[tmtranscripts] Nebadonia 8.8.05

[JERRY LANE]

Dear Folks,    No time--gotta go, but here She is!  Take care, Jerry.

NEBADONIA--August 8, 2005

Marin TM Group—Mill Valley, California, U.S.A.

NEBADONIA—T/R-JL

(The reason for our existence—sharing)

(Humans are—almost—stuck with opportunity)

(The spiritual pain of boredom)

(Keeping up with universal evolution)

(There is no predestination, but there is an  ideal way to live)

(The line between you, Michael, and Myself)

(Being aware of, and accepting uncertainty)

(The lures of maturity; narcissism)

(Seeing through the pseudo-wisdom of generalities)

(Be your own Renaissance Person; the world–wide Renaissance)

Prayer:  Dear Mother and Michael,    How really great this is--having You in 
our lives like this.  We feel especially blessed to be alive at this 
critical phase of our world’s history.  As we read and reread Your lessons 
and let their meaning soak in and affect us, we feel again Your love, and 
experience again Your peace and reassurance.  Slowly it dawns on us that 
this world, this whole universe we live in is not only full of enormous, 
mysterious physical and material happenings, but it is peopled by hundreds 
of different kinds of personal beings.  And so it is not only what is behind 
the phenomena of the universe, but who, leading all the way up to that 
ultimate person, God himself.  So we thank You very sincerely for helping 
bring God into our lives as a person.  Amen.

(The reason for our existence—sharing)

NEDADONIA:  Good evening, My children, this is your mother, Nebadonia.  I 
welcome and appreciate--your appreciation of Me and these insights and 
understandings I am able to offer you.  As your Urantia Book puts it so 
succinctly, the one English word that most closely defines what We mean by 
the attributes of divinity, that word is—sharing; and it is such a delight 
for Us to be able to share what We can with you. We tease you with just a 
little bit more than what you may be able to understand immediately, and so 
We appreciate too this extra effort you put into understanding our lessons, 
really opening your hearts and minds to feel the impact of Our words, to 
feel the love We have for you.

As Michael said last week, you can think of this sharing as the reason our 
Father created such a vast universe and then peopled it with such a wide 
range of beings--so that He could share creation with so many others.  You 
have personal beings such as the Architects of the Master Universe who 
decide that, here’s an empty space where we can put another galaxy.  For 
even on this level, God is sharing His creativity; and then all the way down 
to human beings, creating you in such a way that you have an opportunity to 
creatively shape your own lives.

This is that precious gift of freedom wherein you can actually define a 
human being as a creature of will dignity.  This is the dignity of being 
able to choose to a large extent what you will do, what you will learn, what 
abilities you will acquire, what your attitude towards your fellows will be. 
  Directly following this is the kind of relationships you will be able to 
have with your fellows.  This is such a power and an opportunity that you 
are almost--you might say--stuck with it.   It’s almost unavoidable.  Indeed 
it is unavoidable if you wish to fulfill the potential you were created 
with.  The mind and spirit, very much like a physical muscle, need exercise. 
  You need to put your decisions into play and then be open and accepting of 
the feedback you get from reality as to what works and what doesn’t, and 
why.  This is the great adventure.

(Humans are—almost—stuck with opportunity)

We say you are almost stuck with this opportunity because your freedom even 
entails missing opportunities.  In a way, time is relentless.  You can think 
of time as being one of God’s laws for try as you may, you cannot slow it or 
call back a moment of it.  And even though you have a potential eternity of 
time in which to live, the very fact that it is always now means, however, 
how you are using this now, right now, is crucial to your growing all you 
can.  This is why We have given so many lessons on helping you perceive 
various ways in which you are missing opportunity.

The main one of these is falling into a state of mind, or sometimes 
deliberately trying to create a state of mind in which nothing seems to 
change.  This is that
“bubble of familiarity”--We coined a phrase to help you see.  Often you’re 
only perceiving that aspect of reality which keeps repeating itself as day 
follows day, weeks follow weeks, and so forth for months and even years.  By 
its very nature this mis-perception is hard to notice, especially for those 
souls who feel so world-weary they do not really want to fully wake up and 
experience the aspect of reality that is new each day.  Others have built up 
a kind of momentum of wealth or leisure such that they wish to disengage 
from any kind of feedback from a greater reality, create their own 
self-contained little world about themselves, and close the door.

