[tmtranscripts] 3/24/01 - Spokane Team - part 2

[ZooidODell at aol.com]

DAVID: Yes.
PAULO: I had a hunch.

DAVID: I must say, Paulo, that I spent the morning out in back in this lovely 
estate, sitting in the sunshine with my bathrobes on and bundled up, reading 
some of your past gifts to this group and my heart is full of thanks.  I 
found myself laughing a great deal and delighting in your way of expressing 
yourself.  It was like coming home, and I'm just delighted you're here and 
helping us out.   I have a question, however.  I hope comes from the Source 
of my soul.  It's a question that arose in me in the last week or so and it 
has to do with – as best as I can get close to it – how to keep an open 
heart and yet keep, what we call in the Western World, the critical mind.  
I'm wondering if that's precise enough for you to understand?

PAULO: I have a sense, kindred spirit, that we are on a wavelength which will 
cut to the chase, but we are not alone.  We have the "others" to consider.  
Let's consider then the phrase "wise as serpents, peaceful as doves."  I'm 
that way.  I'm very astute.  In your vernacular you might say I was too smart 
for my own good.  (Laughter) That's why I didn't get to come in on the first 
wave of teachers.  (Laughter) I have had to learn to curtail my intent in 
order to adapt to those who are attempting to assimilate a stitch in time 
that will contribute to the morontia blanket that extends worldwide which 
will shelter us in time to come.  The maturity in discerning the balance 
between being wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, is contained within 
the ability to bridle your tongue.  (Chuckles)

THOROAH:    I was afraid he was going to say that.
DAVID:  We've heard that one before recently.

PAULO:     It would be foolish of me to suggest that you not think your 
thoughts, for this is how you entertain yourselves, and thoughts often are 
hard-edged inasmuch as you weren't born yesterday, but you don't have to drag 
out your cynicism for the world to see. (Chuckles) That can be quite 
scathing.  This is why the Master suggested you not be cynical with his 
fear-ridden children, for although you are all grown up and toughened up, 
there are fledgling souls that would as soon curl up in a ball and forget the 
whole process until they wake in the Resurrection Halls. This is okay but 
they're missing out on the adventure.  But if you stalwart ones walk all over 
them in your striding to the finish line, they won't have any empathy with 
the process and may shrivel up altogether.  And thus you have an obligation 
to comport yourself more graciously.   For is it not a tendency on the part 
of the Universal Father, through his Fragments, to lure you into greater 
growth than to stampede you? 

The "harmless as doves" is not the same as namby-pamby.  It, like humility, 
is a powerful strength.  Tomas would perhaps call it "forgiving tolerance".   

THOROAH:  I would suggest, Paulo, that what we were discussing prior to your 
arrival, was the manner in which we are treated by you and your cohorts, and 
if you were to stampede us how would we like it?  

PAULO: I admire your ability to spark up that example, for it's something I 
can't do in humility, but it's a point.  It's not so much that I'm here, of 
course, as it is that your heart is open.  And even before the "others" came, 
it was in response to your heartfelt yearning for greater reality that we 
were able to arrive on the scene at all.  

And so we are here in response to you, and it would be most unneighborly if 
we started to push you around.  You are our hosts in this mission, and as 
you've been told many times, we depend upon you to be the arms and legs, eyes 
and ears, and so forth for the Master in extending light and life into 
Urantia, into this corner of his universe.  The life that you realize is 
eternally etched in your System and the reclamation of this sector is 
advanced.  

We can do nothing if you do not understand our language, and that is Love.  
This is why Alana was amused at your discussions about Oxford.  It is, of 
course, essential that you communicate clearly in your language, and yet it 
is critical to the best use of your language that the scale of love be 
allowed to produce music of those mere mouthings.  Where were we?  (Chuckles)

GINNY: I have a question.  How can we ... As I watch the news these days – 
once in awhile I turn the news on to see what's going on in the world – How 
can we turn ... I think everything out there is competition.  Even in our own 
group, I think.  How can we use our talent and push forward and not be so shy 
and, you know, be bold without running into that problem of competition.  How 
can we know when we're really sincere, when we just want to do good.

PAULO:  Okay.  I see misunderstanding in your mind (which, Oliver, is not the 
same as reading her mind).  The point you produce here indicates you believe 
that competition is unhealthy, unfriendly, unproductive, even deceptive or 
retro, but this is perhaps a relic, a remnant of your animal heritage which 
feels that all competition is a fight to the finish, to the death, and 
granted much of your world's sense of competition is brutal because the 
striving for perfection is strong.  The Olympics, for example, require a 
life-time of dedication for one gold medal.  And so forth.  

