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Posts
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Bradly wrote: I am reminded of the positive effects that were delivered by the torture and murder of our Creator/Master Son
Incidentally Bradly, I read your posts over on truthbook concerning the purpose of the Master’s death. You are spot on, as usual. Too bad the obvious purpose of overcoming evil with good constantly gets overlooked by the churchification crowd. I give you credit for trying to explain these things.
Thanks Bonita.
I find that theme so consistent in the Papers. We cannot control what happens. But we do always determine how we respond to whatever happens. God put us in control and total determination of one thing only, our responses at the intersections of choice. It is by our choice-responses that we progress through the circles and fuse and reach Paradise….all along that whole journey, we will continue to choose at every intersection of choice to express our faith and love.
Jesus lived such a life among us and Part IV so beautifully illustrates this life, responding over and over and over to all sorts of situations, circumstances, and relationships including the most difficult of situations and circumstances. Inspirational! And instructive.
= )
Bradly wrote: It is by our choice-responses that we progress through the circles and fuse and reach Paradise….all along that whole journey, we will continue to choose at every intersection of choice to express our faith and love.Exactly. And how is it that someone else can tell you what to do at those moments of choice, or accuse you of not making the right choices, or poor choices, or no choices, or whatever, when the sovereignty of choice is yours alone. It’s so unbelievable to me that someone would have the gall to meddle in other people’s circle work. It’s outrageous, really. Isn’t that what Lucifer did?
That being said, Jesus made all his own choices and it got him killed. The world sees that as a bad thing, but it was actually a really good thing. The best thing. It just goes to show you how backward and upside down the thinking on this world is. Sorry to say.
What is your understanding regarding personality survival and, in particular, the timing of such. This quote from TUB pretty much says it in a nutshell: Under the sub-heading of Adjuster Fusion in the Personality Survival paper 112.
(1238.1)112:7.6 On the evolutionary worlds, selfhood is material; it is a thing in the universe and as such is subject to the laws of material existence. It is a fact in time and is responsive to the vicissitudes thereof. Survival decisions must here be formulated. In the morontia state the self has become a new and more enduring universe reality, and its continuing growth is predicated on its increasing attunement to the mind and spirit circuits of the universes. Survival decisions are now being confirmed. When the self attains the spiritual level, it has become a secure value in the universe, and this new value is predicated upon the fact that survival decisions have been made, which fact has been witnessed by eternal fusion with the Thought Adjuster. And having achieved the status of a true universe value, the creature becomes liberated in potential for the seeking of the highest universe value — God.
This seems to say that the first step in personality survival is that a decision must be “formulated” while on the evolutionary world. Is that others’ understanding as well? I wonder what is meant by “formulated”?
What I am getting at here, is I am wondering about my loved ones who are devoted to their atheism and would very likely never acknowledge that a survival decision is incumbent upon them or that there is any Diety that would care one way or another. Are they doomed to lose all chances of personality survival if they do not change their beliefs before their physical death?
Is this what awaits people who die as athiest:
(1232.3)112:5.2 That which comes from the Father is like the Father eternal, and this is just as true of personality, which God gives by his own freewill choice, as it is of the divine Thought Adjuster, an actual fragment of God. Man’s personality is eternal but with regard to identity a conditioned eternal reality. Having appeared in response to the Father’s will, personality will attain Deity destiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be present at the attainment of such destiny. In default of such choice, personality attains experiential Deity directly, becoming a part of the Supreme Being. The cycle is foreordained, but man’s participation therein is optional, personal, and experiential.
If so, does this mean that my atheist loved ones will not experience the Mansion Worlds and will not be recognizable as an individual personality?
“Survival decisions must here be formulated.”
I’ve been thinking about this a great deal since being recently reminded of and directed to this conversation from 5 years ago.
Since then I have studied the mortal’s faith experience and evolutionary religious experience in far more detail and new meanings and perspective have been gained. None of which conflicts with the historical posts here.
I would point out that formulating survival decisions does not mean, to me, any specific and conscious decision TO survive.
The birth of soul requires the formulation of a survival decision I think. The decision has survival qualities. The faith experience and evolutionary religious experience are recognition of and responses to the Spirit within…the awareness of the I AM and the moral response by personality TO personality.
Such decisions formulated in mind ARE survival decisions.
