1998-05-04-Faith Is That Which Gives Us Wings To Fly

Session

Opening

JarEl: It is again good to be here this afternoon, on this new Monday evening session. And it is pleasurable to listen to all of you share in the experiences, to feel the common bond of friendship, caring, and love for each other. We are starting a new aspect of our teaching, one in which we will meet more often in having an opportunity to develop a consistent theme in our teaching to you, rather than a random and general teaching that we have been doing once a month, feeling now that the group has defined itself with its members.

Lesson

Spirituality, Tradition

A brief outline will be presented now. The most important aspect of the spiritual work you must do now is to attempt a closer dialog and relationship with the Spirit who lives within. There are numerous aspects to this relationship which we will get into. For the most part, it is important to establish a strong and firm connection and commitment to developing a relationship with God. God is the source of who you are and God is the source of all spiritual fruit. God is the source of all spiritual tools, and God is the source of the abundance of love and opportunity which fill and augment our lives.

As we get a grasp on this relationship we will move into the aspect of discovering God in others. For once you have discerned God in yourself there is a never ending abundance of opportunity which awaits you to discover the many diverse aspects of this God phenomenon through your brothers and sisters. So, what I am basically bringing here is the religion of Nebadon, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. First you discover God as your Father, your Mother, and develop a strong committed and firm relationship. Then you begin to act upon this relationship and begin to show forth your growth, development, and commitment by how you act with your brothers and sisters. This is the religion of Nebadon. This is the simple gospel which the Master two thousand years ago came here to share with the many peoples of this world of Urantia. Though it hasn't firmly taken hold, we periodically have had to come to this world and reiterate and remind the human constituency of this world of our simple religion. And even now, in this Teaching Mission of Michael, it is of utmost importance for you, particularly [you] who have made a commitment to this mission, to begin to practice this religion, begin to bring it into life.

So man finds God. How does man find God? Or does God find man? It is primarily through the generous act of God, transcending the Universe, to leave Paradise and come down to the worlds of time to indwell and habitate with the mortals of time, to share a small fragment of eternal perfection with each and every one of you. And it is this caring and this universe fact and reality, where God lives in the mind of man, that the mind of man begins to discern something other than itself at some point. Man begins to idealize in his mind. Man begins to see with his mind. And man begins to discern a reality far greater than the mere reality in which he finds himself in his daily life. The establishments of religions on Urantia have well laid out the fact of God. The established religions, in the western world particularly through Christianity, have allowed man to have an opportunity to study the gospels and to attempt to worship as groups of family within a community. But these western religions have fallen somewhat short in attempting to transform through a spiritual experience the inner nature of the mortal mind, the human animal mind, being transformed to a human spirit relationship in which man is becoming conscious of his spiritual potential, his spiritual brothers and sisters and the unseen universe. This is still an area of taboo on your world. And I use that word "taboo" to indicate the tremendous apprehension that exists within the human mind when confronted with the possibility of anything that can't be proven by hard science, or proven by the five senses, or proven by hearsay.

Faith

So how is it that one comes to know God? How is it that one comes to open up ones life to God and Father's will? And how is it that one begins to aspire to be like God? One of the first spiritual gifts which God brings to the heart, into the hearts of men, is the gift of faith. This gift of faith is a tool for man to activate his belief system and to generate a living bond of trust between the mortal mind and the spiritual or spirit presence. Faith is a gift that man must, in his own personal mind, make an individual commitment to his belief in God and his life in living in accordance with the law of God. Faith compensates for the lack of visual evidence on your world of spiritual beings in physical form such as Material Sons, Melichizedek Teachers, Trinity Teacher Sons or even Christ himself. So, God gives each and every one of you this tool of faith. And I use the word "tool". Faith in and of itself does very little for man, but faith in conjunction with belief helps man to access his belief and strengthen his commitment to that belief. Faith is actually a circuit. It is a connection between you and the spirit presence within. And, as you open up to this faith and keep this connection alive, this faith begins to strengthen your personality. It begins to strengthen the will to make decisions. It begins to lift the mortal from the mortal coil of its animal heritage into the likeness of spiritual harmony and spiritual synchrony. Faith is that which gives men wings to fly. Faith is that which gives contrast to color. Faith is that which gives a mere mortal on Urantia the opportunity to access the greatness and the secrets of a whole universe which lie within that human in the form of the divine essence, the Thought Adjuster within.

