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[Karen ODell]

Date: March 16, 2003
Location: Myra’s Mountain View in Rio Rancho
Teachers: Tomas and Michael
Topics: The Rites of Spring
                        The Responsibilities of Sonship
Q&A: Happy Anniversary, Rio Rancho TeaM
                        What has this year meant to you?
T/R’s: Gerdean (for Tomas) and Matthew (for Michael)
Music: Elena on piano: "Oh, Mensch, Schau Jesus Christum" a Bach chorale
(Discussion about the music title. Based on our gentile understanding, we
thought it meant "Jesus Christ, you are a Scholar and a Gentleman")
Prayer: Matthew: Let us place ourselves in the presence of Jesus, the
Christ.
Master Teacher, we come to you seeking inspiration in the love that you
portrayed. We said earlier about a mensch, and that that describes you,
among other descriptions. The description, I think, we know of you from
the Urantia Book in particular, gives us an intimate look at you of
friendship, fatherly, brotherly protection, and a wonderful specimen of
all creation. And the description of the angels looking down, and an
entire universe standing in awe, witnessing what you were doing, for the
unseen that we were unable to see at the time, that is total inspiration,
so for us not to get too far afield and to wish for that which we have as
a constant reminder of who we are and who we are becoming, with you as
the model, we seek a teacher or teachers that you bring to us today for
continued enlightenment of our personhoods and our souls, that we become
more godlike as you are, and to be perfect love and to do it wonderfully
well. For this and all else that you know within our hearts, we pray.
Amen.
TOMAS: Happy anniversary, my mortal family. I am Tomas, your companion,
friend and teacher, host and fellow sojourner in the program of ascension
unto the Father of all. 
"Let us place ourselves in the presence of Jesus, the Christ." What power
is in those words! For the ritual begins. We put ourselves in mind to
open ourselves to another dimension of relating, another system of
reality, a wonderful realm wherein we honor our Creator and our life in
His realm. What a marvelous experience we enjoy by and through our
association, which we now enjoy, even as this pinnacle of accomplishment
has taken many years to come into being. We pray, too, to be brought into
your awareness, for in this we have uplifted this portion of humanity
into a conscious realm of god-consciousness that begins to realize itself
as morontia reality, even in your world and in your lives. 
Today, my beautiful students, I would like to bring to your attention a
consciousness of ritual, and how thoroughly it is a part of your pattern
of living and how you can use it, by your will, to embolden yourself as a
fisher of men in luring more individuals into the consciousness that you
enjoy as a Son of God. To call our gathering a ritual may come as a
surprise to some. Those who look upon their religious experience as a
sacred event, incline to look unfavorably at their ritual being called a
mere habit, which is truly what ritual is; but it is the dimension of
Christ-consciousness that allows a mere ritual to become, in truth, a
religious way of life. 
Many of you appreciate the fact that Jesus’ life was a prayer. And you
yearn to be like him and thus allow your life to be lived as if it were a
prayer of unbroken communion with your indwelling Adjuster, our Father in
heaven. You yearn to be about the Father’s business. You long to do His
will. But you fail to see how your will acquiescing to divine will merges
into a greater consciousness, a consciousness of your own divinity which
cannot and will not be diminished by mere mankind. Because you have been
called upon to uplift mankind. 
Think to yourself how much a part of your life is ritual. Every one of
you goes from one programmed pattern to another. You brush your teeth as
a ritual. You put on coffee or tea in the morning as part of your ritual.
You drive to work as if it were a ritual. You enter your place of
employment (if this is your lifestyle); you establish yourself in your
work station; you deliver or pick up the children at school, to school.
Your discourses are a ritual. "How was your day today?" "How was class?"
"How was work?" These are rituals.
In the spring, Mother Nature performs her rituals. Her leaves begin to
sprout on the trees. Her blossoms burst forth. Her gentle rains fall.
