2010-08-16-Spiritual Presences Within

Session

Opening

Dear Mother Spirit and Michael, Welcome. Once more we invite you into our lives, yet for some of us it’s been a glory of knowing you are here all the time. So it’s mostly to remind ourselves that we acknowledge your presence. We’re inviting ourselves be aware of you and to honor what you have for us, not only in these special times of getting together, but day by day. Whenever we want to, whenever we need to; whenever we reach for you, you are here. So it’s a matter of attuning ourselves to the spiritual dimensions of reality where you are able to communicate with us--directly, succinctly, and undeniably.

It takes faith, a lot of faith initially, this acting on things unseen as we sit patiently in our stillness and look into our hearts and our minds. Yet that effort is the glory of it too. That’s the reality of it. That’s the adventure of it, of opening ourselves to that which is beyond us, that which we cannot anticipate: and that’s definition enough for an adventure. So we thank you, dear divine parents, as we thank our mutual Father too, for setting up reality itself this way as a never-ending adventure, on and on into the unfathomable dimensions of God himself, there for our discovery. Amen.

NEBADONIA: Good evening, my children, this is your mother, Nebadonia. What a nice crowd this evening. I can sense a lot of cheerful, hopeful, excited minds feeling around for me. Remember: it’s very rare that I will be a distinct voice speaking in your mind. In fact, Michael and I like to tease you with the notion that folks often feel difficulty accessing us because we are already a part of them--especially if they think of us solely as the Other, and a very far removed Other at that. It’s like how some folks think of their Father, of God as being only way, way, way out there somewhere, whereas He is also right within them, a dedicated part of them.

Lesson

Inner Life, Presence

• The spiritual presences within

The truth is you literally are living and breathing in me, my children. I pervade this space, my Local Universe, and I channel the Infinite Spirit, the Cosmic Mind down to all my children. You are given a certain kind of mind that is designed to serve you well in this your very first, human life. I know this is something that for most of you, even though you may have intellectually entertained the idea for many years that I--my Holy Spirit is part of you, it is indeed a glorious moment when we make contact and you can consciously recognize my presence. For in a way I am very subtle. I am pure spirit. I am, if you will, the background of your consciousness that helps give you the awareness of all that consciousness contains. In this sense I’m not the content of your consciousness but the dimensions of your consciousness, intuition being the most fundamental—the perception and recognition, even of your own bodies from the inside-out, then of all that outside out there, that whole world full of people and things and events as they register in your mind and are realized by your personality. This direct perception goes far beyond, then, what you call your five senses because it includes the spiritual realms of meaning and value as well. So, my children, you can think of Michael and me as an augmentation, a little boost, a little bump, a little extra energy of mind and spirit. If you’re attuned to scientific notions of dimensions of reality, these are dimensions of human reality that we’re helping you with.

Freedom

• Freedom

The essence of our love for you is wrapped up in a word: freedom—your freedom. Just as any good parent delights in seeing their children blossom and reach for, and from time to time even reach their potential, we too honor above all your unique personalities and their intrinsic potential, created and sustained by God himself. As we experience your lives with you, this intimacy lets us know how you are reaching from the inside-out into all your experiences--like a little bush growing in every direction it can reach for--yet actually the marvel of experiencing a little baby doing this. In honoring this uniqueness of every single personal being, and doing all we can to help them stretch and grow, we help them get in touch with and then fulfill some of their potential, become self-reliant, and know themselves well inside and out.

This is only possible if the greater spiritual community lets you be, lets you feel your way along, lets you fall and make your mistakes, lets you pick yourselves up again. And so we are not in any way intrusive upon your personal discoveries. We can only help make them possible for you: the choice is always yours. This is why we define you as a creature—because you were created--a being of free will dignity. This free will dignity that you can develop is only possible with a degree of freedom. You have to be able to choose and then experience the results of your choice. It’s the only way to learn. It’s the only way to live. It’s the only way to love, to really connect.

