Author Archives: Mary

Volunteer Induction Programme

Summary Information

This programme is designed to help us ASSESS if each individual participant;

Truly has a sincere desire to serve
Has the correct attitudes of service
Has the correct understanding of Divine Truth principles
Has a strong desire to bring their life into harmony with God’s definition of love
Is desirous to correct any unloving behaviour and beliefs
Is able to be educated God’s Way
Is willing to perform any task, from cleaning toilets through to video production and presenting material to the public

In order to participate in this programme you must:

Have a sincere desire to assist in the work of sharing Divine Truth worldwide
Be available to attend and participate one day per week for a minimum of a three month period (in the Wilkesdale area)
Be desirous of feedback regarding your emotions and condition in love, especially in relation to your being of service to others
Be desirous and willing to work and on your emotions and condition in love in your own time throughout the duration of the programme
Be aware that you will be removed from the programme if certain conditions or requirements are not met
Be able to undertake tasks with or without instructions in a loving, self-responsible, and thorough manner

Preference for acceptance into the programme will be given according to the following criteria:

People who we feel at this stage are most likely to complete the programme
People who have the capacity to be directly involved in assisting in Divine Truth & God’s Way projects
People who have already demonstrated some initiative in volunteering for Divine Truth or sharing Divine Truth independently
People who have expressed a desire to voluntarily assist in Divine Truth and God’s Way activities prior to the announcement of this programme

 Who is it for?

People who are already motivated and have a pure desire to assist in the operations of Divine Truth and God’s Way organisations.

 Purpose of the Programme

The programme is really a trial or test period to assess participants current level of self responsibility and current desire to give gifts specifically to the Divine Truth and God’s Way organisations.

Definition of self responsibility:
Self-Responsibility is the Law based requirement of self-awareness, to seek truth, love and understanding of all principles of Love and Law, and the loving ownership and expression of one’s will, desire, passion, emotion, attitudes, intentions, thoughts and actions in harmony with God’s Principles and Laws.

Those who attended our recent ‘Understanding God’s Loving Laws’ Assistance Group would be aware that a person’s level of self-responsibility is measured by God not by perfect embodiment of humility, expression of love or desire for truth but by the sincere desire to attain this state.

Gift definition:
Any thing  (physical, spiritual, or emotional) given without expectation or demand to receive any of any form of emotional, physical or spiritual reward or payment in return. This includes the absence of desire for monetary payment, preferential treatment, special attention, approval, ‘glory’, or a feeling of self-importance.

Volunteer Induction Programme vs. Volunteer Training Programme

As I mentioned in my previous post, the volunteer induction programme will not involve training individuals in specific skills. Nor will the programme focus on providing personal emotional and spiritual feedback to participants, although if removed from the programme participants will be informed as to why that has occurred. Participants must be willing and desirous to learn new skills and to receive feedback if it is given but the programme does not focus on either of these things.

The Volunteer Induction programme will be a time where Jesus, Eloisa and I can assess if a person is truly sincere in their desire to give gifts and also if the person has an attitude which will make them someone who can be a productive member of any Divine Truth or God’s Way volunteer team.

The kind of activities I mentioned in our recent Volunteer Training Programme would be engaged only with people who have first completed the Induction Programme, and who have demonstrated over time that our personal time will not be wasted by training the person further.

The Volunteer Training Programme held in December 2016 and January 2017 was  about Jesus, Lena and I gifting our time to others so that they may learn new skills. That is not the focus of the Induction Programme. The Volunteer Induction Programme is designed to help the directors and managers of the God’s Way and Divine Truth organisations identify who shall be trained in new skills and welcomed as members of the teams within these organizations.

We have found over many years that it is not good economy to begin training and working with people who simply state that they wish to give their time in assisting us and to practice the principles of Divine Truth.

Often when we have started to work with these people in the past it has quickly become apparent to us that the person has a great deal of resistance to living God’s Way and has a large amount of demands and expectations upon us rather than a desire to serve. Often the person saying that they want to volunteer has quickly (or sometimes not so quickly) realised that when they said that they wanted to volunteer and said that they were desirous of living according to God’s Way that they really didn’t understand what either of those things mean from God’s Perspective.

In addition, when given feedback, these people have frequently become very angry and upset with us personally, and often have left following Divine Truth altogether, even though we have gifted to them our time. Our Volunteer Induction programme is therefore designed to help prevent these kinds of situations occurring in the future.

The Volunteer Training Programme that we recently ran was a special gift that we gave to certain people who we believed (through our prior knowledge of them) would already be able to complete the Volunteer Induction Programme successfully (although we did find that one participant possibly would not have completed an Induction Programme at this time).

Application & Acceptance to Volunteer Induction Programme

Anyone is welcome to apply to this programme.

Spaces in the programme will be limited.

When accepting people into the programme, preference will be given according to the following criteria:

People who we feel at this stage are most likely to complete the programme
People who have the capacity to be directly involved in assisting in Divine Truth & God’s Way projects
People who have already demonstrated some initiative in volunteering for Divine Truth or sharing Divine Truth independently
People who have expressed a desire to voluntarily assist in Divine Truth and God’s Way activities prior to the announcement of this programme
People who are willing to use their time, energy, and the majority of their personal resources (including finances) to further the sharing of God’s Truth worldwide

While there is some scope for people overseas to be directly involved in assisting in Divine Truth & God’s Way projects it is limited at this time. This means that if you live overseas preference may be given to those who live locally who meet the above criteria.

For those people living locally, very few of you currently meet the criteria for acceptance. Many people are used to Divine Truth and God’s Way serving them and giving them gifts via free education and information.

We anticipate that this programme will be repeated, so if you are not accepted to this round of the programme or are removed part way through, you are welcome to reapply once you feel that you are more sincere in your approach.

Participation From Overseas or By Long Distance

It is not possible to participate in this programme remotely.

In future we would love to be able to run this kind of programme overseas but first we need to have people who would be qualified and be located overseas to run such a programme.

If You Have Already Received Notification of Acceptance to the Volunteer Induction Programme

Because of the limited numbers available in our first run of this programme and due to the increased interest, Jesus and I will reassess all applications according to all the criteria I outlined above.

This means that while you may have previously received email confirmation of your acceptance, your place may now go to someone who we feel will be more likely to complete the programme and become a volunteer.

Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins will email you directly about any changes.

Final Notes & Reminders

I would like to emphasise again that the Volunteer Induction Programme is not a programme to help individuals to gain specific skills to implement their own personal projects or give presentations relating to God’s Way. The ‘Understanding God’s Loving Laws’ Assistance Group, which has just been made available via our website, is jam-packed full of information to help people in learning how to create and share according to God’s Way. This programme is not designed to give people a large amount of free training that they can then either waste or use only for their own benefit.

The Volunteer Induction Programme is designed to assist us to find people who are sincere in their desire to give gifts in harmony with God’s Way of doing things to assist God’s Truth and God’s Way. We will assume that all sincere people will naturally be interested in, and independently taking initiative, to study material already made available to them via our website that will assist them to complete the programme successfully.

Jesus and I notice that very few people who listen to Divine Truth are motivated to develop self-responsibility or to assist in the creation and sharing of Divine Truth materials. This is why we have so few people who are currently volunteering to assist us in the day-to-day operations of our organization. This includes; tasks such as website maintenance, YouTube and vimeo account maintenance, video and audio production and editing, computer maintenance, server maintenance and updates, clips production, office and FAQ email account management and many other tasks which are essential to our ongoing operation. Volunteering to assist in these tasks requires individuals to be thorough, learn independently, be able to follow direction and to do jobs as requested by Jesus, myself or other more senior team members.

These tasks require constant and diligent maintenance but they involve very little ‘glamour’ or public recognition. There are very few rewards other than knowing that God’s Truth is being shared. For this reason it is currently primarily only three people, Jesus, Lena and I, who work hard every day to make sure that the majority of tasks required for these essential parts of the Divine Truth operation get done. There are at this stage only 1 person, Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins, works hard every day to make sure that the majority of tasks required for the God’s Way operation get done, although two others, Tristan Miller and Catherine Spence, are learning and doing more each day to improve. Each of these people receives very little, if any, acknowledgement for the jobs they do.

Most people who receive free material have little or no awareness of how much effort and financial resources are involved in providing the same material.

The volunteers that successfully complete the Volunteer Induction Programme will only be those people who are willing to be involved in any activity that furthers the objectives of God’s Way and Divine Truth and who have the same attitudes about sharing truth with the world as those mentioned above. Once a person has successfully completed the Volunteer Induction Programme we expect that they will need a lot of further training to complete specific tasks, which shall be provided to them at a later time.

 

How to Apply

You can register your interest to participate via our Eventbrite page here.

 

The Big Year: January Newsletter

It has been a while since our last update and so as usual I have a lot of information to share.

Here is a list of topics I’ve covered (clicking on each title will jump you to that section within the post):

Thank you
Assistance Groups
Recent Divine Truth Training Programme
Volunteer Induction Programme
Other Divine Truth Projects
God’s Way
Changes to Production Team
Personal Work

Of special note for those wishing to attend any of our future assistance groups are the changes to scheduling for these groups (see below for details).

