Friday’s Team – Session Friday 15 Nov 2024

Present : Daniel Raphael, Sherille Raphael, Kona Mahu, Marthe Muller, Juan Ramirez, Bea Ngai, Steffen Patrick, Catlin Patrick, Bob Wilson, Jacques Reverseau

TR, Daniel Raphael, Facilitator: Marthe Muller

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Opening Prayer

Prayer by Marthe

Marthe: Daniel, we are ready for you and for Machiventa. Thank you so much.

Divine Introduction and Cosmic Perspective

Machiventa: Well, my friends, this is Machiventa Melchizedek, your planetary manager. One of the reasons why I am grinning through this one is that you would be quite amazed to see the stadium-style auditorium in which there are thousands of visitors and students tuning into these meetings every week. Your meetings and many other meetings around the planet.

This era that we and you are engaged in, this co-creative correcting time, has gained the attention of realms around Nebadon that are settled. As they look upon you, they see the struggles you are going through as individuals, as groups, and as a civilization on a very difficult planet. You remind many who have not crossed over to the morontial realm, where most of the audience comes from, that you are unique, that what we are doing here is unique. Though you live through the travail and difficulties of your societies, governments, corporations, profit-making, and great materialism, there is a kindred spirit, a connected heart from them to you as you go through this.

Meditation and Reception of Spiritual Energy

So, when you go into meditation in the stillness, we suggest that you open your hands like this [see picture below] and receive the energy that comes forth from billions of individuals who are observing this planet. They send their prayers to you from where they are in Nebadon, as well as you send your prayers to others.

Learning Spiritual Etiquette and the Co-Creative Process

So, you are the recipients of immense spiritual intelligence and culture. You are learning the culture of the afterlife, of the universe, how to be spiritually ethical, and the etiquette of the morontial realm. So, you are learning this here. The closest you can duplicate, emulate that awareness and etiquette is in the Co-Creative Design Team Process. I say Co-Creative, because It is a wonderful lesson for you to learn the etiquette of the spiritual being as a Consultant in the Team. We have directed this one to work with Avahlah Melchizedek on a Universal Design Team Process. But what we

ask of you is that you learn this process, embed it into your spiritual being, into your soul, so you can learn the etiquette of the graces of the morontial-mortal spiritual relationship.

Preparation for the Morontial Realm

Some of you are already working in the lower levels of the morontial state, even while you are breathing here on this planet. This is good, it is wonderful. It is a preparation for you to advance yourselves more quickly in the morontial realm. By saying all these things, I am striving to help you, to assist you to imagine the fact of being in the morontial realm and living and that you are in constant contact with someone who is near to you, who is more evolved than you. You will have your Guardian Angel, your Thought Adjuster, and of course you have your Morontial Companion, who will assist you much like a concierge, a guide person, guiding you here and there. So, that you learn what you’re doing, where you’re doing it and so on. This person is much like an executive assistant, but an evolved one. One who can assist you to understand the terrain, environment, and relationships you will engage. You can help yourself in your spiritual evolution by continuing to hold this image in mind, that you are on the Sea of Glass for example, and you have been received there by others who have already arrived, and that you want to relate to them.

And so it is here in this realm that you can carry that vision with you day to day. And, when you encounter a difficult person, whether they are engaged with someone else or not, who is having a hard time with themselves and others, you as a translated mortal into the morontial realm can see that with new eyes and see your own position involved in that. You see when you begin to take this imaginary journey and carry it with you on a daily basis, you are in fact, as they say, “faking it until you make it.” You can become that which you want to emulate and which you practice in.

Scriptural Guidance and Holistic Learning

So, the words of Jesus were those guiding words to assist you in learning how to relate to others in this realm. When you take the topics that Avahlah has developed, you will see that there is a holism involved in the whole process. The books that he and this one have written, the series of the last seven documents, are essential to the mortal materialist societies that you have. So, when you begin to reinterpret those seven books, you realize that it is a journey of spiritual evolution for you, individually, and you can follow this in your life wherever you are.

I chuckled, because we have caused this one to suffer three times in producing a document that is useful to us but far more useful to mortals. The two first books were large, overwhelmingly large, and intimidating to many people who looked at it. So, by their analysis and examination of that book in its totality, we knew that we needed to design it in a manner that it could be torn apart.

