2008-02-02-Co-Creative Design Team

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Topic: Co-Creative Design Team #8b

Group: N. Colorado TeaM

Facilitators

Teacher: Sondjah

TR: Daniel Raphael

Session

  • Special Question and Answer session, requested by Sheralyn & Hilarie.

Note

This is not one of Evergreen's regular group meetings. It was requested by two women who wanted to ask Sondjah many questions, and although it is very long (16 pages), it would be very interesting to all of you who are interested in the CCDT/CCWT groups. Enjoy-Roxanne

Opening

SONDJAH: Good afternoon, this is Sondjah. (Good afternoon, Sondjah!) It is a pleasure to be here with you, and I do thank you gratefully, for this opportunity to answer your questions. You know that I am always available, and it is only a matter of when this one is available so you can speak with me directly. I am open to others speaking to me as well, to ask questions and verify. As I was saying candidly, not too long ago, that you are the forerunners of this Co-Creative Team in design. You and we are literally designing the course that will be taught to others in the future. I thank you for developing this workbook, the manual that you are developing—and I am very pleased and proud of you that you have taken the initiative to devise a workbook for guiding those who come afterwards. We are devising this together and we have not obligated you or even asked you to do this, but you have simply come forward, seeing the necessity and you have taken the initiative, and this is remarkable and we give great thanksgiving for this.

We do have other guests with us here today, which are unseen to you, who may or may not wish to come forward afterwards and share their thoughts and comments at that time. So, I am open now to your questions. Please begin.

Dialogue

Sheralyn: Thank you, Sondjah. This is Sheralyn. I have several questions for you this afternoon—they are not in any particular order—so I am going to begin first by asking you: Several times throughout the sessions you have talked about the 23rd Century, either looking at these relationships from today, looking forward to the 23rd Century, or the 23rd Century, looking back. That is a 200-year span. Is there any particular reason that you did that?

SONDJAH: Yes, most certainly. It is an instructional device for one, as it gives you perspective of where we want to be with you in 2 centuries. Two centuries from now, your world will have gone through quite a great deal of chaos, settlement and re-establishment of your societies. In the perspective of 2 centuries, those people 2 centuries from now will be looking back at these preparatory times, where you and I are sitting here together, designing this Co-Creative Design Team and working on relationships. They will be in wonderment at how such primitive individuals, socially, could be engaged in this, but they also know and have the insight that they were guided by spiritual beings who know the design of a successful and sustainable civilization and society.

One can stand at this point and look 2 centuries ahead, scratch their head and think about how do sustainable relationships come into existence? You know that the very beginning is that: 1) is your own desire, and 2) that you wish for the higher, more perfect, sustainable relationships in your own minds, and 3) spirit is here to give you insights into how to design those. Standing at this point, at a long slope of 2 centuries from now, you are looking at sustainable relationships, ones that have come into existence by intention, and have adhered to specific designs to achieve that.

This is a hope. Do you understand that this is not a hopeless project we are working on, but that in 2 centuries, there will certainly be sustainable relationships, and long before that, there will be individual sustainable relationships along the way, just as there are sustainable relationships now. However, the idea and the hope is to replicate sustainable relationships for millions and millions of couples, of families, individuals, and couples that wish to remain together.

Perhaps the perspective most helpful is that you would begin at this point now. As I have said before, it is very difficult for yourselves to place yourselves 2 centuries in the future, and look back at this time, wondering how to build, how to bring these sustainable relationships into existence. This is an instructional point, and I simply offer it to you as perspective. Perhaps the most productive way would begin today, and do the research. We are doing the basic work right now; we’ve begun with values and we will build relationships through that, and I will send you out to your libraries and to the Internet, to do further research, because the elements of sustainable relationships do exist and are known. Does this help? (Yes it does. Thank you.)

Sheralyn: Again through the material you have mentioned, how we have to learn or discover how to live in a multi-dimensional society, through our multi-dimensional social institutions, and that this is a multi-dimensional project, is it possible to give us some clarification of what you mean by this?

