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On the first question: philosophically, I think it might mean the personal comprehension that there is potential, that decisions and choices affect future outcomes…that destiny is not fate or predetermined but depends upon now and today…that what we choose and do now matters….that the universe contains non-mechanical realities whose future depends upon now. Which delivers a profound paradox to the mind which believes that God is fixed and unchangeable and infinite and eternally timeless….sort of unimaginable and unapproachable and impersonal I think. How does God become personal? How does God reside in time and motion? How do potentials exist rather than absolutes only? How is that and them who are now perfected and complete create and manage that which is not?
Very interesting and not at all what I was thinking, although what you say is related. You say philosophically, but I interpreted the quote to mean actually experiencing the reality of the Supreme. I don’t think grasping the reality of the Supreme philosophically gives as much security as does the consciousness of actual experience. I guess I’m asking, what is it in the consciousness of the religionist about the reality of the Supreme that gives such a sense of security and sense of triumphant glory? Here’s the quote again:
100:6.7 (1101.2) There is a sense of security, associated with the realization of triumphing glory, resident in the consciousness of the religionist who has grasped the reality of the Supreme, and who pursues the goal of the Ultimate.
They do tell us that the psychic circles are, ” . . . meaning grasps and value realizations of progressive approach to the morontia consciousness of initial relationship of the evolutionary soul with the emerging Supreme Being.” (110:6.16) They also tell us that those in the higher circles are more conscious of, ” . . . experiential relation to the Supreme Being- universe citizenship.” (110:6.16)
So, they’re telling us that grasping the reality of the Supreme has something to do with morontia consciousness, which I interpret to mean some kind of soul consciousness. I would think it also has to do with the recognition of the interrelatedness of all three levels of reality, which is another way of saying, ” . . . elliptic symmetry of reality and [with] the essential curvature of all relation concepts.” (103:6.14) Naturally, this would also include the realization that the Spirit of Truth is the revealer of all true relations of things and beings (56:10.13), since he is himself a revelation of the Supreme (33:2.4; 101:6.5; 117:1.8; 117:3.4; 119:8.3; 119:8.7; 120:0.7)).
So in a nutshell, I think anyone who is conscious of the experience of fellowshipping with Michael is also conscious of the reality of the Supreme, at least on some level. Such a consciousness would naturally include relations to things and persons, he being the one who directs the loving contact of all persons, which all leads to awareness of cosmic citizenship. Also, I think progress in the psychic circles would increase the enhancement mentioned below. And wouldn’t that relationship experience provide abundant security and triumphant glory as well?
194:2.4 The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael.
So in a nutshell, I think anyone who is conscious of the experience of fellowshipping with Michael is also conscious of the reality of the Supreme, at least on some level. Such a consciousness would naturally include relations to things and persons, he being the one who directs the loving contact of all persons, which all leads to awareness of cosmic citizenship. Also, I think progress in the psychic circles would increase the enhancement mentioned below. And wouldn’t that relationship experience provide abundant security and triumphant glory as well?
194:2.4 The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael.
Exactly!! I did not mean to merely intellectualize or speak in the abstract…I personally had experienced God within….the whisper, the confirmer, the comforter, the personal embrace, the love of God within….as Jesus said I should and would….by faith and by attentiveness within. But, I was also taught and also believed God was infinite, eternal, absolute, and beyond my comprehension or approach. A paradox….resolved only by the Supreme. If one has felt or otherwise experienced God and the Spirit within, one has indeed experienced the reality of the Supreme for the Supreme is integral and central to the spirit ministries within mind and of soul.
They tell us that the Adjuster is the secret behind the realization of the existence of the Supreme (101:6.2). Isn’t the Supreme the result of the interrelationship between the existential and the experiential? The Adjuster is the existential portion of our experiential existence. The soul is the result of that interrelationship, and it’s the soul which is involved in evolving the Supreme. I think it’s all about the soul, that’s where discovery and recognition take place. Then, the Spirit of Truth reveals the meaning of it all to the mind so the personality can act on it, which contributes to the evolution of the Supreme, by making “thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”. (Which is where your philosophy on potentials and actuals come in.)
