2007-03-12-Living In Two Worlds, Your Ultimate Freedom

Session

Opening

Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, Welcome. Come join us. We ask you to circuit our minds in yours, and help us open our hearts to feel your presence. We thank you for the ongoing gospel of the Teaching Mission—the good news of our intimate relationship with God, our Father, through a Fragment of his pure spirit, making us all brothers and sisters, and giving us the means whereby we can seek to know his will directly for ourselves. Amen.

NEBADONIA: Good evening, my children, to those of you who are here, and all those who will come to read these words. Thank you for your warm welcome. It is indeed fun for Michael and I to keep spreading the good news. Just take a moment and see if you can feel my presence. As with your Father Fragment, the ironic difficulty of feeling me within you lies in the fact we have always been here. So once you are able to isolate or distinguish my presence distinctly in your mind, it may seem like an augmentation of a background that has always been there. While you are still in this first, human life of yours, your material minds—your thinking processes and perceptions created directly by your physical brains, are augmented by the vital pulsation’s of my Mind/Spirit Adjutants throughout our Local Universe. Once you are reconstituted on the Mansion Worlds you will move on to another kind of mind we call Morontia, a different blending with a more subtle substance so that from your standpoint now, your minds will be just that much less material and more spiritual. Your inner perceptions of your Father Fragment, and Michael’s and my presence’s, will be so much stronger, but, as of right now, never intrusive.

Lesson

You see, we want you to have your own lives. We deeply respect the way God made you, potentially autonomous and free-willed—even if this is still more in potential than what you’ve yet achieved. We do not go so far as to say your humanity depends upon your exercising your free-will, for your personality—created by God—is deserving of unlimited respect and acknowledgment. But for your inner life, my children, it is true that you reap the rewards of being a creature of will-dignity to the degree you have this kind of self-control coupled with a deep desire to know in fullness all that is spiritually implied in what you do. This fullness of realization is capable of nigh endless expansion, even while you are in this first phase of your eternal life.

More and more you can bring your own will in alignment with God’s will, which is the same as aligning your will with the general trend of the creation. God’s will alone does determine the trend of the whole cosmos. He alone is responsible for it, for he alone can respond totally, absolutely, infinitely, perfectly, to it. So you needn’t bridle at the notion of a Thought Adjuster controlling your thoughts, of being somehow intimidated or determined by some predestination—other than how Reality itself is going in total. The scope of your will has been very wisely and lovingly limited to the realm of your consciousness, and this is primarily so you don’t inadvertently injure yourself. In other words, by the time you are able to consciously control some self-generated function, you will have gained the wisdom to do so in the very success of that ability. As Michael said last week, he too had to constantly and lovingly seek God’s will in order to keep expanding his capacity for experience, ever enlarging his consciousness to realize the full meaning and value of what he was capable of doing.

This is the way to freedom. You’ve all had wonderful examples of this, living in your modern age, in how you can feel and realize an ever greater freedom just to the degree you can understand natural, physical laws as preexistent and universal. Also in the last century you’ve become more and more aware of general psychological influences and determinism’s, and have gained great inner freedom by understanding what might be loosely described as mental laws. Now your Urantia book has informed you that some of the first courses of study in the next worlds to come will be spiritual laws—Morontia mota—as they become a greater part of your experience.

Yet at one time the notion of discovering ever more rigid and impersonal laws of nature would have terrified those primitive souls who believed and perceived everything was personal, and therefore amenable to all sorts of magical rites, sympathetic vibrations to influence these personal spirits—of the weather, the seasons, the whole natural world. It has been the general trend of civilization to discover objective laws, and although you can all enjoy what you call roughing-it, or camping out in the wilderness for a few weeks, it is nice to have that modern, scientifically-based medicine available if some injury occurs. It is nice to have the choice.

These are ways, my children, in which bringing your will into accord with the single, greatest will which created all that is--both directly and through all his many Creative Sons and Daughters, yet not being enslaved to ideas of predestination, opens you up to infinity, infinity beyond your wildest dreams, infinity of adventure you will never exhaust.