Everything of spiritual value that happens to you here is recorded by a presence of God himself. This new reality is your soul, this combination of what you are choosing to do, and what is happening to you, chosen or not. In other words, your whole life, all the valuable things in it; these are being vouchsafed by a presence of God. To fill your soul to brimming each and every day you must have freedom, you must have choice, for we choose not to make decisions for you. Were God to have set up cosmic reality so that you could never fall, you could never stumble, you could never make mistakes, the whole universe would be nothing but a mere shadow-play compared to the always transcendent reality it actually is--the creative actions and reactions of a near infinity of personal beings interacting with each other over endless reaches of time.

This is what’s out here, if you will. This is the Big Story writ large, of creative, relatively autonomous free-willed beings within a single living reality that is God himself. This is why we’re not intrusive. This is why you have to want to contact us. You have to have the faith that this desire of yours is not some silly sort of self-deception. You have to put us to the test. What you feel you are receiving from us in your meditations, or sometimes in those ideas that are coming like—as you say--a bolt from the blue, perhaps from the presence of God within you: put us to the test. Try these suggestions we offer to help you grow your understanding, and see if they work or not. Exercise your freedom. Know what you are choosing to do and why. In fact so many of our lessons have been on the accidents of your birth--the social authority you were raised in, the whole culture you were given and from which you may choose to slowly extricate yourself--bring all of these unconscious conditionings into consciousness in order to be free, in order to have an active choice and not be carrying on in some automatic, knee-jerk, re-actionary way you merely inherited.

My children, if you look at a human life from its beginnings, every child in each succeeding generation must recapitulate, by learning, what his or her parents have come through in whatever planetary location and evolved culture. Every child has to literally learn civilization--how to be civil--with their playmates, their classmates, the adults around them. The truth be told: this free will dignity you have is only potential until it is actual, until you are literally manifesting it and enjoying it and glorying in it--doing all you can to encouraging others too to grow ever more into who they can be.

We’ve talked about a kind of tough inner equanimity, a living balance that allows you to be more like us. You don’t intrude; you don’t demand; you encourage others to be free—even of you. You share your life as best you can with others in spontaneous, joyously creative ways. You delight in letting them be, ever encouraging them, as we do, to be more--to grow, to try things, to experiment, to wonder, to have fun.

I’ll keep my lesson short tonight; I feel there are some questions astir in the room. I do hope you’ll forgive me for teasing you so unmercifully tonight about this essence called freedom, and why it is so necessary for you to explore and stretch into, and do your best to encourage others, for in this you will then be more like us. Be that free, free-wheeling, joyous, positive, stalwart, cheerful and generous presence that you yourself so enjoy meeting. Now if you have any questions or comments, I’ll open the floor for them.

Dialogue

Student: I was thinking of the words in the song about “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” and I think that, in this country, as long as we have others things to keep our attention on, we don’t pick up where freedom is. I think freedom is with respect to our Father Fragment within, and this is the truth—His truth--that can make us free.

• (Freedom—nothing left to lose)

NEBADONIA: Yes, my son, I agree, especially with respect to those who have almost no inner life, and little self-awareness, but are living in a constant state of being entertained from outside themselves. Now this is possible with your i-phones and things like that where you can have music playing in your ear day and night; and what a wonder these devices are, seen from the perspective of anytime in the past—to live your life with your choice the whole world’s music constantly with you. Except: what about your own thoughts, your own creativity that comes from the uniqueness of your own personality? So you are right, my son, that so many are lured away with constant entertainment they never develop that inside-self that is also their potential.

All human life is provisional and depends upon so many living, changing factors. Even your own thoughts, which you cannot anticipate exactly, are a combination of what you are originating from within your personality and soul, in contact with an ever-changing outer world--including your own body and its health, or lack of it--influencing you. In the face of this uncertainty, and because of it, there arises the desire to find something you can get hold of in some kind of fundamental formula that will let you kick back and coast on the rest of your life.