So it is through this faith, again, that man begins to become active in accessing his God-ship. Many people in this world believe in God, and many people pay lip service to this belief. Many people pay dues to this belief, also. But how many people pay with every moment of their lives, their service, their intention, their love, their kindness? How many of you are able to step aside from your own important daily lives to give service to someone in need, to someone or some other situation other than yourselves? To know that to become great in God is also to begin to share this greatness as a new found joy in your own life. This is part of this new religion, the religion of Nebadon, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. To begin to share this good news through your own living, your own smile, your own believing.

So this is how I am going to begin my lesson on the religion of Nebadon. To discuss this aspect of faith, this phenomenal tool, this divine gift. Faith is a lot like all spiritual gifts, it must be accessed. It doesn't necessarily fall on your head and get your attention. But it is there waiting for an opportunity to be used. Are there any questions so far?

Dialogue

Nel: JarEl, I just would like to thank you very much for coming to us more often now.

JarEl: Well, you are very welcome, my sister. It is an opportunity to help this group in their spiritual searching and their spiritual growing, and an opportunity also for me to share a little more of my teaching with this wonderful group.

Teacher Contact

Nel: The Teaching Mission really means a lot to me. I've only been connected for a few months. I've read the book only for one year, but its made a tremendous difference in my life and I've had some experiences that I'm very grateful for. That's just all I want to say. I also would very much like to find out if I have a teacher.

JarEl: Yes, this is possible. You should make an appointment with the T/R. This is one way to access this information. The second and also important way to access this information is to consciously open up your mind and ask Michael to send you a teacher and, if not already, one will be immediately sent to you. Teachers are usually sent and paired with mortals because of certain characteristics they share. A particular spiritual personality can work with a particular mortal personality because of similarities.

Nel: Thank you. I will do that. In order to communicate with a teacher, does it have to be with writing things down to ask the questions, or can it be through just thought or maybe speaking out loud?

JarEl: There are many ways to access communication with a teacher. The most important and basic way which one needs to access spirit personality is to focus that part of your mind which is still and quiet, not necessarily deep, but determine a point of focus. And in your focus direct your attention to allow a connection to be established. You can just talk in your own mind to the teacher. The teacher will be conscious of this connection. It is in this light, in the light of your mind, that the teacher is able to communicate. The celestial personalities are able to access a part of your mind. They do not necessarily come into your mind and intrude as a person into your consciousness. They impinge upon the upper most reaches of your mind and communicate and send thought impulses into your mind which goes through your brain cerebral mechanism of thought-word association, meaning, experiences. So that when it comes into your conscious mind it sounds like an aspect of your mind talking back to you. Does this help?

Nel: Yes, thank you very much.

JarEl: At this point you can speak what you hear and record it, you can write down what you hear and record it, or you can just listen to it and talk to it, back and forth. Does this help?

Nel: Yes, thank you.

Hal: JarEl, you covered a lot in your lesson on faith and I'd like to know if you can enlarge upon that a bit. Faith, as I understand it, is a belief in something unseen, something you can not prove. And yet, do we not need intellectual understanding in order to develop this faith, as to what you have the faith in?

JarEl: Quite the opposite my friend. You need a child-like understanding, one that is uninhibited. Does this help?

Hal: If you can enlarge upon it, yes. It would be giving yourself, as it says, "opening up to the Father." That's your child-like faith, I gather?