Then too there are those who have been severely injured and have known a 
great deal of pain, physical or mental or even spiritual, for whom the 
adventure no longer seems worth the price it has cost them.  They find 
themselves paralyzed with fear, and feel they are being dragged through life 
haphazardly by a very cruel or indifferent fate.  And so in becoming 
fatalistic they are unconsciously giving consent to what is tormenting them.

(The spiritual pain of boredom)

These are various ways by which people close down and choose not to be open 
to that aspect of reality that is renewing itself.  Then there is no denying 
that potential opportunities of growth, of happiness, of adventure, of 
engaging playfully and creatively with their fellows, are given over to a 
dull, paralyzing layer of habit.  Clinging to the same routine day after 
day, they sometimes even express it, only half-consciously, as “killing 
time.”  Is there anything so spiritually painful as boredom?  Is there any 
more deadly acquiescence right within life than accepting this pain?  This 
pain is your soul screaming for you to live.  Use your creativity to pull 
yourself out of this hole you’ve stumbled into.  Use this time, which is 
God’s greatest gift, to not miss the uniqueness of this moment which will 
never happen again quite this way.

(Keeping up with universal evolution)

Indeed, it takes great nerve to perceive and accept, then, that there is a 
universe-wide evolution taking place.  This can be rather scary for it 
implies that each personal individual needs to keep up.  This is another of 
those ironies where the full acceptance and delight in this universal 
growth, this alone carries you along--welcoming change, looking forward to 
growing your creative abilities to meet ever greater challenges, ever 
broader fields of play.  You trust in these God-given abilities and 
potential you have.  Your trust in yourself, your trust in Us, your 
spiritual parents, and your trust in God, our Universal Father; these are 
not ultimately separate.

You are capable of knowing a wonderful, transcendent balance between 
yourself all Other.  For any truly loving parent wants above all for their 
children to be loving and strong, self-reliant yet capable of the most 
intimate and touching prayer, never too shy or proud to ask for help, 
knowing and trusting it is only by this asking for help, this sincere 
prayer, can you live up to your full potential--using Our help.  Nothing 
grieves Our heart more than to see Our children killing time.  For this is 
life itself.

(There is no predestination, but there is an  ideal way to live)

There is no predestination as your more fatalistic fellows would have you 
believe.  Yet within each moment of your life there is an ideal way for you 
to be spending that particular moment.  So as you stand on the cusp of each 
new moment, with all you have been somewhat behind you, standing--as We have 
given you the illustration--on the edge of a great chasm of the unknown, you 
can feel for this ideal.  The more open you are to all dimensions, including 
the past and how you’ve truly lived your life--all the ups and downs, the 
trials, the successes, the mistakes; the more you are in possession what 
really happened in all of its fullness--the more you can flesh out this 
ideal of the next step with true wisdom.  In other words, the more you are 
in possession of what worked, and what didn’t, and why, the more you feed 
your imagination.  Then you let your imagination feed you--with what you 
have not yet tried, but just might be possible.  Do you see any boredom in 
this scenario, My children?  Almost automatically you are out of your bubble 
of familiarity and living as a fully engaged spiritual being.  You are 
playfully trying things, dancing long with life.  You are welcoming the 
feedback because reality is now your partner, your dance partner.  You are 
thriving in this not-being-alone, not being self-absorbed.

This is all part of your free will.  You even have the freedom of refusing 
to exercise it, letting it grow stagnant and stale.  But Oh, We do ask you, 
dear children: Stretch yourselves.  Open your arms and embrace reality.  
Realize how much you are capable of being one with it.  It is the solid wind 
under the wings of your soul.  But you have to move those wings to feel it.  
Jump in, use yourselves up.  Use Us.  And then rest.  Let go into the sweet 
oblivion of sleep, that wonderful, well-earned sleep, trusting our Father to 
put you back together again.  When you awake you may be a little stiff and 
sore for the exercise, but it will be the sweet ache of accomplishment.  And 
as you stretch, working out all those little aches and pains, don’t be 
surprised to feel your soul rejoicing.  So much is in your own hands, My 
children.  Glory in the fact.  Use them well.

If you have any questions or comments, I would welcome hearing them.

