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Thanks Bonita!
And yes, let us stay focused here on the ascendant experience from tadpole to finaliter and how/why some finaliters are deemed to be Agondonter.
Joining the kingdom of believers is one step in that transformation.
But what of all the forms of the kingdom employed in the Papers?
Let’s discuss that on the Kingdom topic and not here, except for those instances where the two may intersect time to time.
The Kingdom of Heaven is a most important topic….and especially so as Jesus introduced us to that brand new concept 2000 years ago. The Apostles hardly grasped the concept while with the Master…the kingdom at hand…..rather than the kingdom to come expected by the Israelites….and still waited on by our Christian friends today.
And while Enno’s detours here have heretofore been pretty circular so far, perhaps we can pick up another tangent of interest specifically related to Agondonters. Now that we’ve determined and verified the cost of entering the kingdom is but faith IN that kingdom.
Perhaps the fruit that appears on the branch which is attached to the vine of Divine Reality? For something with no cost, the benefits received for faith are endlessly wonderful….and immediate!!
I think fruit production does cost us something if effort can be considered a cost. You have to work at staying connected to the vine in order for fruit to appear. We don’t produce the fruit, God does. All we have to do is maintain the connection of our one individual branch of the tree to the original life force coming from God. I think life creates many problems for our little branch that can put it in peril of being blown off, rotted off, chewed off or knocked off. Lots of things are out there that can separate the branch from the tree, so I think it takes concerted effort to maintain the connection at all times. Jesus did that and he blossomed. He’s our model for holding onto the tree, the living vine, and I don’t think there’s a better one out there to learn from. But here’s where understanding doesn’t matter that much. All you have to understand is, if you let go, you’re toast. Pretty basic stuff, elemental ABC’s. Even a caveman can do it.
But Jesus told us that we’re supposed to do more than just hold on. We’re supposed to produce more and more fruit. Just holding on is basic and fundamental, growing more fruit involves additional effort. What do you suppose that effort is? Is there more understanding involved? I think so. It’s like moving from pre-school to kindergarten to first grade. There has to be progress from the basic ABC’s to actually writing words that make sense.
But the understanding I’m talking about is not all intellectual, it’s more than the three R’s, it’s understanding the nature of God himself, the person, by keeping the communication going 24/7 and staying involved in a relationship (give and take). That takes work, concentration, commitment and consistency. I for one am totally committed, but I lack consistency . . . I think most people do. We have to be reminded to keep the lines open . . . and that is the process of circle progression . . . keeping the lines open and improving the swiftness of processing meanings and values with increasing accuracy of reality recognition and acceptance. It’s a journey and the goal is more and more and more fruit bearing.
180:2.1 Then Jesus stood up again and continued teaching his apostles: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. I am the vine, and you are the branches. And the Father requires of me only that you shall bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to increase the fruitfulness of its branches. Every branch coming out of me which bears no fruit, the Father will take away. Every branch which bears fruit, the Father will cleanse that it may bear more fruit. Already are you clean through the word I have spoken, but you must continue to be clean. You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is separated from the vine. As the branch cannot bear fruit except it abides in the vine, so neither can you yield the fruits of loving service except you abide in me. Remember: I am the real vine, and you are the living branches. He who lives in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit of the spirit and experience the supreme joy of yielding this spiritual harvest. If you will maintain this living spiritual connection with me, you will bear abundant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to commune freely with me, and then can my living spirit so infuse you that you may ask whatsoever my spirit wills and do all this with the assurance that the Father will grant us our petition. Herein is the Father glorified: that the vine has many living branches, and that every branch bears much fruit. And when the world sees these fruit-bearing branches–my friends who love one another, even as I have loved them–all men will know that you are truly my disciples.
180:2.5 When there exists this living connection between divinity and humanity, if humanity should thoughtlessly and ignorantly pray for selfish ease and vainglorious accomplishments, there could be only one divine answer: more and increased bearing of the fruits of the spirit on the stems of the living branches. When the branch of the vine is alive, there can be only one answer to all its petitions: increased grape bearing. In fact, the branch exists only for, and can do nothing except, fruit bearing, yielding grapes. So does the true believer exist only for the purpose of bearing the fruits of the spirit: to love man as he himself has been loved by God—that we should love one another, even as Jesus has loved us.
