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Do you really think you can train the mind to be happy? I used to think so, and read a lot of self-help books about changing my attitude to happy-flappy the world is my oyster type of thinking. But I have come to realize that happiness is the result of training the mind to focus on reality, not on happiness. Human ideas about happiness change like the wind. True happiness is a coordinated and balanced personality, a personality who can equitably negotiate between itself and other selves with an edge toward selfless interest in others.
Thank you Bonita!! Great insights.
I do think we can “train” the mind to be happy and I believe that it is so in some families and cultures today, but by example, now, rather than by any intellectual education. Happy people are teachers of happiness I think. As you say, “happiness is the result of training the mind to focus on reality”, and reality is love and service and the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness….reality IS happy!! The pursuit of material pleasures, properties/things, power and domination over others, etc. is identification with the lower animal mind and nature. Therefore, unhappy people are those who are not yet transferring the seat of their identity from material to spiritual. They do not recognize or respond to the fact of our dual nature and the truth that happiness comes only from one side of that dual nature.
This is a fact – a universal fact and truth. The pursuit of happiness only results in happiness by the adoption and embrace of specific motivations, intentions, and priorities….to know God within and join the family of God’s creation by faith and in loving service one to another. Is this not a knowledge we share here? Is it not a knowledge that happy people may impart to the young, the disenfranchised, and the unhappy people of the world who seek happiness in all the wrong places and by all the wrong methods, and do so and fail so by the simple fact of the inferiority of their motives, intentions, and priorities in living?
I imagine the ratio of happy people to unhappy people is an actual, empirical measurement of planetary, epochal progress. And those born into Light and Life, are “trained”, by example and by actual education, that happiness is the fruit of reality alignment within. One of the most surprising teachings to me is the inherent value and benefit of uncertainty! An eye opener. There can be no adventure without it….uncertainty in the intersections of situation, circumstance, and personalities in time are beautiful in and of themselves to the discerning mind, whose confidence does not require certainty of choice or outcome. We are to feast and fatten on this form of beauty in our experience. Anticipation of the unknown and the uncertain adds a wonderful flavor and element of discovery in our lives. This, to me, is the more difficult lesson…to be happy, not despite of, but because of uncertainty as the source of wonder and adventure every day.
100:4.1 (1097.5) Religious living is devoted living, and devoted living is creative living, original and spontaneous. New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns. New meanings only emerge amid conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the higher values connoted in superior meanings.
100:4.2 (1097.6) Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.
100:4.3 (1097.7) But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of love. Health, mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
Thanks all!!
No, not throughly. Sorry, I’m skipping in and out of here with too much on agenda. Y’all do well here; carry on w/o me!
Mark Kurtz wrote: Y’all do well here; carry on w/o me!Well, that’s not the answer I was looking for . . . but thanks for your honesty. I’ve always suspected that not everyone reads my posts. That’s okay, no problem, I’m not offended. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity on the matter. It does make you feel like you’re in an alternate universe sometimes though . . . .
Bradly wrote: I imagine the ratio of happy people to unhappy people is an actual, empirical measurement of planetary, epochal progress.Hadn’t thought of it that way. But doesn’t it depend on how you define happiness? I just saw news clips of hundreds of people scantily dressed, dancing and drinking in bars in Vegas. They all looked happy.
Hahahaha!! Looks ain’t everything…..or lasting. We shall see how their pleasures look on them in the morning! But, of course, happy people do enjoy pleasures. Pleasures may not deliver lasting happiness but true happiness does deliver pleasure of many sorts by many sources. This is the problem I think….people think they are the same thing but pleasure as a substitute for happiness is both shallow and short lived. I don’t think there even is such a thing as happiness without pleasure….true happiness is itself pleasure. In this equation the pleasures of contentment, satisfaction, and material enjoyment are a result of happiness but happiness is not a result of material pleasures (meaning self gratifying in the physical/material sense) or pleasure seeking.