Student:  Mother, I have a comment and a question. The comment is actually a 
heartfelt Thank You for all the changes You and Father Michael have made in 
me with the support of Donna from the Center for Christ Consciousness.  I’m 
beginning to feel as though I’m a real human being again, and that I’m 
getting closer to You and Father Michael in experience.  So truly, thank You 
for all Your support, and all the changes.

The question is: where is the dividing line between Your support for us, and 
what we’re supposed to be doing on our own?

NEBADONIA:  Dear C, thank you for your appreciation.  We joyfully accept 
your heartfelt thanks.  It’s such a glory for Us to see Our children putting 
their hearts and souls into what We offer, and exercising their faith to 
give it a try.

(The line between you, Michael, and Myself)

As to your question, there is no hard and fast line between us.  You as a 
personality created by God have intrinsic qualities that you develop and 
use, yet throughout this entire life you have known, you have never 
exercised them strictly alone.  Your Thought Adjuster--a Mystery Monitor of 
God has been part of your mind, offering you ideas completely selflessly 
since your earliest memories of four or five years old.  This presence of 
God in your mind has also helped give you an ability to experience Michael’s 
Spirit of Truth whenever you sincerely asked yourself, what was what, when 
any two or more contrary ideas or notions presented themselves.  You used 
Michael’s Sprit of Truth to help sort them out.

Similarly, you have been using My Mind Adjuncts; you literally live within 
these dimensions My mind.  From the time you were born you began to 
encounter and use these Adjuncts to help you think, to reason, to have the 
courage and the curiosity to explore your world.  They help you be sociable 
with your fellows.  Once you reach a certain point of maturity, they help 
establish in you a feeling of thankfulness for this life you are living--My 
Adjunct of Worship.

Last week Michael answered a question specifically about mind, not so much 
what to do with your physical body in terms of work, or exercise, or play, 
nor even your spirit except as a kind of orientation.  For if you would seek 
to have or share Our mind, you orient your own mind towards being 
spontaneous, being kind of loose and freewheeling and original with respect 
to what’s happening to you.  This is being creative, this being open to let 
ideas occur to you, to approach things with curiosity, to really wonder what 
is this in front of you though you may have seen it dozens of times before.  
This originating wonder is mainly, My son, what you can do for yourself.  
Understand and seek this attitude towards your life, for this is something 
you can initiate.  This is something you can create on your own for 
yourself--this curiosity and this wonder.

For then it calls upon your own wisdom, your own soul’s wealth of all your 
life’s experiences, and it calls upon Us to help you solve this delightful 
riddle of your existence.  So I think this is the greatest gift you can give 
yourself, My son.  This is what you can do for yourself most sincerely.  
Keep an open mind. Treasure your curiosity.  Does this answer your question?

Student:  Yes, Mother, thank You.  It begins to answer it.  I see now that I 
had lost that curiosity, that interest in what’s going on, and the wonder of 
life. Somehow, the only way I can think of to say it, the rest of my mind 
didn’t match up to this way of curiosity.  Something prevented it from being 
actualized.  I’m not quite sure how to say it, but there is some 
disappointment in all that, in looking at life and wondering with curiosity 
and interest as a little child does.  And it was more painful than it seemed 
to be worth, so I quit doing it for a long time.  But I think now I’m mature 
enough to be able to go back and do it again.  In fact, I know I will.

(Being aware of, and accepting uncertainty)

NEBADONIA:  Will you recall We gave a series of lessons on the need to 
accept an amount of uncertainty in your life in order to fully exercise your 
curiosity? This is mainly what folks try to avoid--this feeling of 
uncertainty.  Seen from their viewpoint, it seems absurd to accept this 
feeling of not knowing what is happening, or not knowing what’s coming next. 
  Unfortunately so many folks shut down their curiosity and their wonder and 
try to cling to a certainty of life in what has already happened.

But life is not certain—that way.  Life is dynamic and alive.  It cannot be 
held fixed.  You have that wonderful saying that you cannot hold a river in 
a cup, only a cup of water.  And so yes, you are right My son, 
disappointments and small failures at various endeavors can lead you to fear 
this uncertainty, or simply feel it’s not right to have uncertainty in your 
life.  But the fixity of being certain is only an illusion.  Like any 
illusion it wastes valuable time and effort to maintain.  So think about 
this.  Think about what the feeling of uncertainty is, and whether you 
really need to fear it.

