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The subject of personal wisdom is an important topic for consideration and study. The UB teaches that there are two distinct forms – Divine or perfect wisdom and experiential or learned wisdom.
Here I hope to focus more specifically on better personal response-ability as a result of learning personal experiential wisdom. The UB has much to say about the subject. All of time and space is both evolutionary and experiential. Indeed, evolution is a result of and is responsive to experience. Personal, social, planetary, and universal progress are reflective of experiential wisdom. As is the Supreme.
Even the original Trinity and those and that created in perfection and with Divine wisdom enjoys and benefits from experiential wisdom. These complimenting realities of the perfect and the perfecting are intended to create whole new levels of reality and potential in the universe epochs and adventures to come.
Every being in time and space, from the mortals to the Michaels, are experiential and learn and grow wisdom over time by their choices and responses in time. The Creator Sons become Master Sons by experiential wisdom attainment. Tadpoles fuse soul and TA to become eternal by experiential wisdom attainment. All celestials are experiential and progressive and grow in wisdom over time. As is the Supreme.
The entirety of the Paradise journey and sojourn adventure is a continuous campus of university education including situational response and wisdom growth. It is the Adjutant mind spirits of worship and wisdom that first differentiates animal from person and first defines mortals as experiential beings who can learn and choose and remember and adjust and create and express that experience with progressive and intentional results.
Our mind is far more than curious. It seeks understanding and solutions and improvements in outcomes. We seek better methods for better results. Wisdom is that which results from the application of our integrated and coordinated mind functions as delivered by the Adjutant mind spirits.
36:5.12 (402.9) 7. The spirit of wisdom—the inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral existence.
Me here: Experiential wisdom is the progressive accumulation and aggregation and integration and application of all prior knowledge and wisdom learned by trial and error, success and failure, victory and disappointment. We adjust our choices and our responses based on prior results which progressively improves outcomes.
There is purely secular and material wisdom related to effective manipulation of the temporal life. True experiential wisdom which brings real progress to the person and society must include the Spirit nature and ministry in mind as well. After all, we are not fully utilizing mind or integrating our entire experience and potential without the Adjutant of worship and the connection to faith and truth assurance.
101:6.4 The evolutionary type of knowledge is but the accumulation of protoplasmic memory material; this is the most primitive form of creature consciousness. Wisdom embraces the ideas formulated from protoplasmic memory in process of association and recombination, and such phenomena differentiate human mind from mere animal mind. Animals have knowledge, but only man possesses wisdom capacity. [color=#FF0000]Truth is made accessible to the wisdom-endowed individual by the bestowal on such a mind of the spirits of the Father and the Sons, the Thought Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth.[/color]
101:6.7 (1112.3) Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth—universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.
31:3.7 (348.4) 3. The glorified mortals of the Paradise Corps of Finality are ascendant beings in possession of experiential knowledge of every step of the actuality and philosophy of the fullest possible life of intelligent existence, while during the ages of this ascent from the lowest material worlds to the spiritual heights of Paradise, these surviving creatures have been trained to the limits of their capacity respecting every detail of every divine principle of the just and efficient, as well as merciful and patient, administration of all the universal creation of time and space.
Me here: Even Deity grows and benefits by experiential wisdom attainment. Read Paper 106! The Trinity of Trinities is creating new universe realities with experiential Deity.
106:8.13 (1171.6) THE SECOND LEVEL: The co-ordination of the three Trinities inevitably involves the associative union of the experiential Deities, who are genetically associated with these Trinities. The nature of this second level has been sometimes presented as:
106:8.14 (1171.7) 1. The Supreme. This is the deity consequence of the unity of the Paradise Trinity in experiential liaison with the Creator-Creative children of the Paradise Deities. The Supreme is the deity embodiment of the completion of the first stage of finite evolution.
106:8.15 2. The Ultimate. This is the deity consequence of the eventuated unity of the second Trinity, the transcendental and absonite personification of divinity. The Ultimate consists in a variably regarded unity of many qualities, and the human conception thereof would do well to include at least those phases of ultimacy which are control directing, personally experiencible, and tensionally unifying, but there are many other unrevealed aspects of the eventuated Deity. While the Ultimate and the Supreme are comparable, they are not identical, neither is the Ultimate merely an amplification of the Supreme.
106:8.16 (1172.1) 3. The Absolute. There are many theories held as to the character of the third member of the second level of the Trinity of Trinities. God the Absolute is undoubtedly involved in this association as the personality consequence of the final function of the Trinity Absolute, yet the Deity Absolute is an existential reality of eternity status.
0:2.15 (4.9) 4. God the Supreme—the actualizing or evolving God of time and space. Personal Deity associatively realizing the time-space experiential achievement of creature-Creator identity. The Supreme Being is personally experiencing the achievement of Deity unity as the evolving and experiential God of the evolutionary creatures of time and space.
0:2.16 (4.10) 5. God the Sevenfold—Deity personality anywhere actually functioning in time and space. The personal Paradise Deities and their creative associates functioning in and beyond the borders of the central universe and power-personalizing as the Supreme Being on the first creature level of unifying Deity revelation in time and space. This level, the grand universe, is the sphere of the time-space descension of Paradise personalities in reciprocal association with the time-space ascension of evolutionary creatures.
0:2.17 (4.11) 6. God the Ultimate—the eventuating God of supertime and transcended space. The second experiential level of unifying Deity manifestation. God the Ultimate implies the attained realization of the synthesized absonite-superpersonal, time-space-transcended, and eventuated-experiential values, co-ordinated on final creative levels of Deity reality.
0:2.18 (4.12) 7. God the Absolute—the experientializing God of transcended superpersonal values and divinity meanings, now existential as the Deity Absolute. This is the third level of unifying Deity expression and expansion. On this supercreative level, Deity experiences exhaustion of personalizable potential, encounters completion of divinity, and undergoes depletion of capacity for self-revelation to successive and progressive levels of other-personalization. Deity now encounters, impinges upon, and experiences identity with, the Unqualified Absolute.
I think wisdom, self knowledge, objectivity, and spirituality all progress concurrently if not uniformly for mortals. Wisdom reflects progress and is acquired and learned by experience according to the Papers.
112:2.15 (1229.2) The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and leading of the Thought Adjuster. Personality, both human and superhuman, is characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called “the evolution of dominance,” the expansion of the control of both itself and its environment.
112:2.16 (1229.3) An ascending onetime human personality passes through two great phases of increasing volitional dominance over the self and in the universe:
112:2.17 (1229.4) 1. The prefinaliter or God-seeking experience of augmenting the self-realization through a technique of identity expansion and actualization together with cosmic problem solving and consequent universe mastery.
