[tmtranscripts] The Paradise Principle [07-17-97.PGH] TOMAS

[Gerdean]

DATE: July 17, 1997
LOCATION: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
T/R: Gerdean

Stillness
URANTIA BOOK STUDY:

Paper 11, THE ETERNAL ISLE OF PARADISE, page 120: (3) Upper Paradise; (4) Peripheral Paradise; (5) Nether Paradise; (6) Space Respiration; (7) Space Functions of Paradise; (8) Paradise Gravity; and (9) The Uniqueness of Paradise

TEACHER: TOMAS 
TOPIC: The Paradise Principle

Group: Good evening, Tomas.

TOMAS: Good evening to you, also. It is wonderful to be here and how we have enjoyed your studies! How diligently you have applied yourself to the comprehension of a very vast and very complex concept. I have come this evening to, hopefully, help you understand some of what you have read regarding Paradise, and it ties in very nicely with my on-going lesson from the beginning having to do with the mandate to "Be ye perfect, even as I am perfect" - that mandate which the Father has given all of his creation, including myself.

Many moons ago I spoke with you regarding your being a microcosm of the universe, and I would get more specific now regarding this universe. More to the point, that you yourself, as an extension of the creation of the Father, are a microcosm of Paradise perfection as well. Let us apply the brain to this concept more than the heart, for your understanding, and consider yourself now: 

Within yourself there is paradise, where God lives -- your inner citadel of the spirit. When you practice stillness, you set aside your physical interests and put at rest your mental activities and you focus on the living reality of the Father, and when you attain ideal stillness, you are experiencing your own version of Upper Paradise. This is where God lives. There is no time and no space. There is no beginning and no ending. There is the Divine Presence, there is perfection, there is total peace and there is love.

This you can equate to yourself, can you not? 

Hester: Yes.

TOMAS: Now, as you extend yourself, expand yourself in your microcosm of paradise, you have nether paradise, the underbelly of paradise wherein your nervous energies function, your unconscious and material energies function. And in the peripheral paradise you have the mental and emotional functions. In short, in you are the spiritual, the mental and the physical, and much of the physical is automatic, like breathing and pulse rate and your instinctual responses. 

And when, in your microcosm, your will is in accordance with His will, and you are set into action (as we discussed before), in you the brain tells the body then to function, and your arms and legs and mouth move and so forth. Now, in your microcosm universe, in your own personal Isle of Paradise, you have also pattern, and when your life is in accordance with the pattern of Paradise perfection, your life functions maximally, indeed supremely. You are not bothered by emotional stumbling blocks and your body functions appropriately. 

When you encounter others who are also seeking to do the will of the Father in heaven, they too are operating as a microcosm of the perfect pattern of Paradise, and the motives are understood, the behaviors can be understood, and the activities can be understood and even coordinated with yourself. You find harmony, relative harmony in the presence of those who also have the Father as the supreme, original I AM; life is difficult when you encounter those who feel that they are the universe itself! But this is old news; I will not dwell on that.

I only wanted to personalize for you, somewhat, the concept of Paradise, so that you can appreciate that in your own sphere of existence you can recognize the pattern as has been handed down through the various levels of creation to meet you, an animal-origin being, a finite creation. Now the Father can function in and through you to be perfect, in and through you in your realm.

I spoke to you last week regarding parables and this discourse this evening is much like a parable, for there are so many variations possible -- and additions and subtractions and clarifications ad infinitum. But even so, to help you understand the mandate and to help you understand how the Father is perfect in His realm and how His realm is perfect, you can draw an analogy, then, between His realm and your realm and see the similarities.

It is obviously then very necessary that you continue to relate to the reality of your divine understanding of Upper Paradise where your Source resides, your own God Fragment, your own partner in the ascent. As you understand it better, you can cooperate more fully with it.

This mini-lesson will be referred to again after you have had time to mull it over and personalize the importance of this Paper and why they would go into such great detail. The more you can begin to understand the concept of Paradise, even for you here and now, in terms of spirit reality, the more amenable your mind will be to further understanding of Paradise function as you go about your business, as you go about the Father's business, even in your life in the flesh.