Body, mind, and spirit are all alive, all using energies that must be restored. Yet to avoid this seemingly harsh reality—which is actually another part of God’s blessing—people tend to cling to things—physical things, mental ideas and ideologies, spiritual notions and memories. These very things which give meaning to their lives can also enslave them, especially if they are not consciously making choices regarding these things. If they are just kicking back and living their lives on unquestioned, unconscious habits haphazardly acquired, there is almost no individual freedom there, no real, conscious, creative effort. For a person in this situation who has to give up all these seeming-securities of possessions and exterior entertainments, freedom will be another word for—finally--nothing left to lose. They will finally realize their inner core and inside life which is the only true bedrock—their spiritual home base we once called it—from which to choose what to do next. This is also why giving up—losing--all their habitual, distracting busyness by going into stillness and prayer is necessary in order to listen to their own, more peaceful thoughts and inner spiritual guides.

Then, from this viewpoint closer to their own unique personality and soul, they will be able to look around at a changed outer world and, in this priceless freedom, have a dignity—a solid existence they could never have imagined. They will be more in possession of the whole cosmos, and especially its spiritual dimensions, seen for the truly blessing of God’s that it is. Even their living, provisional, seemingly uncertain human condition will contain all the real security there is—His presence, and His design of, and participation in, the human soul—their soul.

Student: Thank you for speaking on it. I don’t know that I’ve reached the point of satisfaction on it, but I will be hoping for further input as I live. It seems like I’m at a pivotal point in the journey, and I’ve got my bags packed, so thank you very much.

NEBADONIA: You’re very welcome. You have the right orientation. Stand by for another adventure; and be in my love. (and, after a very long pause…)

Stillness

• Marvelous stillness

You notice what a marvelous stillness we’ve created here? Our conversations do not disturb it. This stillness, this consciousness of spirit is the toughest stuff there is. This is the ground, your home base inside. This is what you earn. Just like your souls, this stillness is the reward for your pure attention on what’s coming down like a gentle rain. True, you do have a few living handles on the ungraspable—your breathing, your heartbeat. Your whole being can pay homage to this living physical body of yours that is connecting you to the universe in this your first life. But you can’t directly create spirit; you can’t directly create stillness: you have to experiment being still and find ways of letting them come forth as the intrinsic parts of you they are. Any concentrated business seeking for them is just going in the wrong direction.

Can you feel this inner confidence that some of you are struggling to understand: where is it? You’re alive--just let it come forth to be felt. Desire it enough to let it be. Trust, with your conscious self, the spiritual security you seek is also an ever-transcendent part of you as well. Give it—and us—Michael and me--a chance to come forth with what you cannot anticipate or create on your own. At times we, and your Father Fragment, can be like a roaring waterfall of consciousness inside you, yet you choose what to fill it with. So be a democracy within. Be still and give your soul a chance to suggest some previous time it feels you need to relive for the sheer joy of it. So go ahead, my children, and ask your questions. Nothing disturbs this stillness; you just have to be aware of it.

Student: Thank you, Mother; you’ve just about answered all the questions I had prepared. You mentioned you provide us with the distribution of the Cosmic Mind, individualized as each of our personal minds, and you said that you are not the content of consciousness but more or less consciousness itself—but in a special way I wanted to ask you again. You mean to say that one feature of who you are is consciousness as the container of our thoughts, but not the thoughts themselves? Is that the way of saying you are the mother of our thoughts—so to speak? You are providing the environment in which they happen. In addition, you provide the ability to be aware of our thoughts. I hope you can figure out this question.

Thought

• The origin of thought—body, mind, and spirit

NEBADONIA, laughing: Yes, my son, a little of: all the above. As you are sitting here now part of your consciousness may be self-aware, or totally absorbed in something other than you; but just feel the consciousness you have. It is obviously based in part on your physical being—you’re not asleep—and requires a body/brain/nervous system activity, what some call animal consciousness, though a human being’s consciousness is unique on the face of the earth and enormously developed beyond your nearest cousin. But what your Urantia book calls a human being “super-minded” is not only this physical activity. It is more than this. You are living within a number of spiritual presences who are exterior in origin to you, such as Michael and me, and your Father Fragment, the presence of God in your mind: your spirit relates to them directly.

