2012-02-02-Benefits of Discipline

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Topic: Benefits of Discipline

Group: Lightline TeaM

Facilitators

Teacher: 0802-AB-Jack

TR: Gerdean

Session

Lesson

Centering Prayer: Oh, God, Michael, it seems like you are a world away from me right now. I’m sure it’s not you that’s moved, nor me! It just feels like a huge chasm of empty of space there between us and I don’t like that feeling. Help me bridge that gap, would you? Help me focus my mind on my spirit and that which matters. The superconsciousness is where I need to be. I need to-- Thank you. I feel myself being lifted up into a higher consciousness. This is where I need to learn to be more often, where my mind abuts morontia reality. It’s a gracious state. I suspect it’s how you, Michael, were able to be so gracious in your coming and going with people, by staying in this state of mind. The things of the earth tend to rattle us a lot less. Thank you for this kind of serenity, this kind of knowing that “all is well,” that someone is in charge, someone’s keeping the peace and the order. Of course, that would be our Universal Father, the Infinite Upholder, without whom there would be chaos. I hear myself rambling. I hear you say, “Don’t worry about it,” so I won’t worry about it, I’ll just allow the process to work itself through. Thank you, Michael, for expediting our session. Amen.

Habits, Discipline

  • Benefits of Discipline:

0802-AB JACK here. You see how easy it is, Gerdean, to go from a state of panic and chaos into order and serenity. It hardly takes any effort and can be done in a very brief amount of time. What a great technique this is and how great that you have learned it so well -- all of you who have learned to go into prayer and meditation mode when life is overwhelming or catches you off guard. The fact is, so much of your life is evolved in developing good habits. I know that much of your life has been wasted in pleasure-seeking and simply becoming who you are, but I need to say, those of you who have begun to be conscious of your calling, your destiny, your purpose, your higher purpose, your greater reality, you who have opted to do the will of God, who have embraced a spiritual way of life, who have sought to be more than you were, in fact, to be all that youcan be, you have begun to step out of the poor associations and bad habits of yesteryear, along with the unfortunate thinking patterns and belief systems that kept you bound down and locked into an oppressive and unproductive way of life, have come up by the grace of God and your own bootstraps.

You are the one, after all, who has had to follow through on the disciplines that are required in order for you to keep advancing, to keep from sliding into complacency. The disciplines of meditation and prayer, of reflecting, of learning to focus on meanings and values, discerning the difference between god consciousness and your conscience, these are efforts that yield eternal results, and so any or all of you who have made progress in any degree in this direction, my hat is off to you. It is an eternal attainment. It will not be lost. Now, now that we are here, let’s take full advantage of it. What shall we talk about? What shall we work on? What shall we develop? What needs attention?

Evil

  • “Things that go Bump in the Night”

One thing that has come to my mind lately is how much concern goes on in the mortal mind about things that go bump in the night. The entire field of human psychology and religion as well are teeming with action and commerce surrounding the idea of evil spirits, ghosts, shadow personalities, dead people who don’t know they are dead … zombies now are quite popular … but I have to tell you, I live here. I am invisible. I live in the invisible realm and I haven’t seen any of these. I haven’t seen any of these characters or phenomenon that occupy your fancies to an almost overwhelming degree. In fact, some of you do become overwhelmed by your fears and anxieties surrounding those things that you perceive to be evil spirits – less than good spirits.

Of course, this is one of the reasons mature people discourage you from dabbling in this practice of talking to invisible personalities … because it’s so easy to bring your own consciousness into areas that can only get you into trouble. It is said, in human terms, especially when you are young, “bad associations spoil useful habits” and I can say the same thing for you who are young in soul growth: “bad associations spoil useful habits” and while we have been working diligently for your edification, your enlightenment, and spiritual adulthood, it is odd how many of you will allow these fears to take hold, and even if they do not take hold in you, you observe them in others and act as though you have no authority over what they are experiencing and so you give it free rein by your passive acquiescence to what they are saying is true and real.

I am telling you they are not truth. They are not real. I’m here. I live here, and there is no one here that is dead, walking around unaware that they are dead. There is no one here who cannot find their way home or resist being resurrected, who somehow got lost from their fellows. Not one. Not one. The halls are empty. They are completely clear of shadow personalities. There is no one here from the Caligastia regime; no one here from the Lucifer legacy. There is no one here to fear, and yet it seems that some of you have a default button that reverts to fear every time you turn around. Some of you revert to fear of financial difficulty or mechanical failure or health problems or relationship disasters, but some of you have an equal propensity to launch into major fears about evil spirits.

