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Keryn wrote: But the actual memory of the time I hit my sister out of anger when I was 9 years old? I see no value in remembering that when I move on after death; only the wisdom it created in me when I learned that deliberately making my sister cry made me sad inside and to acknowledge that I had done wrong and not to do it again.
That’s a valuable memory and nothing of value is lost, so I doubt the memory will be lost either. Of course, you will have the benefit of a new perspective when looking at the memory though. You will not remember the pain, but the joy of learning something of value.
Do you recall the section about the reversion directors? They create jests out of memories of past experiences of struggle. What seems so bitter to us now might make us laugh later. I’m not saying that the mother who killed her child will ever laugh about that, but she most likely will have a different, less painful, viewpoint of the whole experience on the mansion worlds. She’ll see the value gained from the experience, rather than the pain. That’s how I see it anyway, for what it’s worth.
This section of the UB gets at what I was trying to say about memories.
(1235.1) 112:5.19 3. When these prerequisites of repersonalization have been assembled, the seraphic custodian of the potentialities of the slumbering immortal soul, with the assistance of numerous cosmic personalities, bestows this morontia entity upon and in the awaiting morontia mind-body form while committing this evolutionary child of the Supreme to eternal association with the waiting Adjuster. And this completes the repersonalization, reassembly of memory, insight, and consciousness — identity.
(1235.2) 112:5.20 The fact of repersonalization consists in the seizure of the encircuited morontia phase of the newly segregated cosmic mind by the awakening human self. The phenomenon of personality is dependent on the persistence of the identity of selfhood reaction to universe environment; and this can only be effected through the medium of mind. Selfhood persists in spite of a continuous change in all the factor components of self; in the physical life the change is gradual; at death and upon repersonalization the change is sudden. The true reality of all selfhood (personality) is able to function responsively to universe conditions by virtue of the unceasing changing of its constituent parts; stagnation terminates in inevitable death. Human life is an endless change of the factors of life unified by the stability of the unchanging personality.
(1235.3) 112:5.21 And when you thus awaken on the mansion worlds of Jerusem, you will be so changed, the spiritual transformation will be so great that, were it not for your Thought Adjuster and the destiny guardian, who so fully connect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have difficulty in connecting the new morontia consciousness with the reviving memory of your previous identity. Notwithstanding the continuity of personal selfhood, much of the mortal life would at first seem to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clarify many mortal associations.
(1235.4) 112:5.22 The Thought Adjuster will recall and rehearse for you only those memories and experiences which are a part of, and essential to, your universe career. If the Adjuster has been a partner in the evolution of aught in the human mind, then will these worth-while experiences survive in the eternal consciousness of the Adjuster. But much of your past life and its memories, having neither spiritual meaning nor morontia value, will perish with the material brain; much of material experience will pass away as onetime scaffolding which, having bridged you over to the morontia level, no longer serves a purpose in the universe. But personality and the relationships between personalities are never scaffolding; mortal memory of personality relationships has cosmic value and will persist. On the mansion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will remember, and be remembered by, your onetime associates in the short but intriguing life on Urantia.
And from the teachings of Rodan:
(1779.4) 160:4.12 Train your memory to hold in sacred trust the strength-giving and worth-while episodes of life, which you can recall at will for your pleasure and edification. Thus build up for yourself and in yourself reserve galleries of beauty, goodness, and artistic grandeur. But the noblest of all memories are the treasured recollections of the great moments of a superb friendship. And all of these memory treasures radiate their most precious and exalting influences under the releasing touch of spiritual worship.
To my mind, these are the types of memories that hold their value beyond mortal existence and throughout our ascension career. So these memories will not be lost. But ugly memories? I hope and believe we do not carry them with us through eternity.
So where are these valuable experiences stored? Who makes the choice to make the experience something that is stored in the value experience data bank? Is it simply value itself that has a way of hanging on? More automatic? Do we have a choice in the matter? Could this be part of why it is difficult if not impossible to get rid of memories? Storage more in the superconscious? Or shared with physical consciousness as well as superconsciousness? Or is there a data storage system out there? We will be judged at some time, does the judge have access to our value experience storage? Just pull it out of ourselves or maybe has the metaphorical check list?