The Big Year

2016 was a big year for both Jesus and I.

Running three assistance groups in one year was an incredible feat that was largely created, managed, directed, presented, produced and output by Jesus alone. He had some help along the way but the lions share of what was done was done by him. I personally want to thank and congratulate him on the immense gift he has given in sharing this content.  For the early part of the year I made it my daily business to study what was presented in the first two groups and it assisted me greatly.

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2016 for me was all about making my own developing my number one priority and through that process I encountered and learned quite a lot about valuing my emotions (no matter what they are) and developing compassion for my injured self. These things assisted me to become more self responsible (something you can learn lots about in the “Understanding God’s Loving Laws” Assistance Group material) and enhanced my personal happiness. This was all essential work that I needed to do and I am immensely grateful to Jesus for doing all the extra things that needed to be done in my absence.

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For Jesus this has been a tiring year which is why we have made some changes to our schedule for Assistance Groups, which you can read about below.  2017 is a year for him to take a rest from what has been an intense work schedule the past 16 months and to focus on his progression again. We are both aware of how important our personal progression is in furthering the understanding of Divine Truth on earth.

Thank You

Thank you to everyone who has made an individual donation to us over the past few months and to those who continue in their regular monthly and weekly donations. Even though you haven’t seen much in terms of new content via the internet these past three months, as you will read below, we have been quite busy. We are using your contributions to not only create Divine Truth material but also to implement ways and better systems to assist in the delivery of truth with the world.

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As I often say, I feel we are only stewards of the monies that you donate. These funds are in our hands for a short time and we are placed in charge of making the best use of what you give us so that it can be best used to serve others in the world who want to grow in love toward their Heavenly Father and Mother.

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Assistance Groups

“Understanding God’s Loving Laws”

The “Understanding God’s Loving Laws” assistance group is now on the website and YouTube.

This group was great fun to be a part of. In total 130 people participated. Our venue and the weather were lovely and Lena and Igor offered their own personal gift of a group BBQ on one of the Rest & Reflection days during the programme.

I believe that the material covered speaks for itself in terms of its importance and significance for people individually and for the world collectively. I hope that you find it as exceptional and inspiring as I do.

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Arrivals

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Lena & Igor do BBQ

Lena & Igor do BBQ

In this group, we implemented some new procedures for how we run the groups and manage participation. This included a new system for asking questions which turned out to be very effective. Participants preparing questions prior to each session meant that we covered some excellent topics in every Q&A session that was recorded and little time was wasted in addictive exchanges from the audience. We will further enhance these methods for questions in future groups to streamline the process even more.

Questions

Questions

We made some decisions about tolerance of unloving attitudes in those who register and attend our groups and decided to act (rather than continue to speak) regarding these issues. We have raised these issues many times before, but most people keep on ignoring what we are saying to them, and this is why we will in future be enforcing love and truth through our actions rather than by just speaking about the issues.

These decisions made before the second November 2016 group meant that we began to remove some participants from the second group. This was due to long standing resistance in each of these participants to specific injuries they have either towards Jesus and I as presenters or towards other members of the group.

Each person who was removed had been previously made aware of their harmful attitudes and emotions on many occasions by Jesus or I but was continuing to resist and justify their unloving condition. This meant that they were having a damaging effect on the group and so were asked to leave. Jesus and I both feel that these actions on our part were a positive step towards ensuring a higher level of love is maintained at our events.

Only one person who was removed demonstrated an immediate attitude change and some repentance for their behaviour, and they we allowed immediately back to the group as a result.

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There were also a number of people who made very late cancellations of their bookings for this group without providing any reason. As late cancellations prevent the possibility for other people to have attended (and because we had previously advised registrants of the issue of love involved) we have banned these people from attendance at any of the future Assistance Groups in the “Education in Love” series. These people have demonstrated that they cannot be relied upon to be responsible about their booking and we have no desire to see their behaviour repeated.

There were one or two people who did have genuine issues that prevented their attendance (not just a lack of regard for their responsibility in holding a ticket) and these people were not prevented from attending future groups. We have enforced this new principle only for people who have displayed a lack of consideration for how their late bookings affect others and have chosen to be irresponsible with how they manage their planning and booking for our events.

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We feel that often, because our events are free, people do not demonstrate even the smallest amount of regard for our own time and effort in preparation, or regard for other people who wish to attend the groups. Many people are ignoring our request to fully prepare by completing the pre-requisites for the events, and if they wish to cancel their seat at the event, they do not do so in the manner we have requested.

This demonstrates that these people are not interested in practicing what we are teaching, which includes demonstrating love for others. If a person cannot demonstrate love to another person who is giving their time for free, then it is highly unlikely they have a sincere desire to grow in love.

In future if we believe an attendee has any unloving attitudes regarding these matters, we will be preventing those attendees from either attending our events, or will remove them from our events if they have arrived at an event.

Our Thanks

Jesus and I would like to thank to our helper team during the group. These people were; Lena, Igor, Kelly, Cornelius, and Eloisa.

Set-up Begins

Set-up Begins

Thank you guys. Your efforts helped to ensure that things ran smoothly and we know that you gave a lot of your personal time to the event.

Thanks also to Bruce who transported some of our equipment to and from the venue.

Set-up and Testing

Set-up and Testing

We’d also like to give a special thank-you to Lena. Lena has worked incredibly hard this year, at times while when she was also dealing with stressful personal, emotional issues. She has always been diligent, thorough, helpful and pleasant to work with. Thank you Lena, we really appreciate you. We know that when we put something in your hands you will do it to the best of your ability, while also considering those who will come along after you and have jobs that are dependent upon you.

Set-up

Set-up takes work

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Eloisa & Kelly

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Cornelius on Cam

Details about the Material Now Available

The “Understanding God’s Loving Laws” video, audio, outlines and PowerPoint are available via our website. For anyone wishing to have an offline copy of this data, please follow the directions on the download  or gifts pages of the website.

We are happy to receive hard disks and copy the new material for people. Please make sure you supply us with the correct information and large enough disk. These specifications can be found on the gifts page.

This new material is a gift from Jesus, Mary and Lena Shakhanov.

There are 66 new extended videos. Low resolution audio is available for download from our website. Video and high resolution audio is now available from the Divine Truth master synchronization server. All of the videos are also on YouTube.

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There have been some new features added to the shared material that will assist you to access the information:

Outlines Package

The “Outlines” package for any group is a single PDF download file which contains all of the outlines for the group indicated in a single PDF file. All of the outlines have been edited by Jesus post production. They include the actual questions answered during each presentation with the timing and person asking the question listed.

Audio Package

The “Audio” package for any group is a single zipped download file which contains all of the audios for the group indicated in a single zip file. The single zip file contains many mp3 audio files which must be unzipped in order to be played.

Document Package

The “Document” package for any group is a single zipped download file which contains all of the individual outlines and presentations (Powerpoint 2016) for the group indicated in a single zip file. The single zip file contains many pdf and pptx files which must be unzipped in order to be accessed.

Many people will find it easier to download these packages rather than downloading the individual files from our website. These download packages are available from the Assistant Group Event Downloads page, or can be selected from a list on the What’s New page of the website for any new group that is added. The packages are a gift from Jesus.

Video

As with the videos in the “Developing My Loving Self” assistance group, these new videos all include chapter markers which can be used to navigate each video when it is viewed in QuickTime.

With the “Understanding God’s Loving Laws” videos we have also added the chapter markers into the description field while playing the video in YouTube. This enables the YouTube viewer to use these chapter timings to easily skip to particular sections in each of the presentations.

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New Scheduling for “Education in Love” Assistance Groups

Because of the large work load involved in preparing, presenting, editing, producing and uploading our Assistance Groups, Jesus and I have decided to place plans for future groups on hold until Jesus has had a chance to rest.

It normally takes Jesus around 500 hours to prepare all of the documents, outlines, presentations and technology for a one month group course (2 groups at a time). Also, when he comes home from a group, he also spends another 400 hours immediately after each group finalizing the editing of the presentations, outlines, audio, chapter tags, video production, video compression, video upload to YouTube, website editing, and website upload, as well as maintaining backup copies of all of the data produced. Obviously the group presentations also take an additional one month of his time per group.

This has meant that he has spent over 2700 hours in preparation and post production on 2016 assistance groups in addition to the 3 months delivering almost all of the material. If you calculate this time, you can see that this means he has spent over 330 8 hour days since October 2015 until January 2017 preparing, delivering and post producing the assistance groups. Obviously this is in addition to all of his other regular jobs. He has had to work extremely long hours each day for the 16 month period to obtain the results.

All this work means that he needs a rest!

Those of you who have watched the previous Assistance Group presentations will know that we had already moved the groups initially scheduled for 2017 to 2018. We have now gone one step further and decided to only schedule the next group in the series until 6 months after the material for that group has been prepared.

This removes the “deadline” from our lives (in particular from Jesus’ life) and will mean that we can take our time to prepare material that we feel will be most beneficial to the world. Having the 6 month buffer between completion of the material preparation and the actual presentation has additional benefits including; allowing people wishing to attend the groups time to make plans, arrange their work life, make bookings and complete the group pre-requisites sufficiently. It also means that Jesus and I can be well rested before we deliver the material.