SONDJAH: Most certainly! I would be glad to engage the question of multi-dimensionality in these issues. First of all, we are [with] you, and we are dealing right now with 7 dimensions in our discussions. These are not apparent to you. You see 3 or 4 of them—3 of the material and the 4th being time—but the 5th, 6th, and 7th are the morontial dimensions. You have an idea of this by speaking to me and from my discussions with you about the morontial life. The morontial life is discussed in more detail in the Urantia Book. You are welcome to research that there, if you wish. It is not necessary for our discussion, though.

More importantly, I wish to engage multi-dimensionality of these social activities that you will be involved in, in your lifetime. Now, see the social dimensions from those who are most primitive in backward countries. We wish not to identify either any continent, societies, tribes, cultural groups, or ethnicity, though you have a good idea in your mind, where the most brutal, backward and criminal elements of society live—some of which are in your own society, right here. This is dimension 1, the mere survival, and you will see existence and then continued existence for hope and development and growth.

You are seeing the multi-dimensionalities of technical societies—I would not say necessarily, nations, but societies—technical nations have multiple levels of social structures and social existence. You also are aware of nations and societies and clusters/enclaves of individuals, who live in highly evolved spiritual environments. You live in a highly, multiple social setting in your world. We call these dimensionalities of social existence. You must not let this confuse you, however, for the basic fundamentals of social relationships exist in all of these cultures.

We have stuck to the core of simplicity, with the Co-Creative Design Team work—working on relationships—and this is the primary topic we wish to engage before we move on to other topics—though of course, there will be other teams, which will branch out to other fields of economics, trade, commerce, healthcare, education and so on. For the beginning though, it is human relationships, which are fundamental to all our work. So when you consider the multi-dimensionality of social existence, from the most primitive on your planet to the most elevated and enlightened, please keep this in mind, that the relationships that beget healthy children, arise from all of these societies, and the principles are almost all identical. The ethnic and cultural overtones are simply hues and colors to the same basic principal, basic primary colors, which you are so familiar with. (Thank you. I had misunderstood that. Great!) You are welcome.

Sheralyn: Staying with this dimensionalities of social existence, you have made reference in some of the previous sessions about the fact that you are concerned about devising social institutions, I think my question here is, is this something that we are going to discuss in the future, or are we to create a social institution to support a sustainable marriage… a model, at least?

SONDJAH: Let me simply enter the discussion here. We will not “devise one;” we are going to “design one.” If I understand your question correctly, the basic research we are doing now, and the findings that you are making in your sub-teams, will be fundamental to designs of every relationship. Let us take a relationship paradigm for example, and let us use the one in which there are a young couple who wish to have no children—we will keep it very simple. The first fundamental part is to discover the fundamental values that underlie a working, functional, healthy, couple relationship without children, and who are young. Then you will write those out, in your design, in your notebook. You will have for this paradigm for the young couple, without children, the values and you will list probably/perhaps a dozen at most. This will be the basic structure; this will be a fundamental design of that relationship. And then, let us say 5 years from now, that we have done our homework and we have completed the design for this relationship paradigm, a couple will pick up your manual, with your names on it, and they will look and see the values: “Do we adhere to these values? Are these our values?” The couple would compare these values and would compare their histories—were these values important to you in your childhood and as you grew up? Or, are 1 or 2 of these values completely foreign to you? Wherever there is a lack of consistency/coherence, then you have some room for growth, and of course growth means problems and resolution of problems. That brings in another value of how to resolve conflict.

You see, we will begin with values and will go with beliefs, and then intentions and behaviors. These 4 areas are only fundamental—there are many, many sub-divisions off of these, which will be studied and devised in future years, as your work becomes well known. Does this help so far, or have I missed your question?

Sheralyn: It certainly helps, Sondjah, and I think I read social institutions as some sort of building or corporation or something that was going to be “set up,” to support the relationship.

SONDJAH: Let me explain: “Social institution” is used in sociological terms, meaning it is a non-physical institution. The institution of marriage is a social institution. A family is a social institution. Any couple relationship, where there is coexistence and a sharing of values, beliefs, and activities that are complemental—this is a relationship, a social institution. Education is a social institution as well, as is healthcare. Hospitals and schools are simply the physical manifestations or edifices of these institutions. Is this clear?

Sheralyn: Much better; thank you.