Mind

JarEl: Well, let's take your example: You said faith is believing something that's unseen, and you need an intellectual base to access that. Well, how much reasoning to a primitive human mind is going to access something it can't see? Therefore; one needs to use the mind of a child, one that is uninhibited, one that can just use it's imagination and belief in what it can't see, because it can believe in a reality that is just as real as the wood that you can touch and smell, or a flower that you can see and enjoy. As man grows from the mind of a child through adolescence and to adulthood, the rational mind--the frontal lobe--begins to take over and dominate man's consciousness. The analytical mind begins to, in a sense, control you. Does it not? Hal: Yes

JarEl: So God does not really work within the analytical mind. God can't and will not compete with your analytical mind. God is much more than your analytical mind and man's relationship to God must be accessed differently. For, if it was possible to access God through the analytical mind this world would already be in light and life.

Hal: If they had the information.

JarEl: They have had the information for a long time, my friend. What kind of information do you need? People want pictures. People want to visualize God. People want to define God in human, man, anthropomorphic terms. And this is all fine and dandy, this is the beginning of man's attempt to identify himself with the greatness and the power that God must be. But to access God in a working relationship, to access your Thought Adjuster, man must go beyond the analytical mind and make a jump, a leap if you will, into a realm of belief. Man must access the creative part of his brain. That's why you are given two brains. One which strongly functions and analysis, and the other one which feels and accesses through a creative mode of imagining, of visualizing, of sensing, of feeling. It is this aspect of the brain which man uses to access the Spirit. It is this leap from figuring out, to just believing, trusting, yearning, fulfilling, experiencing. For as man begins to analyze his experiences, man will begin to determine and sense the prescience of Deity and spirit at work in that person's life. And, at this point, the analytical mind has the fact and the proof that it needs to balance within both hemispheres of the brain a functioning, a working healthy relationship, of the mortal mind and the connection to Deity. Does this help?

Hal: Yes. What runs through my mind is the thought that we are then needing an emotional feeling about God an emotion which, to me, is related to a human response.

Lucille: We are human.

JarEl: (Chuckling) What other responses are you going to have about God, Hal? You are not quite yet Spirit. You can't respond to God as anything but who you are. Is this correct?

Hal: Right, but to me this is the beauty of the Urantia Book, it has described who God is, where he is, what he does, and the purpose of the total reason for the creation of this whole universe. And to me that has given a reason to have a faith and a belief.

JarEl: This is the purpose of the Urantia Book, Hal.

Norman: Faith is salvation.

Nel: In my own experience, I used to always very much analyze everything to death. And now I'm beginning to learn, like JarEl is saying, to let your faith work.

Hal: Faith of a child, yes.

Nel: Right, and it's working.

Hal: Even if you understand it you would still have to have the faith of a child or you still can't prove it.

Nel: Right, right, exactly.

Rodger: Well, maybe if you stop thinking you have to figure it out you will. If you start thinking that you don't have to figure it out, you will, it will come.

Norman: It will come to you.

Rodger: I mean, I'm also starting to learn that also. I don't need to be working so hard 'cause I'm actually hurting myself. I need to stop rushing and then it comes.

Nel: Yes, you get in the way of the expression of the Father. I've read so many transcripts now from different groups and a lot of them are from Abraham. He talked about that we need to live more in love and logic and not so much into emotion. What do you think about that JarEl?

JarEl: This is very true. Loved is a spiritual emotion. And I did not talk about man accessing God through the emotional aspect, this was Hal's interpretation. But it is true that once man begins to access that aspect of his indwelling Thought Adjuster, then you begin to discern your spiritual growth and the aspects of your life in which divinity plays in those many aspects of growth and everyday little occurrences and similarities. Man access through the use of analyzing, or his logic, begins to know for sure, for himself, that his spirit is beginning to bear fruit. That he is beginning to grow spiritually and beginning to transform how he sees himself in his mind and in the world. And yes, it is true that from the Father's love we get all the aspects of grace, truth, beauty, love, goodness, compassion, giving, feeling.