Most of your ideas come from a combination of your own inner creativity that your personality is originating--what you call imagination and interpretation, in reaction to your inner and outer situation. Situations can even seem to suggest ideas just from a long life and skills you’ve learned through training and practice--all that experience can suggest. But along with what you are originating yourself, you have three great spiritual presences whose contribution you experience more or less as qualities of your consciousness; Michael’s Spirit of Truth, my Holy Spirit’s seven Mind/Spirit Adjuncts, and God’s presence. So the content of ideas varies enormously from nearly purely-animal consciousness to that found in deep stillness and prayer fully attuned to our spiritual presences within. You can carry on some lively conversations with, if not yet the pure presence of God within you, at least your felt reactions to Him as expressed in your own experience, your own soul so far.

For you also have this other contributing entity to your life: your soul, which is more than just your physical brain’s activity in simple memories. The fullness within your memories, my son, is your soul, and so your soul is a part of every waking moment, and no few dreams. It’s your acquired ability to experience and recognize meaning and value both inside you and out there in the world. So in this sense Michael and I, and your Father—we are dimensions of reality you can be conscious of. I enjoyed the part of your introduction where, in inviting us to join you, you realized we were already here. You invite yourselves to be aware of the fact of spirit.

In your higher states of consciousness of consciousness, don’t be worried if you cannot yet separate out the origin of all the spirit activity that is happening within you. It is your personality that is experiencing and evaluating what is happening and choosing whether to respond or not, regardless of origin. There’s a kind of ultimate detachment of your personality in being conscious of consciousness itself in deep meditation and prayer. Though it may appear to be a kind of picking yourself up by your bootstraps--(Mother Spirit chuckles)—it’s an inner awareness of how you are choosing to respond or not every moment. This realization and acceptance of your response-ability is part of your inner potential. You can become conscious of changes in consciousness, and that’s the way to a truly comprehensive inner understanding of what leads to what, not only physically—in your sciences, and mentally—in your psychology; but spiritual causes and effects too. You also can begin to feel/experience our presence, and what we are always doing with you. Worship is none other than this conscious and deliberate sensing and appreciation that helps make you aware of spirit, and be freer to make choices.

Does that help explain what I do?

Student: If you give me a month to read the transcript...but yeah; and much more. Can you identify who you are in my consciousness, in this moment now? It’s so subtle it’s almost the entire background of consciousness. Are you the form of consciousness itself; though I know you are so much more than that? Would that be a proper way of thinking of it?

NEBADONIA: No. (laughter) I’m more an enabling medium, like a clear stream that has power and direction, but no form in it, in which your spirit lives and has contact. The thoughts you have are the actual forms. You remember when we once gave a lesson on how thought is only extremely-finely articulated feelings? If you say something to someone and they can’t understand, you try to say the exact same feeling-thing in different words; but you are still trying to convey the same inner experience. So as the Holy Spirit I’m not the form. Your personality, being creative, and your Father-presence; both of these originate discrete ideas, notions, realizations. Michael’s Spirit of Truth is an orientation, a way of pointing yourself toward welcoming/appreciating the endless discovery and acceptance of what is real.

My living, flowing presence helps boost what you might think of as intrinsic dimensions of human consciousness, such as intuition, which I touched on. But what is courage? What is knowledge, your ability to know and store a near infinity of discrete facts, and then associate them in a thousand different ways in understanding? You have all these abilities intrinsically as an intelligent animal, and yet, in being “super-minded” with personality and creative spirit, you are circuited in, and capable of consciously experiencing, dimensions of us, an extra-animal ability evolved on this planet under my direction--plus personality and creative spirit. In being the living medium and not the temporal-time/space-conditioned particular thought, I’m not the mother of ideas and thoughts insofar as they do not literally come out of me. They are mostly yours and God’s.

Student: That’s great.