112:2.18 (1229.5) 2. The postfinaliter or God-revealing experience of the creative expansion of self-realization through revealing the Supreme Being of experience to the God-seeking intelligences who have not yet attained the divine levels of Godlikeness.
112:2.19 (1229.6) Descending personalities attain analogous experiences through their various universe adventures as they seek for enlarged capacity for ascertaining and executing the divine wills of the Supreme, Ultimate, and Absolute Deities.
112:2.20 (1229.7) The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life. But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle—the material body—to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, spirit reality. This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature.
Me here: Wisdom is readily quantified and also measured by its quality by those charged with such discernment and measurement in the ascender’s educational progression.
1.2 (82.1) This gravity control of spiritual things operates independently of time and space; therefore is spirit energy undiminished in transmission. Spirit gravity never suffers time delays, nor does it undergo space diminution. It does not decrease in accordance with the square of the distance of its transmission; the circuits of pure spirit power are not retarded by the mass of the material creation. And this transcendence of time and space by pure spirit energies is inherent in the absoluteness of the Son; it is not due to the interposition of the antigravity forces of the Third Source and Center.
7:1.3 (82.2) Spirit realities respond to the drawing power of the center of spiritual gravity in accordance with their qualitative value, their actual degree of spirit nature. Spirit substance (quality) is just as responsive to spirit gravity as the organized energy of physical matter (quantity) is responsive to physical gravity. Spiritual values and spirit forces are real. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of creation; matter is the shadowy physical body.
7:1.4 (82.3) The reactions and fluctuations of spirit gravity are ever true to the content of spiritual values, the qualitative spiritual status of an individual or a world. This drawing power is instantly responsive to the inter- and intraspirit values of any universe situation or planetary condition. Every time a spiritual reality actualizes in the universes, this change necessitates the immediate and instantaneous readjustment of spirit gravity. Such a new spirit is actually a part of the Second Source and Center; and just as certainly as mortal man becomes a spiritized being, he will attain the spiritual Son, the center and source of spirit gravity.
During the material life of mortals, faith experience itself is considered wisdom. As I say above, wisdom and spirituality are not the same…but they are related and spiritual progress certainly leads to growth of wisdom. Wisdom is directly linked to truth and faith and our spiritual growth and is therefore part of that which responds to the mind and spirit gravity circuits. Or so I understand.
102:1.2 (1119.1) The reason of science is based on the observable facts of time; the faith of religion argues from the spirit program of eternity. What knowledge and reason cannot do for us, true wisdom admonishes us to allow faith to accomplish through religious insight and spiritual transformation.
103:9.6 (1141.4) When theology masters religion, religion dies; it becomes a doctrine instead of a life. The mission of theology is merely to facilitate the self-consciousness of personal spiritual experience. Theology constitutes the religious effort to define, clarify, expound, and justify the experiential claims of religion, which, in the last analysis, can be validated only by living faith. In the higher philosophy of the universe, wisdom, like reason, becomes allied to faith. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man’s highest human attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to things; wisdom introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates him into a world of divinity, spiritual experience.
103:9.7 (1141.5) Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of TRUTH.
103:9.8 (1141.6) Science (knowledge) is founded on the inherent (adjutant spirit) assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be comprehended. Philosophy (co-ordinate comprehension) is founded on the inherent (spirit of wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material universe can be co-ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of personal spiritual experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster) assumption that faith is valid, that God can be known and attained.
103:9.9 (1141.7) The full realization of the reality of mortal life consists in a progressive willingness to believe these assumptions of reason, wisdom, and faith. Such a life is one motivated by truth and dominated by love; and these are the ideals of objective cosmic reality whose existence cannot be materially demonstrated.
103:9.10 (1142.1) When reason once recognizes right and wrong, it exhibits wisdom; when wisdom chooses between right and wrong, truth and error, it demonstrates spirit leading. And thus are the functions of mind, soul, and spirit ever closely united and functionally interassociated. Reason deals with factual knowledge; wisdom, with philosophy and revelation; faith, with living spiritual experience. Through truth man attains beauty and by spiritual love ascends to goodness.
131:4.5 (1448.4) “We have learned to win faith by the yearning of our hearts. We have attained wisdom by the restraint of our senses, and by wisdom we have experienced peace in the Supreme. He who is full of faith worships truly when his inner self is intent upon God. …..
Obviously, according to the Papers, wisdom and spirituality and religious experience are inherently connected and progress in near lockstep.
Eventually, I wonder if there is even any difference in wisdom and spirituality.
Early in the ascender’s career and education wisdom unifies and harmonizes the dual nature perception of reality. But as we are spiritized and gain objectivity what is the nature then of experiential wisdom?
Ultimately and eventually, what’s the difference between Divine wisdom and experiential wisdom? When we achieve pure spirit insight, what then does wisdom become? Only a bridge to such certainty of understanding? Or something more?
Will experiential wisdom ever equal Divine and perfect wisdom? IMO, there will always be a difference even if I cannot now describe that difference. But I think experiential wisdom is desirable and functional and helpful to Deity which enjoys Divine wisdom.
101:5.12 (1111.2) Evolved religion rests wholly on faith. Revelation has the additional assurance of its expanded presentation of the truths of divinity and reality and the still more valuable testimony of the actual experience which accumulates in consequence of the practical working union of the faith of evolution and the truth of revelation. Such a working union of human faith and divine truth constitutes the possession of a character well on the road to the actual acquirement of a morontial personality.
101:5.13 (1111.3) Evolutionary religion provides only the assurance of faith and the confirmation of conscience; revelatory religion provides the assurance of faith plus the truth of a living experience in the realities of revelation. The third step in religion, or the third phase of the experience of religion, has to do with the morontia state, the firmer grasp of mota. Increasingly in the morontia progression the truths of revealed religion are expanded; more and more you will know the truth of supreme values, divine goodnesses, universal relationships, eternal realities, and ultimate destinies.
101:5.14 (1111.4) Increasingly throughout the morontia progression the assurance of truth replaces the assurance of faith. When you are finally mustered into the actual spirit world, then will the assurances of pure spirit insight operate in the place of faith and truth or, rather, in conjunction with, and superimposed upon, these former techniques of personality assurance.