Also tonight I’d like to comment on and extend what Michael taught last week, and consider once again the nature of effort. This is a bit tricky for it’s like the old puzzle: if a tree falls in the wilderness and no one hears it, does it make any sound? But that can be resolved easily simply by defining what you mean by "sound." Obviously there are measurable vibrations of different density going out through the air in ripples. It is somewhat similar with respect to the concept of effort. It can have a kind of empirical meaning as that measurable force which is applied to accomplish work, but it also has the connotation of what you feel, and this is usually what is meant. What is your inner experience with regards to that work, distinct from the work? This inner feeling can even mask or distort your direct experience of the work—considered abstractly: i.e. it can take more effort in getting started, than in the doing.

When you were very young and still quite unlearned as to what different activities required, you quickly learned through trial and error, dozens of small, painful mistakes, and successes, to get a sense of yourself that grew as your ego, your perception of yourself. Not knowing yet what you could do, and pulling a little muscle, skinning your knuckles, stubbing your toe, being stumped mentally, effort quickly became a psychological measuring of what you were doing within yourself, while the work itself was still—as it were, still bereft of craftsmanship, or knowledge, or wisdom—alien, mysterious, unknown. You could loose yourself in some activity, say, taking a long walk, and find yourself totally exhausted far from home. So you learned to pay strict attention to what activities cost you in energy, determination, concentration--inside.

Then as the years of experience accumulated, as your soul grew, as your wisdom deepened, as your craftsmanship developed, you had moments when it seemed you would return once again to a child-like state of getting lost in your work. Not needing any longer to pay such strict attention to the inner effort involved, you had touches of a seeming effortlessness, when, as Michael said, you became totally committed to the event itself. The psychological, self-aware, measuring component vanished and you could feel a thrill in just the pure substance of what it was you were doing. Think of your intricate machines, your beautiful tools—once you’ve learned how to work and play with them: I won’t go into the romance you have with your automobiles—too much: something about feeling one with the car—having the car become an extension of your body?

Finally you arrive at wonderful times of total commitment, total un-self-awareness, but based on wisdom now, based on years and years of experience so you can now forget yourself with impunity. You appreciate how your will is beginning to be in alignment with that greater will which created all this natural law, your understanding of which has given you such power. The effort is still there in an empirical kind of way, it still takes physical, or mental, or spiritual force to accomplish things, but the psychological component is at peace. All these are ways you’ve extended your freedom: you’ve earned it.

In a same way, my children, you are earning this physical/mental/spiritual realm you find yourselves in. No matter how you may grow in spiritual status and encompass dimensions upon dimensions beyond your wildest imaginings now, you will always be in touch with and able to perceive this reality you now inhabit and is made realizable through all your physical, flesh-and-blood perceptions. Look around and know deep in your soul: you are earning this, you are making it yours. Though we often refer to it as the finite realm, for all your various human limitations, never forget the fact--see if you can perceive—your reality is already infinite to you, both in extension—out into infinity and down into the infinitesimal, and intention—your Father Fragment’s intention for a perfect life, for you. Enjoy it well.

If you have any questions or comments this evening, feel free.

Dialogue

Student: Yes, Mother, I thank you for that last statement. I’m looking forward to experiencing in stillness the infinity of my being. I sometimes wonder through all the things I’ve come to read, and experience in all the meetings and gatherings, and healing sessions, and meditations, who am I—still? Have I progressed, enough, in a quantitative, or even qualitative way—as a human being? I know I’ve grown inwardly through effort, but I question my outward life. It seems to be the same, except for my granddaughter. I still lack—materially, and I still have no relationship with anyone. But I also feel…complete, at home base within myself.

I know I’m rambling here, but I do feel I’m getting a sense of God’s will, and being in alignment with it, more and more. When I feel I’m coming from myself, I feel constricted, but when I’m feeling my God-self, I feel more expansive. I’m able to go with the flow—so to speak—and things feel more effortless, and in harmony.

NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, rest assured I don’t consider you as schizophrenic as you…

Student (laughing): Yeah, I feel that way at times. It’s like, how am I to—and I’m sure Jesus experienced the same thing at times—maybe—of being in two worlds. There’s obviously one reality, but being in this…I feel different. I do.