Hal: That's what I mean by opening up to the Father. Developing a child-like faith.

Trust

John: What does trust have to do with faith?

JarEl: What do you think it has to do with faith?

John: Well I know that when I was a child and my father would say something to me, do something, or say the way something is, I didn't know, but I just trusted that what he was saying was true and right.

Hal: Is that not also faith? You had faith in your father.

JarEl: When you begin to discern the presence of God in your mind--that still small voice that points the way, that speaks the truth, that says what you don't want to hear--you begin to start trusting that voice. This is what trust has to do with faith. To unerringly begin to respond to that voice as you open up, to begin to listen and follow His voice. It will begin to more consistently speak to you, showing you the way, telling which decision, showing what needs to be corrected. There is a relationship that builds through faith, this connection. And the relationship is determined upon man's trust and man's ability to perceive God in his life in some kind of way. Man needs to know that God is answering his prayers. Man needs to know that God cares for him. Man needs to know that God is going to continue to share blessings and love and goodness to him and his kind. As man begins to sense and determine that this is happening, this helps to strengthen and bond this relationship. A trust is being created. God is willing to trust as much as you are, but God will trust unconditionally. God waits for you to access Him. This is the interesting aspect of this relationship: That, though God is there in all of this blessing and wonderful love and goodness is available to men, man has to access it. This is discussed in the Urantia Book in the Thought Adjuster papers.

Donna: Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened, from the Bible?

JarEl: This is correct. And this is something that we will discuss at length and repeat in lessons until you begin to become familiar with this aspect. And there is great wisdom in God bringing man to Himself. The whole economy, spiritual economy, of your world works to bring man to discerning the presence of God within. For it is through the developing [of] this relationship and discerning this presence that will eventually--it is the only thing that can change man, and break the patterns of these animal circles that man...[tape ran out]

Guidance, Expectations

Hal: . ..throughout my life I have trusted in a decision that I have made and it didn't turn out to be the right decision. How do you know? How do you develop a complete trust in the Father's guidance? This, I think, is why so many people have a hard time believing in the unseen, because they have reacted from a decision made they thought was from their own conscience, their own decision being helped, and it turned out to be the wrong one.

JarEl: Well, maybe your premise is wrong. Do you think God is going to lead you into all the easy ways of life and into all the easy decisions? If you are giving God an opportunity to lead you, he will lead you through growth, change, development, strength, vigor, challenge, disappointment.

Group: Laughter

JarEl: Let me put it to you this way...

Hal: You mean they maybe weren't the wrong decisions after all?

Nel: It's what you make of it, once you make the decision.

JarEl: Have you ever thought [as] to why the metaphor water is used for spirit? The Water of Life, the Living Stream, the Well Spring? Spirit is like water in that when water is poured upon the earth it fills first the lowest places, it seeks the depths, the isolated depths of this world and begins to fill and seek it's own level. As water, so is spirit. Once you open up your life to spirit it will come into your being, into your personality, and sink down into the parts of you that need correcting, those dark isolated places that have been shut down and closed off inside of you. This is where the Spirit comes in and sheds it's light. Shows you and takes you into places where you don't want to go and don't want to deal with. But spirit will start with the most basic dysfunction in yourself and begin to work with you to correct and make adjustments and learn processes and practices. So yes, sometimes the expectations of man are not met. So man puts his expectations to God and is disappointed. Have we heard this before? This is part of the ancient mystery of Deity. This was the reason why the followers of the religion to which Christ came to uplift had tremendous difficulty in seeing him as a deliverer, a messiah, because they did not expect someone to come and change them. They expected someone to come and give them something for nothing. They expected someone to give them power and glory, righteousness above all others. To give them the ease of burden. And when this did not happen they were not so quick to grasp the message, or the messenger.