NEBADONIA: Thank you, my son. As you are sitting here, it is your personality that is beyond time and beyond space--the unchanging reality that you are, that is experiencing and unifying all of your life for you. Keep in mind that since you are a spiritual being, you never know anything solely physical or mental. Your own personality—you--are spiritualizing/valuing/evaluating the experience of your body/mind and the world you live in. You are inescapably involved in this co-creation of your life. The three of us are subtle presences in your consciousness providing what your Urantia book calls a “differential urge” toward truth, beauty, and goodness. So feel me, and rest in my love. The transcript will follow for your study.

Student: Which proves you can ask a lousy question and get a gorgeous answer.

Another student: Will we ever have enough proof of that?

NEBADONIA: Only provisionally. (much laughter) But yes, you can absolutely know things, and know yourself. Yet these too are experiences in time, and here comes another moment, another day, another lifetime. This is why you have a soul, my son. This is why you can trust a presence of God to keep it all for you.

Yet another student: I think we make the mistake of hanging on to some realization, no matter how extra-real it may be, and then we feel it is invalidated when the next day or so comes and things change; or we refused to accept the changes and get stuck in the past.

Soul

• Everything goes but your soul

NEBADONIA: Yes, which is why it is by God’s good grace you cannot cling to something forever. Everything goes but your soul, co-authored by Him. You do have those special moments, and they do fill your soul; but yes, if you try to cling onto their limited expression as some unchanging truth, their very temporal form of expression can be enslaving.

Same student again: You mentioned how stillness is always here, even when we think we’re not being still, like in moments of anger or being upset, or happiness and bliss. Stillness is always there as who we are. For me this is vital, for if we allow ourselves to be still, even in the midst of violent activity, this is where we are able to experience the true potency of God’s reality. It’s not running away from the experience; it actually enhances it and who we are. Stillness is always there for us, no matter what we are doing.

Actuality

• Actual and potential

NEBADONIA: Yes, my son—potentially. We’ve talked about this a few times, the difference between actual and potential in human experience. What you are talking about is only potential within people who are literally living and dying in the most hideously suffering kinds of ways because they cannot access this transcendent peace and love and have it as an actual experience. However their personalities are alive beyond space and time, their human lives are being determined solely by their limited, time-and-space, self-created notions of themselves, what you call their egos—who and what they are experiencing themselves to be. You are experiential beings.

One saving grace is that your ego-reality is capable of growing into a more spiritually sensitive part of you with the right experience. The trick is to overcome the fear your ego has in relinquishing itself to allow the greater part of you, your personality and spirit, to come to the fore—along with us: an enormous experience at first. This is the need for faith, to overcome the fear. Remember: from the point of view of the as yet un-spiritualized ego, feeling it is the only real continuity of personal self, genuine spiritual experiences, like love, seem to be nothing—at first—but a loss of self, being swept away by forces and presences beyond your ability to anticipate. You simply are swept away!--yet you survive!—a number of times, until you gain confidence in the process and can let go with real hope in the outcome, they’ve been so glorious in the past. You’re learning what to trust.

Yes, Michael and I are always here, but the ability to access us and experience our peace and love varies greatly from one individual to another, and is a hallmark of their individuality. In this distinction between the potential and the actual, the actual is your life as you’ve lived it; not what might have been, but what actually was, and is. Seen only from the viewpoint of unrealized, ideal potential—however that is imagined and visualized--your real life being lived can seem a petty, dissatisfied thing. Some do get caught in this trap and can feel as if they never quite—are, they identify so greatly with what they imagine isn’t happening.

I think the important thing here, my son, is that you’ve found the way to be still and contact greater spirit—your own and ours. You’ve been down the path of faith and trust and have learned how to generate pure attention, patience, and appreciation for what is real, especially with your family and your work. You also have a very strong sense of the ideal, which you express as “things don’t have to be this way”--and yet they are. Keep a clear distinction between the two so you can have both, both a fully realized actual life, and yet too a clear direction in which to orient yourself toward your ideals, and the better world you would like to see come about.

