It's Your Choice

Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, welcome. Well, come to us and join our merry group here. We do look forward to gathering together to hear what you have to say for us. We appreciate your point of view and how it helps us get out of ourselves for a while and luxuriate in being in such close contact with our parents. We know you are within us, actually a part of us, along with our Father. But we also appreciate the fact you come through different TR’s and give us a chance just to be with you for a while and feel your presence, which we can also do by reading the transcripts of all your lessons and their questions and answers. So thank you very much--we do appreciate it. Amen.

Michael: Good evening, this is Michael. Definitely, Mother Spirit and I are very thankful for your appreciation. As we’ve taught so many times, this is a part of worship, being thankful for your life--for all that you are, for all that you’ve experienced--thankful for our Father providing his outflowing of life, not only to create your essence--your personality--to begin with, but literally to sustain you, sustain you forever if that is your choice.

Tonight I would like to address the question that is in so many minds of you who follow the Teaching Mission, and that is: what to make of so much information now coming from so many different sources, not only the Transmitter/Receivers, but the spiritual points of view being expressed from different spiritual personalities. And in accepting this--something that Mother Spirit and I have taught on so many times--we’re aware that it seems very radical for so many folks: we suggest. These are only suggestions like all of our lessons; we’re definitely not telling you what to do.

We’re actually trying to wean you away from having other folks tell you what to do. Whatever that is--whenever and whatever you receive from the time you wake up in the morning, and even then you may be remembering some of your dreams, all through your day until you lose consciousness again at night; you’re constantly confronted with your whole world. Yet as we’ve taught so many times, it is how you take it--your own co-creativity.

No one else is standing right where you are. Even identical twins that are born that way still are experiencing each other differently. And of course as they go through their childhood, as they grow up, they usually have more and more separate lives. So it is for each of you. No one is standing where you’re standing and seeing what you’re seeing. No one has experienced what you have experienced. This is your soul. This is the essence of you, captured by a presence of God, that gives you a certain outlook, a certain point of view.

Think of all our lessons on being aware as much as you can of how you are influencing what you are perceiving. Mother Spirit taught on this last time, that truth for each of you--as you reach for, and search for, and feel for the truth--you’re feeling for what is almost apart from you, what is objective, what is The Truth independent of yourselves. Yet, of course, there’s your unique subjectivity involved that you never quite escape. It’s not only that fact: it’s realizing you are involved. You are a part of that truth as much as you are trying to be objective and take yourself, consider yourself, into that assessment.

So what I suggest tonight might seem even a little more radical, and that is: in these Teaching Mission lessons--again, as Mother Spirit and I have suggested even with respect to our own lessons, even as I’m talking to you now or you read these words later--see if you can have some kind of immediacy of what the message is, independent of its source.

Once words are spoken and recorded, and then once the words are written, they’re on a page in front of you. They have their own independent existence. There they are. Whether you’re either listening again, shall we say, to an audio archive, or reading the words, they do have their own objective existence. This is what we want you to relate to primarily. What it does is help you divorce how you are evaluating and taking the lesson--the words--from their source. It means you are relying more and more, and are more and more aware of your own inner truth, your own inner point of view, your own inner assessment of value, which, as we’ve taught, is strictly a function of your spirit. You have the physical facts there on the page. You have their intrinsic meaning in whatever language and how they’re expressed. But it is your own spirit, your own creative spirit that is evaluating what is coming to you.

And to go further afield, let me suggest that this is something that not only you as an individual come into as you come into your maturity, but on the grander scale, this is something that the human race itself is coming into as it slowly works towards its maturity.

Think of the tribal level of association, of groups together where there was an absolutely rigid, almost ironclad kind of group-think of group responsibility and group authority. As the Urantia Book talks about, consider all the painful cutting that still goes on in some tribal societies, all these scars, all the tribal markings on a person’s body to give them a sense of belonging. Because in the more primitive tribes, they were nose-to-nose every day up against the relentless necessity for food and shelter. That’s a kind of an iron control over the group: necessity.

