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<DIV><B>
<P>DATE:</B> May 30, 1996<BR><B>LOCATION:</B> Pittsburgh, PA, USA<BR><B>T/R:</B>
Gerdean</P><B>
<P>TEXTUAL STUDY:</B> Urantia Paper 38<BR>Ministering Spirits of the Local
Universe</P>
<OL>
<LI>Origin of Seraphim</LI>
<LI>Angelic Natures</LI>
<LI>Unrevealed Angels</LI>
<LI>The Seraphic Worlds</LI>
<LI>Seraphic Training</LI></OL><B>
<P>TEACHING SESSION<BR>"Appreciation" and "Humor"<BR>A Visiting Morontia
Companion</P>
<P>TOMAS:</B> Good evening, my friends. <B>Group:</B> Good evening,
Tomas.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> Tender hearts, rejoice with me in the abundance of our gathering
here this evening, for indeed we are many, not only in your material ranks, but
in potential, as well. The armies have been acknowledged and indeed are in
readiness to serve.</P>
<P>My loyal friends, how glad I am to be among you. I say this almost as a
mantra, but I say this as a heartfelt expression of my appreciation for your
willingness to avail yourself of these processes by which we may elevate our
understanding of spirit reality in each individual heart and as it then relates
to the heart which is beside you.</P>
<P>Perhaps I will speak a moment regarding "appreciation".</P>
<P>Appreciation is a facet of love, which is understood in a context enjoyed by
any who has discernment. To appreciate a good meal, a full repast, is to savor
not only the taste and feeling of fullness but to appreciate what has gone into
the preparation of the feast, in other words, the efforts of many unseen helpers
who have enabled the meal to be presented and consumed with delight. </P>
<P>The same is true for a well-appointed home, such as you enjoy this evening,
for such fineness is available for your aesthetic appreciation and it is not
only understood for its immediate delight, but for the historicity and
continuity which has been your cultural inheritance and the efforts of those
owners who have devoted untiring energies into appreciation of fine things in
life.</P>
<P>And so an appreciation is not a singularly selfish experience when it is
taken in fullness, for you understand the full ramifications (wrong word) … for
you to understand what has gone into bringing about the desired effect. </P>
<P>And so we have come to appreciating one another. And as you behold each other
it is easy to perceive in a fleeting glance the obvious, and yet in
appreciation, you need to see what has gone before, what efforts have conspired
to contribute to the range of color and tone and timber of each individual --
their cultural heritage, their racial composites, their socioeconomic
understandings, their intellectualizations, their emotional backdrops and so
forth, that the full picture may be presented for your enjoyment.</P>
<P>It is, therefore, with great joy that we join with you in these select
evenings when we can sit in harmonious reflection of the full range of reality
presented. Not only do we see your aspiring and radiating personalities, but we
also see the background and the potential, and this, indeed, creates great
wealth, a great tapestry of texture in each of you to contribute to that
wondrous blanket of believers which will warm the cool nights of the soul of
Urantia.</P>
<P>Appreciation also for yourself, and for your understanding of your place in
the universe, is worthy of note in this conversation, in this topic, for it is
too easy to gloss over your own worth, your own tremendous textile, and see only
threads. Consider your wealth of experience and your triumphs and your lessons
learned in your losses and failures. Consider the experiences that have been
yours, the friends you have known, the secrets you have harbored and the release
you have acknowledged upon expressing your innermost needs and desires to an
intimate companion.</P>
<P>Consider how you got to be where you are today in terms of your own spiritual
growth, your own development as a human being and as a soul, and appreciate your
contribution to this process, for you have allowed it to happen, you have
enabled it to happen, and more and more you are encouraging it to happen, that
you experience life and that you learn from it and that you willingly and
happily teach from your own personal experience of finding God and seeking to be
like Him.</P>
<P>I will ask you a question. In company with the Master, he was known to
suggest that in future times the world would know of our good humor. Why do you
suppose he said "in future times"? Has anyone thought of that? Has anyone ...