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Jesus teaches by the pool on his day off

What this means for people wishing to attend our assistance groups:

All dates for assistance groups in the “Education in Love” series are now to be advised.

The dates listed on the EventBrite pages are tentative and used as a guideline only.

We now anticipate holding the “Understanding Sin & It’s Causes” group in November 2018 at the earliest. We may follow this with “Removing Sin & It’s Causes” in February and March of 2019 since we are writing the material for both groups at the same time.

Your current bookings

If you are currently registered for any of our future groups, these bookings will remain valid. You will have the chance to cancel the booking once we schedule the actual date if the new dates no longer suit you. We will confirm dates 6 months prior to commencing the group.

We are now maintaining waiting lists for each of the groups in the “‘Education in Love” series. This means that if we have a large amount of cancellations these spots can easily go to others who would like the opportunity to attend. However late cancellations (within a month prior to a confirmed event) will all still mean that these people will be banned from future events in the series for the obvious reason that if you are cancelling less than a month before the group begins, you obviously had little real intention to attend the group anyway, and are just taking a seat on the group because it is a free event.

Jesus and I feel that a person who wishes to be responsible for their lives and actions knows prior to one month before a week long event if they are realistically going to be able to attend. There are many logistical issues that a participant would need to arrange prior to one month before a week long event. Obviously if there are extreme circumstances that prevent attendance quite soon before the event, we understand this and would not take the same actions towards these people.

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Recent Divine Truth Training Programme

In December and January, in addition to all of the normal production work required after the assistance groups in November 2016, Jesus and I coordinated a training programme for a group of people who have demonstrated over time that they have a sincere desire to assist in the work of sharing Divine Truth with the world.

This meant two exceptionally busy months for us after the November groups. Jesus and Lena in particular have managed and juggled a lot. Both were completing the extensive post production work necessary for “Understanding God’s Loving Laws” while simultaneously providing training post production training, and other training, to groups of people during the period.

This busy time has meant that Jesus has been working 7 day a week, mostly 12 hours a day for two months. (He usually begins work at 5am, and finishes normally around 5pm).

Participants in this training programme gained a lot of knowledge of how Jesus and Lena perform their jobs, what kind of knowledge and quality control is required, along with learning about other aspects involved in sharing Divine Truth.

The programme focussed on four main areas:

  1. Attitude Required to Share Divine Truth in Harmony with God’s Laws

It is really impossible to share Divine Truth unless Truth is presented by a person wishing to be humble and to share a gift in harmony with God’s Laws, and the person desires to be loving while they share God’s Truth.

So our training in this area involved presentations and one on one feedback discussing attitudes and emotions involved in giving gifts. We focussed on the various ways our injured emotional condition can interfere with serving others and creating material.

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  1. Production of Divine Truth Materials

Lena and Jesus coordinated this training and were able teach a lot about various aspects of our current production process along with many of the technical and spiritual principles involved in the processes we use.

Participants learned about the equipment we currently use and had the opportunity to take part in practical exercises relating to video recording, editing and production, sound recording, editing and production, marker editing and production, equipment setup, pack-up and storage, and backup of data.

Some of our training group

Some of our training group

  1. Environment Regeneration

Jesus gave presentations about the impact that our unloving behaviours and attitudes have upon the environment and some of the principles involved in land regeneration.

This was followed by practical days in which participants need to work hard physically and had the chance to complete some physical aspects of land regeneration. They also were able to see some of the projects and experiments in progress on our property. We did this to prepare people for what knowledge and effort would be required for participation in a God’s Way Learning Centre.

  1. Introduction to Public Speaking

Jesus gave presentations about public speaking, and outlined to the participants the many aspects of good public speaking.

Participants then had the opportunity to prepare and present a short presentation, and to receive personal feedback on the aspects of presenting that they could improve upon. Learning about public speaking from Jesus is truly valuable. I also gave a short presentation of ways that addictions and unloving emotions can interfere with presenting material.

Courtney before her presentation

Courtney before her presentation

Programme Participants

Joining the programme were three international guests; Courtney from the USA, Nicky from England and David from Barbados. It was a pleasure to have them with us. In addition, we selected some people locally who have a passion for teaching and sharing Divine Truth in a loving and truthful manner. Each of these persons had previously demonstrated to us by their attitude that we could spend this time with them.

The triple treat from OS David, Courtney, Nicky

The triple treat from OS
David, Courtney, Nicky

We plan to continue to offer training to people who wish to volunteer to assist in the delivery of Divine Truth. In future we will be offering a volunteer induction programme for these people, with the details about these programmes being listed below.

New Volunteer Induction Programme

Jesus and I are currently designing a volunteer induction programme. It is now mandatory for any person wishing to volunteer their time for Divine Truth or God’s Way to complete this programme prior to joining any of the teams in either organisation. Very few people will complete the induction successfully on their first attempt.

Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins and I will implement the programme.

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This programme will not focus participants on developing specialized practical skills required for each team. Rather it will offer participants the opportunity to participate in a number of different activities, receive personal feedback about emotional issues relating to love and service, and allow them the chance to work on these issues in their own time.

This is not a programme that will involve a lot of presenting of Divine Truth material in the “teaching” style you are used to at our public events. Rather the programme will focus on giving each participant the opportunity to act, take initiative, follow instructions and complete practical tasks.

This structure allows those involved in giving further instruction from either Divine Truth or God’s Way to see if each person who is volunteering;

  1.  truly has a sincere desire to serve
  2. has the correct attitudes of service
  3. has the correct understanding of Divine Truth principles
  4. has a strong desire to bring their life into harmony with God’s definition of love
  5. is desirous to correct any unloving behaviour and beliefs
  6. is able to be educated God’s Way
  7. is willing to perform any task, from cleaning toilets through to video production and presenting material to the public

In order to participate in this programme you must:

  1. have a sincere desire to assist in the work of sharing Divine Truth worldwide
  2. be available to attend and participate one day per week for a minimum of a three month period (in the Wilkesdale area)
  3. be desirous of feedback regarding your emotions and condition in love, especially in relation to your being of service to others
  4. be desirous and willing to work and on your emotions and condition in love in your own time throughout the duration of the programme
  5. be aware that you will be removed from the programme if certain conditions or requirements are not met

Final acceptance of participants into the programme will decided by Jesus and I and we may cease any person’s involvement at any time if we feel that they are not sincere in meeting these criteria. This means that while to complete the programme involves 12 days over a three month period, a person may be removed from the programme at any time regardless of whether they have travelled from another location or live locally.

If you would like to take part in this programme it is essential that you consider you desire to meet the criteria listed above. If you feel that you do then please register your interest on our Eventbrite page here. Please note that by registering your interest you are indicating your intention to uphold the criteria.

Other Divine Truth Projects

While all this has been going on, we, along with members of our current volunteer team, have been working on a number of additional projects.

E-Books & Self-Print Book Automation

Visual Basic code is currently being written to save large amounts of time during the transcription of video files into self-print documents. Once the automation of the production of e-book and self-print documents is complete, large amounts of volunteer time will be saved in the production of new material for printing, and a large number of self-print and e-book documents will be added to the current list.

Search Engine Database

An offline database is currently being designed to integrate into the static website (both the offline and online copies). This will enable key word searches of many thousands of documents on our site, along with all of the nearly 2,000 hours of videos as well. This is a very time consuming project, and we hope to have this project completed before the next assistance groups in 2018.

Transcription

The transcription team volunteers are currently working on the transcriptions for all of the 2016 assistance group material. Most of these transcriptions will be added to the website in the coming months. Jesus & Mary would like to thank their volunteers and encourage you to donate to them if you are able to help them continue with their work.

Barb McNair who runs this team has also begun training another person in her role. Not only will this provide a back up person should Barb ever be unable to continue in her role, it also offers Barb the chance to have some assistance in managing quite a large team and the long list of talks that she currently does. It also creates the potential of possible expansion of this team into new areas and projects.

Fundamental Truths

Jesus and I are in the process of designing a “Fundamental Truths” series of videos which will provide a summary of God’s Fundamental Truths in a concise and easy to understand form. We hope to start recording some of these videos in the latter half of 2017. This information will be designed to provide all people listening, reading or watching Divine Truth material with clear, concise explanations of the fundamental truths that underpin God’s Way.

Assistance Group Q&A

Jesus and I will begin recording some studio sessions to answer questions related to the assistance group material that was presented in the three groups in 2016.

Due to our new system of collecting and answering questions during this last assistance group, we already have a long list questions to answer that relate to God’s Laws. However further questions about any of the three assistance groups already presented are always welcome. Please send questions to faq@divinetruth.com and label each email with the group and individual presentation that the questions relate to.

Spirit Discussions

Jesus and I still regularly communicate with people who used to live on earth, but who have now passed. Not all of these sessions are recorded, but those that are will be added to the website. Now that the post production work for the assistance groups and our short term Divine Truth training programme are both complete we hope to find some quiet time in the coming months to speak with spirits again. Please check the Spirit Discussions or the 2017 Downloads pages on our website for this new material.