Approaching Spiritual Texts: The Forkful Method

You have an old idiom that “the best way to eat a large meal is one forkful at a time,” and so it goes to the same parallel with reading materials. The best way to read the

Encyclopaedia Britannica is by looking up a subject that interests you, closing the book, and then returning to it next time you’re curious. And so it is with this spiritual realm that we are striving to acquaint you with; the methods of living as individuals, families, communities, societies, national societies, and a global civilization. The relationship between humanity and civilization is one of expression, a medium, a mechanism for the growth of civilization. If you wonder about a civilization, it is a combination of humanity and the organizational matrix that has been designed and developed by mortals who want to conduct commerce or government processes and so on.

Spiritual Ethics and the Organizational Matrix

This is our interest. When we say civilization, we mean these two things. And so, our interest in the Correcting Time is to apply these principles to both humanity and to the organizational matrix. Both are askew, as you know. The pursuit of profits and money and monetization of almost everything that humans touch and think about has corrupted the process of becoming more philosophical, to be more assured of your discernment of complex topics.

It has been a challenge for most people, church-going people, to think in these terms, as the confusion of their culture, social environment, financial environment, and work environments dominate their thinking tremendously. You are fully acquainted with this, aren’t you? Yes, you are. And so, we begin by attending to you through the spiritual avenues you have personally developed and have chosen to develop. And now we want to extend that into families, communities, societies, and to the very social institutions that hold your civilization together. By using these seven values as motivational constants of the human species, you begin to realize that something very essential is missing, and that is the guidelines of decision-making.

Mathematical Analogies and Ethical Decision-Making

If you think about the process of division, which is the opposite of multiplication, and you put your divisor and you go through the process of dividing 8 by the number 2, what will be your dividend? It will be 4. How did you do that? Now, what is the square of 225? It is 15. So, you will go through the dividing process, and this is the similar process in which you interpret your world in values and decisions, ethically and morally.

The societal morality is a much higher version of personal morality, one that has not been developed or applied or institutionalized by your societies, governments, and populations. Where am I going with this? You may wonder. We want you to get a much fuller picture of our work with you, your work with us, and how you can progress. Many of you have asked me many times, what can we do? You can begin by doing the mental thinking about your decision-making and go back in time to analyze and discern what factors guided you in making the decisions that you do. This is where your culture comes from. This is where your parental learning comes in. So, as we discuss these

topics in generalities, you with us will know very soon that these are the same processes involved in the Family Learning Centers.

Societal Improvement Through Personal Growth

So, this is how nations are improved, mature, and evolve. It requires individuals like yourselves who may not be book-bound or academic in nature, but who can use the age-old practical wisdom of your grandparents and others that you’ve learned from to be applied in the practical situation of the design team. The sense of social evolution is spiritual development and a consciousness of others as important as you are. This is the hub and nut of equality. You are as important as others, and others are as important as you.

So, when you use this standard and you listen to speakers, and you’ve had plenty of speakers in the last several months politically, you realize that they’re not talking about equality. They’re not talking about that. Eventually, you come down to the fact that many people are players and others are being played as a means for enriching someone’s lives monetarily or positions in authority. In the Design Team, all players are equal. There is no antagonism, no sarcasm. There’s honest acceptance, and there is no intention to embarrass anyone in that situation.

This is a situation in the Design Team where you shed all of your baggage and you come there openly and ready to receive honest inquiry from others. Others will not ask you embarrassing questions to shame you or to embarrass you. You will do best when you are humbly self-revealing. And in that, that is one of the key factors of your spiritual development. We’re trying to tie all of these things together for you so that when we do actually begin to develop a Functional Design Team with full-time members, then you will know how to proceed. This is the information that you will use as a team member and of which excellent facilitators carry with them all the time.

When we begin the functional approach to a Design Team Process, it’ll be quite a position-changing development for you. You have done design teamwork through remote viewing, through what you call Zoom application, and through other mechanisms of internet video communication. This will be a good way to teach people how to participate in a team. But in a functional team, all members must be present at least for several hours every day to make the team work correctly and to get the right results. This process will tune you up, so to speak, as a listener of the meta talk, the meta language that goes on in a design team.

This is the factor that is almost totally missing in your internet Zoom meetings, where you do not see someone twitch or move or give facial expressions and so on. These are all learning experiences, and this is the learning experience that you will carry with you in the rest of your mortal lives as preparation for living in the morontial realm.

Transition to the Q&A Session

I have covered a diverse range of topics and subjects today. I am now open for your questions, whether they relate to these topics or there’s something else that is residual from past meetings and sessions. Thank you.

Marthe: Thank you very much, Machiventa. I see Bob’s hand is up, so yes, we’ll take your question Bob.

