<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT SIZE=2>Date: August 11, 2001
<BR>Location: Spokane, WA
<BR>T/R: Gerdean
<BR>TEACHERS & TOPICS:
<BR> DOLORES: Human Associations 101
<BR> TOMAS: More on Friendship
<BR>
<BR>TOMAS: Good afternoon. I am Tomas. I'll be here for just a few minutes and
<BR>then I'll give the group to the Teacher assistance of Dolores today for our
<BR>continued discussion on Human Associations. The highlight of my message to
<BR>you today is in reference to comfort zone. You may envision me this
<BR>afternoon in my chair with a glass of iced tea, having no apparent discomfort
<BR>from the oppressive heat of your local climate. The climatic extremes of
<BR>Urantia are a short-lived chapter in your existence. As you know, the
<BR>mansion worlds are more moderate, and infinitely less dramatic in their
<BR>geologic scope also.
<BR>
<BR>However, the rigors of material life are made in such a way as to allow you
<BR>to overcome a lot of these seeming handicaps through mastering the forces of
<BR>nature. Climbing the highest peak, shooting rapids - these sport-like
<BR>experiences to the more athletic are not possible on the more developed,
<BR>advanced worlds which have begun to temper and also on the morontia spheres
<BR>where such feats of accomplishment pale in comparison to the feats of
<BR>accomplishment you will approach in that reality.
<BR>
<BR>The Teachers on assignment here with you observe with fascination your lives
<BR>as you live it. With the exception of Abraham, all of us have come from
<BR>other worlds, and while there are similarities, Urantia is unique in itself.
<BR>As you know, my home world was one which was extreme, weather-wise, which was
<BR>a contributing factor to our adaptation to each other and to our way of life
<BR>which was contributory to our being able to elevate our behaviors into the
<BR>spheres of fraternity which ultimately gave us an environment approaching a
<BR>quality of life you might call light and life.
<BR>
<BR>I mention this as an indication of how it is possible that you can reach
<BR>great spiritual heights of accomplishment even while in the flesh. You can
<BR>master your environment sufficiently to allow your higher selves to rule the
<BR>day and overcome the down-pull of the heat, the cold, and other weather
<BR>constraints. You will think me a fraud for chatting about the weather.
<BR>Well, this is perhaps a preliminary to your on-going session now about Human
<BR>Associations, for when humans have no other idea of what to talk about, they
<BR>talk about the weather. This is one way of establishing a Human Association.
<BR> Let us then commence.
<BR>
<BR>DOLORES: I am Dolores. Good afternoon. I take up the pointer and my place
<BR>at the podium. I greet you. I thank you for attending our time with you in
<BR>joy and anticipation even in delight of our association. We have become
<BR>friends, yes, in our association and I'd like to stress today the human
<BR>quality that you all recognize as friendship. The fraternity born of
<BR>friendship is essential to having the platform readily available for you to
<BR>bridge the gap from this world to the next, from this reality to the higher
<BR>ground, from the awareness of the life in the flesh to the awareness of the
<BR>life as it is lived in the spirit.
<BR>
<BR>Let's go back, then, and look at your friendships throughout the course of
<BR>your life, the childhood associations. Have you a favorite memory of your
<BR>pals you can call up? Gerdean, what about you?
<BR>
<BR>GERDEAN: Yes, my best friend in childhood, or my best friend at one point in
<BR>time, was a gal named Donna and we took the bus together. We were probably
<BR>what you would call "school bus friends" because I didn't see her at school
<BR>that often and I didn't see her at home that often but we rode together
<BR>loyally on the bus every day. It somehow made the transition from my home
<BR>life to my school life more meaningful because she and I always shared a seat
<BR>on the bus.
<BR>
<BR>I can't remember having large numbers of children as friends. I had another
<BR>friend, Debby, but she was what you might call "painfully shy" and she would
<BR>never spend the night at my house, although I often spent the night at her
<BR>house. One time she did muster up the courage to spend the night away from
<BR>her home and in the middle of the night my dad had to take her back home, so
<BR>we didn't do that again but I visited her often and we had a good time. We
<BR>colored mostly, as I remember.