Vimeo Videos

We’ve have decided to expand the avenues available for people to view Divine Truth video. So sometime in the future we will add all of our video material to Vimeo. This means that videos will then be available online both from Vimeo (add-free) and from YouTube. This is quite a process to undertake as it means loading over 1800 videos to a new account. I will let people know via the blog and our What’s New website page when this is finished.

God’s Way

Recently a group of people incorporated a new company “God’s Way”. This company has a very similar constitution to the previous God’s Way of Love organisation, and aims to work in the development, implementation and sharing of projects that demonstrate the potentials of God’s Way on earth. The directors of the company are Tristan Miller, Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins and Catherine Spence.

God's Way Directors

God’s Way Directors

Jesus and I were made founding members of this company and while we won’t be involved in day to day operations of God’s Way or hold any directorial positions we will be advisors and mentors for the directors. We also hold the power to veto decisions if we can see that the directors and/or direction of the company is in disharmony with God’s Way.

Changes to the Production Team

We have made some recent changes to our production team. Lena has been formally appointed as the leader of the production team (though she has effectively been in this role for some time now).

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Igor has been removed from the team completely to give him time to deal with some long standing issues that have been effecting how he works with the team.

This means our production team now only consists of Jesus and Lena. They are both managing and undertaking an enormous amount of tasks. We are always open to new people joining the team, but these people must meet our pre requisites for consideration which include the successful completion of the volunteer induction programme.

Personal Work

Mary

I usually take the time at the end of each update to share a little of my personal progression and reflections since my last post. I’m feeling lately however that it is difficult to quantify or adequately describe my emotions and changes in words.

However, in summary I would say that 2016 was well spent by me personally. I really turned a lot of my definitions of what was “selfish” on their head – e.g. spending time solely on my own emotions – and found that valuing my emotions and giving myself enough the time and compassion I needed in order to experience myself created changes that turned out to exponentially change my ability to share myself, give to others and generally be a nicer person. Being “selfish” (by my old definition) made more giving. So it was absolutely worth it and I continue to view the time I have to spend on strengthening my desire to experience all of me, not only as a gift, but also time that benefits others as well as myself.

At the start of 2016 I had some courage to face more truth about where I was really at at that time. My desire to deal with long standing issues that were causing me pain was really called into question. I’m pleased to say that after many years of simply trying to “punish” myself out of that place and into action, or to punish Jesus instead of myself; I actually started to do some things differently. And the results were good.

Sometime during the year I scrawled something in my journal by a psychologist named David Schnarch. He said:

I think trite dictums like “People always do the best they can at the time” trivializes goodness by taking it for granted, minimizing how hard it is to do the best you can, and blinding us to the ugliness of those who frequently don’t.

At the time, these words seemed to capture exactly what I was reflecting upon and looking at within myself. When considering this update, I remembered the quote and leafed back through my journals to find it. I thought it was worth a share.

God knows that each of us can cope with being overwhelmed, with encountering and embracing immense change in a short period of time, and also that we are capable of more than we currently think. This past year I asked myself many times, and continue to ask myself, “how much am I limiting my experience by saying I can’t cope“?, or as Schnarch would put it, telling myself “I’m doing the best I can” when really there is much more that could be done by me.

And when I notice people really “doing their best” and not making excuses for their injured state or justifying a lack of loving action, I feel the immense gift they offer me and the world. Jesus inspires me in this way every single day. But sometimes there are others I see acting and experimenting and using all that they have to do good and I feel gratitude for them as well. I don’t take it for granted.

Truly doing our best takes courage and to me it deserves to be honoured. Making excuses and calling that “our best” on the other hand is selfish. It harms others and as well as ourselves.

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Jesus

Jesus simply needs time. In 2016 he has had no time to relax, take stock or feel anything deeply. Today he has completed the mammoth task of preparing, managing, delivering, producing, outputting and making public material and videos for three assistance groups in one year. I was just explaining to him my new policy that, instead of celebrating birthdays or other nominal and often meaningless holidays and season, I plan to implement new celebration times into our life.

For example when a person achieves a spiritual accomplishment, takes a new and significant action in harmony with love, or gives a gift of great value and importance (such as he just has). So this afternoon will involve a massage for him and perhaps a special pizza for dinner.

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Until next time, with love,

Mary

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Understanding God’s Loving Laws

We have just completed the presentation outlines for our next Assistance Group ‘Understanding God’s Loving Laws’.

Jesus has spent over 500 hours preparing this material and I am so impressed with what he has accomplished.

Even if you are not attending the group these outlines are amazing stand-alone content.

They are my recommend reading for anyone wanting to better their understanding of how the Universe works and to deepen their appreciation of what God has done for each of us.

If you wish to download all the outlines for your private reading they are available from the website in a handy zip file.  Or you can visit our  What’s New Page for more information.

If you would like to attend this Assistance Group and haven’t yet registered there are still a very limited number of spaces available in the first group. You can register here.

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NEW: Waiting Lists for Assistance Groups

Due to the high demand for our next Assistance Group “Understanding God’s Loving Laws” I have now created waiting lists for all groups in our “Education in Love” series.

As a number of our groups are now fully booked this enables you to reserve any potential place that may become available in those groups if another person cancels.

To join a waiting list simply click on the ‘Register’ button for the group you wish to attend. If a space becomes available you will be notified via email and have a limited time to take the place before it is offered to the next person on the list.

If you know of others who are interested in attending but are not subscribed to this blog you may want to pass this message on.

Best wishes,

Mary

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Developing My Loving Self Assistance Group Now on YouTube

‘Developing My Loving Self’ 2.1 & 2.2, both sessions of our second group in the ‘Education in Love’ Assistance Group series, are now available for viewing on YouTube.

If you are watching these for the first time, or if you are reviewing them after your own attendance at one of the groups, my tip for gaining a well-rounded take on the concepts involved is to view the individual presentations from group 1 & 2 together.

That is, after watching the first talk in group 2.1, proceed to watching the first talk (of the same name) in 2.2.  Then move onto the second talk in 2.1. When you watch the second talk in 2.1, you can follow that with the second talk in 2.2, and so on for the entire programme.

Each group’s questions and interactions with Jesus really bring out different elements in the theme of each presentation. This allows the viewer to more fully grasp the foundation material before hearing about its application in other areas.

Here are links to the group playlists:

Education In Love Group 2.1 – Developing My Loving Self Playlist

 

And if you are needing inspiration to launch into watching this material, here is an individual presentation from group 2.1 that is powerful on its own.

April, May & June: Love from Mary & Jesus

Our Thanks

Jesus and I would like to thank all of you who take the time to donate to us. We know that what you give offers us the opportunity to live in a unique way that we truly believe in. We have an incredible life that we don’t take that for granted. Both Jesus and I are very grateful.

Your donations offer us the freedom to create material that we believe has the potential, if enough people embrace it, to fundamentally change the way that the world operates, to end suffering and to bring beauty and restoration to people and the planet. With your donations we do a lot to ensure that as many people as possible can hear this message now and for a long time in the future, regardless of what may happen to us.

Your donations give us the chance to help people (both here on earth and in the spirit world) free of charge. We see each of you as a part of offering that gift to others, since without your assistance we couldn’t do what we do to the amount and degree that we currently are able.

We extend special thanks this update to those of you who have donated to us personally these past three months. A number of people also made additional donations to cover our unexpected expenses from the first Assistance Group and we really appreciate that.

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What We’ve Been Up To

Since our last update we’ve held both sessions of our “Developing My Loving Self” Assistance Group. This group is the second in our eight part series “An Education in Love”.

I’ll share more about that specific group and about some changes for the Assistance Group series scheduling below. Jesus’ time in this first half of the year has been almost entirely dominated by preparation, presentation and editing for the first two groups in our series. As I write he is working still working on essential tasks for the editing of the “Developing My Loving Self” videos, outlines and transcripts.

After he has finished the edits for group two, he will commence preparation of material for our third group in the series “Understanding God’s Loving Laws”.

This year Jesus has also been mentoring a small group of people interested in starting Learning Centres, schools, and other projects demonstrating God’s Way of Love, along with a number of others who are beginning to present Divine Truth material in various independent formats themselves. These meetings are excellent and I think that everyone involved finds the assistance he provides very beneficial.

Before and during last group some of our video cameras failed, and due to the number of problems we now had with cameras this meant that on returning home Jesus had to spent a fair amount of time researching what replacement alternatives we have that meet our needs for the next 5 years and fall within our price range. Since it has been some years since we purchased our current cameras certain camera models and their specifications have changed meaning that we are not able to replace single cameras to solve the problem.

We like our entire set up of 6 cameras to be interchangeable so that if something goes wrong with one during a presentation we can quickly change it for another less used camera. Having standard equipment also means that people trained in operating the cameras can more easily switch positions within the room, and it simplifies colour and white balance matching in the final video product. So, all this means that we have had to purchase 6 new cameras and we will donate our old ones to various people to document their own projects related to God’s Way. Jesus has spent a lot of time in the past few weeks researching, trouble shooting and purchasing our new alternatives. We also had to update some recording equipment with the cameras. Altogether we spent $16,000 on cameras and ancillary hardware .

