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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center"
align=center><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>Michael--<st1:date Month="6"
Day="22" Year="2009">June 22, 2009</st1:date></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Marin TM Group--<st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Mill</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType>Valley</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>--<st1:country-region><st1:place>U.S.A.</st1:place></st1:country-region></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL--T/R-JL</FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>(A
thumbnail sketch of a human being)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>(The human soul)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>(Self-forgetfulness--spontaneous and intentional) </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>(Pure consciousness and states of mind)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>(The
essence of humility)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>(The
soul and applied wisdom)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>(Discriminating distinctions)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>(Having
both a humble self and an awareness of spirit simultaneously)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>(Enjoying life)</FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Dear
Michael and Mother Spirit,<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Welcome, dear parents.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We do
enjoy and value so greatly these feelings of humility you help us experience by
putting our lives into a context so much greater than ourselves, even pointing
out that it is part of ourselves that is greater than our consciousness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You help us appreciate how, as a
material being in space, we can become aware we are kind-of suspended between
the infinite and the infinitesimal; then along the dimension of time, how we are
to ourselves without beginning in a transcendent present, looking into a future
which has no limits either in duration or extent of personal growth.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So these feelings of humility are
wonderful.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They remind us that
though we are but a speck in the cosmos, we can begin to intuit, if not yet
directly perceive, its spiritual vastness, and be all the more thrilled and
thankful for our Father’s infinity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Then, that He shares so much of His nature with us…for all these lessons
of yours, dear parents, we are so thankful.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Amen.</FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good evening, my
children, this is Michael.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If
you’ll indulge me, I’ll enjoy saying that again: my children.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Very much like you human parents with
children, you are both mine and not mine at all, but fully yourselves’ and our
Father’s.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mother Spirit and I do
share a bit of surprise from time to time with what you come up with.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s your free will and your exercising
of it that is such a joy.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You
become like tiny little gods yourselves for you are part of the Deity Absolute,
a personal being with creative power, not strictly bound by all those antecedent
causes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is something innately
delightful and free-roaming in your curiosity and how your seeking for the truth
and the reality of things plays leapfrog with your own abilities to create that
very thing--the true and the real.</FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>(A
thumbnail sketch of a human being)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
let’s return to a kind of thumbnail sketch of a human being.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As we experience you as you experience
yourselves you’re primarily a self-conscious self that begins each morning when
you awaken, maybe with a few lingering dreams, and then here you are again.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You go through your days and let
yourselves be extinguished in sleep once again.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is your own personal field of
consciousness in which everything takes place for you, and indeed these are the
limits of your free will--those choices and decisions you make in full
consciousness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s when your
personality is capable of asserting itself through its creativity, somewhat free
of what has lead up to the moment, even its own habitual thought-patterns.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
this is the person you experience yourself to be.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are endowed with memory and a sense
of the past--your own continuity, an experience of the present, and, through the
insights you’ve accumulated through the years on the workings of the world, you
can have some pretty certain foresight into the future along the lines you’ve
discovered and call Natural Law, penetrated--so far--out billions of light-years
and down into the subatomic nano-second.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>About the realms of mind and spirit you’re--not yet--so certain.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But through your inner experiences with
your Father, with Mother Spirit and myself, you are intuiting and developing
your own Morontia Mota--soul/spirit laws.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
here you are.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This seems complex
enough--you have thousands of conflicting philosophies and meta-physics that
dispute what constitutes even this part of a human being--and then here we
come--(Michael laughs)--saying that this body of yours, and all your physical
reality--no matter how much a materialist you are--is infused with spirit--your
spirit.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Not only the spirits of all
those untold numbers of beings above you in the universe, all the way up to your
Father, but your body and all the surrounding reality of the world is infused
with your own spirit, your own creativity, your own interpretation of seemingly
simple facts--never so simple seen in this light.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>You have Mother Spirit’s Mind/Spirit Adjuncts augmenting your
physical brain activity, your consciousness. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This consciousness of yours, my children,
is not solely a function of your physical brain activity, though that’s its
necessary foundation.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are
influenced by these dimensions of Mother Spirit’s consciousness surrounding you,
impinging upon you, finding response within your mentality.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Then
there’s this other aspect of your being, you could say the sole enduring
possession of your personality, and that is your soul, the combination of your
own creativity and free-will life experiences, conditioned by the circumstances
you’ve known, and your own beliefs and notions.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All this experience of your personality
is captured by a pure spirit of God, a discrete pre-personal individuation of
His spirit, imbued with all the power of His spirit to write your life, to
co-create your soul as He sees you.</FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>(The human soul)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Though your can rarely just command this greater part of yourself to
come forth, in your meditations, maybe getting together and reminiscing with
childhood friends, you can be amazed that it seems like all that childhood is
still there--all those adolescent struggles, all your early
adulthood--everything that made you who and what you are--is all still there
somehow--another infinity to this conscious you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Insofar as your soul is equally God’s
vision of you as well, some people think of their soul as their true self.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s what most human beings are working
toward, either consciously or higgly-piggly--catch-as-catch-can.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s to unify their entire
person-hood.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is difficult, even
ironic, that with this goal in mind of unifying their self, that very
concentration--alone by itself--can lead to immature notions of complete
enlightenment, notions of perfect intellect.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But these self-generated notions can be
the very thing standing in the way of relaxing, letting go these very
self-generated notions of self--more or less your ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Rather, have the nerve to let yourself
go and open yourself to pure possibility.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s welcoming the adventure of realizing how small this conscious you is
moment to moment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Let me echo your
opening prayer that correctly understands this is the delight of humility, being
in touch with something so much greater than yourself, even right within your
self.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Feel the glory of that
perception, that intuition, that faith, and finally, that assurance that you are
this transcendent reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For that
very reason you cannot just nonchalantly get a hold of your total self.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It would be like a container trying to
contain itself, not that you don’t try.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>You have to intuit with the eyes and the feelings of faith all that
you are.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then let it go the next
moment--(Michael laughs)--this construct of who you were that moment ago. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Let that go.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>No clinging.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Be open to the living, dynamic, changing
you the next moment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a merry
dance.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Some philosophies focus on
the motion itself and go to the extreme of saying there is no enduring self
here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is no being who
experiences apart from the thing experienced; there is just the experiencing
itself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Though this is true from a
purely experiential point of view, my children--you are this nodule of
experience out here in time and space--you are also existential just in the fact
of your existence.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even though
there is no concrete proof of this to a doubting, fearful mind, Mother Spirit
and I do reassure you, because it is true, that you are!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You participate is what we call the
Deity Absolute as a personalized absolute cosmic fact, a deliberate and discrete
creation of God’s.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>True enough, this existential you, this God-created personality, has
a long way to go before it joins with that other aspect of you--your Thought
Adjuster--your Father’s presence in you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>And even then you have a whole universe to cross, and all the worlds of
Havona, before you become--almost--as existential, as totally final as, say, a
Paradise-origin being such Mother Spirit or myself who started out that
way.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet as completely existential
as we are, son and daughter of the Trinity, still we too are fully experiential,
and we have what is analogous to a human soul of all our experiences out
here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>And so your conscious self that lives a day at a time must spend
about a third of its life on earth in unconsciousness while your body heals, and
your mind rests in its dreams, and your spirit cavorts with your Thought
Adjuster--in a sense, goes back home.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It takes a while for this so very limited, so just beginning, so
self-created self to begin to intuit and access through faith that there is so
much more than is dreamt of in his or her philosophy: so much more out there; so
much more in here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>And then a further step, consider that this personal creation of
God’s, your personality, has the power--and needs to--starting at birth--create
a world view centered on itself, as well as creating a self for itself.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet this enormous creativity, as you
each co-create your own reality, is not readily apparent.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s too transparent and
instantaneous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A vast majority of
the world’s peoples are nowhere near yet realizing, and ready to take
responsibility for, what they themselves are, unfortunately, rather
unconsciously creating.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Becoming
conscious of ones own field of spirit, of ones own creativity, is the great
individual and planetary movement toward maturity.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The humility in that is the meaning of
what I once shared with my Father with respect to the evil that men do: Forgive
them, Father, they know not what they do.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>And so it is with our lessons, with our teasing, with our joy, we
invite you into this full human estate--this enormous complexity I just outlined
in the briefest of forms.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is not
something you can perceive, or even conceive in its fullness; but it is
something you can intuit, something you can feel, hopefully something that finds
some resonance within you when Mother Spirit and I say, you are indeed a very
complex being, largely unknown to yourself simply because you are still so much
pure potential, taking your first few hesitant steps into eternity.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Embrace and know each step well, my
children, even the pain and the suffering.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Love our Father with all your
heart, even in the midst of your deepest despair and uncertainty.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He is always here.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He created you, and this whole universe
as a ground for you to learn in, to grow, to love, and to share with all these
others whom He also created.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Some
day, my children, you will have come to know a million beings of all sorts up to
the creators and administers of a galaxy to, finally, our Father, on
Paradise.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But take your time.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Just enjoy life at God’s own pace for
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Feel for it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here it comes.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Now let
your own comments, or questions, follow mine.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Ed: what followed was actually a very
long pause of many minutes)</FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good evening,
Michael, we read in the Urantia book how, during your life as Jesus, you were
self-forgetful.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Was this something
that just happened unconsciously because you were so focused on doing God’s will
on loving your fellow human beings, or was there an element of choosing to
forget about yourself?</FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>(Self-forgetfulness--spontaneous and intentional) </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my
daughter, there is both a qualitative and quantitative distinction in what you
just caught.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For the most part it
was both.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Like small children
playing in a sandbox, humans are set up to explore and lose themselves in what
they are doing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then as you mature
and you deepen your experiences in losing yourself, say, in your work or
hobbies, you can begin to choose to do so more willingly.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In your meditation you can deliberately
set out to do this.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can start
just by being aware of your breathing, being aware of your ongoing physical
continuity, maintaining this respectful orientation toward this aspect of
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Consider that your heart is
beating with the force of life clear from when the Life Carrier Sons and Mother
Spirit started life on this planet nigh a billion years ago.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>This is a very deliberate thing in which you are self-forgetting all
