<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT SIZE=2>DATE: September 22, 2001
<BR>LOCATION: Spokane, Wa.
<BR>TEACHER: TOMAS
<BR>TOPIC: Human Associations 101
<BR>T/R: Gerdean
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<BR>TOMAS: Greetings. I am Tomas. I am here to continue the series of lessons and further understanding of human associations - the brotherhood of man. There are those of you who would feel that Human Associations 101 is elementary and far removed from your status as accomplished spiritual citizens of the realm, and while that may be true in part, it is also true in part that human associations are a unique field of study because of the human factor.
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<BR>There are many sons of God who are not aware of God. There are many children of the Most Highs who have no conscious contact with divinity. Does this make them less your brothers? And, if so, how so? This Human Associations 101 is not an elementary course. It is the groundwork of your relationships from this day forward.
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<BR>The Father in Paradise has an eye to see the end from the beginning, but His view is, for you, the culmination of an eternal career. And while we all may aspire to the universal viewpoint, we must factor in a frame of reference for the relativity of our attainment.
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<BR>I have a frame of reference, for instance, which in many ways is just like yours. I can put myself on equal footing with you as an ascending son, a pilgrim of time en route to Paradise. And I can also acknowledge I have enhanced experience as a result of – if for nothing else – the fact of my survival after death into a morontia way of life, further enhanced by significant morontial training. However, I seek a relationship with you, and in seeking a relationship with you, I seek to have an understanding of your frame of reference.
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<BR>In observing the evolutionary level you have attained, I am privy to a frame of reference, then, that allows me to see your incompleteness and attempt to augment your education by what your needs may be at any given time based on a consensus of spirit factors. In consultation with my peers in the Teacher Corp, I can and we often do observe our students in their growth experiences and commiserate and attempt to understand how they are thinking and why they are thinking as they do. And the insights we have garnered as a result of studying you, as a race of people, as relatively new spirit-born souls, engender heartfelt compassion for the obstacles you have to overcome and the deep-seated conditioning you've been subjected to. Even so, we observe you as I once observed individuals in my mortal career of Cultural Anthropology. I therefore invite you to observe human behavior as a cultural anthropologist might observe it. In the context of the study of society-building, and separations of social aspects that will allow the personalities of the individual citizenry to flourish as it allows other sociological clusters of cultural propensities to also flourish.
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<BR>The fact of your humanness and your materiality is what makes Human Associations 101 a very complicated and fascinating subject indeed. If and when you observe each other as merely fellow animals, it does not take long to see how it is that your behaviors regress and level out to the lowest common denominator. As you regard each other as fellow spirit beings, you all over-reach and disappoint yourselves and each other and thus undermine aspects of spirituality which you could well afford to embrace and inculcate as a part of your reality, but not at the expense of your humanness, for this is the well-balanced, well-unified mortal experience: son of God, son of man functioning usefully and happily in the flesh and in conscious awareness of the spirit.
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<BR>Look at your immediate environment. Your immediate environment, yes, is ... What? Your body. You live in your body. Without your body, you would leak out onto the floor or into the air. Your tabernacle of the flesh is the primary realm of functioning. In it, you are embraced by divinity. Thus your essential environment is intact, and yet you are not an island. You need to extend your reality out into the next level of your social expansion and that would be into your home.
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<BR>And everyone who lives in a civilized world, even semi-civilized, has cultural ground rules to follow in terms of how one will behave in one's home. Your culture has its ground rules as have other cultures. The differences are great. They incorporate food, attire, socio-economic factors, climate, language, and they are all different, all varied, all valid and fascinating in their own right.
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<BR>The brotherhood of man is confronted with the problems of Human Associations 101. Look at your global situation today and observe how many have failed the course, having no idea how to communicate, how to respect differences, how to work through conflict without resorting to violence, how to accept other people's ways as right for the other people but not necessarily having to have them forced upon others.