Hal: Then it would seem that Jesus demonstrated it nicely. He made some decisions that where the decision of the Father, but from a material stand point it didn't seem like the right ones. He got himself crucified because of the decisions he made which seemed wrong, and yet they were the right ones. Anyway, I hope we stimulated some thought patterns.

JarEl: That was very good, Hal. More thoughts? Anymore thoughts?

Nel: Today I was with some family, having lunch, who are Catholic. The conversation came to a religious topic. It was nothing really spectacular, but what I had got out of it is...because one of the persons was kind of looking at me when I was expressing myself about the simple message of what Jesus brought us, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, one of the persons looked at me, um, what's the word...

Hal: Skepticism?

Nel: Yes, and kind of like an enemy! I realized I had just the tiniest, tiniest bit of experience that Jesus must of had, and how courageous he was to bring us, to keep bringing us, the message and sacrificing himself. It is so intimidating when people, just with looking at you, are being, you know...

JarEl: Judgmental.

Nel: Right.

Rodger: They're mean!

Group: laughter

Norman: I had a similar experience in Costa Rica with the family we were staying with. The mother was very much a, ah, Mary, ah, a "virgin freak", more or less is what we called her, because everything was "Mary" this, and "Mary" that. And she would give us trinkets and stuff that had been blessed and so on. Even though I'm very sympathetic towards the Catholics, she was a little bit of the extreme. I was there for two weeks or three weeks, going through, and then I'd come back to have an operation and was there for another two weeks recuperating from it and finally it was just too much, even though my friend, their son said, "Norman's all right. What he's doing is okay." They finally couldn't hold back and one day they asked me, the father asked me, "This thing you're into, is it one of those 'new age' things?", and I said, "Oh no, it's before time. It goes back before time." Well that satisfied him, but they both, you know... (group laughter) It satisfied them for the moment, anyhow.

Hal: That's a good answer.

Norman: I said, "Oh no, it's not new age, it goes way back before time." And they were satisfied.

Donna Jean: When you think about it, it was new age, isn't it? In a way it was, it was like the beginning, the very, very beginning of new age, before there was a new age.

Nel: I also realized today that I have a lot to learn as far as trying to be a teacher of whatever I have learned. Because it's always afterwards, when I'm home I think "I should have said it this way or that way." But I guess practice will...

Norman: Well, next time you will.

Nel: I hope so.

Hal: Join the club.

Nel: I'm not the greatest with expressing myself, so I guess I have a lot to learn. But I will keep trying.

Hal: We make our best statements after it's all over.

Norman: But I find if you can get out of the way sometimes, and just let it happen, that you'll sit back and say "Why did I say that." So if you were out of the way you'd be used as a tool. You are surprised sometimes by what you would say yourself.

Donna Jean: I think that that's this thing about the analytical/logical thing. Because when I'm having an experience I have to drop down into my heart and sometimes even lower down into my body to have the experience. When I try to analyze what's going on then it takes me out completely of the experience because then I'm thinking. And my thinking, then, is definitely in conflict with what is going on. So I'm finding that I have to kind of just get out of my way, sometimes also when talking to people. I had a really nice compliment from a friend. I was talking to her when she was having a problem, and she said, "It was like the voice of God came through you and let you say what I needed to here."

Donna: That was beautiful!

Norman: That's the way it works.

Donna Jean: She said she was just in a different place. I also believe that the greatest teachers are examples. Its not necessarily what you say, but how you act.

Donna: Yes, I agree with that.

Hal: It's like when we are reading in the book where Jesus said some of his greatest lessons was when he said the least.

JarEl: A good rule of thumb is, if you are trying to think too hard how to answer someone or how to make someone see something, take a deep breath and open up to love. Then stop thinking and allow love to come through, and love will bring its own thoughts into the situation.

Norman: We only think we think.

Donna: Yes, I really think that we are really called upon to love each other more than we are to teach each other. So I wouldn't worry too much about the teaching part.

Lucille: Just show love.

