1996-07-05-The Joy Of Learning

Session

Opening

T0MAS: Good evening, my friends.

Group: Good evening.

TOMAS: I am Tomas, your friend, your companion, your teacher and your guide in our journey forward. It is a pleasure to be here with you as usual and as always I delight in your presences. I have enjoyed your repartee this evening and your laughter. I have also enjoyed your human remarks about your teacher. I would be happy to/willing to discuss our relationship at any time.

Our relationship, one to another, as friends, as companions, is of infinite importance to me and it is a reflection on our inclination to be friends with the Spirit Indwelling of each of us; thus, the relationship you have with your teacher, in some regards, reflects upon the relationship you have with yourself and with your God and with your fellow human beings.

Will you engage in discourse with me this evening, my friends? What is on your minds?

Dialogue

The Teachers

Student: I want to know what you look like, draped or slouched. Not slouched. Sprawling. Paint me a picture of what you look like when you are "sprawling."

TOMAS: I am pictured, then, seated. I do not sprawl when I am upright. I like to think that I stroll in my movements afoot, but when I am seated and being philosophic, you might picture me as having my arm draped over my large easy chair and sitting in a somewhat comfortable and companionable stance. I use that way to convey a degree of comfort and affability rather than being lazy or slouching.

Student: Kind of comfortable.

TOMAS: I am a comfortable kind of guy. Although I am presented often as rigid, I must convey to you that is because of the method of communication, (and) the rigidity which comes from delivering one word at a time. On occasion, my transmitter and I can get on a roll and she can convey more sweeping attitudes and inflections which, of course, gives color and interest to anyone's sentences, but when I am laboriously plodding along with one word at a time and simple concepts, it comes across as rather tedious.

I would like for you to know me well in the future, in some advanced state of reality, where you see me in my more natural condition, which is truly more affable and all-embracing. For now, I guess you'll just have to trust that I am your friend in all contexts.

Student: Okay. I owe you an apology. You impressed me as sort of stiff and rigid. A stuffed shirt. (Group laughter) After knowing Nero [Ed.: Nero was a former Pittsburgh Teacher] for a while, that's how you came across to me in my mind. I pictured that and then I realized that you're not, that you're very humorous. Nero had a very dry wit and used to laugh, you know, make witties, and yours is a different type of humor, that's all. So I just wanted to apologize because I had that misconception that you were a stuffed shirt. I would like to ask you a question.

TOMAS: Before you go on, my dear, I would like to say that I will accept your apology only if you insist, for it is not necessary. It is your perception, based on what you have seen, and by comparison to previous exposure to teachers who were indeed more fluid in their presentation. If you must perceive me as a stuffed shirt, then you will have to take that up with Gerdean, for it is her rigidity and lack of fluidity, not mine, but I do riot begrudge her stance, as I am pleased to have a mouthpiece at all. And you were saying?

Student: Okay. I'll work on Gerdean. I'm a professional massage therapist, so I'll loosen her up and then she won't be so . ...

TOMAS: I would like to respond also that although the physical aspects are certainly under consideration, it is also, to a great degree, her concern for getting it correct, her fear of making error, her desire to be certain of my messages. It is, as I said in an earlier lesson, her respect for the teachers that would put her in a position of wanting to speak only what we wanted to convey, and if she were to loosen up perhaps she would present us as being foolish. And so some of her problem is not physical but it is mindal and emotional. Spiritually we see very much eye-to-eye, so you might help her to loosen up by assuring her that you love your teacher and she will then relax in feeling that she can convey me and stop having to defend me.

Student: I'll make that attempt to do that.

I wanted to ask you about Gabriel. I find him fascinating and I don't perceive him as a personality who would take to a nickname like Gabby or Gabe. He impresses me as a very important man with so many things in his hands, in his control, and different types of great things about him. He seems like he would be a very -- what shall I say -- very nice person, a very neat person, with a very different type of feel. Am I correct in my assumption?