The good news is I am not the one who defines happiness….or measures it. But I doubt true happiness exists except within the Divine circuit of love and spirit gravity. It takes two or more to feel the most happy….anyone + God or anyone + God + anyone else! Happiness is circuit dependent I think. It’s even a measure, in its way, of our connectedness to the circuits….not happy? Hmmm….not connected. Don’t know if I’m making any sense. Happiness is an expression of beauty within. Unhappiness is an expression of the lack of beauty within and the disconnection from the circuitry of Havona.
Don’t know if I’m making any sense. Happiness is an expression of beauty within. Unhappiness is an expression of the lack of beauty within and the disconnection from the circuitry of Havona.
Yeah, you’re making a lot of sense. I think you’re happy when you feel secure in your relationship with God, sure that you’ll survive and go on with God into eternity. It’s about the certainty of the love relationship with God. If there’s absolutely no doubt that God loves you and you know as a reality in your soul that nothing can change that fact, you’ve gotta be happy! Happiness can only grow in such circumstances, the more you give to the relationship, the happier you get. And that’s a beautiful thing.
There’s a quote that explains the psychology of this type of thing. Experiencing the fact that the reality of believing in God is an actual reality in your own personal experience. They describe it as profoundly deep, like a work of cosmic art, and that has to make you happy.
101:1.4 It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.
On first reading that quote on the study of another’s religion as psychology, it seemed off target. Wouldn’t anthropology have been a better word selection, I opined. But then on deeper thought it became apparent anthropology covers all human endeavors, religions, totems, foods, etc. Psychology is the right word, if it is essentially defined as the study of human motivations.
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It took a long to realize, I’m happiest when I know I’ve made someone else happy. (Is that the comedian’s motive? Parents’ motive? Minister’s motive?). Of course one must be judicious in rendering service, lest it create more harm than happy. But in worship, intimacy with the Indweller, that’s happiness, but it is different from service joy, seems like. It’s beyond or above mere happy. It’s Beauty embraced.
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Richard E Warren
It took a long to realize, I’m happiest when I know I’ve made someone else happy. (Is that the comedian’s motive? Parents’ motive? Minister’s motive?). Of course one must be judicious in rendering service, lest it create more harm than happy. But in worship, intimacy with the Indweller, that’s happiness, but it is different from service joy, seems like. It’s beyond or above mere happy. It’s Beauty embraced.
True service is not possible unless you first align yourself with the universe then dedicate your aligned and unified self to doing God’s will. I don’t think you can call anything service unless it is the will of God. Anything you do short of that has some element of the self in it. If you’re trying to make others happy so you can be happy, it’s really about you, your happiness is your underlying motive. (I’m not saying that’s what you do Rick, please don’t take that personally.)
True service can only come as a natural outflow of a love-saturated soul, so the inner relationship always takes precedence over relationships with other people. Likewise, true service, like goodness, would have to be unconscious. It would simply be a natural way of behaving toward others based upon the stability of the inner life. Also, I don’t think you can go out shopping for service. Service opportunities come to you based upon your trustworthiness. Service really is about extending the kingdom of truth, beauty and goodness through socialization of the personality. But I think I’ve been saying this for years and years now, so I’ll shut up about it.
Here is a list of some of the supporting quotes:
5:4.3; 28:5.17; 28:6.16; 99:6.2; 140:10.6; 141:7.5; 170:3.9; 180:2.1
(1135.3, 103:6.1) “… Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of another’s religion is psychology.”
And there was me thinking this was merely a moment of Melchizedek mirth
Nigel
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God is Beautiful, God is Beauty. All things beautiful must derive from the potentials of the Absolutes, actualized by the Great I AM, personalized by God Our Father, no? If we take the recommended origin/history/destiny approach to grasping the meaning, value and purpose of Beauty, then we might conjecture: The potentials for Beauty were created and unleashed by God, Beauty spread from Paradise to perfect Havona, out across the time/space universes, even to the outlying shores of Urantia.