But as the tribes grew into city-states, into nations, into empires; the whole history of mankind has been a greater and greater individual freedom, first of all in the complexity of the society, the dozens and then hundreds of different kinds of jobs, the work that people did to pull their share, to do their part. Now, of course, there are hundreds of thousands of different vocations, and this is a mark of individuality. Also as the tribes grew into ever and ever greater groups with ever more complexity, each individual became more and more responsible for their own take on things.

The group-think came to an enormous crescendo, you might say, in the last century where in the late 1930’s and then into the 1940’s, you had such a blossoming of the identification of individuals with nation-states, such a pride and arrogance of nationality. You had a World War in which tens of millions of people died in the most unbelievably obscene ways, crushed under buildings and maybe living for days until they finally perished. You could hardly torture someone more than that.

More recently there’s the idea of having every individual becoming more and more self-aware and self-responsible, and not relying, shall we say, on what the leader of the country is telling you as in: “It’s my country--right or wrong.” You’ve had that slogan, that abnegation of personal responsibility because so-and-so told someone that was the way to go. And of course, up until very recent times, whoever had the political power in the country also controlled all of the dissemination of information. There was no free press. There were no different political parties each with an equal ability to express their points of view.

This development also happens within the individual. You are reared by authority, first by your parents and your immediate surroundings, the schools you go to. But at the end of this period of maturation, you yourself decide what is unconditionally true. That is, if you reach your maturation and you do become self-aware that: this is my truth; and yet at the same time: it is only my truth. This is a whole sweeping movement of the maturation of not only individuals but of peoples.

With respect to bringing this full circle back to your Teaching Mission: we can only encourage you to take in—entertain, as we say--this material, whatever it is, from whatever source. Just be open to it. Realize, my children, that you have this infinite capacity to take in things. It’s not that your minds are definitely limited and can take in only so much. Rather, welcome this ability of yours to read something, entertain it, think about it, and let it find its own place in your minds, in your memory, in your understanding. It helps you to do this by keeping things somewhat irrespective of their source. You should be able to separate these in your mind and not be overly influenced by whatever the source claims to be.

This is also true for myself and Mother Spirit. We encourage you to have this independence of being so that you not only have a great sense of what you do believe--what is the truth for you, yet at the same time have the courage to keep opening yourself, even to that which is antithetical to what you believe to be true.

This is the stretch. This is the stretch we tease you with, that is required here. Just like your body needs to stretch--all those muscles need to be kept long and supple and agile; all those joints in your body need to move as much as possible, as long as possible--we refer you to some of your great dancers who are just so fluid in their movement clear into their nineties: try to be the same way in your mind. Be agile. Be flexible. It’s another example of letting go of yourself. Don’t be a dictator in your own mind and have to twist and squirm and form and shape everything to conform to what you already believe. Be a democracy inside. Think of having the First Amendment, that freedom of speech, right inside you as a freedom of receptivity.

Most of you are aware of the political situation the United States is in right now as the different political parties vey for supremacy in the upcoming elections. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the different commentators on TV and how some of them are complete ideologues, who go on for an hour expressing one single point of view and excoriating every other point of view. How difficult it is sometimes to find someone, a commentator who is truly unbiased, who really presents both sides of an argument: and just how refreshing and welcome that is.

So my lesson for this evening is: not only in the Teaching Mission but as you go through your days, be open-minded. Really accept by welcoming within yourself all those separate individuals you meet, just by being able to perceive them as individuals, not as one particular sex, or race, or body type, or whatever. There they are, individual and unique.

This is what your future promises after you finish this first life of yours and reawaken on a Mansion world and immediately start to, as you say, rub elbows with human-type beings from many, many worlds. You will definitely welcome the recognition of another human being from Urantia. So do your best. Lean in this direction of welcoming and taking in as much as you can, and letting it find its own place. This is what your meditation is all about, just spending some time opening yourself to whatever suggests itself, because you’re a democracy inside. There may be many voices inside you that want to be heard.

