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[Rick P. Giles]

January 5, 1997
*     Elyon (Mark TR):  Greetings once again, my friends.  We together
have engaged in this moderately lengthy pause in our interactions to
once again visit the stillness together and to illuminate and empha-
size the importance of the practice of stillness.  We as teachers are
well aware of the cyclical nature of your lifestyles, your commitments
to external forces, and we are ultimately understanding of these. 
However, I feel like the school teacher whose responsibility it is to
occasionally ring the bell and refocus the students on the lessons at
hand.  I take this opportunity this morning to visit the stillness
with you as a means to emphasize priorities.  If the students are
preoccupied with their playtime activities, it is often very hard to
grasp and internalize the daily lessons.  Therefore, once again we are
able to refocus our energies and prioritize and arrange our focus by
means of visiting the stillness.  If you do not allocate the time to
do this separately, then priorities dictate to do this when together,
as this is key to moving forward together and separately.  I know that
this might sound as a broken record to you, the repeating of the
importance of stillness.  But it is my job as a teacher to uphold the
principles and priorities necessary for your proper development.  I
will continue to harp on issues which remain relevant to you.  I will
also do my best to move the lessons along, to spice up the teachings,
but I am bound by your constrictions and restrictions, and you will
find that I am exceedingly patient.  
      It is so wonderful to have you all in attendance again, in class. 
It truly is a highlight of my experience to meet with you, to share
with you, to simply be with you as we are here now.  You will come to
find here more and more that we resonate to the same tones, that we,
in a sense, march to the same drummers.  You will learn to recognize
this as time passes.  
      Do not waste any energy on guilt or sorrow for not having devoted
enough time in your minds to the mission, as all things go in cycles. 
Simply address yourself to picking up where you have left off and to
moving forward.  It is helpful in your move forward to reestablish
your practice patterns.  As a good musical student knows, you simply
must devote and allocate the time to the practice of the making of the
music before the music can easily flow.  Likewise with learning and
attuning your spirit to higher lessons, this involves a practice, a
return to helpful learning habits.  The change of the year is a
perfect time to examine your priorities.  Recommit to those priorities
that you feel are worthy, perhaps even shake loose those priorities
you deem no longer worthy.  I would encourage you to do a self-exam
and go over in your mind those aspects of your lifestyle and your
habits that you deem worth spending and allocating the time on and
those habits and lifestyles which no longer seem as important as they
once may have been.  Take this opportunity to adopt your highest ideal
and to let go your lowest ideal.  You will see the positive effects if
you do this.  
      Make no mistake, each of you here is fully committed to the
mission, to the path ahead you and I have chosen.  All are worthy and
eminently qualified for this future mission.  This does not mean that
there is not always and evermore room for personal spiritual growth. 
I have warm affection for each of you and look forward excitedly to
working together with you, to exploring our upcoming lessons.  Witnes-
sing you each honestly grapple with your own spiritual progress in the
lessons we provide is the reward we get as teachers.  I thank you all
for what you give me in that regard.  
      I would open up the floor for your questions or comments.  I am
available to you as are others at this time.  
      Ginny:  Thank you for your encouragement.
      Jonathan:  Your encouragement to reach to our highest ideals and
drop the lower ones, I felt implied also letting go those things that
don't even rise to the level of an ideal, mark-of-the-beast type
stuff.  I've been wrestling with failure feelings.  I think it's
because I put too much emphasis on my ideals rather than acceptance of
things I can attain.  Is there any insight you can offer to balance
between the ever-elusive perfect action and being satisfied with
success that falls short of that?
*     Elyon:  I am, we are, primarily concerned with your spiritual
growth and development, those ideals that rise up to the spiritual
level.  I would encourage you and everyone to reach for the highest
spiritual ideals and make every attempt in your lives to realize these
ideals, to make them part of your being.  I would also encourage that
minimal amounts of your energy be directed towards any negative
aspects of your being.  I realize that this is extremely difficult in
your surroundings.  However, it is important to begin to realize when
your energy is being directed in a not-positive direction, to conscio-
usly make efforts to redirect this energy into the positive counter-
parts to that equation.  When one looks at a glass and sees half empty
and devotes valuable, precious energy into being discouraged that the
glass is only half empty, this drains the available energy which can
be used to be exuberant that the glass is all the way half full.  This
is a common challenge that everyone of you grapples with at times. 