TOMAS: I have to say I do not know Gabriel intimately, as you would construe close friends. I have seen him operate. I have admired his work and I agree completely that he is not amenable to nicknames, in my opinion. I, like you, could never call him Gabby or Gabe. I think, though, that you should understand that your attempts at humanizing the higher beings is a way of trying to understand and identify with superior life forms, and as you give them personality traits such as humor and playfulness, they become more accessible to you. It is true, however, that in many cases you will need to grow up before you can completely appreciate the depth and breadth of such personalities as Gabriel, whose leadership is astounding, whose capabilities are beyond descriptive adjective. So many things in the universe are hard to describe, and Gabriel is one of them.

I admire him immensely, and yet I have encountered individuals who speak with him regularly, who know him well, and they convey to me that he is indeed warm and loving and can be supremely kind and even simple in his approach to life. I find that difficult to appreciate, for as I said, I have seen him in his capacities as a leader and an organizer of action and beings and I am more impressed than delighted, you see.

Student: Thank you.

TOMAS: You are welcome.

I will speak one more thing regarding nicknames, for I have heard you all refer to Machiventa Melchizedek as "Big Mac" and in other contexts I have heard individuals refer to Our Father as Higher Power, or "H.P.," and this attempt at affectionate identification with divinity is not looked down upon, is not looked at askance by the higher beings, for we are delighted by your acknowledgement, but as you learn and grow and develop an understanding of the true natures of these beings, your own esteem for them will develop and the full magnitude of their power and position will convey to you a respect that you did not believe possible within your own breast.

Hunnah: Breast pocket.

TOMAS: I am not discussing your sunglasses or your checkbook.

Hunnah: I wonder sometimes if our referring to you and our friends on the other side is a method to make ourselves comfortable with this new concept. Because I still have difficulty imagining your existence at all. I am comfortable with your personality and the message you bring. One time in my notebook I wrote that the message, the messenger and the receiver were all one, were all together. I have trouble imagining you in an easy chair. So, we are . ..

TOMAS: Let me respond. It matters not whether you believe in me. I am not the Father, I am not Michael, and I am not crucial to your spiritual development, and so it matters little, truly. I am a messenger, indeed, but if you only perceive that I am a platform for Gerdean's philosophies or for the devotees of this thing called the Teaching Mission, or whatever, even that does not matter, for in the long run, if you have developed in your spiritual persona, that is what you will carry forward with you and we will have succeeded in our purpose.

When it is said that it is not the individual but the work that is important, there is great truth. I realize that opens a whole bag of worms for discourse about the importance of the individual and, indeed, through your Indwelling God Fragment and your potential as a personality, your individuality is great in a certain respect, but when it comes to serving the Master, when it comes to espousing those values which will instill in you the harmonious vibrations that will bring you forward into seeking greater awareness of your own spirit reality, as that spirit reality is made real and manifest for you in your own soul and in your own life, as your reality grows, we will have succeeded - whether we are acknowledged or not - and therefore it is the work that is important. And if the messages that are conveyed on a short-term or on a long-term basis have helped you in your ascent, then we have served our purpose for you. You may continue.

Hunnah: I don't have any doubt that you exist. My problem is that I want to appreciate the imagery more. The definition of your presence -- I never really thought about it that much. I've heard my daughter describe [Ed. earlier Pittsburgh T/R] what she sees within herself and that's very exciting and that's her experience and I suppose it's a little like a person that would be blind. They can still enjoy the personalities of the people that would be around them, but they miss that dimension of being able to see that person in a dimension that other people have, and it's a problem for me. I enjoy your talks . And as far as being flavored by Gerdean, that doesn't matter to me either. I was going to ask about resistance.

TOMAS: May I respond first to your outpouring?

Hunnah: Oh, all right.

TOMAS: You may recall having read in your text that when you awaken on the Mansion Worlds, in the Resurrection Hall, you will recognize your fellows by their personality. In time, you will not have these physical trappings. You will not have hair-dos or fashions. You will not have physical limbs and definition such as you recognize one another by today. You will recognize each other by the manifestation of living personality. It is the personality which makes the person, not the external trappings.

