Nebadonia - Try T/Ring Yourself - The Culture of Cruelty - Aug 10, 2014 - Marin TM Group, Mill Valley, CA
Nebadonia on August 10, 2014.
Marin TM Group—Mill Valley, California
Nebadonia—T/R: Jerry Lane
Topics:
Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, welcome back. It’s been a number of months since we got together to hear your lessons and have our conversations with you. But then on second thought, it is we who are coming back to the two of you, since you have never left us. And so with great humility and expectation, we welcome you to speak through us this way, for we do treasure what you have for us. Amen.
Mother Spirit: Well, good afternoon, my dear children. This is Nebadonia, your Mother Spirit, and yes, we are definitely delighted since the two of us are always here with you. We are also delighted to come to you this very unique way again. It is fun, is it not, to have a human voice to be able to speak to you, to manifest that part of you that we are. And though this particular means may seem very strange to some of you, we wish to emphasize again that this is something you are each capable of doing. It just takes a kind of mediation in which you set yourselves aside and trust what can come through you, trust this inner voice that can speak.
(Try t/r-ing, yourself)
We have given our lessons in the past on how to practice doing this, either by writing the words down and making a journal, or in this case, using one of your neat little electronic recording devices. These transmissions do differ somewhat from prayer insofar as you are allowing another spiritual being to speak through you, and giving our voice an objective reality, rather than only the thoughts that can occur in your mind. Some of this transmitting/receiving--as you’ve given it the name--some folks even transmit their own Thought Adjuster, the presence of God within them.
Now you have your vast archives where you can go online and not only read the transcripts of these sessions, but actually listen to them. And so we invite you to do so. If you don’t have a study group near you, and you are not quite ready yet to form one of your own, this can be good practice, just listening to the audio versions of our lessons. Because this is a spiritual practice, is it not, of giving yourself over in trust and faith to someone that is not you, and not even another human being, but a spiritual being such as Michael or myself, or any of the others who are now coming through to folks.
Yet for each of you now, it is within yourself, with your own quality of recognition and response, that we actually have meaning and value. For this is not an empirical project, my dear ones. This is not chemistry or physics which can be demonstrated to be the same universal Natural Law over and over again. For while we do follow--even generate--certain spiritual law, our very nature is--from your point of view--almost one of pure spontaneity. As your beloved Urantia Book puts it: The universe and the spiritual beings of the universe are inexhaustible in the infinity of spontaneity.
(Gracious, delightful spontaneity)
This is something that you yourselves so delight in, all the spontaneous activities that bring out and forth the creative part of you, not to express yourselves in some cliché method, but springing brand new right from your own personality and creative spirit. Isn’t this the delight then, when two or more of you get together and tease and enjoy and share this spontaneity?—kind-of “egging each other on” is one of your expressions.
Think of what a group of you can do who are united in some goal, yet are still individual enough to not only allow but to encourage each other to use your own creative spirit--in this spontaneous sense--to be more spiritual, more creative. What the group can come up with, with all this lively spontaneous interaction, by far transcends what any one individual can do alone. Although, again, it is through each individual’s creative spirit that is the origin, is it not? Consider that when you get together there is a kind of community spirit--some call a merkabah--that is unique to each different group because it is the different individuals in each group that determine that particular group spirit and consciousness. This need for individual creativity and freedom is what Michael taught so much on, as Jesus.
Your Urantia Book so thoroughly delineates the evolution of human groupings and forming governments, from the most primitive tribal ones, up to the most extraordinarily complex current government/nation-states. The growth of individual expression has been a slow process because of the shear need for uniformity throughout almost all of human history--the enforced uniformity simply for group/tribal survival. So in this light, individuality and individual expression is a kind of flowering of your most recent times. It’s really then the freedom that a strong group can allow each individual--through both a faith and trust in each individual personality and creative spirit—that is truly the blossoming of the full human potential.
(The suppression of individuality)
But as you know, there are still very sad, warring parts of your world in which individual expression, even in something as simple as clothing or play, is absolutely rigidly controlled in a brutally enforced uniformity. Yet have faith, my dear ones, that there is in each individual human soul of experience the hunger for expression, to be an individual. It’s what your psychologists call the process of individualization, where each individual, raised by the group, during the whole process of maturation, of growing up, discovers their unique personality and what they alone can bring to the group if given the chance, even the encouragement.
