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Why and how do you think religion ” . . . ennobles the commonplace drudgery of daily living” (100:0.2)? I think the word “ennobles” is important. They could have said “enables”, but they didn’t. Ennobling is much better than enabling, which is what a lot of people seem to want in this modern age. What this world needs is Jesus. Jesus is the great ennobler:
100:7.18 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.”
Ennoble: dignify · honor · exalt · elevate · raise · enhance · add dignity to · distinguish · magnify · glorify · aggrandize
Yes Bonita….the terms are nearly opposites – enable and ennoble.
” . . . ennobles the commonplace drudgery of daily living”….means to me that even the material struggles are, or can be, met with grace, dignity, honor, nobility, and joy….no matter how menial or common such daily living may be when measured by material power, wealth, position, etc. Nobility has a far greater meaning than crowns, jewels, big houses, and fancy cars!
Noble: having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals
Speaking of ‘ideals’……
100:2.2 (1095.6) Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a discovery of values. The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the exhibition of a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholehearted worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience constitutes the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological beliefs.
100:2.3 (1095.7) Religion can progress to that level of experience whereon it becomes an enlightened and wise technique of spiritual reaction to the universe. Such a glorified religion can function on three levels of human personality: the intellectual, the morontial, and the spiritual; upon the mind, in the evolving soul, and with the indwelling spirit.
100:2.4 (1096.1) Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one’s nearness to God and the measure of one’s usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love.
But your question, Bonita, implies there is some way to measure personal progress, spiritually speaking. Here’s one suggestion from the book: 156:5.18
Here’s another:
P.1096 – §1 Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one’s nearness to God and the measure of one’s usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love.
Our spirituality is measured by our usefulness to others and the elimination of selfish qualities of love. I don’t think we humans very easily see how our own self-centered ideas contaminate our ability to be useful to others. I often think of poor Peter who kept falling into his habit of self-centered thinking that night when Jesus was arrested. It was basically reflexive and he felt horrible about it once he saw the truth of it. I think that veil is pulled away very slowly for most of us, otherwise it would be a horrible shock to see how unspiritual we really are.
I think that a growing person would probably be more aware of their mistakes and strive more for ways to improve on them. I don’t think fruit is the lure here, but rather the realization of where we fall short. I’ve often felt that people who think they’re more righteous today than they were last year are probably focused on the wrong thing. Not that it’s wrong to try to produce fruit, but I don’t think we can use them to assess our progress.
I still think that differential between growth and progress is important to think about.
Growth and progress have to do with meanings and values. Go back to the beginning of this paper 100:1.1 where it tells us that religion produces a growth in meanings and an enhancement of values. (It also says the same here:91:9.4 .) Then in 100:1.7 we’re told that growth occurs from the accumulation of meanings and the elevation of values. Quote 100:2.2 explains that growth requires first an awakening to needs, then the ability to discern meanings and discover values. And, in 100:3.6 we’re told that we grow with meanings and progress with values. Our job in life is to perpetually find and apply new meanings to values 115:2.2, and this is done through moral conflict, decision making 100:4.1 , which leads to circle progress 110:6.5 Meanings and values are only perceived in the inner world. 111:4.2 196:3.10 , where the Adjuster lives. Don’t forget that it is our accumulated meanings and enhanced values that the Adjuster takes with him into eternity 111:2.2 , and if we choose to accompany him, it takes an eternity of growth and progress for him to reveal all the meanings and values he has yet to share with us.110:7.5
Nobility has a far greater meaning than crowns, jewels, big houses, and fancy cars!
Agreed. And true nobility, like true goodness, is unconscious.
(1095.2) 100:1.7 Religion cannot be bestowed, received, loaned, learned, or lost. It is a personal experience which grows proportionally to the growing quest for final values. Cosmic growth thus attends on the accumulation of meanings and the ever-expanding elevation of values. But nobility itself is always an unconscious growth.
Bradly wrote:
Nobility has a far greater meaning than crowns, jewels, big houses, and fancy cars!On the lighter side:
You should drive my Vette.🚀
It’s like – the only thing more thrilling than 0 to 60 in 3 seconds would be seraphic transport. Got to have some value eh?I just realized that the quote about nobility being unconscious suggests that spiritual fruits must also be unconscious. A noble character is one that yields fruits of the spirit, as Jesus did. 156:5.2 194:3.1 If a true noble character is unconscious, then it follows that the fruits are too. At least that’s how I see it. That’s why the Spirit of Truth ennobles life, particularly if he is allowed to do his own work and if we trust him and allow him the credit. This is why smallness is part of nobility, I think, and why service makes you great.