Donna: If we can somehow see the glimmer of the divine in the other person, because everyone does have a Thought Adjuster, and kind of relate to that, or like we are speaking to that Adjuster in them, that kind of brings that out more. I think that's really a good way to do it. Like a powerful connection.

Norman: Religion is not what we think, anyhow, it's what you are.

JarEl: Love is the teaching.

Group: Yes

Donna: I liked what you said, JarEl, about how we need to use the other side of our brain, too. Not just the left side. We are very dominated, in this western hemisphere particularly, with the left side of our brain, which is the analytical/logical part, and it's necessary and we all have both but the right side of our brain is the more creative part. And it has more to do with art and music, etc. and it seems to access the child in us too, the inner child.

John: We are two brained animals, right?

Donna: Yes, exactly

John: So it's our right brain. Instead of thinking like, "the half", it's really just our right brain. I keep forgetting that. I've learned that in the Urantia Book.

Lucille: It's the heart and the love that we show that's important, isn't it? Donna: Yes, but that seems to be able to be accessed more easily through the right side of our brain. That's also part of that.

Hal: In our culture we're taught to analyze and study things out.

Donna: But remember also, in the Scriptures it says that a little child shall lead them. I think that little child is more in the right brain.

Donna Jean: It's not like I don't think that it's [good] after the experience to analyze it. I mean, because I will do that and see how it happened and if I believe that this happened.

Donna: Afterwards?

Donna Jean: Afterwards, not during the experience.

Hal: That's what she was doing, analyzing what she said.

Group: laughter

Nel: I could've done much better, oh well. I said very little, really.

Hal: But often times you sow seeds you didn't know where effective.

Nel: Yes. I did get a positive response from one of the persons that was there, and it was surprising to me that she agreed.

Grace, Stillness

Rodger: So, JarEl, this thing about faith, we should just have faith that even though on the surface it looks like we may not be very effective when in the long run it is. In fact today I found out about a coworker who lost a twelve year old son. I was speaking with some other coworkers about this, and they were talking about how terrible it was for this boy to die. I was just sitting there eating my lunch, because I figured the little boy is just fine. What struck me was that this coworker asked me where I got my philosophy. He wanted to get some of that. But that's about all he asked. He knows I read the Urantia Book--I think I've given him one--but even though we didn't talk about God, over the past year--if you keep in contact with people they seem to be responding, just slowly. For me personally I think I've been way to hard on myself because I want them to get it! It doesn't work that way. If we are constantly judging ourselves and everyone else we are really not doing the most that we can, because we are kind of wasting our time. Is that correct? We should have more faith in the spirit and that its going to work. We are doing the best that we can.

JarEl: You have said it, my son. Look at it this way. Think of God sitting in each and every mortal, being impatient for that mortal to get it. How far would God get with that attitude. (Group laughter) Yet, God is ever ready and present for when that mortal faintly inclines towards that aspect of himself. BING, God is there to respond to every hint of love, every hint of caring, interest, and devotion. So in a sense, we too, who are to become more God-like, have to develop patience, and an attitude of trust. And again, this attitude is strengthened through the practice of stillness. I cannot stress this enough. Through the daily contact with the inner presence is the most powerfully strengthening tonic one can take. To have a daily dose of God, God's presence, God's love, to help you throughout the day. To fall back on this moment where you have opened up your heart and felt this love and this presence. To be able to have that ready to access at a moments notice. It's very important. Especially when seized by doubt, or seized by constraint, and whatever form that comes. And especially when you meet a somewhat unbearable situation, an in-pass with another person, to be able to step back and realize, "Well, I can't push any harder on this person. This person is not able to go there. This person is not able to see that. This person is not able to accept. So, I will go lighter, I will give this person love." This is something basic that even the most deprived of human can respond to. Does this help?

Rodger: Yes, yes.