These are rituals. These are rituals of nature that occur every year, as
you brush your teeth every morning. This is a part of the substance of
your life that holds your life together. Let’s look further. 
The element of religion enters into your life when you make
God-consciousness a part of your life. As you brush your teeth, you
anticipate the day ahead. You cleanse yourself. You cleanse your mouth of
foul utterings, purifying your breath for greeting your brethren, for
speaking gentle words of encouragement, lifting the ritual of brushing
your teeth to a prayerful pause. And throughout the day, by offering each
ritual up on the altar of God-consciousness, you bring divinity into the
moment. You actualize each experience as being a part of the
demonstration of Life itself. 
The benefit of habit is that large amounts of work can be accomplished by
habit, allowing the mind freedom then to work into other areas. There are
some who automatically go about their life without ever thinking about
what their gestures represent and how they came to adopt such gestures.
Rather, they accept them as has been handed down, as they have been
taught. And as the masses are all creatures of habit in this fashion,
cultures are established, mores are upheld, and life goes on
automatically and without a full appreciation of the fact that it would
not exist were it not for divinity. 
New habits can be created. They can be culturally created by a few of you
putting into effect certain new rituals of behavior that are gradually
accepted as a way of life. You therefore pull your society forward. 
Long ago when the understanding of spirit was seen in the breath, the
ritual was established of expressing an equivalent of "God bless you!" or
"Gesundheit!" because the prayer was that your spirit not be expelled
from you, but that you retain the spirit, or that the spirit be
rejuvenated within you. Now people say "God bless you" without thinking
about the spirit. But one individual who is conscious of God, and who
therefore recognizes the prayer that that phrase is, is enough to bring
it into consciousness. 
Bringing automatic life into conscious life is a side effect of your
being a child of God. Because you revere the Father and marvel at His
creation, when you see the buds burst forth in spring and you pause to
praise God for beauty, truth and goodness, when you bring this worshipful
aspect into existence, you have actualized His reality on your plane. It
becomes a part of the consciousness of the molecules of existence. 
I can say this freely because I can see in your lives a benefit of having
spent these hours alone with the Master in these sessions of teaching and
learning through this process you call transmitting/receiving. By putting
yourself in a position of allowing yourself to be open and to be
vulnerable to the input from a higher dimension, you have given yourself
an opportunity to allow greater reality to be enlarged within your own
reality, your own consciousness, and as this transpires, you allow it,
therefore, to be extended and expended into your environment as you pass
by. It is a "trickle down" effect from Paradise.
I would like to come back to this topic at a later time, perhaps today.
Perhaps when you recognize how you can elevate ritual to a plateau of
religious experience, and an augmentation of reality. But for now I will
hush my voice and listen for the voice of another who will join us. 
Matthew: Jesus, or Christ Michael is here.
MICHAEL: This is a day of rejoicing, for you are coming to a new
threshold of entering upon understanding beyond that of your years or
beyond your life’s experience as expected. 
Your thoughts and prayers and concerns have been spent of late in concern
over the warlike rituals that have been displayed, and for good reason
your concerns have been exhibited as children going to their father,
asking that the nasty man not be allowed to come near you. This is of
concern to me, as I dread my children’s pleading for protection. It is of
concern to me that your wishes, your hopes, and your dreams are
threatened with the act of violence. The very threat is enough to unnerve
the most stalwart among you. 
This is a discussion that is not meant to be foreboding or dark cloud by
intent, but rather to tell you that your concerns and your fears are well
beyond that which anyone expects of their offspring. No one brings
children into the world to have them look at the threats that you are
living with from day to day. I can only remove the trepidation, the
uncertainty, and the removal of joy from your path for so long before you
need to stand with me and acknowledge that no thing, no one, no threat
will abide beyond your imagination. 