There is an overriding tendency in the human mind to look for and at
the incorrect.  Through exercise and practice one can learn to channel
this same energy into the tendency to see what is right, what is good,
what in this situation is the best of the situation, and how could
this be made better in this situation.  This is, indeed, a true
challenge, to look at a glass and always challenge yourself to see how
wonderfully full it is.  True, there is room for more growth, for more
water in the glass, but it is indeed all the way half full.  I recom-
mend that you all be more aware of this challenge in your lives and
consciously attempt to redirect whatever energy falls below the center
line into the negative, to redirect this energy above the midpoint
into the positive.  It is the same energy; simply the direction has
changed; thus the outcome is vastly different.  You will all see the
rewards of this exercise, of this challenge.  
      Jonathan:  Thank you.  I can see how I add the little qualifiers
like "only" half full.  As you pointed out "all the way" half full is
a better perspective.  I'll try to do that when I feel that what I've
done isn't good enough.  In the light of what I have done, it has got
me all the way to that point.  A stepping stone.  
*     Elyon:  One more point of value would be to more fully realize
that you lead somewhat of a double existence; your spiritual life and
your spiritual growth are somewhat separate from your physical exis-
tence and your material being.  One may be making great strides in
your spiritual growth and be ultimately challenged in your material
being.  The far more important to nurture at any time would be your
ultimate  spiritual growth.  This you will take with you; this is part
of you; this is the eternal part of you.  Whether or not your material
wellbeing rises to the level you might like is an entirely different
matter.  It may be helpful to you at times to separate these two, to
take inventory of the great fruits that you bear spiritually and the
fruits that you bear materially.  They are quite separate.  
      One should not get discouraged over the evident material status
in this life as you all are, indeed, quite well off.  None of you
lacks in food, clothing, shelter, the basic necessities of life. 
There are many, many people on this planet who would consider everyone
in this room quite wealthy.  So, even your material wellbeing is quite
relative, even on your same planet.  I point this out by way of taking
your spiritual and material inventories.  Do not fail to factor in
your position in your life compared to all the other people who share
this planet with you.  
      Ginny:  I have a question about the stillness.  When we practice
stillness, how do our Thought Adjusters participate in that?  I'm sure
there's a communion with them, too, not just with a separate being.  
*     Elyon:  Never fail to realize that your Indwelling Fragment of
the Father is always and evermore looking for opportunities and ways
to contact you.  They are ever vigilant in their attempts to communi-
cate with you.  They would gladly seek and find any opportunity you
would offer them.  Stillness is very valuable in this regard in that
it provides your Thought Adjusters with manifold opportunities they
have during your regular lifestyle to communicate with you.  So, yes,
you are correct that the stillness is also helpful to your Indwelling
Spirit.  If you consciously make this part of your meditation, it
greatly enhances the abilities of this Thought Adjuster to do the task
that they have at hand.  
      Ginny:  So, the Thought Adjuster helps us to have a cleaner,
clearer communion with God, or is it one and the same?   
*     Elyon:  Indeed, the Thought Adjuster helps you have a supremely
direct communication with the Father, far more direct and accurate
than any communication you would ever receive from any teacher or
outside source.  This is ultimately the communication you will rely on
for your eternal career.  So, any activities you pursue to foster the
growth of this communication are well spent.  As it has been said
before, even the teachers, or any outside influences, have to be
cleared through your individual Thought Adjusters first.  So, by all
means, seek this communication in our life.  
      Ginny:  Thank you.  
*     Evanson (Jonathan):  Hi, I'm Evanson, and I would share a per-
spective on faith-certainty and would like to compare it to prayer.  
      Prayer, as you well know, is an attitude expressed by the soul,
and you have understood that wording of a prayer is not necessarily
the prayer itself.  You can use religious jargon; you can use street
language and still convey the meaning of the prayer.  Likewise faith;
faith has composites similar to the words of prayer.  These are
beliefs.  You can change your beliefs and still express your faith. 
Faith is like a house; your beliefs are like the materials that
construct it.  It can be adobe; it can be straw; it can be wood and
still be a house.  When you pray, attempt to pray silently, without
words.  You will discover that deeper soul communication of which the
words are but the mind resonating to this soul.  When you wrestle with
beliefs and the doubts or convictions that go with them, pause in
stillness to experience your faith.  Again, it is the soul attitude of
which beliefs are but the mind's resonance.  It is easy to realize
that the changing of the words of prayer do not disintegrate the
motivation and attitude of the prayer.  So, when your beliefs shift
and change, likewise realize this is not a threat to your faith. 
      This is all I would share today.  Thank you.