Yes.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> It comes to my attention that we are taught about life
everlasting, so it would be a natural acceptance. I hope I understood you.</P>
<P><B>TOMAS:</B> It is possible you did not understand my question. </P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Would you rephrase it please? </P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> In Jesus time ... </P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Oh, "in Jesus' time."</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> he said, "In future times men will know of our good humor." Do you
suppose they were a somber lot?</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> They were.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> I would say so. </P><B>
<P>Student:</B> To a degree, yes.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> It'd have to be evolution in a fashion of comprehension . . .
and the gene pool, as well to ....</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> And the violet race wasn't mixed with everybody at the
time.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Yeah, to learn the comprehension of humor.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> This is well, for you have taken into consideration the
evolutionary aspects in terms of genetics and in terms of accessability of
spirit, for the Spirit of Truth had not yet been poured out upon all flesh at
that time either. And so I am bringing that question forward today into this
arena for you students and teachers who ponder and consider and ask, "How long
shall we say 'in future times they will know of our good cheer and good
humor'?"</P>
<P>What, my friends, do you suppose is holding back greater good humor and good
cheer these days?</P>
<P><B>Student:</B> Fear.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Habit.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> Two good students.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> What about the type of humor that people are accustomed to
today? It's rather cynical and it can be very painful in certain social
situations. It's a form of defense. But in a sense, if we are evolving, there's
a lightness and a naturalness. It's kind.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> The humor of today is spoiled wine and the ... I hear a remark
which could be inclusive. Would you repeat your remark, sister?</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> I said .... I think you said something about that all of the
humor is, well, tainted, and I said, "but not all of it." Because there are
some, well, I -- this week I really have been blessed, because I've had a
tremendously hard week and I keep running into little squibs of phrases or
sentences that people have printed in this, that and the other, and it's all
good! Thank God! Because we're getting to where we're calling things bad and
what we give we get, returns to us. So if we want good, we've got to see
good.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> You are correct to save and set aside and savor those bits of
insight and humor which are a delight to your sensibilities and I am not
excluding happiness by a long shot, but in reference to the remarks earlier from
my friend, Hunnah, regarding cynical humor, I reiterate that that is tainted,
sour, spoiled and not nourishing, not tasty or savory.</P>
<P>Although humor is a divine antidote to the exaltation of the ego among
appreciative friends, it is not born well when it comes from an attempt to
destroy or belittle a personality.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> In my childhood in our family, humor was given and received both
in love and I never experienced harsh tones in any of the humor, but with
someone intending to strike out, the tones are so harsh and so rough that you
instantly know that it's an attack instead of fun or given with love, or just
laughter.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> And since the conditions on your world on the dark side of the
moon are such that fear and bad habit prevail, it is difficult then to allow
yourself the freedom to feel good humor and good cheer. Indeed, to weep is more
in keeping, and prayer is more appropriate. I bring this to your attention
because the desire to be lighthearted and joyous can come when you are
associated and surrounded with individuals for whom you have developed an
understanding, an affection, and have learned to appreciate, and who have come
to appreciate you.</P>
<P>It is a way, in a way, of loving an individual (without getting jangled up in
the semantics of that word for now). But you here, for instance, have some idea
of the particular personality quirks and foibles of one another inasmuch as you
have been companions of long standing. It is easy now for you to believe that
you are loved by one another in the spirit and appreciated by each other in the
human sense. And no one will take serious offense at what the other may do, for
your appreciation and devotion to higher beauties, truths and goodness have
given you the appreciation that each of you are imperfect and that you can
withstand the vagaries of human existence among fellows who know you and love
you in spite of yourself and your own quirks.</P>
<P>It is an uphill evolutionary struggle to attain that point of appreciation
for your humanness that you may begin to feel light and joyous among each other,
that your ego defenses have been abridged, that your worth is firmly understood,
and you are appreciated. And you can appreciate what I am saying, each of you. I
appreciate each and every one (of you) and as such I am not alone, for you are
part of me and I am part of you.</P>
<P>Do you think that Jesus, when he spent time with the apostles, did not
appreciate each of them? Understanding the personality strengths and weaknesses
of each of his intimate companions? Surely you who have admired and followed the
Master in his dealings with his apostles, understand how well loved he was by
the Alpheus twins who were not commanded to give more than they were able, or
those who doubted, or those who were firebrands.</P>
<P>The gift of personality among God-knowing human beings is truly worth
sharing, and as your understanding of your spiritual nature gives way for your
acceptance of your human nature, your human happiness will be greatly expanded.