What a waste of time! … from my perspective. But again, I say, I am here. There is no one here to frighten you. You frighten yourself. You frighten each other. You allow things that are mystery to become scary. I can sit here and tell you this all day, but unless and until you accept it, it won’t do any good.

Belief

  • “Nail your Colors to the Mast.”

I learned a phrase the other day from my mortal associates. It’s a phrase having to do with affirming your position. It’s called “nailing your colors to the mast.” Nailing your colors to the mast is a way of holding your position for people to see, even when you are busy doing other things and can’t hold it up yourself. Nail it up there. And your colors, of course, are your beliefs, your assignments, your positions. If your position is that there are ghosts in the basement or bats in the belfry, then set forth your colors and let them be seen. But if it is that such things don’t exist, then nail your colors to the mast and stand by them. Stand by your position.

There is a terrible tendency in humanity (and it has leaked into the transmitting/receiving process) that is more about compliance and compromise than it is about truth. You are so interested in getting along … and indicating to others that you have learned to get along, you will swallow things by passive acquiescence that are not what you would represent. Of course, the problem is, and you know this, if you say X is true and another person says Y is true and another person says Z is true, and X, Y and Z do not match, then we have three opposing positions. Well, fine! Then we have three opposing positions! That does not mean you have to fight to the death for one to win. It means you have three opposing positions. But each of you has stood firm by your own position.

I would like for you to be able to stand firm in the knowledge that there are no evil spirits afoot in the invisible world. But if you believe there are, then perhaps you shouldn’t come here. Perhaps you shouldn’t talk to us if you think that we are evil, or if you fear you are going to run into an entity that will do you harm.

Fear

So much work has gone into this project. So many years. So much effort. It cannot be lost due to superstition and fears of “things that go bump in the night.” If you spent half as much time and energy asserting that which is true, beautiful and good as you are inclined to defend those who believe otherwise, you might get something accomplished. Someone might see you for your integrity and say, “Well, that person testifies not having these fears.” What would we do if we didn’t lose all this time and energy to unnecessary fears?

There are things to be afraid about! Things that you can say, “Oh, my God! If I don’t get the oil changed, I’ll probably crack the block on the engine.” “Oh, boy! If I don’t take something out of the freezer, I won’t be able to cook anything for supper.” Now these may not rise to the level of real fears, but they are concerns that indicate there are things that we can do something about. They are rational. Rational fears. Evil spirits are irrational fears. It is no different than seeing your breath on a cold day and thinking it’s your Thought Adjuster going for a walk. You know better. Nail your colors to the mast.

Energy. Energy also is a part of the culprit. So many energies are going on in the universe, on your world, in your town, in your house. Energy spasms, spurts, and failings over which you have no control because you don’t know where they are coming from or where they are going to. You can’t even see them! Like electricity. It’s there. You know it’s there. You know it works. When you turn on the switch, the light goes on. But there are also energy spurts in the atmosphere that you can’t see and over which you have no control. That does not mean they are evil spirits.

I want to say, “Come on, guys! Get a grip!” but I have Tomas to [thank for being] gracious in my teaching practices. Gerdean can testify. We go back many years, many decades. I have been speaking like this to her all this time. In order to become spirit-minded, you need to put your mind on what is real. The more you entertain that which is not real, the more you put off becoming real, and so eventually it becomes like “mental masturbation” of, well, amusing yourself, making yourself feel better because you would still rather feel the comfort of the unknown that brave the reality of your own destiny. If you want to do that, go ahead, but don’t get in the way of those who have already launched on the high seas of spirit attainment.

Some of you people, I have heard it said, are trying to fuse on this planet - during your lifetime - and that is not something that we will discourage. Some day people will be fusing right and left on this planet, such that we will have to build a structure to accommodate it, so it is indeed part of your planetary destiny that you can and will be able to fuse here and that’s a noble goal.

Free will

Some of you started out with that goal and then found out life was difficult and so you decided to become humble and in becoming humble you gave up your striving. Well, don’t quit striving just because you’ve found out its difficult. You don’t have to join the others in their sniveling and whimpering about things that go bump in the night. So as to keep each other company in this zone, this grey zone of lesser mystery. Nail your colors to the mast and strive on, even if you have to do it yourself, which, in truth, we all do. That’s what it takes. We all have to make our own decisions in our own time, and in making those hard decisions, sometimes we have to lose the association of our peers and loved ones.

