1998-10-25-Loving To Learn

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Topic: Loving to Learn

Group: Indianapolis TeaM

Facilitators

Teacher: Welmek

TR: Unknown

Session

Opening

Welmek: Good morning, my friends. This is your friend and teacher, Welmek. I wish to continue our lessons on life. Our session this morning is what does it mean to love to learn. I want you to think about what loving to learn has meant for you in your life and how someone else might find this love of learning. I shall let you assemble your thoughts and then we shall begin.

Comments from students.

Lesson

Learning

Welmek: To be able to learn is a great gift that everyone is given by the Father, for life would be rather, it is hard to find a word because I cannot imagine life without learning. But I would use the words boring or stagnant. You understand that life occurs at the physical, mental, and spiritual levels. And so learning is at all these levels of life. Every human being needs to learn. If you see some other person and they do not have this desire to learn, help them to find something that they can take an interest in, so they can find that passion for learning. This is very crucial for enjoyment of life…in the loving of life which we will address in our next session.

When you learn at the material level, you gather facts, you obtain knowledge. Then you want to see relationships between these facts. You want to understand the meanings underneath them. This is the mindal level, understanding meanings. You call this philosophy. Then there is the spiritual level of learning. This is where you sort out the true values, where you really learn, to come to understand the importance of learning about yourself, about the nature of God and your relationship to God. But you should not feel negative that you do not put all of your time into just learning about spiritual reality for while you live this life in the flesh you must remain balanced. You need to learn about material reality. This allows you knowledge, this knowledge gives you power. This gives you a way to earn a living. You seek to understand relationships between humans. This helps you to understand yourself as well as other humans. Then some of you have chosen to move to the other level and to truly seek to learn more about who you really are.

All of these types of learning are important. All should go on in your lives for this is how you lead a balanced life. All learning happening at a material level and not at the spiritual level creates an imbalance. All learning at the spiritual level and not at the materials would create an imbalance. As you know, that is one is one of your primary goals – how do you live your lives each day in balance. What is learning but understanding new experiences.

Can you imagine being shut up in a closet that is dark, not speaking to anyone all day, not seeing, hearing, sensing anything else? What a living hell that would be? Isn’t that an awful, awful thought? Some humans, in a way, almost do this to themselves. They things cut off from themselves. They refuse to explore to seek new people, new areas of life to come to understand. They do this for many reasons, but probably fear is the big reason. Fear holds them back.

What is there to be afraid of? As you come to know who you are and you grow more secure in your faith relationship with God, what is there to be afraid? What is there that you could not learn and explore? You mentioned that some learning is painful. Yes, at this stage of your existence you see pain. But at a certain point in life, you will not see learning of any kind as painful. You will simply see it as exhilarating, exciting, as another opportunity which you can enjoy. For it is not just in our joy that we learn, it is also in, what you call these painful experiences. Sometimes wisdom cannot be learned except in difficult circumstances. The goal is to see even difficult circumstances as an opportunity to and to remove the negativity – fear, whatever it is that you have associated with this negative experience. Then, you will not see any new situation as fearful or negative. You will see it as an new opportunity to learn, to understand more of life, of yourself, of others, of the relationships of how this beautiful universe grows and works together.

I cannot imagine life without learning. It is just beyond my comprehension. It is as if life would not exist without learning. So, to love to learn, how could you not love to learn? Whether it is science or human relationships or understanding of God and your relationship to Him – whatever it is, there is joy, there is passion, there is this wonderful gift to be able to use this ability to learn – to understand more. Part of the great richness of life is all of the new experiences that you encounter. This will go on forever. You will always learning. You will always be meeting new people. You will always be increasing your awareness of God. This never ends. A lifetime of learning….to love to learn is a big part of learning to love life. I will pause for your questions or comments.

Dialogue

Comments too faint to hear.

Failure

Welmek: Well, your world is far from perfect. And so, as this world evolves, it sets up various standards. It measures your progress and whether you are considered adequate to perform certain functions. And so you have degrees or you have licenses and tests. These different types of degrees and licenses require different types of learning, different types of thinking and abilities. People on your world do not know any other way to measure these things. So, if you set out upon a course, you must ask yourself, do I have the kinds of skills and abilities to master what they will require? If you feel that you do not have as much as you might like, then you must ask yourself, am I able to learn this, can I do these things? I would say, why not? It might take more time and effort, but is it really unachievable? You would only know this by trying.