Hal: The other thing they keep commenting on is the "reality--into the world of reality." But this is not a real world, where we are now. It takes a little bit of doing to conceive of that. It seems so real to us. I was wondering if maybe Donna Jean's approach to it is the initial breakthrough into the reality of the unseen world. Reality is not what you can touch and feel and see. That's what we are all striving to do is to get into the reality of the Father.

Rodger: This thing about faith, too, JarEl, it seems very true to me that if we have faith in God we have faith in ourselves and we end up having faith in others. Like for example, I was telling Gerald about spending time on Sunday doing something with the Urantia Society. It's always been sort of a battle. So I sat there and I thought "How am I going to approach him with this," since I'm going to be spending a Sunday away again. But something clicked, and all of a sudden I said something that showed that I had faith in him. I got a response out of him that was new, he was pleased. I thought that was very important because that's what faith does, it gives out. I think it affects other people even when they don't know it. It's very powerful.

JarEl: This is very true. And thanks for sharing this, as was being discussed earlier before I came on, this aspect of encouragement. We, who are unseen to you who are a little older and some what a few steps farther than you along, find it necessary to recognize you and your achievements and abilities. Likewise, it is necessary for you to compliment others who are unlike you that are not where you are. Thus showing them that it is okay to be who they are and where they are at. This is a good spiritual practice.

Donna Jean: JarEl, my experience has been--if you don't know I just went to Greece and just came back--and my experience was that when you honor someone else as a part of God, a child of God, they open their heart to you and you get to hear many things that you may not have heard by trying to teach them what you have. They end up sharing with you and opening their heart to you. At least that's what they did to me. So it was really a wonderful experience just to honor them and honor them as a child of God.

Hal: By honor them, you mean taking up on their thoughts and their ideas, acknowledging them?

Donna Jean: Just acknowledging them and listening to them. Because I believe that where ever people are that that's their path to God. Just like this is my path to God.

Hal: So that would help them except them as they are and then perhaps they open up.

Donna Jean: Right. Then they open up and share with me their faith and what they believe about God. And then I think then they, once their heart is open, can hear me or hear whatever comes through me also.

Rodger: I'm realizing that all these responses are natural. If you just know how to do it right and really show the right kind of encouragement to someone, without them even thinking about it, they will naturally respond in the positive. Before they have a chance to cover it up.

Group: laughter Nel: Well, what you did was you stepped out of the way and let Father express himself.

Rodger: That's true, but it took a lot of faith on my part, in a way, and courage. That's faith and courage--to me I think they are interchangeable words. Because I needed to break a cycle that had been going on for awhile. And, it happened so quick. Before I even had a chance to think about it, I just said it, and it felt right, and then the response was there, and it was over in less than a minute. But, every time I have these experiences I begin to take more and more for granted that God exists. Now, I'm finding it kind of funny when someone questions the reality of God these days, because I'm thinking, "What are you talking about?"

Group: Laughter

Rodger: Faith is an amazing thing. It's amazing.

Norman: Don't leave home without it.

Nel: A few days ago last week I got this terrible sense of anxiety again, like what I used to have a whole lot everyday. I got rid of a lot of all that, but every now and then it creeps up on me. I woke up with this awful, uneasy, anxiety feeling. So I thought, "Oh, no, what is this." So I just went about and starting talking to God, "Father what is it? Michael, please help me, what is it? Why am I feeling so bad?" And I just left it at that. I just went about my chores and got myself dressed. As the day progressed I got this really wonderful, peaceful feeling coming in and some kind of a message that was telling me, "Relax, and enjoy yourself. Go and enjoy yourself" I have a hard time enjoying myself--my old ways. So I thought, "Oh great, yeah, let me try that. Shall I?" I trusted it and I started enjoying myself. Those things are just wonderful. I just gave it to God. I said, "Okay, help me" and it happened.

Rodger: That took trust and courage, faith.

Nel: Yes, and so every time you get more secure in it.

Donna: It was, I think, almost a little tiny gift that you had that remembrance of how you used to feel, because you can contrast it and compare it with how you are now. Otherwise you might have forgotten.