This is a part of your recovery from alcoholism, drug addiction, and other dysfunctional behaviors, and if you don’t know it by now you will learn it because this is a part of the first morontia world teaching and learning. Many times when you think you have overcome your handicap, when you want to throw away your crutches, when you want to be all that you can be and you commit to that – getting sober, getting straight, getting clean, to graduating, to get a job, to whatever noble ideal you have opted to grasp, do something about – those that you hung out with will do everything in their power to keep you from doing it because they, then, will have to look at their own behavior and they don’t want to. They don’t want to be reminded that they are still wallowing in the comfort of fear while you are sticking your neck out to breathe the bracing air of truth and reality.

Strong character, strong personalities, aren’t born they are cultivated. They are made. They come out of your decisions. Challenge yourself to do the right thing and in so doing you challenge others. Let it be a challenge, but let it be their challenge, not yours. You know what you need to do.

Conclusion:

I just had to get that off my chest, kids. I don’t care if I get flack for it. I’m going to nail my color to the wall and stand by it. And if somebody wants to nail their color to a different mast or a different wall, that’s their business. But this is my job. This is my task. If I am going to work with mortals of the realm in this Correcting Time effort, these are the guidelines I’ve been given. These are the orders I’ve been given and I have to answer to my superiors just as you will have to answer to yours, at some point.

And now that I have gotten that off my chest, I feel much better. I will attempt to lighten up the atmosphere so that we can have a more convivial environment. I know that your experience with Teachers is that they seldom raise their voice, they seldom get too excited, they rarely reprimand you for anything, and they are following their instructions but mine are a little different because I am a little closer to you than they are and I have been here coming up on 38,000 years. That’s not to say that’s an excuse for me to be impatient. It’s just that I’ve been looking at these “ghosts” affecting humans for that long and I’m tired of it!

There is good news. There is really good news! And that’s what I want to focus on. That’s what I want you to focus on. I want you to get your mind around it. I want you to put your heart into it and all those other figures of speech. Your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone and do it! That’s what we are here for. That’s what this is all about. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Dialogue

Alright, I’m done. I want to hear about what is on your mind. What are you grappling with? What are you dealing with? How are you working on your spiritual program? Who have you got in your face that you need to handle or nurture or whatever? What have you read lately that has stuck in your craw that you can’t quite figure out what they are trying to tell you? What are you supposed to get out of that? Same with any unique experience you might have had recently. What was that for? Was that God trying to tell me something? Or was that me, tripping over my own feet?

I’m here to help. I’m your friend. I’m your cousin. This is our opportunity. Push that *6. Come on out here. Let’s talk about it. [Long silence] Alright, Gerdean. Come on. You’re one of the students. What do you want to say for yourself? [Silence] I’ll ask you then. What happened to that book you wrote?

Writing

Gerdean: What book? Which book?

JACK: You know. The book you wrote with Athena. I introduced you to Athena … when was it? 1971? And you worked with her for 20 years or something like that to produce a book about a society of altruists. Whatever happened to that book?

Gerdean: Jack, you know full well what happened to that book. It got published. It has sold a couple of hundred copies. It’s very much loved by some of its readers and some of them thought it was less than useful, as any book might be considered by mixed reviews. Why do you ask?

JACK: I ask, Gerdean, because a lot of work went into that and I hate to see work wasted. The book is still good. The characters are still lively. The principles are still valid. What is standing in the way of your promoting the values that you felt worthy of touting in the first place? Values, I might add, that Athena helped you develop.

Gerdean: Well, Jack. I got involved in the Teaching Mission. Right after the book was published – I mean finished – I got involved in the Teaching Mission and when I started transmitting Tomas, I was afraid that I would be accused of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement if I talked about my book through the Teachers, so I asked Tomas if we could have a contract that he would not talk about my work when he was teaching and preaching because I was afraid people would think I was trying to use the Teacher Corps platform to feather my own nest. And so Tomas was in agreement.

JACK: Of course, he was in agreement! He wanted you to work with and for him, and if those were your terms, he was being amenable. But there are other ways to skin a cat.

Gerdean: I don’t know how to do it, Jack. I don’t know how to market it. I thought…. I thought that I had written this book – that I was directed to write the book – as a stimuli and a prototype for what became the Teaching Mission. I thought the Zooid Mission and the Teaching Mission were one and the same thing. And yet the Teaching Mission took off in a different direction. And …

JACK: And ….? Gerdean: And … Monjoronson came along. JACK: And?

Gerdean: I got really twisted. I couldn’t see where I fit anymore, or where the book fit.

JACK: Alright. Let me help you with this. I know there is a lot that you’re not sharing, but with what you have shared, let me say this about that. You did the right thing to be mindful of how easy it would have been to distort your relationship with the Teacher Corps by using them to promote your own creation, except your creation was for them to use. In protecting your creation, you were protecting yourself. Think about that.