The more readily understood level might be in children who are learning how 
to play a musical instrument and how they struggle to develop the 
concentration, the focus, the devotion that will allow them to master the 
movements and the mind set that the maestro will be pleased with.  This is an 
example of competing against ones self.  As compared to mountain climbing, 
rock climbing, which may be competing against nature. 

But competition is also healthy and stimulative when you have love at the 
center.  A healthy competition is fun, enjoyable, and brings about bonding 
and memories and warm feelings because everyone has learned how to be a 
little better, go a little farther, work a little harder than otherwise might 
be.  

As you evolve as a race of people, your appreciation for the benefits of 
competition ought to also evolve, and a lot of those things that used to 
excite, such as demonstrations in the arena between the Christians and the 
lions, no longer is pleasing.  They are too brutal.  They lose favor.  War is 
losing favor on your planet, and this is an evolution of the competitive 
spirit that advances you into alternatives of peace and yet it is innate that 
you have a sense of wanting to excel and healthy competition is a way to 
bring that about, but it doesn't have to be brutal.

You have the idea that "may the best man win" therefore "the winner takes 
all" and the loser is just out of luck, a has-been, might as well go to sleep 
and wake up in the Resurrection Hall, but an appropriate team attitude is not 
going to allow anyone to feel the loser and no one is going to have hard 
feelings about the winner, for everyone has benefitted.  The emphasis is 
different. 

It's another thing, also, in this competitive field, for you to acknowledge 
your worth, your effort, your accomplishment.  When you pull yourself 
together to compete, you bring the best to the situation and give it your all 
– or as much as you will – and you've stretched your own capacity, so 
whether you win or lose the prize, you have measured for yourself your degree 
of willingness to invest yourself in what it is you are doing.  And if you 
find yourself nibbling at the edges half-heartedly, it would do you as well 
to go home than to hang around and not mean it.  

So it's a way of getting you  to commit yourself and to attain something 
you've set for yourself, and to acknowledge your efforts in the process, and 
to give yourself the accolades that you deserve for having attained, 
acquired, accomplished that which is part of the race, even if it's just a 
race against time.     

You women in particular like to think you are non-competitive and prefer 
being cooperative, but you see, there is cooperation in good competition, and 
there is an element of good competition even in cooperation, for are we not 
all advancing and striving?  It is said that in the striving is where we 
advance and attain, rather than lackadaisically laying around giving up, 
letting somebody else do it, putting it off til tomorrow what we could have 
done yesterday.  

So, have you found out any good news in your watching the television 
broadcasts that you can share with us?

GINNY: Well, it seems that most people are frustrated with the way things 
are.  It seems that politicians and parents and children don't like what they 
see and it seems like we're on the verge of realizing that we need 
cooperation.

PAULO: What "verge"?  

DAVID: I was going to offer another illustration, Ginny.  Angus and I are ex 
jocks and we like to watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament, which is one of 
the most competitive things you could see on television, and I was reading in 
the sports section this morning the story about Gonzaga. This little school 
near here with only 4,000 students in it, the Jesuit school, lost last night 
to the very powerful Michigan State team, and after the game, they got 
together in a circle, it said, and thanked one another for this experience of 
how far they got in the thing, and when the audience - this whole cath–  (I 
was going to say "cathedral"

ANGUS: Sports cathedral!

DAVID:   Yeah, Sports Cathedral!) – they all stood up and clapped when they 
saw this, what the team was doing when they lost.  This does illustrate very 
much what Paulo was saying.

GINNY: Yes.  While there is a lot of maybe unhealthy competition, it seems to 
be teaching us --  It seems that more and more groups are realizing that – 
Even politically, we're realizing that we need to cooperate.  Not being too 
sure what to do about it.  And there are, even in these high school 
shootings, they are trying to figure out how can we cooperate, how can we 
keep this from happening.

ANGUS: Some day they're going to learn that love has to be part of the 
process of life.

GINNY: I think it's coming to that.  I think we're beginning to at least 
realize the need for cooperation.

DAVID: My ultimate metaphor for cooperation is to get my beloved to bed 
together and to do that dance.  I think that's the ultimate form of 
cooperation.  (Laughter)

ANGUS: And that is a great metaphor.

PAULO: Is there nothing new under the sun [sic]?  (Laughter)