<BR>
<BR>And I had a fellah friend, Stanley, who lived across the railroad tracks in
<BR>another community we lived in when I was a child, and he would always come
<BR>across the tracks and we created this great building out of, I don't know
<BR>what they were, chicken crates or orange crates or something. It seems like
<BR>there must have been hundreds of them and we made a huge structure. It was
<BR>like a fort, I suppose, but we would play there by the hour and that was fun.
<BR> Most of my childhood friends were one-on-one situations.
<BR>
<BR>DOLORES: Thoroah?
<BR>
<BR>THOROAH: I think that my childhood was almost replete with sort of unrequited
<BR>friendships. Friendships always seemed to end up with getting hurt by each
<BR>other a lot. We'd get over those things, but I think there was a lot of
<BR>disappointment in friendships when I was young. My two closest friends
<BR>(besides my sister, Carol) and all the way through high school, were my
<BR>cousin Kent and my friend Tom and they both shared with me more of the
<BR>spiritual kinds of things than anybody else had. But I didn't have a lot of
<BR>close friends, and still don't, but I think I was vulnerable to being taken
<BR>advantage of, which wasn't necessarily my friends' fault as much as myself.
<BR>
<BR>DOLORES: You've both had the experience of Human Associations in your youth,
<BR>yes. The disappointments you mention are, in the main, because you are
<BR>molding your personality as children and adapting in ways that are not
<BR>required by your family. There are also family constraints put upon children
<BR>in their friendships, but I cannot help but notice that you both stressed the
<BR>reason for your friendship, the activity that bound you. The common interest
<BR>you shared. This common interest may have been temporary, but the congealing
<BR>factor of your association was because of your common love for a thing or an
<BR>activity or your common need.
<BR>
<BR>The fact of friendship has not changed that much in adulthood. You still
<BR>call those who are your friends those who have with you a commonality that
<BR>binds you or allows you to have sympathetic feelings. This is the basis of
<BR>clubs and social groups - stamp collectors, cheer leaders, canasta players,
<BR>hockey players, other fraternities and sororities of like-minded people which
<BR>constitute Human Associations.
<BR>
<BR>Many of you have asked about how it is that you can better promote the higher
<BR>reality in your daily life. The challenge is to look for openings, while the
<BR>more zealous begin to attack the problem with evangelical overtones, and even
<BR>while it may appear too simple, a one-on-one association is still the most
<BR>effective route to proselytizing. It is still the most efficient method of
<BR>bringing man to God and thus God to man. This is fortuitous, for not
<BR>everyone is as gregarious or as popular as those kids you may have looked at
<BR>with envy in grade school, those who were constantly swarmed by admirers or
<BR>supporters.
<BR>
<BR>But in those situations where you are in a group because of that group
<BR>purpose, it tends to constrain you in your attempts to open up the level of
<BR>communication to include the spirit interest. It's as if society isn't set
<BR>up to give God an opening, and here is where you feel your responsibility
<BR>lies, that you would bring truth, beauty and goodness to your more routine
<BR>affairs and associations rather than to make a public pronouncement or a big
<BR>noise about ministry.
<BR>
<BR>Well, you're on track. The key is in you, that same key that is in the story
<BR>about Jesus who would seek the key wherewith to unlock the door. In this
<BR>parable you can see that he, too, had to seek to find a way to open that
<BR>door. He was known to have said ‘knock and the door will be opened unto
<BR>you". He is depicted as standing at the door poised to knock. You are all
<BR>standing at the door of your friends, poised to knock on their heart in order
<BR>to let Him in, in order to open to spirit reality such that they will be
<BR>personally affected, and it is indeed a fine art form to be able to find the
<BR>key and open the door such that they will enter into the kingdom.