In one of the discussions, looking particularly at the relationship of a 50 year old couple with no children, and we came across something with regard to…. how do we discuss the parameters of that relationship in terms of termination? You mentioned that we should be looking at how long should the relationship last, if it wants to come to an end, then how would you end it? Some of us felt that that might be a little bit awkward, when you are entering into a new relationship.

SONDJAH: Certainly. You are not unacquainted with this, with your pre-nuptial agreements, right? (Correct.) What we are doing with this is making clear, what is actually occurring in your societies already. We are making it obvious that in any relationship, there are intentions for engaging or journeying together, and that one must look at that agenda—it is an agenda—and then look forward to how long will it take to fulfill this agenda.

The professional couple, for example, is a wonderful paradigm, where two individuals in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, even their early 50’s, who are highly regarded professionals—say a doctor and an accountant, for instance, would share a life together. There are no children, and so it becomes very clear—at least to us—that there are parameters for its existence and that it is very obvious to us, at least, that there are very obvious places where the relationship would come to closure. Intentions—the reason why we began with intentions is to help you write a plan for the relationship—this is the most obvious place to begin.

Values are much more subtle, they are the foundation, they are not always obvious, but only come out when problems and issues and conflicts occur. Conflicts almost always come about through different values. When intentions are discussed, you are talking about a set of agendas, expectations for fulfillment. And of course, when you have expectations for fulfillment, you will either have happiness, satisfaction or fulfillment, or disappointment. Disappointments, one right after the other in a relationship would indicate that the intentions have been fulfilled. It is incumbent upon sustainable relationships to know when their intentions have been fulfilled, and what they look like, and what to do when that occurs. It is simply a good, social, business contract, as any contract has its clauses which indicate what to do in case of problems, insurmountable problems and when the contract is fulfilled. This is most unusual, for most of your human relationships, as you enter into them—particularly in the Western world—with these romantic notions, which do not fulfill themselves for very long. (Hmmm.) Does this help or confuse? (It helps. Thank you.)

Sheralyn: Another area for clarification has to do with this prenuptial, or this social contract, or this marriage contract. At one point we discussed that marriage is not necessary, and I think this is just definition, that you don’t have to get married, i.e. have a civil ceremony—that’s not necessary—but that you do have to have a contractual obligation. Is that correct?

SONDJAH: Yes, the marriage is a ceremony with religious overtones. Marriage contract as a civil entity is very social and a civil binding together. It is an obligation of both parties to perform in certain ways and that they will do this into the future.

Sheralyn: Hmmm. So can I ask another question around that then? You gave us a clue because we were struggling a little bit with this, and you said, “The only clue that I will give you, concerning this subject of a marriage contract, is a marriage is a contractual relationship, which fosters the care taking of children, and outside of that, it can be anything you want to design.” So am I to understand that each marriage relationship that we are exploring needs to foster the care taking of children, whether the marriage produces any or not?

SONDJAH: No, the importance is the care of children. It matters not how the contract is drawn. It could be simply a handshake and a kiss. It could be any agreement between two individuals, but it is very important in the case of children, that this is very clear about what will happen in case of death of both parents, death of one parent, care of children and the care for them with the parent away at work, or whatever situation occurs. There must also be an agreement how the children will be cared for when both parents are there. How the children will be raised, how they will be nurtured and groomed to become adults. We are talking about a very responsible, new parenting process.

Marriage is an agreement between individuals; it only becomes social and civil when the obligations of the care of minors, up to the age capable of caring for themselves, becomes the responsibility of society and the community—political community—when the adult parents abandon the children, or have deceased. This is simply responsible “careship” and guardianship for children. Past the care of children, the marriage can be, as I’ve said, it could be a handshake and a kiss; it could be a hug; it could be a solemn agreement; it could be written out; it could be signed in blood, if you wish. You can call it and name it and ceremonialize it however you wish, but the contract is between each other, that there are expectations for performance, common beliefs and shared outlooks, so there is no disappointment. When difficulties arrive, there is a way of resolving that.

Sheralyn: Thank you for clarifying that. Again in the material, Michael, one [member] of the group brought this question up once before, but there still seems to be, for me, some confusion, and that is the many comments about “the individual is where we start.” That everything begins with the consciousness expansion, the growth, ethical, moral—whatever—those are my words, but it begins with the individual. So it’s a little difficult then to start with the looking at couples and marriages, or am I just being too detailed?

