[tmtranscripts] Pocatello Transcript 5-7-00

[Bill Kelly]

POCATELLO TEAM
May 7, 2000

Aaron (Bob S): My children: How happy are we, your elder brothers and
sisters here gathered, that you are meeting tonight in this format.  I am
Aaron, kicking off tonight's festivities—welcoming one and all on behalf
those of us from the other side.  We have prepared a full evening and trust
you will find our words helpful and meaningful, so let us begin.  One
moment please.

Daniel (Bill): I am Daniel, your teacher, your guide, your friend.  It has
been several weeks now since we have been together, and I have missed you
all as a group.  I have been speaking with some of you from time to time,
so that it is not as though this group needs to meet in order for us
teachers to be heard or be present in your lives.  Nevertheless it is
important to continue to gather together for the sake of fostering unity,
sharing diversity, being creative, but most of all enjoying each other's
friendship.

I do wish to speak this evening around the topic of evolution as it has
reference to the higher functions of human personality, mindal evolution,
spiritual evolution, and their combined interaction with social evolution.
Just as a living organism must grow in order to keep its life status so
must you evolve individually and in interconnectedness to keep your vital
energies active and the lifeblood of spiritual energy coursing through your
veins.  The one thing characteristic of all life is that it is not inert or
static.  If fact, once a living organism becomes inert or static
biologically it ceases to be alive.  The same holds true for mindal,
spiritual and social evolution.

Always there is the desire in human nature to preserve the past in the form
of tradition and custom.  Always is there a resistance to change and
evolution.  This desire to retain the past has many benefits and is not in
itself a negative reality.  Indeed is life the delicate balance between the
preservation of past good and the evolution of future good.  Sometimes the
tide seems to turn towards the preservation of the past, towards the
conservative side of reality, and then the tide swings in the other
direction and reverses itself so that forward momentum seems about to take
the day.  Always in mortal life there is  movement back and forth between
these poles, the pole of conserving the past and the pole of evolving the
future.  This is part of the reason that your lives cannot be fairly
described as balanced and certainly not placid for long.

We have had a history of nearly ten years of this sort of gathering where
we have been together, and you have been faithfully attending these
teaching sessions.  We have covered an enormous amount of material, between
the teachers of this teacher base and you students.  Our teachings have
been spread to a larger audience than this mere grouping, and many have
benefitted.  This teaching base has been replicated in many places, but
always with variations, throughout this planet.  Even now groups are
beginning to form for the first time and others are shifting their formats
and their appearance.  I am not saying that our times together have come to
an end, but I am saying that, as with all things that are a combination of
mental, spiritual and social, our formats must be flexible and we must be
ready to assume new directions.  We teachers have not delivered all of our
curriculum to you, our friends.  We have wished more and more that we could
give you more hands on experience, and we have entered that phase where we
are training you to be teachers of your brothers and sisters.  We see that
you are scattering yourselves abroad this summer engaged in important
activities, which by your choice and in response to your Thought Adjusters'
direction, you are accomplishing the things that God wishes you to do.
Therefor it will necessitate a change in our format and we understand the
decisions that have been made this evening in this regard.  

I, Daniel, along with Andronason, Minearsia, Aaron and your personal
teachers await humbly the future direction that Michael will give us.
Rather that thinking our work has reached some sort of termination point, I
would interpret this to mean that our work is changing direction and we
have only just begun.  Much spiritual growth has resulted from the ten-year
contact with you mortals, and we have been very pleased in general with the
progress that has been made.  We ascendant, former mortals have learned
much from our contact with this planet, so unlike most of our home planets.
 We have become humbled to be in your presence and we observe how it is
that you have coped with the legacy of sin and rebellion which has so
distorted the thinking and the patterns of society on this planet.  Yet we
observe your magnificent faith mounting day by day as you take the hand of
your Thought Adjuster, the hand of God, and step forward to do that chosen
will.

I wish to conclude my comments with one admonition, my friends.  Please
continue your stillness practice.  Nothing, literally nothing is more
important!  This is the essence of the ascension career, to enter into the
presence of your Indweller with faith, an open heart and full confidence;
to so habituate yourselves to choosing the divine will that it becomes
truly a life style, one which grows ever more comforting and sweeter as the
days go by.  However your life becomes stretched to the demands which you
have acquiesced to, never for a moment let those demands push away your
precious, intimate time with God within.  	I wish now to allow you some
time for questions or comments.  The floor is open.