NEBADONIA: Well, I was teasing, of course. Because this is something we have been encouraging all of you to get into for quite a while now. Michael touched on it last week as having the nerve to feel the disconnect, or stretch, between the real and the ideal. For it might be what you call a cop-out to opt for one at the expense of the other. Tonight I wished to express how your freedom is so dependant on your staying open to both where you are and your great distance from God’s will, and having the human quality of patience with yourself in holding onto ideals. Welcome the humility of knowing how enormous God’s will must be, and how it will take an eternity to even begin to approach it, it is so transcendent. Yet it is also so immediate, so immanent. You are not even keeping your own heart beating, as we love to say. You can feel your inner growth becoming more and more vibrant, and flexible, and fun, even while your outward appearance can seem to hardly change at all.

You are in two worlds, my son. It is a matter of rejoicing that you can know this. You even have some of your sweet old hymns to the effect that, This world is not my own—meaning not for long. We give you the example of the Primary and Secondary Midwayers as the true inhabitants of the planet, compared to which you don’t spend much time here at all. This is more like a launching pad, a point of departure. It is so rewarding to us you can begin to experience, for all your imperfection, a feeling of completeness, a feeling of your cosmic actuality, everywhere as important as your sense of freedom. It can keep growing, and will. The hardest thing for us to convey to you is how, in the coming phases of your life, you will feel more actual to yourself: these are processes of an ongoing actualization across ever greater dimensions of energy/material, and mind, and spirit; and others we cannot describe in your language. Even materially you will always have a great relationship with stuff, for as you chase it down into the sub-sub-sub-atomic level, and out into the galaxies of the outer space levels, you are face to face with a very practical infinity.

Student: So where’s my place in all of this? My own place? In these two worlds? I feel I’ve made a commitment to myself, and to God, to actualize to the best of my efforts, all that I can in my own way. But I also feel somewhere along the line I’m missing something, I’m not totally connecting, I’m either holding back…I don’t know: maybe I am OK. (laughs) Maybe I’m putting too much pressure on myself. I just want to know where my place is in all of this.

NEBADONIA: My son, this is your place. You’ve just wonderfully defined it. You are building a nest; this is your soul. This is the actuality you are beginning to feel. This is the strange paradox of being almost like a little God yourself, a little speck of divinity--for you are a part of the Deity Absolute and can feel your completeness moment to moment; yet also being aware of what we call your imperfection insofar as you are capable of infinite growth and expansion toward perfection. Imperfection only exists by relationship to this enormous potential that you are, and the perfection that God is. You can think of yourself as 99.9999 percent potential. Your personality has no limits that can be put upon it crossing the whole physical cosmos, and billions of years of time, to come, just approaching Paradise for the first time.

So this is your home, this situation you find yourself in—complete, and yet capable of being more and more replete—forever. You are a persisting reality, my son. (Mother Spirit laughs)

Student: And I guess I shouldn’t judge my own progress by material appearances.

NEBADONIA: Let’s just say appearances are a small part of progress, and they will continue to become smaller. Ultimately, finally, appearances coincide with inner reality.

Student: When you say I’m this infinite potential, and I guess it will always be infinite, then I feel like, at some level, it can’t be prevented. It has to be.

NEBADONIA: No… We say it is very much something you can refuse. This is your ultimate freedom: you can choose to cease to exist. You can refuse this growth, this potential--which is a good definition of dying, of ceasing to exist. Because everything else is expanding, is growing. In a way you cannot yet comprehend in space-and-time terms, total reality is like a balloon which is constantly expanding, and you can only hold this dynamic concept for a few moments, and it seems something has to give. How can all of reality keep expanding? Yet it is: without end. As this is God’s will, it has to become yours too. But it is a choice.

Student: I do choose this, but deep down inside there’s all this fear. I mean I do feel my fear of the change. If I do access all this potential, how can I live on the planet? So maybe I’m perceiving incorrectly.

NEBADONIA: My son, we do make the distinction between judgement and assessment, not so much in qualitative, but purely quantitative terms. We ask you don’t judge yourselves, or each other, in a total kind of way because your totality—as we see it—is nowhere available to you yet. You are more than you can be conscious of—yet. Yet life does require you to make provisional assessments, and you can have a sense of relief in realizing they are only provisional. There is wisdom in getting through today while at the same time keeping an eye out for tomorrow--using all your foresight, and being aware of how provisional it is too.