your other mental business--the worries, and memories, and plans--to be aware of
and appreciate with infinite worship and thankfulness this living physical
aspect of your being that so many have so much contempt and unhealthy disregard
for.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Think of all the different
kinds of aestheticism the human race has indulged in--the punishing of the
flesh, and so forth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
it is both, my daughter.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Part is a
natural, intrinsic ability and desire to explore beyond oneself.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But then the really deep awareness, the
humility we talked about this evening, is something you can definitely set out
to experience.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I find it helpful
in situations with other people, and the tensions there and in myself--the
conflict, I can choose to forget about myself and just let those things go.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s like: just be there.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It seems to help me.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So I was wondering if the conscious act
of choosing to forget myself in that way is similar to what you, as Jesus,
did.</FONT></P>
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size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my
daughter, very similar.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We only
caution against the notion you can completely get rid of your ego, your
life-long, built-up construct of who and what you see and feel yourself to be
and have been.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The very notion you
can somehow get rid of this self in some self-directed way is itself only
another, greater illusion--to think and act outwardly as if: Aha! <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve finally conquered my ego!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m selfless!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Self-forgetfulness is making way for something greater than
yourself, in your case the awareness and enjoyment of the people you’re
with.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In my case it was in finding
an ongoing unity between my human and my divine self, one of which needed no
effort to be at one with my Father; yet my human self--(Michael laughs)--it’s
hard to explain how I was also fully this human person--was much in need of a
very directed meditation and worship and communion; which I can highly
recommend--from personal experience--to all my children.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
even though you are always here, you can kind-of point yourself toward something
greater than yourself, if only in being open to the infinity of another human
person.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So in a sense
it’s like willing to take yourself aside in humility.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Humility is the reward of doing so.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s what fills you up when you can
forget yourself--this self-conscious self that lives between periods of
sleep.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You rediscover again that
this is not all you are; you are capable of this greater awareness and
experience.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s that very
realization; it’s what you realize.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s very helpful.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m glad you’re
discovering this, my daughter.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As
we say, you just let go and trust that God, our Father, is actually keeping
everything together, actually keeping everything moving and alive, moment to
moment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Trust that you will pop up
again to yourself, by His will--hopefully a little wiser, a little more
experienced.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You will have grown a
little.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your will have taken into
your soul a little more of those dear friends you’ve made room for.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As Mother Spirit said last time, you can
only pity the poor, fearful, self-centered person all they’re missing; clinging
onto themselves so tightly this wonderful self-forgetfulness becomes
impossible.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s why we point out
the courage it takes to step off into the unknown, and all that universe out
there, all those other beings out there.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>What an adventure.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And here
it comes, inexorably.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So yes: you
can choose to be in my peace.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Welcome.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Michael, letting go
of the self-concept…<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m now
confused about it because in the last dialogue it seems like you almost were
recommending not engaging in the Urantia/Buddhism practices of literally letting
go and simply staying in the awareness of witnessing the concept of who and what
I am come and go; simply watching that.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I would assume that you see that to be a healthy practice, but it almost
sounded like the opposite.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my son, that
is what I meant by intentional self-forgetfulness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think you are speaking about the
rather advanced and pure consciousness wherein it becomes possible to witness
this coming and going of your ego notions.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>This is a consciousness almost beyond conceptualization by its very
nature.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>(Pure consciousness and states of mind)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>I was
also pointing at and cautioning against a mere state of mind where a person
credits himself or herself with being totally free of ego, but is actually
consumed with self pride in the supposed accomplishment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Yes)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In feeling they have finally escaped
their self and are doing nothing but God’s will, they have only stepped into an
even bigger ego-trip--as you would call it.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A dangerous state
of mind.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes--especially to
others.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s quite an acquired
ability to know with some duration just a pure happening, a total oneness with
what one is experiencing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Almost
everyone has magical-seeming moments of this wondrous consciousness
spontaneously, but then their mind tries to articulate it to itself, get a hold
of it conceptually, and hang onto it as a continuous possession.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For most people, and for quite a long
while, that very natural process of comprehension, implying self-and-other--so
essential to everyday living--brings to an end this highly conscious and utterly
precious self-forgetfulness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They
usually feel, with some regret, that they’re “back again” and that the moment is
lost.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>If you
identify enlightenment only with a particular state of mind, however subtly you
conceive of it, then you must necessarily feel you are coming and going with it;
you are getting it but then losing it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>You may make the further error in thinking of it as something that has
happened in the past and has to be recaptured; a self-defeating orientation away
from the eternal now which is ever new.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It is quite an advanced ability to have such an unforgettable experience
and not hold onto it as some great accomplishment--an ego-inflation which only
chases it away, as you learn by experience.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>OK!--so really the
self-forgetfulness can be cultivated in a meditative practice, which is the pure
witnessing consciousness.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Exactly!--whatever--that consciousness holds.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So the other
part of this is, you can have a wonderful curriculum because you can practice,
as some of us in this room have done, the sort of meditation which has attached
to it the teaching that there is no existential self--because you cannot
perceive that existential self.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You
might conceive of it, but you can’t perceive it: any such supposed perception is
an illusion.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Buddhism especially
says there is no self, and there can be no survival after death because there is
no self to survive.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But through the
Urantia book and yours and Mother Spirit’s teaching, we have the revelation of
the existential self.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>So we
can have this curriculum simply because…I have felt that--especially with the
higher Buddhist teachings--they’re purifying agents, and you don’t have to
accept their beliefs that there really is no existential human self.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So if you can use their thorough and
highly disciplined practices of letting go of the relative self, it strikes me
as being a wonderful curriculum--to have both.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Exactly.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You make the distinction between
revealed religion and evolutionary religion, and you can really use both.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We consider it quite an advanced,
evolved metaphysical philosophy, or religion, that self-limits itself in all
humility to what is purely experiential.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>They don’t particularly deny there is an enduring individualized self
here--your personality: they just say; we can’t say anything about it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Right!)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The practices are good so long as they
lead to genuine humility and don’t become some fundamentalist dogmas, ends in
themselves, which defeat the purpose.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>They can be very helpful as valid explorations.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Also,
simultaneously or coincidentally with this quest for pure experiencing, what
might pop up from time to time is your soul, this other part of you that
contains all of your life and all those things you’ve once believed all along
the line.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They’re all still there
to be enjoyed as little steps along the way to your current philosophy.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This might give you the further humility
that you’re only now on the next step, but by no means the final step.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You have a long way to go to be
final--(Michael laughs).</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s interesting,
Michael, when you said that humility is a kind of reward that one gets from the
practice of self-forgetfulness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Is
that what you said?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>(The
essence of humility)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a qualitative experience of
something greater than yourself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Self-forgetfulness is one means by which you can be filled with this
perception of something greater than you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Sometimes it is only intuitive, but like an experience of great beauty,
great joy, great truth, great goodness, it is a reward of forgetting about
yourself for a while.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The reward of
recognizing that other-than-self reality really is…humility is the right
word?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The feeling of humility is very distinct
and the opposite from what you call being humiliated, where you feel you’re
being squashed and rubbed out by some big thumb.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You cease to identify, in
self-forgetfulness, what a tiny speck you are, and lose yourself in experiencing
something enormous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This enormity
is not evil or ugliness, lies or deception, which are but fly-specks in the soup
of the cosmos.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What comes from God,
what is truly humbling, is the goodness, the truth, and the beauty; also the
courage to, first of all, seek them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Then you need the nerve to let yourself go and be influenced by
them.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Is there a
sense of smallness in relationship to this largeness that you’re suggesting--our
participation in this larger reality? <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m saying that in
this experience of confronting/perceiving/impacting that which is greater than
you, you have a choice.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can be
hanging onto yourself so tightly you’re unable to forget yourself.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All you can feel is how tiny you are by
comparison.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All you can feel is, in
essence, your own self-generated self, your ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But you have the choice of feeling: my
goodness!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Look at the
universe!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Look at the truth and the
beauty and the goodness that is God-generated.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then let--that--fill your
soul.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And so the
self-generated self drops away in the face of the monumental goodness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, because at
first the sense of self is usually overwhelmed by it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But you can get to the point where you
can have both.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Ah!)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Self-forgetfulness is not the only
way.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s what we talked about
tonight.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can get to the point
where you have no separation. You can intuit you are both the existential being
having this experience, and well as what the particular experience holds.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But again, this is a kind of ultimate,
fully developed human experience where it is not self-forgetfulness so much as
in your earlier, more immature first encounters.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This matured experience is one of
oneness in which it is not necessary to lose your sense of yourself.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your sense of yourself can be totally
there with your Father and Mother Spirit and me.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So it doesn’t need
to be forgotten.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It doesn’t have to
be denied and beaten down as in some religions.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is a
developed stage in which you can say, with God, I am!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And glory in that fact without, at the
same time, losing the feeling and the perception of His so much greater
reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s when you and God’s
presence within you can co-exist within your consciousness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These are not necessarily mutually
exclusive realms.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>People miss the
opportunity to have a worship experience for the most part, but it sounds like
the Urantia book definition of worship--is that not what we’re speaking of
here?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my son,
insofar as worship is a thankfulness, something no animal can be aware of.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mother Spirit’s Adjutant of Worship is
an augmentation of your own capacity for thankfulness, or appreciation; but
appreciation for what?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is
where humility, the feeling/awareness of some great goodness, is one with the
experience of thankfulness, thankfulness for that very thing.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It can even be a sense of your own
soul’s activities--the little serendipities, the coincidences, the magical parts
of your life that come and go.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It
can be a worship that only God could put together--(Michael laughs)--so
intricately and so surprisingly such an adventure that was made for you, as you