SONDJAH: Isn’t it though? I would agree with you and we have discussed this at great length in our own teaching council, how to prepare our lesson plans. And so we begin with the conscious couple. In our idealized teaching environment, we begin with the conscious young couple, who wish to have children, and they go to some wise person and say, “Do you have any guidance for us in how to raise children so they become whole and healthy and socially responsible for themselves and for their relationships and for their society and community?” And you would say, “Why, yes, we have this manual here, which was devised by the Co-Creative Design Team, working on relationships.” Thus they would begin studying that and in honoring the patterns, the designs of that relationship paradigm that they want to adhere to, and they would enter into child rearing responsibly. The result we hope for—and we know the result will be—that the children that are begotten from this relationship, are raised in a healthy functional, responsible and accountable way, where they are socialized; they are capable, and competent to integrate themselves into their larger communities, once they leave home, and even before they leave home. So rather than beginning with educating children right from infancy, we of course, have to deal with the adults who have begotten this child, so we begin with the procreative couple. But in these early stages of the Co-Creative Design Team process, we are willing to begin anywhere! We are very pleased that you have begun with engaging an open-mindedness for these 6 paradigms of relationships. (Thank you.) We will get to the beginning eventually—it may take us a while, but we have lots of time.

Sheralyn: Well, that was helpful in terms of answering the question about the individual—and I was thinking of the adult individual—but it makes sense to me now, where you are talking about the child, rather than start there, we are starting with the parents that are going to raise the child, so that’s great. So that leads me to looking at this issue of how the contract is designed to terminate, especially where children are concerned, because we have currently, a mess, when it comes to divorces. Even if there is no civil ceremony, but a marriage contract, who is going to enforce it?

SONDJAH: This is the most difficult conundrum that your present society presents, to the answer. First, it will be the moral fiber of the individuals who enter into this relationship. There truly is no enforcing the responsibilities of parenthood, other than the mindedness of the parents, the individuals and grandparents, and nearby community, to assist in rearing or raising these children. This is part of the educational process, which we will get into eventually, that in your educational institutions, there must be a connection between education and the sustainability of your communities, and so education will become, and will engage in the education of individuals in how to participate in a sustainable relationship. This is unknown territory to your public education system, but it is primary to a sustainable community. Does this take us too far? (No, I think it’s helpful. Thank you.)

Sheralyn: So in the event we are looking at the relationship, where the couple have agreed not to have children, I am unclear exactly, what we are investigating in that relationship.

SONDJAH: Let me please go back and answer your prior question about termination. The passions for your human relationships have caused me to not answer your question. Termination is a part of a relationship from the beginning. It is a question that is asked. Under what conditions would we divorce? Would we separate and abandon the children, to be raised by one of us, where the other would not be present? Under what conditions would we do this, and so the couple would raise those issues of unfaithfulness, or social irresponsibility—meaning addiction to drugs and things of that sort, or waywardness, where the one is not working and is not being responsible for the care of the children, and has actually become another “child” or ward of that relationship. There are numerous situations, which must be raised by this responsible couple.

You are really speaking about a highly evolved couple, who wishes to engage in a responsible way to have a sustainable relationship that will last through all the phases of their lives, into new relationships. We are simply making it obvious that there are various stages and steps of evolution in a relationship, and that thought must be given for each era. And when the procreative couple relationship does end—and it does end when the children leave home—then what does the couple do? They can certainly remain together if that is their wish; they will simply need to redesign it or have adapted their own of being in relationship to the new standards and beliefs and expectations of their empty nest home and relationship.

Again, we are talking about the highly evolved responsible relationship. We know that we will not be able to reach couples who come together and beget children with no thought of consequences, who are together for who knows what reasons. These are couples that will not participate in this program.

Let me also go afar a little bit, in that you will see in a very near few years, a voluntary eugenics program that will be available in your world, particularly in your highly evolved nations, where you have highly evolved dating services now, where people can discover who their right and perfect mate is. Along with that database will come their gene structure for compatibility and for recessive genes, which cause birth defects and other problems later in life. Again I say, this is voluntary and you can count on this occurring within the next 5 to 10 years.