No one must “sell” anything.
“See, I’m learning from you. Absolutely, I’m not confused about that. God has granted me free will and I don’t have to do anything.”
Well….you didn’t learn that from me! Who has ever said we “don’t have to do anything”? There is no faith without act. Faith transforms what we choose to act upon and what our act will be. Experience can (and needs to) transform faith-acts into wisdom and growth and maturity. Learning, discerning, understanding, incorporating, integrating, expanding, serving….all require us to act and do. But not the same things or order or with the same skill and wisdom. Can we love God and the family of believers and God’s universe of universes and do nothing? No way. Faith activates and motivates actions which are our unique and personal expressions of faith and love.
99:4.3 (1089.11) True religion is a meaningful way of living dynamically face to face with the commonplace realities of everyday life. But if religion is to stimulate individual development of character and augment integration of personality, it must not be standardized. If it is to stimulate evaluation of experience and serve as a value-lure, it must not be stereotyped. If religion is to promote supreme loyalties, it must not be formalized.
99:4.4 (1089.12) No matter what upheavals may attend the social and economic growth of civilization, religion is genuine and worth while if it fosters in the individual an experience in which the sovereignty of truth, beauty, and goodness prevails, for such is the true spiritual concept of supreme reality. And through love and worship this becomes meaningful as fellowship with man and sonship with God.
99:4.5 (1090.1) After all, it is what one believes rather than what one knows that determines conduct and dominates personal performances. Purely factual knowledge exerts very little influence upon the average man unless it becomes emotionally activated. But the activation of religion is superemotional, unifying the entire human experience on transcendent levels through contact with, and release of, spiritual energies in the mortal life.
99:4.6 (1090.2) During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled; as never before in the world’s history they need the consolation and stabilization of sound religion. In the face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos.
Me here: So….are we adding to the chaos caused by anxiety, impatience, fear, and uncertainty? Or are we demonstrating the fruits of the Spirit and bringing relief to fear, doubt, anger, anxieties in others by our lights of hope, confidence, sublime peace, patience, long-suffering, and calm regard to all material ills and woes? We are either part of the problem….or part of the solution and that depends upon the branch’s connection to the vine and the fruits that come by such connection.
99:7.3 (1093.1) Religion inspires man to live courageously and joyfully on the face of the earth; it joins patience with passion, insight to zeal, sympathy with power, and ideals with energy.
99:7.4 (1093.2) Man can never wisely decide temporal issues or transcend the selfishness of personal interests unless he meditates in the presence of the sovereignty of God and reckons with the realities of divine meanings and spiritual values.
Me here: So much to learn and understand……and DO! = )
I agree Bonita that becoming attached to the vine is but step one. I think the attachment to the vine depends upon our loyalty to the vine and the source of the vine and our confidence in the vine demonstrated in our life by our choices. Faith is an act and an expression of the ideals discovered by our spirit nature which should come to truly dominate our reason for living. Living requires effort. Does living in the Spirit require more effort? I have not found this to be so. Life is hard…but mine has become easier amongst the same vicissitudes and along the edges of conflict….not harder but easier. The yoke is light we are told. I feel it gets lighter and lighter the more trust in God I have and the more that faith in love drives my choices! Reality is not as difficult an environment as unreality.
To Bonita’s points:
100:2.1 (1095.5) Spiritual development depends, first, on the maintenance of a living spiritual connection with true spiritual forces and, second, on the continuous bearing of spiritual fruit: yielding the ministry to one’s fellows of that which has been received from one’s spiritual benefactors. Spiritual progress is predicated on intellectual recognition of spiritual poverty coupled with the self-consciousness of perfection-hunger, the desire to know God and be like him, the wholehearted purpose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
100:2.2 (1095.6) Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a discovery of values. The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the exhibition of a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholehearted worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience constitutes the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological beliefs.
100:2.3 (1095.7) Religion can progress to that level of experience whereon it becomes an enlightened and wise technique of spiritual reaction to the universe. Such a glorified religion can function on three levels of human personality: the intellectual, the morontial, and the spiritual; upon the mind, in the evolving soul, and with the indwelling spirit.