All of this activity in the first half of the year and the ongoing maintenance and replacement of technical products that the Assistance Groups have necessitated has meant that Jesus has had almost no quality time to focus on his personal progression for at least 6 months. We are really hoping to remedy that in the latter half of this year and during next year as well.

In contrast I have spent most of this year focusing on my progress which has been an immense gift. A number of people have asked me about what I am going through at this time but I don’t feel that it is time to share about it yet. That time will come but for now I want to focus on making changes (not talking about them).

I did help out with presentation of our second “Developing My Loving Self” group. This was mainly because Jesus felt he could do with a hand since some emotions had come up for him during his short break between groups that he hadn’t had time to deal with. As a result he needed to look after himself even more in terms of getting a little more rest and quiet time, so I presented the ‘Summary’ and ‘Homework’ sessions throughout the nine days.

While both Jesus and I don’t feel that it is right for me to teach material I haven’t properly dealt with myself yet (this is the reason I haven’t been presenting at the groups so far) having the opportunity to present these summary and homework sessions was an incredible opportunity. I honestly felt like doing those presentations allowed God to take out a bright yellow highlighter pen and underline to me so much truth about myself, about my attractions and about God’s Way.

I am still working through all of the amazing things that were exposed to me in a heightened way during the group. Of course God has always been attempting to ‘highlight’ these things to me, it was only that I wanted to notice these things on a more emotional level this time that I found the experience to be so beneficial.

Thank you to those of you who have sent me kind emails and questions over the past few months. Because of my focus on my own emotional work I have only been checking my emails periodically and I haven’t had the time to respond to personal emails at all. I do hope that over the coming months I may find a little more time for this and to share a few responses to your emails as blog posts as well. This all depends on how I am progressing myself. I don’t want sacrifice important time for personal work for other things at the moment.

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Assistance Groups

Developing My Loving Self

“Developing My Loving Self” was attended by 119 people collectively in two groups.

Jesus enjoyed presenting the new material for both of these groups. I loved the opportunity to be there and to summarize and reflect with the audience via the homework and revision.

Jesus and the recording/editing team put a lot of effort into improving the quality of the production at each group that we hold. I think that those viewing this group and each subsequent group will notice how the aesthetic elements improve. Jesus also does a lot to ensure the material he covers in every group is succinct, relevant and useful to others.

During “Developing My Loving Self” we implemented some changes regarding participant questions that are aiming to improve production quality, make it easier and less time-consuming for our technical team, ensure the time during the groups is used to cover relevant material, and to assist participants to become more responsible for their emotions and learning. We will uphold these changes in our subsequent groups. They included; asking participants to stand while asking questions, asking participants to prepare questions based on their reading of outlines prior to the Q&A sessions, challenging participants on addictive motivations within their questions and asking participants to ask simple questions rather than relaying long personal stories and opinions in the guise of questions.

Some participants really did a wonderful job at observing our new changes and this not only benefited them but will benefit many people who watch the material in the future. Thank you to those participants who made good use of the outlines to reflect on questions and those whose questions were thoughtful and sincere.

There were also some great personal and group feedback sessions during “Developing My Loving Self” that I know will benefit many people for a long time to come. So thank you to those who were brave and genuine in their questions and participation in personal feedback.

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Our Helpers & Plans for Training New Team Members

We also want to thank our dedicated helpers who performed some essential jobs throughout the groups.

Lena & Igor – who are present for the preparation and packing of equipment, the venue set-up, filming and tagging during pre.sentations, coping data throughout the group and and working with Jesus in post group video and sound editing and chapter creation.

Cornelius – for being our lead audience camera operator and for training two new camera operators this past group.

Eloisa – for being in charge of name tags and guest lists in my absence, Eloisa also drew the ‘My Unloving Self” diagram up on our whiteboard and she trained to be a back-up camera operator.

Bruce & Kelly – for helping out with transporting extra equipment and gear. This group Kelly also trained to be a back-up camera operator.

We have plans to expand the knowledge base in our team of helpers and so during our next group and in the coming year we will be training a number of people in camera operation, video editing and other technical tasks essential to the creation of Divine Truth material.

If you have an interest in assisting us as a volunteer in this way there are a number of prerequisites you would need to meet:

  • You live nearby to us or desire to spend an extended period with us in training.
  • After training are able to be present at seminars, groups or in our studio when technical tasks are essential.
  • You are happy and willing to spend an extended period in independent learning about the specific programs and equipment we use to create Divine Truth material.
  • You desire to serve and are willing to receive personal feedback about any way that you are not serving, are in addiction, or are unloving towards yourself or other team members

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Important Changes to Assistance Group Scheduling

By now, if you have attended both of the first two groups in this series, you will have begun to notice that each group we present will be jam packed with very valuable learning material. Hopefully you can see the opportunities this presents for you to engage and experiment with these truths and lessons. But to do this will take a determined desire and time on your part.

Because we want to give everyone the opportunity to do some personal work on the content of the first three groups before presenting more material we have made some changes to how we will proceed with presenting the full series of groups.

We have now spread the entire programme out over 6 years. After each year that we hold groups we will have a year without public groups and instead spend that time recording question & answer sessions relating to the content covered in the previous year in our home studio. So for example in 2017 we will no longer be holding the groups previously scheduled but will create a number of question & answer clips that cover questions arising from groups one, two and three held in 2016.

This will mean that the entire “Education in Love” group series will span 6 years but hopefully will allow sincere people maximum potential for learning and practically engaging the material. You will find that without engaging and experimenting with the material in the previous groups your understanding and engagement with further groups will become more and more limited, and your understanding of what Jesus hopes to present in the future will also be severely limited.

An overview of the new programme is as follows:

2016 – Presentation of Groups 1, 2 & 3 in the “Education in Love Series”.

2017 – Jesus and I record material in home studio including Q&A sessions on all of the material  presented in Groups 1, 2 & 3 along with other projects that we feel are important to undertake.

2018 – Presentation of Groups 4 & 5 in the “Education in Love Series”.

2019 – Jesus and I record material in home studio including Q&A sessions on all of the material presented in Groups 4 & 5 along with other projects that we feel are important to undertake.

2020 – Presentation of Groups 6, 7 & 8 in the “Education in Love Series”.

2021 – Jesus and I record material in home studio including Q&A sessions on all of the material presented in Groups 6, 7 & 8 along with other projects that we feel are important to undertake.

Of course, this is the plan at the moment and, given the time frame involved, these arrangements may change.

You will now find that the Eventbrite pages for each of the groups reflect the new exact dates for each group. Jesus will be updating the website with the changes over the coming month.

If you have previously booked into any of the future groups your booking remains. If you find that the new dates don’t suit you then you can easily cancel your booking by signing into Eventbrite using the same email address you used to make your booking. Once you do this you will find a list of current tickets you have booked. Simply click on any of the bookings you don’t wish to keep and you will be given the option of cancelling them.

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Sending Us Your Questions

As you watch the groups in the “Education In Love” series, and begin to experiment with the material presented, you may find that you have questions. If you do you can send them to us we will try to answer as many as possible in the specific Q&A sessions we will record.

Here are the guidelines for sending us your questions:

  • Please send your questions to faq@divinetruth.com
  • Tell us the name of the group and the name of the individual presentation that your questions pertains to. e.g. Developing My Loving Self – The Creation Of My Pain.
  • Include your name. e.g. First name & Last name.
  • Then write your question as succinctly as possible.

It is really important that you label your questions and let us know that they relate to the Assistance Group material. Otherwise your question will be filed into the very large general lists of FAQ questions we have on file.

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Our Next Few Months

Video Editing & Production for Assistance Groups

Jesus, Lena and Igor will continue to work on editing and production of group two for YouTube and our website for the next month. They hope to have the completed videos, sound files, modified outlines, and the website updates uploaded by the end of July 2016.

Preparations for the Next Assistance Groups

Jesus and I have already started the development of material for “Understanding God’s Loving Laws”. Jesus generally creates the framework and understands the most important content to cover for each group. He works on compiling this and then we get together and work through how it is best presented. I ask and ponder and reflect back what I’m really getting from the material and this usually helps Jesus to make the programme more logical and free flowing.

I absolutely love creating with Jesus. It is fun time for me. I love the challenges all the truth presents in me, I love thinking about how to best share the awesomeness of God’s Creation and I really love watching my brilliant man at work.

Mentoring and Various Side Projects

Jesus will continue meeting with the small mentoring group once a month.

We may welcome some overseas visitors later in the year and so Jesus and others are working on preparing for their arrival.

Continued Focus on our own Progression

Aside from the Assistance Group work, and the various side projects we have on the go, both Jesus and I both want to place our biggest emphasis on our own progression. How much we can share and teach is directly proportional to how much we grow. So our growth in relationship with God really is our ‘core business’.

Unfortunately, for Jesus, other projects have needed his attention lately but getting back to his own personal work is really a priority for him in the latter half of this year, and after he has completed the group outlines for the next groups, he does not expect to produce more material until he presents the “Understanding God’s Loving Laws” material.