Wisdom
NOUN
the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.
synonyms:
sagacity · sageness · intelligence · understanding · insight · perception · perceptiveness · percipience · penetration · perspicuity · acuity · discernment · sense · good sense · common sense · shrewdness · astuteness · acumen · smartness · judiciousness · judgment · foresight · clear-sightedness · prudence · circumspection · logic · rationale · rationality · soundness · saneness · advisability · sharpness · savvy · smarts · sapience · arguteness
the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.
synonyms:
sagacity · sageness · intelligence · understanding · insight · perception · perceptiveness · percipience · penetration · perspicuity · acuity · discernment · sense · good sense · common sense · shrewdness · astuteness · acumen · smartness · judiciousness · judgment · foresight · clear-sightedness · prudence · circumspection · logic · rationale · rationality · soundness · saneness · advisability · sharpness · savvy · smarts · sapience · arguteness
the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period.
synonyms:
knowledge · learning · erudition · scholarship · philosophy · lore
Me here: Like enlightment, for all experiential beings wisdom is not a totality or absolute. We may only be relatively enlightened or wise or more or less so but not completely so. This the essence of being experiential…we are perfecting by gaining knowledge, experience, wisdom, and enlightening over time.
Error is part of learning. But so is awareness of the likelihood of probable outcomes…predicting reciprocal effects and repercussions…the realization that effects follow causes and every choice made is a cause….with effects.
Wisdom is a growing experiential understanding of the probabilities of different effects by different causes or by our decions, choices, and actions. But wisdom is far more. Every choice and act has multiple options to consider related to strategy, tactics, and timing!! Which is the better strategy? Better tactic? Better timing? 3 constant elements and each with multiple options and endless combinations each with a different outcome and effect-sequence!!
Jesus was a master at ‘seeing’ the long term effect-sequence of his choices, actions, and responses in every situation and circumstance. He was a chess master…strategy, tactic, and timing…always applied with a pure heart and sincerity of motive and purpose.
Such wisdom is experiential and learned in time by self…it is not a gift from any other source but is earned by experience. We may receive inspiration and insight but we only receive confirmation I think of truth realized and wisdom earned.
48:7.14 (556.14) 12. The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.
We should consider Divine and perfect wisdom in contrast to and in association with experiential wisdom. Note below those mortal ascenders who work so closely with the ministry of Divine and perfect wisdom in the universes of time. There are multiple points of convergence of perfect and perfecting wisdom.
God has infinite wisdom and Divine wisdom and all-wisdom and “perfect wisdom” but all others acquire wisdom as we do truth, incrementally and partially and incompletely and over time and by the lessons of experiential repercussion and results in time. We will never be all-wise I do not think.
Wisdom is such an interesting topic. So much related text and so many quotes to consider……
2. The Perfectors of Wisdom
19:2.1 (215.10) The Perfectors of Wisdom are a specialized creation of the Paradise Trinity designed to personify the wisdom of divinity in the superuniverses. There are exactly seven billion of these beings in existence, and one billion are assigned to each of the seven superuniverses.
19:2.2 (215.11) In common with their co-ordinates, the Divine Counselors and the Universal Censors, the Perfectors of Wisdom passed through the wisdom of Paradise, of Havona, and except for Divinington, of the Father’s Paradise spheres. After these experiences the Perfectors of Wisdom were permanently assigned to the service of the Ancients of Days. They serve neither on Paradise nor on the worlds of the Paradise-Havona circuits; they are wholly occupied with the administration of the superuniverse governments.
19:2.3 (216.1) Wherever and whenever a Perfector of Wisdom functions, there and then divine wisdom functions. There is actuality of presence and perfection of manifestation in the knowledge and wisdom represented in the doings of these mighty and majestic personalities. They do not reflect the wisdom of the Paradise Trinity; they are that wisdom. They are the sources of wisdom for all teachers in the application of universe knowledge; they are the fountains of discretion and the wellsprings of discrimination to the institutions of learning and discernment in all universes.
19:2.4 (216.2) Wisdom is twofold in origin, being derived from the perfection of divine insight inherent in perfect beings and from the personal experience acquired by evolutionary creatures.The Perfectors of Wisdom are the divine wisdom of the Paradise perfection of Deity insight. Their administrative associates on Uversa, the Mighty Messengers, Those without Name and Number, and Those High in Authority, when acting together, are the universe wisdom of experience. A divine being can have perfection of divine knowledge. An evolutionary mortal can sometime attain perfection of ascendant knowledge, but neither of these beings alone exhausts the potentials of all possible wisdom. Accordingly, whenever in the conduct of the superuniverse it is desired to achieve the maximum of administrative wisdom, these perfectors of the wisdom of divine insight are always associated with those ascendant personalities who have come up to the high responsibilities of superuniverse authority through the experiential tribulations of evolutionary progression.
19:2.5 (216.3) The Perfectors of Wisdom will always require this complement of experiential wisdom for the completion of their administrative sagacity. But it has been postulated that a high and hitherto unattained level of wisdom may possibly be achieved by the Paradise finaliters after they are sometime inducted into the seventh stage of spirit existence. If this inference is correct, then would such perfected beings of evolutionary ascent undoubtedly become the most effective universe administrators ever to be known in all creation. I believe that such is the high destiny of finaliters.
19:2.6 (216.4) The versatility of the Perfectors of Wisdom enables them to participate in practically all of the celestial services of the ascendant creatures. The Perfectors of Wisdom and my order of personality, the Divine Counselors, together with the Universal Censors, constitute the highest orders of beings who may and do engage in the work of revealing truth to the individual planets and systems, whether in their earlier epochs or when settled in light and life. From time to time we all make contact with the service of the ascending mortals, from an initial-life planet on up through a local universe and the superuniverse, particularly the latter.
(402.9) 36:5.12 7. The spirit of wisdom — the inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral existence.
Experience is required for experiential wisdom and Divine wisdom is not available to personalities originated in time as a totality. But Divinity is the source of everything so the two forms of wisdom are certainly related. In the future, we are taught, Divine wisdom and Experiential wisdom will be perfectly unified by Existential Deity and Experiential Deity!
An interesting and important concept to consider which contrasts with experiential wisdom but of course Divine and perfect wisdom is superior to experiential wisdom which is always less than and contained within Divine wisdom.
How Divine wisdom and experiential wisdom intersect and how each of them contributes value to the other is interesting and important to consider. God the Supreme cannot be considered imperfect and yet the Supreme gains by and benefits from experience and gains something that Divine wisdom does not possess (I think). Likewise are the Paradise Sons.
I mentioned the Michaels above. The Avonals and Daynals and Michaels are all Divine in origin and nature and wisdom. They are an amazing combination of Divine and experiential wisdom:
7:6.3 (88.1) The Original and Eternal Son is the offspring-person of the “first” completed and infinite thought of the Universal Father. Every time the Universal Father and the Eternal Son jointly project a new, original, identical, unique, and absolute personal thought, that very instant this creative idea is perfectly and finally personalized in the being and personality of a new and original Creator Son. In spirit nature, divine wisdom, and co-ordinate creative power, these Creator Sons are potentially equal with God the Father and God the Son.