Bob S (Jonderoch): Daniel, I have a question.  If, as you say, evolution is
natural for us, that we evolve or die, why is it that we so resist change?
What is the cause of that?

Daniel (Bill): There are several reasons, Jonderoch.  As I stated earlier
and as the (Urantia) Book elucidates, there is value in conserving the good
things of the past.  It is not just a perversity of human nature to desire
to continue that which one is comfortable with, for in many cases or much
of the time, there is value in continuing those traditions, mores, ways of
doing things.  They are the tried and tested results of previous
experimentations with change.  The problem that occurs however, is when an
individual or a group reaches the conclusion that all desirable ways of
doing things have been exhausted, and only traditional ones retain any
value.  This precludes the possibility of new and better ways of doing
things, of thinking, of acting, of being.  

There is also, in addition to inherent value in tradition, the fear of the
unknown, which is an animalistic fear.  It springs from your very animal
nature.  It comes out of the organism's protective strategies, for indeed
primitive man would have not survived his battle with the elements and
other animals if he had be not been cautious and used foresight and
responded to fear.  Therefor, it is an effect ingrained in your physiology
or biology, this natural, protective aspect of fear.  What the mind has to
power to do when it is under the direction of the Spirit is to evaluate
reality more accurately, for indeed you do not live in a jungle where your
life is at risk any moment.  But there are many jungle-like analogies in
modern life which still arouse those reflexive fear circuits in people.
While children as babies can be as trusting as our little one here tonight
(Bob and Nancy Devine's 8 month old), as you encounter, growing up in
childhood, new and strange circumstances, the instinctive, hard wired
circuitry of the lower brain stem and the cortex unite more and more to tie
you into the evolved mechanisms.  Therefor, as an adult you have the task
through spiritual growth of transcending the results of your upbringing as
you learn to change the meaning of life from the transient, limited,
self-centered, materialistic view held by many to an understanding of your
true safety and security in the kingdom of God in the status of eternal
life, so that you can eventually say in triumph, even as Jesus said, what
does it matter  to a kingdom believer if all things earthly perish?  Has
this dissertation helped you, my friend?

Bob S: Yes, very much.  It was a marvelous answer.  Thank you.

Daniel (Bill): You are welcome, Bob, and I would give you some personal
words.  Be more at ease with yourself and do not grow weary with your
perceived shortcomings.  You are doing very well.  You are definitely
making good progress.  Be at peace.

Bob: Thank you.  I'll try.

Bob D: Do you think that there is still hope for the organized religions
centered about his life today—the Christian Church?  The Urantia Book has
talked about the transformation of modern-day Christianity and sometimes it
almost seems like they have so traditionalized their views that it is
almost impossible, from my human prospective, to really transform from
within that organization.  The transformation of human kind almost needs to
come from outside and I guess that perspective is taken in viewing (most)
Christian movements that are more fundamental in their stands.  I would be
glad to hear any perspective that you have regarding whether there is a
futility in trying to transform that church, or whether the transformation
has to come from a different area of the world.

Ken: You are speaking of the Christian Church, Bob.  Might I include the
other churches of the world also?

Bob D (Simeon): Sure.

Minearsia (Bill): Greetings.  I am Minearsia.  Welcome, my friends, to our
group tonight.  Yes, I am here with Andronason, and I am very impressed
with the import of your question, Simeon.

In one sense we cannot answer your question.  That is in the sense that we
do not know the future.  We are not God, Who does know the circle of
eternity; but we still are of the opinion that the forces of resistance to
chance, of darkness as opposed to light, are losing the battle.  
We observe in individuals who are struggling with issues of change that
their greatest resistance to change seems to occur just before their walls
are breached, just before they capitulate and get past the barrier they
have perceived in the change-challenge that is presented to them.  Recall
how Thomas refused to believe in the resurrection of our Master, and Jesus
addressed him saying, " Thomas, your  doubts are always strongest just
before they give way".  Translated into your question... we see the
resurgence of fundamentalism as a manifestation of the awareness on the
part of world religions, Christianity, Islam, particularly those two, to
the need for change.  Fundamentalism can be perceived as a defense
mechanism, as a way of trying to prevent the inexorable march of
intellectual, spiritual, and social evolution.  

