This is the season for it. Spring has sprung. The trees are full of blossoms. The air is fragrant. It’s a good time to take a deep breath and just enjoy being alive. Pay the price for moments of stillness. Nothing else has the same potential for changing your life for the better.
Student: Thank you.
NEBADONIA: You’re welcome, my daughter. Michael and I try not to gloss over the real effort it takes, but it is this very effort that waters the flowers of your soul and helps them too to blossom. Take time out to say, "Hello, Mom! (much laughter) I’m glad you’re here with me." For I will be. You are in my love.
(God’s gift to Mother Spirit)
So are you all, my children. This is what it is to be the Mother Spirit, the Holy Spirit of so many children--human and otherwise. You are God’s gift to me--these unique personalities you are. Michael and I feel so wonderfully humble in our awareness of His absolute and infinite creativity. He is like a fountain bursting out of nowhere, endlessly springing forth from Himself so that all of us are, and will continue to be forever. Thank you, Father, for us, and for our children; and for this whole, marvelous creation that will forever encompass us beyond ourselves. Be in my love, my children. Go forward with our blessings and our joy into this human adventure you’re caught up in. Good evening.
END