20:1.1 (223.6) All descending Sons of God have high and divine origins. They are dedicated to the descending ministry of service on the worlds and systems of time and space, there to facilitate the progress in the Paradise climb of the lowly creatures of evolutionary origin—the ascending sons of God. Of the numerous orders of descending Sons, seven will be depicted in these narratives. Those Sons who come forth from the Deities on the central Isle of Light and Life are called the Paradise Sons of God and embrace the following three orders:
20:1.2 (223.7) 1. Creator Sons—the Michaels.
20:1.3 (223.
2. Magisterial Sons—the Avonals.
20:1.4 (223.9) 3. Trinity Teacher Sons—the Daynals.20:10.1 (232.4) All the Paradise Sons of God are divine in origin and in nature. The work of each Paradise Son in behalf of each world is just as if the Son of service were the first and only Son of God.
20:10.2 (232.5) The Paradise Sons are the divine presentation of the acting natures of the three persons of Deity to the domains of time and space. The Creator, Magisterial, and Teacher Sons are the gifts of the eternal Deities to the children of men and to all other universe creatures of ascension potential. These Sons of God are the divine ministers who are unceasingly devoted to the work of helping the creatures of time attain the high spiritual goal of eternity.
21:3.2 (237.4) A Creator Son could assert full sovereignty over his personal creation at any time, but he wisely chooses not to. If, prior to passing through the creature bestowals, he assumed an unearned supreme sovereignty, the Paradise personalities resident in his local universe would withdraw. But this has never happened throughout all the creations of time and space.
21:3.3 (237.5) The fact of creatorship implies the fullness of sovereignty, but the Michaels choose to experientially earn it, thereby retaining the full co-operation of all Paradise personalities attached to the local universe administration. We know of no Michael who ever did otherwise; but they all could, they are truly freewill Sons.
21:3.16 (238.10) The technique of obtaining supreme sovereignty over a local universe involves the following seven experiential steps:
21:3.17 (238.11) 1. Experientially to penetrate seven creature levels of being through the technique of incarnated bestowal in the very likeness of the creatures on the level concerned.
21:3.18 (238.12) 2. To make an experiential consecration to each phase of the sevenfold will of Paradise Deity as it is personified in the Seven Master Spirits.
21:3.19 (239.1) 3. To traverse each of the seven experiences on the creature levels simultaneously with the execution of one of the seven consecrations to the will of Paradise Deity.
21:3.20 (239.2) 4. On each creature level, experientially to portray the acme of creature life to Paradise Deity and to all universe intelligences.
21:3.21 (239.3) 5. On each creature level, experientially to reveal one phase of the sevenfold will of Deity to the bestowal level and to all the universe.
21:3.22 (239.4) 6. Experientially to unify the sevenfold creature experience with the sevenfold experience of consecration to the revelation of the nature and will of Deity.
21:3.23 (239.5) 7. To achieve new and higher relationship with the Supreme Being. The repercussion of the totality of this Creator-creature experience augments the superuniverse reality of God the Supreme and the time-space sovereignty of the Almighty Supreme and factualizes the supreme local universe sovereignty of a Paradise Michael.21:5.1 (240.3) The power of a Master Michael is unlimited because derived from experienced association with the Paradise Trinity, is unquestioned because derived from actual experience as the very creatures subject to such authority…..
Wisdom comes by Divine endowment and by experience. The Spirit of Wisdom is a ministry of mind which coordinates experience into meaning and unifies reason and knowledge and faith and religious experience to a perspective of and appreciation for universe reality. Wisdom and faith result in objectivity and maturity and the fruits of the Spirit and are validated by our growth in the spirit and relationship with God within. We become ever less material and ever more spiritual as we grow in experiential wisdom.
Remember that experiential wisdom embraces both a cause – experience – and an effect – wisdom. The experience itself may not be wise. The experience may be scientific or religious or philosophic but, eventually, its results become wisdom based on our ability to harmonize and unify those experiences!!
Perfecting wisdom must deal with far greater problems than right vs. wrong. Strategies, tactics, and timing calculations are based on experiential wisdom….not mere knowledge. Lots of people know how to play chess. Experience teaches one how to bait and lure and distract and predict responses and obscure and creatively respond to fluid situations and unexpected obstacles and serendipitous intersections of influences. Lots of subtleties to manage for the wise. Since the ministering spirits are providing us a progressive education, we can predict that our future is destined to be a continuous series of problems and situations requiring ever greater skills, experience, and wisdom and all of which must include knowledge and understanding too!
Experiential wisdom only begins with material mind and the adjutants for mortals. But experiential wisdom is a continuous and progressive acquirement.
The spirit of wisdom is intellectual. And includes, coordinates, and integrates both knowledge and understanding. The Divine Wisdom includes not only all that is moral and spiritual but also energy, matter, force, gravity, organization, material creation, etc. I believe wisdom is all encompassing and not limited in its range of influence and effect.
I have always wondered about the order of the higher adjutants – why is wisdom #7 and religion #6? I think it is because the religious life and spirit realities are the totality of reality or experience OR wisdom! Wisdom is not merely mechanical or material and it is not only moral or spiritual. That’s why the UB equates wisdom and philosophy – that which binds and integrates and harmonizes ALL of reality. After all there is only one reality and not two. There are only two realities to the animal mind and the immature mind and the subjective mind….all of which we are to transcend. Here if we become experientially wise enough….on the mansion worlds if we are too dull or slow to do so on the world of origin.
36:5.12 (402.9) 7. The spirit of wisdom—the inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral existence.
Me here: When wisdom is activated, then do we receive additional spirit influences (see 65:7.7). 85:7.3 tells us that true religious experience does not begin until the spirit of wisdom “achieves effective ministration” of the mind. So….each of the lower adjutants, including those of knowledge and understanding are inferior to even themselves without the spirit of wisdom in effective ministration….those abilities are not progressive until they are unified and correlated and integrated and applied and articulated and coordinated by wisdom. Therefore, experiential wisdom encompasses and includes all knowledge and all understanding and those cannot be isolated, for if they are then are they not truly experientially progressive or applied wisdom either one…they are progressively non-functional until so coordinated!
Once so united and coordinated…separation is dysfunctional and irrational. Indeed each higher adjutant adds to and includes all lower ones….there may be knowledge without understanding but there certainly is no understanding without knowledge. And there can be no wisdom without both. Or so I understand.