were made for it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>It’s a
wonderful state to get into where you don’t have to eschew your self in any way,
and you can feel yourself being humble in the face of God’s great gifts.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is very much a part of
worship.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It leads to wisdom: that
there is this all of you, and all of it, and all of Him, and all of
us.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Why is that
wisdom?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>(The
soul and applied wisdom)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Because it’s
been a real, valid experience that’s become part of your soul, and this is how
your soul influences this changing, conscious you, this day-to-day you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your soul is not just some inactive
story, however spiritual, that is tucked away.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This growing soul-ability is wisdom, is
where all you have experienced, plus all your other functions of intuition,
knowledge, courage, worship, are brought to bear on the present moment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then the experience
of worship and appreciation and contact actually brings forth more of the
capacities of the soul…?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Because of the
personality’s ability to experience and enjoy the soul.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Oh!)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We point out that your soul is very
distinct from your memories, which are pretty much a function of brain
activity--with Mother Spirit’s Adjutants.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But your soul is this other, gigantic thing.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And it does--especially with meditation,
especially with maturity, it does influence and give meaning and value and
character to every moment of your life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So it comes full
circle.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The wisdom aspect of that
is what?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We define
wisdom as an ability to bring all the Adjutant dimensions of mind, and all the
other aspects of your being, to bear on the present moment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is what your soul does; it adds
meaning/recognition, spiritual value, knowledge and understanding into the
living mix that is your consciousness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>All these things are not only in your physical brain, even with Mother
Spirit’s Adjutants.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The spiritual
story of your life, told by a presence of God, is also His perception and
understanding of what you are.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>(Whoa!)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is what your
soul is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s not just a glorified
memory.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s historical by
God.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s your Morontia
self…</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>…which is God’s
story about you.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Exactly.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It has His insight.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your Thought Adjuster is pure spirit,
and even though it is pre-personal, it is still that pure spirit of His.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are totally transparent to God:
personality, soul; everything--every part of your being; every molecule of that
sperm and egg that got together to make a unique physical you.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So the Thought
Adjuster, the fragment of the Father, is actually telling His story, singing His
song about you, laying down your soul.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This
pre-personal fragment literally takes on your personality’s unique personal
experiences.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is
existential.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It offers you eternal
life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are mostly
experiential.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You offer it a
personality and the experiences of a personal being.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a good trade.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(much laughter)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a good sharing.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your Thought Adjuster is also called a
Mystery Monitor because it’s one more unfathomable way in which God experiences
your life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Wisdom
is this ability, greatly facilitated by your soul as well as your memories and
your normative understanding.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s
the ability to bring all this to bear on the present moment’s necessities.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is what a wise person does.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He or she is able to bring their whole
life’s experiences to focus on now.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>And that transforms now into something more amenable to your will…and
still more humbling.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(much more
laughter)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It sounds in
this case like a skill, really the ultimate skill.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We’ve talked about
how what you call abilities, or skills, are a kind of soul-wealth, your soul’s
growth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Wisdom is super-ordinate to
any particular abilities.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s how
you use them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But yes, like any
ability it’s something you have to earn by living as consciously as
possible.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Also, my son, remember that the soul you perceive in another is what
we both call character.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There you
have both a feeling of the person’s unique personality, plus their life’s
experience.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>No one gets genuine
character for nothing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Character is
earned.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You might say it’s the
visual aspect of soul to another.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
yes, these human realities form a circle, all tied together.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is one of your tasks, to tie all
you are together in understanding, to find the spiritual unity in all your
complexity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s not a curse.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even the angels sometimes envy you your
seemingly lowly status as a material being--as well as having a personal spirit
as do they.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Life is
so painful, so hard and meaningless without this understanding contact and
communion with what is greater than you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Without humility you are so alone.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>All you have is this self-construct of you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It appears, but disappears every
twenty-four hours for about a third of that time.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So that’s
suffering, really.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As Buddha would
say, life is suffering; until we bring this ability to unify ourselves to
bear.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the poor
self thinking it’s the only thing, hanging on so tight, being so inept and
inefficient that it can’t help being humiliated, and yet some poor folks can’t
seem to learn.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>It’s a process.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is
why you were created in imperfection; this whole time/space cosmos was created
in imperfection.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It gives all of us
the opportunity, the possibility to participate in our own evolution.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We have somewhere to evolve to,
something to evolve into.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even you…you
alluded to the fact you were growing a kind of soul--you and Mother Spirit.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That was a surprising
statement.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Very much so,
my son, although our souls might seem to you to be like your science-fiction
time-traveling.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is no
distinction between our memories and our souls.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They are one in us, as they will be in
you when you fuse with your Thought Adjuster.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Right now you and your Thought Adjuster,
as well as your conscious memories and your soul, are quite distinct.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You would have flashed out before
this.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>But we
have what would be for a human being genuine time-traveling, going back hundreds
of billions of years, and here we are, leaving <st1:place>Paradise</st1:place>
with our retinue of companions.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then you can access
that memory.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, for us
it’s far beyond that, it’s dimensions and dimensions you have yet to encounter,
assimilate, and make your own.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In
one way we are still doing that--leaving <st1:place>Paradise</st1:place>--and
ever since.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You could think of it
as our transcending time--as you know it: and by a long shot.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(much laughter)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are just tadpoles--time-wise,
getting started with only thirty or forty dimensions of reality, with hundreds
to come.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is
humbling!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Ed: actually everyone,
including Michael, was constantly breaking up all through this section)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
why should the memories be separate from the rest, in the immature human
self?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Just because,
my son, it takes a while--sometimes a lifetime--for the person to become aware
of their own spiritual nature, the fact he or she is co-creating their own
reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thinking you have some
purely objective reality, so well in hand, is what gets you into so much trouble
with arrogance and hubris.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can
go around doing so much mischief because you refuse to acknowledge and take
responsibility for just how much you are creating your own world.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>The immature person is not aware of their own spirituality.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They think they are only their body and
mind living in a purely material world. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes a while for them to realize they
are actually in a physical/mental/spiritual world, and that seemingly exterior
mindedness and spirit is their own.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>You call it projection.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>To
them the world is inexplicably and therefore fearfully, now light, now dark, now
cheerful, now threatening, seemingly independent of their own inner
changes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>How can
an immature person so devoid of conscious spirituality even begin to appropriate
the reality of their partially spiritual soul, co-created by a pure fragment of
God’s?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They can bring
memories--though only very partial ones--into consciousness, but only the
briefest flash of the enormity of their souls. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes deep meditation and reverie to
re-experience, almost like re-living, some previous time in your life, because
you have to learn how to let your self go, let go any desperate clinging to
what’s happening now.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But with
access to your soul you can get some really awesome insight into what life is,
and what the combination of temporal experience and immortal spirit--Morontia
realty--is.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your life has
already been captured, and you’re witnessing that fact.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Certainly; it’s
happening constantly--continuously.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Your soul is this ongoing, living, influencing aspect of you, the sole
possession of your personality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s essentially all you have, along with this present moment: it’s in
this present moment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a
function and a factor in this moment, and it influences you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>By meditating and opening yourself up to
this, by inviting it to pop in whenever it wants to, by becoming friends
with--whatever--of the past wants to catch your attention, you give it greater
freedom to become like a super-memory.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s just humbling and awesome that so much of your life is still here in
an amazing dimension vouchsafed by a pure spirit presence of God’s. </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>As
Mother Spirit once said, not every hotdog or hamburger you ever had, no matter
how delicious, is in your soul.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But
everything of spiritual import is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>And this is mainly, if you’re lucky, if you’re paying attention, the
other people in your life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Everything that was spiritually significant in there in your soul.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s being held sacrosanct for you, and
it’s not until you become one with your Thought Adjuster that you have full
access to it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You--your conscious
self, has to grow to meet what it already is.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So you’re saying
our souls are separate from thought because we haven’t yet…what was
that?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your thoughts and
memories are more or less under your conscious control; you can think of an
incident in your past and focus on it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Your soul is a quasi-spiritual reality you have to invite into
consciousness, and as it’s an expansive, timelessly accurate version of what
really happened, it may conflict with the self-centered version you’ve preferred
to remember.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is another reason
why you have to relax to let it into consciousness past any psychological
denial; you can’t just command it or shape it like you can your more pliable
memories.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the
distinction between soul and memories that you’re helping us with.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It sounds like the soul is tied up with
actual experiences that are remembered, that are appropriated by the Thought
Adjuster’s recognition of this experience, and the recording of it--laying down
a record.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But it’s not in ones own
possession until fusion with the Thought Adjuster.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s in a reservoir--kind-of.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a
Morontia reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a beginning
cosmic reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a possession
of your personality, but your personality is still too immature, too undeveloped
yet to bring it fully into consciousness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, that’s
awfully ironic.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, that’s part
of the problem.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s why there’s
so much suffering still.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The
self-conscious self, as we’ve established this evening, is not fully aware of
all a human being is--themselves or others.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a Morontia Mota--if you will, a
spiritual truism--that people are so wealthy in their creativity and spirit, but
they refuse to believe it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Or they
simply can’t yet access it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You
can’t command your soul.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can’t
command your Thought Adjuster.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You
can only be open to them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can