We are cautioned and warned about judging the personal religious experience of others by our own, or their beliefs and realty constructs based on our own.
I think the atheists I know have rejected churches and their religious authority and the hypocrisy and fears about reality and their damnung and vengeful gods which represent the twisted creeds and fear based theologies they embrace. I also rejected the same folks and the same gods once upon a time…which only demonstrates sanity and reason and a truer perspective.
After all…Jesus taught us to do right for the sake of right…not from fear of punishment.
Every moral choice and expression of truth, beauty, and goodness is a survival decision I think.
Now…there are Circle Decisions prior to fusion which do require more specific and conscious and intentional decisons…but these are of a different nature and result from our evolutionary religious experience and soul growth and wisdom gained by faith. Different topic.
Recall that the soul has its own self awareness and Spirit awareness and we must also apply the differences in unconscious, conscious, superconscious in our considerations to better understand the issues raised by Keryn’s inquiries. Conscious choices and motives grow soul but soul growth is unconscious and mostly a result of mortal experiences in the superconscious levels of mind. Differentiation between different levels of awareness is important.
Even more confusingly, to me anyway, is the fact that much soul growth and Circle Progress can achieved with very little knowledge or accuracy in our beliefs about reality. Indeed, even false beliefs and complete ignorance cannot prevent soul birth or soul growth or personality survival.
Simply amazing!! The mind’s connection to the Spirit ministries to mind and the Deity Gravity Circuits does not depend upon wisdom or knowledge or specific beliefs or accurate beliefs. The reality of the mortal to Deity connection is fully functional regardless of all such considerations!
5:2.5 (65.1) It is exceedingly difficult for the meagerly spiritualized, material mind of mortal man to experience marked consciousness of the spirit activities of such divine entities as the Paradise Adjusters. As the soul of joint mind and Adjuster creation becomes increasingly existent, there also evolves a new phase of soul consciousness which is capable of experiencing the presence, and of recognizing the spirit leadings and other supermaterial activities, of the Mystery Monitors.
5:2.6 (65.2) The entire experience of Adjuster communion is one involving moral status, mental motivation, and spiritual experience. The self-realization of such an achievement is mainly, though not exclusively, limited to the realms of soul consciousness, but the proofs are forthcoming and abundant in the manifestation of the fruits of the spirit in the lives of all such inner-spirit contactors.
5:5.13 (69.8) Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.
5:5.14 (70.1) The ability of mortal parents to procreate is not predicated on their educational, cultural, social, or economic status. The union of the parental factors under natural conditions is quite sufficient to initiate offspring. A human mind discerning right and wrong and possessing the capacity to worship God, in union with a divine Adjuster, is all that is required in that mortal to initiate and foster the production of his immortal soul of survival qualities if such a spirit-endowed individual seeks God and sincerely desires to become like him, honestly elects to do the will of the Father in heaven.
100:1.9 (1095.4) The unconscious nature of religious growth does not, however, signify that it is an activity functioning in the supposed subconscious realms of human intellect; rather does it signify creative activities in the superconscious levels of mortal mind. The experience of the realization of the reality of unconscious religious growth is the one positive proof of the functional existence of the superconsciousness.
100:6.1 (1100.3) Evolutionary religions and revelatory religions may differ markedly in method, but in motive there is great similarity. Religion is not a specific function of life; rather is it a mode of living. True religion is a wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind. And the outstanding characteristics of all religions are: unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to supreme values. This religious devotion to supreme values is shown in the relation of the supposedly irreligious mother to her child and in the fervent loyalty of nonreligionists to an espoused cause.
100:6.2 (1100.4) The accepted supreme value of the religionist may be base or even false, but it is nevertheless religious. A religion is genuine to just the extent that the value which is held to be supreme is truly a cosmic reality of genuine spiritual worth.
Brad, Keryn
This comment from 111:1.5 has always helped me to relax more about people and not worry:
“Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is about all you have of universe reality that is subject to your will, and the soul — the morontia self — will faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions which the mortal self is making. Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what mind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity.”
I do agree we should not judge others and the authors do say no human has ever been authorized to judge the soul of another person. Now, it does seem right (at least at the moment) to suggest talking about desires of the heart (soul if a person is interested in this term) regarding salvation, rather than doctrine, as y’all have said. The authors are trying to steer us to greater TACT with one another! Is this possible. They know our doctrinal authorities, creeds, doctrine and knowledge are limiting our relationships when we get dogmatic.