When you follow this course, you must understand you are subjecting yourself to this criteria. I would say to you, what is the worst that can happen? If you fail a course and have to take it again, what is the consequence? Does it mean that it take more time and money? Yes. But what is your goal? You must stay focused upon your goal. If even if you cannot do this, why would you ever attach any feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness? Each has their ability and talents. Some, no matter how much they might like or no matter how many courses they take, cannot paint a Mona Lisa. There are many factors that are woven into these things. So, you must look at it from the standpoint of what you are concerned about. If you fail, if the worse scenario happens, what does that mean to you? Who have you failed? You have not failed God. Have you failed yourself? If you say to yourself, if I do not pass this I am a failure, yes, then by your own criteria, you have failed yourself. But who is yourself? Why do you attach this criteria? Have you failed someone else? Then, they have placed this criteria upon you. Does that help?

Another question too faint to hear.

Welmek: I would say two things. Fear and I want to say laziness, but I am not sure that would be totally fair. I would think primarily insecurity…which is a part of fear, fear of failure and change. These are at the heart of the fears that hold people back in life. Humans are afraid to seem different. They are afraid of rejection from their fellow humans. All of these are rooted in fear, they are simply colors, facets or manifestations of fear. But all come back to this root of fear of something that holds humans back from learning.

If a person has a belief system, why would they not be able to talk to others about other belief systems? Why would they be so adamant to defend their own belief systems so strongly? What is it that they fear? (Comment from student) And this leads to a deeper fear, does it not? A fear that if they lose their hold on this belief that they themselves are lost. It is a fear of losing their own salvation, a fear that they have somehow failed in the eyes of God; a fear of damnation. All of these fears go deeper and deeper. You see, this is the meaning of “seek the truth and the truth shall set you free.” What does truth set you free from? Fear.

But you must have some courage. You must be willing to step beyond, to move through this fear. It is difficult for humans to do this. Each of you is growing in your own faith, in your own faith-trust in God. I do not think you yet realize how important this faith has become to you. It is your base, it is your anchor. It tells you you are a child of God and no matter what happens you need not fear. Do you realize how strong a foundation this is? Do you realize how this lets you explore and seek new truths without fear? You may not yet fully realize how strong and powerful this is. But, at some point you made decisions to move beyond your fear and to seek truth. You have been served well by these decisions.

Let me ask you, do you think most of your brothers and sisters have this seem(ing) anchor of that reality of who they are? (Student comment) And so, they are still struggling to make these decisions about whether they can move beyond their fears and be open to new possibilities and truths. At the same time as they make these attempts, are they encouraged by their families or friends? Or are they are condemned by them for even making such attempts? You see, it is not easy for them. And why would these others discourage them from seeking truth? Because they suffer from the same fear, do they not? Fear attracts fear. Light attracts light. Truth attracts truth.

Student comment

Welmek: I would say that when a child is born they are born ignorant, are they not? We are not saying stupid, you understand. To be ignorant is to be unaware. Of course, a child is unaware; they are just born. Now when you start from unawareness, the goal is to lead to awareness, towards learning, towards truth. Now, if you are encouraged by your parents to learn, to seek new truths, to not be afraid to explore any avenues of learning, then will you have the same amount of fear? You have less fear because you have been encouraged and nurtured to seek truth. And you are given love no matter what your mistakes might be. Therefore, to you, learning becomes more joyful and more exciting. When you seek to move from ignorance to awareness and you fail or are criticized or are told you will lose your very soul, does it not stunt one’s growth? Does it then really surprise us to look at this world and see that there are not many true adults, but more like little children whose growth has truly been stunted.

(Other comments)

Trust

The lack of trust is a very good way to say it. Let us look at it from different levels. If you fear that you cannot a pass a course as was described earlier, is that not a way to say that you might not have an ability or desire to do what is necessary to master the course or pass it? One feels insecure in their own abilities or does not trust in them to do this. And you see, as you take this to other levels you are correct in saying that ultimately the very lack of trust in eternal survival is at the heart of all of fears. These others are only smaller manifestations.