It is time for you to grow up and to join with me as a being of faith and
light, and knowing your rightful place in the universe, to bless that
which you find abhorrent, to bring light to that which you find in
darkness, and to be cocreators with me in this hour of uncertainty and
despair to many. If the worst were to happen, and lives are lost beyond
count, I expect you to be with me as one heart beats, as each breath is
exhaled, to be in unison with my heart, to lift up that which you behold
in our midst. I ask you to become one with me and no longer simply grasp
my leg for protection. 
I need you to be with me as the enlargement of the concentric circle, to
enable and to invite those who have been less fortunate in their
awareness, less fortunate in their environmental protections, and less
fortunate in their outlook and dimensional perception, to welcome them as
one with us now and for all time, so that as our discussion continues
with the talk of ritual, to have a better understanding and to include
ritual beyond the often deadened practice that it becomes, to lift your
hearts and your minds, to go beyond where you are typically laden during
your daily and nightly hours, to raise your hearts and your minds to be
one with me as I am with you.
Much as was the admonishment at the time in the Garden [of Gethsemane]
when I asked Peter and others to stay awake while I prayed. They too fell
asleep. They were unable to withstand that which I asked, which was not
so much the importance of staying awake; it was asking for a camaraderie,
as fellows of the Christ oneness, to be at one while I convened with my
Father. This is what I ask of you as well, now and always. As the trouble
approaches, and as the angel of death whisks through the village and
leaves in its path a wake of uncertainty, I ask you to stand with me,
strong and forbearing, holding up that which would not have support,
being with me in all seasons so that the reception line to the oneness
with the Father may reach as far as the eye can see.
I wish you well in your travels, whether it be from here to across the
room, or from where you are to the furthest point in the Universe, to
know that wherever you are, there I AM. Wherever I AM, you are as well. I
AM with you in all ways, for all time, and may the peace that pervaded
all minds for all time on the day of resurrection, be with you now and
always, as I look forward to the time that you will know me as I know
you. I love you. I wish you all that life has to offer, both here and
throughout the far reaches of time. I love you. Amen.
TOMAS: Amen, Teacher. Master Teacher. 
I am always delighted to hear him speak through you mortals. In any
fashion, it delights me to perceive the Master’s reality being revealed.
It is in this precise context that I ask you to invest Him in your habits
of existence and raise your existence thus to a sacred ritual of life.
Yes, those of you who are students of the Urantia text recognize that God
is not interested in rituals, but man is, and knowing that man is
interested in and impressed with rituals is why I called the topic to
your attention, for as you look for ways in which you may express the
divine will in your life, the introduction of new rituals, such as the
one we enjoy, is a method of lifting up the mundane to the exalted,
because you have invested your will in what is transpiring.
What have you gained from this year of our association? Let me pointedly
call upon you and ask you to verbalize—for your Teachers and for each
other, for yourselves and for your comprehension of divinity - what
impact, if any, this past year has given you.
ELENA: I’ll burst out first since that is what is common for me to do.
One of the best benefits that I think - One! And I’m sure I’ll think of
many - but this is the one that came first to mind, is having a group
that I can feel the love that we do among us, and have a vehicle or a
place where we can discuss openly ... because I can’t say that I’ve ever
had a place that I could openly discuss what I felt to be true about what
is called religion or the love of God. I felt that it’s more words, in
other places, and I think it’s more truthful or closer to the truth, in
this group than I ever have. I feel like I am a part of this group and I
feel like I am a member of it, rather than for pretty much the rest of my
entire life ... not being a member. Being able to benefit from a group,
but not wanting to formally join, and I do feel like a formal member of,
certainly, the things that we discuss and the Teachers, too.
MATTHEW: In a similar way, I appreciate the opportunity to meet with
those of us who appreciate hearing celestial teachers share their time
and space with us, and to be able to get teachings that are significant,
that can help us to adjust our lives to be more Christ centered, but it’s
mainly the opportunity to have a group that, in like mind, or as
like-mind as we know it to be, can appreciate an exciting and otherwise
not available experience that you would get in any other setting. 