<BR>
<BR>How would you do this? What is your technique? Each of you have begun to
<BR>develop a technique that is reflecting a degree of success. Each of you are
<BR>aware of how you have attempted to approach the spirit in your Human
<BR>Associations only to have the door slammed in your face, and in these
<BR>experiences you have been able to review and ponder what it is you have done
<BR>that is offensive, how you could have done it better, or you have gotten
<BR>deeper insight into how resistant your fellow is to a new dimension, a
<BR>thought, or a purpose.
<BR>
<BR>This is not any different than when you were a child and your friend and you
<BR>had a parting of the ways because of a misunderstanding or hurt feelings.
<BR>Children aren't sophisticated in analyzing a behavior, and they are only
<BR>concerned about how it can get back to where it was when you were friends,
<BR>before their reactions or responses to your behavior or your comments caused
<BR>them to react or recoil. Sometimes the parents intervene on behalf of their
<BR>child and thwart your attempts to reconcile the friendship.
<BR>
<BR>In this adult life, too, the "adult" of the mortal sometimes interjects,
<BR>interferes, intercedes on behalf of the mortal and the association is
<BR>disrupted. The "adult" may be their own intellect, may be their own fears,
<BR>may be a reflection of their foundations, their own organizational loyalties
<BR>such as to their club or their church or their political ideologies. And
<BR>when this happens, the only recourse of the child is to mourn he passing of
<BR>that moment in time wherein their friendship was whole and go on to a new
<BR>phase of life, opening other doors to other adventures and experiences, other
<BR>Human Associations.
<BR>
<BR>The tendency is to stick with your own kind. This is one of the lessons from
<BR>childhood from the clan mentality. This is a cultural conditioning that
<BR>comes from antiquity, but it seriously limits your horizon in terms of Human
<BR>Associations with those outside the familiar. As you embark into
<BR>individuality and adulthood, it's possible for you then to develop a taste,
<BR>to encourage the propensity, to seek out that which is unfamiliar, bizarre,
<BR>or in contrast to that which you have always known, in order to exchange your
<BR>cultural composition with others.
<BR>
<BR>This ability greatly enhances the opportunity to minister "as you pass by" as
<BR>you can readily perceive from Jesus' experiences as a youth in the comings
<BR>and goings of the caravans with their strange scents and sounds. Thus
<BR>opening the doors of perception into other ways of life and in this wide-eyed
<BR>wondrous exchange of human associations, there is the wide-open door of
<BR>amazement and complete sharing. It's in so many ways so much easier to
<BR>approach the spirit in company of strangers than it is those whose company
<BR>you have long known and whose limitations are already familiar to you.
<BR>
<BR>Thus there is provided a range of opportunities, depending upon how far
<BR>afield you allow yourself to go from your home base. The child, Debby that
<BR>Gerdean spoke of is destined to live a sheltered life if she is of such a
<BR>nature as to cling so fast to her home scene. The midwayers may be able to
<BR>provide her an opportunity as a youth to reveal to her an adventurous side of
<BR>her character, but it will be her Adjuster who leads her into those
<BR>experiences which will be necessary for her to experience in order to open up
<BR>to that which is unfamiliar. As is true for all of you who have set out on
<BR>your path toward perfection attainment.
<BR>
<BR>The field of Human Associations is unlimited, especially today in your world
<BR>of mobility and technology. Each face on the TV is another story. Each
<BR>person you pass in your car is a story, a personality, a soul, a possible
<BR>friend. In conclusion today, I would like to add this element of Human
<BR>Associations, and that is that the spirit can be fostered without ever using
<BR>such terms as would be denounced by a mind protecting itself against
<BR>spiritual propaganda. The presence of God is within you and within them as
<BR>well, and that communion of spirit may be had, may be acknowledged, and may
<BR>be encouraged even in the simplest of communal activities.