And so in some ways it is better for you to not even pretend that I may be wearing a purple robe or a brown sackcloth, for then you are seeing something which is not necessary to see. It is more important that you recognize my personality than your picturization of what I might look like, for when you meet me in truth I will not look like what you have pictured me to be, but if you know me as a personality, you will know me at once, even as a blind man who cannot see will recognize the personality and the voice of one who has spoken, you see.

Hunnah: Okay.

TOMAS: And resistance you say?

Teaching Mission, Groups

Hunnah: Oh. Maybe this has something to do with just human free will but I'm sure that resistance to anything, especially if it's unconscious, will masquerade in many forms, and at the meetings recently -- I have been having problems enjoying the meetings, and consciously I am not aware of why. Unconsciously, I feel like an undertow of whether I should continue to go, of whether my purpose for going is necessary, as it seemed to be in the beginning.

I love the people in the group, but I don't want to be a distraction for it, and I was gently chastised that I was not paying attention, and you called me a name [Ed. the name of Hunnah] that I was given while I was up in Buffalo. My question is, is there a natural timing of coming and going in a group? Our group has changed, and I question . .. I don't want to be a disruption or a distraction to the group because they are enjoying themselves and they seem to understand the language. I feel like I'm in another country, where I don't understand the language, but the essence of the purpose of gathering is apparent to me and I can relate to that. I'll stop there.

TOMAS: I appreciate the poignancy of your question and I have to provide you with a delicate response. I have to step out of it and try to be impersonal when that is difficult to do for, like you, I have tremendous personal affection and the personal affection has a tendency to color the situation.

Let me then address you individualistically and suggest that that is a decision only you can make. If any experience is beneficial to you, in any context that you choose to persist in, then you have every right to give yourself that experience. If you have not grown from the experience, if you find that your learning capacity has been breached and you are not able to garner any more from a situation, then it is your right and privilege to take a right or left turn from that activity in search of gainful growth.

It is, however, important for you to realize that your soul growth is my concern. I realize that the textbook is a stumbling block and that many of the terms and phrases are stumbling blocks, even that some of the concepts are difficult of grasping, but the true thrust of my work and anything that I have any influence over, has to do with the growth of your own personal religious experience, your own soul's development. Regardless of what terminology may be applied to it, you know and I know what that is.

As to your friends and associates in the circle which you reference, the friends that you reference, the only thing to understand there is that although many of these beings are your peers, it is sociable, but it is not a sewing circle; it is ideally a gracious and sociable study group designed to foster spiritual hunger, and the body of the existence of the group of various personalities in attendance is that spirit growth which I addressed in you.

That is a long order for the diversity is great, the backgrounds are great, and you are not alone in any sense of the word. You are a righteous woman, and I mean that sincerely. I love you dearly and you have much to offer. If you do not feel comfortable with any of the individuals, then as you and I are doing, sit down in sincere quietude with them and seek to find that level of operation which you can recognize as how it is you can get along or encourage one another.

I am not a counselor in general, but I would be happy to counsel you in terms of your relationships with your friends, primarily your sisters in this group. I would be quite competent to continue in your absence; however, it is women like you that delight me, so that I would greatly miss you if you did not return. As you become more and more part of the fellowship of the spirit, which I am fostering, which we are attempting to promote, you will feel less aside from the group.

What it is actually is not so much that you are fearful of the women or the fellowship but the reality that it represents. It is an admonishment to teachers and believers that when you step at the precipice of a decision that will change your life, that you indeed look carefully to see if that is a step that you are willing to take, for your life will be changed. That is perhaps what it is truly that you are concerned about. Respond to me, please.

Healing, Learning

Hunnah: I don't have any problem with anybody in the group that I am consciously aware of, and I really feel that that has not been a problem for me, that I have been aware of, and I thank you for the lovely, kind things that you have said, and I often feel that when you counsel with anyone, it's for everyone, and even though we have been talking and it's just me, this applies to all of us.

