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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">North Idaho Teaching Mission
Group</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">Topics: T</span></font><font
face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">he Everlasting Journey, Freedom of the Soul, You Choose
Your
Direction.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">Teachers: Elyon, Aaron, Lester</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">April 6, 2003</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Elyon 
(Mark TR):  I greet you.  This is your guide and your companion
Elyon.  I refer to myself as your guide in this discussion this morning to
make reference to the journey you have embarked upon.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Having
decided to traverse this unknown distance before you, you have
been engaged for some time now in provisioning yourself with the stocks
and supplies you deem you will need for this everlasting journey before
you.  You have been checking your stores and supplies of the essentials
you feel you need before you can feel as though you have pushed your craft
off and are under your own power.  You have tallied your stores of faith.
You have added to your accumulation of courage.  You have reevaluated your
checklist and determined that priorities have shifted after learning more
about the journey before you and gone back to make new checklists of
essentials that are deemed important to have with you on this journey.
This is the period we have been engaged in of stock piling your lesson
plans, your maps and itineraries as you understand them at any given
point, later to be reexamined and reevaluated for their worthiness to be
with you on this journey.  Many conditions that you saw as obstacles or
signs of preparedness have been overcome, have been negotiated
thoughtfully so as to no longer be impediments to you.  The storehouse of
wisdom, patience, and courage has been well added to so as to provide you
the necessary sustenance along your journey.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    We find
that some of the possessions that we originally loaded into
our crafts become burdensome and troublesome along the way, and we
redefine our needs and are willing to lay aside and forget some aspects
that we at the beginning saw as important, even necessary to our journey.
We, from a new perspective, can perceive that these things we thought
would help us may in fact weigh us down and become a burden in this
fashion.  When this happens we are all too willing to lay these burdens
down so that we may continue anew.  The journey we foresaw from the
beginning knowing that the distance before us may be uncharted by us as
individuals but well known to the many scouts and to the Creator of all.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt"> Having stockpiled our faith
in generous proportions we find ourselves
merrily undertaking this journey, realizing that to embark on this
everlasting journey we have already succeeded.  The details of the journey
before us merely provide us with options and opportunities to be accessed
and exercised along the route; that it is a foregone conclusion our
journey will meet with certain success, albeit we are unable to clearly
define from this bend in the river where this journey exactly will take
us.  Nevertheless we are not turning back; we are not stalling in this
effort.  Once having shoved our crafts adrift we are committed to the
journey before us and are well assured that our supplies are adequate, our
sense of direction is correct, and our journey will meet with success.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    This
does not indicate that necessarily every day will be filled with
smooth sailing, rather, we know there will be the rapids to negotiate,
even to avoid.  This will cause us some recalculation and readjustment in
our direction, but only temporary obstacles lie before us in this sojourn.
We all have committed to this everlasting journey to the Father, and no
obstacle becomes too great to one entirely committed to this journey.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    At this
point in your journey many of you are wondering if there is
room in your vessel for others whom you may pass along the way.  Your
heartfelt desire to load up the many for the journey to the Father is
perceived with divine affection from on high.  However, your craft is a
personal craft, and you may pursue your own journey and even lead where
others may follow, but it is not yours to load the many onlookers on route
into your small craft.  They must fashion their own vessels; they must
procure their own supplies; they must show their own commitment in setting
their own vessel adrift, and then surely all streams lead to the great
ocean of the Father.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    It has
been a joy to oversee the making of your personal crafts, the
hewing of your vessels over time, to be fashioned into seaworthy crafts,
to witness as you gather together the items you feel essential before you
embark upon this journey, to witness as you redefine your necessities, and
to see you paddle as it were into the sunset with confidence and bravery.
To witness these vessels floating down this river of love is truly joyous
to behold.  It is my extreme pleasure to float beside you as we make this
journey and offer you as a guide who has been down this stretch of the
river before you tips on how to navigate the currents, negotiate the
rapids, and stay out of dangerous areas of falls.  You demonstrate your
courage and willingness to follow these suggestions and directions thereby
minimizing the dangers to yourselves and increasing your ability to enjoy
this journey.  A guide merely is one who has traversed the distance before
you and can report back as to the hazards ahead, and that is all we as
teachers do for you.  You must pilot the craft yourself; you must portage
around the obstacles alone; you must of your own accord set your vessel
adrift.  These are the things that I marvel to see from my perspective.