Personal Development and Evolving Consciousness

Bob: You answered some of the questions I had written down for today. And one of them was the actions we can take to further our goal of developing an operational design team. But also, I had a question about personal development. What can we do personally to evolve to a higher state of consciousness? And what does that look like?

Machiventa: This is Machiventa, I have Azahlah, Archangel beside me, guiding me… whispering in my ear. Consciousness is fully a spiritual experience. How to remain, how to enhance your consciousness. All of this discussion I’m going to present to you is outside the realm of narcissism and egocentrism. This is the consciousness, the development of being consciously aware of you making decisions.

And so, the factor that you will develop in answering your question is a subject that is called critical thinking. Critical thinking is an evolved development of conscious thinking. Consciousness is the larger realm of your awareness of being conscious. And as a question and answering process within yourself, in this situation, you would want to eliminate any references to yourself by yourself where you self-aggrandize yourself.

We have not spoken much about this. We have used it as a topic that is not suitable for individuals who want to engage in a rapid spiritual upliftment of their mortal life. Anything that is self-aggrandizing is detrimental to that process. If you are engaged in a conversation with someone, let us say, and you are listening to yourself, listen to them, trying to figure out answers ahead of time, then you are not self-conscious. You are not practicing consciousness of yourself.

The person who is involved in the conversation begins developing answers or subsequent deflections in the conversation, and you realize that you’re doing that [figuring out answers ahead of time]. That is what consciousness is all about. You become conscious of yourself as an individual who’s making mistakes, social mistakes, personal mistakes in thinking. You would want to curb those things. And the more you become aware of these habits of thinking, emotional reaction, the more you want to substitute positive thinking.

We do not want you to develop a neurosis about that kind of thinking. That would be highly detrimental and also deleterious to your spiritual growth. We wish that you would be conscious of your thinking. “Poor me” thinking is one of those. Even the most intelligent people do this.

This one has been in immense pain in the last two weeks. And so, he has felt sorry for himself. And we have brought this to his attention. And so, it is now a working process for us and for him to get out of self-appeasement of pain. It is the process of growth.

One must almost become a Yoga, Indian yoga, where you practice denial of pain and denial of restrictions. How is it that a man can put himself into a three-foot by three-foot square and stay there for two hours? And come out alive as though it had never happened? And so, it is you becoming aware of yourself and you transporting yourself to a higher state of mind.

How do you do that? This is the lesson place. We do not tell you to do things. We want to tell you how to do these things. And one is to put yourself in the sandals of Jesus. And that you were wearing his robe. And that you are in the marketplace in Jerusalem or Galilee. And there he’s speaking with others. And so, you allow Jesus, Christ Michael, to live in your stead, where you get to practice him speaking through you. Thinking through you, how would he view other people? How would you view other people with Christ as your consciousness? Grace consciousness is truly an evolved state of emotional maturity and evolution. This is where you want to be. Thank you for your very excellent question. Thank you.

Marthe: Thank you so much for that, Daniel.

Bob: Thank you for the answer.

Daniel: Marthe, please, don’t thank Daniel. You really are not listening to Daniel. You’re listening to Machiventa and it offends me. When you thank me [Daniel]. I don’t mean to slap your hands, but… Please refrain from that, it bothers me.

Marthe: No, absolutely, no. Thank you. Thanks for that.

Was there a follow-up, Bob? You had also asked about the design team.

Enhancing Team Dynamics and Mutual Support

Bob: Well, he pretty much covered that with his first opening statements, but… the individual partnerships we have in the design team, what can we do to help each other progress in a design team together?

Machiventa, Yes, this is Machiventa, let me use an immediate example that was just used by this one. You listened to Daniel make an ass of Marthe. He did not besmirch her record or her personage or chastise her but offered a recommendation. These are kindly made. These are without meanness. These are meant without debasement of the other person. It is important that these tactics in the team process are practiced with love and kindness. And that the one person speaking is sensitive to the reactions of the other. And so on, you become attuned to the nuances of nonverbal behaviour. Even the most stolid of individuals will grimace sometimes at what they hear about themselves. And so, you can tune your delivery to that person based on what you see

and what you hear. Always you want to begin this process with a clear heart, a loving heart, with an intention to uplift the operation of the team. In this case, everyone here today has listened to what this one presented to Marthe. And so, everyone is instructed. And this is one of the main functions of a facilitator is to tune up the process of the interaction between team members and the team. I hope this has answered your question. If not, please ask further. Thank you.