<BR>
<BR>A moment in time can be made into and realized as a moment in eternity simply
<BR>by the quality of the sharing that is enjoyed by each of you. An instant in
<BR>time wherein you mutually share the expression of a child as it crosses her
<BR>face, and appreciating all the wonder and awareness of a youth coming into
<BR>its own as a life, is enough to bond your spirits and eventually this
<BR>encouragement of refinement of sentiment is adequate to support the courage
<BR>to broach upon other discussions and ideologies that may one day lead to an
<BR>acknowledgment of our Eternal Parents and a sublime worship thereof.
<BR>
<BR>But as you well know, a pint cannot hold a quart. Best to enjoy the cup as
<BR>it runneth over. In this way its capacities are made greater for yet more of
<BR>the living water. In this way, too, you are regarded not as a preacher and
<BR>not as a proselyte, but as a friend, and friendship is the pinnacle of Human
<BR>Associations, whether it be a "riding on the bus together friend" or a
<BR>"marriage partner for life friend" or a variation of all of the above. The
<BR>supreme compliment Jesus paid his apostles was to call them his friends, so
<BR>the assignment is to go enjoy your friends, and enjoy new friends as well, as
<BR>a part of our on-going course in Human Associations.
<BR>
<BR>Thank you for your time today. I return the podium to Tomas.
<BR>
<BR>TOMAS: The realm of friendship is a side-effect of divinity, whether you are
<BR>conscious of it or not. I would hardly be your friend if Our Father had not
<BR>brought us together. I just wanted to sit here with my iced tea and ask if
<BR>you have any questions about anything or have you got anything you want to
<BR>talk about? It's a measure of friendship to not always want to take the
<BR>floor and focus the attention on yourself, and so I like to give you the
<BR>opportunity to express yourself and let your interests be known. In this way
<BR>I offer myself in a friendly manner.
<BR>
<BR>[No questions.]
<BR>
<BR>Yes, it is possible to be friends in the political arena. It is possible for
<BR>those of you who are political to also be friends or those of you who are
<BR>friends to also be political. The reality of politics is not limited to
<BR>Republicans and Democrats. It is a part of the constitution of any group of
<BR>entities engaged in a cause or a purpose. Your identification with TeaM
<BR>inherently involves you in TeaM politics. And this is a part of association,
<BR>a part therefore of friendships.
<BR>
<BR>The politics of Jesus' time was not only about the Romans and the Jews and
<BR>the Essenes and so forth. It was about the mental configurations of each of
<BR>his apostles and disciples and associates. Even though his agenda was an
<BR>agenda of friendship with God, it was regarded as a political stance which
<BR>indeed got him crucified. But you do well to be mindful of the politics of
<BR>others, the individual and independent mind-sets of your associates that they
<BR>have committed themselves to, consciously or unconsciously, which give them
<BR>the identification with their mental support systems which help them
<BR>constitute who they are.
<BR>
<BR>We will have more opportunities to investigate human politics and Human
<BR>Associations in our adventures into experiencing the brotherhood of man as
<BR>time goes by and as time allows. This season ahead is astir with celebration
<BR>plans in honor of Jesus of Nazareth who lived the perfect human life. How he
<BR>inspires us in his sovereignty today is no less remarkable than his portrayal
<BR>of Jesus. The lessons that he lived and taught are as poignant in your
<BR>lesson plans as they were then, and even more so, since it is your life
<BR>indeed that you are living, and sharing this life experience with the Master.
<BR> The religious life of Jesus and how he lived it is indeed a curriculum well
<BR>worth studying and applying to your own applications of your ministry as you
<BR>pass by.
<BR>
<BR>Enjoy your upcoming festivities and acknowledgments of your appreciation for
<BR>his gift of nativity to Urantia, a gesture of friendship indeed, that you
<BR>have the Human Association with the Sovereign of the universe -- you both
<BR>shared this earth as your material incarnation.
<BR>
<BR>Sort of like riding the bus, together. Wouldn't you say, Gerdean?
<BR>
<BR>GERDEAN: Sure. A lot like that. Thank you, Tomas.
<BR>
<BR>TOMAS: Thank you, beloved friends. See you in our next session. Good
<BR>afternoon.
<BR>
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