They also tell us that the evolution of the Supreme is dependent upon every wisdom-action of every personality (117:4.1). I would think that such wisdom-action begins with the revelation of divine wisdom in the soul. I think TUB defines wisdom as, ” . . . knowledge directed by experiential reason and illuminated by divine revelation.”(92:2.1) There seems to be two components to wisdom, but I think the inner component is meant to illuminate the outer component, to guide action. Otherwise, I think we’d be functioning on the animal level and not contributing to the Supreme. It is interesting that only the two upper adjutants, worship and wisdom, resonate in the Supreme.
Thanks for bringing the Supreme into this discussion of Religion In Human Experience! I found this….
115:0.1 (1260.1) WITH God the Father, sonship is the great relationship. With God the Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status — one must do something as well as be something.
….which got me to thinking: our personal and religious quest is to discern meanings and discover values which requires both sincerity and the act of choosing/deciding within while facing the intersections of circumstance, situation, incident, and relationship….one must do something and be something both…a sincere faith child acting as such! Faith is an expression or an action – acting upon belief….in other words Religion In Human Experience is in no way a passive thing….one must do something and be about the doing and the living to have such experience and to grow soul and to develop wisdom. And while the sincere religionist is seeking meaning and value (doing), apparently we are also becoming and actualizing meaning and value! The soul aggregates and integrates our personalized meaning and value and all of that goes to the Supreme whereby our achievements contribute TO the Supreme and all of creation….we gain meaning and value by its discovery!
By our simple existence are we cherished and valued by God the Father/Parent but only by what we righteously choose and do may we contribute value and meaning to the experiential creation and the Supreme. Which means our value IN creation increases as we traverse the circles, gain wisdom, become more effective in our loving service ministry, gain power and purpose by eternal fusion, and gain universe experience through time and by disappointment, failure, achievement, success, etc., and become ever more educated and knowledgeable in universe reality and affairs, or more simply stated – as we grow in the Spirit. Isn’t this truth and fact what delivers the need for our loyalty? Isn’t this the core of our duty?
Reality is a function of and based upon love and endless service adventures. The each in loving service to the all so that none be isolated or abandoned or without or in need or suffering or lonely or destitute or without value or without purpose….or without love. Are not all problems for all beings eliminated by such a reality? Are not all needs met for all by such a truth? One must simply embrace reality to realize reality for ourselves…and for all others too.
We are taught there different levels of love from the self serving level of the Golden Rule to brotherly to fatherly to Divine levels. But the greater levels do not dismiss or trivialize the lesser levels, so that which is the greatest love still delivers that which is best for self does it not? What is best for me? The loyalty, love, and service of the each to all others. What delivers the fruit of the vine (Spirit) from which I am most blessed and nourished? What best eliminates fear, loneliness, suffering in the each? The loyalty, love, and service the each provides to others. Self is best served by its self forgetting service to others. To be most loved give love. Or so I see it?
The analogy of the fruit upon the branch attached to the vine does not quite illustrate the whole story I do not think….for the fruit of each branch also feeds the vine and all other branches too. It is a circulatory system. But it is an ever growing and enlarging and perfecting system. The fruit of the Spirit that each branch grows becomes a greater and greater harvest of fruit with an ever increasing effect on those individually near to hand and to all others collectively….all such fruit feeds ourselves and all others and certain others. As the branch grows in diameter and strength, the more fruit does it bear…and the better the fruit borne of that branch over time.
And we are taught that our steps and paths are influenced and guided by TA and angels to those intersections of decision and expression which helps us grow and helps us serve…both…if we pay attention and learn to discern opportunities – to discover meanings and value while we also seek moments and opportunities to serve others in love….and by this religious experience do we feast on the fruit of the vine, and we grow that fruit, and we deliver its nourishment to others, and do we also contribute to the strength of the vine itself!
116:0.3 (1268.3) Experiential growth implies creature-Creator partnership — God and man in association. Growth is the earmark of experiential Deity: Havona did not grow; Havona is and always has been; it is existential like the everlasting Gods who are its source. But growth characterizes the grand universe.