Mother said something very interesting to me on the way home. She was amused by the last meeting we were at. She says, "Well, he really has your number." And I looked at her and she went on at great length. She says, "I know what it is," and I said, "What?" She said, "It's school. You've got a block on school, on education, and you have a block on learning and you think you're not smart enough to understand."

If it is something that human, then it should be dissolved in the light. It should be dissolved completely. I have watched the many things over the years that have been brought to my attention and have literally dissolved as I continue to keep my focus and I have not had to do anything particular about anything. It just comes into our life and because it's of a feeling nature it's dissolved. And I was hoping that my apparent unyielding would -- that that's what it simply would be: simply unravel. I would like to be scholarly with the rest, in general, but I can't see trying to be something that hasn't been allowed to be natural.

And I don't want to tie up other people's time, but it's a teaching situation and I have aversions of that and as I speak, others can relate to it, some of these things in their own private way. But would I be...? Would Mom have been correct? I don't know.

TOMAS: Your mother has hit a nail on the head of a certainty and she should know for she has known you throughout your lifetime. She is an insightful woman, indeed, a co-worker of mine, and I feel she has offered you some good information. I would like to follow up with her suggestion and your reaction to her suggestion, which is, if it were true it would be dissolved in the light.

If it were that simple, my dear, since the Lucifer adjudication has been completed, it would save us all a great deal of time if we could just turn on the light and let it turn everything into divinity in a moment's time. Alas, recovery and healing and growth are not like that. You do not create a child by wishing for one, no. You must experience the actual carnal act of procreation, the inception, the morning sickness, the gaining weight, the changing shape of the body, the chemical changes, the anticipation, the inconvenience, the expense and the pain of delivery in order to bring about that which was once a twinkling in someone's eye.

It is not an act of the will that creates an actuality. There is a reason for that, and that is because you are mortal. If you were truly spirit, it would be different, but it is necessary for these things here to go through certain time-consuming processes. Healing and growth take time.

Unfortunately, again, it is much like childbirth for you to come to the light of truth in many areas, but this is indeed what brings about your spiritual growth. By understanding your reluctance for school, by looking back into your archives of experience to see where your self-esteem was bruised, to see where whatever it was that conspired to take from you the joy of learning, it is necessary that you find that and heal that so that you can go forth in jubilation of learning throughout eternity.

It is not done by a single act of the will. It is done by decisions, decisions and more decisions, and invariably the decisions involve work. I know you don't like that word, but that, too, is a word that radiates good cheer in many, for they have learned to love the work they do. They find joy in being productive like some people enjoy learning. Since these are eternal-type activities, it behooves you to find out why you don't like them and turn them into activities that bring you joy so that your life is not a burden of existence.

Hunnah: Well, you sure took the fun out of pregnancy! (Group laughter) Oh, my gosh. Let's back up here. What you're telling me is that … Catharsis. If we had to go back and clean up all the misinterpretations of our humanness, it's like … it smacks of karma to me. It sounds like . ..

It's true. There's a block and we're presented with it and it's subconscious pain. It's too hard to identify. And you, honestly, there's only one thing that you said to me just now that really caught my eye, that I never thought about before, because I don't want to dredge up how it was when I was six, seven, eight, nineteen, twenty-one or whatever. I mean that's human . .. one human misunderstanding after another. It's like all wrongs never making any right.

But you did say from a higher level, "the joy of learning." I never thought of that. And I never thought of it as being a missing ingredient. But, if the joy of learning is what is natural and I am in a process of ascension, then why isn't the joy of learning part of that natural development and it will take care of itself? Why do I have to reach back into the garbage of the experiences of my life and all the personalities that are involved with it? Why would I waste my time analyzing all that? I don't mean to be sarcastic but I really --

TOMAS: Shall I answer?

