1995-04-28-Influence & Disappointment

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Topic: Influence & Disappointment

Group: Pocatello TeaM

Facilitators

Teacher: Daniel, Tomas

TR: Rutha, Gerdean

Session

Opening

Daniel(TR#3): Good evening my friends. Welcome to our comfortable get together again to study and discuss spiritual truth and personal growth, progress or difficulties with the matter of learning the technique of balance, and trust essential to this matter of surfing the waves of life. It is I, Daniel, who speaks to you, your teacher, your companion and your guide.

Lesson

Disappointment, Humor

Much has been presented tonight in your discussions which shows your continued interest and dedication to the pursuit of the application of Tomas and my instructions. I am filled with pride, in a proper sense, that I am given the privilege of being your teacher. The instruction that I wish to comment on this evening is a further extension of our grappling with truth which we dealt with last week, and I would elaborate this evening on this business of dealing with disappointment. The disappointment that I refer to was in the metaphor of the downside of the wave.

It has been well spoken tonight in your discussion that your perspective on the meaning of the events in your life has major impact upon your reaction to those events which occur, whether internally or externally, on a daily basis. One of the recommendations of humor is that it is a means of altering a perspective in such a way as to see the progress that a person, a being, makes over time and to appreciate one's own childishness in retrospect. So first, then, I commend to you the full hearted enjoyment of humor to help deal with your tendency to become swallowed up and limited in a 'now' oriented view of the importance of a particular event.

Your culture is very persuaded that the fast lane, as it's termed, is the place to be in order to benefit the most from everyday events. And because of this orientation one, and this includes you all as well, one is put into a state of electro-chemical tension and priorities are arranged in such a way that the unexpected interruptions of unplanned for problems can disrupt a person's equilibrium and cause them to become disoriented. Therefore another strategy of great importance in dealing with disappointments is to look upon the whole stretch of time which is your real reality. For you, my friends, are given to know that this short life is but the prelude to eternity and that the desires of your heart and your plans cannot be fulfilled in entirety in this lifetime. These desires are not put there to frustrate you but to speak of your true eternal status, if you so choose the ascension career.

Another realization which has been presented in your discussion has to do with the relative status that each of you have in regard to your influence on the outcome of 'everything'. I know that I speak words that you have heard before, words that you intellectually understand when I say that you are not responsible for the overcare of this world. Yes, Isaac [TR #3] is concerned that this lesson is primarily intended for him, but I will say that we teachers do not single anyone out. Our lessons are broadly based.

Disappointment is inevitable. It is part of your humanity. You should not be surprised when it occurs to you for even our own Master wept when He was disappointed because the planned rendezvous between Himself and His family was aborted. Do not criticize and punish yourself for your humanity. No, your humanity, our humanity, (for I also am a former mortal) our humanity is our gift from our Creator Son and His cohort our Universe Mother Spirit.

You see there are many beings who do not share our mortality who are actually [almost] envious of us for experiencing things that they never will have the opportunity to do. And I refer to our Havona natives in particular. Regard the struggles of life as your opportunity to turn over control, the control you tend to naturally seek, to the overcare of our great Parent.

Tomas, you may offer words at this time.

TOMAS: Thank you Daniel. Good evening group, my friends and loyal students of this Teaching Mission. The process which you all experience in learning at the hands of we teachers is fascinating to us as it is to you for whereas Daniel's transmitter/receiver this evening felt the lesson was directed towards him, I, myself have been shunted aside that my transmitter/receiver could hear those words which were certainly directed personally to her. The quality of our teaching attempts to prevail in spite of the many colorings of personalities and the individual level of understanding which you find yourself in today or on a day that the lesson takes root in your mind or your heart or your soul.

In reference now to the theme of disappointment there are those which are relevant to mind, the heart, and the soul. As you, of course, are familiar, the disappointments which are hardest to bear are those which never come.(48:7.21) This bit of mota has caused many a mortal to puzzle over what disappointment the authors could be making reference to.

The materialist is disappointed by the lack of possessions and ease with which to attain, prosper, negotiate, and effuse.

