Changes

==Heading==

==Heading==

===Topic: ''God the "It"''===

===Topic: God the It===

===Group: [[Marin TeaM]]===

===Group: [[Marin TeaM]]===

==Facilitators==

==Facilitators==

===Teacher: [[Nebadonia]]===

===Teacher: [[Nebadonia]]===

===TR: [[JL]]===

===TR: [[JL]]===

==Session==

==Session==

Nebadonia:  Good evening. This is Nebadonia, Mother Spirit of Nebadon, and also, like Michael, your closest and dearest friend. Oh, how I glory in all my children, just to have you all within me and marvel at your own spiritual natures, your own creativity, bequeathed you by God the Father and God the Son. Here on the seventh anniversary of this particular group, I’m pleased to notice we have two of the very original and stalwart members here. Think of how many times just the two or three of you were carrying the ball along for all of those who do enjoy so much tuning in, either listening to or reading the transcripts of our meetings here.

Nebadonia:  Good evening. This is Nebadonia, Mother Spirit of Nebadon, and also, like Michael, your closest and dearest friend. Oh, how I glory in all my children, just to have you all within me and marvel at your own spiritual natures, your own creativity, bequeathed you by God the Father and God the Son. Here on the seventh anniversary of this particular group, I’m pleased to notice we have two of the very original and stalwart members here. Think of how many times just the two or three of you were carrying the ball along for all of those who do enjoy so much tuning in, either listening to or reading the transcripts of our meetings here.

===='''''[[Personality]]'''''====

====''[[Personality]]''====

*God the “It”?

*God the “It”?

I would like to review a bit what these years have been about—primarily, not only with us but with Reality Itself--our Universal Father, the First Source and Center of all creation. It comes to mind that recently there was a national poll here in the United States about those who believed or did not in God, and rating the job he was doing, wherein they referred to God as It: Do you believe that “It” exists? The most important thing about God is his personable-ness, that even though he is an absolute, infinite, and ultimate Being, he is also a personal being. He is the original source of personality itself, personality that he bestows upon all of us.

I would like to review a bit what these years have been about—primarily, not only with us but with Reality Itself--our Universal Father, the First Source and Center of all creation. It comes to mind that recently there was a national poll here in the United States about those who believed or did not in God, and rating the job he was doing, wherein they referred to God as It: Do you believe that “It” exists? The most important thing about God is his personable-ness, that even though he is an absolute, infinite, and ultimate Being, he is also a personal being. He is the original source of personality itself, personality that he bestows upon all of us.

This is your essence right from our Father himself. So above all that word God means a personal being, our Creator, who maintains a dimension of personality, call it a circuit if you wish, that connects all personal beings. This is referred to often as a Mystery Monitor, an individualization of him that you have as part of you, for this is the way of expressing how God himself experiences everything you do, everything that every personal being does.

This is your essence right from our Father himself. So above all that word God means a personal being, our Creator, who maintains a dimension of personality, call it a circuit if you wish, that connects all personal beings. This is referred to often as a Mystery Monitor, an individualization of him that you have as part of you, for this is the way of expressing how God himself experiences everything you do, everything that every personal being does.

===='''''[[Free will]]'''''====

====''[[Free will]]''====

*Free will: choosing your own destiny

*Free will: choosing your own destiny

No one can say definitely if God chooses to know what you are going to do next, but perhaps rather enjoys your free will, and encourages you in this, even in making his own contributions to your thoughts. This is his thought-adjusting right within you, making even those discreet thoughts he can give you subservient to your own will; even subservient to your own totally ignoring them. For unfortunately, there are so many of your religious teachers and so-called authorities that are not pronouncing and then reminding their congregations that each person in that congregation has a presence of God right within them. But by your very ability to ignore the presence of God within you, or to be in total ignorance of it, we only can see that as God himself having a great humility toward his own creation. Consider the fact that he has let it go and given it free reign over its own destiny--as much as he possibly can; and as much as each one of you wishes to assume of your own. So definitely God is not an “It.” True enough, the Trinity has impersonal functions, but neither is it an “It.” This is a special reality, this Deity acting as Totality and, as the Urantia Book notes, God’s mercy transcends and mitigates the impersonal justice of the Trinity.