only think: OK, God!--what have you got for me--now--this time.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In meditation and self-forgetting you
can open to soul treasures of your life, but the experience is so precious, so
mind-blowing, it’s difficult to keep from trying to hang onto the moment, and at
first that stops the flow.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In your
Buddhist training they caution against trying to capture enlightenment itself
because it can’t be done.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And what
could be more valuable and enlightening than your own soul?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve wondered
why I couldn’t command it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, but don’t
forget that your soul is influencing your moment to moment consciousness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A person of character is a very
soulful person.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>On the other hand
you have those unfortunate individuals who may be rather old in years yet
haven’t experienced much, and don’t seem to have much soul or character.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Think of ego-maniacs--actually
sociopaths, without humility, who are all in all to themselves.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s this, coupled with their
personality’s innate creativity, that gives them an enormous amount of power to
do terrible things, as you say, without any soul at all.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Hmmm…[and a long pause])</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>But I’ve
enjoyed this, my son.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This has been
a lot of reflection on what I talked about, the complexity of what a human being
is, and, as you say, some of the ironic tragedies of the self not realizing all
it is until it learns to let go of itself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>That’s the spiritual value of self-forgetfulness, and what it provides
opening for.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet as you also say:
that takes guts.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your folklore and
some religions are full of bogus notions that if you relax your defensive guard
for just a moment there are all these evil beings just waiting to come in and
capture your soul.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>First
student, breaking up again with laughter:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>People are like that with any new experience of spirit.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They hold onto their current conceptions
of themselves and, in a sense, keep out any new revelation of spirit.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mother Spirit
mentioned last time that it’s almost as if dogma were intended to keep people
from experiencing God’s infinity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>As D read from the Urantia book before the lesson tonight: how much the
religion of Jesus’ would challenge all the religions merely about him, and
promulgated in his name.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s the
smug fundamentalism of people who think they’re so close to the fundamental
truth of the cosmos they needn’t go out and openly explore any more; if they
ever did.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Maybe
we’d better give D a chance to speak.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>OK.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here we go.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How can you capture what is already
yours--or mine?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How can you grasp
something that is already a reality?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s like going for the brass ring on a merry-go-round, yet it’s always
outside ourselves--we think.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So we
try to grasp onto it with any dogma or religion, and the guru or teacher.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And yet the brass ring is who we
are.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The word that came to mind was
distinction.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>When we experience our
oneness with God, with truth, with wisdom, there is no distinction between what
you call the ego or false self--full of stories it’s told itself over the years,
programming and whatnot--and who we truly are.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>(Discriminating distinctions)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here, my son,
I must disagree with you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That
discrimination, that distinction, is always there in the full truth of
things.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Truth is all that is; it’s
all inclusive.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As you get
more and more in contact with your soul, all those stages you came through are
still here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You don’t in any way
have to deny them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They are still
here, right along with your now expanded truth.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All the less-than-true illusions, all
the successive false selves--as you put it--you’ve progressed through, are still
here, and you can now discriminate between them.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I wasn’t
saying that.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Oh.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I though you said that when you
experience your oneness with God there is no distinction…</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There’s no
other, in a sense.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s God
within--that wisdom, that truth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes--that contains
all your past.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yeah--I wasn’t
denying that. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We’re no longer a
prisoner of the past--that kind of thing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Wisdom you learn through silence, and through resting or meditation.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s like letting go the duality of how
we make decisions, and just opening up--as you say--to a greater perception of
what all this is, and not getting caught up in the constructs of the ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s beyond the ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s not even something that can be
captured, but it’s always here, every moment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s up to us to be silent and allow it
to become manifest.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It can’t be
manipulated: it just is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>What I
was reading earlier was to believe as you, as Jesus, believed.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was so rich when I read
that.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You have the
real gist of it, my son.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I just
wanted to point out that truth and wisdom are always: all of the above, with the
evolved distinction of what is what.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Mother Spirit and I like to point out that the ego is a necessary and
useful self-awareness, however lost in self-forgetfulness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But it’s the independent function of
your mind to understand, to categorize, to compare, to create concepts as a way
to get a handle on things.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s
always still there, independently of your ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, your ego is only a part.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And that very perception of how your
notions of yourself are only a part of you is itself a spiritual one. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Now you
can understand how your greatest accessible wisdom is still only part of
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is some personal,
soulful reality, transcendent to you, that you have to grow into.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your personality is always here; your
Thought Adjuster is always here; your soul is always here.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s
interesting how, during my day, some thought will come up, some inspiration, out
of the blue.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I may hear something
and it’s like my mind opens up to another kind of thinking.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even my notions of a lifespan have
changed over the years.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Who put
that construct into our minds, you know?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>We accept so many constructs that deny our true potential that God gives
us.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I get frustrated because I am
part of those constructs, that programming.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So I’m always questioning why I believe
what I do.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Hopefully you
can now see that it is not the constructs at fault so much as it is in their
being held exclusively as truth itself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>These intellectual concepts usurp the territory and values of
spirit.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Spirit is all
inclusive.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the orientation
toward that which is greater than you, the direction in which to grow.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Maintaining dogma is the arrogance of
saying, Now I’ve got it!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve got
the fundamental truth of the universe, and life, and it’s all mine!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>The notion that intellectual concepts are in themselves evil leads
to the cultivation of simple-mindedness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>In other words, we won’t have any more disquieting concepts, any more
discrimination or distinctions.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All
of that is just some kind of ego illusion.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Yet as Mother Spirit and I see you, whatever your conscious self
experiences is real to you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You
can’t call terrible suffering an illusion, as some do.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yeah, it’s like,
what is actually freedom?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>When the
Berlin Wall fell down then people were suddenly free, but they didn’t know what
to do.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There was still all the
upheaval.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was something they had
to find balance in.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I understand
what you’re saying.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My frustration
is because my own constructs get in the way of living God’s will--what I
perceive to be His will.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If I feel
that frustration then I know I’m not living His will.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So thank you for that.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>(Having
both a humble self and an awareness of spirit simultaneously)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In Oriental
philosophy they developed the technique of thinking--not this-not that--to
remind themselves that whatever they could grasp cognitively was not the whole
of reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet it’s all those
little pieces--this and that--which make up your life.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You finally arrive at the point where
you don’t have to eschew or deny the self and all its experiences--however
illusory in retrospect--in order to experience an enormous spiritual
presence.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, in fact I can
see how experiencing that enormity greatly enhances the experience of the
self.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You’re feeding your
soul.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, that’s what it
is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And there’s a natural
progression to these concepts as they fade away to greater ones of who we
are--if we don’t hold onto them.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>One more
thing--I know it’s getting late--I’ve made a commitment to just enjoying
life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I see so many so-called
spiritual people who are really too serious, too much into saving someone else’s
soul.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s a valiant endeavor,
but!--enjoy life too.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How can you
help someone who’s depressed if you’re depressed yourself?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Someone recently said that no one is
free if even one person is suffering.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But how can you free someone else if you haven’t found out what really
works yourself?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So I’m making a
concerted effort to allow myself to enjoy my life: the sun, the music, the
company.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s more enjoyable,
obviously, with communion with the spirit.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>That’s always number one.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>(Enjoying life)</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What you were
pointing out is a form of aestheticism, a denial of the self, sometimes for the
best of purposes--to help others--yet as you correctly see, unless one of you
finds the way out, none of you will.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s having the courage to let go and have fun, real, soul-fulfilling
fun.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can’t let the realization
of its inevitable end--sometime or another--to destroy what is possible
now.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You still raise flowers, and
they are very much a time-limited delight.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Yet here they are. </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face=Tahoma>So
carry on!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes nerve to have
fun, and to let other people have fun.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>You may have just stubbed your toe, and are hopping around in pain, but
why make everyone else suffer with you?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>People ask me
how can I have fun with so much suffering in the world, yet I think I do them a
disservice by not enjoying life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Curiosity, and
having fun, and being playful discovers so much.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So much discovery is serendipitous.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the attitude you have to have to
take advantage of those things that cannot be foreseen.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You have to be ready to enjoy them, to
allow them to happen.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Attitude
foreshadows possibility.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>Student:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For me it’s day to
day.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I don’t know what’s going to
happen tomorrow.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I try to really
live in the moment, with faith in the religion of Jesus’.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3>MICHAEL:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And in the
inclusiveness of spirit, this present moment can include insight, foresight, and
plans, and provision: all of that.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>Well,
it’s been joyous tonight.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We’ve had
a lot of fun kicking things back and forth.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I do thank you for opening your souls
and letting what I said this evening affect you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I could tell during that long pause you
were feeling for all the various parts of yourself I had just enumerated.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What is this soul of mine: where is
it?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Do I even have one?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face=Tahoma
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma>So: it’s been a lot of fun.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I thank you, my children.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>This has been delightful.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I
enjoyed it so much.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Be in my
peace.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good evening.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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face=Tahoma><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3> </FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT face=Tahoma size=3>