Faith is living trust. I would say trust is a quality of the soul and is of a spiritual quality. It is not of the mind, it is something that you sense or feel; it is of the soul and spirit. Belief is often static. It is a set crystallization of mindal concepts. Faith is a living trust…the bond that you have between yourself and God. As you put your trust in God and as you follow God’s guidance, you will be guided through life and your eternal future is secure. As that faith and bond grows, what will you be afraid of? What is there really to be afraid of? What does it mean to fail a course? What does it mean to lose a job? What does it mean to lose a relationship? I am not encouraging these things and I am not saying that they have no meaning or that they not important, for they are. But, they should not be ends of themselves. They should not be so important that a person sees themselves as an utter failure if any of these things should befall them. Do you they truly change your course of eternal survival? No, they do not. They are only learning experiences along the way.

Student comments

Welmek: So we get back to this issue of trust. As humans grow they accumulate their experience. They rely on their mind, their ego mind and the experience they have accumulated to make their decisions. It is what they have come to understand from the moment they were born. So, it is their womb, is it not? They are secure because they are at least familiar with this mind and this ego. Even though it does not often serve them well because they simply do not have enough experience to be able to discern the correct action in all situations, they must begin to make a decision whether or not to step out of, or surrender, this ego mind to the divine mind. They are not sure if they can do that; they are afraid to try, they don’t know where it will take them. And so fear holds them back.

At some point, either through courage or other resignation over failure of their own ability to solve the problem for themselves, they can surrender, opening themselves to the divine mind and source. As they do that and as it seems to help them, then they can begin to develop the bond, the trust. That is the process. It is learning to utilize the ego mind, but to utilize it along with the divine mind. It is trusting the divine mind for help and guidance but at the same time it does not mean to totally give up this human mind for it is the repository (tape turned).

This would be the goal you would want all to seek and follow. But some are afraid to trust this inner guidance and so they hold back. And so it is understandable for it is what they are familiar with even with all of the doubts and uncertainty and confusion. It still feels safer to them than to reach out. If they would only try, they would find that this new bond relationship with their divine self is truly wonderful. There is nothing to be afraid of. But, they must choose to make the effort. The divine self will never force the human mind to make that choice. The human mind must make that decision to reach out.

Survival

(Student comments about survival choices on this planet)

But you realize that choice does not occur for most humans on this world. Most stay asleep and awaken at the next levels. Then you see it would not be fair, would it, to expect a person to make that choice on this world when they know so little and are so discouraged. They must awaken to a truer reality and they must see the way the universe truly is. Then in the light of that awareness they can make the truly conscious choice as to their eternal survival. I would say that the choice that humans make here is whether or not to awaken to their spiritual self. The real choice of their eternal survival for most humans does not occur until later. If the human makes the choice to find God and develops that relationship even while yet in the flesh they may be so thrilled and feel so loving and their faith grows to the point where they choose that eternal survival while they are still here in the flesh.

To discover the true reality you must pierce the mask of fear. It holds you back in so many ways. But once you move through it, you often find that what is on the other side is quite wonderful. You must make the choice and have the courage to move through the fear.

Growth

Student comment about why people do not choose to grow

Let us explore that because I think it is extremely important. What is it that holds back humans? What do they fear about a spiritual life? Do they have images in their mind of what it means to be a spiritual person? (Student comments about sacrifice and lack of joy in the mind of people about what it means to live a spiritual life.) And so, does this not say what we said before? They have used their own ego minds and frames of reference to imagine and perceive what it means to be spiritual. In this limited perception they do not see that as totally desirable. They have put this great limitation on this paltry concept.

If you knew someone and you did not hear from them or have any contact for many years, what would happen to your sense of relationship with them? The love, trust and feelings fade, do they not? So then how do you keep that relationship strong? You stay in touch. So, we say to you about this relationship with God, how strong do you want it to be? Then simply share your inner life with God each day. What does that relationship provide for you? (student comments: security, confidence, guidance, joy, kindness…… how long is the list?) And so, this love and faith becomes your bond and your anchor. It is what provides your trust in the universe. It is unfortunate that many of your brothers and sisters do not have this, but in time they will. You are blessed that you have already found this. If you find something you love to learn or someone you love, do you want that to end?

Closing

Our circle has drawn back around to the importance of this relationship with God. It is the beginning and it is the end. It is the source and foundation. No matter how much humans try to escape it or fear it or choose not to pursue it, sooner or later they will come to the recognition that this is the one true path. But, this does not mean a life of sacrifice or poverty; it does not need to be any of those things. Seek the truth and the truth will set you free from the fears and mis-perceptions of what living a true spiritual life really means. There is so much good and joy. To love to learn; you have an eternal future to do exactly that. What greater gift could a parent give a child? Good day, my friends.