You may be happy with one another far more readily than you would be invited to
express in that realm of the shadows that would destroy your happiness for the
sake of misery in company. And so my children, my friends, I say to you to laugh
and be of good cheer.</P>
<P>Are there questions this evening?</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Was the "impetuous apostle" Peter?</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> He was one of the impetuous apostles. It is true that any vibrant
personality has impetuous thoughts and impetuous moments, some more so than
others. It is also possible to bridle impetuousness that is bordering on
problematic and it is a fine source of humor coming from one who is rarely so
spontaneous. The study of human character and personality aspects reveals so
many facets of potential for your own growth and delight, it could take a
millennia to discuss the millions of nuances of personality which are
available.</P>
<P><B>Student:</B> May I ask you a question? </P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> You may ask.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> I would like some assistance with the correct use of my time.
Sometimes we commit ourselves to things that are really no longer appropriate,
or we get stuck in the lull of inappropriate activity, procrastination or
whatever, and I would like to be able to connect with a proper use of that time.
You said to ask, so I'm asking.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> Indeed.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Even though the day was very beautiful, I felt like I was caught
up in an inappropriate use of time today, and I ... it's been on my mind.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> I would suggest that you are looking at quality of time and what
pleases you now which may not please you tomorrow. Appropriateness is a peculiar
word, for I must ask you "appropriate to whom?"</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Well, I'd like to have more time than seems to be available. I
would like to ... I guess there is no limit on the ways to celebrate life and
therefor, perhaps, I would just like to, no matter what I'm doing, like to be
able to celebrate more consistently, but there are old habits that seem to be
hard. Feet of clay. I don't know. I really don't know quite how to specifically
answer that.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> I appreciate your struggle. I would suggest that you read in the
text, in the Urantia Book, about "The Adjuster's Problem" and perhaps you will
not feel so disheartened when you realize you are not alone in wanting to
celebrate more often and more fully. The matter of prioritizing your time again
goes back to stillness and, again, I would encourage you to process your
spiritual approach to life early in the day. It will set a different tone; it
will establish your priorities and open the path and the pace which will be easy
for you to follow if you will.</P>
<P>The difficulty is that, on one hand, you have ideals, aspirations and noble
intentions, but on the other hand, you are a human being, you are distracted,
you get carried downstream. You get busy with other busyness, and although it
may be a pleasant or meaningful or serviceable distraction, it somehow has not
allowed you to attain and sustain your original desired delights. Try to fully
appreciate what it is that you find yourself doing. If you find that what you
are doing cannot be appreciated, stop doing it and go on to something with which
you can devote your heart.</P>
<P>Remember that whatever you do for Jesus is an honorable avocation. If it is
something that neither he nor you are interested in, perhaps you might be able
to teach someone by merely following through with your desire to follow where
your Master leads. Have my words been helpful?</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Yes. That certainly takes me out of myself.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> Perhaps we have time for a short visit. One moment.</P><B>
<P>MORONTIA COMPANION:</B> My friends, how are you this evening? I am a Morontia
Companion, unnamed. I am pleased to be among you and to sense your graciousness
and your anticipation. I am not a teacher. I am not one to whom a scholastic
attitude would be appropriate. I am a Companion, and perhaps Tomas was being
companionable in inviting me to sit with you to feel your graces, your ease.</P>
<P><B>Student:</B> Are you assigned to any one of us? </P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I am unassigned.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> It's good to meet you. </P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> Likewise. </P>
<P>Student: Is this your first visit?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I have attended individuals here and there. I have observed
your numbers here but I have not been given the opportunity to speak in such a
way. It is an infrequent pleasure.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> You don't have a name?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> That is correct. I can have one if you like. It is not
uncommon for the midwayers, who are designated numerically, to attach themselves
with a handle that you might feel more humanly associated, and I have observed
they have a tendency to call themselves Bill and Joe and Bob and Sam and Mary
and Pat, so that you feel they are like the boy or girl next door.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Are you then one of the unnamed and unnumbered ones? I forget
the right name for them.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> One Without Name or Number. </P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Yes, that's the way.</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I am not thus. I am designated but I am not known by a name
which would interest you.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Are you capable of going out with one of us? Would you like to
go to work with me tomorrow? (Group chuckle) We're allowed to take someone with
us who is interested in the work I do. Would you like a field trip?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I would rise to the occasion but the idea is abominable to me.