What does a person truly desire within oneself seems like a safe topical question between people who listen carefully.
We ascend at different rates and yes, some will lag behind a bit, but ultimately, the Gods would not want to lose even ONE soul!!! What a nice and merciful consideration!
Indeed Mark…your text posted reminded me of still another!
39:4.13 (435.6) To the inhabited worlds the quickeners of morality portray mortal life as an unbroken chain of many links. Your short sojourn on Urantia, on this sphere of mortal infancy, is only a single link, the very first in the long chain that is to stretch across universes and through the eternal ages. It is not so much what you learn in this first life; it is the experience of living this life that is important. Even the work of this world, paramount though it is, is not nearly so important as the way in which you do this work. There is no material reward for righteous living, but there is profound satisfaction—consciousness of achievement—and this transcends any conceivable material reward.
39:4.14 (435.7) The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. Men use them—advance in spirit status—by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions. The highest moral choice is the choice of the highest possible value, and always—in any sphere, in all of them—this is to choose to do the will of God. If man thus chooses, he is great, though he be the humblest citizen of Jerusem or even the least of mortals on Urantia.
Me here: It took me a long time and many times in the UB to learn that the perfecting of our motives and intentions and priorities in life are the true purpose OF this life. Wisdom will come. But experiential wisdom is an endless quest of perfecting. Perfecting our motive for living and our philosophy of living, both are something we can all accomplish with great progress in this brief life. Sincerity is simply a pure heart motivated by truth, beauty, and goodness…but not measured by knowledge or wisdom!!
What does a person truly desire within oneself seems like a safe topical question between people who listen carefully.
We ascend at different rates and yes, some will lag behind a bit, but ultimately, the Gods would not want to lose even ONE soul!!! What a nice and merciful consideration!
A fascinating point to consider! What does the heart desire? The UB says, as I understand it, that eternal survival and life beyond material death are innate desires. And that happiness and contentment are also natural and inherent desires of the human heart! We desire to be loved. We feel good when we love and serve another in love for the other.
Based on my study of the UB I have come to the conclusion that LOVE is the ‘secret sauce’ of the universe which binds all mortals and celestials into the universal family. We all seek love. Love delivers happiness and fulfillment. It doesn’t matter how ignorant or stupid or blind or how false are our beliefs, still do we respond to love. Everyone is dissatisfied and disappointed and frustrated by the karmic outcomes of self love and self importance. But if we embrace and experience the love circuit whereby we receive Divine Love according to the giving of love to others, then do we experience happiness and contentment.
This is the secret to happiness. We may find pleasure without love but we will never find lasting happiness and contentment. Every heart desires these. The faith experience of feeling the I AM within and the Divine Assurance that comes by that awareness and Presence within is something we are born with. That awareness and connection can be lost, can fade, by the personal embrace of self importance and by a childhood filled with deprivation and suffering and the lack of paternal affection and support. But that is what is truly ‘unnatural’….and so unfortunate.
Experiential wisdom comes to each of us personally and progressively in different ways and sequence and time frames. But the desire of the heart? I think that comes early and universally to all mortal children…who are so eager to be loved and give love and learn and trust and share and have fun and giggle and smile! Children must learn differently to lose this connection to God within and to become lost in the darkness of doubts and fears and suffering.
I think all can find their way back to this Light Within for it always shines and always responds. Once soul is born I think the “flicker” may be faith or simply hope itself….hope for love and hope for happiness. So long as hope lives I think so does personality survive!!
Hope is proof of potential. Potential is never squandered or destroyed or prevented from its realization! A mind who can hold ideals and idealism…reflect a personal moral standard and hope for better outcomes and are the very foundation of personal religious experience! Once the fruit of happiness is known by the experience of truth, beauty, goodness, and love…then does the mind desire more and more of that experience and we begin to express the fruits of the Spirit which come to every mind so attached to the vine or the source of love and truth and beauty and goodness and happiness!!