116:0.4 (1268.4) The Almighty Supreme is a living and evolving Deity of power and personality. His present domain, the grand universe, is also a growing realm of power and personality. His destiny is perfection, but his present experience encompasses the elements of growth and incomplete status.
116:1.1 (1268.6) The experience of every evolving creature personality is a phase of the experience of the Almighty Supreme. The intelligent subjugation of every physical segment of the superuniverses is a part of the growing control of the Almighty Supreme. The creative synthesis of power and personality is a part of the creative urge of the Supreme Mind and is the very essence of the evolutionary growth of unity in the Supreme Being.
116:3.4 (1271.2) 3. The indwelling presences of the First Source and Center. Mind unifies spirit causations with energy reactions; bestowal ministry unifies divinity descensions with creature ascensions; and the indwelling fragments of the Universal Father actually unify the evolving creatures with God on Paradise. There are many such presences of the Father which indwell numerous orders of personalities, and in mortal man these divine fragments of God are the Thought Adjusters. The Mystery Monitors are to human beings what the Paradise Trinity is to the Supreme Being. The Adjusters are absolute foundations, and upon absolute foundations freewill choice can cause to be evolved the divine reality of an eternaliter nature, finaliter nature in the case of man, Deity nature in God the Supreme.
116:7.6 (1276.7) Man’s urge for Paradise perfection, his striving for God-attainment, creates a genuine divinity tension in the living cosmos which can only be resolved by the evolution of an immortal soul; this is what happens in the experience of a single mortal creature. But when all creatures and all Creators in the grand universe likewise strive for God-attainment and divine perfection, there is built up a profound cosmic tension which can only find resolution in the sublime synthesis of almighty power with the spirit person of the evolving God of all creatures, the Supreme Being.
117:0.1 (1278.1) TO THE extent that we do the will of God in whatever universe station we may have our existence, in that measure the almighty potential of the Supreme becomes one step more actual. The will of God is the purpose of the First Source and Center as it is potentialized in the three Absolutes, personalized in the Eternal Son, conjoined for universe action in the Infinite Spirit, and eternalized in the everlasting patterns of Paradise. And God the Supreme is becoming the highest finite manifestation of the total will of God.
Me here: All creatures, high and low, contribute to reality and all actualize potential and all add more potential by our contributions and actualization. There is no beach without grains of sand and there is no ocean without drops of water….the Supreme is the beach and also the ocean and encompasses all beings in its totality…but also directs the currents and waves and wind….the Supreme grows in size and power….one grain of sand and one drop of water at a time….by all free will choices in all of time. Or so I understand….
But then there’s this quote:
(31.2) 1:7.2 Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean. Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.
115:0.1 (1260.1) WITH God the Father, sonship is the great relationship. With God the Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status — one must do something as well as be something.
I think it’s worthwhile to mention that doing something does not necessarily mean running out to convert the heathens, save souls, feed the poor and house the homeless. The section that follows the above quote is about mind structure, the relativity of conceptual frames of reference toward reality. Thinking is a form of doing in that it naturally precedes action. Thoughtless action, or misguided action can be evil. Getting the evil out of one’s thinking would be the first step towards doing, in my opinion, and that can only happen by staying connected to the fruit vine.
By doing, I think they mean for us to avoid the trap of navel gazing or the comfort of standardized ideologies. Ideas are supposed to be gathered together to form supernal ideals, then and only then, through spiritual insight, are they validated and made actionable. But, the ideas come first. Blind doing is not the ticket, nor is all well-intentioned doing. Doing needs to be enlightened in order to repercuss in the Supreme. Sometimes this means waiting for the proper time, like Jesus always did.
p1120:4 102:2.7 Evolutionary man does not naturally relish hard work. To keep pace in his life experience with the impelling demands and the compelling urges of a growing religious experience means incessant activity in spiritual growth, intellectual expansion, factual enlargement, and social service. There is no real religion apart from a highly active personality. Therefore do the more indolent of men often seek to escape the rigors of truly religious activities by a species of ingenious self-deception through resorting to a retreat to the false shelter of stereotyped religious doctrines and dogmas. But true religion is alive. Intellectual crystallization of religious concepts is the equivalent of spiritual death. You cannot conceive of religion without ideas, but when religion once becomes reduced only to an idea, it is no longer religion; it has become merely a species of human philosophy.
p1113:7 101:7.1 An idea is only a theoretical plan for action, while a positive decision is a validated plan of action. A stereotype is a plan of action accepted without validation. The materials out of which to build a personal philosophy of religion are derived from both the inner and the environmental experience of the individual.
p1112:3 101:6.7 Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth—universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.