</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face=Tahoma><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center"
align=center>Michael--<st1:date Month="6" Day="22" Year="2009">June 22,
2009</st1:date></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Marin TM
Group--<st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Mill</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType>Valley</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>--<st1:country-region><st1:place>U.S.A.</st1:place></st1:country-region></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL--T/R-JL</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(A thumbnail sketch of a human
being)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(The human soul)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Self-forgetfulness--spontaneous
and intentional) </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Pure consciousness and states of
mind)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(The essence of humility)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(The soul and applied wisdom)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Discriminating distinctions)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Having both a humble self and an
awareness of spirit simultaneously)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Enjoying life)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Dear Michael and Mother
Spirit,<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Welcome, dear
parents.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We do enjoy and value so
greatly these feelings of humility you help us experience by putting our lives
into a context so much greater than ourselves, even pointing out that it is part
of ourselves that is greater than our consciousness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You help us appreciate how, as a
material being in space, we can become aware we are kind-of suspended between
the infinite and the infinitesimal; then along the dimension of time, how we are
to ourselves without beginning in a transcendent present, looking into a future
which has no limits either in duration or extent of personal growth.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So these feelings of humility are
wonderful.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They remind us that
though we are but a speck in the cosmos, we can begin to intuit, if not yet
directly perceive, its spiritual vastness, and be all the more thrilled and
thankful for our Father’s infinity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Then, that He shares so much of His nature with us…for all these lessons
of yours, dear parents, we are so thankful.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Amen.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good evening, my children, this is
Michael.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If you’ll indulge me, I’ll
enjoy saying that again: my children.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Very much like you human parents with children, you are both mine and not
mine at all, but fully yourselves’ and our Father’s.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mother Spirit and I do share a bit of
surprise from time to time with what you come up with.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s your free will and your exercising
of it that is such a joy.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You
become like tiny little gods yourselves for you are part of the Deity Absolute,
a personal being with creative power, not strictly bound by all those antecedent
causes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is something innately
delightful and free-roaming in your curiosity and how your seeking for the truth
and the reality of things plays leapfrog with your own abilities to create that
very thing--the true and the real.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(A thumbnail sketch of a human
being)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So let’s return to a kind of
thumbnail sketch of a human being.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>As we experience you as you experience yourselves you’re primarily a
self-conscious self that begins each morning when you awaken, maybe with a few
lingering dreams, and then here you are again.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You go through your days and let
yourselves be extinguished in sleep once again.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is your own personal field of
consciousness in which everything takes place for you, and indeed these are the
limits of your free will--those choices and decisions you make in full
consciousness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s when your
personality is capable of asserting itself through its creativity, somewhat free
of what has lead up to the moment, even its own habitual thought-patterns.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So this is the person you
experience yourself to be.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are
endowed with memory and a sense of the past--your own continuity, an experience
of the present, and, through the insights you’ve accumulated through the years
on the workings of the world, you can have some pretty certain foresight into
the future along the lines you’ve discovered and call Natural Law,
penetrated--so far--out billions of light-years and down into the subatomic
nano-second.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>About the realms of
mind and spirit you’re--not yet--so certain.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But through your inner experiences with
your Father, with Mother Spirit and myself, you are intuiting and developing
your own Morontia Mota--soul/spirit laws.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So here you are.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This seems complex enough--you have
thousands of conflicting philosophies and meta-physics that dispute what
constitutes even this part of a human being--and then here we come--(Michael
laughs)--saying that this body of yours, and all your physical reality--no
matter how much a materialist you are--is infused with spirit--your spirit.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Not only the spirits of all those untold
numbers of beings above you in the universe, all the way up to your Father, but
your body and all the surrounding reality of the world is infused with your own
spirit, your own creativity, your own interpretation of seemingly simple
facts--never so simple seen in this light.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">You have Mother Spirit’s
Mind/Spirit Adjuncts augmenting your physical brain activity, your
consciousness. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This consciousness
of yours, my children, is not solely a function of your physical brain activity,
though that’s its necessary foundation.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>You are influenced by these dimensions of Mother Spirit’s consciousness
surrounding you, impinging upon you, finding response within your
mentality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Then there’s this other aspect of
your being, you could say the sole enduring possession of your personality, and
that is your soul, the combination of your own creativity and free-will life
experiences, conditioned by the circumstances you’ve known, and your own beliefs
and notions.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All this experience of
your personality is captured by a pure spirit of God, a discrete pre-personal
individuation of His spirit, imbued with all the power of His spirit to write
your life, to co-create your soul as He sees you.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(The human soul)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Though your can rarely just
command this greater part of yourself to come forth, in your meditations, maybe
getting together and reminiscing with childhood friends, you can be amazed that
it seems like all that childhood is still there--all those adolescent struggles,
all your early adulthood--everything that made you who and what you are--is all
still there somehow--another infinity to this conscious you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Insofar as your soul is equally God’s
vision of you as well, some people think of their soul as their true self.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s what most human beings are working
toward, either consciously or higgly-piggly--catch-as-catch-can.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s to unify their entire
person-hood.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is difficult, even
ironic, that with this goal in mind of unifying their self, that very
concentration--alone by itself--can lead to immature notions of complete
enlightenment, notions of perfect intellect.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But these self-generated notions can be
the very thing standing in the way of relaxing, letting go these very
self-generated notions of self--more or less your ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Rather, have the nerve to let yourself
go and open yourself to pure possibility.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s welcoming the adventure of realizing how small this conscious you is
moment to moment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Let me echo your
opening prayer that correctly understands this is the delight of humility, being
in touch with something so much greater than yourself, even right within your
self.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Feel the glory of that
perception, that intuition, that faith, and finally, that assurance that you are
this transcendent reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For that
very reason you cannot just nonchalantly get a hold of your total self.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It would be like a container trying to
contain itself, not that you don’t try.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">You have to intuit with the eyes
and the feelings of faith all that you are.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then let it go the next moment--(Michael
laughs)--this construct of who you were that moment ago. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Let that go.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>No clinging.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Be open to the living, dynamic, changing
you the next moment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a merry
dance.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Some philosophies focus on
the motion itself and go to the extreme of saying there is no enduring self
here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is no being who
experiences apart from the thing experienced; there is just the experiencing
itself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Though this is true from a
purely experiential point of view, my children--you are this nodule of
experience out here in time and space--you are also existential just in the fact
of your existence.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even though
there is no concrete proof of this to a doubting, fearful mind, Mother Spirit
and I do reassure you, because it is true, that you are!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You participate is what we call the
Deity Absolute as a personalized absolute cosmic fact, a deliberate and discrete
creation of God’s.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">True enough, this existential
you, this God-created personality, has a long way to go before it joins with
that other aspect of you--your Thought Adjuster--your Father’s presence in
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And even then you have a whole
universe to cross, and all the worlds of Havona, before you become--almost--as
existential, as totally final as, say, a Paradise-origin being such Mother
Spirit or myself who started out that way.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Yet as completely existential as we are, son and daughter of the Trinity,
still we too are fully experiential, and we have what is analogous to a human
soul of all our experiences out here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">And so your conscious self that
lives a day at a time must spend about a third of its life on earth in
unconsciousness while your body heals, and your mind rests in its dreams, and
your spirit cavorts with your Thought Adjuster--in a sense, goes back home.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes a while for this so very
limited, so just beginning, so self-created self to begin to intuit and access
through faith that there is so much more than is dreamt of in his or her
philosophy: so much more out there; so much more in here.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">And then a further step, consider
that this personal creation of God’s, your personality, has the power--and needs
to--starting at birth--create a world view centered on itself, as well as
creating a self for itself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet
this enormous creativity, as you each co-create your own reality, is not readily
apparent.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s too transparent and
instantaneous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A vast majority of
the world’s peoples are nowhere near yet realizing, and ready to take
responsibility for, what they themselves are, unfortunately, rather
unconsciously creating.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Becoming
conscious of ones own field of spirit, of ones own creativity, is the great
individual and planetary movement toward maturity.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The humility in that is the meaning of
what I once shared with my Father with respect to the evil that men do: Forgive
them, Father, they know not what they do.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">And so it is with our lessons,
with our teasing, with our joy, we invite you into this full human estate--this
enormous complexity I just outlined in the briefest of forms.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is not something you can perceive, or
even conceive in its fullness; but it is something you can intuit, something you
can feel, hopefully something that finds some resonance within you when Mother
Spirit and I say, you are indeed a very complex being, largely unknown to
yourself simply because you are still so much pure potential, taking your first
few hesitant steps into eternity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Embrace and know each step well, my children, even the pain and the
suffering.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Love our Father
with all your heart, even in the midst of your deepest despair and
uncertainty.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He is always
here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He created you, and this
whole universe as a ground for you to learn in, to grow, to love, and to share
with all these others whom He also created.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Some day, my children, you will have
come to know a million beings of all sorts up to the creators and administers of
a galaxy to, finally, our Father, on Paradise.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But take your time.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Just enjoy life at God’s own pace for
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Feel for it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here it comes.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Now let your own comments, or
questions, follow mine.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Ed: what
followed was actually a very long pause of many minutes)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good evening, Michael, we read in the
Urantia book how, during your life as Jesus, you were self-forgetful.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Was this something that just happened
unconsciously because you were so focused on doing God’s will on loving your
fellow human beings, or was there an element of choosing to forget about
yourself?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Self-forgetfulness--spontaneous
and intentional) </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my daughter, there is both a
qualitative and quantitative distinction in what you just caught.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For the most part it was both.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Like small children playing in a
sandbox, humans are set up to explore and lose themselves in what they are
doing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then as you mature and you
deepen your experiences in losing yourself, say, in your work or hobbies, you
can begin to choose to do so more willingly.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In your meditation you can deliberately
set out to do this.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can start
just by being aware of your breathing, being aware of your ongoing physical
continuity, maintaining this respectful orientation toward this aspect of
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Consider that your heart is
beating with the force of life clear from when the Life Carrier Sons and Mother
Spirit started life on this planet nigh a billion years ago.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">This is a very deliberate thing