ESMARELDA: This past year I have been helped because I have always been
reticent and for many, many years I have just not attended anything with
regularity, and didn’t want to attend, because I tend to kind of be
private and by myself, so this has been a good experience for me because
I’ve learned to love a lot more than I ever did before. This group is
wonderful. And I feel like it is family and I appreciate you so much,
Tomas. You have been a good Teacher, and it’s been very, very beneficial
to me in many ways.
MYRA: I also have really looked forward to the whole year. A year ago I
did not really know what I was going into, but I did it! (Laughter) And
this group is very, very special to me. I think this year professionally
has been very difficult, and so I am very thankful for my group, and for
you Tomas, because you keep me centered and knowing that although I’m
going through some hard times, I can get through this, so ... I guess I
would thank you for your talks and keeping me centered. And for the rest
of you, thank you, also.
ELENA: This is our family.
MYRA: Um-hum.
ESMARELDA: And Tomas, too. Tomas, you feel like family. You really
do. It’s a nice feeling to feel the love that’s in the group and from
you, and we return it.
TOMAS: I am honored that you regard me as a relative. I truly am your
Uncle Tomas, in that I am younger brother of your Father Michael. I am
also your elder brother in experience, but I am your peer in terms of our
ability to enjoy the adventure together of discovery of the many aspects
of the divine. We marvel also in this relationship, we who have been
privileged to host a teacher base such as this, and access those who will
open themselves to the transmitting/receiving experience even when in
relative isolation. 
But I believe it is apparent from your sharing that each of you have
benefited from the freedom to become more of what your combined nature of
relationship between your human personhood and your morontial reality.
Becoming who you are is a process, and being in such an environment
affords you the opportunity to experiment with who you are in loving and
accepting association by your brothers and sisters. 
We have given each other experiential dimension. We have shown forth the
fruits of the spirit. We have tasted the wine. We have been inspired to
broach life with more courage, more conviction, and more hope. We have
seen the Father in action, and we have seen how we long for more. We have
admired how steadfast one another is in that which is meaningful, that
which is our common denominator, our attachment to, dependency on, and
love for God, the spirit which unites us. We are truly blessed, we who
have this sanctuary of reality into which we commit ourselves in trust of
each other and in trust of our Maker every week and even, individually,
every day, even now yearn to learn more and be more and serve more in the
light of this ever-expanding, ever-gratifying experience.
I have a suggestion for the week for evidencing a basic preachment of
Jesus, that being to love your enemies, to love those who spitefully use
you and abuse you. Be overt in your prayer of loving your enemies, and
present them this week with a gift. That person which most irritates you,
that person who causes you most grief, that individual who demonstrates
the most godless behavior - present them with a gift, an actual, physical
representation of truth, beauty and goodness. A greeting card, a bouquet
of flowers, a can of oil, or anything that constitutes a gesture of
affection, appreciation, or even basic acknowledgement, in obedience to
the realization that love is more powerful than hate. 
Establish a new habit in your life of wishing good for those who are most
difficult, and perhaps in this way you can contribute to their hunger,
which will in turn whet their appetite to learn more of this divine
madness which we employ and enjoy as partakers of this ennobling
experience of enjoying, acknowledging and celebrating our Sonship in this
Family of Man. Be it mortal man or infinite man, all of us are creatures
of the Creator, offspring of the divine. All of us are related. Let us
exalt our potential. 
I have lectured extensively this afternoon, in appreciation of your
receptivity. Perhaps it is the atmosphere allowing your hearts to be
open. Are there questions? 
MATTHEW: No questions. Just a comment that your request is a difficult
one, on a practical or human level, but what a great idea for
illustrating the point to rise above the human to incorporate the divine.
I am challenged with those that I have to consider to do that with.