Michael: Oh, just spend some time thinking of me, if you would, and just welcoming me in your mind. Feel me, if you can, myself and Mother Spirit and our Father. We don’t--Mother Spirit and I--we don’t require any kind of worship, but we do enjoy visiting with you. It’s your saying hello and sending some love our way. That’s more than enough. That’s just wonderful.

Student: Thank you for a wonderful lesson, as ever. Could you speak to a little bit… I mean, I love the whole idea of being open to everything because one can’t make a judgment until one’s experienced it, in a sense. But I tend to be open sometimes to a few too many things. I mean there’s an element of discernment that’s constantly brought into play also. And some things are best, perhaps, left alone. So, I would be grateful if you could speak to that.

Michael: Yes, my son. I think it helps to be aware of your own--what Mother Spirit and I have been talking about, how you have your own take on things. To a degree this is a kind of filter. In today’s society with so much being presented, and some of it rather--I’ll call it obscene because it’s intended to be; it’s intended to shock; it’s intended to push your buttons, as you say. It’s intended to get a rise out of you, and some of it is really horrific in terms of violence and the maltreatment, the horror in war and what’s happening in places around the world--what people are doing to other people.

I think it’s okay, it’s almost necessary to have this kind of filter. Just be aware you do have it. It’s part of what saves your sanity; it’s a sense of appropriateness. It’s a sense when something is so off the wall and truly obscene, of being able to not take that totally in. It’s a quality of recognition that saves you. That instantaneous recognition is almost like: think of the iris of your eye and how a doctor can shine a flashlight there to see how instantaneously it reacts. And so you go through life with your eyes as wide open as you can, and yet you do develop this instinctive, very, very quick quality of recognition so when some really terrible things--that are deliberately terrible--come along, you can instantly close down to them.

This is a quality of recognition and so, in one way, you’re not being narrow-minded. You’re really protecting yourself like putting on sunscreen or, even closer to my analogy, putting on some dark glasses when you’re going out on a bright day. Just be aware you’re doing it. Does that help?

Michael: Don’t feel guilty about this. What we always encourage is a kind of self-awareness which is not just being an egomaniac and filling your whole life with only your own self. It’s the exact opposite. It’s being open to as much as you can, and yet really, in today’s society, you do have to protect yourself from those other individuals who are only as I say, trying to push your buttons . . .

Student: Father and Mother, this is I. (name) I just wanted to share my gratitude for your words, and for the T/R’s, and for the transcribers, and for being a part of the Correcting Time, and for our dear, dear teachers, and for our being able to read, to go back and read the earlier lessons. Our group is reading Daniel’s 1992 lessons, and they ring so true today as they did twenty years ago. I just wanted to thank you.

Michael: Well, my dear, thank you. Thank you for your appreciation. This is a fun thing, is it not, this Correcting Time? Certainly, it’s due. Good works, truth, justice--these things are always due, and so we have to, as you say, give them their due. Part of this openness is being able to see all sides of something. It’s the only way to come to some more complete notion of things. Those that go deep, as you notice, do transcend time. There are truisms that you can grasp and hang onto that are good guidelines. And as long as you have that appreciation, that’s what really cheers your soul, does it not?

Michael: That’s what really lets you know that this life is worthwhile--all this goodness that is going in your soul and will be your possession forever. So thank you, my daughter, and keep up those studies. Keep having fun feeding your soul.

Student: I have some CD’s that I’ve got from Donna, “Experiencing Your Divine Parents,” and I’ve listened to them daily, you know, for the last month or so. Yet I still have a problem trying to make contact with my Thought Adjust. I was wondering if you have any other tips, or if there’s something that I’m not doing right, or could be of help?