118.6.6 In the mortal life, paths of differential conduct are continually opening and closing, and during the times when choice is possible the human personality is constantly deciding between these many courses of action. Temporal volition is linked to time, and it must await the passing of time to find opportunity for expression. Spiritual volition has begun to taste liberation from the fetters of time, having achieved partial escape from time sequence, and that is because spiritual volition is self-identifying with the will of God.
The analogy of the fruit upon the branch attached to the vine does not quite illustrate the whole story I do not think….for the fruit of each branch also feeds the vine and all other branches too. It is a circulatory system. But it is an ever growing and enlarging and perfecting system.
I think I know what you’re saying here, but not sure. Are you talking about the great circuit of love:
117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.
Spiritual fruits are the different flavors of the love grape:
p1946:3 180:2.5 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.
Thanks Bonita for your illuminations and clarifications and related text….always helpful and appreciated. Indeed the value of what we do is first, and primarily I think, determined by our sincerity of motive and righteous intent but also by the experiential wisdom, derived from both revelation and reasoned experience response – this reasoned and revealed wisdom applied to our sincerity is progressively ever more effect-ive and increasingly becomes an expression of our own unique experience in personal religion. As we traverse the Circles and gain experience upon and after fusion, our sincerity grows in effect and in range of effect I think by gains in wisdom. Thus the quest for meaning and value never ceases or subsides and neither does its expressions by each ascendant being or by the Supreme.
And yes, I was attempting to describe the great circuit of love…which is still not yet completed by the Supreme’s reception either since that love flow and circuit continues onward to and through the vine as well…to the each and the all….in Paradise and in time and for eternity….love never stops its perpetual motion. Neither is its power diminished by those who refuse it by refusing to freely give it – those who have chosen separation and disconnection from the circuit and flow; rather is the flow increased and energized and amplified by every open circuit connection that gives love to others. Always actualizing prior potentials and thusly creating new potentials for future eventuations and realizations and actualization in reality.
Interesting how effect and value only requires righteous sincerity but wisdom adds an important quality to both over time that increasingly stabilizes the one and the all …..but however less wise or more wise righteous sincerity might be in its act, its effect and outcomes are positive universally within the one and throughout the all….and endless feedback loop finding amplification, harmonization, directionalization, and application by the Supreme.
117:0.4 (1278.4) The parts and individuals of the grand universe evolve as a reflection of the total evolution of the Supreme, while in turn the Supreme is the synthetic cumulative total of all grand universe evolution. From the mortal viewpoint both are evolutionary and experiential reciprocals.
Paper 100 ends with a study and recital of those attributes the Master demonstrated for us to behold, examine, and consider as inspiration for our own ideals and personal embrace and expression. It’s always been important to me how very sincere Jesus was in every intersection of relationship, situation, and circumstance. How balanced was/is this person always….poised indeed. While he felt the full spectrum of emotions, only compassion ever overcame him I think….all others were fully mastered at a young age. Always it seemed, he lived in the very presence of God and felt always unafraid of any and all repercussions to personal decisions and the free will choices made in sincerity…no matter the lack of experience or wisdom which may have attended such choices. A study of Jesus most certainly leads the tadpole to the humble acknowledgement of personal progress still to come.
“Behold the man!”
100:7.2 (1101.6) The unfailing kindness of Jesus touched the hearts of men, but his stalwart strength of character amazed his followers. He was truly sincere; there was nothing of the hypocrite in him. He was free from affectation; he was always so refreshingly genuine. He never stooped to pretense, and he never resorted to shamming. He lived the truth, even as he taught it. He was the truth. He was constrained to proclaim saving truth to his generation, even though such sincerity sometimes caused pain. He was unquestioningly loyal to all truth.
