2021-10-28-Attitude is Your Greatest Control

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Topic: Attitude is Your Greatest Control

Group: Lightline TeaM

Facilitators

Teacher: Michael

TR: JL

Session

Opening

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, we always like to remember, when we wish you both a joyous welcome, that since we call these sessions Transmitting/Receiving, we are definitely on the receiving end. Transmission is a funny word because it sounds like or implies you are far away somewhere, like a distant radio or TV station.  

Yet here you both are, rightfully a part of us, so we are just receiving your presences. Michael, your Spirit of Truth is guiding us along; and Mother Spirit, your surrounding presence is augmenting all our wonderful mental and spiritual capabilities. You are both like our Father, with his individualized presence also right within us. After a while we can begin to recognize God’s contribution to our thoughts. His are those great ideas we get now and then that can sum up our whole present situation, sometimes so desperately needed.

As much as God himself can provide discrete thoughts, the two of you can express yourselves through these wonderful lessons. We do appreciate--Michael and Mother Spirit-- your use of our everyday English--no stilted, so-called “religious speech,” but speaking to us as you want us to think of you--our dear and closest friends. You are like our human friends we have here, that give so much to our lives.

Michael, if you would tonight, maybe elaborate on something Mother Spirit gave a wonderful lesson on last time. It was the whole issue of our attitude, the critical component in how we relate to what life holds for us and others. We think of all the people and other things that--ironically at times--add to our own selves. With this invitation, Mike, I turn it over to you. Thank you.

Lesson

Michael: Good Evening, my children. This is your spiritual father and dear friend, Michael. It is wonderful to be with you again this way. I heartily concur, and definitely agree with your introduction. Mother Spirit and I enjoy being part of all of our children’s lives. They live on nigh onto four million worlds somewhat like your own, which are inhabited by not only human kinds of beings, but spiritual beings whose personalities also come right from God. This is true whether they are angels, Melchizedeks, or another order of personal being.

You all definitely have this in common since, being personal, you are endowed with creative spirit.(Your Urantia Book’s wonderful chapter on Personality Survival lets you know you are a spiritual being) Every moment you are co-creating everything you experience through how you interpret it and react to it.

That is why this thing you call attitude--your relationship to all that you are experiencing—is so profound. Psychologists call it your unconscious mind’s projection, but it’s more. It’s the way your personality unites all of you--your mind, your body, your spirit, and your soul.

(Attitude is your greatest control)

Since you are co-creating all you are experiencing, this is where you have the greatest control over your lives. Yet certainly, some of your life situation is just given to you moment by moment--moments of pleasure or pain relating to this body of yours, including this mind of yours and all your memories. Personally, there are your future possibilities through your active, acquired skills in living.

In understanding the full impact of attitude, let me introduce a wonderful concept, the mental and spiritual tool you have given the name of “feedback.”

First of all, consider what you yourself, right from your total living, energetic being, are giving to your life and situation. Then: Reality Itself responds—instantaneously! Everything is giving you this feed-back by responding to you. Even though you are one small human being in the middle of a vast universe, and a whole, living world all around you with its billions of people, your immediate reality is constantly giving you information.

(Experiencing no feedback)

To appreciate this: interestingly enough, a number of years ago people exploring psychology came up with an isolation booth containing a liquid that totally negated the sensation of gravity. In addition, by shutting off all sound and sight, and the subject being as still as can be, it provided an unforgettable experience of getting down to no experience but their own enormous heartbeat and, strangely enough, their jaw muscles and how they were holding their mouth.

With this absolute minimum feed-back came the unforgettable experience of how much they were constantly involved with everything else, even having a body. It was a wonderful demonstration you are spiritual beings, co-creating by incessantly interpreting and evaluating everything you feel.

By the way, a simple way to have a near- isolation experience, go out to a still pond that is deep enough, and float without moving. Hold your head back so your nose is above the surface, with maybe holding half a lung-full of air. If you totally relax you will very soon end up vertical, your legs being so heavy. With a little bit of your face and nose sticking up, you will find as you breath in, you will bob up a little, and as you breath out, you will sink a little. If you close your eyes and have put in some ear plugs, you can have a near-isolation experience yourself. It is something I recommend for just the fun of it. Give it a try to know what it is like to be so totally bereft of your usual feedback

(The physical, the mental, and the spiritual)

With this concept of feedback clearly in mind, think of having a life that is partly the irrefutable physical facts coming down all around you, and you yourself being physically alive. Now add what is included as “mind”--all the dimensions Mother Spirit helps you with so much: conscious perception, acquiring knowledge and understanding, courage, and the wisdom of your soul--your life’s experience. Along with these physical facts and mental activity, you have what we call spiritual value, even though sometimes you may not be able to locate that. What is meant by “value?”

Value is an intensive thing, not ceasing from the moment you awake. Stop and reflect a bit. There you are, sitting on the edge of your bed and evaluating your situation. Maybe you didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and you are hesitant about standing up and moving away. Those warm blankets are awfully appealing to get another hour of sleep. But you stand up and are immediately evaluating your balance and your next move. What to do next? Does something require your immediate attention, or do you have time to wash your face and brush your teeth?