And so Michael and I ask you to think about these things: the collective--in whatever form, whatever culture, and its relationship to the individual. Truly it’s how an infinity of spontaneity, in our ever-present now, can continue to grow as more and more individuals are given the opportunity to express themselves. This is the flowering of your civilization, and it must be treasured and encouraged to grow. And so, each of you as an individual must be strong enough and self-confident enough that you not only welcome this, but you encourage this freedom in everyone you meet--for both of your benefits and delight.
Now if you have any questions or comments, let’s get into that.
Student: I want to thank you for the teaching on spontaneity. Because it was really a delight, and it’s my delight to attempt to bring into dance form the exquisite qualities of Mother Spirit. So it is my delight, and spontaneity of creative expression, to bring this into form. Is there anything in particular that you would like to relate to me, to inspire me to give an expression--through dance—of you, Mother Spirit?
(Let the music dance you—freestyle)
Mother Spirit: Yes, my dear: I think you have a good feeling of it; I think you have the essence of it. For you know yourself that so much dancing is to music, and there is in your modern societies such an enormous expanse of music now, especially through all your electronic means. There is a great divide, is there not, between what you call pattern dancing—like the waltz, the foxtrot, the rumba—all these different forms of dancing--and then what you call freestyle, which is just giving yourself over to the music and letting the music dance you, in a sense.
It’s like those lessons in archery where you practice and practice and practice until you can let the arrow release itself. It is the same way in dancing when you can step out there on the floor and have the strength and the courage and the trust to give yourself over to something that is partly you, and partly just the music. It’s being so totally committed to something spontaneous that you cannot entirely anticipate the unique moment--and actually being comfortable in that. And this is spirit, my dear. This is creative spirit as much as the way I’m coming through to you now. Does that ring a bell?
Student: Oh yes. Oh yes. It’s a delightful endeavor where you lay a foundation of certain bones, so to speak, of a piece; and you know the music. Then you can really surrender into the energies. You know, for me it’s to do an invocation and align myself, and then surrender and let the music and spirit dance through my physical vehicle.
Mother Spirit, laughing: In that sense, my dear, this is very parallel to this transmitting/receiving, where these poor T/R’s have no idea of what’s coming next.
Student: I guess it will be my experience to move into that dimension. I’m grateful to both Name and to Byron for proposing or holding the space for something like this to happen. I’m grateful that such an opportunity exists. (Ed: Byron Belitsos is holding a Michael Christmas Party in Marin on the 24th of August, at which time this student has been invited to dance)
Mother Spirit: Were there any other questions, or even comments?
Student: Well, for me, considering what’s taking place currently on our planet, I feel very sensitive to issues in the Middle East where there is such a movement towards greater and greater fundamentalism. There are even Christian women in Syria and Iraq now being forced to completely cover themselves or, you know, in some cases many have been killed, or raped, or molested. You gave a talk on spontaneity and it seems that the oppression is so extreme right now, to repress the feminine spirit, that I feel so compassionate toward these women. What will it take? I mean do you, the higher Mother Spirit, have some influence that could transmute this? Or how do I as an individual—I did a dance performance/piece on this several weeks ago—but what can one do for the women that are entrapped in that current culture?
(Stopping the obscenity of violence)
Mother Spirit: Yes, my dear, Michael and I have emphasized over and over that what is truly obscene in the eyes of spirit is this violence that is being done on all levels of humanity, both to individuals--their personality, and stifling their creative spirit. They are even torturing, not being content just to kill people, but even torturing them and taking delight in inflicting pain.
Student: How does this end on our planet?
Mother Spirit: Unfortunately it only ends when those who have developed such a cult and a culture of this, simply have to be stopped because they cannot stop themselves. It’s called “having a tiger by the tail.” It’s when those whom you call tyrants begin to establish power by such terrorism, they themselves become so immediately and intensely hated, there’s no turning back for them. They literally have to be wiped out.
There is such a thing as legitimate self-defense on all levels, from an immediate personal situation all the way up to what the great nation/states now have to weigh in the balance. Because there are cultures now that have evolved, in which the sign of manhood, the sign of personal worth and value in the eyes of one’s fellows, is the ability to perform the most obscene acts. It’s the actual development of cruelty to the point where one does not hesitate to do these things.