It is easy to grow weary in one short life and wish that more change could
come about, and when this happens on a large scale people are ready to
embrace the apocalyptic, which says basically what you are proposing, that
there is not enough internal momentum to produce significant change within
an institution and the only way is by an outside, dramatic event which will
shatter its boundaries and definitions.  No, my friend, we are still of the
opinion that one by one the leaven of the virus of love is spreading, that
change in the upward direction is continuing, that spiritual growth is
coming to many more people.  Whether or not individual religions,
Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, whatever religion you want to talk about,
can gain enough spiritual strength to change and flex, or whether they will
become so rigid as to be shattered, remains unknown.  However, I am of the
opinion that the former will be the case.  I am curious what your thoughts
are on your question, my friend?

Bob D: I wasn't really sure.  Maybe the catalyst for change will come from
inspired people, and even though it may inspire, there will always be some
desire by this body of control to manage that into something else, rather
than allowing it to be free and progressive.  So I tend to see it hard for
transforming change from within, but I can see there being progress, just
at a lot slower pace than I could ever be satisfied with.  So maybe it's
good that the world has some people that look forward to upholding
tradition.  That way the people who try to make massive change won't
destabilize the world, and at the same time they will probably pull the
traditionalists kicking and screaming into the future, while at the same
time, it is kind of like the angels of the churches and the angels of
progress both are doing a function, but progress is still happening
nevertheless.  It is just slower than the angels of progress would like and
faster than the angels of the churches would like.  So in a sense that is
what I kind of feel.

Minearsia (Bill): Thank you, Simeon.  I have the same opinion as you do.
Both are necessary.  Lucifer, as you know, advocated unlimited freedom and
wanted to see his goals achieved quickly.  We are among other things
grateful that his errors have shown so clearly the importance of evolution
as opposed to the erroneous ideas of revolution.  In the universe of
Nebadon this issue has been rather clearly clarified.  Therefor, we all
think rather often of the implications of the Lucifer error, the desire to
have now that can truly only be had in time, and also of the lesson from
Adam and Eve with their discouragement and short-circuiting of the divine
plan.

My words to you, Simeon, are these.  Enjoy the present moment to the
fullest so that you don't feel a sense of longing for the future to come
now because the "now" is so satisfying.  Believe me, all of you, as you
approach the end of your mortal lives, will discover that they seem to be
merely a few moments in length.  And yes, as you get older and move beyond
mortality you will begin to appreciate what it means to have no boundaries
in the future.  One of the reasons mortals are in a hurry is they do not
believe in eternal life, and they must get it all done now, in this life,
for the rest is only shadowy fantasy at best.  But once your have tasted
the reality of eternal life as it intersects with your life now, it changes
forever your attitude about being in a hurry.  

Now please understand I am not counseling sloth (laughter), but if I could
characterize your culture as a whole in general terms, I would say you err
in the other direction, so that even those who are truly slothful can't
enjoy it for they feel pressure from the work rate of their fellows.  (More
laughter.)  Are there other comments or questions?  

Ken: Daniel, your opening words, as chosen by the TR this evening, sounded
kind of mournful in the respect that we won't be meeting too much for this
summer; and your comment that we will be stepping into another phase; and
the other comment was that we have not completed the lessons that you had
prepared for us--have we done fifty percent?

Daniel (Bill): You misunderstood me, my friend.  (Comments and laughter.)
When I said we have not completed our lessons, it was not a judgement on
your inefficiency as students.  (Comment.)  It was rather a statement that
we are not through with each other.  (Comments and laughter.)  We will
continue to be together.

If there was a mournful tone in my voice, I admit to missing our more
frequent gatherings.  But I also am aware that everyone's paths are
diverging with good reason, (I believe that I indicated that.) as each one
attempts to follow their leading from within.  And no, do not worry about
me, my friend.  (Comments and laughter.)  We will be continuing as a group.
 I support the idea of your getting together,(a summer barbecue) for the
wintertime is so full of activities and the leisure of summer allows you to
take more time together.  Are you clear that I was not grading you down for
your efforts?

Ken. Yes. I never took it like that.  It is just that we probably had
reached a phase, and you used the phrase training us as teachers,
(Comments.) and I thought after this last little sojourn that I had on the
East Coast, I am not prepared to be a teacher.  (Laughter.)

Daniel (Bill): Yes, so we will keep working on it!  (Comments and
laughter.)  	
Well, my friends, I believe that there is a time limit now that I will
observe, and once again my deep, heartfelt love goes out to you all.  Seek
the Father daily.  Watch for opportunities to serve.  Ask for guidance, and
think of us, your friends.  Good evening.