Every now and again there is an opportunity for us to insert something that can provoke deep thought. I feel that this analogy is one of those. You may or may not agree, but we do have a tendency to spend so much time in the psychological realms, the emotional realms, the avenues of correction and so forth, that it is a rare opportunity to focus your actual and potential reality in terms of its immediate and academic relationship with the Father, and with the pattern of Paradise perfection.

More will be revealed in future Papers. Perhaps this will help you understand some of them better.

I am finished with my formal lesson. How are you this evening? 

Group: Good. Good.

TOMAS: I enjoyed your sharing earlier this evening but I did miss the structured sharing, your soulful sharing. In such an intimate group as this, it is almost inherent in its configuration that your conversations will be more personal and less extraneous, which is customary in a larger group, and so we did get somewhere, but this business of sharing the inner life is so satisfying an experience, I will continue to encourage the practice of sharing in a more structured way. One reason is so that you may begin to express more soulfully. Your soul has a reality independent of you, in a way. It is that part of you that will be eternal. It has different interests, you see.

You are not very chatty. Are you overwhelmed? Brain dead?

Hester: No. Listening.

TOMAS: Let me learn from you. What is on your mind?

Celeste: Well, on my mind is the fact that I love The Urantia Book! And when I'm reading it, I know I'm missing the message often, but I want that message! And I just feel that as time goes by I'll learn a little bit more, a little bit more. It does bother me at this time in my life that I'm still so slow at getting on with some of these new things.

TOMAS: These are indeed new things! And they are vast concepts. Not only do they stretch your previous understanding of Godhood and heaven, but they stretch the imagination in trying to visualize and decipher how this humongous organism is set up, like the horizontal and vertical that they discuss that would very well lend itself to an extended discussion of two hours with a blackboard and a pointer and perhaps even a calculator. It is a beginning, however, to your better comprehension. It is a thumbnail sketch of what yet may be learned. It is a good start.

I must tell you that I myself am studying it because I have not been to Paradise. I have, however, been aware of the many similarities between the Eternal Isle and Salvington, and so I offer you an even further, yet remote, comparison for your own wearing pleasure. I therefore derive much of my information, as you do, from records and reports and not from personal experience, except as I have access to how it is that the local universe of Nebadon functions.

And like you, I have my areas of interest and expertise. I am interested in sociology and anthropology and psychology and philosophy, but I am barred, through limited experience, in really understanding and relishing that which I have not yet experienced, as is the same for you.

Celeste: I think it's so exciting that you still have all these experiences to look forward to. I would've thought by now you would have every possible thing there is to experience.

TOMAS: You flatter me, but I am a youngster in perspective. I have not reached full spirit-attainment.

Celeste: Well, it does make me understand then that there is so much more to learn after we leave this earth, about all those subjects you mentioned, than we ever dreamed of.

TOMAS: There is a big segment of time in my future studies that will be devoted to science, and at that time I do hope to master an understanding of the Havona spheres, but whether or not I ever master that information is even beyond me. It is thrilling to learn. It has never been as enjoyable, however, as in connection with my experience with you, my pupils.

Hester: I wonder if I can insert here that there are so many avenues that have been opened just in this reading of all the different directions that we can go at one time, communally and individually, and it has explained in two pages, three pages, whatever we read, what has been trying to be explained for half a century! And yet in one setting I get all these lovely answers to things I knew existed and knew someday I would come into, it would be in my pathway, and that I would be there. And to have a preview of it was really a very fascinating thing for me. It's like things that I saw (and I use the word "see" because it is my mind seeing), happenings that I came onto 30 years ago, all of a sudden tonight came into view! And it's been very, very rewarding.

TOMAS: This is indeed rewarding, for you and for us, and this is the value of revelation. That which you read this evening is revelation. It has not been set forth before on your planet. That which responds to the truth therein is that in you which knows, that in you which responds to truth, your Thought Adjuster. It would resonate with the Spirit of Truth for you, and this is the gift of revelation.

This gift of revelation to the evolutionary children of time is a part of the divine love inherent in the Father. He does not overwhelm you with more than you can absorb, and as you have read this evening, even though much of it you purport to be beyond your comprehension, it is a beginning to a new understanding of the establishment of the universe, the gigantic and well-organized plane of existence that supervises and maintains all of space -- pervaded and unpervaded space.