It is quite a beautiful journey to observe you make.  I offer you my
commitment as guide to see you through this journey as this river of love
flows into the ocean of love which is the Father.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    I thank
you for hearing my words today and remain in attendance.
There are others who would activate this opportunity to speak with you.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Aaron (Jonathan): 
Hello, this is Aaron.  It is good to be with you
again in person.  Though the separation of sensibility keeps us from
direct perception, I am as present here as you each are in this room.  I
am going to speak about liberation, or perhaps freedom of the soul.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Naturally
the word “liberation” implies that there is some confinement
from which you seek release.  So the word is not truly adequate to
describe the unfoldment of soul, for your soul is not now nor has been
imprisoned.  Elyon spoke of crafting your vessel and making the effort to
set your ship afloat upon the seas.  When you exercised your ability to
choose truth over error another miracle of great beauty occurred in the
universe, and that was the initiation and unfolding of the growth of your
soul.  This effort on your part created the opportunity for the Divine
Spirit to indwell you and establish the condition wherein you as a human
being could rise above the mere functions of physical life.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    As you
grew in your comprehension of spiritual reality, you
established conceptual frameworks; you developed response mechanisms that
you discern to be contributory to your growth.  You made effort.  Some
decisions were easy to exercise, some difficult and caused emotional
turmoil, mental conflict.  Sometimes you had to choose based upon your
ideals and contrary to your wishes.  And you did so because you developed
a devotion to truth that superseded your wants, and in doing so you gained
a freedom.  You were liberated from your constraints due to imperfection
or immaturity.  While the soul is ever free, it is the mind and your seat
of will that undergo that discipline, correction, and development that
brings to you a sense of liberation.  It is the effort of building the
vessel.  It is the struggle to portage.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Religion,
as you know it on this world, has often promoted rules of
conduct, defined behavior, set standards whereby living them you are
perceived to be of a more noble character.  Many a soul has rebelled
against these conditions not wishing to be constrained.  These dogmas and
doctrines were not initially established to confine you.  Those who first
developed them were merely expressing the methods whereby they grew in
spirit stature, and desire to make available to others that same ability
by way of that path that later became crystallized and coded.  They found
through the discipline spiritual freedom.  Today, while you may or may not
align yourself with these recommended standards, it still falls to each of
you as an individual to develop your own disciplines, your own standards,
in order that you develop strength and power as a personality.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Elyon
indicated the importance of you sailing your vessel.  Many who
build a ship do take counsel in the architecture and design developed by
those who have gone before them.  While some creatively alter the design,
often much that was first developed is only adjusted and not abandoned.  A
sound keel, a workable rudder, and the like have contributed and will
continue to contribute to a good journey.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    When
life bears upon you to the degree that you feel burdened
establish in yourself the reaction of excitement, for as every wrestler
comprehends, each bout, each match, strengthens that person and improves
the skills.  The result is a new freedom, the ability to do more than you
could have before.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Choose
wisely what you will adopt and develop and attain.  Do freely
abandon and discard what you perceive to be outmoded or distracting.  Do
honor the fact that freedom is not the absence of any constraint; it is
the development of ability through refinement, hard work, discipline.  You
might call it fettered freedom, that is what it takes to build a vessel
and venture into the unknown.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    I too
remain with you.  Thank you for receiving me today.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Lester: 
Greetings to you, this is Lester.  How are you today?  I have
an observation:</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    As one
who stands often on the sidelines and watches your masterful
instructors guide you and encourage you each week, I must say, as they
have often expressed their humility by stating that they help you as you
choose your direction, that this is the case.  Let us use the idea that
they are as a detective.  A detective has a course of action that is being
pursued to uncover truth, to find and capture a desired end.  You all are
like the hound dogs, for your energy, your vigorous tug at the leashes of
friendship that are between you and your instructors, is what drives the
whole pack forward.  Your anxious scouting, your enthusiastic push
forward, propels your teachers forward in their plans and in their
purposes.  While it may seem that you are merely the mutts, it is not the
case, for as any who has owned a pet knows, it is a loving relationship.