Beauty seizes attention. Beauty stirs the soul to appreciation, inspiration, even imitation and replication. Beauty, like Truth and Goodness, are always relative to God and Paradise. In time and space Beauty is perceived unequally. But time/space worlds would be little more than repugnant prisons without Beauty. At times Beauty goes unrecognized, unappreciated, even “scarred” and “seared” by ignorant or malicious creatures. And yet humans with an inner glow, a loving inner life with God, are always Beautiful no matter appearance, age, illness or deformity.
So do you think Beauty actually circulates, returns to God, via our experience and through the Supreme?
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Richard E Warren
Hello Rick….and thanks for the topic. I would propose that your question requires consideration that truth and beauty and goodness are (or may be?) aspects/functions/expressions of love. Love is a circuit or, perhaps more accurately, is within every gravity circuit save physical/material gravity; personality, mind, and spirit are either love generating and distributing or, at the mortal level are flickering receptors of response and transfer, and the higher levels of mind and spirit are finer and stronger circuits of transmission and response for love itself. The expression of love results in truth, beauty, and goodness…..and, miraculously (to me) appears to flow and function regardless of source, knowledge, experience, wisdom, belief, etc.
I consider love to be God’s “secret sauce” which permeates all levels of creation and reality and which infects, affects, and effects all beings and all relationships/intersections of all beings who are either spirit dominated or simply spirit connected…at the lowest levels by the Adjutants only. Mortal love response can result in the Thought Adjuster arrival even before the Son’s Spirit is gifted to a world and do so with the most primitive and ignorant of creature. God is love and its source and it flows through every being and mind, all of whom are compelled to respond and to share this force. We are to love God and one another first….truth, beauty, and goodness spring forth as the effects of this great cause – love. It is inherently so. Which comes first? Which perpetuates all else? Where does it lead? To its very source. The circuit of love is not named in the text I do not think….perhaps because it is so obvious? (even if it did take a few decades of study for me to come to this conclusion)
All circuits abide within the one circuit of love I think….but I look forward to further reflections and juxtapositions of perspective.
Rick Warren wrote: So do you think Beauty actually circulates, returns to God, via our experience and through the Supreme?
Well, if love embraces truth, beauty and goodness (5:4.6), and if love is a great circuit from the Father to the Supreme (117:6.10), then yes. But it’s not just any experience of ours that is part of this circuit. The concept of beauty has to be unified in power and personalized in spirit (56:6.3). In other words, just being awed by aesthetic beauty is not enough. It has to mean something and then do something. That’s how I read it, anyhow.
117:6.10 The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme.
5:4.6 Jesus revealed a God of love, and love is all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness.
56:6.3 The material-minded creatures of the evolutionary worlds of the seven superuniverses can comprehend Deity unity only as it is evolving in this power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. On any level of existence God cannot exceed the conceptual capacity of the beings who live on such a level. Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love and then progress through ascending deity levels to the comprehension of the Supreme. Deity, having been thus grasped as unified in power, can then be personalized in spirit to creature understanding and attainment.
The circuit of love is not named in the text I do not think….perhaps because it is so obvious?
Check out quote 117:6.10 above. The circuit of love is definitely in there.