Just thinking out loud.
Another comment on self-forgetfulness:143:2:2 At one of the evening conferences, Andrew asked Jesus: “Master, are we to practice self-denial as John taught us, or are we to strive for the self-control of your teaching? Wherein does your teaching differ from that of John?” Jesus answered: “John indeed taught you the way of righteousness in accordance with the light and laws of his fathers, and that was the religion of self–examination and self-denial. But I come with a new message of self-forgetfulness and self-control. I show to you the way of life as revealed to me by my Father in heaven.So where are these valuable experiences stored? Who makes the choice to make the experience something that is stored in the value experience data bank? Is it simply value itself that has a way of hanging on? More automatic? Do we have a choice in the matter? Could this be part of why it is difficult if not impossible to get rid of memories? Storage more in the superconscious? Or shared with physical consciousness as well as superconsciousness? Or is there a data storage system out there? We will be judged at some time, does the judge have access to our value experience storage? Just pull it out of ourselves or maybe has the metaphorical check list? Just thinking out loud.
Much remains unanswered, but this quote from TUB is somewhat helpful:
(1236.2) 112:6.4 In the morontia estate the ascending mortal is endowed with the Nebadon modification of the cosmic-mind endowment of the Master Spirit of Orvonton. The mortal intellect, as such, has perished, has ceased to exist as a focalized universe entity apart from the undifferentiated mind circuits of the Creative Spirit. But the meanings and values of the mortal mind have not perished. Certain phases of mind are continued in the surviving soul; certain experiential values of the former human mind are held by the Adjuster; and there persist in the local universe the records of the human life as it was lived in the flesh, together with certain living registrations in the numerous beings who are concerned with the final evaluation of the ascending mortal, beings extending in range from seraphim to Universal Censors and probably on beyond to the Supreme.
Take care to confess your sins only to God, who know not sin and can look past (forgive) before you ask. Guilt is a poison for the soul.
156:2.7 “Said Jesus: “My disciples must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well; you must not only be cleansed from all conscious sin, but you must refuse to harbor even the feelings of guilt. If you confess your sins, they are forgiven; therefore must you maintain a conscience void of offense.”
It is the consciousness of sin that is poison and leads to guilt. Guilt leads to offense and offense leads to defensiveness.
Even though Bonita believes that guilt is “useful”. Poison is useful to some.
One man’s wine is another’s poison.
To each his own desserts.
You get lemons, make lemonade.
A kind word turns away wrath.
One man’s wine is another’s poison.
Which disciples drink wine and which drink hemlock?
156:2.7 “Said Jesus: “My disciples must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well; you must not only be cleansed from all conscious sin, but you must refuse to harbor even the feelings of guilt. If you confess your sins, they are forgiven; therefore must you maintain a conscience void of offense.”
Did Jesus say in this quote that some should harbor guilt?
A kind word turns away wrath.
Where are the kind words. You invite wrath but you will not get it from me.
Do you recall the section about the reversion directors? They create jests out of memories of past experiences of struggle. What seems so bitter to us now might make us laugh later. I’m not saying that the mother who killed her child will ever laugh about that, but she most likely will have a different, less painful, viewpoint of the whole experience on the mansion worlds. She’ll see the value gained from the experience, rather than the pain. That’s how I see it anyway, for what it’s worth.
I also wonder this poor mother’s reaction to finding her child in the nurseries, all happy and well cared for, awaiting those who loved her upon the world of birth? Context and perspective will be profoundly changed and improved on the mansion worlds. All are guilty of much, no? Sometimes by tragedy, or without bad intent, and often enough purposefully and self serving. Will this mother face this new and wondrous life and all the reconnections of loved ones without the vale of materialism and the falsehood of material death as the end of all things? Yes she probably will. This is the type of thing though that can cripple a mind and heart by the magnification of loss by guilt….a real double whammy. May the spirit touch her mind to comfort and heal such a mortal wound delivered by such a tragedy. These trials test one’s faith in our source and destiny. May this sister find her way home to God’s embrace and the assurance of glory to come.