It takes a deep understanding to actually accept uncertainty in the very 
moment you are caught up in it, and it is not just some abstraction We are 
talking about.  It’s when you’re extending your foot out into the unknown 
and there’s not yet any ground beneath your foot; yet you are stepping out 
anyway.  This is why Michael and I respect that, from a human viewpoint, 
life can be a bit scary.  This is true.  There’s a true adventure happening, 
which is why tonight I elaborated on different ways by which folks try to 
avoid it, yet die a little each day if they do.  There’s nothing so 
precious, My son, as trust in our Father who set life up this way in His 
unfathomable wisdom and love.  Does this help you see the whole picture?

Student:  Yes, Mother, it certainly does.  I’m looking at uncertainty in a 
different light now than I did before.  It’s still a little bit 
fearsome--fearful rather, but it’s going to be there anyway, whether I like 
it or not.  So thank You very much again.

NEBADONIA:  You are very welcome.  Be in My love.

Student:  Dear Nebadonia, I could see my question being answered as You were 
working with C, but my question for the sake of further enlightenment is 
based on Rodan of Alexandria: the lures of maturity.  (Ed: in the Urantia 
book)  Could You elaborate further how I can benefit from these lures of 
maturity and less from animal drives and repression?  I know that Rodan was 
a great philosopher, and it’s a wonderful attitude, and I accept the fear of 
the unknown fairly well.  I still wish I could feel the lures of maturity 
more.  I appreciate any help.  Thank You.

(The lures of maturity; narcissism)

NEBADONIA:  Yes V, let’s consider what a lure is, what it is to be alluring. 
  It’s as if something in the future is calling to you, and this could be a 
person.  And then as you make out the features of this person calling to you 
from the future, you realize it is yourself.  In this case it’s a hopefully 
more mature you, calling to you and encouraging you to make a good effort to 
keep growing--as We expressed tonight--make good use of your time so you 
will be a more mature you in the future.  So let’s turn it around, just for 
the fun of it, shall we?

Student:  All right.

NEBADONIA:  Here you are now; what would you have to say to a younger you? 
(group laughs)  Because you are a more mature you, what lure could you offer 
yourself say, ten years ago?  Just think about this a bit.

The lures of maturity…  We have been trying to give you a feel of a parallel 
reality going along with you, and growing, that is your soul, your life’s 
experiences, seen from your Father Fragment’s spiritual viewpoint.  As We 
have said tonight, it is so much more ideal to have these experiences 
various and broad.  So this is one of the lures of maturity, this growth in 
wisdom stemming from this great variety of interests and activities that 
feed your soul.

We caution you that this does not mean life will get easier, in the sense of 
being effortless.  Rather, in maturity there is a kind of strong, well-tried 
and exercised acceptance of the effort involved that gives meaning to life.  
This enables meaning itself to grow, so even though effort will always be 
required and necessary, the wisdom of maturity can welcome this effort for 
the increasing meaning it gives.

Maturity can offer the insight that nothing is so spiritually painful as 
meaninglessness.  It’s a close cousin to that other pain I mentioned 
earlier--boredom.  In fact those who are trapped in a experience of 
meaninglessness are what you often call insane.  There can be no greater 
living hell than the feeling of meaning draining out of life.  So an 
increasing meaning can be a great lure of maturity, encouraging you to 
welcome the effort required to reach for, and do your best.  Does this make 
sense to you, My son?

Student:  Yes, it makes wonderful sense Nebadonia.  As you were talking I 
hope I wasn’t distracted with another question.  It seems to be looming so 
much in American society and even in China…is narcissism really a valid 
word?  Are we suffering from that too much now with our modern society and 
self-absorption? Is that an overrated word, or can You use it to add to 
wisdom, for the record and for mankind?

NEBADONIA:  Well, it’s certainly not a new phenomenon.  The word comes from 
olden Greek mythology, of the fellow who fell in love with his own 
reflection in a pool of water, and then ended up drowning trying to embrace 
himself.  You might think of narcissism as the exact opposite of the 
spiritual blessing of self-forgetfulness.  It’s not being able to forget 
yourself.  It’s going through life relating everything to yourself.  No 
matter what someone says to you in a conversation, you immediately try to 
either go one-up and top it with something you’ve done, or you very 
mis-appropriately refer it to something in your own life.