The emotional disappointments relate to your heart's desires, which range of heart's desires bear directly upon your evolutionary standing at the time. Much of your concept of love is focused on romantic disappointments and disappointments related to your home including your physical temple, your family environment to include your planetary condition.

Also your soul disappointments are often presented to you for pondering and in a disappointment of the soul you might consider those times when your integrity is misunderstood or when you have been betrayed by a friend.

Your efforts in the field of planting seeds of spiritual truth often times are met with disappointments when your seed is seemingly cast aside for more tangible goodies or more sensual response.

The disappointment hardest to bear will never come for your greatest anticipation is always on the next crest, on the next adventure, on the next piece of insight and revelation.

In your true soul growth, in your identity-becoming your soul may transcend all seeming disappointments by the realization of the relative merit of your perception of the disappointment. In the long range you are brought forward to develop anew a stage on which to experience yet more disappointments and observe our God experience yet more victories.

Are you disappointed that the work which you have dedicated yourself to doing is work on behalf of others than yourself? In which case you will know great disappointment in your soul. The manifestation of divine love welling up from your Source is given to you and you give freely without concern for disappointment. The fruit you produce is the fruit or the living vine. It is not your fruit except that you nourish yourself and feed others with that fruit that has been provided.

If you find that the burden of service is great consider the burden of life without knowledge of your eternal self-becoming. What remnants of disappointment there are in this truth are but shadows which will evaporate in the light of the sun which falls on you who remain true to your divine purpose.

[This is] the final remark from Tomas this evening.

DANIEL: Thank you Tomas for your wise words, your added thoughts to our joint lesson together. Before I open this conversation to this group's involvement I would remark briefly that overcoming disappointment is a major accomplishment of the ascension career, for there will come a time when we all will have reached that point that is described in your text as disappointment proof, no longer battered and shattered and distraught by events that come out of the blue, as it were.

And as I said last week it is not my intention to tell you to lower your ideals for that is a strategy that some have attempted in order to avoid disappointment. No, rather rest in the security of your sonship and daughtership. Rest in the overcare of the First Source and Center and all His divine agencies of administration, mercy, and care. Do not neglect your time in silence for you only are cutting yourself off from your strength.

And now any comments and questions to Tomas and myself or any other discussion that you wish to propose?

The Teachers

TOMAS: I am responding to a question which has been asked. I am Tomas. And the question which has been posed has to do with the perspective of the teachers as compared to the perspective of mortals in the flesh, the seeming vast gulf between the levels of growth. It is a curiosity question and yet I respond since this has been a thorn in the side of one of my students.

We have experienced being flesh and blood. We have known the emotions of human animals. We have known fear and love and the entire range of feelings as you have experienced them. That many of us teachers have experienced our mortal existence on advanced planets, worlds often approaching Light and Life or, indeed, well settled in Light and Life is irrespective of the feeling value which we know and which is part of our ascending experience like yours is part of your ascending experience. We are not superior in a sense of being better than you but in having maturity of experience. If our lessons sometimes appear to you as though we were speaking down to you, be at peace in your mind for we are merely elders and have little choice in how we portray our values for we are now the embodiment of those values as you, too, will embody your values as you ascend. That is all.

(Very long pause)

DANIEL: Well, Tomas, perhaps we put them all to sleep or perhaps there is enough food for thought and weariness of flesh combined to make it appropriate for us to conclude our conversation. What say you?

TOMAS: I am disappointed. However, I will survive.

Dialogue

Human Condition

PamElla: If you would like a reaction, an honest reaction rather than a question or whatever, I guess I am willing to take that role tonight. I had a couple of thoughts, but my initial reaction was to Daniel when you said for us to take the longer view, I think that really is an impossible thing for us to do because it is asking us to do something which is beyond our experience! Although now I can look back to childhood easily and understand children I can remember being a child and thinking about being a grownup and being assured that that would never happen, because it was so long and far away. Even though I knew intellectually that someday I would be a grownup, an adult, my emotional reaction was, no, I will never be a grownup, never be an adult. And so that's how I feel when that is given as -- I was sort of in and out but I interpreted to be as solace to our disappointment to realize that this is just the preface to eternity. Well, that just doesn't help because right now this is my existence and it's my entire existence. I did like the comment on humor. I have found that a good laugh helps break up my disappointment. Well, anyway, there is a reaction, not necessarily a question.