Hunnah: Not yet. (Group laughter) No, what I'm trying to say is I'm not trying to patch me up. I don't want to work with improving Mrs. H. I want to live as Hunnah. And even if Mrs. H is the vessel, I mean, I just can't think it would … It would take me the rest of my human experience to polish it up! But it's an interesting point that you brought up, and I will gain and I really do appreciate your helping me. But puke on school. (more laughter)

So, if that's called growing pains, so be it. But I don't know how attending a Urantia meeting and their dialog can heal my attitude toward learning and the pain that it's been, but I would welcome, through my prayer and meditation, the birth of joy of learning. Now, you can have the floor back. I hope I didn't put you people to sleep.

TOMAS: We are having quality communication.

Hunnah: Indeed.

TOMAS: And you have said several things that I hope I can retain to respond to. One that perked up my ear from you was your remark about "it sounds like karma." Do you have a problem with that theory?

Hunnah: I have accepted Christ Michael's teaching in the Bible of a life by grace, and I believe to this point that in the twinkling of an eye we are released from ignorance, can be set right, free, if you would, and get on with life.

TOMAS: You have heard also from the Bible about not putting new wine into old vessels, right?

Hunnah: Uh-huh.

TOMAS: What we have here is new wine not wanting to go into the old vessel and so the old vessel must be made new in order for the new wine to pour forth. Have you understood what I said?

Hunnah: Well, the old vessel is like the same thing to me, it's patching up. I see your point, but to me there isn't any more use for an old vessel, and I'm not one to . .. But it comes to my mind -- (and I don't like to hear people spar Bible-talk, unless, as my old teacher said, unless it's alive for you) -- but it comes to me and it says "behold I make all things new."

TOMAS: Behold, all things are becoming new, and although you may realize your sonship in an instant and recognize an aspect of divinity within you and your belonging to the cosmic neighborhood, you still, unfortunately, are the product -- humanly speaking: emotionally, mindally, socially, culturally and so forth -- of your own personal life's human experiences, much of which have been twisted, much of which are retarded, and this is not a negative reflection on you, flower child, but on the soil in which you have grown. The happy news here is that although the clarification must come, although your spirit truths must be born through an understanding of who you are and why you are and why you behave in such a way, how . ..

Hunnah: I have another question. I went down to that meditation group and they introduced some meditation techniques and I bucked a little bit about it but I've been making a half-hearted effort to allow them to be incorporated into my life. Do all expressions of truth harmonize or can they interfere with each other? Or is that a subject for a whole different discourse? There are so many today.

TOMAS: Supreme truth is unchanging. When the Spirit of Truth has confirmed for you that this is truth, it resonates and it is something to grasp as you can grasp it, but the supreme truth is hardly attainable at this point and it must suffice that relative truths prevail. In this time of great flowering of spiritual paths, there are many truths, all headed toward the supreme truth, and so, weigh carefully the truth which you would take for your own. If it grows and lives within you, it is working. If it dies, if you crystallize, it is not working and you should seek for a new truth. Has that been helpful?

Hunnah: Yes, it has. Because the block that we have revealed, that's when I felt this happening with my being in the group, that I had come to a point where it wasn't working, so I appreciate your discourse. Thank you very much.

TOMAS: Thank you, my daughter, for your confidence.

Morontia

Leah: Evangel asked Teacher Andrea one time where she lived and she said she lived on a plane much as we do, but not at that particular time accessible to us, so I was just wondering, is it just because we are mortal that we want to put the mortal frame on you? Or, are you in a morontial state? Or are you in a totally spiritual state?

TOMAS: I am not yet full-fledged spirit. I am morontial. I have been around a long time and many of the vestiges of my animal existence have fallen from me, but I am still of morontia material and, as such, I live in a morontial environment which indeed does provide gardens and structure but they are not decorated like your homes. I have a framework wherein to live and work as you do and so we have that in common, that our world has been provided for us.

Leah: This may be a really silly question, but do you travel in vehicles like we do? Or semi? Or do you...?

TOMAS: We have freeways. They are more like channels.

Leah: With Olfana, I got the feeling she was accessing energy freeways.

Hunnah: Like a frequency.

Leah: We're doing a lot of speculation here.