No one can say definitely if God chooses to know what you are going to do next, but perhaps rather enjoys your free will, and encourages you in this, even in making his own contributions to your thoughts. This is his thought-adjusting right within you, making even those discreet thoughts he can give you subservient to your own will; even subservient to your own totally ignoring them. For unfortunately, there are so many of your religious teachers and so-called authorities that are not pronouncing and then reminding their congregations that each person in that congregation has a presence of God right within them. But by your very ability to ignore the presence of God within you, or to be in total ignorance of it, we only can see that as God himself having a great humility toward his own creation. Consider the fact that he has let it go and given it free reign over its own destiny--as much as he possibly can; and as much as each one of you wishes to assume of your own. So definitely God is not an “It.” True enough, the Trinity has impersonal functions, but neither is it an “It.” This is a special reality, this Deity acting as Totality and, as the Urantia Book notes, God’s mercy transcends and mitigates the impersonal justice of the Trinity.

Also within you is Michael’s Spirit of Truth, the spirit of your own Creator Son. This is a differential urge, an encouragement to keep stretching, keep taking life in, and keep being hungry and curious for more. For you will never ever in all eternity even begin to approach the totality of the creation, what’s there even now--already. And so for this group we’ve enjoyed referring to Michael’s Spirit of Truth as an orientation: everywhere outward. No matter what you have gathered, all the knowledge and wisdom and understanding that I help you with, there will always be more for not only is the universe, the whole creation itself, progressive in the sense of evolving, so are you. And this is endless. You recall my lessons on what a hell eternity would be without this evolution, if it were just some kind of rabbit path going round and round. There is that other facet, that other whole half of God’s reality that never happened before in this moment, and will never happen again. It all forms a part of the God the Supreme--God’s perfect, infinite, and absolute memory of everything that takes place out here in time and space.

Also within you is Michael’s Spirit of Truth, the spirit of your own Creator Son. This is a differential urge, an encouragement to keep stretching, keep taking life in, and keep being hungry and curious for more. For you will never ever in all eternity even begin to approach the totality of the creation, what’s there even now--already. And so for this group we’ve enjoyed referring to Michael’s Spirit of Truth as an orientation: everywhere outward. No matter what you have gathered, all the knowledge and wisdom and understanding that I help you with, there will always be more for not only is the universe, the whole creation itself, progressive in the sense of evolving, so are you. And this is endless. You recall my lessons on what a hell eternity would be without this evolution, if it were just some kind of rabbit path going round and round. There is that other facet, that other whole half of God’s reality that never happened before in this moment, and will never happen again. It all forms a part of the God the Supreme--God’s perfect, infinite, and absolute memory of everything that takes place out here in time and space.

===='''''[[Body]]'''''====

====''[[Body]]''====

*Body, mind, and creative spirit

*Body, mind, and creative spirit

This has been the heart of our lessons these many years: the kind of personal being that you are with this unfathomable personality as your very essence, and how this is associated with a living physical body that is also another infinity to you. Even if you were to read a hundred thousand of your finest medical books on physiology, still there would be some unfathomable mystery about your own living personal material body. So it’s another infinity to you, another mystery of how exactly you reach out and pick something up, because there’s a very near limit to what you can wonder about this and still function. So much of your life is just in the doing of it, all in humble obedience--for all you know, for all your knowledge, for all your understanding--still this humble obedience to what’s going to happen next.

This has been the heart of our lessons these many years: the kind of personal being that you are with this unfathomable personality as your very essence, and how this is associated with a living physical body that is also another infinity to you. Even if you were to read a hundred thousand of your finest medical books on physiology, still there would be some unfathomable mystery about your own living personal material body. So it’s another infinity to you, another mystery of how exactly you reach out and pick something up, because there’s a very near limit to what you can wonder about this and still function. So much of your life is just in the doing of it, all in humble obedience--for all you know, for all your knowledge, for all your understanding--still this humble obedience to what’s going to happen next.