Always keep in mind; always keep in mind the enormous fear involved on both sides of such obscene acts. Because even those who are committing them--if they would refuse to do so, if they themselves refused to get caught up in this cruelty--know deep in their hearts it would turn upon them instantly, and they could be transformed in a moment into a victim. You have the leaders of such groups grabbing hold of very young men, young teenagers who are so dependent upon the group for their identity. And when they are inculcated as teenagers into torture, and rape, and murder, this is then in their souls. Even to perform such heinous acts, something gets started and you can say it is growing and cannot stop itself. Rather, it has to feed upon new victims to keep going. You’ve seen this all through history, especially during the Second World War where tens of millions of people were rather systematically put to death.
Student: Can there be an intervention?
Mother Spirit: You’re talking about a spiritual intervention?
Student: Yes.
Mother Spirit: No--only as we can influence individual minds to do the right thing. There is this thing of free will. We do work for you, yet with all of our power--which is beyond your comprehension--it is not the spiritual way to help in what you might think of as a very physical way, by either eliminating these people, or just touching them and somehow, wonderfully, even miraculously, transforming them into peaceful people who have the self-confidence and, as I said, the lack of fear not to keep doing what they’re doing.
(The culture of cruelty)
This is why Michael said that famous thing of: forgive them for they know not what they do. In one way, yes, they do know what they’re doing. But these very murderers, being involved in that, are already in a kind of hell where, if they show the slightest compassion, they themselves can be turned upon and, in a funny kind of way, they know it! And so you have this culture arising--of cruelty, deliberate, unimaginable cruelty just for the power it gives the leaders. It becomes an enormous, almost inhuman/extra-human power that all those below them are caught up in, something they themselves cannot turn around.
I’m just describing as best I can from our point of view, my dear, what’s actually happening now.
Student: So it just has to run its course and burn itself out?
Mother Spirit: No. It has to be stopped.
Student: And how does it get stopped? I mean, how does one being sensitive--I’ll use myself--how do I, being sensitive to this situation, participate in stopping it? I mean I’m certainly not about to go to the region. But, you know, how, in prayer, how does one best direct energies to stop it? Are you speaking of militarily, that it should also be stopped by the warrior class?
Mother Spirit: That is the only way to stop a rampaging murderer.
Student: Is through armies?
Mother Spirit: Right now that is the only way of stopping these groups. Which means then, you as an individual have to be as open as you can be to all your mass media. Be open to all points of view politically, and decide within yourself which is the best viewpoint to support.
As you know there are those who, even in your own culture, can get carried away in making war and, if they’re not very careful and very extremely discriminating, cause more trouble or pain and suffering than what they are stopping. Whereas, on the other hand, what you call pure pacifists are just food for a murderous kind of being. In your own society you can capture sociopaths, adjudicate them as being insane, and then lock them up. Or you have whole armies on the march.
You have to think back to some of your other wars where millions of people--men, women, and children—were totally indiscriminately being put to death. The only way to stop that juggernaut was with equal or greater force.
It’s a matter of discrimination. Truly discriminate as individually as possible. Those you can capture and reeducate, by all means do so. As much mercy as you can show, even in the commission of warfare, do so by all means. Do not become that which you are struggling to eliminate.
But when you have a raging manic coming at you with an axe, then you have to accept that reality and deal with it. But this is something that each of you, every single one of you, must weigh by being as open as you can, as I say, to all points of view on how best to deal with this situation.
(Being open-minded to accept reality)
That is something where Michael and I can only give you these guidelines, and do our best--with you--to help you accept the full reality of what is happening. It’s the extent to which human beings can go in both extremes, both to what you call a saint, a person who gives his or her life for others, and those others who are, shall we say, the leaders of these murderous groups, who have absolutely no ability to stop themselves because they’ve gotten the point where they enjoy inflicting pain.
You’re faced with the full extent of humanity, my dear, so this is something that takes a lot of study, does it not? It takes a lot of being open-minded, does it not, just to embrace the reality.
Student: It’s hard at times to comprehend because where I live in our immediate environment, there’s a very palpable expansion of consciousness into greater and more subtle realms of love and understanding and compassion. Then there’s places on our planet that are under such violence and terrorist activities, that it’s such a degradation of the human spirit and human consciousness that it’s hard to ignore. One only hopes that through almost… Like I’m imaging a grid of higher consciousness that can envelop the planet and maybe raise the… This is just my language, you know. Is there a way that, through prayer and meditation, one can raise the consciousness grid of the planet where these acts of violence would be lessened?