(1094.7) 100:1.5 The soil essential for religious growth presupposes a progressive life of self-realization, the co-ordination of natural propensities, the exercise of curiosity and the enjoyment of reasonable adventure, the experiencing of feelings of satisfaction, the functioning of the fear stimulus of attention and awareness, the wonder-lure, and a normal consciousness of smallness, humility. Growth is also predicated on the discovery of selfhood accompanied by self-criticism–conscience, for conscience is really the criticism of oneself by one’s own value-habits, personal ideals.
(1459:5) 132:3.5 But truth can never become man’s possession without the exercise of faith. This is true because man’s thoughts, wisdom, ethics, and ideals will never rise higher than his faith, his sublime hope. And all such true faith is predicated on profound reflection, sincere self-criticism, and uncompromising moral consciousness. Faith is the inspiration of the spiritized creative imagination.
100:2.3 (1095.7) Religion can progress to that level of experience whereon it becomes an enlightened and wise technique of spiritual reaction to the universe. Such a glorified religion can function on three levels of human personality: the intellectual, the morontial, and the spiritual; upon the mind, in the evolving soul, and with the indwelling spirit.
Interesting…our personal response to situations, circumstances, and relationships eventually becomes a ‘spiritual reaction’ delivered by an enlightened and wise response-ability to all and all the time. Self is not dominate in such a progressive person. Reminds me of Jesus asking …. Why do you call me good? Also reminds me of our task and challenge to transfer the seat of our very identity from the material self to the spiritized member of one family, all of whom serve one another in love….as devoted families do….even material ones curiously enough…the pattern of the universe projected upon the most primitive models.
While the fruits of the Spirit are the true measure of our spiritization and cooperation with TA and Circle Progress….there is another ‘monitor’ of progress to consider….our response-ability to situations and circumstances and relationships. As we become spiritized, we may not notice the growth as it occurs but we should notice how differently we react and respond to similar intersections of choice and decision. Should we not respond differently to the same stimuli as we grow? Does the same thing anger us ….still? Do we have the same anxiety over the same thing….still? Are we still annoyed by the same people who do the same thing? How do we emotionally and mentally react now compared to earlier? How do we choose to thoughtfully respond to our reactions? Doesn’t the spiritized self seek meanings in our choices rather than weight benefits and risks to our SELF? And don’t we find those meanings in seeking out ways to serve rather than be served?
Not all “factors of spiritual growth” are conscious as we have learned. The love response, ghost fears, the yearn to worship, the inner recognition of our dual nature, the response to the spirit within….all can be unconscious. However….”The factors of growth may be intentional….”….and should be and, eventually, must be intentional. The more intentional are the factors, the more deliberate the growth I would think. Our study here together is but one example of being intentional and deliberate.
100:1.8 [Part III]
Religious habits of thinking and acting are contributory to the economy of spiritual growth. One can develop religious predispositions toward favorable reaction to spiritual stimuli, a sort of conditioned spiritual reflex. Habits which favor religious growth embrace cultivated sensitivity to divine values, recognition of religious living in others, reflective meditation on cosmic meanings, worshipful problem solving, sharing one’s spiritual life with one’s fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to presume on divine mercy, living as in the presence of God. The factors of religious growth may be intentional, but the growth itself is unvaryingly unconscious.I think, ” . . . living as in the presence of God” is the most critical religious habit we can cultivate. That’s what Jesus did, right?(196:0.10) And since God lives in our heads, awareness of his presence is not that hard to do.(102:4.1) Plus, it has the added benefit of taking the attention off the self and onto the living God. Presence is what it’s all about when it comes to spiritual insight. (155:6.12)
100:2.5 (1096.2) Actual spiritual status is the measure of Deity attainment, Adjuster attunement. The achievement of finality of spirituality is equivalent to the attainment of the maximum of reality, the maximum of Godlikeness. Eternal life is the endless quest for infinite values.
100:2.6 (1096.3) The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual, not material. The only realities worth striving for are divine, spiritual, and eternal. Mortal man is entitled to the enjoyment of physical pleasures and to the satisfaction of human affections; he is benefited by loyalty to human associations and temporal institutions; but these are not the eternal foundations upon which to build the immortal personality which must transcend space, vanquish time, and achieve the eternal destiny of divine perfection and finaliter service.
100:2.7 (1096.4) Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he said: “To a God-knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?” Temporal securities are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.
I recall the parable by Jesus where he teaches that this world is but a bridge and we should not think to build a home upon it….merely cross over from one side to the other….the material to the morontial. We are to enjoy ALL our life including the mortal and material life but we cannot truly enjoy this life if we are unable or unwilling to identify our selves with eternal destinies and values – truth, beauty, and goodness are eternal and these may be discovered and actualized in the material life and the realms of time and space.