107:6.2 (1182.4) The Adjuster is man’s eternity possibility; man is the Adjuster’s personality possibility. Your individual Adjusters work to spiritize you in the hope of eternalizing your temporal identity. The Adjusters are saturated with the beautiful and self-bestowing love of the Father of spirits. They truly and divinely love you; they are the prisoners of spirit hope confined within the minds of men. They long for the divinity attainment of your mortal minds that their loneliness may end, that they may be delivered with you from the limitations of material investiture and the habiliments of time.
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.
103:2.7 (1131.6) Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.
103:5.5 (1134.3) Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection.
103:5.6 (1134.4) The attempt to secure equal good for the self and for the greatest number of other selves presents a problem which cannot always be satisfactorily resolved in a time-space frame. Given an eternal life, such antagonisms can be worked out, but in one short human life they are incapable of solution. Jesus referred to such a paradox when he said: “Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for the sake of the kingdom, shall find it.”
Thank you, you’ve really captured it beautifully. I like that next-to-last quote: (I added some commas)
103:5.5 (1134.3) Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self, and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of: refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses, and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection.
Lately it feels like we are choosing to collectively manifest the multiple dramas currently unfolding, in order to clearly demonstrate to ourselves and our species the emptiness of greed and selfish individualism. The only sustainable path forward is one of compassion, cooperation and selflessness on the local and global scale.
-paul
Hi Paul_Pdx!
You wrote, “Lately it feels like we are choosing to collectively manifest the multiple dramas currently unfolding, in order to clearly demonstrate to ourselves and our species the emptiness of greed and selfish individualism. The only sustainable path forward is one of compassion, cooperation and selflessness on the local and global scale.”
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I always feel obliged to ask, “Who is this “we”, Batman?”.
“Collectively manifest” is the weaponization of all forms of modern communications into false PROJECTIONS.
And what are the “multiple dramas”?
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Here’s the whole section from Paper 100:
Religion in Human Experience
4. Problems of Growth
100:4.1Religious 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.
100:4.2Religious 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.
100:4.3But 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.
100:4.4In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.
100:4.5In the mind’s eye conjure up a picture of one of your primitive ancestors of cave-dwelling times—a short, misshapen, filthy, snarling hulk of a man standing, legs spread, club upraised, breathing hate and animosity as he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a picture hardly depicts the divine dignity of man. But allow us to enlarge the picture. In front of this animated human crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Behind him, a woman and two children. Immediately you recognize that such a picture stands for the beginnings of much that is fine and noble in the human race, but the man is the same in both pictures. Only, in the second sketch you are favored with a widened horizon. You therein discern the motivation of this evolving mortal. His attitude becomes praiseworthy because you understand him. If you could only fathom the motives of your associates, how much better you would understand them. If you could only know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them.
100:4.6You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.
_____________________________________________________________Nihilism, Hedonism, Anarchy?That drama?Or am I not getting the bigger noble picture behind the drama of the snarling cave man facing off with a nasty cat?Can a philosophy for living of nihilism, depraved hedonism, state-mandated religion of atheism, and riotous anarchy on the streets give birth to greater compassion, cooperation and selflessness, eventually? Sounds like the assumption was made that the MAJORITY of a million year old human species have evolved no life support systems, institution of LIFE, honest labor, etc. where “compassion, cooperation” can be expressed as the ACTS of living in their human colony?Everybody was openly bragging about “weaponizing social media”. Now it is a crap product and dissolving into incoherence. Survival depends on getting off it making it less “convenient” for liars, thieves, and murderers.Lately it feels like we are choosing to collectively manifest the multiple dramas currently unfolding, in order to clearly demonstrate to ourselves and our species the emptiness of greed and selfish individualism. The only sustainable path forward is one of compassion, cooperation and selflessness on the local and global scale.
Thank you Paul…and I really appreciate the “we”…and agree that the global challenges of collective suffering (the multiple dramas represented by pandemic and climate change and natural disasters and war and refugee displacement and, and, etc., etc. – you know the “multiple dramas”) are indeed acting as a catalyst for more universal responses and selfless cooperation and compassion by individuals, communities, nations, and international organizations.
Globally there have been two fascinating trajectories over the past 7 decades that give evidence of our evolutionary and epochal progress. These trends are significant and measurable and factual. Remember that 80-90 years ago, the UB authors told us that the worst of the era of materialism was over.