 

====''[[Mind]]''====

==== '''''[[Mind]]'''''====

Then you have a mind that is also creative and spontaneous beyond your own grasping. Those of you with discipline and focus can pretty well decide what, for the next hour or two, you will think on a certain subject. But what exact thought is going to occur to you even five minutes from now?--not only from your understanding and knowledge, but from your own soul, from this spiritualized story of your life? What input is it having, and will it have a few minutes from now, to produce what exact thought? There’s a whole spectrum, from folks who are totally identified with whatever thought occurs to them, who are simply “acting out” willy-nilly with almost no free will whatsoever, just whatever occurs to them. At the other end of that spectrum are those who have meditated deeply and have some detachment from their own thoughts, who can watch their thoughts come and go and actually decide, consciously, what to act upon or not. They enjoy such enormous peace of mind irrespective of what their body and mind are going through. For just consider that intimate connection between your bodies and your minds. How many times has mankind from its very beginning experimented with various physical substances, call them drugs--minute quantities of which so totally affect the body and then the mind. And as your Urantia Book puts it, your Father’s input, your Thought Adjuster’s specific ideas, have to swim up through such a filter of biochemistry.

Then you have a mind that is also creative and spontaneous beyond your own grasping. Those of you with discipline and focus can pretty well decide what, for the next hour or two, you will think on a certain subject. But what exact thought is going to occur to you even five minutes from now?--not only from your understanding and knowledge, but from your own soul, from this spiritualized story of your life? What input is it having, and will it have a few minutes from now, to produce what exact thought? There’s a whole spectrum, from folks who are totally identified with whatever thought occurs to them, who are simply “acting out” willy-nilly with almost no free will whatsoever, just whatever occurs to them. At the other end of that spectrum are those who have meditated deeply and have some detachment from their own thoughts, who can watch their thoughts come and go and actually decide, consciously, what to act upon or not. They enjoy such enormous peace of mind irrespective of what their body and mind are going through. For just consider that intimate connection between your bodies and your minds. How many times has mankind from its very beginning experimented with various physical substances, call them drugs--minute quantities of which so totally affect the body and then the mind. And as your Urantia Book puts it, your Father’s input, your Thought Adjuster’s specific ideas, have to swim up through such a filter of biochemistry.

===='''''[[Spirit]]''''====

====''[[Spirit]]''====

So you are this living body/mind combination, and yet you are also endowed with spirit, with creative spirit right from your own self, right from this unfathomable personality that you are. You can originate something out here in time and space; and this is what your own free will depends upon. All free will exists within the limits of your consciousness, and it’s within your own consciousness that you can come up with some kind of alternative, something new, something different than just going along with what is being suggested to you by habit, or by the situation in which you find yourself. You yourself can be this active, creative agent for yourself, for others. This is the spiritual dimension in which you live for, as a spiritual being with this creativity, this ability to choose how you take even your own body and mind; from the standpoint of your personality, even your own body and mind, my children, are spiritualized. As your existential philosophers point out: you never touch the thing-in-itself. You know only your own reactions to things, even your own body and mind. As I said, if you are totally identified with them without choice, without previous detachment, there is almost no free will. You are purely re-actionary. So this spirit of yours holds such enormous potential, another infinity you will never get to the bottom of, one you can expand without limit by using it.

So you are this living body/mind combination, and yet you are also endowed with spirit, with creative spirit right from your own self, right from this unfathomable personality that you are. You can originate something out here in time and space; and this is what your own free will depends upon. All free will exists within the limits of your consciousness, and it’s within your own consciousness that you can come up with some kind of alternative, something new, something different than just going along with what is being suggested to you by habit, or by the situation in which you find yourself. You yourself can be this active, creative agent for yourself, for others. This is the spiritual dimension in which you live for, as a spiritual being with this creativity, this ability to choose how you take even your own body and mind; from the standpoint of your personality, even your own body and mind, my children, are spiritualized. As your existential philosophers point out: you never touch the thing-in-itself. You know only your own reactions to things, even your own body and mind. As I said, if you are totally identified with them without choice, without previous detachment, there is almost no free will. You are purely re-actionary. So this spirit of yours holds such enormous potential, another infinity you will never get to the bottom of, one you can expand without limit by using it.