This is not the ultimate program that we see, but this is the beginning of a highly evolved world, where you have the very beginning, the very nubbins of an early germination of—not an advanced society—but a whole society of whole individuals, who are spiritually, physically, and socially connected and wish to become whole and to raise children who do not have to anticipate problems of Multiple Sclerosis when they are age 35, for instance. This is most distressing and debilitating to families, to individuals, and to your societies—and this is avoidable. We are not talking about elitism, and surely this will be brought up, but this is simply the survival of the species, and what better way to do this than on a voluntary basis? (Thank you.)

Sheralyn: So I had not appreciated the 6 designs of relationship, merely as sort of a stepping stone, through a relationship evolving and the kids leaving home, because I was having problems in looking at couples that didn’t have children, trying to see what would we be discussing for that relationship. Would we be discussing their role in the community, how they could support other families that have children—and I guess that’s up to us to design.

SONDJAH: Yes, the external motivations for having a relationship are simply external. What we are concerned about are the internal motivations and internal operation that will sustain a relationship to so that it is able to satisfy external expectations. A couple who is professional and who traveled tremendously and are absent, there must be something that brings them together, some commonality where they find a union and satisfaction, over the years. We are simply making it more obvious to everyone, that the years change, individuals age and that the expectations change, and the levels or expectations for happiness and satisfaction, change—simply to be aware of that.

We truly do hope that couples can engage in multiple paradigms in relationships in their lives. This is wonderful, but it is not the “end of the world” when they come apart and no longer find commonality; this is quite normal. You each are most unique in your personality compositions, some of which will not become known to you until your 60’s and 70’s or even later. You have many differences, which become known then, but of course at the same time if you can appreciate it, you will have made many, many more commonalities in the duration of your life.

If I may interject, when you begin working with this material, you for instance may want to have the transcribed material on the eugenics set aside and kept in a separate folder, or separate page. It will become a part of the family education process and your education process. It will also become—only peripherally or externally apart of your medical care system as well. These you will begin to find interconnectedness of all the material that we are making. You have the capacity in this early era, to separate these and keep them whole, but then you can separate them and divide them out into separate areas as time goes by, and add to them. You now have—or will have—software, which will be able to integrate and do tremendously insightful searches and connectedness between these various areas in time.

Sheralyn: Thank you, Sondjah. I’m seeing now that the relationships kind of divide up into two intentions—those couples that have children and those who do not—and the other area we looked at was single hood. What are the intentions of single hood? This is someone who decided not to get married, not to have a partner, not to have children—when we look at that particular example, are we looking for a role in community?

SONDJAH: Yes, we are speaking about a social integration of the individual. We are also talking about the development of a social psyche in the individual, so that they can survive as a single in a healthy way. It is important in the education and socialization of children that they learn it is not necessary to be in a couple relationship, or to be married, or to have children, but that they can live a meaningful life on their own in its single situation, within the community of other single individuals. There are many group activities, which singles can participate in, which are outside the working realm or easy to relate realm of those who are in coupled relationships. Singles in community are a very powerful force to contribute to the larger community of the whole—of the whole community, meaning the married couples, the couples without children, and the procreative couples, that the individuals can unite into these amorphous groups. They can find commonality and move from one group to another, for political, social, spiritual, cultural reasons. It is very wonderful, what you will see in the future, as singles begin to organize themselves into pliable, amorphous, moving groups, where one can participate easily, and enter into and exit easily and make contributions, and to remain in groups and become leaders if they wish to. Singles have a tremendous contribution to make to society, and their worth and their value has not been found or organized yet, in a manner that can assist the larger community to exist more easily.

Let me give you an example: There may be a man or a woman who enjoys children and enjoys caring for children, who would be a good nanny and who offers their time and services as a nanny, traveling companion, or in-home educator for children, without having the burden of going home to their own children. This is a wonderful compromise for individuals who cannot bear children or cannot stand the burden of having children, the stresses of children 24/7. It is quite apparent that raising children responsibly is a difficult task, but is manageable for those with the capacity to do so.

Sheralyn: Thank you. Now I’m asking a question about intentions; this was unfortunately from a session I missed, but I understand from the groups, some people wrote their own personal intention for that relationship, and others wrote a group intention. Could you clarify what would be the best thing for us to do in a relationship in these six examples?

