[tmtranscripts] N. Idaho Team 4/6/03

[rickgiles]

North Idaho Teaching Mission Group
Topics: The Everlasting Journey, Freedom of the Soul, You Choose Your 
Direction.
Teachers: Elyon, Aaron, Lester

April 6, 2003

*	Elyon  (Mark TR):  I greet you.  This is your guide and your companion 
Elyon.  I refer to myself as your guide in this discussion this morning to 
make reference to the journey you have embarked upon.
	Having decided to traverse this unknown distance before you, you have 
been engaged for some time now in provisioning yourself with the stocks 
and supplies you deem you will need for this everlasting journey before 
you.  You have been checking your stores and supplies of the essentials 
you feel you need before you can feel as though you have pushed your craft 
off and are under your own power.  You have tallied your stores of faith.  
You have added to your accumulation of courage.  You have reevaluated your 
checklist and determined that priorities have shifted after learning more 
about the journey before you and gone back to make new checklists of 
essentials that are deemed important to have with you on this journey.  
This is the period we have been engaged in of stock piling your lesson 
plans, your maps and itineraries as you understand them at any given 
point, later to be reexamined and reevaluated for their worthiness to be 
with you on this journey.  Many conditions that you saw as obstacles or 
signs of preparedness have been overcome, have been negotiated 
thoughtfully so as to no longer be impediments to you.  The storehouse of 
wisdom, patience, and courage has been well added to so as to provide you 
the necessary sustenance along your journey.
	We find that some of the possessions that we originally loaded into 
our crafts become burdensome and troublesome along the way, and we 
redefine our needs and are willing to lay aside and forget some aspects 
that we at the beginning saw as important, even necessary to our journey.  
We, from a new perspective, can perceive that these things we thought 
would help us may in fact weigh us down and become a burden in this 
fashion.  When this happens we are all too willing to lay these burdens 
down so that we may continue anew.  The journey we foresaw from the 
beginning knowing that the distance before us may be uncharted by us as 
individuals but well known to the many scouts and to the Creator of all.
 Having stockpiled our faith in generous proportions we find ourselves 
merrily undertaking this journey, realizing that to embark on this 
everlasting journey we have already succeeded.  The details of the journey 
before us merely provide us with options and opportunities to be accessed 
and exercised along the route; that it is a foregone conclusion our 
journey will meet with certain success, albeit we are unable to clearly 
define from this bend in the river where this journey exactly will take 
us.  Nevertheless we are not turning back; we are not stalling in this 
effort.  Once having shoved our crafts adrift we are committed to the 
journey before us and are well assured that our supplies are adequate, our 
sense of direction is correct, and our journey will meet with success.
	This does not indicate that necessarily every day will be filled with 
smooth sailing, rather, we know there will be the rapids to negotiate, 
even to avoid.  This will cause us some recalculation and readjustment in 
our direction, but only temporary obstacles lie before us in this sojourn.  
We all have committed to this everlasting journey to the Father, and no 
obstacle becomes too great to one entirely committed to this journey.
	At this point in your journey many of you are wondering if there is 
room in your vessel for others whom you may pass along the way.  Your 
heartfelt desire to load up the many for the journey to the Father is 
perceived with divine affection from on high.  However, your craft is a 
personal craft, and you may pursue your own journey and even lead where 
others may follow, but it is not yours to load the many onlookers on route 
into your small craft.  They must fashion their own vessels; they must 
procure their own supplies; they must show their own commitment in setting 
their own vessel adrift, and then surely all streams lead to the great 
ocean of the Father.
	It has been a joy to oversee the making of your personal crafts, the 
hewing of your vessels over time, to be fashioned into seaworthy crafts, 
to witness as you gather together the items you feel essential before you 
embark upon this journey, to witness as you redefine your necessities, and 
to see you paddle as it were into the sunset with confidence and bravery.  
To witness these vessels floating down this river of love is truly joyous 
to behold.  It is my extreme pleasure to float beside you as we make this 
journey and offer you as a guide who has been down this stretch of the 
river before you tips on how to navigate the currents, negotiate the 
rapids, and stay out of dangerous areas of falls.  You demonstrate your 
courage and willingness to follow these suggestions and directions thereby 
minimizing the dangers to yourselves and increasing your ability to enjoy 
this journey.  A guide merely is one who has traversed the distance before 
you and can report back as to the hazards ahead, and that is all we as 
teachers do for you.  You must pilot the craft yourself; you must portage 
around the obstacles alone; you must of your own accord set your vessel 
adrift.  These are the things that I marvel to see from my perspective.  
It is quite a beautiful journey to observe you make.  I offer you my 
commitment as guide to see you through this journey as this river of love 
flows into the ocean of love which is the Father.
	I thank you for hearing my words today and remain in attendance.  
There are others who would activate this opportunity to speak with you.