Michael: Yes, my son. As I’ve taught on so many times, there’s a real irony here. From your perspective, from the perspective of your personality, the difficulty in isolating what is your Thought Adjuster, what is God’s presence in you providing you, is because it has always been there. It’s literally a part of you. So it’s a little bit like reaching down and grabbing your bootstraps and trying to lift yourself off the ground.

Also you are facing a difficulty that Mother Spirit and myself are also part of you, part of your mentality, part of the way you perceive and understand. Even things like courage and your gregariousness with other folks are being augmented by entities apart from you. We are not you. You are your own being, and yet we are within you.

When it comes to the presence of God within you, your Urantia Book points out quite a conscious distinction between your Thought Adjuster’s input and what you normally call conscience. This is because almost 90% or more of what goes for conscience is just social adaptation. It’s what you were taught. It’s what you absorbed all the years that you grew up. It’s what your particular society considers right and wrong.

Our Father’s input is so much more subtle that it requires, on your part, a real measure of faith to keep talking with, keep addressing, keep trying to have a conversation with your Thought Adjuster. Again: part of this difficulty is, you can ask a question, “Dear Father, what do I do here?” or “What’s true between these two things?” and part of the difficulty could be that the answer is the very next thought that occurs to you! This can be his input. But it is a thought! If Father . . .

Michael: …if Father were to suddenly make his presence more known than this, to that very degree you would be losing your free will need to decide. It’s just what I taught on tonight. If you cannot isolate something from its source and evaluate it on its own, you do not have the freedom of choice. I gave the example of people who are so nationalistic, no matter what their leader says, that’s got to be true. This is why Father’s presence within you, and the thoughts that he provides you, don’t have a big heavy signature because that would be him telling you what to do. You always have to decide, thought to thought, on every thought that comes into your mind. You have to assess it and evaluate it for yourself. This can seem, on one hand, just to be making things difficult, like, “Father, why don’t you just tell me what to do.” But that’s the very thing he refuses to do, as do Mother Spirit and I. I’m kind-of empathizing with your difficulty here.

Michael: Sometimes, as we’ve taught, you can recognize something that is so totally comprehensive it hits you with something you’ve been thinking of maybe for days. All of sudden it hits you like that with something that comprehends everything, and is some kind of solution. Sometimes you can recognize that as coming from your own self, but your Father’s input is right at the same point--I should say almost the same point--in your mind as your own creative spirit. You yourself are creating your own solutions right along with him. So it’s more of a feeling, just a feeling of not being alone.

Michael: It’s what I had as a human boy, myself. It’s a feeling of not being alone and, as I said so many times before, with such a fatherly kind of companionship it was so similar in a way to Joseph’s company, too—a kind of a Fatherly presence there, just saying, “Be of good cheer, my son. This is your life.”

Michael: For so many folks it is a sense of company, a sense of presence. Sometimes we call it the very background of your consciousness. It’s a feeling of consciousness itself, which of course is what he’s giving you. That’s the faith too of knowing that when you talk to God, he does answer. This part of you is responding and literally making the experience part of your soul, part of you forever.

Well, my children, it is getting late so I’ll wrap up this particular session. I hope and, in my own way, I pray that you are able to take me too with, as you say, a grain of salt. Don’t accept, because I claim to be who I am, don’t just blindly accept anything I say, but chew on it a bit. Work it over and wonder: is this true? Does this lead me to more life, greater life, more acceptance and more openness to really enjoy all this unbelievable variety all around me, especially all these other people?

If this can be your feeling, if you can feel my company as you listen to me or as you read my words, that’s enough for me. That’s more than enough. That’s my delight. But neither myself, nor Mother Spirit, nor, as I just got through talking about, not even God himself asserts his absolute authority over you, let alone any of your fellow human beings. We treasure your independence. We treasure your free will. We treasure how your unique personality finds so many ways to express itself.


				*It's Your Choice*