[tmtranscripts] TOMAS: More on Soul Struggle

[ZooidODell at aol.com]

Lesson transmitted 4/19/99
Pittsburgh PA
Subject:  More on Soul Struggle
Teacher Tomas
T/R Gerdean

Following URANTIA BOOK STUDY:
  Paper 46, THE LOCAL SYSTEM HEADQUARTERS

TOMAS:	Good afternoon, loyal students, I am Tomas, your companion and 
assistant in ascent.
 	I would like to follow up and continue, if I may, with our discussion 
of the soul struggle, which we have been attempting to absorb as a viable and 
on-going reality in the life of a God-knowing, spirit-led individual who 
seeks to do the divine will in his and her life.

You know that you have been admonished that you have only one fight and that 
is the good fight of faith.  These matters of soul struggle are those matters 
which enhance your faith.  These battles that rage, these wrestling bouts 
that you have within yourself, are the battles that inch you forward into 
greater reality, that enable you yourself to become more real.  

Sometimes being more real is uncomfortable.  It means you have to be alone 
with your decision, except for your connection with your highest concept of 
God, that ideal which has led you to make the choice that you can regard as 
the highest option in the soul struggle at hand.  We discussed last week, and 
to some extent the week before, the nature of the soul struggle as it was 
experienced by Jesus, the human being who experiences with you these bouts of 
wrestling with the Father's will versus the self will.  

Let's temporarily take Jesus out of the picture for your conditioning is such 
that you always think of him in terms of his divinity, even though he has 
repeatedly assured you and you are assured in the recitation of the Bestowal 
instructions as well as his great decisions in how to follow through on his 
bestowal mission and his work with his apostles without superhuman 
assistance.  So let us just simply look at the ascending son and daughter, 
you here, people like you who have been born of the spirit, who seek to do 
the highest good and promote furtherance of the kingdom on earth as it is in 
heaven.

In your personal configuration you have, you bring with you, your 
conditioning pro and con, your belief systems pro and con, your prejudices 
and biases and preferences, your personal coloration, your willingness and 
unwillingness, your instinct for survival, your need to be one with your 
fellows, your desire for establishment of purpose in your society, a longing 
for home and hearth, a loyalty to pre-supposed values, for which you fight 
nobly, even when it is antithetical to your greater growth.

You here are no longer in that faction of individuals who could be commonly 
construed as "timid souls" for you have made soulful decisions which have 
enabled you to break through to greater vision, greater appreciation for the 
divine way, and all that that infers and entails. And yet all of your weight 
leans toward the side of that which you know and which is upheld by the 
greater mass of mankind and your evolved histories.

And thus any time now that you choose to remember the Father, that you choose 
to identify with the Master, that you put yourself in a position of counting 
the cost and opting to go forward, you have grappled in your soul and have 
won a soul struggle on the side of victory for your faith in the living water.

The living water is real.  Even though it cannot be seen with mortal eyes, it 
cannot be drunk from a mortal cup.  It cannot sustain you from dying of 
thirst such as the water you know on your realm, and thus, for the most part, 
the living water takes second place to the literal interpretation of reality; 
whereas, when you have set sail for Paradise with your valiant Adjuster 
piloting your ship, you begin to appreciate the sea upon which you sail and 
the wind which moves you forward.  

The momentum of the spirit, the reality of divinity is a view that is seen 
only with the unfamiliar eye of the soul.  Each soul struggle that realizes 
your affinity/ affiliation with your indwelling Adjuster is that reality 
which creates a more real you and which contributes greatly to the reality of 
your spirit influence, including the Evolving Supreme, and as a result of 
opting for that choice in your struggles, the supreme decision unfailingly 
allows the material shadow to reflect the greater way.  
Thus you parade truth for all to see and they will have to deal with their 
own soul struggle as they see you and others courageously waving your banner 
for Michael of Nebadon as your choice of loyalties, as your victory over 
doubt and fear.  Each occasion of moral dilemma is for each of you an 
opportunity to once again commit yourself to the reality of divinity, and in 
that process is the disturbing moment of truth wherein you yourself decide 
whether or not to follow the guidance of the Spirit of Truth or whether to go 
with what you feel is mortally, socially, culturally, materially or literally 
the standard to follow.

That is the existential instant only you are aware of and the only accurate 
witness is Father Himself, and so we have a lot of rationalizing, justifying, 
fast-stepping, fast-talking, dancing around a lot of very good ideas and 
setting aside our opportunity to take the kingdom by spiritual assault once 
again.  