===='''''[[Soul]]'''''====

====''[[Soul]]''====

And then there’s your soul, this part of you that is being co-created by a presence of God, and as such, so contra-distinct from your own memories that are just being produced by your physical brain and nervous system. This is always another even greater infinity, because it is an extra-spiritual reality co-created and vouchsafed by a presence of God. In this sense you are a kind of dual spiritual being. This is the compensation for your very humanity and the time-and-space limitations you know by being so closely associated with a living, physical being. It is the perfect compensation of having a presence of God taking on your life--this life you are living; these choices you are making; this free will you are exercising. This is your supreme gift to this presence of God. You are personal. You are a personal being. You are giving this personality, this dimension of reality, to the presence of God within you. This presages the day in which the two of you become as one for the benefit of both of you. You are giving this presence, this individualized presence of God, personality--uniqueness of being; and this presence of God is giving you eternal life, which you already have in part as your own soul. You own soul is already eternal, already a part of God the Supreme. If for whatever reason you would choose to cease to exist as a personality, nothing is lost. Your Thought Adjuster still has all of your experience, as well as does the Supreme Being--this perfect memory of God’s of who and what you were.

And then there’s your soul, this part of you that is being co-created by a presence of God, and as such, so contra-distinct from your own memories that are just being produced by your physical brain and nervous system. This is always another even greater infinity, because it is an extra-spiritual reality co-created and vouchsafed by a presence of God. In this sense you are a kind of dual spiritual being. This is the compensation for your very humanity and the time-and-space limitations you know by being so closely associated with a living, physical being. It is the perfect compensation of having a presence of God taking on your life--this life you are living; these choices you are making; this free will you are exercising. This is your supreme gift to this presence of God. You are personal. You are a personal being. You are giving this personality, this dimension of reality, to the presence of God within you. This presages the day in which the two of you become as one for the benefit of both of you. You are giving this presence, this individualized presence of God, personality--uniqueness of being; and this presence of God is giving you eternal life, which you already have in part as your own soul. You own soul is already eternal, already a part of God the Supreme. If for whatever reason you would choose to cease to exist as a personality, nothing is lost. Your Thought Adjuster still has all of your experience, as well as does the Supreme Being--this perfect memory of God’s of who and what you were.

===='''''[[Home]]'''''====

====''[[Home]]''====

*Coming home

*Coming home

And so this is the essence of our teaching, Michael’s and mine, this personal-ness of God, of the Eternal Son, of the Infinite Spirit, of the Master Spirits, of the heads of the Superuniverses and the galaxies, right on down to: you. All these trillions of trillions of trillions of personal beings are all connected to our Father. This is your home. It is made for you and you were deliberately made for it. So we welcome you home. We invite you to feel at home. No matter what happens to you here in this time and space dimension where you have a very limited lifetime: know you have your soul. Let your meditations of previous times of your life come forth in all their fullness and reassure you that yes, you are this enormously complex being that your personality is struggling so mightily to unify, all these different elements of you going this way and that; sometimes totally at odds within yourself; some folks even totally torn apart. To experience your own soul is to experience God’s presence within you. Feel Michael’s and my presence within you and how we just let you be, even ignoring us if you will. We are always here. We enjoy your conscious company. And as you become conscious of us, so too you can know, you can feel that you are not alone. We are always here, and we do so delight when you say hello.

And so this is the essence of our teaching, Michael’s and mine, this personal-ness of God, of the Eternal Son, of the Infinite Spirit, of the Master Spirits, of the heads of the Superuniverses and the galaxies, right on down to: you. All these trillions of trillions of trillions of personal beings are all connected to our Father. This is your home. It is made for you and you were deliberately made for it. So we welcome you home. We invite you to feel at home. No matter what happens to you here in this time and space dimension where you have a very limited lifetime: know you have your soul. Let your meditations of previous times of your life come forth in all their fullness and reassure you that yes, you are this enormously complex being that your personality is struggling so mightily to unify, all these different elements of you going this way and that; sometimes totally at odds within yourself; some folks even totally torn apart. To experience your own soul is to experience God’s presence within you. Feel Michael’s and my presence within you and how we just let you be, even ignoring us if you will. We are always here. We enjoy your conscious company. And as you become conscious of us, so too you can know, you can feel that you are not alone. We are always here, and we do so delight when you say hello.

Student: Nebadonia, two things are on my mind to ask about: Karma. People simplify that concept and think they understand it, and believe it’s a punishment and reward system. I wonder if you could comment on that part.

Student: Nebadonia, two things are on my mind to ask about: Karma. People simplify that concept and think they understand it, and believe it’s a punishment and reward system. I wonder if you could comment on that part.