110:6.13 The seventh circle. This level is entered when human beings develop the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and, on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of Truth, together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind. Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature a truly potential citizen of the local universe.
According to my understanding, our origin and our destiny is spirit and that material creation is but a ladder and scaffolding for the experiential adventure of discovering and returning to and achieving our origin/destiny. Wisdom – Divine wisdom that is, the source and origin of all wisdom – is Spirit, it is inherent in the First Source and Center and is not learned – but is the expression of God’s very being and nature and will and plan.
The spirit reality and wisdom of God is “the totality of reality” for God and for those born and created in time, it is our religious life and ” totality of experience” that results in wisdom. Sorry to be so confusing. This is not simple. And I am sure I only complicate things. Oh well….I am trying….to experience and to express my understanding….
Experiential wisdom, I think, is the slow accumulation of knowledge and truth and judgement in combination and integration and application as we express our religious and spiritization experience at each intersection of choice. It is a perfecting process. The more perfect it becomes, the more spiritual are both the experience and the expression of wisdom! For tadpoles, wisdom unifies and harmonizes all experience and all expressions of our experience…including the moral and the spiritual and the material and the metaphysical and progressive knowledge and understanding.
Which is why I think that the sixth and seventh adjutants define and deliver our humanity and our ascendant potential. Wisdom incorporate our religious life with spirit realities which delivers us from the fetters of both materialism and superstition. Just a personal opinion. As usual, the UB speaks better than me…but I guess my thought boils down to the reality that we exist in God and God in us and therefore our source and destiny is experiencing and attaining the “spirit reality” by our “religious life”. The greater our experiential wisdom, the closer to our source and destiny we are!!!
2:1.6 (34.5) The Universal Father is absolutely and without qualification infinite in all his attributes; and this fact, in and of itself, automatically shuts him off from all direct personal communication with finite material beings and other lowly created intelligences.
2:1.7 (34.6) And all this necessitates such arrangements for contact and communication with his manifold creatures as have been ordained, first, in the personalities of the Paradise Sons of God, who, although perfect in divinity, also often partake of the nature of the very flesh and blood of the planetary races, becoming one of you and one with you; thus, as it were, God becomes man, as occurred in the bestowal of Michael, who was called interchangeably the Son of God and the Son of Man. And second, there are the personalities of the Infinite Spirit, the various orders of the seraphic hosts and other celestial intelligences who draw near to the material beings of lowly origin and in so many ways minister to them and serve them. And third, there are the impersonal Mystery Monitors, Thought Adjusters, the actual gift of the great God himself sent to indwell such as the humans of Urantia, sent without announcement and without explanation. In endless profusion they descend from the heights of glory to grace and indwell the humble minds of those mortals who possess the capacity for God-consciousness or the potential therefor.
2:1.8 (35.1) In these ways and in many others, in ways unknown to you and utterly beyond finite comprehension, does the Paradise Father lovingly and willingly downstep and otherwise modify, dilute, and attenuate his infinity in order that he may be able to draw nearer the finite minds of his creature children. And so, through a series of personality distributions which are diminishingly absolute, the infinite Father is enabled to enjoy close contact with the diverse intelligences of the many realms of his far-flung universe.
2:1.9 (35.2) All this he has done and now does, and evermore will continue to do, without in the least detracting from the fact and reality of his infinity, eternity, and primacy. And these things are absolutely true, notwithstanding the difficulty of their comprehension, the mystery in which they are enshrouded, or the impossibility of their being fully understood by creatures such as dwell on Urantia.
2:1.10 (35.3) Because the First Father is infinite in his plans and eternal in his purposes, it is inherently impossible for any finite being ever to grasp or comprehend these divine plans and purposes in their fullness. Mortal man can glimpse the Father’s purposes only now and then, here and there, as they are revealed in relation to the outworking of the plan of creature ascension on its successive levels of universe progression. Though man cannot encompass the significance of infinity, the infinite Father does most certainly fully comprehend and lovingly embrace all the finity of all his children in all universes.
2:1.11 (35.4) Divinity and eternity the Father shares with large numbers of the higher Paradise beings, but we question whether infinity and consequent universal primacy is fully shared with any save his co-ordinate associates of the Paradise Trinity. Infinity of personality must, perforce, embrace all finitude of personality; hence the truth—literal truth—of the teaching which declares that “In Him we live and move and have our being.” That fragment of the pure Deity of the Universal Father which indwells mortal man is a part of the infinity of the First Great Source and Center, the Father of Fathers.
Choosing what is right from wrong is not so difficult!! But choosing what is more right among multiple right choices requires far greater wisdom than merely choosing right from wrong. Choosing the better from among the good options and the best from the better options…now there’s wisdom! Knowing right from wrong is what children can discern.
Self importance is not so hard to discern I do not think. But how better and how best to do the right thing is more difficult and the more experiential wisdom we acquire, I think, the more options there are to consider…and thusly does the range of freewill options grow along with our wisdom….strategies and tactics and timing are the elements of great wisdom….not right from wrong. Our range of choices is narrowed and reduced by ignorance and inexperience and lack of wisdom.
Reality and our perspective of reality and our understanding or reality all grow by our maturity and experience and wisdom and growth and progress. The more self important and self oriented and subjective we are, the less of reality can we discern and the more limited is the range of choices!! If “experiential wisdom is the integration of knowledge and truth…”, then more knowledge and more truth experience should lead to more wisdom.
But wisdom only begins with discerning right from wrong. Or choosing right instead of wrong. Wisdom is an endless quest which leads to so many options to consider at each intersection of choice. The expression of knowledge and truth (wisdom) is improved over time by our growing experience of knowledge and truth and improvements in our expression of those in relationships and decisions.
Choices are the expression of wisdom, or its lack. There’s that feedback loop again. Choice is both the experience and the expression….the cause and the effect of wisdom. We learn by the results of our choices. Good choice reverberate and have a reality response, bad choices have consequences. The form and nature of the repercussions of choice educate us and add to knowledge and create meanings and the Spirits bring truth to discern by each choice we make so we learn by results and by inner confirmations, insights, intuition, and inspiration.
Experiential wisdom is not limited to the material life of the mortal on the material worlds of birth. Experiential wisdom and spiritual progress and insight certainly also prevail in the morontial levels of reality. There is Divine wisdom and there is material wisdom and there is also wisdom in between these polarities of wisdom.