For myself, for a long time I lived in the false belief that I could share and be a part of this life while still ignoring some really important issues in my soul. I no longer see that as an option and so I’m valuing the time I have to confront those issues and to make better choices.

A Poem from My Hurt Self

Sometime ago I wrote a poem.

It came after I had cried deeply, I’m not sure for how long. Afterwards, I sat down with my journal and, without any fore-thought or planning, out came this poem, exactly as it is written below.

I haven’t shared it before now for a few reasons. The main one being that these words came straight from a part of myself that felt judged and vulnerable, and definitely not yet comfortable with sharing very personal parts of me and my experience.

Indeed, this poem felt to be so me when I wrote it that I felt very exposed even sharing it with a few close friends.

Also, some of these hurt feelings were angry when they were first uncovered and my purpose in sharing is never to model that living and acting in anger is something that I think is worthwhile, good or loving.

In publishing this poem publicly today, I am certain that I don’t have a point to prove with my parents by doing so. In fact, strange as it may seem, I don’t even feel that it is a poem about my parents.

This is a poem about me and my journey. It came from a part of myself that felt very raw and real when uncovered and I’m sharing it now because I think that the words have a certain power because they are written with the childlike lack of sophisticated and facade that I experienced at the time.

Today, Jesus will welcome our first round of participants for the “Developing my Loving Self” assistance group. This group will address the importance of connecting to and releasing all of the injured parts of ourselves. So, it seemed apt to make this post today.

I hope that the poem might inspire you to be real and to become more sensitive to the hurt, often childlike, parts of you that are long suppressed and desperate for your attention, care and love so that they can be integrated and their pain released.

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A Poem from My Hurt Self

I never got to feel pretty

I never got to feel free

You always were the bosses

And I never got to explore me

 

I’ve never liked my body

I’ve never felt at ease

I’ve always felt as your puppy

That has to beg and fetch and please

 

Now I feel so angry

I feel I’ve lost so much

I want to take back my body

And I wish you would know the cost

 

You’ve taken such a toll on me

I feel so much regret

My life, it feels half over

And I’m not even a grown up yet

 

I want to make you sorry

Make you pay for what you’ve done

But none of that will help me

I’m in this for a longer, better run

 

So instead I’m reclaiming my body

I’m learning to say no

I’m claiming my own territory

My heart, my body, my soul

 

You are betrayers and abusers

You made me feel so wrong

to want my life, my joy, my partner

You’ve engulfed me for so long

 

It’s been hard to find myself

Amidst your needy cloud

You felt so damned entitled

I could never speak the truth aloud

 

But I am hiding not a minute longer

I’m breaking up these chains

A new girl is emerging

And taking up the reins

 

She is stronger and braver

Than you have ever been

And you won’t even recognise her

But eventually, I know – you’ll want her on your team

 

In the end you’ll turn to her

You can’t outrun your terror

And there is only so much pain

you’ll take before you’ll want to know how she could change

 

I am proud of who I’m becoming

And I don’t want your shit no more

I’d rather please my Maker

Than abide by family law

 

There is a bird within my heart

Still caged but breaking free

She is crying but also singing

She is finding a new way to be

 

I want to soar through treetops

And dip and glide with grace

I want to heal my wounds and worries

Until I find my home, my space

 

Your reign on my life is over

It’s me now, but I’m not alone

I found a friend, a lover – a fine, good man –

With the same heart as my own

 

While I want to wish you all the best

In truth, I hope one day you’ll see

The pain that you’ve been running from

And how that’s damaged me

 

I say that for your own sake

Because by that time I’ll be long gone

Soaring free into my new life

With my prince upon my arm

 

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Previously on.. An Education in Love

Recapping the ‘Developing My Will to Love’ Group

“I like Homeland, but I don’t think it’s as good as that other show, Previously on Homeland. That thing is action-packed.”—Amy Poehler at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards

Watching Group One

I had so much fun binge watching the recordings of our first Assistance Group – Developing My Will to Love.

Just like when I’ve seriously watched TV programmes in the past (BSG – I mean you) I went through the full gamut of emotions while watching these groups – anticipation, sorrow, laughter, cringes and so on.

I called Jesus on numerous occasions to tell how amazing he was. I wrote down certain things he said verbatim because I want to print them on t-shirts (or maybe tattoo them on my forearm for life-long handy reference).

At various times I talked out loud to the TV screen.

And even though there were no cliff hangers as such, I found there was a definite ‘tension’ between each presentation and its corresponding Q& A session. I had to see what would happen next. (smile)

Not actually being at the groups was so strange for me and it was completely novel to watch each recording just like so many of you overseas must do all the time. I really savoured the experience to sit and see things from a different perspective.

Even though I had been involved in preparing all of the material for these groups, while watching I really focused on receiving the gifts of Jesus’ presentation and everyone’s participation.

Because I approached things this way, I feel I personally gained so much for my own progression while watching.

It’s been a few weeks since I finished all of the videos and the other day I found myself doing a bit of a personal ‘recap’ of the most significant things that have stuck with me. Without referring to any previous notes or watching any video I sat down with my journal and wrote down the lessons from “Developing My Will to Love” that really impacted upon me.

Today I thought I’d write up a list of the questions I found myself naturally answering in case it assists any of you to do your own personal ‘recap’. I believe that it is so worthwhile to reflect on and experiment with some of the truths from our first group before we launch into the next.

If you would like to do some personal reflection on “Developing My Will to Love” here are some questions that may assist you:

What are some of the key points from the group that have stuck with me?

What were the injuries within me that I discovered that are impacting on my personal relationship with God, myself and others?

What lessons, truths and/or moments had the most impact on me emotionally?
(These emotionally charged moments are a clue to truths, lessons or emotions that have can have immediate positive impact on my progression if I continue to focus on them).

What did I learn?

What didn’t I understand? What frustrated me? When did I feel most resistive?
(These are also important clues to areas that are holding me back from more rapid progress).

What experiments am I engaging in relation to the material presented?

Has anything changed (have I taken any different action, do I respond differently to anything in my life) since I watched/ attended the group? If not, why not?

Some additional questions that can be useful to help in working through resistance to specific issues are:

What is my investment in not accepting this statement/opinion as truthful?

What fear would it challenge if I did?

What grief would it expose if I did?

In what way would accepting this truth cause me to act differently?
What emotion don’t I want to feel in relation to that action?
E.g. Fear of disapproval, fear of exposure

How would living as if this is the truth make me feel separate from key people in my life?
Why? What is my investment in feeling the same or accepted?

Is my judgement of this information as untruthful based on any evidence?
If so, from where did I get that ‘evidence’? Is it from personal experience?
Is it based on other people’s opinions?
If it’s from personal ‘experience’, how connected & present was I at the time?
Is my recall of what happened based on actual events?
Or is it blurred by suppressed fear and grief or anger?

Is there a way I can safely experiment to test for myself if it is true or not?

If you attended the group, or watched it on YouTube, I highly recommend doing your own personal ‘recap’, answering some of the questions I placed above. Not only is this exercise helpful in getting the most out of the last group, but if you plan to attend the next group (or watch it), it will help you to engage constructively the new material as well.

I haven’t shared my recap notes because obviously everyone’s reflections are personal and specific to their own progression and soul work. However, I couldn’t resist compiling just some of my favourite truths or perspectives I gained from viewing and I’ve pasted them at the bottom of this post. And my previous ‘Jesus Quote’ post on the blog comes directly from one of the presentations as well.

I’m pretty excited about our next group. Jesus has some excellent material to share with those who are attending. I hope you all love it as much as I loved helping him prepare it.

If you haven’t booked a place in Group 2 but would still like to attend there are some places available in Group 2.1 starting May 20th.

If, like me, you are planning to watch the “Developing My Loving Self” groups on video once they are available here is a funny video on the dangers of binge watching:

 

An Education in Love – Developing My Will to Love – Mary’s Highlights

These are just some personal notes and aren’t intended as a proper ‘recap’ of the content of the group.

Contrary to Amy Pohler’s preference for the recap of Homeland over the actual programme, I highly recommend watching both groups in full (smile). My, or anyone else’s recap, can’t hope to do it justice.

The World’s Definition of Love

The world’s definition of love is basically a bunch of fear based beliefs that foster addiction and co-dependence.

God’s definition of Love will be free of any fear or fear based reasoning.

God’s definition is mostly in opposition to the world’s definition.

Unless I give up my addiction to gaining approval from the world, I will not act or experience enough to gain God’s definition of Love.

Any fears of confrontation, rejection and ostracism I retain will negatively impact upon my progress in gaining an education in love. Any fears I hold onto will ultimately prevent my connection with God.

Most of the worldly education I have received has reinforced false beliefs within me, so part of using my will to love will be challenging those fears and releasing my worldly (family) education.

In order to gain God’s definition of love, I must be willing to disagree with most of the world, most of the time.

The Four Tools for Progression

Before, during and since the groups I have engaged some personal experiments with the four tools for progression that Jesus talked about. (Faith, Truth, Action and Emotion).