Student: Yes, I am trusting my own certainty of God within, and I do put it to the test. It’s the only way I can experience and grow in this certainty. And patience; I really have been impatient to do things, like running before I can even walk. It’s partly what I allow to come into myself, and what I allow to come out of myself. That’s where stillness has really accentuated that discernment. So, thank you.

NEBADONIA: Amen to that. Be in my love.

Donna D’Ingillo: I think Michael has a message.

• Michael’s gift of freedom

MICHAEL: Good evening, my children, this is Michael. Tonight’s lesson on the subject of freedom contains within it a wealth of information that the energy systems contained in your body need for your continued spiritual advancement. The idea of freedom is not only a conceptual frame of reference to use to consider, but is an actual state of being. Tonight it is something I wish to convey to you through my spirit and your own inner spirit of truth. You may seize upon this word and know more of what it wants to disclose in your own being. As your father I am the embodiment of this word and I share myself with you, share the language of life with you that you may use it and become it in your own unique way, from your own unique personality.

It is my delight to lead you in an experience this evening that you may seize upon this word and grow strong with its resonance within. You may stand firm and steadfast in this word when others around you succumb to fear or doubt, or the conditions their own environment. This will set you apart from your fellows. It provides you with a super-bedrock of peace and security no one can take from you, no matter how much the outer world changes.

So I invite you to let me stand before you in your mind’s eye. Envision me or the voice “Michael” in front of you and invite this word—freedom--to flow from my heart into yours. Feel the Spirit of Truth that connects us and draw this word into your heart through the power of your mind, through the power of your will, through the power of your desire. Be more free. Live freely and know with certainty inside your being what this word truly means. Receive this word now into your being, my children. Let it be absorbed into those places of consciousness within you, and feel strong. Receive this now. Allow the word freedom to come into your heart. Draw it in deeply. (long pause)

There is an innate longing within the human soul for this living language that dwells in your heart. In the relationship you have with me and your Mother Spirit, and the universe around you, there are many forms that bind you, and in accepting this freedom you help loosen those shackles. If you are restless and desirous for this word to encompass your life and set you on a path of creative exploration of yourself and the mystery of life, and what it is to explore this infinity, it is our desire for you to explore this fully to your heart’s content. Allow this word to become more operative within your system. Think deeply of it and come to me as your father and say, “I’m here and I want you to contact me,” and I will be felt. But it is your will and your desire that brings the results to you, so you must act. Receive this now. (long pause)

Let this word freedom activate the various potentials of your own unique personality and creative expression. It is time, time for your own inner life to shine more brightly into the whole of humanity, to awaken and validate the truth of the relationship you share with your Creator, and the joy of being a child of the universe. Invite this word to envelop you and wrap you in a blanket of light, secure in yourselves and all the little places of your body. This is your birthright. You have every right to receive this.

Know that when you put your mind on this word you will be free. Know that your Mother Spirit and I are feeding you whenever you ask us. Be in my peace, my children. Live joyfully and freely. Share yourselves with one another and know that all is well. Good evening.

Closing

NEBADONIA: Are there any more questions or comments this evening, troubling your heart or ticking your curiosity? Then let’s wrap up this evening with what Michael said about freedom being something that, at any point in time, is a matter of growth fulfilling an intrinsic desire and delight in it. It’s the joy in recognizing: it’s happening!

• Freedom—another unfathomable beginning

There’s such an enormous universe out there, that you’re headed for—literally infinite to you in both space and time. A billion years from now you’ll still only be starting. That is truly unfathomable, even though it is true. So freedom is an endless growth. Your Urantia book puts it as: be perfect, even as your Father is perfect. Your Father, God, is perfectly free. He is the origin of this essence of life—something growing, abilities getting more able, worship getting more appreciative off this thing called creativity—how your own creativity is essentially part of your own freedom, even as is His. As a creature of free will dignity, your freedom so often depends upon you creating the alternative to what simply is.

Our Father has put so much of Himself, and you, into your own hands. So joyously glory in this freedom. Stretch into it and be happy you will never reach the end of it, or Him, or your own self. You’ll have reached another unfathomable beginning with more in your soul.

Good evening, my dear ones. Be in my love.