It’s not too late. There are still plenty of things we can do. You can do. There are ways to weave in and out of situations. You can learn to take your losses and pick up the pieces, but you need to know where to let go and where to nail your colors to the mast.

I know full well that you were disappointed that Monjoronson never mentioned your book. Never once invited it into the paradigm of sustainable societies and all that you like to consider for a future world, and so your nose is a little bit bent about that, but you never nailed your color to the wall. You never said, “Monjoronson, I have a reason to be here – to discuss with you my book that I wrote for you … that Athena used me to write for my community.” It would have been interesting, would it not, to have challenged Monjoronson way back there, instead of challenging Ron Besser?

Gerdean: Yeah, well … Interesting, Jack. Thanks for stirring it up. Gives me something to think about, as always, when I chat with you. I don’t want to take the whole time and space, though, for Q&A. I’m sure there are others. No, I’m not sure. But there are others and othersmay have something they want to say or ask. Thank you.

Calvin: Hi. This is Calvin from Houston. JACK: Hi Calvin!

Co-creation

Calvin: I was just thinking about starting a co-creative design team for education, so that’s what’s been on my mind, I guess, and I dropped a class yesterday so I don’t know if I did the right thing; (indistinguishable) student right now, so that’s what’s been on my mind, and you asked us to share with you, so, thanks for your help.

JACK: That’s good. Thank you. That’s very exciting that you are beginning a new unit. You have people selected already to be available for you, or are you just at the starting gate?

Calvin: No, it’s just in my mind at this point. If you assemble a group, I suppose.

JACK: Well, I would suggest that you ask the social architects to gather around you a group of like-minded individuals, like-minded in that they too would be interested in what field you want to pursue. Is this -- Education, did you say?

Calvin: Yeah, that’s correct. JACK: And what level? Calvin: Well, I suppose since nothing’s done yet, the very first beginning, I guess.

JACK: Are we talking about Kindergarten? Grade school? Or are you talking about spiritual education?

Calvin: You know, those are all good questions that I haven’t really answered for myself, so I assume starting Kindergarten, but maybe I’ll be going in different directions; I don’t know.

JACK: Well, ask for some divine assistance and you’ll get it. Of course, having assistance and getting the work done, is no guarantee that it will find its way into the right venue. You need to find the right channel of operation. This is part of the difficulty of creative work on any level and for any reason. Creators sometimes don’t have the business sense that is necessary to get it under way. So when –

Calvin: You mean as far as the greater co-creative design effort, or as far as just making it happen in society?

JACK: Making it happen. Wherever. Calvin: Okay.

JACK: Of course you want it to happen in society. You are looking for sustainable, and altruistic and futuristic and progressive and so you want to teach elemental minds; you want to get your ideas into the schools, into the system. You can sit around and come up with some brilliant ideas, but if you haven’t got a foot in the door, or access to the agencies that can make it happen – literally – then it will continue to live in your mind and not become realized, very much like the previous querant. Gerdean has a book about a society but it was not forthcoming because there was no venue.

Calvin: Yeah, I think she should put in on Kindle, by the way. I’d definitely buy it.

Gerdean: That’s a thought. Thank you. Calvin: Okay.

JACK: And I wish you well in this design team for students. Calvin: Okay.

JACK: The whole field of education is crying for help. The whole field is starving and needs input and ideas and a good shaking up, and it is indeed from the minds of these little ones that, as they say, “from the little acorn, mighty oak will grow.” And these little acorns in kindergarten will grow up to be mighty oak and so you want to cultivate them well, nurture them well so that they don’t get stunted by the limitations of the material paradigm that only wants them to obey or to focus on material profit, financial profit. There are other things to justify and motivate people than making money – or in addition to making money, I should say.

Calvin: Okay. I appreciate your guidance.

JACK: Best wishes, Calvin. And thanks for checking in.

Closing

It looks like we are coming up on closing time. I know we got a late start, but that does not mean that we don’t have a life to live. We can’t all be put on hold because I ran into a technical failure or any reason outside our arrangement. It’s been a working holiday here with you this evening. I haven’t had to work this hard in a long time but there is so much to be done and every now and then I get a reminder of how much there is to do.

And I suppose too, this being February in your arena, a thaw is taking place and the sap is surging throughout you young trees eager to give forth new fruit, and I am here to stimulate your growth, to encourage this sap to flow into well-organized channels so that it can impact Urantia. Not just in a spiritual sense, but in a social sense, as you who have designs understand. There is much work to be done on every level, and it’s a very exciting … a very exciting time.

I’m quite encouraged. I’ll see you next time. Later!