SONDJAH: Individually. I would suggest that each of you write your own intentions for each of the relationship paradigms. For some of the paradigms for you, it will simply be an exercise in devising intentions that support a sustainable relationship, as a relationship paradigm. It is also helpful to do it in a group, because it is a discovery process, to write the intentions as you, as a group, would see them, and then to choose and decide upon the intentions, which the group finds. However, in a group setting, you will have differences and individuals should certainly sequester or hold aside intentions, which they think are valuable, which the group may not feel are valuable. Again, you have tended to make these assignments overly difficult.

You have tended to get into too many differences, and have not seen the heart or the simplicity of it all. This will come in time. We do not interfere in that process as it is a developmental, group process; it’s a dynamic of being in a working team, and so it is developmental. You go through these developmental stages of working in a team, and eventually, you will get to the point where you all see clearly what needs to be done. We know that this will work best in groups, which are cohesive, which have worked together consistently over time, but these are skills which can be taken away very quickly by individuals into new teams, where they do not remain with you. This is a real activity that occurs. Your groups will be amorphous and you will leave and move to other groups, but there [will] always tend to be 2-3 people who will hold together to one relationship paradigm and see it through to the end.

Sheralyn: Thank you. I understand that it would be good to collect these intentions and have them written down somewhere?

SONDJAH: Yes, it would be helpful to do that. That’s why we are advising that you have notebooks and notepads, and that someone be a recorder. If we had 50 people in a group, in a team, it would be wonderful to have that many, as we would have enough to have a recorder for each relationship paradigm, and we could make progress rather rapidly. We have not assigned or requested that an individual become a recorder for any one paradigm, but that is our hope for a design, for working with you, that there would eventually be one person who has chosen to be the recorder for lets say the paradigm of the young couple without children, and they would be the record keeper of the findings in the discussion. These would always be very succinct and very simple, and would be best distilled after each session, for simplicity’s sake. Does this make sense? (Yes.)

We are hoping that individuals who come and go in the team, this local Evergreen team, will not leave but see this through as a developmental exercise process of going through stages of growing and evolving with us. Surely, it is doing that, and we are very pleased and we feel that you are on track, that we are on track developmentally, and that we have not come to an impasse or a place where we cannot move forward. We are working with overcoming bottlenecks as they come up and we hope to move forward, and that individuals will continue to come to the team to see how it unfolds and develops. You are living in an organism; you are living in a team organism that is developing and is imperfect, and we thoroughly know it is imperfect, and we are quite glad that it is imperfect. Otherwise, you would not be engaged, you would not be curious, you would not be present, you would not even be hopeful. (Thank you.)

[This is Daniel: How are we doing for going through this? Are you perhaps half way through or more?]

Sheralyn: About half way, yes. I think more than half way. Do you want to stop?

Daniel: We’ll be able to type it out. Let’s go ahead and stop for now.

  • Break

SONDJAH: We are ready to begin again.

Sheralyn: In a previous session, Sondjah, Debbie had talked about the breakdown of families in areas of poverty and chaos, and that children were born out of wedlock and many of them just left to live in the gutters and out of trashcans. You had mentioned at the time, in response to this, that this is a demoralizing, debilitating situation, uninhabitable soul situation. I beg your pardon, for many people, who will never come to know God, never come to know the yearning of reaching for a higher being, the friendship with God, the friendship which lies essentially within themselves. And so I had a concern about this because having visited certain shanty towns in Bangladesh and Calcutta, where the poverty is just beyond belief, I can honestly say that I looked in the faces of the people there, and they seemed to me, to be as close to God as anyone else I know. So I was a little concerned about how this statement could be true; how could anybody have an “uninhabitable soul?”

SONDJAH: Certainly, I’ll be glad to address your question. There are in fact, very few individuals who are not inhabitable by the presence of God. Those individuals are mindless, have a deranged mind or have some unhealthy, mental, organic or functional situation in their brain or their mind, which makes them unreceptive to the guidance of God. Almost never, are the external circumstances of life contributory to the inhabitability of an individual by the presence of God. It is only by the decisions of individuals, to live outside the parameters of a God-like life, that they become uninhabitable, or where the God presence has left.