Bob: That is part of the question. Part of the question also has to do with the progress of the individual in a design team. I know that how we communicate with each other is very important and that we’re open with each other. But how can we mature in a way that helps us better understand the purpose of the team and also better understand the end product?

Machiventa: Well, you’ve got at least four questions there. Let me answer it this way. It’s Machiventa. First of all, you’re asking very diligent, very competent questions, which are very vitally needed. Now, to the heart of your questions. This is what I have to say about that. The individual would ask the team and being self-revealing would say, “How am I doing in the team?” And then open that up. And someone would say, “Well, by what definition? By what standard? What area of competence are you striving to attain? And you’re asking us to estimate that for you as a reflection you cannot see in yourself.”

Machiventa: This one has done that in the past. And it is startling to those who are listeners to hear someone ask a question about themselves as it gives others, both kind-hearted and those who are mean-hearted, an opportunity to throw stones or throw hugs and kisses to that person for asking the question. And so, it takes a lot of courage in your societies, your highly competitive societies, to ask a question about yourself. Ask others to give you helpful recommendations for your behaviour. This is perhaps one of the most, or let’s say, this is almost the epitome of self-participation in the team. And that you, others will see you as an incredibly humble individual and courageous for asking such a question.

I hope this helps answer your abundance of questions concerning that. Please respond if I have not answered it for you.

Bob: I think that’s a good approach. I think that open approach with each other, opening up to each other about our weaknesses and our strengths and about how to develop ourselves personally in our own growth and development as individuals in the design team. That’s very important for us to share with each other. And I think that’s a good way to do it.

Machiventa: This is Machiventa now, take a look at the other side of it. When you, let’s say you, Bob, ask that question of others, then others will provide you with input about yourself. What they say and how they say it, will reveal mountains of information

about who they are and what they are about. This is an opportunity to learn about others by asking a humble question about how you are doing in the group. How they answer you and what they say to you is revealing of themselves. This will speak to an abundance of wisdom about them and it gives the whole team an insight about who they are and what they’re about.

Machiventa: Many people will have something that comes back to them and against the other person. Those who are manipulative will hide their true feelings in the cover of words. It is essential to measure the emotional energy level within the team at that time. This is where a competent and capable facilitator is the one who assesses the situation, guides the whole team of individuals forward in this learning environment. Thank you so much.

Bob: If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are kind and considerate individuals in this group. And I don’t believe anyone’s mean-spirited. I feel that all of us are loving, caring people. And so, we’re starting off at a level that’s higher than some other groups may have. I feel that this group is well developed for being a design team. And I commend them on their personal development already.

Machiventa: Mm-hmm, this is Machiventa. Thank you for your generous statement to your team. I wish you, as the Friday’s team, as a design team, to strive to understand what I have done and what my design team has done to assist you as mortals to grow in your spiritual development and into much more effective team members.

You see, there is no subterfuge here. Our assignment is to help bring this planet into the Days of Light and Life. And of course, it must begin with each one of you. And each of you, as a social being, has to learn how to be in cooperation and make competent contributions to the process of the team and eventually to your societies and civilization.

This is in our scheme of development of planetary management. We must think in strategic terms in all the activities that we engage in. And so, when you enter into new activities with us on a functional basis, you would want to ask yourself and to discover from yourself and your friends and the team members and from us what the intentions are of this process and of this project. This is very important. This will help you think in terms of your own intentions and your own contributions to the work that your team will do wherever that work takes you. Thank you.

Bob: Thank you, Machiventa. I appreciate those answers and I think if we take these things to heart individually as we develop our design team, we will grow in a way that is helpful to all of us.

Machiventa: Good questions, Bob.

Clarifying the Nature of the Design Team

Marthe: Thank you very much, Machiventa, thank you, Bob. Are there any other questions?

Bea: Hello, Machiventa, thank you for being with us. I don’t know if I misinterpreted what you had said in that last portion of your talk, but I thought that you mentioned that “you are being part of a Design Team where you are… you are a Design Team”. Did I misinterpret that?

Machiventa: This is Machiventa, let me be very clear. Thank you for your question and for questioning what I said. This is very insightful. One is that for me, Machiventa, your Planetary Manager, this is a Design Team. Friday’s Team is my Design Team, and I am your Facilitator. Today, we have functioned much more clearly as a Design Team, and I have functioned much more clearly as a Facilitator as well.

