S.E. Idaho Transcript
5-31-02

Unknown Speaker(Bob S.): Open our hearts, our minds, our very being to
hear the words which have been prepared for our enlightenment. We seek
only Your will, Father. Show us the way. Amen.

Daniel(Bob S.) Dear friends, this is Daniel. I remain your friend,
colleague, and elder brother. We, your teaching corps are taking a few
minutes to organize. I have been asked to greet those here tonight while
the rest of the staff decides what we will say. To those who are
relatively new to the group I wish to extend a hand of friendship and love.

To Melissa, my child, your emotional situation is understood and we wish we
could extend our arms around you at this time, which we do. But, of
course, you cannot feel them. Know, however, that you are surrounded by
friends at a higher level, and you have only to ask and their wisdom and
compassion will be made clear to you.

To my friend, John, greetings! How we enjoy your mind. Your analytical
way of dealing with issues which often defy analysis reminds many of us of
our own mortal careers. We, each of us on this side, regard our years of
living in the flesh as an extremely important time in our lives. Being
with you mortals here allows us the opportunity to remember, to look back,
to re-experience and live again those times of so long ago. I have been
told we are ready with tonight's lesson, so I shall step aside to allow the
major presentation of the evening. One moment, please.

Minearisa(Bob S.): My children, this is Minearisa, your instructor in
residence. How I enjoy these opportunities when given to me to address
you, my youngest brothers and sisters! While I have few experiences with
mortals as yourselves, it continues to be a source of pleasure and
challenge of comradery and experience, of hope and fulfillment, since I,
being a more advanced being, have somewhat clearer vision of the future.
Tonight it is my great pleasure to speak on the subject of expectations.
Yes, I realize this is something you have been taught recently. My role
is to add additional perspective. You have been taught that what one
expects, one will sooner or later attain. While these words have a ring of
truth., there are many exceptions. It is these exceptions which I will
attempt to address this evening.

You have been told that the human mind is a mixture of basically two parts.
The basic, the fundamental, the human side is animalistic and derives its
nature from the experiences of you and your ancestors. But there is
another part which you are now becoming acquainted with, which for lack of
a better term I shall call your Spiritual endowment which emanates from
your resident Thought Adjuster and is added to from a variety of sources,
from those celestial beings which come in and go out of your environment.
You know of many of these: personal teachers, midwayers, angels, and others
who, on occasion, become part of your life circle. These individuals, too,
have impact upon your spiritual development. When one starts out,
basically your animal side is in control and your spiritual side is in the
secondary position. As you grow, mature, develop, and gain wisdom your
spiritual side grows, matures, and will ultimately take precedence. But
this, you know.

The impact of these two sides on one's expectations is to most of you,
anticipatory. You can see how your animal side would flavor one's
expectations. Now you are beginning to see how your Godly side affects
one's expectations. With time, with hard work, one will learn how to turn
their lives over to God and allow their spiritual side to assume dominance.
This process takes considerable time. You all in this room are now
entering that phase of life where you can see clearly how God's will and
your will impact one another. You are beginning to learn how to allow God
to become primary in your life. This process takes considerable time, as
you have been told. Even after fusion with your Indwelling Spirit your
personality is not completely under control of your spiritual side. You
still have much to learn. Perhaps I should pause at this point and see if
there are questions anyone wishes to raise at this point in this evening's
lesson. (Pause) Very well, I shall proceed.

Regarding expectations, as you have been told, one's expectation depends
considerably upon your vision. How clear your vision is depends to a great
extent on where your heart lies. If your home is mostly human your
expectations would reflect that point of view. As your spiritual side
grows that development also impacts your expectations. Now let me look at
this question from another point of view.

Suppose you were a flower and limited in your mobility, as flowers are.
Your expectations would be few. You would most probably expect water and
sun and perhaps a few worries, all the possible things that could happen to
you. But let's focus for now on two things: the sun, and your need for
water. Without either of those you, as a flower, cannot exist for very
long. Both of those are necessary for your growth and maturity. In that
perspective your future is dual in nature, as is the human future, subject
to two major influences.

Going back now to the flower example, I suggested flowers may well have
fears and anxieties and worries much the same as the human does. Is
someone going to run over them and trample them into the ground? Are they
going to be decapitated by a lawn mower or lawn trimmer? Is some animal
going to make their head his resting place? One can foresee from the human
perspective how the flower might have considerable anxieties in its life.
Again the parallel between the flower and the human is clear. The question
is, does the flower really have any fears or anxieties or worries? Is its
brain developed to the point that it is complex enough to have those?
Those of you who know your biology would say probably not. So, how does
the flower escape those expectations, while the human does not? Further,
who really is the more advanced being?