The first trend line is that violent death and violence in general per 1000 people (per capita) is declining, significantly so, and every single decade for 7 in a row. This includes kidnapping and rape and assault as well as murder and death by starvation and disease too. This hardly seems possible based on the noise (news) machine and politics of fear and division that overwhelms us by distraction and repetition of the negative.
The second trend is the increasing numbers of dollars, resources, volunteers, and volunteer hours donated to help alleviate human suffering- from war and disaster relief to hunger relief and housing and medicine and sustainable industry and, and, and…. This trend includes government and church resources but the true surge is by the NGO and private volunteerism efforts that is sourced from and reaches to every corner of our world.
I agree we witness an embarrassing exposure of the worst of humanity which is being contrasted and will be overwhelmed by compassion and service. I think we witness the emergence of the brotherhood/sisterhood of the universal family…and our inevitable destiny.
Evidence of the success of those rulers and celestial hosts that guide us through the mortal epochs of time.
I recall that the reality response to evil inevitably overwhelms evil…a collective manifestation of truth, beauty, and goodness.
Well said Paul…
PROGRESS!!
“Collectively manifest” is the weaponization of all forms of modern communications into false PROJECTIONS.
Poppycock Alert!!
Another declaration which directly contradicts the UB. Now that’s definitely a “false PROJECTION”!!!
Now…to Paul’s well articulated insights…..
“Collectively manifest”…or collective manifestation is a teaching of the UB and describes a universal reality pattern repeated throughout the Papers. As go the parts so goes the whole. The collective population or whole of humanity essentially and effectively manifests or expresses the manifestation of the constituent individuals or parts of that whole.
Evolutionary epochal planetary progress is a result of and reflection of this very reality and universal operational fact and truth. Who does not know this? Who could disagree? How so?
Even secular social sciences know this one! It’s called culture! Mores, traditions, democracy….all express group will. Group dynamics is the study of how each group member effects the group…and how each personality added to or removed from any group changes that group.
We are also taught in the UB that the each (the part) is also affected by the collective (the whole) in two oppositional ways at the same time.
First there is the cultural momentum of the whole. Traditions and mores and cultural norms create and define and enforce – expectations, approvals and outcasts, acceptance and rejection, status quo and deviance from the norm, opportunities and freedoms and more. The part is affected by and carried forward by collective cultural evolutionary forces which express prior progress…momentum of the whole.
Second is collective inertia…the exact opposite force from momentum delivered by precisely the same traditions, mores, and cultural creations of expectations and limits and social controls (rewards and punishments) over the choices of the part/individual. The part is affected by and restrained by the same collective cultural evolutionary forces which discourage further progress…inertia of the whole repressing creative deviation from societal norms.
A truly fascinating juxtaposition whereby the same force delivers oppositional equilibrium to a fluid dynamic that is both stable and in flux, which results in endless evolutionary progress over time, slowly transforming both the collective whole by the personal experience and expressions of the part!!!! Wow!
This is why original thinkers and explorers and scientists, artists, philosophers, and prophets/visionaries are so often considered radicals and undesirable, disruptive forces who meet the resistance of inertia, habit, tradition, mores, social structures, and expectations that are threatened by change.
This is why change comes so slowly to the collective whole. But it certainly does come…as witnessed by our million year history! But its coming is not accidental. It comes by the celestial and spirit influences which minister to both the the each and the all.
The spiritization of personality and the religious experience and growth of soul is expressed within the collective which reflects that personal progress collectively. Personal experience is personally expressed. The expression of experience by each part is reflected in the collective whole.
Paul’s post reminds me of this teaching and universe reality. As science eliminates superstition and we collectively gain experiential wisdom and spiritual insight unto the greater good for the greater number and learn to balance self interest and altruism and come to know the difference in true liberty and false….then do we collectively progress toward our collective (and inevitable) destiny!
Personality survival and the collective progress took a giant leap forward with the gift of the Spirit of Truth and flood of God Fragments 2000 years ago. A real game changer in progress, acceleration, momentum, potential realization, and personal spiritual progress and survival!!!
Thanks Paul!
103:5.5 (1134.3) Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection.
103:5.6 (1134.4) The attempt to secure equal good for the self and for the greatest number of other selves presents a problem which cannot always be satisfactorily resolved in a time-space frame. Given an eternal life, such antagonisms can be worked out, but in one short human life they are incapable of solution. Jesus referred to such a paradox when he said: “Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for the sake of the kingdom, shall find it.”