===='''''[[Karma]], '''''[[Causality]]'''''====

====''[[Karma]], [[Causality]]''====

*Karma as total causality

*Karma as total causality

Nebadonia: Yes, my son. As you note, the word has such a range of meaning from one individual to another, even from one philosophy or metaphysics, one religion to another. My feeling about it is: it’s man’s attempt to get a hold on some kind of total causality, not only in the physical realm which you know as fact, and not only in the mental realm of how one thought or one kind of behavior leads to another, shall we say: what you do today will have some effect on what you do tomorrow. Karma does posit some entity similar to what we call your personality, which does continue beyond death. And so it even asserts a causality from one lifetime to the next. This implies justice, this kind of total causality.

Nebadonia: Yes, my son. As you note, the word has such a range of meaning from one individual to another, even from one philosophy or metaphysics, one religion to another. My feeling about it is: it’s man’s attempt to get a hold on some kind of total causality, not only in the physical realm which you know as fact, and not only in the mental realm of how one thought or one kind of behavior leads to another, shall we say: what you do today will have some effect on what you do tomorrow. Karma does posit some entity similar to what we call your personality, which does continue beyond death. And so it even asserts a causality from one lifetime to the next. This implies justice, this kind of total causality.

Student: Well, it’s about my concern for the planet and our systems of government, and dealing with psychology, and politics, and wars; and it seems like the whole planet is threatened by climate change, and corrupt systems--dysfunctional systems. I wonder if this is a period of tribulation coming.

Student: Well, it’s about my concern for the planet and our systems of government, and dealing with psychology, and politics, and wars; and it seems like the whole planet is threatened by climate change, and corrupt systems--dysfunctional systems. I wonder if this is a period of tribulation coming.

===='''''[[Humanity]]'''''====

====''[[Humanity]]''====

*The human world

*The human world

Nebadonia: Yes, my son. It’s like Planetary Karma, if you will. Those of you who have read the Urantia Book will be relatively familiar with it. Understand: one of the great purposes of that revelation is to put all these things you have wondered about into historical context. The third part, the history of your world, relates not only to the physical world but also the story of humankind starting with Andon and Fonta, then all those chapters on The Evolution of Government; The Evolution of the Family. Also in its discussions of the planet was the way the celestial family gave of itself to a young planet in terms of a Planetary Prince and his corporal staff, then later, Adam and Eve. You get the picture of a divine plan for planetary evolution, and how in the case of Urantia this went so terribly, almost uniquely-terribly wrong.

Nebadonia: Yes, my son. It’s like Planetary Karma, if you will. Those of you who have read the Urantia Book will be relatively familiar with it. Understand: one of the great purposes of that revelation is to put all these things you have wondered about into historical context. The third part, the history of your world, relates not only to the physical world but also the story of humankind starting with Andon and Fonta, then all those chapters on The Evolution of Government; The Evolution of the Family. Also in its discussions of the planet was the way the celestial family gave of itself to a young planet in terms of a Planetary Prince and his corporal staff, then later, Adam and Eve. You get the picture of a divine plan for planetary evolution, and how in the case of Urantia this went so terribly, almost uniquely-terribly wrong.

Student: Yes!—“challenged” fits.

Student: Yes!—“challenged” fits.

===='''''[[Challenge]]'''''====

====''[[Challenge]]''====

*The challenge

*The challenge

Nebadonia: Well, my son, you express very well this living dynamic. It is a blessing to actually see what we call personality--that essence of a person that is unchanging and doing the best that he or she can to unify and bring into oneness a wonderful comprehension and feeling of understanding everything that’s happening to them. Everyone’s starting from zero and being just a speck, in a very true way just a speck in a gigantic happening, especially in the social way with all the other people, all the other unique beings you’re constantly running into. There’s no way of avoiding this challenge. You remember me years ago when I would tease you about the stretch that’s required of you, that you’re going to be stretched out of all you’ve known, all that you’ve understood. You will be challenged because otherwise eternity would be a hell of repetition. It’s the fact that tomorrow is going to be different, and it’s going to be different forever.