in which you are self-forgetting all your other mental business--the worries,
and memories, and plans--to be aware of and appreciate with infinite worship and
thankfulness this living physical aspect of your being that so many have so much
contempt and unhealthy disregard for.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Think of all the different kinds of aestheticism the human race has
indulged in--the punishing of the flesh, and so forth.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So it is both, my daughter.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Part is a natural, intrinsic ability and
desire to explore beyond oneself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But then the really deep awareness, the humility we talked about this
evening, is something you can definitely set out to experience.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I find it helpful in situations with
other people, and the tensions there and in myself--the conflict, I can choose
to forget about myself and just let those things go.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s like: just be there.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It seems to help me.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So I was wondering if the conscious act
of choosing to forget myself in that way is similar to what you, as Jesus,
did.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my daughter, very similar.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We only caution against the notion you
can completely get rid of your ego, your life-long, built-up construct of who
and what you see and feel yourself to be and have been.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The very notion you can somehow get rid
of this self in some self-directed way is itself only another, greater
illusion--to think and act outwardly as if: Aha! <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve finally conquered my ego!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m selfless!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Self-forgetfulness is making way
for something greater than yourself, in your case the awareness and enjoyment of
the people you’re with.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In my case
it was in finding an ongoing unity between my human and my divine self, one of
which needed no effort to be at one with my Father; yet my human self--(Michael
laughs)--it’s hard to explain how I was also fully this human person--was much
in need of a very directed meditation and worship and communion; which I can
highly recommend--from personal experience--to all my children.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So even though you are always
here, you can kind-of point yourself toward something greater than yourself, if
only in being open to the infinity of another human person.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So in a sense it’s like willing to take
yourself aside in humility.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Humility is the reward of doing so.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s what fills you up when you can
forget yourself--this self-conscious self that lives between periods of
sleep.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You rediscover again that
this is not all you are; you are capable of this greater awareness and
experience.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s that very
realization; it’s what you realize.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thank you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s very helpful.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m glad you’re discovering this, my
daughter.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As we say, you just let
go and trust that God, our Father, is actually keeping everything together,
actually keeping everything moving and alive, moment to moment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Trust that you will pop up again to
yourself, by His will--hopefully a little wiser, a little more experienced.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You will have grown a little.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your will have taken into your soul a
little more of those dear friends you’ve made room for.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As Mother Spirit said last time, you can
only pity the poor, fearful, self-centered person all they’re missing; clinging
onto themselves so tightly this wonderful self-forgetfulness becomes
impossible.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s why we point out
the courage it takes to step off into the unknown, and all that universe out
there, all those other beings out there.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>What an adventure.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And here
it comes, inexorably.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So yes: you
can choose to be in my peace.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Welcome.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Michael, letting go of the
self-concept…<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m now confused
about it because in the last dialogue it seems like you almost were recommending
not engaging in the Urantia/Buddhism practices of literally letting go and
simply staying in the awareness of witnessing the concept of who and what I am
come and go; simply watching that.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I would assume that you see that to be a healthy practice, but it almost
sounded like the opposite.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my son, that is what I meant by
intentional self-forgetfulness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I
think you are speaking about the rather advanced and pure consciousness wherein
it becomes possible to witness this coming and going of your ego notions.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is a consciousness almost beyond
conceptualization by its very nature.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Pure consciousness and states of
mind)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">I was also pointing at and
cautioning against a mere state of mind where a person credits himself or
herself with being totally free of ego, but is actually consumed with self pride
in the supposed accomplishment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>(Yes)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In feeling they have
finally escaped their self and are doing nothing but God’s will, they have only
stepped into an even bigger ego-trip--as you would call it.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A dangerous state of mind.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes--especially to others.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s quite an acquired ability to know
with some duration just a pure happening, a total oneness with what one is
experiencing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Almost everyone has
magical-seeming moments of this wondrous consciousness spontaneously, but then
their mind tries to articulate it to itself, get a hold of it conceptually, and
hang onto it as a continuous possession.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>For most people, and for quite a long while, that very natural process of
comprehension, implying self-and-other--so essential to everyday living--brings
to an end this highly conscious and utterly precious self-forgetfulness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They usually feel, with some regret,
that they’re “back again” and that the moment is lost.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">If you identify enlightenment
only with a particular state of mind, however subtly you conceive of it, then
you must necessarily feel you are coming and going with it; you are getting it
but then losing it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You may make
the further error in thinking of it as something that has happened in the past
and has to be recaptured; a self-defeating orientation away from the eternal now
which is ever new.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is quite an
advanced ability to have such an unforgettable experience and not hold onto it
as some great accomplishment--an ego-inflation which only chases it away, as you
learn by experience.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>OK!--so really the self-forgetfulness
can be cultivated in a meditative practice, which is the pure witnessing
consciousness.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Exactly!--whatever--that consciousness
holds.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So the other part of this is, you can
have a wonderful curriculum because you can practice, as some of us in this room
have done, the sort of meditation which has attached to it the teaching that
there is no existential self--because you cannot perceive that existential
self.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You might conceive of it, but
you can’t perceive it: any such supposed perception is an illusion.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Buddhism especially says there is no
self, and there can be no survival after death because there is no self to
survive.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But through the Urantia
book and yours and Mother Spirit’s teaching, we have the revelation of the
existential self.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So we can have this curriculum
simply because…I have felt that--especially with the higher Buddhist
teachings--they’re purifying agents, and you don’t have to accept their beliefs
that there really is no existential human self.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So if you can use their thorough and
highly disciplined practices of letting go of the relative self, it strikes me
as being a wonderful curriculum--to have both.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Exactly.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You make the distinction between
revealed religion and evolutionary religion, and you can really use both.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We consider it quite an advanced,
evolved metaphysical philosophy, or religion, that self-limits itself in all
humility to what is purely experiential.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>They don’t particularly deny there is an enduring individualized self
here--your personality: they just say; we can’t say anything about it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Right!)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The practices are good so long as they
lead to genuine humility and don’t become some fundamentalist dogmas, ends in
themselves, which defeat the purpose.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>They can be very helpful as valid explorations.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Also, simultaneously or
coincidentally with this quest for pure experiencing, what might pop up from
time to time is your soul, this other part of you that contains all of your life
and all those things you’ve once believed all along the line.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They’re all still there to be enjoyed as
little steps along the way to your current philosophy.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This might give you the further humility
that you’re only now on the next step, but by no means the final step.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You have a long way to go to be
final--(Michael laughs).</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s interesting, Michael, when you said
that humility is a kind of reward that one gets from the practice of
self-forgetfulness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Is that what
you said?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(The essence of humility)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a qualitative experience of
something greater than yourself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Self-forgetfulness is one means by which you can be filled with this
perception of something greater than you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Sometimes it is only intuitive, but like an experience of great beauty,
great joy, great truth, great goodness, it is a reward of forgetting about
yourself for a while.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The reward of recognizing that
other-than-self reality really is…humility is the right word?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The feeling of humility is very distinct
and the opposite from what you call being humiliated, where you feel you’re
being squashed and rubbed out by some big thumb.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You cease to identify, in
self-forgetfulness, what a tiny speck you are, and lose yourself in experiencing
something enormous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This enormity
is not evil or ugliness, lies or deception, which are but fly-specks in the soup
of the cosmos.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What comes from God,
what is truly humbling, is the goodness, the truth, and the beauty; also the
courage to, first of all, seek them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Then you need the nerve to let yourself go and be influenced by them.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Is there a sense of smallness in
relationship to this largeness that you’re suggesting--our participation in this
larger reality? <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m saying that in this experience of
confronting/perceiving/impacting that which is greater than you, you have a
choice.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can be hanging onto
yourself so tightly you’re unable to forget yourself.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All you can feel is how tiny you are by
comparison.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All you can feel is, in
essence, your own self-generated self, your ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But you have the choice of feeling: my
goodness!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Look at the
universe!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Look at the truth and the
beauty and the goodness that is God-generated.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then let--that--fill your soul.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And so the self-generated self drops
away in the face of the monumental goodness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, because at first the sense of self
is usually overwhelmed by it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But
you can get to the point where you can have both.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Ah!)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Self-forgetfulness is not the only
way.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s what we talked about
tonight.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can get to the point
where you have no separation. You can intuit you are both the existential being
having this experience, and well as what the particular experience holds.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But again, this is a kind of ultimate,
fully developed human experience where it is not self-forgetfulness so much as
in your earlier, more immature first encounters.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This matured experience is one of
oneness in which it is not necessary to lose your sense of yourself.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your sense of yourself can be totally
there with your Father and Mother Spirit and me.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So it doesn’t need to be forgotten.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It doesn’t have to be denied and beaten
down as in some religions.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is a developed stage in which you
can say, with God, I am!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And glory
in that fact without, at the same time, losing the feeling and the perception of
His so much greater reality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s
when you and God’s presence within you can co-exist within your
consciousness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These are not
necessarily mutually exclusive realms.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>People miss the opportunity to have a
worship experience for the most part, but it sounds like the Urantia book
definition of worship--is that not what we’re speaking of here?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, my son, insofar as worship is a
thankfulness, something no animal can be aware of.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mother Spirit’s Adjutant of Worship is
an augmentation of your own capacity for thankfulness, or appreciation; but
appreciation for what?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is
where humility, the feeling/awareness of some great goodness, is one with the
experience of thankfulness, thankfulness for that very thing.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It can even be a sense of your own
soul’s activities--the little serendipities, the coincidences, the magical parts
of your life that come and go.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It
can be a worship that only God could put together--(Michael laughs)--so
intricately and so surprisingly such an adventure that was made for you, as you