Me here: Funny. I think nameless posted proof of Paul’s point in his disagreement with that point – the collective manifestation of the personal religious experience!
100:4.6 (1098.3) You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.
My thought of the day from the Foundation this morning was 2.7 below –
132:2.2 (1457.5) My brother, good and evil are merely words symbolizing relative levels of human comprehension of the observable universe. If you are ethically lazy and socially indifferent, you can take as your standard of good the current social usages. If you are spiritually indolent and morally unprogressive, you may take as your standards of good the religious practices and traditions of your contemporaries. But the soul that survives time and emerges into eternity must make a living and personal choice between good and evil as they are determined by the true values of the spiritual standards established by the divine spirit which the Father in heaven has sent to dwell within the heart of man. This indwelling spirit is the standard of personality survival.
132:2.3 (1457.6) Goodness, like truth, is always relative and unfailingly evil-contrasted. It is the perception of these qualities of goodness and truth that enables the evolving souls of men to make those personal decisions of choice which are essential to eternal survival.
132:2.4 (1458.1) The spiritually blind individual who logically follows scientific dictation, social usage, and religious dogma stands in grave danger of sacrificing his moral freedom and losing his spiritual liberty. Such a soul is destined to become an intellectual parrot, a social automaton, and a slave to religious authority.
132:2.5 (1458.2) Goodness is always growing toward new levels of the increasing liberty of moral self-realization and spiritual personality attainment—the discovery of, and identification with, the indwelling Adjuster. An experience is good when it heightens the appreciation of beauty, augments the moral will, enhances the discernment of truth, enlarges the capacity to love and serve one’s fellows, exalts the spiritual ideals, and unifies the supreme human motives of time with the eternal plans of the indwelling Adjuster, all of which lead directly to an increased desire to do the Father’s will, thereby fostering the divine passion to find God and to be more like him.
132:2.6 (1458.3) As you ascend the universe scale of creature development, you will find increasing goodness and diminishing evil in perfect accordance with your capacity for goodness-experience and truth-discernment. The ability to entertain error or experience evil will not be fully lost until the ascending human soul achieves final spirit levels.
132:2.7 (1458.4) Goodness is living, relative, always progressing, invariably a personal experience, and everlastingly correlated with the discernment of truth and beauty. Goodness is found in the recognition of the positive truth-values of the spiritual level, which must, in human experience, be contrasted with the negative counterpart—the shadows of potential evil.
132:2.8 (1458.5) Until you attain Paradise levels, goodness will always be more of a quest than a possession, more of a goal than an experience of attainment. But even as you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you experience increasing satisfaction in the partial attainment of goodness. The presence of goodness and evil in the world is in itself positive proof of the existence and reality of man’s moral will, the personality, which thus identifies these values and is also able to choose between them.
132:2.9 (1458.6) By the time of the attainment of Paradise the ascending mortal’s capacity for identifying the self with true spirit values has become so enlarged as to result in the attainment of the perfection of the possession of the light of life. Such a perfected spirit personality becomes so wholly, divinely, and spiritually unified with the positive and supreme qualities of goodness, beauty, and truth that there remains no possibility that such a righteous spirit would cast any negative shadow of potential evil when exposed to the searching luminosity of the divine light of the infinite Rulers of Paradise. In all such spirit personalities, goodness is no longer partial, contrastive, and comparative; it has become divinely complete and spiritually replete; it approaches the purity and perfection of the Supreme.
132:2.10 (1458.7) The possibility of evil is necessary to moral choosing, but not the actuality thereof. A shadow is only relatively real. Actual evil is not necessary as a personal experience. Potential evil acts equally well as a decision stimulus in the realms of moral progress on the lower levels of spiritual development. Evil becomes a reality of personal experience only when a moral mind makes evil its choice.
Me here: I think this is exactly what Paul was speaking of by his observation above:
“Lately it feels like we are choosing to collectively manifest the multiple dramas currently unfolding, in order to clearly demonstrate to ourselves and our species the emptiness of greed and selfish individualism. The only sustainable path forward is one of compassion, cooperation and selflessness on the local and global scale.”
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