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<BR>***
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<BR>Gerdean says I am her favorite albatross. I trust that represents some kind of burden. And I acknowledge her acknowledgment of the responsibility of being my friend and my transmitter/ receiver. Although I am mindful of her occasional discomfort and disgruntlement, I'm confident that our experience as co-workers in the field is sufficient to see us through, in particular when it is understood that she is also my albatross. I have a responsibility to follow up on my promise to be here for the long haul and to work through your spiritual growth with you, as companionship allows and mentoring benefits.
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<BR>Any relationship in which you have any responsibility, there is an element of the albatross, for you are human and humans don't always "feel like it". They don't always want to be responsible. They don't always want to be noble. They don't always want to be dignified sons of God. Sometimes they want to be squalling brats having a temper tantrum. Sometimes they opt to be cynical rather than sympathetic. Sometimes they say things out of cruelty because they hurt or they are exasperated. And this is part of Human Associations 101.
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<BR>Spiritually speaking, we may all borrow on the ideal and insist we love each other, and indeed in the Source, it is exquisitely true. But inasmuch as none of us are in the Source, we are incomplete, in process of growing, we have our moments of unloveliness. Those who have been badly abused are unlovely indeed. Does this mean that God does not love His children? Of course not. Does this mean *I* don't love His children. Not necessarily. Does this mean I like all of his children? Certainly not. Like you, I find certain aspects of personality more pleasing than others. Even people I don't like, sometimes I can have great admiration for. And there are certain skills that are developed by others that are so well done as to call forth high praise, even though the art form is the least of my favorites.
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<BR>And so in considering our relative imperfection, our experiential status, and your mortal facets, you are not able to consistently observe your peers as generously as does Our Father or Our Mother. Human Associations allows for all these variables. It allows you to look at your fellows as physical representations of culture. Perhaps not YOUR culture, but culture, even so.
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<BR>You would not stand for someone to come to your house and be a guest in your home without expecting them to abide by certain ground rules established by the civilization within your home. Just as, if you were to visit Thailand, for instance, you would not put your feet up and show the bottoms of your feet to your host, as this is regarded in their culture a gross insult. How would you know you are insulting your host by performing a common American custom, unless you observed how your host behaved and act accordingly in his environment.
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<BR>Human Associations expects a visitor to honor the practices of the natives. When I was mortal and visited the native tribes, I saw all manner of aberrant behaviors and ones which would not be tolerated in my camp, but since I was a stranger there, a guest, it was not my place to point out to them their error, inasmuch as I was not a part of their political structure; I did not live there; I did not belong there; I did not have a vote.
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<BR>The idea of the vote brings me to the actual specific and poignant difference between those of you who live as animals and those of you who live as human beings. As human beings you have a right to determine the behaviors of those who live within your environment, and as your influence extends out into the culture and farther out into the sociological mainstream of humanity, that is a part of your responsibility. It is the albatross of being human. It's a privilege when it works in your favor, and when you don't feel like it, it's an albatross. When your friends do what you want them to do, they are someone you want to show off and be proud of. When they act like a jerk, you want to denounce them and recoil from their presence.
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<BR>Human Associations is very hard work. I know many of you think it should not be difficult, that if everyone just acts like a son of God it will not present any problems, and yet who among you are without sin? Who among you are not prejudiced and biased? Who among you haven't got cause for righteous judgment? Who among you has not got experience that has, to your mind, taught you certain basic lessons that will by your determination remain a part of your conditioning despite the objections of others?
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<BR>Not two of you are alike, and it is also true that if you stick with those who are like you, you might get some things accomplished; but if you also allow yourself to encounter those who are not like you, and who have other agendas than yours, you will run into attitudes counter to your own and, educated as you are already, it will add to your education to acknowledge others as they are and not as "fresh meat to carve", not a mission to culturally convert to your way of thinking.
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<BR>Might does not always make right, but there is indeed strength in numbers, and numbers of thinking people are those who impact the world.
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<BR>Are there questions?
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