This is yet another example, my pupils, of how it is that we urge you to 
become teachers.  How can you teach these truths except by your very example? 
 And when your example is standing there proudly displaying the badge of 
honor given to you by your own knowledge and understanding of your integral 
relationship with Christ Michael and in appropriate humility for your own 
growth, can you lead us even further into early light and life.

And this is not mere rhetoric.  This is our mission.  You are our workers in 
the field.  

You cannot be expected to make such decisions as Michael made, but you will 
make the same essential decisions in your heart as he did.  Did he not say:  
You are not expected to live MY life; you are expected to live YOURS.  And he 
will companion you as you do it.  Are there questions this afternoon?

(A remark about the group's attendance shrinking.)

TOMAS:	I am going to remind you that a handful of apostles and a few 
volunteers enabled a great many truths to advance.  I am also reminded of the 
option given to the multitudes when Jesus suggested that if they were not 
really willing to count the cost, they could return to their homes in peace, 
and most of them did, but some forged ahead, and this is one of the 
qualifiers, if you will, of the proponents of advancing truth: they have made 
those soul commitments and won that inner battle that enables them to 
fearlessly face what might for some be an overwhelming struggle.

Group question, presented by ANGUS:  [Page 529]  "When Satania can return to 
the constellation fold, then will come up for consideration the readmission 
of the isolated worlds into the system family of inhabited planets, 
accompanied by their restoration to the spiritual communion of the realms.  
But even if Urantia were restored to the system circuits, you would still be 
embarrassed by the fact that your whole system rests under a Norlatiadek 
quarantine partially segregating it from all other systems."  I guess what 
we'd like is a clarification of the embarrassment referred to.

TOMAS:  I am considering inviting a guest in to address your interesting 
question.  One moment, please.

CONSTELLATION NORLATIADEK STUDENT VISITOR:  I am going to remain 
unidentified, but I will say that I am here today as a student visitor and I 
am representing your Constellation.  I am not unusual in that regard.  Often 
there are Constellation personnel en route through the realms of time and 
space who pause to note your learnings here.  

I am pleased to be asked to discuss the situation	inasmuch as it has, 
as you know, undergone a considerable adjustment since the effects of the 
adjudication as they immediately impacted your world and as the repercussions 
of the adjudication are even now contin-ually, albeit not instantly, 
contributing to an altered state.  

Satania has been reinstated as a part of Constellation Norlatiadek.  It 
technically was never not part of the Constellation but it was segregated 
because of the disease of self-will instituted by your Planetary Prince in 
liaison with others in the System.  

It would be as if there was an umbrella over the area in default and the sun 
was shining throughout the rest of the constellation, but that portion that 
was affected by the rebellion under the umbrella, you who have been under the 
umbrella have not gotten a suntan.  

The context of the word embarrassment indeed is a reflection on the disease 
of your world and other worlds which have been without the support and 
guidance of your Material Son and Daughter and the ways of life which would 
be yours had you not suffered the effects of the rebellion so early in your 
evolution.  

It is not a shame for you in terms of your understanding of shame.  It is 
therefore not the kind of embarrassment that you would understand, even your 
understanding of what embarrassment is.  It would simply be realizing that 
your skin had not seen the sun, whereas everyone else had either been to 
Florida or had been able to afford a tanning salon.

No doubt your teachers are turning up the heat and the sun is radiantly 
shining upon you.  At least insofar as you allow the reflection of divinity 
to penetrate through that mirage of an umbrella, inasmuch as the original 
umbrella is now non-existent.  As you begin to see the sun shine and act as 
if the sun were shining upon your face you will grow tan, you will grow 
strong, you will grow robust and begin to sprout forth and in due course 
others will see they have no excuse not to also turn their face to the sun.  
And this is a process, but it is in progress even now.

I am eager to assure you that we are not in any desire or any position to 
bring any disgrace or shame upon you as individuals or even as a planet, a 
world.  We are attempting to connect you as if you were a premature baby and 
are plugging you in and supporting you with everything we can so that you can 
become vital and strong and robust and perhaps by the time you have ascended 
into the mansion worlds, you yourselves will be quite brown.

TOMAS (Continuing):  As you begin to promote the gospel in your personal life 
and as you have lived it, you become a walking testimony to the divine love 
of the will of God.  No matter what book you read, no matter what 
associations you aspire to or affiliate with, no matter what church you go 
to, no matter what ... you can represent the love of God in your life in its 
purest form.  And herein you will indeed have learned from the Master 
himself, the great Teacher, the great love of our life. Good afternoon.