LaReen: I vote for the flower. (Laughter)

Minearisa: One of the difficulties of advanced evolution is that not
everything evolves positively. Some things develop which complicate
advanced life forms. While most of you would probably not change places
with the flower, most of you enjoy their beauty, their simplicity, their
singleness of purpose. But the human animal, while able to see the fulness
of life in simpler forms of life, has evolved into a situation where one's
complex thinking mechanism gives you choices. I'm sure you would not want
to give up your choices. Yet I am sure you now see there are potential
difficulties when anyone has choices, namely making poor choices. But that
is another subject. Tonight we talk of expectations. Getting back to the
human animal, your expectations are complicated for a reason. Without
difficulties, without problems, without stress, there is no growth.

I am not sure now where I want to go. Let me pause to see if there are any
questions, while I am deciding. Does anyone have a question or comment?

Ken: You said we have to have stress to have growth or change for growth?
Stress is one of our big problems as animals.

Minearisa: Ah, Kenneth, my favorite animal questioning person!

Ken: Well....

Group: You have now been labeled.

Minearisa: Yes, stressors do force the animal to make decisions, some good,
some not so good. In either case decision making produces growth, sometimes
slow, sometimes faster. But to the extent that stress is a decision making
point, it is valuable to the human animal in terms of wisdom production.
Kenneth, do you wish to go further with your question?

Ken: It is how we handle the decision making that causes the stress,
whether it is positive or negative.

Minearisa: Yes, a good point. Yes, every decision point could well
generate other decision points. Those of you who are scientists know that
answering one question often leads to other questions. This is the same
thing here. Making one decision often requires follow up decisions, and as
such, creates additional stress. Will you ever have a life which is stress
free?

Ken: I don't think so. (Laughter) Not for a long time.

Minearisa: Well, I don't want to get into that. That is another issue but
....

Group: It is a good goal, though.

Minearisa: As I am sure you are aware, that will take considerable time.

John: I would like to ask if I am interpreting things right. I view stress
as really being the response to the material five senses. It's those
stresses that my response to creates a lot of probably false values and
illusions. I can see that once this being forsakes this electro-chemical
physical body that the concept of stress will become totally different in
the sense that we will be asked to add our own will to move forward and
really develop within ourselves the comforting aspect of this life and that
is our spirituality. The stresses I see in my life I have yet to make a
strong spiritual correlation. But I see the stress, that it impacts my
physical or material life. Am I correct? Or do I have the full picture,
then?

Minearisa: It is not to be expected for mortals to have a clear
understanding of even the meaning of physical existence for reasons which I
won't take a great deal of time answering. I will remind you of the
necessity at step one of developing one's faith. Had you a clear picture
of what life was about then the development of one's faith would be easy.
As I have reminded you, ease does not produce wisdom. I would also take
exception, my friend John, with your analysis that your spiritual
development is weak. Perhaps I have misinterpreted your analysis. My view
of your development is that you are doing quite well and are to be
commended for your willingness to open your mind to sources which many
scientists would consider unscientific and more mystical than analytical in
nature. As many of your scientists are now finding, life is a mixture of
the two. Not all reality can be scientifically proven at the level of your
current science on this planet. So let me commend you for your willingness
to go far beyond what the normal "scientific" attitude is. John, do you
wish to further this question?

John: Well, I think I discovered early or recognized in hindsight, the fact
that truly the source of science is also the source of my being,
everybody's being. Now I am beginning to realize that certainly this
mortal mind cannot at this stage of the game even slightly comprehend the
complexity of this physical world and all the worlds. I am truly amazed,
almost in total elation, when I see things that come forth and realize that
our science and our science knowledge hasn't truly begun, that it lies
ahead of me, not in this life, but in the life to come. This is the
excitement that I see, that the Father is offering each and every one of
His children, the knowledge, the understanding, the experience in the life
transformations to come that will truly bring forth this personality, this
being that we are created as.

Minearisa: I don't believe I could have said it better, my son. Your words
indicate great wisdom and experience. I commend you for them. I am in awe
of your wisdom. You do well, my son. Are there other questions?

LaReen: I would just like to make a comparison here in my mind. So, in
other words, stress would be a good stepping stone as ego, instead of being
negative, is positive toward spiritual growth? Instead of fighting our ego
all the time, take the positive out of it, if it pushes us toward
spirituality?

Minearisa: Of course! One's ego is fundamentally necessary for one's
health. As one develops wisdom, as one evolves, however, old ways must be
put aside and new ways substituted. It is this difficulty that humans have
with self, or ego. As you mature you begin to realize the goal of ego
must be controlled. It must be limited. It must be channeled, much like
one's emotions. Emotions add color to life. But if you spend your whole
day emotionalizing you would not get any work done. So, stress has a role
to play. As you mature, as you reach the level where you are now, you are
ready to see what is next: getting better control on those things which do
not lead directly to spiritual growth. Have I addressed your question?