That the First Source and Center is the Infinite Upholder of the universes is very satisfying to the soul and to the mind. Once you have allowed this revelation to settle itself into your core, you can rest assured, in every pore of your being, that things are well in hand, that the Father knows what He is doing, and if He knows what He is doing throughout the far-flung universe, He certainly knows what He is doing with you.

Celeste: Absolutely. I would agree.

TOMAS: And if He is so caring and attentive all to those details, [tape turned] Intellectual peace, indeed.

Elizabeth has often stressed how impressed she has been with this revelation of truth. I have heard her and many others mourn for those who have settled for less, who have been content with crumbs of truth (although even what you receive can be compared to crumbs in terms of how much more there is), and so this reception of truth is truly relative to your capacity and your desire for truth.

Those of you who hunger to know where you belong in the universe will find this information enthralling and satisfying. It was intended to bring you that satisfaction and assurance.

Celeste: Tomas, it's enthralling and satisfying to me even though I don't understand a lot of it. I love it! And I want to understand it.

TOMAS: And so you shall. And already it is making impressions in your deep mind, even in your immediate mind and, in time, further comprehension will prevail. But think on my words this evening, that as the Father indwells you, and as He has asked you to be perfect, and -- as we have discussed -- that when your mind is in desire of doing His will, when your Word and Thought are one with Him, your Deed is then a manifestation of His will.

So, in you, you have the capacity to be perfect by understanding that He dwells in you in this microcosm of perfection -- your microcosm of Paradise in your life here on Urantia. You have Him as your highest plane. You have your body to ground you and to support you. You have your mental and emotional realms in which to relate to all of humanity, to think and respond to your life. And so you have lots of resources to help you to be perfect. And to enjoy your perfection, your relative perfection.

Well, my daughters, I am sure that on top of all this deep reading my picturization has not made it easier for you to relax, and so I will desist. 

Hester: Please, wait! 

TOMAS: Yes.

Hester: I have to tell you, I am so relaxed it's disgusting, almost, in our frame of reference. You have just stepped into a dream I had in 1933 when I was in college and I was doing an extensive study, through high school and college, on the Bible, using the Bible itself as a textbook. Now according to these fences that you couldn't climb over, under or around, and I finally had to deal with it by saying, "When I'm ready to know, I'll know."

Well, you have no idea how many gates opened tonight. They ... I knew what you were saying. I understood what you were saying! I've lived what you were saying, because I promised when this happened to me in '33, I gave my entire life to God and said, "God, it's yours; I'll go with whatever." And I have gone with whatever through my entire life and I'm going to keep on doing it, but tonight has been one of those nice happenings, where all of a sudden you see why this happened, that happened, this happened, that happened. Not that you really needed to know, but it helps you keep going.

TOMAS: Indeed. 

Hester: So thank you.

TOMAS: You are very welcome. And thank you for your support of the process of revelation. Self-revelation, also, for the Father will help bring forth those flashes of reality that will add to your understanding of truth. This is growth. This is good. And so we have had fun. I would like to see you all have a good belly laugh. It is always good to break up in good humor. I could bring Merium in for that. Let us see if she is willing to help this very cerebral bunch this evening loosen up.

Hester: Well, we're sitting here with great big grins on our faces. You can't see that! We're happy!

Celeste: So true.

MERIUM: I am Merium and I will tell you a secret, girls. It is not so much so that you can lighten up, it's so that he himself can lighten up. (Group laughter)

Hester: Bless his heart.

MERIUM: He is so professorial sometimes, he needs to go out and shake a leg in order to get a grip on himself, and so he has sent me in to laugh with you and to just be, that we might all get back to where we can convene our lives on schedule. Remember, we are to keep balance in our life, and we must continue to take care of ourselves, as you were assigned last week. So keep up with those bubble baths and pedicures, and watch your menu and your choice of reading matter. Beware the news broadcasts and late night telephone calls. Say "hello" to the Father for me when you are in prayer.

I am glad to stop by to embrace you on behalf of the teachers and on behalf of our beloved Sovereign Michael. See you soon. Take care. Nighty-night.

Hester: Bless you.

Celeste: Thank you for coming. Thank Tomas, too.




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