were made for it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">It’s a wonderful state to get
into where you don’t have to eschew your self in any way, and you can feel
yourself being humble in the face of God’s great gifts.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is very much a part of
worship.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It leads to wisdom: that
there is this all of you, and all of it, and all of Him, and all of us.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Why is that wisdom?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(The soul and applied wisdom)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Because it’s been a real, valid
experience that’s become part of your soul, and this is how your soul influences
this changing, conscious you, this day-to-day you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your soul is not just some inactive
story, however spiritual, that is tucked away.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This growing soul-ability is wisdom, is
where all you have experienced, plus all your other functions of intuition,
knowledge, courage, worship, are brought to bear on the present moment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then the experience of worship and
appreciation and contact actually brings forth more of the capacities of the
soul…?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Because of the personality’s ability to
experience and enjoy the soul.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>(Oh!)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We point out that your
soul is very distinct from your memories, which are pretty much a function of
brain activity--with Mother Spirit’s Adjutants.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But your soul is this other, gigantic
thing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And it does--especially with
meditation, especially with maturity, it does influence and give meaning and
value and character to every moment of your life.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So it comes full circle.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The wisdom aspect of that is what?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We define wisdom as an ability to bring
all the Adjutant dimensions of mind, and all the other aspects of your being, to
bear on the present moment.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is
what your soul does; it adds meaning/recognition, spiritual value, knowledge and
understanding into the living mix that is your consciousness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All these things are not only in your
physical brain, even with Mother Spirit’s Adjutants.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The spiritual story of your life, told
by a presence of God, is also His perception and understanding of what you
are.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Whoa!)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is what your soul is.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s not just a glorified memory.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s historical by God.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s your Morontia self…</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>…which is God’s story about you.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Exactly.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It has His insight.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your Thought Adjuster is pure spirit,
and even though it is pre-personal, it is still that pure spirit of His.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are totally transparent to God:
personality, soul; everything--every part of your being; every molecule of that
sperm and egg that got together to make a unique physical you.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So the Thought Adjuster, the fragment of
the Father, is actually telling His story, singing His song about you, laying
down your soul.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This pre-personal fragment literally
takes on your personality’s unique personal experiences.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is existential.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It offers you eternal life.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are mostly experiential.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You offer it a personality and the
experiences of a personal being.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s a good trade.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(much
laughter)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a good sharing.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your Thought Adjuster is also called a
Mystery Monitor because it’s one more unfathomable way in which God experiences
your life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Wisdom is this ability, greatly
facilitated by your soul as well as your memories and your normative
understanding.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the ability to
bring all this to bear on the present moment’s necessities.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is what a wise person does.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He or she is able to bring their whole
life’s experiences to focus on now.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>And that transforms now into something more amenable to your will…and
still more humbling.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(much more
laughter)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It sounds in this case like a skill,
really the ultimate skill.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We’ve talked about how what you call
abilities, or skills, are a kind of soul-wealth, your soul’s growth.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Wisdom is super-ordinate to any
particular abilities.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s how you
use them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But yes, like any ability
it’s something you have to earn by living as consciously as possible.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Also, my son, remember that the
soul you perceive in another is what we both call character.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There you have both a feeling of the
person’s unique personality, plus their life’s experience.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>No one gets genuine character for
nothing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Character is earned.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You might say it’s the visual aspect of
soul to another.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So yes, these human realities
form a circle, all tied together.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>That is one of your tasks, to tie all you are together in understanding,
to find the spiritual unity in all your complexity.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s not a curse.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even the angels sometimes envy you your
seemingly lowly status as a material being--as well as having a personal spirit
as do they.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Life is so painful, so hard and
meaningless without this understanding contact and communion with what is
greater than you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Without humility
you are so alone.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All you have is
this self-construct of you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It
appears, but disappears every twenty-four hours for about a third of that
time.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So that’s suffering, really.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As Buddha would say, life is suffering;
until we bring this ability to unify ourselves to bear.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the poor self thinking it’s the
only thing, hanging on so tight, being so inept and inefficient that it can’t
help being humiliated, and yet some poor folks can’t seem to learn.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">It’s a process.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is why you were created in
imperfection; this whole time/space cosmos was created in imperfection.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It gives all of us the opportunity, the
possibility to participate in our own evolution.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We have somewhere to evolve to,
something to evolve into.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even you…you alluded to the fact you
were growing a kind of soul--you and Mother Spirit.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That was a surprising statement.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Very much so, my son, although our souls
might seem to you to be like your science-fiction time-traveling.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is no distinction between our
memories and our souls.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They are
one in us, as they will be in you when you fuse with your Thought Adjuster.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Right now you and your Thought Adjuster,
as well as your conscious memories and your soul, are quite distinct.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You would have flashed out before
this.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">But we have what would be for a
human being genuine time-traveling, going back hundreds of billions of years,
and here we are, leaving <st1:place>Paradise</st1:place> with our retinue of
companions.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Then you can access that memory.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, for us it’s far beyond that, it’s
dimensions and dimensions you have yet to encounter, assimilate, and make your
own.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In one way we are still doing
that--leaving <st1:place>Paradise</st1:place>--and ever since.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You could think of it as our
transcending time--as you know it: and by a long shot.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(much laughter)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You are just tadpoles--time-wise,
getting started with only thirty or forty dimensions of reality, with hundreds
to come.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That is humbling!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Ed: actually everyone, including
Michael, was constantly breaking up all through this section)<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So why should the memories be
separate from the rest, in the immature human self?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Just because, my son, it takes a
while--sometimes a lifetime--for the person to become aware of their own
spiritual nature, the fact he or she is co-creating their own reality.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Thinking you have some purely objective
reality, so well in hand, is what gets you into so much trouble with arrogance
and hubris.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can go around doing
so much mischief because you refuse to acknowledge and take responsibility for
just how much you are creating your own world.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The immature person is not aware
of their own spirituality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They
think they are only their body and mind living in a purely material world. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes a while for them to realize they
are actually in a physical/mental/spiritual world, and that seemingly exterior
mindedness and spirit is their own.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>You call it projection.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>To
them the world is inexplicably and therefore fearfully, now light, now dark, now
cheerful, now threatening, seemingly independent of their own inner
changes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">How can an immature person so
devoid of conscious spirituality even begin to appropriate the reality of their
partially spiritual soul, co-created by a pure fragment of God’s?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They can bring memories--though only
very partial ones--into consciousness, but only the briefest flash of the
enormity of their souls. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes
deep meditation and reverie to re-experience, almost like re-living, some
previous time in your life, because you have to learn how to let your self go,
let go any desperate clinging to what’s happening now.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But with access to your soul you can get
some really awesome insight into what life is, and what the combination of
temporal experience and immortal spirit--Morontia realty--is.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your life has already been captured, and
you’re witnessing that fact.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Certainly; it’s happening
constantly--continuously.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your soul
is this ongoing, living, influencing aspect of you, the sole possession of your
personality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s essentially all
you have, along with this present moment: it’s in this present moment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a function and a factor in this
moment, and it influences you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>By
meditating and opening yourself up to this, by inviting it to pop in whenever it
wants to, by becoming friends with--whatever--of the past wants to catch your
attention, you give it greater freedom to become like a super-memory.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s just humbling and awesome that so
much of your life is still here in an amazing dimension vouchsafed by a pure
spirit presence of God’s. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">As Mother Spirit once said, not
every hotdog or hamburger you ever had, no matter how delicious, is in your
soul.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But everything of spiritual
import is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And this is mainly, if
you’re lucky, if you’re paying attention, the other people in your life.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Everything that was spiritually
significant in there in your soul.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s being held sacrosanct for you, and it’s not until you become one
with your Thought Adjuster that you have full access to it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You--your conscious self, has to grow to
meet what it already is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So you’re saying our souls are separate
from thought because we haven’t yet…what was that?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your thoughts and memories are more or
less under your conscious control; you can think of an incident in your past and
focus on it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your soul is a
quasi-spiritual reality you have to invite into consciousness, and as it’s an
expansive, timelessly accurate version of what really happened, it may conflict
with the self-centered version you’ve preferred to remember.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is another reason why you have to
relax to let it into consciousness past any psychological denial; you can’t just
command it or shape it like you can your more pliable memories.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the distinction between soul and
memories that you’re helping us with.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It sounds like the soul is tied up with actual experiences that are
remembered, that are appropriated by the Thought Adjuster’s recognition of this
experience, and the recording of it--laying down a record.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But it’s not in ones own possession
until fusion with the Thought Adjuster.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s in a reservoir--kind-of.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a Morontia reality.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a beginning cosmic reality.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a possession of your personality,
but your personality is still too immature, too undeveloped yet to bring it
fully into consciousness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, that’s awfully ironic.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well, that’s part of the problem.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s why there’s so much suffering
still.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The self-conscious self, as
we’ve established this evening, is not fully aware of all a human being
is--themselves or others.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a
Morontia Mota--if you will, a spiritual truism--that people are so wealthy in
their creativity and spirit, but they refuse to believe it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Or they simply can’t yet access it.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can’t command your soul.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can’t command your Thought
Adjuster.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can only be open to