On the other hand, away from Friday’s Team, I take a rotating role as facilitator of the Melchizedek’s design team, in which we have senior Midwayers, Angels, Melchizedek, and other non-mentioned individuals who are spiritually attuned to what we’re doing on this planet. So, I hope that clarifies.

Bea: Yeah, so my next question would be, if you could briefly describe how your Spiritual Design Team functions at your level.

Functioning of the Spiritual Design Team

Machiventa: Certainly, and this is Machiventa, your question is sincere. The answers are irrelevant as they are space and time, many dimensions removed from what we’re doing here today. Now you see, many of us operate without verbal communication. We have a mechanism within our being, you might call it being mind, but it is not mind as you know mind, where we can be open to examination from others who are near us. It is a matter of respect of privacy. Yes, others can pry into our thinking if they choose, but that would be very disdainful and very unethical on our level.

Even if that prying was done to a new arrival, there’s a respect that we have for everyone. You see, in terms of the Universal Father, we are all equals. And so how we conduct business is through our participation. We can come to a consensus almost immediately about what we want to discuss without having to vote, without having to raise our hands. There is a synchronicity of our vibrations concerning these topics that are of common concern. And we encourage independent thinking.

And so, I might say to Azahlah [Archangel] or Avahlah [Melchizedek], I’ll ask Avalah in this case, “Well, tell the group, tell our Design Team here, Avahlah, how your mortal companion is doing in all this writing and so on.” And so, Avahlah would give a recital of his opinions and his assessment of how the mortal is doing. In that assessment revelation, there would be many depths of meaning and allusions and nuances that would become very much a part of that conversation or the answer to the question.

You, on the other hand, are in a team of other mortals. And so, you are assessing position taking. Who is the leader? Who’s to follow? Who is the facilitator? Who is an inquiring member? And so on. You are also looking to assess the emotional bearing of each individual. Individuals react differently to different questions. And so, as mortals, you must ask them their opinions about things and assessments. And so, in your Friday’s Team, there are individuals exactly like this. But we operate on a different basis. The irrelevance of the answers to you is that you’ll only be able to emulate them on the level of your emotional personal awareness and your psychic understanding of what is occurring.

This is why we strive to allow acceptance and use of psychic phenomena and those skills that are not measured scientifically or empirically, but to exist in most individuals that are more advanced than others. I hope this has not confused you, Bea.

Bea: No, no, not at all. Actually, I know that communication on our level and your level differ tremendously. And to be quite honest, I’m profoundly jealous of the so-called telepathy that you enjoy at your level. And also, it kind of goes without saying that everyone communicating at your level is spiritually advanced and is not prone to the weaknesses and sensitivities that we are.

Machiventa, Yes, dear ones, there is a caveat, you know. Some evolved individuals are egoistic. How was it that Lucifer, Satan and Caligastia made such an error in judgment and their self-appraisal? They had that within them. They were created with that factor. And as they learned from experience as perfect beings, they have a consciousness about themselves, a critical thinking. And why do we teach critical thinking? Because those three individuals did not practice critical thinking. They were not conscious of the errors of their own thinking.

Ego, Self-Appraisal, and Critical Awareness

Daniel: This is Daniel, excuse me, this really goes to the heart of Machiventa and what he has been teaching you today. This has a parallel on levels that are incredible.

Machiventa: Learning these skills of critical thinking, consciousness, conscious awareness of self, and self-appraisal of your attributes and your deficits is primary to your spiritual growth. Now that statement alone should answer a number of questions that have arisen today. And I thank all of you for this opportunity to explain something that perhaps has been very remote to some of you and has not occurred in your thinking. But nonetheless, this is an important factor.

Now, you may think, how did this happen? Well, my friends, it was that your creator, Christ Michael, gave you an ego. So, do you understand the gravity of self-appraisal, of critical thinking, of consciousness? One day in your spiritual career, you will have ascended past Nebadon. Will you still carry the foibles of being a mortal on Urantia? Certainly, I hope not. This is one of my factors for the correcting time. One of my diligent duties is to apprise you of the hazards that lay before you with those who retain ego and self-aggrandizement.

I will not go further concerning that. Thank you for asking the question and raising the situation that I could address.

Bea: Thank you Machiventa for answering my question

Jacques: Machiventa it is always a pleasure to be with you. We learned in your intro that you have thousands of people, celestials from different origins, watching this Friday’s Team. This is amazing for us, really amazing. And you know, we are struggling on this planet. You know that very, very well. You said we lack decision-making, we can see it everywhere in our daily life. And this team really is united to find a solution, but ourselves, we are sometimes running around. So maybe we can take this opportunity from you, Machiventa or from Avahlah, to ask this question from this team, from where you are: How are we performing as a Team?