Context and perspective will be profoundly changed and improved on the mansion worlds.
All that must be accomplished NOW is to realize your place within eternity. This cannot be done in study. It is an instantaneous event when one IS aware of God. It requires no study. It requires no time.
Keryn,
I was thinking about this subject and wondering: Isn’t the confession of one’s errors necessary for forgiveness? We cannot experience forgiveness ourselves until we forgive others. Forgiving others means that we have recognized an error in them. Sometimes we cannot see our own errors until they are made obvious by another person committing them. Recognizing them in others helps us recognize them in ourselves. When we forgive that error in another, we are gaining forgiveness for ourselves as well in that we finally become conscious of the erroneous thinking-behavior. I think this applies to evil, since a great deal of evil is not conscious. When evil becomes conscious and deliberate, it becomes sin. And I think that is another issue altogether. I’m just talking about evil here.
Another thing that is somewhat irritating about a general confession of sin, say as they do as part of the liturgy, is that it really means original sin. Original sin doesn’t exist, and that makes it hard to say those prayers and really mean them.
Keryn, I was thinking about this subject and wondering: Isn’t the confession of one’s errors necessary for forgiveness? We cannot experience forgiveness ourselves until we forgive others. Forgiving others means that we have recognized an error in them. Sometimes we cannot see our own errors until they are made obvious by another person committing them. Recognizing them in others helps us recognize them in ourselves. When we forgive that error in another, we are gaining forgiveness for ourselves as well in that we finally become conscious of the erroneous thinking-behavior. I think this applies to evil, since a great deal of evil is not conscious. When evil becomes conscious and deliberate, it becomes sin. And I think that is another issue altogether. I’m just talking about evil here. Another thing that is somewhat irritating about a general confession of sin, say as they do as part of the liturgy, is that it really means original sin. Original sin doesn’t exist, and that makes it hard to say those prayers and really mean them.
Bonita, I do not think along those lines, but I can understand that there would be value in confessing one’s errors to oneself in order to then forgive ourselves. That is a matter of personal behavior/ preference as to the means by which one utilizes their TA and their understanding of their own behavior to try to become more like God.
The quote I posted on the first page of this thread is instructive here. This is when Peter and James asked Jesus whether confession is necessary for forgiveness. I posted a longer excerpt on page 1 of this thread, but the relevant gist of it here is the following:
(1898.4)174:1.4“When a wise man understands the inner impulses of his fellows, he will love them. And when you love your brother, you have already forgiven him. This capacity to understand man’s nature and forgive his apparent wrongdoing is Godlike. If you are wise parents, this is the way you will love and understand your children, even forgive them when transient misunderstanding has apparently separated you. The child, being immature and lacking in the fuller understanding of the depth of the child-father relationship, must frequently feel a sense of guilty separation from a father’s full approval, but the true father is never conscious of any such separation. Sin is an experience of creature consciousness; it is not a part of God’s consciousness.
And don’t you think that being wise enough to recognize apparent wrongdoing in another person means that you are also capable of recognizing either the potential of making a similar mistake yourself or the realization that you have already made that mistake in the past? I don’t think it’s possible to recognize other people’s wrongdoing without having experienced it on some level yourself. Experience is what gives us wisdom. When you forgive wrongdoing in others, you are also forgiving yourself and thereby experiencing God’s forgiveness as a personal reality experience.
4:3.4 Man’s wisdom grows out of the trials and errors of human experience; . . .
130:4.11 The presence of evil constitutes proof of the inaccuracies of mind and the immaturity of the evolving self. Evil is, therefore, also a measure of imperfection in universe interpretation. The possibility of making mistakes is inherent in the acquisition of wisdom, the scheme of progressing from the partial and temporal to the complete and eternal, from the relative and imperfect to the final and perfected.
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