Nel: Right. Maybe God wanted me to feel this way because he wanted to bring me a message, "You know, you don't enjoy yourself enough." I'm always worrying about that I'm not doing enough for others. It's been like that all my life. So, maybe he is telling me, "Go ahead, you are doing enough. Just do something for yourself, too." Maybe that's it.

John: You can't love anybody else unless you love yourself.

Nel: That's right. I guess that's what the message was.

John: Without being selfish about it, you know.

Nel: Yes, it's really wonderful.

Dissemination, Silence

Chris: I have the feeling that you can't chose who you want to bring to the Urantia Book and bring to understanding. You have to rely on the Spirit of Truth to guide people that are thirsting for knowledge, to come to you. I concentrate on my own spiritual growth, and being ready for the opportunity. When I try and share the book with people that I love and that I'm close to, it doesn't work. That's up to the Spirit of Truth to bring those people that are searching.

Lucille: When they are ready, they will come. They will find the book, it's amazing.

Rodger: I figure the teachers, or the guardian angels, or whoever is out there, will push them ever so slightly towards who ever is closest.

Chris: Every once in a while you find someone that's more connected then yourself and they don't even know anything about the Urantia Book, it's only a tool.

Rodger: I get the feeling that I have to be reminded. It's new, but it's not so new...let's see, its like being reminded. As if I already know, but I'm not thinking hard enough. Because, I've also had experiences where I've talked to other people that seem to get it, but they don't follow through. It's like everyone needs to be reminded.

Nel: Well, you have to practice it.

Rodger: Well, yes that's true but sometimes I can completely forget about it.

Donna: I think that's why it's important that we all get together every so often on a regular basis. I think that's the reminder. And, yes, I agree, we need that. People used to call it going to church.

Group: laughter

JarEl: I have an exercise that I would like you to do within the next few weeks before we meet again. When you are confronted with an opportunity of an urge to give something, some spiritual information to another, to correct someone spiritually, to want to use words to say [something] to them, the exercise is to do it without words, to just use love and to see what form this takes. And we will discuss this exercise next time, and share your experiences. Does this sound good?

Group: Wonderful, yes.

Hal: By only using love, you don't say anything you just sit and look at him?

JarEl: (Laughing)

Rodger: Put duct tape on your mouth, Hal.

Group: Laughter

Norman: Just love 'em.

Nel: Just look at them lovingly, use your body language.

Donna: You are just exuding it, by the aura that's around you, Hal. Don't worry.

John: What are some examples? Can you give us some examples of this?

Stella: What if you only have the telephone?

JarEl: Well what you need to do is to stop yourself in the tracks of wanting to tell someone, "Well, you have it all wrong. You should see it this way. Let me tell you about this, I read this wonderful book. I have this wonderful group." Just open up to love and see where love leads you. That's what I mean by the "words". Love will use it's own words, but come from this aspect of love, which is truly divine and truly within. It is the teacher, and it is the teaching. And see what form this love comes out of you as to another. This is what I want you to do. I want you to begin to see that as what happened with Rodger and his friend, that for a moment in attempting to break a pattern of communication he forgot himself and love came through and showed him a different way in which to approach this tireless situation. Instantly the situation was transformed through love, through allowing another person to experience fully your recognition of them and who they are. Does that help as an example.

John: Yes it does.

Group: Thank you.

Closing

JarEl: Thank you all for sharing, for helping to come together and bring this energy together as a group.

Lucille: JarEl, we forgot to introduce Virginia to you. She is an old timer from our study group, but she is here for the Teaching Mission tonight.

JarEl: Thank you for coming, Virginia, and you are welcome as part of this loving group.

Virginia: Thank you.

Hal: Thank you JarEl, we look forward to seeing you on the third Sunday.

JarEl: Good luck to you and we will see you soon. Shalom.

Group: Shalom, thank you.