DANIEL: My dear it was not my intention to minimize the reality of disappointment by 'pie in the sky by and by' which seems to be how you may have thought or how you interpreted what I said, but rather to provide a broader framework for understanding that it doesn't all have to be done in this lifetime since you know that there is more. Much of the disappointment of Urantians today has to do with their lack of knowledge and faith regarding the whole perspective of eternal life so that they plan for the objectives of their life when they are young only to find them not being met and not being fulfilled. Many people succumb to massive disappointment that they cannot do all that they wish in this short lifetime, and knowing no other time become very sad, indeed. Rather I would intend to say that knowing there is time, much greater time than most people allow for or believe in frees you from the anxiety of that intense disappointment so that you can focus on your desires effectively and bring about those things which you earnestly and eagerly seek, of course in the overall perspective of seeking to do the Father's will. Has this clarified or helped or are you still in disagreement with what I have said?

PamElla: Both. That did clarify. But I am still in disagreement. I'm sure it is out of ignorance because there are things that I want to do that have to do with this planet now that I can't see how they could be answered in a different time and place or in a different form. So to some extent I can understand some of the experiences that we are looking for, the feelings of adventure and that sort of thing can be had in different forms. And the problem is I have an attachment to the form! I guess right now I am thinking about experiential training that I took where one of the processes dealt with letting go of the form and realizing the experience, the emotional experience that you wanted from the form, and to let go of the form in favor of the emotional experience. And I suppose that is what would be a good avenue for me to follow at this point of time in my life, to let go of the form in which my disappointments take place so that I might have the emotional experience. That is where my disagreement remains, and I am sure that could be out of ignorance. You guys are in a-- I have no idea where you are. I have no idea what you experience. We are very limited or at least I am very limited by my experiences which are here and now. I really can't imagine what you know to be true by your experience. So it is not that I doubt -- well I guess I do doubt what you say because I haven't experienced it and I guess I am very much like the Apostle Thomas.

TOMAS: Understood. Your childlike enthusiasm to manifest and inculcate all of thinking, feeling humankind in your experience is fraught with idealism which we would never attempt to squelch and thus your own adventurous spirit puts you in direct attack of your own ambition. This is not without value for that which you project impacts that which is real outside you that you are unable to see, feel, sense or appreciate. What you do in no way undermines what you do accomplish in your enthusiasm and your hopes. That may be construed as you say, fame and fortune, and that is a poor phrase but the 'I AM' aspect of any Father fused being or ascendant being appreciates that recognition and acknowledgment of its contribution to the Supreme. The lack of feedback is a disappointment indeed. You must understand that you have not failed in your eagerness to give to the form for all that you put forth is scaffolding toward that end. Remind yourself when you are feeling limitations which curtail your greater satisfactions that you are doing more than you realize by simply being one of those who say, 'It is my will that His will be done'. Your alignment to those values is valuable beyond your comprehension. We sympathize with the many minor setbacks inherent in a material system and even beyond. Do not feel isolated for all sensitive, thinking, feeling, God knowing beings feel that same range of noble ideal and experience, the same helplessness at being unable to expand beyond the bounds of mortal flesh. Your soul is registered and your worth is assured. Be not disappointed with yourself and hold in check your disappointments for those experiences which leave you feeling defeated for those are temporary fleeting moments and not part of your permanent make up. I hope I have been able to boost your disappointed spirits somewhat, daughter.

PamElla: Yes, Tomas, your words are more comforting and thank you. And just for clarification, I don't think for my personal clarification but for our transcript, when you say 'hold in check' am I correct in interpreting that you don't mean, 'do not feel the feelings', but rather, 'keep them in perspective'?

TOMAS: Correct.

PamElla: Thank you, Tomas.

Support, The Teachers

Leetah: Tomas, you made reference to some of the thoughts I had in that you did suggest that beyond this mortal existence and perhaps even on your plane that there is disappointment. I am assuming that this probably is true since you are not yet on Paradise; and I say that with 'tongue in cheek', of course. But what do you do when you are disappointed?

TOMAS: You are asking me a personal question?

Leetah: Definitely.