19:2.5 (216.3) The Perfectors of Wisdom will always require this complement of experiential wisdom for the completion of their administrative sagacity. But it has been postulated that a high and hitherto unattained level of wisdom may possibly be achieved by the Paradise finaliters after they are sometime inducted into the seventh stage of spirit existence. If this inference is correct, then would such perfected beings of evolutionary ascent undoubtedly become the most effective universe administrators ever to be known in all creation. I believe that such is the high destiny of finaliters.
25:3.17 (279.1) The members of a conciliating commission are never separated. A group of four forever serve together just as they were originally associated. Even in their glorified service they continue to function as quartets of accumulated cosmic experience and perfected experiential wisdom. They are eternally associated as the embodiment of the supreme justice of time and space.
40:10.6 (453.1)…. And in the faithful service of such local universe citizens, experience superimposes upon experience until the fullness of time ripens that high quality of wisdom which is engendered by focalized experience — authoritative wisdom—and this in itself is a vital factor in the settling of any local universe.
40:10.7 (453.2) As it is with the Spirit fusers, so is it with those Son-fused mortals who have achieved residential status on Uversa. Some of these beings hail from the earliest epochs of Orvonton, and they represent a slowly accumulating body of insight-deepening wisdom which is making ever-augmenting service contributions to the welfare and eventual settlement of the seventh superuniverse.
45:7.7 (518.3) From time to time Jerusem citizens present themselves to the Melchizedek examiners, who certify to their attainment of morontia wisdom. Then they go before the examining corps of the Brilliant Evening Stars or their designates, who ascertain the degree of spirit insight. Next they appear in the presence of the four and twenty counselors and their associates, who pass upon their status of experiential attainment of socialization. These three factors are then carried to the citizenship registrars of representative government, who quickly compute the mota status and assign suffrage qualifications in accordance therewith.
45:7.8 (518.4) Under the supervision of the Melchizedeks the ascending mortals, especially those who are tardy in their personality unification on the new morontia levels, are taken in hand by the Material Sons and are given intensive training designed to rectify such deficiencies. No ascending mortal leaves the system headquarters for the more extensive and varied socialization career of the constellation until these Material Sons certify to the achievement of mota personality—an individuality combining the completed mortal existence in experiential association with the budding morontia career, both being duly blended by the spiritual overcontrol of the Thought Adjuster.
Me here: The acquirement of experiential wisdom is never ending. Evidently, spuritual insight is but another method and ministry whose functional result is increasing wisdom. Or such is my understanding.
A study of “wisdom” reveals even the highest and wisest of personalities in time and space still acquire experiential wisdom and have created school after school for the very purpose of increasing and improving celestial and ascender wisdom. Spirituality and spiritual insight are elements og experiential wisdom …or so I understand the teachings.
Certainly we are taught that both wisdom and philosophy are functional aspects of the morontial adventure and spiritual progression in time and in Paradise. Knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and spiritual insight are all experiential and integrated realities which only deliver meaning and value in conjunction and harmony as integrated by mind AND spirit.
27:6.2 (302.6) The master philosophers of Paradise delight to lead the minds of its inhabitants, both native and ascendant, in the exhilarating pursuit of attempting to solve universe problems. These superaphic masters of philosophy are the “wise men of heaven,” the beings of wisdom who make use of the truth of knowledge and the facts of experience in their efforts to master the unknown. With them knowledge attains to truth and experience ascends to wisdom. On Paradise the ascendant personalities of space experience the heights of being: They have knowledge; they know the truth; they may philosophize—think the truth; they may even seek to encompass the concepts of the Ultimate and attempt to grasp the techniques of the Absolutes.
27:6.3 (303.1) At the southern extremity of the vast Paradise domain the masters of philosophy conduct elaborate courses in the seventy functional divisions of wisdom. Here they discourse upon the plans and purposes of Infinity and seek to co-ordinate the experiences, and to compose the knowledge, of all who have access to their wisdom. They have developed a highly specialized attitude toward various universe problems, but their final conclusions are always in uniform agreement.
27:6.4 (303.2) These Paradise philosophers teach by every possible method of instruction, including the higher graph technique of Havona and certain Paradise methods of communicating information. All of these higher techniques of imparting knowledge and conveying ideas are utterly beyond the comprehension capacity of even the most highly developed human mind. One hour’s instruction on Paradise would be the equivalent of ten thousand years of the word-memory methods of Urantia. You cannot grasp such communication techniques, and there is simply nothing in mortal experience with which they may be compared, nothing to which they can be likened.
27:6.5 (303.3) The masters of philosophy take supreme pleasure in imparting their interpretation of the universe of universes to those beings who have ascended from the worlds of space. And while philosophy can never be as settled in its conclusions as the facts of knowledge and the truths of experience, yet, when you have listened to these primary supernaphim discourse upon the unsolved problems of eternity and the performances of the Absolutes, you will feel a certain and lasting satisfaction concerning these unmastered questions.
31:3.7 (348.4) 3. The glorified mortals of the Paradise Corps of Finality are ascendant beings in possession of experiential knowledge of every step of the actuality and philosophy of the fullest possible life of intelligent existence, while during the ages of this ascent from the lowest material worlds to the spiritual heights of Paradise, these surviving creatures have been trained to the limits of their capacity respecting every detail of every divine principle of the just and efficient, as well as merciful and patient, administration of all the universal creation of time and space.
44:7.2 (507.3) Beauty, rhythm, and harmony are intellectually associated and spiritually akin. Truth, fact, and relationship are intellectually inseparable and associated with the philosophic concepts of beauty. Goodness, righteousness, and justice are philosophically interrelated and spiritually bound up together with living truth and divine beauty.
44:7.3 (507.4) Cosmic concepts of true philosophy, the portrayal of celestial artistry, or the mortal attempt to depict the human recognition of divine beauty can never be truly satisfying if such attempted creature progression is ununified. These expressions of the divine urge within the evolving creature may be intellectually true, emotionally beautiful, and spiritually good; but the real soul of expression is absent unless these realities of truth, meanings of beauty, and values of goodness are unified in the life experience of the artisan, the scientist, or the philosopher.
44:7.4 (507.5) These divine qualities are perfectly and absolutely unified in God. And every God-knowing man or angel possesses the potential of unlimited self-expression on ever-progressive levels of unified self-realization by the technique of the never-ending achievement of Godlikeness—the experiential blending in the evolutionary experience of eternal truth, universal beauty, and divine goodness.
So the life in the flesh has the Holy Spirit and Guardian Angels and TA guiding the mortal experience into and toward specific situations and circumstances and intersections of choice. It appears to be a personalized curriculum designed for the circle progress and spiritization of each mortal.