Machiventa: Touché, this is Machiventa. So, my insights have landed already, good. How the team is doing? You are doing marvellously. Today’s session is an incredibly important one. Self-analysis, loving self-analysis, humble self-analysis is vital to your spiritual growth. It is easy for mortals on this planet to point out the hazards and foibles and errors of others. But self-examination is almost angelic. It is something that is very important. And you are learning these very well. Your questions provide a reflection of who you are at this stage of development. So, Jacques, you’re doing quite well, my friend. And as you are a representative and facilitator of this team [today the

Facilitator’s role is rotating in our Team], the rest of the team is doing excellently as well. We thank you for the opportunity to answer that question.

We are not prideful, as you know, but we do measure your accomplishments against the standard which we accept for mortals, ordinary and extraordinary. And so, I would say as a team of individuals, you are now operating at your stage of growth at an extraordinary level. Yes, there will be other stages which will present themselves to this team. And so, you will be apprised and appraised on that level as well. So, these levels are different. If you take this scale, we will call it z or gamma or some other symbol, then you are at nine-tenths of the way to completion of it. And soon you will begin a new level of operation with another symbol, and we will appraise that as you go along. And we hope that you have the courage then to ask the same question. Thank you.

Jacques: Thank you, Machiventa, thank you very much.

Bea: Thank you for letting me ask this question. I noticed that in your response about the Luciferian rebellion, you mentioned that he was created with ego. Not that it surprises me because ego obviously is important in a certain way, even though it can be overdone. But I’m curious whether or not you meant that he was created with such an ego where the creator realized that it was in the realm of possibility that he would stray that far away. Was that something that was a weakness or potential that was recognized upon creation of such an individual as Lucifer and his other colleagues?

Machiventa: This is Machiventa, the seed of ego is embedded in each of you. And it is embedded in some individuals who are created. Now, as you are mortal and have come from childhood experiences into adulthood, over that period of time, how is it that you acquired humility? And if we have an egoistic mortal, we would ask, how is it that you came to appraise your self-worth as extremely high and above many others?

So, what I’m saying is that all of you have the potential for great evil. And all of you have the potential for great good, even beatific good, angelic good, Christ-like good, Nebadonian good. You have the potential so, what you feed is what you will get. And so, you in this self-appraisal, this critical thinking, would want to sit in your stillness and appraise, assess where you are with that. How have you behaved? How have you used your words? And what is your thinking about your importance?

Now remember, as a growing individual, it is also highly detrimental to be self-effacing, self-denying, self-accusatory, to develop guilt about your ego state. That is just as debilitating to spiritual growth as the egoistic person is. Remember Jesus’ words and how he taught: to go with what is good for you, not as an ego being or as a self-defeating individual, but as an individual. Everything with moderation. Being able to assess and to measure and to acknowledge your deficits as well as your assets is important to the growth of your ego as an important element of your self-identity.

Erroneous self-identity is highly detrimental and will, in fact, lead to the denial of your ascension.

Your ability to assess yourself begins with recognizing the attributes of positive growth. And to accurately assess your detrimental aspects of negative behaviour or thinking and speech. You want to accent that positive part of yourself, to feed that honestly. If you come in at the finish line of a marathon and you’re number one, would you say, “I’m better than anybody else?” Now remember, “better” is an ethical moral judgment. On the other hand, you as a winner would say, “I had the fastest time of anybody here. Awesome.” And you congratulate yourself for all the training you did, hundreds and hundreds of hours of training, and the hundreds and thousands of miles that you ran and practiced. And you accomplished what you wanted to accomplish. Now that, my friends, is appropriate self-congratulations.

It is important that you be able to analyze that thing.

Bea: Okay, it’s very clear.

Machiventa: This one has a saying that you have to be aware of a situation in order to answer it. You have to be aware of a need in order to fulfil it. And so, when you do your self-appraisal, you would want to appraise yourself honestly. And you would ask yourself, honestly, am I being honest? And so, you would become aware of what needs to be worked on and what needs to be left alone and simply nurtured to grow.

I have given you many dozens of hours of homework today, of self-reflection. And this is what it takes. Reflection is a process of contemplation. Reflection is your analysis and examination of an experience. And you reflect on it. And you, in that reflection, can tell immediately whether you’re being self-aggrandizing or self-defeating. And so, this is a process.