You are truly the driving force; you are the ones who uncover the trail,
find the scent.  I am happy to be part of your pursuit.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Also,
before I take my leave, I would say that your assembling
together aids each one of you.  It strengthens you as a collective and
adjusts you as an individual much as would a pack of hound dogs.  As one
veers, the pack draws that one back.  Also, as one picks up a trail, the
others are clued in.  This is a beautiful pattern to behold in you all.
Thank you.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Mark: 
Thank you, teachers, for training us to identify the scents of
spirit, that we may pursue them with vigor and intensity.  Without this
patient counseling we might overlook these scents.  I am grateful.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Elyon (Jonathan): 
Greetings, this is Elyon again.  I would open the
floor to questions if you have any, and I would like to add to this
imagery of Lester.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    You
each have been given a glimpse of the goal through the reading of
your Urantia text.  Now you are so anxious to dive right into living and
establishing the perfection decreed by Father on Paradise that it is very
difficult to hold you in check that we may discern the clues upon the way.
I know that at times you are frustrated when you feel you do not make the
progress as you wish you could.  However, I must say from my perspective
you are moving along quite rapidly.  There are other planets whereon the
human beings are far less desirous of pursuing the perspectives and
attaining the levels of personality that you seek.  I will continue
evermore to encourage you to do so.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Do you
have comments or questions?</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Barbara: 
You are on the road ahead of us and floating beside us to
help.  You mentioned hazards ahead.  What can you tell us of them?</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Elyon: 
One of these hazards is complacency, which perhaps is
emphasized by the encouragement we give you all to continue, that while
you have negotiated a rapid, have managed to break free from the
stagnation of an eddy and have entered into the calm of a beautiful lake,
it is the goal to reach the sea of the Universal Father, the vast ocean of
His spirit presence.  That would be one hazard.  To pause along the way is
good, however, to remain there for an unnecessary period of time could
delay your progress, even bring upon you a change of weather that would
inhibit your speedy advance.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Generally
speaking, the hazards are conditions you allow within
yourself.  Be not afraid of external dangers, devils or demons, that would
prevent you from completing your journey.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Barbara: 
Why would you bring up devils and demons?</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Elyon: 
As an illustration of an external force historically viewed as
more powerful than oneself and able to thwart your efforts.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Harold: 
Your analogies all have an element of limitation.  Boats,
leashes, the sides of the river.  Is the limitation necessary to progress
and will eventually be eliminated?  Or is it something we will continue to
control, or learn to control?</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Elyon: 
These are conditions that are defined by your order of being;
you are ascending children of God and therefore have channels wherein you
rise to Paradise.  It is true though that these are not confinements that
are inflexible.  As you paint upon a canvas your creativity is unlimited.
What you do within the framework of that canvas has no limitation other
than the size of that blank board.  To draw beyond the boundaries into
space would not serve to reveal the image within your mind.  You are
however capable of developing larger canvases.  This is also part of your
ascending experience.  At every stage of your ascent, however, you have a
canvas that is only so large within which you may create.  I hope this
serves to show the value of limitations and your ability to break free as
you grow.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Harold: 
My experience is that limitations are what initiate
creativity.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Elyon: 
I agree. “Limitations” may be renamed “definitions”.  Without
definition there are no discreet demarkations between items.  A paintbrush
is not the paint, is not the canvas.  Each one, limited on its own, drawn
together unleashes creativity.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Aaron
spoke of fettered freedom.  Unfettered freedom would not
stimulate that creativity.  It would be just as if all the dogs in the
pack were off their leashes and ran every which way.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    Harold: 
The rapids are where the water is moving most quickly.
Conflict is what propels us more quickly down the river.</span></font></div>
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<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">*   Elyon: 
You are quite perceptive.  This is true.  While it is
apparently a struggle to encounter conflict as it is to negotiate a rapid,
it is in the end far more thrilling than long stretches of quiet water
where you must still make the effort but make the effort unaided,
unassisted, by the conditions around you.  Those are times to rest. But to
journey forward you must apply yourself even more rigorously than during
the times when the rapids appear to be tossing you about.</span></font></div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span style="font-size:12pt">    As I
have expressed many times, I love you all,  I cherish our
friendship, and I too put you in your prayer circle for your advancement,
for your happiness.  I will now take my leave.</span></font></div>
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