TOMAS: Are we now discussing my transportation? It depends upon where I am going. But if I am going, say, to Norlatiadek, I embark on one of the channels of transportation. You might compare it to a train or a space bullet at magnum force speed. In and around the planet Urantia I do not wander much away from my assigned area, although I can visit other parts of the planet, and when I go there I go physically, and it is very much like taking a walk as we discussed earlier. It is not far when you are not so dense.

Ruth: We are probably like a flick of light compared, . .. How large would you express yourself to be if you were to scale down to our size?

Leah: Compared to our stature.

Hunnah: I get that you are very large.

Ruth: Are you the same size as Mr. H?

TOMAS: Let me say that I am a 100-watt bulb as compared to your 4-watt.

Hunnah: And yet it's so amazing that you cannot share that, that the communication's here, that we're denied the rest. You can see us as a 4-watt?

TOMAS: I see you as a light and I am grateful for your illumination. It is the spirit illumination that I see. I do not recognize your physicality. I could if I found it necessary. I have not ventured into those realms of late.

Hunnah: That takes me back. It reminds me of when we had just radio and we used to sit around and listen to the radio, and what you talk about now makes me think about your listening to radio, and now we have television where, for our own reasoning, we've expanded into seeing so much, and I suppose, in a sense, there will be a way of all of us seeing everything everywhere. At will? I don't know.

TOMAS: You will learn to see differently. You will find many things not worth observing. Many things will pass away, and although they are there, they hold no interest and so they take up no space for you.

Hunnah: That's sort of the way it is already here.

TOMAS: Yes.

Hunnah: With life going on. We don't have to … it would be overwhelming to see too much.

TOMAS: There is also a lot here that you do not see that you could if you were not so preoccupied with that which you can see.

Leah: Well, I had a few more curiosity questions. In one of the Buffalo groups, one of the members who had the pleasure of meeting you referred to you as Tom. I was wondering how you felt about that.

TOMAS: I, Tomas, feel comfortable about that. As I discussed earlier, we appreciate that it is your attempt at feeling acquainted. I did not regard it as a disrespectful address. I will, with Gerdean's permission, state that she was somewhat ruffled by the informal approach, somehow thought it was disrespectful, but this, you see, is a difference between our understandings of the value of such things as nomenclature. It is not so important what you call me, but call me.

Leah: My own input is that I felt the individual was extremely sincere and desirous of an affectionate name to call you at that particular time.

TOMAS: I would draw the line at Tommy. (group laughter)

Leah: Earlier this evening we were reading portions of a former transcript which was from a meeting I was not at, however there was a reference there to, I believe, the lost sheep? That we should pray for the lost sheep? And there was a little concern that the individual that was unnamed, that it might -- there might have been an indication that was referring to our friend Hunnah here. What I heard in the transcript was I didn't get that impression at all. I was just curious. I'm not asking you to name the individual but I'm asking you to let us know if it was Hunnah?

Hunnah: I wasn't a lost sheep. I was lost asleep.

TOMAS: I will tell you that I was indeed talking about Hunnah, but I will also take this opportunity, if I may, to remark to you how . .. I do not think I can convey. Never mind.

Hunnah: I can't imagine that. You do so well.

Leah: Can't you make another attempt?

TOMAS: I will make another attempt but please understand that I am not referring to Hunnah as a Judas here, I am only going to tell you that the experience for me in the feed-back I got from the group was very much, I would suppose, like Jesus had at the Last Supper when he was aware of Judas' imminent betrayal and even suggested he do it quickly and Judas left and all of that intimate discourse that went on that completely escaped the others when they were right there present. It was and is still astounding to me, as I traverse the spheres, how so many things can be happening on so many different levels all at once. Somehow I find that even relates to what we were discussing in terms of our travel arrangements, but now I digress. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Leah: I'm lost right now.

Correcting Time, Healing

Hunnah: I am, too. It's difficult. In one breath we're asked to accept the truth of our being, our new reality, okay? The big reality. And then in the next breath we're dealing with our humanhood, and it's very difficult to work with humanhood that's been traumatized or incorrectly taught to perform something which it is not consciously aware that it is able to do.