This constant evaluation is your spirit, my dear ones. In it you are constantly evaluating the feedback from not only your own body and your surrounding reality, but also your memory and intention. Maybe you were out camping last night, and you are still deep in some strange woods, listening to the rustling of little animals and birds you have never heard before, evaluating whether to go hiking again, or not. How do you feel about this?

(The critical aspect of attitude)

This is the critical aspect of attitude. What is your attitude toward all of this? It’s the living relationship that affects everything, all the more critical because you are a creative being. You are not some passive living thing like a plant, experiencing everything in a purely objective way. As a matter of fact, you can’t even partially escape your own subjectivity and knee-jerk reaction to things except by a conscious effort to do so. In your evaluation of events, are you taking in a dozen different viewpoints to get beyond your own past attitude towards them? Do you enjoy these other opinions and viewpoints to get a little more on that object out there everyone is commenting so differently about? This is what we tease you with. It is critical in your social and political lives where you are constantly bombarded with other people’s evaluations.

Mother Spirit and I have talked on an attitude called “Open Mind.” You very consciously and willfully--with the whole power of your personality and choice--try to have the desire and curiosity to be open to absolutely everything. It’s the attitude to transcend your own subjectivity to experience what this “other” really is, especially with a dear old friend you’ve known your whole lifetime. Through all those memories and shared experiences is this other living person in front of you--now. You two have never been in this day before.

(Reality not repeating itself)

Can you be open to the very subtle way God set things up, in that reality is not repeating itself? Can you register this uniqueness of the moment and enjoy it? Your attitude is so critical because this living change can be fearful. Perhaps you encountered something causing bad, painful associations from the past. To get through this unconscious reaction, you have to consciously decide to do so. You need the ability to disregard something just to more fully approach this current event with an open mind, fresh, to see it in its uniqueness. It has never happened quite like this before. This is what we offer for you to think about and consider--an attitude worth striving for, worth practicing, worth being aware of.

It helps you with your spiritual evaluations if you are conscientiously aware of your spiritual creativity, your contribution to your life. By this attitude of open mindedness you can have some sense of what really is--including who and what others are—hopefully coming right through any kind of prejudice or past associations that distort them.

Have that distinction. Have the attitude of, ‘Here I am; and I have never been here before. Here It All comes--willy-nilly sometimes. Wanted or not, things happen.” Ah!--but to embrace everything, and not with a blind, knee-jerk reaction, but to have your spirit freely come forth actively to welcome and embrace the newness, the difference this time, that can add to your soul and help you capture the uniqueness that God puts in every moment of his universe.

(Have a full life)

This is what you call a full life. It’s the opposite of being so prejudiced and closed-minded you arrange your life so there is nothing new. You just do as little as possible out there to keep living.

Folks have torn down an old building and found an ancient lady or gentleman who hasn’t left their little apartment in the last twenty years--an obviously extreme example. Rather, have a full life with so many folks, wonderful, unique human beings.

There’s the adventure of exploring the world surrounding you through your modern media. Your TV and internet can bring in the whole world’s history of music, art, and any kind of sport you can think of. Enjoy the music and entertainment that constitutes a full life when you have an attitude of welcoming and thankfulness.

Be a part of life, able to respond. Obviously the broader experience you have, counter-partnered with God being the co-creator of your soul within you, the greater soul you have, and the greater your ability to respond.

(God’s great gift of curiosity)

And so, my dears, consider this for an attitude. Talking about open-mindedness brings us to curiosity, one of the greatest gifts God gives us. Make it a part of your personality to be so wonderfully curious. It gives you a warm humility of being aware of all that is so much greater than you. Welcome it. Make everything part of you. It is there. It is God’s gift to you. A whole universe is there for you to explore and get to know, make it part of your soul. Welcome the feedback when you try something. Above all: be open to what the full result is. This is what gives you a complete feeling when you lie down to sleep at the end of another full day.

So my dears I hope I’ve demonstrated sufficiently just the kind of spiritual beings you are. It is one of the great blessings of God, an intrinsic part of your personality being the creativity you have. So: enjoy. Reach out and be open to the feedback that Reality--with a capital R--is always there to provide. Now if you have any questions or comments this evening, I am open to them.

(Be a good partner with God in your soul)

Closing

My dears, let me go ahead and close this session. It has been a big, long tease, teasing you out of yourselves to keep growing. As your wonderful Urantia Book mentions, this is the purpose of life. This is the essence of having a soul, this partnership with a presence of God as particular and unique to you as your personality. God is the most perfect company, keeping his own, absolutely infinite record of your life. So offer a full life to this presence of God within you. Be a good life-partner with God. Keep an open mind with the curiosity to have these full days to offer him in your soul.

Enough teasing, my dear ones. I bid you good-night, and Mother Spirit sends her love. Be in my peace. Have your full days, and then rest in sleep and deep meditation. Rest in me.

Good night.