100:7.3 (1101.7) But the Master was so reasonable, so approachable. He was so practical in all his ministry, while all his plans were characterized by such sanctified common sense. He was so free from all freakish, erratic, and eccentric tendencies. He was never capricious, whimsical, or hysterical. In all his teaching and in everything he did there was always an exquisite discrimination associated with an extraordinary sense of propriety.
100:7.4 (1102.1) The Son of Man was always a well-poised personality. Even his enemies maintained a wholesome respect for him; they even feared his presence. Jesus was unafraid. He was surcharged with divine enthusiasm, but he never became fanatical. He was emotionally active but never flighty. He was imaginative but always practical. He frankly faced the realities of life, but he was never dull or prosaic. He was courageous but never reckless; prudent but never cowardly. He was sympathetic but not sentimental; unique but not eccentric. He was pious but not sanctimonious. And he was so well-poised because he was so perfectly unified.
2:0.2 (33.2) The nature of God can be studied in a revelation of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of full consciousness of divinity.
2:6.4 (41.2) The concept of God as a king-judge, although it fostered a high moral standard and created a law-respecting people as a group, left the individual believer in a sad position of insecurity respecting his status in time and in eternity. The later Hebrew prophets proclaimed God to be a Father to Israel; Jesus revealed God as the Father of each human being. The entire mortal concept of God is transcendently illuminated by the life of Jesus. Selflessness is inherent in parental love. God loves not like a father, but as a father. He is the Paradise Father of every universe personality.
102:8.7 (1128.3) But religion is never enhanced by an appeal to the so-called miraculous. The quest for miracles is a harking back to the primitive religions of magic. True religion has nothing to do with alleged miracles, and never does revealed religion point to miracles as proof of authority. Religion is ever and always rooted and grounded in personal experience. And your highest religion, the life of Jesus, was just such a personal experience: man, mortal man, seeking God and finding him to the fullness during one short life in the flesh, while in the same human experience there appeared God seeking man and finding him to the full satisfaction of the perfect soul of infinite supremacy. And that is religion, even the highest yet revealed in the universe of Nebadon — the earth life of Jesus of Nazareth.
We are taught that the story of Jesus’ life in Part IV is a story of Religion In Human Experience. Jesus was first the Son of Man and was a natural born mortal of the realm before his eventual transfiguration and glorious attainment of his Master Son status while still among us mortals. His life exemplifies that profound trust, assurance, and confidence in God’s love and care and the fruits of the Spirit which comes to every faith child and branch of the vine. His life truly can be our inspiration and guide in our own religious experience. So when reading about Jesus, consider his truths for our own and his example as a very human illustration of the inner life we may each and all embrace for ourselves.
And while it is true some mortals are disappointed in one another and fearful for human destiny, Jesus had a great, even unshakeable confidence in humankind….he believed in us and our nature and had absolute confidence in God’s paternal and Divine love for each and every child in creation. Jesus saw the inner light whether bright or but a flicker and truly enjoyed other people and was kind and generous, not from duty, but from genuine affection of the human spirit and light within us each in our own personal and unique ways.
Paper 100 Continues:
100:7.5 (1102.2) Jesus’ originality was unstifled. He was not bound by tradition or handicapped by enslavement to narrow conventionality. He spoke with undoubted confidence and taught with absolute authority. But his superb originality did not cause him to overlook the gems of truth in the teachings of his predecessors and contemporaries. And the most original of his teachings was the emphasis of love and mercy in the place of fear and sacrifice.
100:7.6 (1102.3) Jesus was very broad in his outlook. He exhorted his followers to preach the gospel to all peoples. He was free from all narrow-mindedness. His sympathetic heart embraced all mankind, even a universe. Always his invitation was, “Whosoever will, let him come.”
100:7.7 (1102.4) Of Jesus it was truly said, “He trusted God.” As a man among men he most sublimely trusted the Father in heaven. He trusted his Father as a little child trusts his earthly parent. His faith was perfect but never presumptuous. No matter how cruel nature might appear to be or how indifferent to man’s welfare on earth, Jesus never faltered in his faith. He was immune to disappointment and impervious to persecution. He was untouched by apparent failure.