*	Aaron (Jonathan):  Hello, this is Aaron.  It is good to be with you 
again in person.  Though the separation of sensibility keeps us from 
direct perception, I am as present here as you each are in this room.  I 
am going to speak about liberation, or perhaps freedom of the soul.
	Naturally the word “liberation” implies that there is some confinement 
from which you seek release.  So the word is not truly adequate to 
describe the unfoldment of soul, for your soul is not now nor has been 
imprisoned.  Elyon spoke of crafting your vessel and making the effort to 
set your ship afloat upon the seas.  When you exercised your ability to 
choose truth over error another miracle of great beauty occurred in the 
universe, and that was the initiation and unfolding of the growth of your 
soul.  This effort on your part created the opportunity for the Divine 
Spirit to indwell you and establish the condition wherein you as a human 
being could rise above the mere functions of physical life.
	As you grew in your comprehension of spiritual reality, you 
established conceptual frameworks; you developed response mechanisms that 
you discern to be contributory to your growth.  You made effort.  Some 
decisions were easy to exercise, some difficult and caused emotional 
turmoil, mental conflict.  Sometimes you had to choose based upon your 
ideals and contrary to your wishes.  And you did so because you developed 
a devotion to truth that superseded your wants, and in doing so you gained 
a freedom.  You were liberated from your constraints due to imperfection 
or immaturity.  While the soul is ever free, it is the mind and your seat 
of will that undergo that discipline, correction, and development that 
brings to you a sense of liberation.  It is the effort of building the 
vessel.  It is the struggle to portage.
	Religion, as you know it on this world, has often promoted rules of 
conduct, defined behavior, set standards whereby living them you are 
perceived to be of a more noble character.  Many a soul has rebelled 
against these conditions not wishing to be constrained.  These dogmas and 
doctrines were not initially established to confine you.  Those who first 
developed them were merely expressing the methods whereby they grew in 
spirit stature, and desire to make available to others that same ability 
by way of that path that later became crystallized and coded.  They found 
through the discipline spiritual freedom.  Today, while you may or may not 
align yourself with these recommended standards, it still falls to each of 
you as an individual to develop your own disciplines, your own standards, 
in order that you develop strength and power as a personality.
	Elyon indicated the importance of you sailing your vessel.  Many who 
build a ship do take counsel in the architecture and design developed by 
those who have gone before them.  While some creatively alter the design, 
often much that was first developed is only adjusted and not abandoned.  A 
sound keel, a workable rudder, and the like have contributed and will 
continue to contribute to a good journey.
	When life bears upon you to the degree that you feel burdened 
establish in yourself the reaction of excitement, for as every wrestler 
comprehends, each bout, each match, strengthens that person and improves 
the skills.  The result is a new freedom, the ability to do more than you 
could have before.
	Choose wisely what you will adopt and develop and attain.  Do freely 
abandon and discard what you perceive to be outmoded or distracting.  Do 
honor the fact that freedom is not the absence of any constraint; it is 
the development of ability through refinement, hard work, discipline.  You 
might call it fettered freedom, that is what it takes to build a vessel 
and venture into the unknown.
	I too remain with you.  Thank you for receiving me today.

*	Lester:  Greetings to you, this is Lester.  How are you today?  I have 
an observation:
	As one who stands often on the sidelines and watches your masterful 
instructors guide you and encourage you each week, I must say, as they 
have often expressed their humility by stating that they help you as you 
choose your direction, that this is the case.  Let us use the idea that 
they are as a detective.  A detective has a course of action that is being 
pursued to uncover truth, to find and capture a desired end.  You all are 
like the hound dogs, for your energy, your vigorous tug at the leashes of 
friendship that are between you and your instructors, is what drives the 
whole pack forward.  Your anxious scouting, your enthusiastic push 
forward, propels your teachers forward in their plans and in their 
purposes.  While it may seem that you are merely the mutts, it is not the 
case, for as any who has owned a pet knows, it is a loving relationship.  
You are truly the driving force; you are the ones who uncover the trail, 
find the scent.  I am happy to be part of your pursuit.
	Also, before I take my leave, I would say that your assembling 
together aids each one of you.  It strengthens you as a collective and 
adjusts you as an individual much as would a pack of hound dogs.  As one 
veers, the pack draws that one back.  Also, as one picks up a trail, the 
others are clued in.  This is a beautiful pattern to behold in you all.  
Thank you.