This occurs more often in societies, situations, and environments, which have criminality, great mental disease, or drug abuse and such problems as that—social abuse included. It requires personal choice to do wrong consistently, for this situation to occur. God’s presence is a choice, on its part, to remain with the individual, or not. It is much like abandoning a garden, which will not yield any fruit, any vegetables, no matter how well it is cared for. Therefore, the circumstances of poverty, of criminality, of an environment, are highly contributory to many souls becoming empty and Godless. This is no choice of the Creators, or the God presence, but only occurs at the extreme circumstances, where there is no possibility of it making a contribution to the individual, or the individual reaching up to the presence of God. Does this help?

Sheralyn: Yes, although it leads me to other questions, because I understood that the soul entered the physical body, during the first few months of the embryonic stage.

SONDJAH: Let us differentiate between the presence of God and the soul—they are distinctly different. (Right.) The soul is—as I explain it, as I have shared with others—is the record keeper. It is the repository of all conscious, moral, ethical and socially responsible decisions and activities of service. It is the simple repository of that. Many souls fly away empty, as they wing their way toward the mansion worlds after death, and these will have to start all over. Life is a means of exercising decisions, and of contributing to the weight and dimension and quality of your soul—your moral, ethical and socially responsible decisions, and your unselfish urges and demonstrations of service, contribute to your soul greatly. The presence of God is there always, urging you on, to show a new way, to urge and to guide the new mind, the new personality, and a way forward to make decisions. Even decisions made with the blink of an eye, are still decisions made by the individual. To harm or to steal or to kill or to injure, to voice abusive words, or to be unkind—these are all decisions, which contribute nothing to the person’s soul.

Sheralyn: So what is God presence then?

SONDJAH: God’s presence is literally the “presence of God,” the fragment of God that lies within each of you. It is that higher entity within you, that fragment of the Creator. The Creator has chosen to be with you, each individually. The Creator has created you specifically, to be with you individually, uniquely. You have a remarkable, unique relationship with the Creator, and the Creator is within each of you. You have an opportunity when you meditate, to be in direct contact with your God presence, the Father fragment—if you want to call it that—and it is there to assist you, to enlighten you.

Oftentimes you will look at a situation, such as you did in Bangladesh, and you will see that their God was there before you, in the presence of another. God helped you to see that; God helped you to reveal this to you. This is a new knowing for you, a new acquaintance and so you became aware that God is everywhere present. This is a wonderful quality, which you as a God indwelt individual knows. You feel God’s presence in others, and when you become still in your mind and your thoughts, you also feel the presence of the Creator in yourself, and this is a most magnificent arena for personal growth.

Sheralyn: This is why it is so difficult for me to understand how a child or adult can become uninhabitable by God, because I believe that God is the essence of each and every one of us. The fact that we might be unaware of that presence is one thing, but the fact that the presence is always eternally present in each of us, is my belief, so I struggle with that.

SONDJAH: It is a good belief and you are not wrong—it is simply another way of viewing the individual. We do not even strive to have you believe as we do. It will be something you will come to know eventually.

Sheralyn: Hmmm. But the God presence can leave a person?

SONDJAH: Yes. Why would you remain in an abandoned house with the lights out? (Wow! Thank you.)

Sheralyn: I think we covered this before, but we had talked about families being essential to the community and for the continuity of worlds, because our world was on the brink of extinction. And I’m assuming it’s on the brink of extinction due to over-population, but this might not be true….?

SONDJAH: Is there a question from that? Would you like clarification?

Sheralyn: I think so, because if everything we’re about is the procreation of children, and we’re trying to look at relationships that are going to last the next 200 years, it’s hard in that same breath to look at the fact that next week we might all be extinct, so what’s the point? [Snickering all around.]

SONDJAH: Your point is well taken from the human perspective—that is the “glass half empty” attitude. We always have a “glass half full,” and in our regards, and as we see your world, it is not on the brink of extinction; it is certainly on the brink of decimation. There will be people left after the crises, that will begin to occur very shortly. More and more, you will see this. Many people will die—this is unavoidable—on a planet that is still highly populated. You are on the edge of at least being 2/3 over-populated, to sustain a world easily and comfortably and capably, for those who remain.