(Group laughter) How delighted I am to hear your laughter. I must confess that I
am an individual of fairly refined tastes and I am highly selective about a
working environment, if you will.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> What kind of work do you do?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I am a companion. I communicate.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> I need a communicator. I'm having problems with communications
and I need to be a communicator.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Do you mean that you help -- at our level, can you help us to
express ourselves more fully? Or are you saying that you do that
elsewhere?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I do this throughout the local universe, throughout the
Mansion Worlds. All of your teachers have spent and do spend time with us. You,
as you ascend, also will enjoy the company of the Morontia Companions, and you
will indeed learn through association with us, but as I say, it is not in the
manner of your teachers. And, I confess, you likely will learn by way of
association, for it is true, you know, that when you are in the company of one
who is pleasing to be around, who indicates interest in you, who delights your
sensibilities and your mind, you are inclined to put forth your better
aspirations toward meeting that being where you have rapport, and so as I
approach you, you approach me and we are given the exercise of finding one
another and this is a learning process.</P>
<P><B>Student:</B> What are the best steps to take to learn such ...? </P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> You must know yourself and you must listen.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> May I ask ...? I'm not too familiar with what a Morontia
Companion is, other than the descriptiveness in the two words itself. Are you a
Morontia Companion as a result of the ascending career or are you designated as
a Morontia Companion?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I have been and will be a Companion. It is my destiny.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> So you have not been a mortal? </P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> That is correct.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Is this something new for you? To come to the planet and
actually contact people before we reach the morontia level?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> It is not as unusual as you might think. It is rare on
Urantia, but in other worlds, more evolved, less dense, we have been known to
carry on extensive soirees, many tea parties, and so it is an evolutionary
process for this jumbled child/planet Urantia to come into as you, my students,
are coming into awareness of your own morontia selves.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> So are you saying we are coming into a new phase where we're
going to be having more contact with beings like yourself?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> Much of it, of course, depends upon you, for we are
companionable and are always in readiness to avail ourselves of the opportunity.
The opportunity, however, is often not forthcoming. I will tell you one reason
why. Even in evolved beings such as yourselves, it is often the case that you
are so busy doing and striving that you have no time to sit and be merely
companionable. But the wealth of existence in such a pastime as we master in, is
obviously worth investigating since almost everyone on the way up stops at our
floor often, you see.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Is there any advice you would like to give us? I mean, I know
you just gave us advice about going into stillness. Well, in reference to
communicating. I know I'm asking a lot of questions but I was wondering, and
communication is your forte. Is there any possibility you could help us with
whether Mrs. P. here is ... She believes she is starting to hear. Is there any
way you could help us with confirmation on that?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> Let me suggest something here in reference to communications,
not only communications between mortals and morontia beings, but between any
kinds of beings, between individuals even such as yourselves. The art of
communion is a full-range experience. It is not a simple matter of exchanging
words and hoping that the word given is the word received is the word given.