	Mark:  Thank you, teachers, for training us to identify the scents of 
spirit, that we may pursue them with vigor and intensity.  Without this 
patient counseling we might overlook these scents.  I am grateful.
 
*	Elyon (Jonathan):  Greetings, this is Elyon again.  I would open the 
floor to questions if you have any, and I would like to add to this 
imagery of Lester.
	You each have been given a glimpse of the goal through the reading of 
your Urantia text.  Now you are so anxious to dive right into living and 
establishing the perfection decreed by Father on Paradise that it is very 
difficult to hold you in check that we may discern the clues upon the way.  
I know that at times you are frustrated when you feel you do not make the 
progress as you wish you could.  However, I must say from my perspective 
you are moving along quite rapidly.  There are other planets whereon the 
human beings are far less desirous of pursuing the perspectives and 
attaining the levels of personality that you seek.  I will continue 
evermore to encourage you to do so.
	Do you have comments or questions?

	Barbara:  You are on the road ahead of us and floating beside us to 
help.  You mentioned hazards ahead.  What can you tell us of them?

*	Elyon:  One of these hazards is complacency, which perhaps is 
emphasized by the encouragement we give you all to continue, that while 
you have negotiated a rapid, have managed to break free from the 
stagnation of an eddy and have entered into the calm of a beautiful lake, 
it is the goal to reach the sea of the Universal Father, the vast ocean of 
His spirit presence.  That would be one hazard.  To pause along the way is 
good, however, to remain there for an unnecessary period of time could 
delay your progress, even bring upon you a change of weather that would 
inhibit your speedy advance.
	Generally speaking, the hazards are conditions you allow within 
yourself.  Be not afraid of external dangers, devils or demons, that would 
prevent you from completing your journey.

	Barbara:  Why would you bring up devils and demons?

*	Elyon:  As an illustration of an external force historically viewed as 
more powerful than oneself and able to thwart your efforts.

	Harold:  Your analogies all have an element of limitation.  Boats, 
leashes, the sides of the river.  Is the limitation necessary to progress 
and will eventually be eliminated?  Or is it something we will continue to 
control, or learn to control?

*	Elyon:  These are conditions that are defined by your order of being; 
you are ascending children of God and therefore have channels wherein you 
rise to Paradise.  It is true though that these are not confinements that 
are inflexible.  As you paint upon a canvas your creativity is unlimited.  
What you do within the framework of that canvas has no limitation other 
than the size of that blank board.  To draw beyond the boundaries into 
space would not serve to reveal the image within your mind.  You are 
however capable of developing larger canvases.  This is also part of your 
ascending experience.  At every stage of your ascent, however, you have a 
canvas that is only so large within which you may create.  I hope this 
serves to show the value of limitations and your ability to break free as 
you grow.

	Harold:  My experience is that limitations are what initiate 
creativity.

*	Elyon:  I agree. “Limitations” may be renamed “definitions”.  Without 
definition there are no discreet demarkations between items.  A paintbrush 
is not the paint, is not the canvas.  Each one, limited on its own, drawn 
together unleashes creativity.
	Aaron spoke of fettered freedom.  Unfettered freedom would not 
stimulate that creativity.  It would be just as if all the dogs in the 
pack were off their leashes and ran every which way.

	Harold:  The rapids are where the water is moving most quickly.  
Conflict is what propels us more quickly down the river.

*	Elyon:  You are quite perceptive.  This is true.  While it is 
apparently a struggle to encounter conflict as it is to negotiate a rapid, 
it is in the end far more thrilling than long stretches of quiet water 
where you must still make the effort but make the effort unaided, 
unassisted, by the conditions around you.  Those are times to rest. But to 
journey forward you must apply yourself even more rigorously than during 
the times when the rapids appear to be tossing you about.
	As I have expressed many times, I love you all,  I cherish our 
friendship, and I too put you in your prayer circle for your advancement,  
for your happiness.  I will now take my leave.
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