them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can only think: OK,
God!--what have you got for me--now--this time.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In meditation and self-forgetting you
can open to soul treasures of your life, but the experience is so precious, so
mind-blowing, it’s difficult to keep from trying to hang onto the moment, and at
first that stops the flow.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In your
Buddhist training they caution against trying to capture enlightenment itself
because it can’t be done.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And what
could be more valuable and enlightening than your own soul?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve wondered why I couldn’t command
it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, but don’t forget that your soul is
influencing your moment to moment consciousness.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A person of character is a very
soulful person.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>On the other hand
you have those unfortunate individuals who may be rather old in years yet
haven’t experienced much, and don’t seem to have much soul or character.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Think of ego-maniacs--actually
sociopaths, without humility, who are all in all to themselves.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s this, coupled with their
personality’s innate creativity, that gives them an enormous amount of power to
do terrible things, as you say, without any soul at all.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Hmmm…[and a long pause])</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">But I’ve enjoyed this, my
son.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This has been a lot of
reflection on what I talked about, the complexity of what a human being is, and,
as you say, some of the ironic tragedies of the self not realizing all it is
until it learns to let go of itself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>That’s the spiritual value of self-forgetfulness, and what it provides
opening for.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet as you also say:
that takes guts.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your folklore and
some religions are full of bogus notions that if you relax your defensive guard
for just a moment there are all these evil beings just waiting to come in and
capture your soul.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">First student, breaking up again
with laughter:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>People are like that
with any new experience of spirit.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>They hold onto their current conceptions of themselves and, in a sense,
keep out any new revelation of spirit.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mother Spirit mentioned last time that
it’s almost as if dogma were intended to keep people from experiencing God’s
infinity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As D read from the
Urantia book before the lesson tonight: how much the religion of Jesus’ would
challenge all the religions merely about him, and promulgated in his name.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s the smug fundamentalism of people
who think they’re so close to the fundamental truth of the cosmos they needn’t
go out and openly explore any more; if they ever did.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Maybe we’d better give D a chance
to speak.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>OK.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here we go.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How can you capture what is already
yours--or mine?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How can you grasp
something that is already a reality?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It’s like going for the brass ring on a merry-go-round, yet it’s always
outside ourselves--we think.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So we
try to grasp onto it with any dogma or religion, and the guru or teacher.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And yet the brass ring is who we
are.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The word that came to mind was
distinction.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>When we experience our
oneness with God, with truth, with wisdom, there is no distinction between what
you call the ego or false self--full of stories it’s told itself over the years,
programming and whatnot--and who we truly are.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Discriminating distinctions)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here, my son, I must disagree with
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That discrimination, that
distinction, is always there in the full truth of things.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Truth is all that is; it’s all
inclusive.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As you get more
and more in contact with your soul, all those stages you came through are still
here.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You don’t in any way have to
deny them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They are still here,
right along with your now expanded truth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>All the less-than-true illusions, all the successive false selves--as you
put it--you’ve progressed through, are still here, and you can now discriminate
between them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I wasn’t saying that.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Oh.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I though you said that when you
experience your oneness with God there is no distinction…</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There’s no other, in a sense.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s God within--that wisdom, that
truth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes--that contains all your past.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yeah--I wasn’t denying that. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We’re no longer a prisoner of the
past--that kind of thing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Wisdom
you learn through silence, and through resting or meditation.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s like letting go the duality of how
we make decisions, and just opening up--as you say--to a greater perception of
what all this is, and not getting caught up in the constructs of the ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s beyond the ego.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s not even something that can be
captured, but it’s always here, every moment.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s up to us to be silent and allow it
to become manifest.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It can’t be
manipulated: it just is.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">What I was reading earlier was to
believe as you, as Jesus, believed.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It was so rich when I read that.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You have the real gist of it, my
son.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I just wanted to point out
that truth and wisdom are always: all of the above, with the evolved distinction
of what is what.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Mother Spirit and
I like to point out that the ego is a necessary and useful self-awareness,
however lost in self-forgetfulness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But it’s the independent function of your mind to understand, to
categorize, to compare, to create concepts as a way to get a handle on
things.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s always still there,
independently of your ego.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes,
your ego is only a part.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And that
very perception of how your notions of yourself are only a part of you is itself
a spiritual one. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Now you can understand how your
greatest accessible wisdom is still only part of you.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is some personal, soulful reality,
transcendent to you, that you have to grow into.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your personality is always here; your
Thought Adjuster is always here; your soul is always here.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s interesting how, during my day,
some thought will come up, some inspiration, out of the blue.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I may hear something and it’s like my
mind opens up to another kind of thinking.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Even my notions of a lifespan have changed over the years.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Who put that construct into our minds,
you know?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We accept so many
constructs that deny our true potential that God gives us.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I get frustrated because I am part of
those constructs, that programming.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>So I’m always questioning why I believe what I do.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Hopefully you can now see that it is not
the constructs at fault so much as it is in their being held exclusively as
truth itself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These intellectual
concepts usurp the territory and values of spirit.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Spirit is all inclusive.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s the orientation toward that which
is greater than you, the direction in which to grow.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Maintaining dogma is the arrogance of
saying, Now I’ve got it!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve got
the fundamental truth of the universe, and life, and it’s all mine!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The notion that intellectual
concepts are in themselves evil leads to the cultivation of
simple-mindedness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In other words,
we won’t have any more disquieting concepts, any more discrimination or
distinctions.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All of that is just
some kind of ego illusion.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet as
Mother Spirit and I see you, whatever your conscious self experiences is real to
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can’t call terrible
suffering an illusion, as some do.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yeah, it’s like, what is actually
freedom?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>When the Berlin Wall fell
down then people were suddenly free, but they didn’t know what to do.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There was still all the upheaval.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was something they had to find
balance in.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I understand what
you’re saying.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My frustration is
because my own constructs get in the way of living God’s will--what I perceive
to be His will.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If I feel that
frustration then I know I’m not living His will.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So thank you for that.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Having both a humble self and an
awareness of spirit simultaneously)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In Oriental philosophy they developed
the technique of thinking--not this-not that--to remind themselves that whatever
they could grasp cognitively was not the whole of reality.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet it’s all those little pieces--this
and that--which make up your life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>You finally arrive at the point where you don’t have to eschew or deny
the self and all its experiences--however illusory in retrospect--in order to
experience an enormous spiritual presence.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, in fact I can see how experiencing
that enormity greatly enhances the experience of the self.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You’re feeding your soul.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes, that’s what it is.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And there’s a natural progression to
these concepts as they fade away to greater ones of who we are--if we don’t hold
onto them.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">One more thing--I know it’s
getting late--I’ve made a commitment to just enjoying life.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I see so many so-called spiritual people
who are really too serious, too much into saving someone else’s soul.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s a valiant endeavor, but!--enjoy
life too.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>How can you help someone
who’s depressed if you’re depressed yourself?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Someone recently said that no one is
free if even one person is suffering.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But how can you free someone else if you haven’t found out what really
works yourself?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So I’m making a
concerted effort to allow myself to enjoy my life: the sun, the music, the
company.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s more enjoyable,
obviously, with communion with the spirit.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>That’s always number one.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">(Enjoying life)</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What you were pointing out is a form of
aestheticism, a denial of the self, sometimes for the best of purposes--to help
others--yet as you correctly see, unless one of you finds the way out, none of
you will.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s having the courage
to let go and have fun, real, soul-fulfilling fun.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You can’t let the realization of its
inevitable end--sometime or another--to destroy what is possible now.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You still raise flowers, and they are
very much a time-limited delight.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Yet here they are. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So carry on!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes nerve to have fun, and to let
other people have fun.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You may have
just stubbed your toe, and are hopping around in pain, but why make everyone
else suffer with you?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>People ask me how can I have fun with so
much suffering in the world, yet I think I do them a disservice by not enjoying
life.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Curiosity, and having fun, and being
playful discovers so much.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So much
discovery is serendipitous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s
the attitude you have to have to take advantage of those things that cannot be
foreseen.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You have to be ready to
enjoy them, to allow them to happen.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Attitude foreshadows possibility.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Student:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For me it’s day to day.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I don’t know what’s going to happen
tomorrow.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I try to really live in
the moment, with faith in the religion of Jesus’.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">MICHAEL:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And in the inclusiveness of spirit, this
present moment can include insight, foresight, and plans, and provision: all of
that.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Well, it’s been joyous
tonight.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We’ve had a lot of fun
kicking things back and forth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I do
thank you for opening your souls and letting what I said this evening affect
you.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I could tell during that long
pause you were feeling for all the various parts of yourself I had just
enumerated.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What is this soul of
mine: where is it?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Do I even have
one?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So: it’s been a lot of fun.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I thank you, my children.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This has been delightful.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I enjoyed it so much.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Be in my peace.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good evening.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
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style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
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