TOMAS: Then I will respond personally. What I do is I ask my peers to sit with me, to share with me that moment of frustration and growth. The strength and warmth of their support is invaluable and allows me the enforcement I require to again put my self in perspective. I have great need and great love and great admiration for my fellow teachers in the mission for we are uniquely suited to helping one another with our various disappointments. Often these disappointments which we experience, and I better not speak for Daniel or others but rather for myself, many of these disappointments which I experience are very much like yours in that I have such great faith in you and sometimes I am thwarted, let down, disappointed by my own expectations. It is a growth process, a refining process. That is my agenda, if you will.

Leetah: Tomas, thank you very much. That really did help a great deal and really is an excellent model for us to try to follow. Whether you read my mind or not, I am not sure, but I was thinking in terms of the teachers dealing with me, (I'll be personal too) when I feel I fail myself and I would think that the teachers' expectations would be greater than mine. If so, then I would think that the teachers would experience disappointment in, not necessarily me, but in the situation, that I didn't rise above the circumstances of the moment. So I really appreciate you being personal. It really did answer a thought in my question that I didn't voice. Thank you very much.

TOMAS: Thank you, my sister.

Failure

DANIEL: Leetah we are somewhat more mature than you mortals and we have learned to a greater extent that there are limits to our ability to influence other people so that when our students fail as you describe it we see it differently. We see this as a learning process. We see this as perfectly understandable, even as toddlers fall down when they are first attempting to walk, even as children fall out of trees and break their bones, even as adults make minor to horrendous mistakes in magnitude. Failure is only appropriately described, if at all, in the unwillingness to learn from experience, to change procedure, to change expectation and etc. When you stumble, get back up. When you are unhappy with yourself, let go of that judgement. Do you see?

Leetah: Yes. But I think if we are going to hang on to the ideal then I would say when you fall, when you are disappointed in yourself then I would say to myself, change, rather than let go of the judgement. If I don't change...there has to be judgement and evaluation before change can occur. And the only person I can really change is me. So I think there has to be a point of evaluation!

DANIEL: Agreed. By the phrase 'let go of judgement' I did not refer to assessment of the situation. I referred to that feeling of guilt, of self disappointment, and etc. Certainly to understand a situation is prerequisite to improving one's reaction in the future.

Leetah: Thank you, Daniel.

TOMAS: It has been said that one of our purposes is to make you think. And those who deign to think and then to blunder into awareness are our chief delight. You are not a disappointment for you have begun your active co-creative process. You accept your self conscious association with divinity. There is far more joy and appreciation for the errors of those who attempt to learn and delve into unknown waters of the mind, heart, and soul than you know. It is an unfortunate side effect of the wondrous supernal adventure that as your perspectives broaden so, too, do the occasions for disappointment. But as you step up in your growth the disappointments are newer and the old disappointments fall away. Like any aspect of ascension the sting is lessened and when it is poignant it is briefer thus all things continue to ascend and edify and delight. Therefore we encourage you to not allow the threat of disappointment to curtail your enthusiasm in embracing life in all its manifold vicissitudes, for where else can you find those opportunities for decision making which bring you greater reality?

Leetah: Thank you, Tomas

DANIEL: I would like to share a brief summary of part of my mortal life to illustrate one point that I wish to make. There were many occasions when my disappointment was because I did not take effective action and choices that were presented to me and thus delayed fulfillment of some of my mortal goals. I do not wish to be heard as saying that all mortal goals can be attained and that there is no place for disappointment. I caution you to ask yourself if there is any internal conflict that is responsible for disappointment, for that you are able to assume responsibility for and improve. Those things which are entirely outside of your control are somewhat different. I say these things not to make anyone overly introspective but merely to point out that often there is more that we can do to lessen our disappointments than we are sometimes willing to believe.

Closing

And now because our time is long and these vessels are somewhat weary I will draw this meeting to a close. My assignment to you today is to think about those aspects of your life which you regard as disappointing and to bring them into the presence of the First Source and Center and Christ Michael. Talk with your Indwelling Spirit. Talk with our Father/Brother. Seek guidance. And may love and joy and peace be your portion today and for the rest of the week.

Goodnight.