100:2.4 (1096.1) Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one’s nearness to God and the measure of one’s usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love.
100:2.5 (1096.2) Actual spiritual status is the measure of Deity attainment, Adjuster attunement. The achievement of finality of spirituality is equivalent to the attainment of the maximum of reality, the maximum of Godlikeness. Eternal life is the endless quest for infinite values.
Life is hard…but mine has become easier amongst the same vicissitudes and along the edges of conflict….not harder but easier. The yoke is light we are told.
Yes! But not because challenges disappear. In fact, challenges keep coming rightatcha. What gets easier is the use of soul powers. The more you use them, the more masterful you become in dealing with those challenges. It’s like any skill or craft. The more you use the tools, the better you get at it, the more artful the result and more lasting the beauty.
Oh absolutely!! My life is no less chaotic….thanks to aging parents and children and business ownership!!!!
Have you heard of the Rule of 63? There’s ALWAYS 63 things that need doing….no matter how many things you get done!
What the fruits have delivered to me is that, in my family and world I am becoming the eye of the hurricane and the rock of calm and fortitude. I am so much more relaxed and less anxious. I have confidence in seeking the lessons within choices rather than managing the outcomes of choices or worry about what happens next! And man things are happening!
Don’t recall the quote but we are taught that we will be given larger and more important tasks laid before us based on our willingness and ability with smaller challenges first. The angels and the TAs constantly steer obstacles/challenges onto our daily path to train us how to remain calm and centered in the face of uncertainty, frustration, failure, and confusion. The material life brings us plenty to do and learn from as we apply the spiritualized perspective to bear on our daily walk.
An old topic of mine is learning how better to respond to the same situations and circumstances of life demanding us to make a choice (response-ability). Procrastination is a form of avoidance. The Spirit delivers a fearlessness and fierceness and re-energizes us to engage in life without anxiety or the fear of failure. Failure is but an opportunity to learn.
Do you know how many failure Edison had in the light bulb before the first glow appeared? Do you know who the strike out king was the year Babe got the home run record?
Life is a day’s work…let us enjoy the day….and the work. = )
I’d like to share something with you. Maybe it will help you understand me better, and why I’ve become so focused on the doing thing. Even doing it without thinking, nor understanding it.
My dad, the high priest of atheism, although, he generally treated me well, is very confused about fatherhood and sonship (me).
He isn’t an insightful man, denying that spirit exists even, relegating it with all the other things about religion, he believes to be all made up by the bad people of the Catholic church.
He was rather preoccupied with this, constantly thinking about how he’s right about everything (because he had to be), and everyone else; is wrong.
This preoccupation didn’t allow him much time to engage with his kids. None of us have much to do with him anymore, and if he thinks about this fact, he probably does it like he told me many times: “Enno, I handle it like water off a duck.”
Of the few times he noticed me needing fatherly guidance when I was a kid (I’m his eldest child), he many times told me the same thing over and over and over, until finally, as a young adult, I was only left with great consternation.
He would say:
“Enno, just do as I tell you!”
And the other thing he said, which always accompanied this statement, he said by the way he said it, and the menacing look on his face, said that if I didn’t do what he told me, it would be hell for me.
Now as you might imagine, this situation became really awkward after I awoke to realize he was wrong about God, my Father.
I love my dad and I know he loves me. But as I grew more aware of what was, and still is, being revealed to me about my Father, I could not reconcile the irony of my atheist dad repeatedly and firmly telling me:
“Do as I tell you.”
I still pray that my dad remembers what he told me, and realizes that it was the Father within him, who actually, was calling his name, while using his voice to do it.
Enno
Well….you’re on your own now. And it is time for us all to take responsibility for our own choices and priorities and understandings don’t you think?
God does not provide a list of do’s and don’ts…..that’s up to our own free will and that list will be expressed by our own volition now.
Thanks for sharing….could you tie it into the topic somehow?
Bradly wrote: Well….you’re on your own now. And it is time for us all to take responsibility for our own choices and priorities and understandings don’t you think?Thanks for that Bradly. My sentiments as well . . . a little maturity here please? The fact that you were scorned by your father does not give you license to come to this forum and scorn Bradly and me . . . a little tired of it, frankly. And we’ve heard the story before. Thanks anyway.
could you tie it into the topic somehow?