113:4.3 (1245.3) Seraphim function as teachers of men by guiding the footsteps of the human personality into paths of new and progressive experiences. To accept the guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease. In following this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the courage, to traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and spiritual progress.
108:5.5 (1191.6) The Mystery Monitors are not thought helpers; they are thought adjusters. They labor with the material mind for the purpose of constructing, by adjustment and spiritualization, a new mind for the new worlds and the new name of your future career. Their mission chiefly concerns the future life, not this life. They are called heavenly helpers, not earthly helpers. They are not interested in making the mortal career easy; rather are they concerned in making your life reasonably difficult and rugged, so that decisions will be stimulated and multiplied. The presence of a great Thought Adjuster does not bestow ease of living and freedom from strenuous thinking, but such a divine gift should confer a sublime peace of mind and a superb tranquillity of spirit.
108:5.6 (1192.1) Your transient and ever-changing emotions of joy and sorrow are in the main purely human and material reactions to your internal psychic climate and to your external material environment. Do not, therefore, look to the Adjuster for selfish consolation and mortal comfort. It is the business of the Adjuster to prepare you for the eternal adventure, to assure your survival. It is not the mission of the Mystery Monitor to smooth your ruffled feelings or to minister to your injured pride; it is the preparation of your soul for the long ascending career that engages the attention and occupies the time of the Adjuster.
Me here: And, as you point out above, the truth ministries of the TA and Spirit of Truth deliver insights and inspiration and confirmations and assurances….the yearn created and the response to the yearn rewarded by the Spirits within.
107:0.5 (1176.5) It is the Adjuster who creates within man that unquenchable yearning and incessant longing to be like God, to attain Paradise, and there before the actual person of Deity to worship the infinite source of the divine gift. …
Me here: When repeated and reaffirmed and repeated more, such choices become wisdom…and habitual….and reflexive.
100:1.8 (1095.3) Religious habits of thinking and acting are contributory to the economy of spiritual growth. One can develop religious predispositions toward favorable reaction to spiritual stimuli, a sort of conditioned spiritual reflex. Habits which favor religious growth embrace cultivated sensitivity to divine values, recognition of religious living in others, reflective meditation on cosmic meanings, worshipful problem solving, sharing one’s spiritual life with one’s fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to presume on divine mercy, living as in the presence of God. The factors of religious growth may be intentional, but the growth itself is unvaryingly unconscious.
So…what is mota? And what of its relationship to wisdom? Existential/Divine wisdom and experiential wisdom?
https://urantia-association.org/search/?zoom_sort=2&zoom_query=Mota&x=5&y=10
45:7.6 (518.2) Suffrage is universal on Jerusem among these three groups of citizenship, but the vote is differentially cast in accordance with the recognized and duly registered personal possession of mota—morontia wisdom. ….
45:7.7 (518.3) From time to time Jerusem citizens present themselves to the Melchizedek examiners, who certify to their attainment of morontia wisdom. Then they go before the examining corps of the Brilliant Evening Stars or their designates, who ascertain the degree of spirit insight. Next they appear in the presence of the four and twenty counselors and their associates, who pass upon their status of experiential attainment of socialization. These three factors are then carried to the citizenship registrars of representative government, who quickly compute the mota status and assign suffrage qualifications in accordance therewith.
45:7.8 (518.4) Under the supervision of the Melchizedeks the ascending mortals, especially those who are tardy in their personality unification on the new morontia levels, are taken in hand by the Material Sons and are given intensive training designed to rectify such deficiencies. No ascending mortal leaves the system headquarters for the more extensive and varied socialization career of the constellation until these Material Sons certify to the achievement of mota personality—an individuality combining the completed mortal existence in experiential association with the budding morontia career, both being duly blended by the spiritual overcontrol of the Thought Adjuster.
Me here: 47:5.3 tells us that mota is an enhancements and continuation of human logic, reason, philosophy, metaphysics, and the comprehension of cosmic meanings. This certainly tells us of the value of such pursuits in this life I think. And demonstrates how important is intuition and insight and inspiration to human understanding of universe reality. Indeed, it tells us how important knowledge and understanding of reality are to wisdom itself!! (“…On this third mansion world the survivors really begin their progressive morontia culture. The chief purpose of this training is to enhance the understanding of the correlation of morontia mota and mortal logic, the co-ordination of morontia mota and human philosophy. Surviving mortals now gain practical insight into true metaphysics. This is the real introduction to the intelligent comprehension of cosmic meanings and universe interrelationships.”)
We are taught that the highest and most enlightened forms of human thought, reason, and wisdom actually touch upon mota in this life!!! And are given 28 fascinating and enlightening morsels of human philosophy as examples of such an intersection of mota and mortal thinking/understanding.
48:7.1 (556.1) The lower planes of morontia mota join directly with the higher levels of human philosophy. On the first mansion world it is the practice to teach the less advanced students by the parallel technique; that is, in one column are presented the more simple concepts of mota meanings, and in the opposite column citation is made of analogous statements of mortal philosophy.
48:7.2 (556.2) Not long since, while executing an assignment on the first mansion world of Satania, I had occasion to observe this method of teaching; and though I may not undertake to present the mota content of the lesson, I am permitted to record the twenty-eight statements of human philosophy which this morontia instructor was utilizing as illustrative material designed to assist these new mansion world sojourners in their early efforts to grasp the significance and meaning of mota. These illustrations of human philosophy were:
48:7.3 (556.3) 1. A display of specialized skill does not signify possession of spiritual capacity. Cleverness is not a substitute for true character.
48:7.4 (556.4) 2. Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul.
48:7.5 (556.5) 3. Inherent capacities cannot be exceeded; a pint can never hold a quart. The spirit concept cannot be mechanically forced into the material memory mold.
48:7.6 (556.6) 4. Few mortals ever dare to draw anything like the sum of personality credits established by the combined ministries of nature and grace. The majority of impoverished souls are truly rich, but they refuse to believe it.
48:7.7 (556.7) 5. Difficulties may challenge mediocrity and defeat the fearful, but they only stimulate the true children of the Most Highs.
48:7.8 (556.6) 6. To enjoy privilege without abuse, to have liberty without license, to possess power and steadfastly refuse to use it for self-aggrandizement—these are the marks of high civilization.
48:7.9 (556.9) 7. Blind and unforeseen accidents do not occur in the cosmos. Neither do the celestial beings assist the lower being who refuses to act upon his light of truth.
48:7.10 (556.10) 8. Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no happiness without intelligent effort.
48:7.11 (556.11) 9. Action achieves strength; moderation eventuates in charm.
48:7.12 (556.12) 10. Righteousness strikes the harmony chords of truth, and the melody vibrates throughout the cosmos, even to the recognition of the Infinite.