Fortunately there is no one immediately in my life who is a pain in my
side, other than in my former life, so I have to reach back to do that,
perhaps, but it doesn’t matter where or when, it’s ... it’s a tall order,
but what a great idea. The human side of me finds it painful but the
divine side delights in, but I have to work through the human side to get
there, so (group chuckles).
ESMARELDA: I’m trying to think of somebody that really irritated me!
THOROAH: Whatever we do, don’t give each other gifts.
MATTHEW: Yeah! (Group laughter) Oh, thank you!
ESMARELDA: I can’t think of anybody ...
ELENU: Well, Bush!
ESMARELDA: I’m not going to send George Bush anything. Well, now, I’ll
pray for him and all that, but to literally send him a gift, that’s ...
TOMAS: I am remiss perhaps in not providing parameters. I am talking
about in your immediate day to day lives in the immediate vicinity of
your existence, and it’s not like you have to assign an unpleasantness to
anyone at the moment, and yet if indeed through the week you encounter a
situation which causes you to rise up in a less than divine manner,
perhaps it will occur to you at that instant to return evil with good, to
smile instead of frown, to give the gift of forgiveness rather than an
attitude of alienation. It is an exercise worthy of my one year old
students. 
ESMARELDA: That makes it sound ... That’s a real good explanation. It
makes me feel better about how to react and how to act.
[Indistinguishable remarks from Myra and Matthew about gifts for their
students.]
TOMAS: Your students are not your enemies. (Laughter) No teacher can
sustain an attitude like that and be effective.
[They drive me crazy, though!]
TOMAS: It is an exercise in establishing in your mind, your heart, and
your pattern, a ritual of forgiveness and a demonstration of your
forgiveness - not merely praying, but telling them they are being prayed
for; not merely forgiving them, but for giving them a gift, if you will,
to demonstrate to them and to yourself the folly of retaining barriers or
responding out of sarcasm or cynicism, which only fuels the fire of fury.
A soft answer turns away wrath. Practice it in your personal life and
know that it can be done. Next week, perhaps you will remember to tell me
how effective it was. Anything else?
Tomorrow then, enjoy the Irish ritual of the wearing of the green.
ELENA: But Tomas, before you leave, thank you for being here as our
teacher for year, for that is a great gift in itself, and we each—I know
- consider it a big gift, but just so that YOU know that, how much we
value the time, too. It’s a wonderful thing to celebrate a year with you.
TOMAS: You are surely welcome, my beloveds. But, as we are paused, I will
be an agent here for my T/R Gerdean, who would like to know how Thoroah
has assessed his year in association with this group.
THOROAH: (Gesturing) Eh! (Group chuckles) Well, the association with the
group is very special, and everybody has covered that pretty well. As far
as the experiential part of it, I think that important to me, just the
experiential continuation of my relationship with spirit reality, because
you and other mentors are so much a part of my life, I have had occasion
in the past couple days to talk to some people about that and how I
sometimes take it for granted, and there are people who don’t have the
advantage of being coddled as much as we do, and reassured, and
encouraged to stay the course. And the benefits are far more than I
realize. Other than that, it’s been, you know, ho hum. I jest.
ESMARELDA: One thing I’d like to mention is that we miss Carl and Janet.
ELENA: Yeah!
ESMARELDA: And it’s been a real privilege to know them and have the
association with them for the past year, too. 
ELENA: But I want to hear what Gerdean has to say, too.
TOMAS: Let me ask her. 
GERDEAN: Well, Tomas, I’m not going to answer you. I’m going
to answer the Teacher Corp. I’m too close to you. I would die without
you. I would have no fun at all! Life would just be a burden of
existence. I don’t do isolation well. Thank you.
TOMAS: It’s a fair exchange, Gerdean. We would not live without you,
either. It is your voice that gives us hearing. And isn’t it the pinnacle
of such a habit as we have developed, of loving one another, that in
truth, all of our love is founded in the love of Our Father, without
which none of us would be. Peace be upon you. Amen and farewell.