100:7.8 (1102.5) He loved men as brothers, at the same time recognizing how they differed in innate endowments and acquired qualities. “He went about doing good.”
100:7.9 (1102.6) Jesus was an unusually cheerful person, but he was not a blind and unreasoning optimist. His constant word of exhortation was, “Be of good cheer.” He could maintain this confident attitude because of his unswerving trust in God and his unshakable confidence in man. He was always touchingly considerate of all men because he loved them and believed in them. Still he was always true to his convictions and magnificently firm in his devotion to the doing of his Father’s will.
Even in the Bible, in such an abbreviated rendition of Jesus and his character revealed to us there, Jesus was so admired, beloved, and respected by those who wrote of him and there was such trust, courage, and strength in those teachings attributed to and quoted of him. It’s always been remarkable to me how so many since then could fall so in love with this person. Now, with the Papers before us, it is revealed to us that Jesus’ nobility and grandeur of character was in so many ways his purely human being as the fruits of the Spirit led life and a quite normal experience with and of Religion In Human Experience. In many ways, to me at least, this is the greatest of all teachings in the UB…how grand and glorious is our normal spirit nature as mortals of the realm, even upon this world, the world of the cross….now, the Shrine of Nebadon.
100:7.10 (1102.7) The Master was always generous. He never grew weary of saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Said he, “Freely you have received, freely give.” And yet, with all of his unbounded generosity, he was never wasteful or extravagant. He taught that you must believe to receive salvation. “For every one who seeks shall receive.”
100:7.11 (1102.8) He was candid, but always kind. Said he, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” He was frank, but always friendly. He was outspoken in his love for the sinner and in his hatred for sin. But throughout all this amazing frankness he was unerringly fair.
100:7.12 (1102.9) Jesus was consistently cheerful, notwithstanding he sometimes drank deeply of the cup of human sorrow. He fearlessly faced the realities of existence, yet was he filled with enthusiasm for the gospel of the kingdom. But he controlled his enthusiasm; it never controlled him. He was unreservedly dedicated to “the Father’s business.” This divine enthusiasm led his unspiritual brethren to think he was beside himself, but the onlooking universe appraised him as the model of sanity and the pattern of supreme mortal devotion to the high standards of spiritual living. And his controlled enthusiasm was contagious; his associates were constrained to share his divine optimism.
100:7.13 (1103.1) This man of Galilee was not a man of sorrows; he was a soul of gladness. Always was he saying, “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.” But when duty required, he was willing to walk courageously through the “valley of the shadow of death.” He was gladsome but at the same time humble.
Are not these attributes quite human in those guided by love and the Spirit within? I think they are….yes.
100:7.15 (1103.3) His courage was magnificent, but he was never foolhardy. His watchword was, “Fear not.” His bravery was lofty and his courage often heroic. But his courage was linked with discretion and controlled by reason. It was courage born of faith, not the recklessness of blind presumption. He was truly brave but never audacious.
100:7.16 (1103.4) The Master was a pattern of reverence. The prayer of even his youth began, “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.” He was even respectful of the faulty worship of his fellows. But this did not deter him from making attacks on religious traditions or assaulting errors of human belief. He was reverential of true holiness, and yet he could justly appeal to his fellows, saying, “Who among you convicts me of sin?”
100:7.17 (1103.5) Jesus was great because he was good, and yet he fraternized with the little children. He was gentle and unassuming in his personal life, and yet he was the perfected man of a universe. His associates called him Master unbidden.
100:7.18 (1103.6) Jesus was the perfectly unified human personality. And today, as in Galilee, he continues to unify mortal experience and to co-ordinate human endeavors. He unifies life, ennobles character, and simplifies experience. He enters the human mind to elevate, transform, and transfigure it. It is literally true: “If any man has Christ Jesus within him, he is a new creature; old things are passing away; behold, all things are becoming new.”
Thanks to all who have joined in or followed along….now and in time to come. May we all be encouraged and inspired as we consider the transformative power and Divine assistance and guidance for Religion In Human Experience. Embrace the reality. Trust in the WAY – the Tadpole Way!!
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