I’m particularly sensitive to the degradation of women. Yet there’s such a strong movement on this planet. Women are becoming, you know, more and more independent, and strong, and outspoken. It’s been said that a good eighty percent of the organizations that do social-service work across the planet are run by women. In different communities, whether it’s African communities or in India or, you know, many places outside of western countries, women are finding their voice and coming into greater positions of effecting community through health services or through education.
It takes many brave women moving forward. Since I’m new to the Urantia Book and Mother Spirit concept, I would think that it’s catalyzing inside each individual a greater spark of intention as to how to be effective in one’s community. So I don’t know if I’m asking a correct question. But is there a way to access a more potential relationship with one’s individual Mother Spirit? I don’t know if that’s the right language but…
(Social and political equality of women)
Mother Spirit: Yes, my dear, these are not exclusive, these things we talked about. When you look at the world in general--on that plane of discussion--Michael and I have over and over again talked about a Spiritual Renaissance that is happening. And it is happening now in large part because all through history, almost without exception, women have been mere possessions. And this was done largely through intimidation, through force. It is only recently, in the last few thousand years, that women have, here and there, and then more and more in what you call your democratic societies—and even in these only in the last few hundred years--have women had the full political power equal to males in their society.
But I was talking specifically--as you asked me to--to address those cultures in which women have absolutely no political authority whatsoever. There’s such a segregation of the sexes that you do have large armies of men who are only answerable to each other, and where things such as cruelty can take over as a measure of one’s manhood, one’s individual value. And this is precisely because the more feminine respect for life is repressed--since they are the ones who bring it forth, and since they are the so-called weaker sex, just in pure physicality and weapons. You correctly point out that the more democratic societies are so because of the political voice and influence that women have.
You put your finger right on it, that where women are given full equal status, there’s been an enormous diminution of this rampant cruelty. There were very few women in the upper hierarchy of Hitler’s Third Reich, as an example. So yes, everything you offered as the contribution of women is critical, and is what is making the difference. But fanatical fundamentalists are human beings who are so arrogant as to claim they possess the fundamental truth of human, even divine reality, they can murder and do the most extremely imaginable acts of cruelty in the name of God.
Student: And they’re using--our media is using the name ISIS, a goddess of the Egyptian pantheon. They’re using the name ISIS—I.S.I.S--to stand for a terrorist group, when the terrorist group themselves don’t call themselves ISIS.
Mother Spirit: No, my dear, that’s just the name given to the Islamic State that’s being formed. They just call themselves the Islamic State.
Student: They’re calling themselves the Islamic State, but our media is saying I.S.I.S, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Now they are calling them the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant--ISIL. So I find it offensive that our media is using the acronym ISIS, and you know…
Mother Spirit: …But if I might, my dear, not to be hypercritical here, but a play on words as compared to what is being done to the people: please consider that.
Student: Well, I am considering it. But on a larger scale, I don’t like the use of a goddess’s name.
Mother Spirit: I don’t think the media have any consciousness of using a goddess’s name, just because the terrorists are in Iraq and Syria--the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Let’s not get into this kind of thing. In other words, I don’t want to compare the misuse of the name ISIS to what is being done to even one child, let alone the thousands of children and women to whom are being done terrible obscene things; if you would.
(A rare world situation in our Local Universe)
If it’s okay with you, let’s wrap up this session. I think we’ve talked about the terrible things that are happening in the world, and also the enormously wonderful, spontaneous things that are also happening. This is the state of the world as it is. As the Urantia Book teaches, this world situation is so rare, so exceedingly rare in the whole cosmos, even our Local Universe of the millions of worlds that Michael and I have helped bring about. It is so enormously rare, but it is real. We can only ask and encourage you to be open-minded and embrace it all, especially the difficulties.
Part of the meaning of compassion is to examine and accept what is being done to folks, and answering as best you can in your own life day to day. Then too, compassion is in your own knowledge and your own political choices as a citizen of a country. You have a part in helping your country make the right decisions about what to do about this situation, so you can help alleviate the suffering--and also the threat of this suffering for those as yet unconquered! You call it the Great War where the democracies of the world did unite to stop rampaging nation states that, again, had as a matter of political policy the most unbelievable cruelty. Now you’re faced with this again, and still.
(No easy, facile answers)
I thank you, my dear, for your concern, and accepting there are no easy answers. It’s something that each of you must weigh day to day. Do your best to keep abreast of events. By all means keep up your prayer and your meditation, and your sharing this with each other. This is the way. Let me say good afternoon, and bid you to be in my love.
Student: Thank you.
END