TOMAS: I must stop you right here and remind you, hopefully poignantly, that we are in Correcting Time. These things now are to be corrected. It is not you alone who needs correcting. Every individual needs correcting; your systems need correcting; the entire status of every individual on the planet is in line for correcting, that we might get this planet back in tune with the rest of the universe. It has been damaged, my dear, and as a result, all life upon it has been at least polluted, and so there is much work to be done toward the correcting of all humanity -- individually and collectively. Correcting Time is upon us.

Hunnah: Then the technique, for want of another word, to actively be involved in Correcting Time is to acknowledge all the assistance which has been brought down close to us so that mercy and compassion can be activated through us.

TOMAS: We can encourage you as you become strong in yourself. As you come to know yourself, including your failings and foibles as a result of your background, your life's experiences, that wisdom which you have garnered as a result of your sleuthing around will enable you then to have more tolerance, more patience, more understanding, more fortitude and more wisdom in dealing with your fellows as they, too, are going through, hopefully, the same process of correcting. It is an accelerated course because of the tremendous spirit which has been given of late.

Hunnah: Then all I have to do in my case is ask that I be allowed to experience the joy of life. Because, by asking, I have opened myself, voluntarily, to allow this miracle of joy of the gift of intelligence to, let's say, for the highest good to manifest itself.

TOMAS: Yes, but let me take that a step further and establish a "what if" that on your first day of school someone made fun of you and, therefore, throughout your life you have rejected learning because someone made fun of you, even another six-year-old or five-year-old. Are you angry with learning or are you angry at that that little child who affected you for a lifetime? For you to say, "I am open to learning" without finding out in your personal core, in your DNA of understanding yourself, what it is that has made you behave this way throughout your life, you will not understand and you will not then be prepared to face learning joyously.

Only by realizing through delving and seeking, or asking that it be revealed to you, can you open the door, turn the page, or whatever, to see that child face-to-face and forgive that child through the Father, therefore forgiving yourself for having listened to that child and believing that child throughout your entire life, therefore depriving yourself of much of life's joy, you see. That, then, can heal. And when once that is looked at, when once that personal forgiveness is sought and given, you are forgiven and you may go on. Do you understand?

Hunnah: I hear you. But it seems to me that if that's the system that we are going to have to use, then it will take another 2,000 years. I just can't imagine. I've been through all that! And I'm not tying up this topic anymore.

TOMAS: If you have been through all that, why are you still angry and argumentative?

Hunnah: I'm not talking about this particular episode. What I'm trying to say is that we will be forever mopping up our traumas!

TOMAS: But you do not understand . ..

Hunnah: No.

TOMAS: … how quickly this can transpire when once it is realized that these processes of correction yield such fruitful results and that the painful experience of exposure to imperfection and the rightening, the correction, is so effective and quick. Once you get rolling, it doesn't take long at all. We are, in the Teaching Mission, very impressed with those who have grasped the reigns, how quickly they are galloping across the fields. If does not take long when you beg in to work, for the spirit is working with you. Other individuals begin to work with you, and for you. It gains momentum. It's that teamwork thing that you can do ten times more things when ten of you work together than if you each work alone.

And that is also one of the reasons that I work diligently to provide you with one another, that you learn to trust one another, that you learn to speak to each other and hear each other, that you learn to care for each other, that you begin to have certain loyalties to certain truths, beauties and goodnesses, that we can work together as a team that we might create a pinnacle of perfection in our own little local universe.

The effects of it are so great, are so effective, it will truly turn the tide of your communities. You will be able to see it as it happens among and between yourselves. The reward of seeing the Spirit of Truth come alive around you is worth any cost, any price, requisite for its having,

Hunnah: I believe you. You can send your "trust goes before me," or something.

(A question deleted from the tape)

Closing

TOMAS: My friends, I must sign off for the evening. My transmitter /receiver is growing weary and it is growing late for you all. I convey to you my genuine appreciation of your friendships and your interest in continuing on our merry course. Until we speak again, I am your devoted friend, Tomas. Farewell.