Student: I understand how living for today lays the foundation for a greater experience of tomorrow.

NEBADONIA: Yes, it’s been expressed as today—now—being the fulcrum point of all that’s to come.

Student: I just don’t want to let myself down with respect to what I could be—what God intended for me to be.

NEBADONIA: This is your intrinsic sense of morality that can be welcome in your consciousness—or not! It is in your own best interest to embrace this as thoroughly as you can. As Michael spoke of last week, there is a way of resting in each moment’s activity with a sense of commitment, being one with your activities, and yet removing yourself from them in your meditative reflection after the fact. Evaluate: what was that? You will feel yourself going back and forth between these two realms of commitment and then reflection and assessment. I’m sure you’ve known individuals who opted for one at the expense of the other, either immersing themselves in unreflective action, or becoming lost in reflection and disconnected from life-affirming activity: another balance, if you will.

Student: You and Michael have been encouraging us to use our imaginations, and stepping off. I’m not sure I know where to begin—with imagination. So… Any ideas… (laughs) I see Jesus as having had a great imagination as to what he wanted to bring forth.

NEBADONIA: We call this the self-power of your own spirit. You have my Mind/Spirit Adjutants, you have Michael’s Spirit of Truth, you have the Father’s pure spiritual presence within you; but you also have your own personality’s spirit, co-creating your reality—realizing you and your world for yourself. To the degree this is as yet unconscious and untried, you can only experiment by letting your imagination go. Don’t keep it on too tight a rein at first. Make notes about what you want to see happen. Wonder who you might want to grow to be. What other powers, what other abilities, what other kind of freedom might be in line with God’s will for you? This is the inner work that originates a greater sense of freedom because now you have choices to make.

It can be very discomforting at first. It can make you feel small, or unfulfilled, as you imagine all these other things you might be. But that’s another price to pay for your freedom. It will give you a greater sense of who you are, just by comparison. And you might as well start acquiring this ability now. You will always need it. We talked about it before in terms of: what do you want?

Student: I guess I just don’t want to…just daydream.

NEBADONIA: Which is why it’s necessary to make notes of these things and actually try them. Some might well be silly, or impractical, or impossible; but you get a good reflection back from all of them. You develop a sense of what rings true, what seems in accord with God’s intention for you. So many people stop with only the idea of doing these things—this inner work, but it can be real experience.

Student: I love this—it’s all so good! (laughs)

NEBADONIA: My son, this creates an ever larger space around you. You can find a moment-to-moment comfort within this larger space of possibility. It may be a little disconcerting or uncomfortable at first, but how else can you know whether or not you are limiting yourself, except by comparison to what you yourself might want to do?

A lot of this sounds strange when it’s put into the English language this way, but I’m sure when you reflect on this and reread it, a lot of this will be recognizable and familiar. You are doing this already. You are wondering what other work you might do, who else you might be, who might you find for a companion. This is all your inner creativity. You have expressed how it is discomforting, at times. But does it give you a sense of who you are?

Student: Yes… Yes, it does. Thank you.

NEBADONIA: You are very welcome. These are the reality-experiments you are involved in. They are very much your home. And this is intended--from the standpoint of spirit.

You are quite blessed to be sharing your life with others. You take them into account in your mind, and in your imagination of what might be better for them as well. You weigh all these alternatives too.

As I said at the beginning, these are some strange and wonderful notions of freedom and effort. What is my will? What is God’s will? Or, as you like to put it: what is his original intention for me? How can I find out?

Closing

We call your attention to the principle of feedback because you can imagine something, you can have your own ideas right from your own personality; and then you can hang yourself out there and step off in faith because you don’t know yet what the result will be: and reality—including yourself and all those you know, and then all that impersonal universe out there, all that stuff—does answer. You do get a result from your reality-experiment. You soul is growing. You are earning this realm of flesh-and-blood, and it will be yours to perceive forever, even when you become pure spirit. In this time of being human you can feel my love, and know Michael’s peace, and share your life with God. Good evening.