48:7.13 (556.13) 11. The weak indulge in resolutions, but the strong act. Life is but a day’s work—do it well. The act is ours; the consequences God’s.
48:7.14 (556.14) 12. The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.
48:7.15 (556.15) 13. Stars are best discerned from the lonely isolation of experiential depths, not from the illuminated and ecstatic mountain tops.
48:7.16 (556.16) 14. Whet the appetites of your associates for truth; give advice only when it is asked for.
48:7.17 (557.1) 15. Affectation is the ridiculous effort of the ignorant to appear wise, the attempt of the barren soul to appear rich.
48:7.18 (557.2) 16. You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you feelingly experience it, and many truths are not really felt except in adversity.
48:7.19 (557.3) 17. Ambition is dangerous until it is fully socialized. You have not truly acquired any virtue until your acts make you worthy of it.
48:7.20 (557.4) 18. Impatience is a spirit poison; anger is like a stone hurled into a hornet’s nest.
48:7.21 (557.5) 19. Anxiety must be abandoned. The disappointments hardest to bear are those which never come.
48:7.22 (557.6) 20. Only a poet can discern poetry in the commonplace prose of routine existence.
48:7.23 (557.7) 21. The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity.
48:7.24 (557.8) 22. The evolving soul is not made divine by what it does, but by what it strives to do.
48:7.25 (557.9) 23. Death added nothing to the intellectual possession or to the spiritual endowment, but it did add to the experiential status the consciousness of survival.
48:7.26 (557.10) 24. The destiny of eternity is determined moment by moment by the achievements of the day by day living. The acts of today are the destiny of tomorrow.
48:7.27 (557.11) 25. Greatness lies not so much in possessing strength as in making a wise and divine use of such strength.
48:7.28 (557.12) 26. Knowledge is possessed only by sharing; it is safeguarded by wisdom and socialized by love.
48:7.29 (557.13) 27. Progress demands development of individuality; mediocrity seeks perpetuation in standardization.
48:7.30 (557.14) 28. The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained.
48:7.31 (557.15) Such is the work of the beginners on the first mansion world while the more advanced pupils on the later worlds are mastering the higher levels of cosmic insight and morontia mota.
Please be advised that anything and everything written and posted by me that is not direct text is merely opinions based on personal understanding and is certainly subject to dispute, disagreement, adjustment, amendment, and future refinements based on better understanding and greater insight and wisdom!
We are promised and provided the time we each may need to acquire the experiential wisdom and spiritual progress for fusion status and our finality attainment. The road to Paradise may be long but it becomes a wonderful journey of adventure and discovery for each pilgrim who sets aside fear and embraces truth, beauty, and goodness!!
Prior to fusion with our God Fragment, wisdom comes to us mortals by trial and error. All choices deliver repercussions …the harvest of what is sown. But error delivers negative consequences. Good choices result in progress and fruits of the spirit. Error brings the opportunity to learn and improve our choices and our outcomes. Sufficient error results in suffering and affliction which is given to us, by the laws of sowing and reaping that which is sown, to help us discern the good choices from the bad choices and the better choices from the good choices, and eventually, the best choices from the better choices.
This is a progressive process whereby the Adjuster and the Guardian Angels guide our footsteps to those intersections of decision for the very purpose of learning to make wiser and wiser choices.
We are being formed and tempered like steel – tempered by fire and water and between the hammer and the anvil. Wisdom does not come easily or quickly but only by repeating choices until our responses to situations and circumstances and relationship intersections become spirit directed and reflexive in nature.
Despite primitive superstitions that believe that God personally punishes us directly, in reality those choices which are selfish, self centered, and self important automatically result in consequences of frustration and disappointment and unhappiness and disillusionment and other forms of suffering – even if apparently awarded materially – still are there meaningful consequences to bear.
4:3.4 (58.2) God repents of nothing he has ever done, now does, or ever will do. He is all-wise as well as all-powerful. Man’s wisdom grows out of the trials and errors of human experience; God’s wisdom consists in the unqualified perfection of his infinite universe insight, and this divine foreknowledge effectively directs the creative free will.
9:1.8 (100.2) In addition to this supercontrol of energy and things physical, the Infinite Spirit is superbly endowed with those attributes of patience, mercy, and love which are so exquisitely revealed in his spiritual ministry. The Spirit is supremely competent to minister love and to overshadow justice with mercy. God the Spirit possesses all the supernal kindness and merciful affection of the Original and Eternal Son. The universe of your origin is being forged out between the anvil of justice and the hammer of suffering; but those who wield the hammer are the children of mercy, the spirit offspring of the Infinite Spirit.
48:7.14 (556.14) 12. The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.
86:2.1 (951.3) Anxiety was a natural state of the savage mind. When men and women fall victims to excessive anxiety, they are simply reverting to the natural estate of their far-distant ancestors; and when anxiety becomes actually painful, it inhibits activity and unfailingly institutes evolutionary changes and biologic adaptations. Pain and suffering are essential to progressive evolution.
118:10.9 (1305.4) Some of the amazingly fortuitous conditions occasionally prevailing on the evolutionary worlds may be due to the gradually emerging presence of the Supreme, the foretasting of his future universe activities. Most of what a mortal would call providential is not; his judgment of such matters is very handicapped by lack of farsighted vision into the true meanings of the circumstances of life. Much of what a mortal would call good luck might really be bad luck; the smile of fortune that bestows unearned leisure and undeserved wealth may be the greatest of human afflictions; the apparent cruelty of a perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon some suffering mortal may in reality be the tempering fire that is transmuting the soft iron of immature personality into the tempered steel of real character.
148:5.3 (1661.5) “But, my son, you should know that the Father does not purposely afflict his children. Man brings down upon himself unnecessary affliction as a result of his persistent refusal to walk in the better ways of the divine will. Affliction is potential in evil, but much of it has been produced by sin and iniquity. Many unusual events have transpired on this world, and it is not strange that all thinking men should be perplexed by the scenes of suffering and affliction which they witness. But of one thing you may be sure: The Father does not send affliction as an arbitrary punishment for wrongdoing. The imperfections and handicaps of evil are inherent; the penalties of sin are inevitable; the destroying consequences of iniquity are inexorable. Man should not blame God for those afflictions which are the natural result of the life which he chooses to live; neither should man complain of those experiences which are a part of life as it is lived on this world. It is the Father’s will that mortal man should work persistently and consistently toward the betterment of his estate on earth. Intelligent application would enable man to overcome much of his earthly misery.
Maybe (Taoist story)
There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.
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