Well where is this topic now? I think we’re still talking about confusion and the lack of understanding right?
What I shared I did to illustrate how bad confusion can be, due to the lack of understanding, and how even with an atheist, God is still whispering in his ears the echoes of the words that have come out of his own mouth, maybe. I can’t get over the irony of it.
When I think about what the main message of the Urantia Book is, I see that it’s dedication, dedication to, by faith alone, the doing of the Father’s will.
Jesus is our inspiration for how to do it. In our minds, Jesus keeps asking us to:
“Do as well as you can understand, my Father’s, and your Father’s will.”
That’s it!
Thanks for including “..as well as you can understand..”
This is key I think. God’s will for us does not include particular or certain choices or behaviors. God’s will is love; love of life, love of one another, love for creation, and love for God.
When one is motivated by love, more and more of our choices will lead to experiential wisdom or a greater understanding of love, a better appreciation of love, and a better and better expression of love by our experiential wisdom acquired by doing anything at all motivated by higher and higher forms of love. When we become motivated by loving service to one another, we have found God’s will and WAY. The more of us who do so the more power and influence does love have on the totality of all of us.
It is my will that thine will be done Lord. Even the lowly tadpole on a dark world can do this.
1:1.2 (22.5) The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of themselves — in their own hearts — recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the Father’s will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father.
Even the lowly tadpole on a dark world can do this.
I must admit to a limitation. Learning to understand what others are saying, realizing that under the best circumstance I’m always going to be at least, a little confused sometimes, I’m experiencing more and more comfort as I, like a proverbial tadpole, begin to fathom what is motivating those I don’t naturally find easy to understand, and instead give it up, and keep my faith in God’s overcare of the brotherhood of man that what I fail to know, is only a matter of time.
So I’ll continue, with all of you, to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, which is how for me, understanding knowledge will finally be achieved through my dedication to God’s love.
“If you could only know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them.”
Bradly wrote: This is key I think. God’s will for us does not include particular or certain choices or behaviors.Oh I agree! If I pray and ask God what to do, I’m certain a little voice is not going to suddenly appear telling me what to do. God doesn’t work that way. We have to decide on our own. But if I pray for wisdom in making my choice, I do get clearer concentration and a deeper reflection on the choices available to me, especially if I take the time to thank God for the problem in the first place. Thanking him for the opportunity to solve another moral conundrum is key in my experience. I think gratitude helps open the gateway to the soul. Once I get there it becomes rather obvious what the best option is, even if I don’t like it, and sometimes frankly, I don’t because it’s uncomfortable for my ego. That is, until I actually do it, and then I realize that the discomfort my ego feared was only in my imagination. Hah! Another victory over evil!
4:4.9 The consciousness of a victorious human life on earth is born of that creature faith which dares to challenge each recurring episode of existence when confronted with the awful spectacle of human limitations, by the unfailing declaration: Even if I cannot do this, there lives in me one who can and will do it, a part of the Father-Absolute of the universe of universes. And that is “the victory which overcomes the world, even your faith.”
This reference reiterates some of the points previously made on this topic. But the first sentence kinda jumped out at me. “Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness.”
Perhaps *functional* refers to the unknown (in human consciousness) work of the adjutant mind spirits in preparing the mind for the reception of a Thought Adjuster, as well as the little known work of the Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit is seamless and these influences are all as one. (8:5.4)
103:2.1 Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences birth. But the “birth” of religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a “birth day.” You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you have been “born again” — born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized by a “stormy labor” and other abnormalities of “delivery.” Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the “birth of religion” is not directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.“. . . no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations.”
Great quote Mara…thank you. While the topic is specifically agondonter (or finaliter from a dark and isolated world), I am really benefiting by our consideration of the religious experience in primitive minds and how faith is formed and how the dual nature does naturally find recognition and response in every normal mind.
I’ve been watching lots of Nature shows recently and it is obvious that there is intelligent, creative, and situationally-responsive mind at work in both the plant and animal kingdom. Adaptations that are not random or strictly bio related IMO.
This ‘mind’ thing is huge!!
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