This is a very sketchy and iffy kind of communication. True communication
compasses far more. It encompasses infinite degrees and variety of energies:
personal and impersonal; physical, morontial and spiritual. It is colored by
color, by music, by sound, by subliminal activity, by extraneous energies that
abut and attack, that bounce around having no purpose but to get in the way of
communication it would seem.</P>
<P>Full-flavored communication requires devotion, requires the kind of gracious
attention that a mother gives her child, that a father gives his son, that
lovers give to each other. Each communication that you have is the potential for
a spiritual experience that would "knock your socks off" if you only knew how to
develop it, if you would allow it, if you would encourage it in each other. But
alas, I do not hold out extreme hope, for I see how busy you all are, how much
importance is given to true communication. It is more observable that you each
have something to say to the other as a method of defense. This is an old habit
pattern, boys and girls. In time, with practice, if you find -- indeed IF you
find -- that this is a practice that you would enjoy with your spouse, with your
neighbor, with each other, with your Morontia Companions, with your midwayer
companions, anyone throughout eternity, it will wait for you.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Please don't give up hope. For us.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> You have enriched upon a subject that was greatly needed here.
We're all in the business of communicating and you helped us to define or expand
our comprehension of what it means that will in the days to come amplify itself
and make itself be known in us? Is that correct? Is that the purpose of your
being here?</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> I am here to be companionable. </P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Ummm, good. </P><B>
<P>Student:</B> You are.</P><B>
<P>COMPANION:</B> If you like me, if you like how I am, if you appreciate that I
am of the Father and that I have my being because of him and therefore am a
reflection of him, if you see in me something Godlike that you yourself would
like to have, to emulate, to experience, to bestow, to share, then you will see
to it that you expose yourself more and more to those experiences, those
challenges, those opportunities which will bring (it) about in your 1ives.</P>
<P>I will leave in a moment but I would like, before I go, to say that it is
very scary to stand up and be your true self. It is so easy for you fledgling
souls to go along with the gist. It is so difficult to stand alone in your
faith, in your belief, in your confidence. It is so difficult. This is
understood. And what we would also like for you to understand is that there are
legions of helpers. Farewell.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Before you go. You've been with me?</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> My friend, I am Tomas again. I am sorry. Our Companion has
relinquished the floor.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Well, you can communicate.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> I can certainly communicate, yes, and I cannot speak for him but
it is in all probability guaranteed that you have spent time with a Companion,
for you have been companionable and you have not been alone.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> The energies. The energies this one brought are so familiar! All
Morontia Companions have the same energy pattern as this one? The sensitivities
...</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> I am certain. I have met many, and I have found, (and you can read
about them in your text) that they have an ebb and flow, and given the
constraints of ebbing and flowing, they are the same.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> I've found that different beings have different energy patterns.
I've recognized their -- it's like a signature? Would all Morontia Companions
have the same feeling? As energy signature?</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> I believe so. Your perception of them may be different from mine,
but I have found them all to be companionably thus.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> Well, I enjoyed it.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> I was wondering if I could plug in a suggestion here, since we
talked about appreciation and we were talking about the possibilities of what to
read next week and I was going to suggest that we could read about the
personalities of the apostles and there's a paper that talks about their
idiosyncrasies and their positive qualities. I just thought I'd put that
in.</P><B>
<P>Student:</B> I'd like to read about Morontia Companions! But I won't make it
'til next week. I'll be reading about them throughout.</P><B>
<P>TOMAS:</B> I was going to say that as a teacher, I am getting rather excited
with this class, that it is taking on extracurricular assignments and reading
book reviews without them being assigned. I, of course, am not in the business
of assigning you your various Papers and studies, for I will use whatever
material is available to work with, as any decent teacher will do. I can see
merit to almost any game plan that is presented. Indeed, even the Alpheus twins
have something I can work with, and I will work with this: that it is time to
call our evening to a close.</P>
<P>It has been an enchanted evening. I have appreciated the graciousness of our
acting hostess and the environs as well as the company. How I miss you when we
are not all together, for even though I admire you and appreciate you
individually, it is always such an orchestration when we all come together; I
eagerly look forward to the next tune.</P>
<P>My friends, Sing! Dance! Be Merry! Make Music! and I will see you soon.
Farewell!</P><B>
<P>Group:</B> Farewell. Thank you.</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>