As your world has not been minded to practice a means of global birth control, you have now become over-populated, with no means of reining this in. This is a racehorse that has run loose, and you are on the carriage behind with no way to rein it in and to slow it down. There is simply no way for the human species to now regulate its own growth; it is out of control. This over-population is the primary cause of all the sustainability problems, social and material that you experience on your world right now. You are simply seeing the most evident unsustainable aspects materially, with your problems of pollution, with oil being diminished and the resources of your world being used up at an incredibly and astonishing rate.

What you haven’t seen is the nearness, the proximity of an unsustainable civilization. You will see the grossest evidence of this within not too many years. You will see the decimation of large populations rather rapidly; it will sadden you, it will make the world stand still, and people will shudder. We do not want to cause fear in you; there is nothing to be fearful about this—it is simply going to occur; it is unavoidable; you have passed that point. Your scientists have worried about passing what they call the tipping point of reining in pollution and carbon dioxide, methane and the other greenhouse gasses. This too is not past the point of no return, as it could be abated right now, but no one has the organization or will to do so, as there is too much money to be made, continuing as you are doing.

Too much political willfulness, selfishness, egoism, nationalism that will not rein in the growth that is now coming onto your world, in your 2nd and 3rd world countries. You have passed the point of no return economically, to rein in your world, to stop or decrease the greenhouse gasses and stop pollution. If you did that today, it would stop and it would decrease and you could save your world, but that is not going to happen and you know it.

Sheralyn: Thank you. Yes, I was aware that certain countries had introduced planned procreation… I believe Singapore did some 10 years ago, and Hong Kong. Anyhow, I think this is heading toward the final question, and that was back to children again and the raising of children, children of quality, and that this is an essential ingredient for sustainable future. Could you just expand on what you mean by that, that the children of the future have to be made of a particular ingredient or is it about their evolvement that we are already seeing now, in terms of their being born into a higher consciousness, so they are already coming in with gifts far beyond those we’ve developed in our lifetimes?

SONDJAH: Several things are occurring on your planet that some of you are aware of. One is that there are individuals and families who are raising their children to become children of quality, meaning children who are socially responsible, accountable and contribute to the welfare and good of their communities and societies, and to themselves. There are other children coming into the world who bring your potential—you call these “crystal children,” the “indigo children,” or the “violet children.” These children are being born everywhere, all over your world; these children bring in with them, new capacities for enlightenment, for raising their consciousness; they are bringing with them the capacity to live in a harmful, hurtful, detrimental family, society and situation, and still come out to be morally, ethically and meaningful, responsible individuals in their communities and the world. This is most remarkable! But you will see these individuals more and more, come from the ghettos, come from poverty, come from the barrios, who will come forward to become great leaders, but no one would expect anyone [from these situations] to come forward of any worth or value or contribution to their world.

Lastly/thirdly, you are seeing individuals who are raising the consciousness of their lives, their communities, themselves. These are individuals who come from ordinary families, who read material and come in contact with a higher consciousness, who are aware that something more is going on in their world, and so they “live the light,” that is they express the light of the Creator within them, the God presence. Their intention is to live that radiance in their societies, and their intentions broadcast this energy to their world. They live with the conscious intention of living in harmony and oneness and wholeness. Wherever they go, this is a conscious intention, and they spread this vibration in the world. This raises the consciousness, the vibration of your world and assists in new children coming into your world, who are already in a higher consciousness than their parents. It may not have been from their parents, though their parents are certainly major contributors to raising the vibration and consciousness of their children. These three areas are primary to bringing children of quality into the world. We are not necessarily speaking of a material improvement, though you will see these too, come into the world with remarkably pure gene structures. We do not provide any clarification for that statement at this time.

Sheralyn. Thank you Sondjah, I think that concludes Hilarie’s and my questions for today. Thank you.

SONDJAH: Hilarie, did you have any questions from yourself?

Hilarie: I can’t think of anything she missed; she was very thorough.

Closing

SONDJAH: Okay. I want to thank you so very much for your participation today, and I want to thank you for taking the time to hone your questions, to develop them and seek clarification. What you have done today will be transcribed and shared with others, and will become a very meaningful part of the history of your local team. I wish you well, and thank you! (Thank you, Sondjah!)

Daniel: Let’s see if anyone else is here. (Pause.) Well, there are, but they are not saying anything.