So a person who is narcissistic is terribly trapped; he’s a prisoner of 
self.  Nothing much seems to have independent life outside of himself.  He 
risks going through his life missing a whole universe happening all around 
him, all these hundreds of very discrete individuals passing by in a blur of 
only how they relate to him.  It’s a terribly pitiful condition and it’s 
simply a hallmark of immaturity.  To a degree most individuals pass through 
a phase of this, because it takes a strong and self-confident ego—your 
perception of yourself--to be able to turn around and relinquish this, to 
turn outward to enjoy this enormous world and universe surrounding you, 
independent of you.

But keep in mind My son, this is a very individual quality, and so it’s too 
much an abstract generality when applied to any large group of people.  It’s 
a bit like the old puzzle where each sex is constantly wondering what the 
other one wants.  Individual men, shall we say, can be constantly puzzled 
at: what do women want?--never realizing this “women” is only a generality 
in their own minds and has no other actual existence.  Because here comes 
this woman, then here comes another one.  This one’s eighteen, and this one 
is thirty-five; the next one is seventy-two.  This one wants excitement; 
this other one wants nothing to do with excitement.  You see what I mean?  
(Group laughs)

(Seeing through the pseudo-wisdom of generalities)

This is where the wonderful blessing of self-forgetfulness comes in from a 
mature self-confidence, as you offered in your prayer several weeks ago.  
You can let go and forget yourself, and start to enjoy all these unique 
individuals who are no longer coming to you through a screen of your own 
generalities—which are a kind of immature pseudo-wisdom.  Yet certainly with 
an increasing amount of leisure and wealth individuals are capable of 
exercising a more narcissistic and egoistic orientation than more primitive 
human beings who were pinned down throughout their days with the struggle to 
survive, and had to pay attention vigilantly outwards.

And so, hopefully, narcissism is just a phase that various individuals will 
pass through, get their fill of, and then be rescued by their own curiosity 
as to what lies beyond themselves.  As I said, we can only pity them if they 
get arrested at this stage.  Does this answer your question more fully?

Student:  Yes--wonderful, light and lively answer to a sort of an over-used 
term: very insightful.  I hope You believe about this…ah…for a long time.  
Thank You.

NEBADONIA:  You are very welcome.  Be in My love.

(Be your own Renaissance Person; the world–wide Renaissance)

Well, My children, I hope this evening has given you a feeling of 
encouragement and inspiration to be your own Renaissance Person.  And also 
then, to forget about yourselves, and look around, and really thrill in the 
fact: the whole world is entering an enormous period of Renaissance.  And 
like the one that happened in Europe several centuries ago and was given 
this name, if you go back and look at that time very carefully, you will 
notice that for many of those living through it--because there was such a 
shake-up of tradition, and a destroying of old habits of thought and 
comfortable, established ways of seeing things--it was a very scary time.

It was a time when many individuals were even tortured and put to death for 
their disbelief and their curiosity—the curiosity which led to such a 
blossoming of scientific thought.  So too today on Urantia, as universal 
communication tends to shrink the world and cultures are being pressed into 
a much tighter embrace of each other, there is an enormous polarity taking 
place.  People are tending to be pushed into extreme polar expressions of 
what would otherwise be more moderate beliefs in isolation.

You can only try to personally avoid this yourself, and keep your balance, 
by not identifying with these rather polar extremes--socially, politically, 
or culturally.  Do your best to, in your heart, identify with the whole of 
mankind.  Open your heart to those who are truly suffering because of the 
rigidity of their cultural pride, and pray that they can find the good grace 
within their lives to let go these stereotypical ways of seeing things.

As I said in My last lesson, this will require a respect for the diversity 
of culture and the whole historical evolution of the different races and 
cultures which has brought you to this point.  But that in turn relies on 
each individual feeling strong and at peace within himself or herself with 
their own true past experiences--in other words--what absolutely happened, 
not by mere comparison to something or someone else.  People sometimes feel 
belittled in their comparisons to others, not knowing, as we just talked 
about, these comparative generalities are their own projections.

So as We have asked of you before, and you have recognized in your prayers 
to Us, try to beam back to everyone you encounter their absolute reality in 
your eyes.  Cherish them for all the diversity they were created in by first 
finding the peace in your own heart that will allow you to see them this 
way.  And be in My love.

Group:  Thank You, Mother


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