Nebadonia: Well, my son, you express very well this living dynamic. It is a blessing to actually see what we call personality--that essence of a person that is unchanging and doing the best that he or she can to unify and bring into oneness a wonderful comprehension and feeling of understanding everything that’s happening to them. Everyone’s starting from zero and being just a speck, in a very true way just a speck in a gigantic happening, especially in the social way with all the other people, all the other unique beings you’re constantly running into. There’s no way of avoiding this challenge. You remember me years ago when I would tease you about the stretch that’s required of you, that you’re going to be stretched out of all you’ve known, all that you’ve understood. You will be challenged because otherwise eternity would be a hell of repetition. It’s the fact that tomorrow is going to be different, and it’s going to be different forever.

Nebadonia: That is one of the wonderful, glorious purposes of stillness. It lets you understand sometimes how much of that drive to stay ahead of the challenges, or to keep up with the challenges; how much of that drive is coming from your own self. For those that can’t realize this but simply feel driven, and get paranoid about what it is driving them when so much of that is their own ambition or their own bad habits: think what it takes to exercise—consciously!--the innate ability you have of morality. Think of going through your day by day life weighing everything relentlessly, and realizing how bad a habit is, of, say, smoking--something that is giving you a little boost, a stimulate—is at the same time coating your lungs with a oily tar that reduces your strength. And yet, knowing that, and still, as Michael says, just trying to be consciously aware of that, realizing: yes, I cannot help myself, I can almost watch my hands lighting this next cigarette. Think what a seeming blessing it would be just to forget that morality, kick back, and enjoy a smoke.

Nebadonia: That is one of the wonderful, glorious purposes of stillness. It lets you understand sometimes how much of that drive to stay ahead of the challenges, or to keep up with the challenges; how much of that drive is coming from your own self. For those that can’t realize this but simply feel driven, and get paranoid about what it is driving them when so much of that is their own ambition or their own bad habits: think what it takes to exercise—consciously!--the innate ability you have of morality. Think of going through your day by day life weighing everything relentlessly, and realizing how bad a habit is, of, say, smoking--something that is giving you a little boost, a stimulate—is at the same time coating your lungs with a oily tar that reduces your strength. And yet, knowing that, and still, as Michael says, just trying to be consciously aware of that, realizing: yes, I cannot help myself, I can almost watch my hands lighting this next cigarette. Think what a seeming blessing it would be just to forget that morality, kick back, and enjoy a smoke.

===='''''[[Morality]]'''''====

====''[[Morality]]''====

*Living with conscious morality

*Living with conscious morality

But to keep that morality alive in yourself every puff: is this the Father’s will for me? Or does my Father want me to be healthy and strong? To me, that’s the price you pay for freedom. That’s the price you pay for consciousness of morality in everything you do. You yourself, my son, know by trying to ignore that, by just being simple-minded and deny all that, what a terrible toll that takes upon your potential life. That’s what you’re wrestling with: how can I realize my potential? What can I do more?

But to keep that morality alive in yourself every puff: is this the Father’s will for me? Or does my Father want me to be healthy and strong? To me, that’s the price you pay for freedom. That’s the price you pay for consciousness of morality in everything you do. You yourself, my son, know by trying to ignore that, by just being simple-minded and deny all that, what a terrible toll that takes upon your potential life. That’s what you’re wrestling with: how can I realize my potential? What can I do more?

Student: But getting back to morality: when I make a conscious commitment to sever all safety nets, there’s a fear there, that maybe I should still belong to some teaching. It was OK—I enjoyed it. But am I deluding myself? What if I don’t come here to Jerry’s because I don’t feel like it, you know? Like I’m not fulfilling my moral obligation? But I’m still the same person. I’m still connected to God, to the truth.

Student: But getting back to morality: when I make a conscious commitment to sever all safety nets, there’s a fear there, that maybe I should still belong to some teaching. It was OK—I enjoyed it. But am I deluding myself? What if I don’t come here to Jerry’s because I don’t feel like it, you know? Like I’m not fulfilling my moral obligation? But I’m still the same person. I’m still connected to God, to the truth.

===='''''[[Existence]]'''''====

====''[[Existence]]''====

*One thing happening

*One thing happening

Nebadonia: Well, my son, that is one glory of existential happening: existence itself. There is a uni-verse; there is a one-happening--in God; and as it comes out through you as an individual person, it is what you do.

Nebadonia: Well, my son, that is one glory of existential happening: existence itself. There is a uni-verse; there is a one-happening--in God; and as it comes out through you as an individual person, it is what you do.