I’ve found that experimenting with any single one gives me insight into my resistance towards all the others. Perhaps at a future group I’ll be able to talk about that some more. But I highly recommend purposeful experiments with any one (or all) of the four tools for progression.

I’ve enjoyed finding out how closely related all four of these tools are and how we do end up working on all four in tandem.

Faith

Development of my faith is completely under my control.

If I don’t have any faith it’s because I am actively resisting developing it.

Part of developing my will to love is taking responsibility for my lack of faith. I actively maintain a lack of faith by:

  • resisting taking loving actions
  • resisting releasing painful past experiences

Faith in badness, sin and error damages me and others.

I have an investment in maintaining a lack of faith because it provides me with justification to not act, to not feel, and to not experiment with God’s Way.

In other words – even though I want to tell myself that my lack of faith is painful – I actually prefer to have a lack of faith because I can use it as an excuse to avoid many of my fears.

My faith in God, God’s Goodness and Love is something I can develop. Developing faith is NOT a passive process. It involves being humble to my pain and fear and taking positive action. This is a loving use of my will.

Action

Unless I act, I cannot grow faith.

Unless I act differently I cannot challenge false beliefs (fears).

Feeling all the emotion in my soul is meaningless if I am unwilling to act in harmony with love.

Unless I act in accordance with the truth I have already learned and discovered I will degrade in my condition.

Taking action is powerful. Action is vital to all progress.

The areas in my life where I have the most fear are significant. Acting and changing in these areas will bring about rapid and substantial improvements in my day-to-day happiness.

I loved the discussion in one Q&A about the long-term effect (distress) that comes from not resolving issues and remaining inactive in regards to awareness of problems. Jesus talked about how when we become aware of a personal issue and resolve it rapidly we can attain a state of happiness until the next problem or personal issue becomes apparent.

On the other hand, if we gain awareness of problem after problem and take no action to resolve it, life becomes more and more miserable and we enter higher and higher states of distress. There was also a graph involved in this explanation (I love graphs and diagrams!). I recommend checking that discussion out if you haven’t already.

Humility & Emotion

I found it very moving when in one Q&A discussion Jesus spoke about his choice to actively ‘be humble’ even when situations are very challenging and he is being attacked.

This brief discussion caused me to feel that even though developing humility often feels like something that becomes more and more natural and easy over time, in the end it is a choice. Being humble is an act of will.

It is not something that magically occurs suddenly nor is it a quality that is impossibly unattainable. We can and will choose humility time and again if we want a relationship with God.

Part of one of our outlines for the next group speaks about what that choice actually means:

What I Will Do When I am Humble

  • desire to feel suppressed pain caused by myself or others
  • desire to feel current pain caused by my choices or others
  • desire to feel future possible pain caused by my choice or others
  • release emotions that negatively control beliefs, thoughts, and actions
  • awaken to sin, and repent for past sin
  • ask for God’s Love & Forgiveness
  • listen to, absorb, & accept loving thoughts, beliefs & ideas
  • develop, respond to, and act upon, loving longings & desires
  • develop, respond to, and act upon,loving aspirations & intentions
  • develop, respond to, and act upon, loving emotions & feelings
  • plan, decide, and engage loving actions
  • allow externally generated sources to encourage me to do all the above

As a side note, I really noticed how much resistance (fear) both audiences had in any presentation about emotion. There was a lot of personal questioning, resistance to taking on general principles about emotion, an all round wish to deny the reality of the need to feel emotions independently for oneself and attempts to steer Jesus away from addressing crucial points. This indicates how many are still struggling with fear of emotion and have the desire to remain dependent on others when it comes to emotions (rather than take personal responsibility for feeling them).

Aspiration vs Inspiration

It is so important to get real about the difference between when I’m relying on inspiration versus when I experiencing, growing and developing my personal aspiration to change and grow.

How much do I aspire to change? vs. How much do I love feeling reassured, supported and encouraged through receiving inspiration by listening to truth?

There are positive ways I can engage with inspiration and negative ones.

If I use inspiration addictively then my condition degrades. Examples of how I use inspiration addictively:

  • to avoid faith (I ‘rest’ on another person’s faith and rely on them to provide truth, rather than engaging my own experiments)
  • to avoid taking personal action (relying on the person ahead of me to take the action instead, trying to ‘tag on’ to their creations rather than experiencing my feeling of risk and fear by taking initiative with creation)
  • to avoid emotion (I can use inspiration to reassure me that everything will be ‘alright’ in the end – avoidance of fear, I can use it to avoid feeling ‘all alone’ in my life.
  • to avoid confrontation of personal truth (focus on external and universal truth and avoid seeing my life as it really is right now and the effects of how I am currently using my will)

This addictive process is the OPPOSITE of developing my will to love!

To positively engage with inspiration I will use it to assist me in:

  • confronting my resistance
  • engaging my own experiments
  • taking personal responsibility for my life as it is right now (which is the result of my own actions)

In other words, if I positively engage with inspiration it will assist me in growing my personal aspiration.

My personal aspiration is not dependent on external circumstances, relationships etc. My personal aspiration comes from within and is an aspect of me embracing the use of my will actively and it will continue to motivate me towards change (without me having to rely on others for things).

Engaging with sources of inspiration is only beneficial if it spurs me towards challenging addiction, facade and false beliefs. When I do challenge these things I begin to develop my will to love.

I absolutely loved the discussion in the group about aspiration and inspiration.

Jesus Quotes: Faith, Fear & Courage

“If you just rely on yourself, having courage is very hard – how much courage you have is completely dependent on your own limitations.

Whereas God is an unlimited God, with unlimited Goodness. If I trust and have faith in God, now my courage will be dependent on God’s feelings, not my own. To me, that means I can do anything, no matter how afraid I am.

I don’t consider myself to have much personal courage. I simply have faith in God and God’s Goodness.”

Jesus – March 2016

Jesus & Mary : February & March

It’s been a big couple of months for this couple.

Our First Assistance Group

As many of you likely know we held both sessions of the first group in our Education in Love assistance group series.

In total 118 people attended “Using My Will to Love” and we received great feedback from many of those people about the format and content of the group.

Jesus single-handedly presented these two groups. It was a mammoth effort on his part.

He always gives a lot in terms of wisdom, love and energy in every presentation. And while he displays far more stamina than I (and many others) have, in the end presenting for 64 hours in the space of 3 weeks was a lot of giving out. So I want to acknowledge him for the incredible gift of his time and love.

The Format & Venue

Each of the assistance groups in this series has two rest days built-in to the programme. The other days are made up of 4 or 5 presentations, 30-60 minutes in length, each focussing on specific topics relating to the overall theme. Attendees said that this format is easy to manage and because the information in each session is succinct many people feel that they have gained more clarity on key issues. The groups provided quite practical suggestions and information for people to use in day-to-day life and so we are hopeful that many people will take the opportunity to grow God’s Way as a result of attending or viewing what was created.

Our New Venue

Our New Venue

nametags

The new venue has been excellent. The seminar room is very comfortable and easily accommodated all attendees plus our considerable amount of recording equipment. Fab and Kate provided some musical entertainment on rest and reflection days in the programme and many attendees found that having the beach only 5 minutes away has also been a lovely addition.

Kate Sings

Kate Sings

Our Thanks

We also had very dedicated helpers who performed some essential jobs throughout the groups.

We send our thank you to the following people:

Thanks to Lena & Igor for the work that they do in preparation, set-up, filming, pack-up and editing. If you want to catch up on more from Lena and Igor they have a new blog: https://legorblog.wordpress.com. I’ve encouraged them to share on the blog all of their enthusiasm and inspiration about Divine Truth that I hear from them in private discussions. Hopefully they will sometime soon.

Thanks to Cornelius for being a dedicated audience videographer with an eye for detail and finding the best shots.

Thanks to Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins & Joy Harris for being in charge of name tags and guest lists in my absence.

Thanks to Bruce & Kelly Carrigan for helping out with transporting of equipment and gear.

Also special thanks go to those people who donated towards the expenses of the groups even though they personally could not attend.

The Lovely Lena with the switching and sound set up

The Lovely Lena with the switching and sound set up

Being A Participant

I’d also like to thank those people who made their presence at the group as one of ‘participant’ and not just ‘attendee’. Those of you who come and listen with an open heart and engage without resistance not only make these groups more enjoyable to present, but also add to the valuable content in the videos of the event which are a resource for many future people to come.

Unfortunately there were still a lot of people present at these two groups who sat in the audience as ‘attendees’ only. Sitting back in fear and silence means you aren’t engaging your own learning. Equally when you engage in addiction and demand you take energy and focus away from truth and miss the opportunity to learn. This was a large problem in the first two groups, and Jesus will be taking steps to address it, since he found the resistance and addictions in both groups quite oppressive, and he could not present all that he wanted as a result.

Those who open their hearts to the material, own their emotional responses and resistance and engage learning are the ‘participants’ and there is so much pleasure in sharing truth with such people. For those of you who were ‘attendees’ only last time, I encourage you to be brave, challenge your fear or your addiction and become a participant. It will help you progress so much.