LaReen: Yes, thank you very much.

Mionearisa: Kenneth, I have one more point to make. Have we time?

Ken: Oh, yes!

Minearisa: I thank each of you for your comments. Now let us return to
endeavors. As one evolves, that which could not be seen yesterday becomes
more clear today. What will be seen tomorrow clearly, is but a blur on the
horizon From this perspective, you see, one's expectations also evolve.
It is normal. It is expected. It is the way life progresses. One can't
teach calculus to a second grader. But by the time these students get to
high school most are ready. It is the same for all human expectations.

One's expectations today are based on what you learned with yesterday's
expectations. And these expectations you made, good and bad, you learned
from. Now, it is today and your perspective is different. Your
perspective is wiser. Your faith is stronger, not as strong as it will be
tomorrow, but stronger than yesterday. So, expectations evolve just as you
evolve. Wisdom grows as you evolve and make decisions. Experience
broadens one, opens one's horizons and complicates things. Does it not?
(Group affirms.)

That is what I wanted to say tonight. I trust it will be helpful for your
growth and development. Are there other questions or comments you wish to
raise at this point?

John: Is the floor open to questions beyond the category of expectations?

Minearisa: I expect that it is. Go ahead, John.

John: I have been asked to address some of my brothers and sisters in a
month or so; and the topic that keeps channeling in my mind is the religion
of Jesus, our Sovereign Lord, Michael. As near as I can tell, is it pretty
much summarized in the prayer that He gave to his family and apostles, or
are there other areas that are fairly crucial or pertinent to gather a
better understanding of the religion of Jesus?

Minearisa: Again, I must pat you on the back for your level of
understanding. Are there other issues regarding the life of Jesus which
may, one day, provide each of you further insights...of course. But the
book was given to you to be read and understood at a level just beyond
where the spiritual evolution of most advanced spiritual thinkers was on
Urantia at the time of its writing. So, for most individuals the words of
the book are quite adequate for their spiritual edification. For those of
you who have advanced needs, that's where we celestial teachers come into
play. We seek to continue your education by opening new avenues of thought
and consideration and hard work. Does this answer your question, my
friend, John?

John: I think so. I think the course that my mind seems to be taking is
probably on track. The critical issue that Jesus said in His prayer, "Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done", for me is basically a total and complete
summary at least for the mortal species on this planet, the religion of
Jesus. Am I wrong, or is that thinking correct.

Minearisa: There are several avenues one could pursue in explaining the
Master's theology. It is most likely that your understanding of the
spiritual levels of your listeners will provide you the insight necessary
to identify those specific parts of the Master's theology which would be
most helpful for your listeners. Trust your own judgement, John. It has
gotten you far, so far. Anyone else have a question or comment? I would
like to answer John's earlier question regarding the efficacy of the
Urantia Book.

As I stated, the book was written to provide the necessary background for
most Spirit led beings on this planet. It was meant to challenge, to
confound, to open their eyes, to encourage and to lead them in their lives.
Quite a wide perspective, don't you think?

John: Very much so.

Minearisa: Yes. And so it would be natural for one to find some parts of
the book confounding. That is to be expected. My advice to anyone, John
and others, who finds those sections is to go to the Father and ask for
enlightenment for all of you in this room have many spiritual resources you
can address. As such, you have a myriad of resources, each of which is
fully capable of addressing your concerns. John, do you wish to take my
answer further?

John: No. I fully realize that the keys to my spirituality have to come
from stillness. As a mortal of the realm I am still struggling with
sufficient levels of quiet time to capture the small voice that is in my
mind during those periods of stillness. So it is something that I know I
will probably struggle with throughout this mortal life. But I do see
signs that a little less and less of the material control of my life is
finally yielding to something deeper which has much more meaning.

Minearisa: Well put, my son. Your words ring true. Listen. Be sensitive
to those thoughts which enter your mind, for they are the words of truth
waiting to be heard. Are there other questions anyone wishes to ask?
Shall we stand, brothers and sisters and close with prayer.

Alexandra(Bob S.): This is Alexandra. Let us pray.

My Father, our Father, You have created us for purposes beyond our
imagination. We, Your children, understand that we cannot understand You
or Your purposes for us. Give us the faith necessary to take the steps
necessary to open those doors which life sets before us so that we may see
clearly the dawn of our new tomorrow. Go with each of these, my younger
brothers and sisters, now, and be with them throughout their week. Bring
them safely together at the next meeting. So be it. Amen.