Hello Rick….and thanks for the topic. I would propose that your question requires consideration that truth and beauty and goodness are (or may be?) aspects/functions/expressions of love. Love is a circuit or, perhaps more accurately, is within every gravity circuit save physical/material gravity; personality, mind, and spirit are either love generating and distributing or, at the mortal level are flickering receptors of response and transfer, and the higher levels of mind and spirit are finer and stronger circuits of transmission and response for love itself. The expression of love results in truth, beauty, and goodness…..and, miraculously (to me) appears to flow and function regardless of source, knowledge, experience, wisdom, belief, etc. I consider love to be God’s “secret sauce” which permeates all levels of creation and reality and which infects, affects, and effects all beings and all relationships/intersections of all beings who are either spirit dominated or simply spirit connected…at the lowest levels by the Adjutants only. Mortal love response can result in the Thought Adjuster arrival even before the Son’s Spirit is gifted to a world and do so with the most primitive and ignorant of creature. God is love and its source and it flows through every being and mind, all of whom are compelled to respond and to share this force. We are to love God and one another first….truth, beauty, and goodness spring forth as the effects of this great cause – love. It is inherently so. Which comes first? Which perpetuates all else? Where does it lead? To its very source. The circuit of love is not named in the text I do not think….perhaps because it is so obvious? (even if it did take a few decades of study for me to come to this conclusion) All circuits abide within the one circuit of love I think….but I look forward to further reflections and juxtapositions of perspective.
Thanks Bradley. Hope that secret sauce gets wide marketing and dissemination.
There’s this old punchline cook’s use. Your response brought it to mind. If people like their meal and they ask, what’s your secret ingredient? Cook’s (smilingly) reply: LOVE! And it is actually true. Food tastes and assimilates better that has been lovingly prepared and blessed.
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Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: So do you think Beauty actually circulates, returns to God, via our experience and through the Supreme?
Well, if love embraces truth, beauty and goodness (5:4.6), and if love is a great circuit from the Father to the Supreme (117:6.10), then yes. But it’s not just any experience of ours that is part of this circuit. The concept of beauty has to be unified in power and personalized in spirit (56:6.3). In other words, just being awed by aesthetic beauty is not enough. It has to mean something and then do something. That’s how I read it, anyhow.
117:6.10 The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. 5:4.6 Jesus revealed a God of love, and love is all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness. 56:6.3 The material-minded creatures of the evolutionary worlds of the seven superuniverses can comprehend Deity unity only as it is evolving in this power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. On any level of existence God cannot exceed the conceptual capacity of the beings who live on such a level. Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love and then progress through ascending deity levels to the comprehension of the Supreme. Deity, having been thus grasped as unified in power, can then be personalized in spirit to creature understanding and attainment.
Thanks for the reply. One would think/presume that Beauty equivalates to love, or at least an aspect of it.
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Richard E Warren
Thanks for the reply. One would think/presume that Beauty equivalates to love, or at least an aspect of it.
Is equivalates a word? Do you mean beauty is equal to love? Just guessing at what you meant there.
I think beauty is only one aspect of divinity. Doesn’t the quote (5:4.6) say that love embraces three aspects of divinity: truth, beauty and goodness? I’m not sure, but I think we’re supposed to integrate all three in personality experience in order to get to love. The more I read TUB, the more I realize that they want us to think elliptically, get all facets of reality coalesced into our characters as part of the goal of divinity attainment. Gotta use all the ingredients in the recipe if you’re gonna cook with love. Hope that makes sense. Getting hungry.
Thanks for the reply. One would think/presume that Beauty equivalates to love, or at least an aspect of it.
Is equivalates a word? Do you mean beauty is equal to love? Just guessing at what you meant there. I think beauty is only one aspect of divinity. Doesn’t the quote (5:4.6) say that love embraces three aspects of divinity: truth, beauty and goodness? I’m not sure, but I think we’re supposed to integrate all three in personality experience in order to get to love. The more I read TUB, the more I realize that they want us to think elliptically, get all facets of reality coalesced into our characters as part of the goal of divinity attainment. Gotta use all the ingredients in the recipe if you’re gonna cook with love. Hope that makes sense. Getting hungry.
Webster’s states: a : like in signification or import
But of course you’re right, one aspect of reality should not be declared everything. Those warnings about abstraction come to mind. Beauty, evidently cannot be dissected and examined to see what makes beauty beautiful.
Bon Applepie, as we say here in the boonies.
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Richard E Warren
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