 

There is such a difference between wanting to learn about principles of God’s Truth that can be applied to all aspects of growth and demanding ‘answers’ to individual problems (which is often just the desire for reassurance in response to emotional panic that arises when truth is presented). The former type of engagement enables you to learn truths and tools that can be applied to everything you encounter, it creates independence and maturity in our development and growth. The latter is actually a childlike response, a desire to be comforted away from pain, and to be ‘parented’ by someone other than God.

Jesus and I want to help you ‘grow up’ and become independent in your progression which is why we have made a firm choice to help people with principles and not continually focussing on personal individual issues. In addition, Jesus will be much more firm in the future about not answering questions which have been asked to support your personal addictions unless he feels something can be taught from the interaction.

Of course, at times it is helpful to have an example to illustrate principles in action but giving simple answers to specific issues (without the context of the underlying principles) isn’t the best way to assist anyone to grow their relationship with God.

I’m hopeful that this first group will be of long-term benefit for those who attended and I know that Jesus’ presentations will be a valuable resource for online viewers for many years to come. As always he provides the opportunity for growth but the truths can only have an effect on your lives if you choose to experiment with them.

 

Post Assistance Group Work

Video Editing & Production

Since returning home Jesus has worked 7 days a week, and Lena and Igor have been working 5 days a week, to finish the edit for the first group so that it was available for viewing on YouTube as soon as possible.

I’m pleased to tell you that they have finished the edit of the first group and on 5th April 2016 it was loaded onto YouTube and the Divine Truth synchronization server. They expect to complete the second group by 24th April 2016.

I’m so proud of these three and the effort that they put in. It’s difficult to describe in a blog post all the time, care and attention to detail that they put in at every step of production to make sure that the end product is valuable, usable and accessible to as many people as possible for many years to come.

Unexpected Expenses

During the group Jesus puts a lot of focus not only recording the material but ensures that we also have reliable back ups if anything goes wrong. We generate a lot of data at each group. Each day what is created is backed up three times via automated scripts that Jesus creates, and two of these backups are stored and kept for the long-term.

Immediately before our first group, it became plain that our Apple Mac hardware will not consistently mount our current USB3 backup storage devices. This meant that Jesus had to quickly create a temporary method for backup while at the group, and for future groups had to buy two thunderbolt backup stores (without drives) which cost $1600.

In addition our first group revealed some issues with the discs we were using for back up. 8TB archive and enterprise drives have only just been released by Seagate. It was our intention to use the same archive drives for editing as we use for backup since they are much cheaper than enterprise drives. The 8TB archive drives cost $400 each when we purchased them and we use 6 per group to store all the data at a cost of around $2400. But when we began editing our processes exposed problems with using these drives for editing in a shared environment. As a result of these two problems, Jesus had to purchase an additional 10 x 8TB enterprise drives which cost $7500 which will be installed in RAID SAN configuration for the purpose of shared editing.

In our original expenses calculations we did not account for the archive drives for each group, for the additional backup storage devices we would need to backup the material during the group, or for the enterprise drives needed to edit the material for all groups. In addition, Jesus, Lena and Igor also needed a well deserved rest before packing up and returning home to begin the additional exhausting process of editing 5-7 days per week and this decision added expenses in accommodation.

These extra expenses resulted in Jesus spending all of the donated funds we received personally during the groups on these extra expenses, and so we have not covered our general operating costs or living expenses for that period. These additional expenses have now been included in the calculations for each group, a summary of which can be downloaded from our website. The basic result of these changes is that the expenses of each 8 day group are now around $330 per participant rather than the $200 originally calculated (assuming 70 people attend), which is still very reasonable.

Please remember that this is just an indicative cost only. All of our events are free and we shall continue to hold them as long as we can cover our expenses. We have already paid for these expenses since we have taken funds from a personal gift we received from a generous family. We are just informing you of the changes of expenses for the groups and the reasons for those changes.

 

Preparations for the Next Assistance Groups

Jesus has been so incredibly busy and it will be great for him to have time and space to focus on his own progress before the next group. However before then there is still a lot to do in terms of preparation.

After finalising edits for the second session of group one, and loading everything on YouTube, which will be completed over the next two weeks, Jesus will start preparation of outlines for the “Developing My Loving Self” groups.

Very little material has already been prepared for these groups, and each outline takes him around 2-4 hours to complete. There are 32 outlines in total to prepare for each group. So this will take him anywhere from 65 to 130 hours to prepare. He doesn’t actually need these outlines for himself. He can present each subject thoroughly without an outline. But he creates these documents to make it easier for each of you to prepare for the group, and to have a summary of the information he intends to present while at the group.

Jesus is constantly assessing and reassessing where participants are ‘at’ and how to simply present the most important principles that will be of most benefit to people at this stage in their growth. My man is incredibly thoughtful and caring like that.

I’ll be helping out where I can (more about my personal progress below). I absolutely am passionate about the material for these groups. I want to be involved because I love to talk and hear about the concepts and truths essential to gaining an education in love. But I’ve come to feel that all the words in the world don’t have meaning unless we are willing to bravely and humbly experiment with them for ourselves. That is why we made the gift of will the focus for our first group. The choice to change, experiment and receive truth into the soul (true learning) is entirely an act of will and no one else can do it for us.

So, I’ll be working on my own change and experiments and I encourage you all to do the same. There is still a window before the next group to ‘get your teeth into’ some experiments relating to the material about developing our will to love. I know that what is presented in the second will be all the more meaningful to you if you choose to do that.

If you would like to attend the second group “Developing My Loving Self” there are now 12 spaces available in the first session and two spaces left in the second. Full information about the programme and how to register to attend can be found on the Assistance Group page of our website.

"Developing My Will to Love" Group 2

“Developing My Will to Love” Group 2

 

My Personal Progression

The past two months I’ve focused almost completely on my personal progression. Jesus shared a little about this in the Introduction talk of the “Using My Will to Love” group. Aside from what he shared there isn’t much more I would like to add.

There might be a time in the future when I share more openly about what I am working through but then again I might not (smile).

It is personal and important and I’m treasuring this time that feels very special.

There are experiences in the growth of every soul that are milestones. When a person really ‘gets’ that free will is a gift, or receives a truth from God, or has the courage to feel the full truth of something that happened in their past, these things are special and unique. It is similar to when a child takes their first steps. Most people can walk and anyone can describe walking but when that child takes its first step, there is no describing how wonderful the synergy of desire, experimentation and lived experience of those first steps feel for that child. It doesn’t matter how ‘normal’ walking might be for others, for that child and its parent those moments are momentous.

That is how I feel about my growth at the moment. Sometimes sharing the things I’m feeling and working through feels like cheapening them, or reducing something powerful and beautiful to mere words or descriptions that cannot possibly convey how important and special they feel for me with God.

I’m also feeling more natural with being myself and knowing that part of loving myself is making wise choices about with who and how much I choose to share myself. I wrote about this back in our July update last year and I’ve recently worked through some emotions which makes me feel more relaxed about this stuff.

This is what I said about that back in July 15:

“Jesus once talked to me about some of the states we can live in when it comes to expression of self.

One is that we ‘give ourselves away’. When we give ourselves away, we relinquish our personal desires and aspirations in favour of what other people want, we alter our personality to suit our environment and we are compliant to the whims and wishes of others.

Another state is that we ‘be ourselves’. In this state we are real and open about who we are, what we want and what we feel. We don’t force ourselves, or our beliefs upon others but we don’t hide these things either. Being ourselves means giving up our façade and simply expressing our nature through our actions and in our interactions. To be ourselves at all times, with everyone, is loving.

A third state is ‘sharing ourselves’. When we share ourselves we go beyond just ‘being ourself’. Sharing ourselves means desiring and allowing ourselves to be known, sharing what we deeply feel and desire. We can share ourselves in loving, though different ways, through soulmate relationships and friendships.

We are always going to end up in pain if we choose to share, or try to share, ourselves with people who don’t want to know us and who do not love or desire to love us. In other words attempting to share ourselves with someone who can’t be trusted to love us is not taking good care of ourselves. Equally attempting to share ourselves with someone who clearly doesn’t want to know us is only going to lead to disappointment and this kind of desire is usually led by addiction. However, choosing to share ourselves with people who do love us and care about our welfare is very rewarding and encourages growth.

While being ourselves all the time is loving, to be selective and discerning about who we choose to share ourselves with is also a sign of love and development.”

At this stage I’m not likely to be presenting at our second group since I want to continue doing what I need to do for my progress.

 

Thank you

Thank you very much to those of you who have donated to us personally these past two months. We have a number of expenses that keep the delivery of Divine Truth running that don’t change while we are away. Among other things, your contributions help us to keep our overseas servers running, in the maintenance of equipment and bills relating to the studio.

In addition, staying away from home to run the groups creates another set of expenses and we thank those of you who have donated at each of the groups.

As always, we are incredibly grateful for those of you who choose to support the sharing of Divine Truth. Your gifts make so many things we do possible and we know you aren’t obligated to give anything, so we really appreciate that you do.

We wish you a wonderful April and May, hoping that you enjoy the material from the assistance groups. To those who will be attending the “Developing My Loving Self” assistance group we shall see you in May or June.

With love,

Mary & Jesus