Our material life is our first training ground for the purpose of growing soul and do so by a growing trust, faith, and confidence in the Spirit within and eternalized experiences….the temporal and material world and its gleaming, shimmering baubles of distraction and allure are not the prize of this life…and happiness will evade all who believe that material gain and comforts will deliver it. Those who achieve material ease and become devoted to leisure and power delivered by material objects are truly the most pitiful and needy of all. It is not wealth of course but our attachments to it and our dependence upon it that leads to fears and disappointments. For one must be willing to see it all crash about them and yet remain steadfast and joyful in the true meanings and values of life.
It is interesting to read and consider the parallels between Paper 100 -Religion In Human Experience and Paper 196 – The Faith Of Jesus. The two reveal the Tadpole Way resulting in the Jesus Way or the Enlightening Way….the process of transferring the seat of identity and the results of that transfer….from the birth of soul to fusion status….in the mortal mind directed by free will and focused on the discovery of meanings and values.
(2088.4) 196:0.9 The Master’s entire life was consistently conditioned by this living faith, this sublime religious experience. This spiritual attitude wholly dominated his thinking and feeling, his believing and praying, his teaching and preaching. This personal faith of a son in the certainty and security of the guidance and protection of the heavenly Father imparted to his unique life a profound endowment of spiritual reality. And yet, despite this very deep consciousness of close relationship with divinity, this Galilean, God’s Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, “Why do you call me good?” When we stand confronted by such splendid self-forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms.
(A reminder that any words posted by me that are other than quoted text are purely opinion based on my personal understanding at the time. Thankfully, such understanding is refined and enlarged over time, study, reflection, and experience.)
“. . . you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable . . .” (100:2.7)
That word citadel, is so well chosen. A citadel is where you put your treasure, and we know where your treasure is, so is your heart. When I think about what it is I treasure most, I have to say it’s my relationship with God. I couldn’t give that up for anything in the world, or even out of this world, for that matter. It transcends everything.
100:2.7 (1096.4) Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he said: “To a God-knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?” Temporal securities are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.
Indeed Bonita!!!
I went to Wiki to study “citadel”….some amazing metaphors illuminated within this quote. The citadel was highest, strongest, and most defensible bastion within a castle or fortification or walled city (known examples go back over ten thousand years). Many times cities and forts were taken, even destroyed…but the citadel (and its ‘keep’) survived all assaults. If the citadel survived, the invaders failed and all that and them within the citadel were considered victorious! Some of the greatest tales in history have to do with the unvanquished who survived within the citadel and that treasure of greatest value within the keep.
Note above that “temporal securities are vulnerable”….consider the outer material defenses or walls of a fort or city, vulnerable to assault and destruction, while “spiritual sureties are impregnable” – the inner bastion, the impregnable citadel guarded by angels, and the Spirits of the Father, Mother, and Son – a place where nothing temporal may break in or destroy – the citadel of FAITH and TRUST. As temporal adversity beats down the material circumstances and securities of our world and life around us, even destroying all our material comforts, securities, and support systems (including mortal life itself)… the faith child can stand firm, confident, and safely within the unassailable citadel of the spirit, in whose keeping is our very soul….the keep within the citadel of all that is eternal, true, beautiful, and good!
What a glorious picture of the reality portrayed by the Master in his life here as one of us…the profound surety of the God knowing mortal!
. . . but the citadel (and its ‘keep’) survived all assaults.
This reminds me of Jesus’ parable about the foolish carpenter. I think building the foundations of a noble character has to do with the citadel, don’t you?
(1738.1) 156:5.2 It was during this same sermon that Jesus made use of his first and only parable having to do with his own trade — carpentry. In the course of his admonition to “Build well the foundations for the growth of a noble character of spiritual endowments,” he said: “In order to yield the fruits of the spirit, you must be born of the spirit. You must be taught by the spirit and be led by the spirit if you would live the spirit-filled life among your fellows. But do not make the mistake of the foolish carpenter who wastes valuable time squaring, measuring, and smoothing his worm-eaten and inwardly rotting timber and then, when he has thus bestowed all of his labor upon the unsound beam, must reject it as unfit to enter into the foundations of the building which he would construct to withstand the assaults of time and storm. Let every man make sure that the intellectual and moral foundations of character are such as will adequately support the superstructure of the enlarging and ennobling spiritual nature, which is thus to transform the mortal mind and then, in association with that re-created mind, is to achieve the evolvement of the soul of immortal destiny. Your spirit nature — the jointly created soul — is a living growth, but the mind and morals of the individual are the soil from which these higher manifestations of human development and divine destiny must spring. The soil of the evolving soul is human and material, but the destiny of this combined creature of mind and spirit is spiritual and divine.”
Thanks Bonita…..as I said in the beginning of this thread, there are so many related teachings and topics in the earlier and later sections of the UB. Jesus taught about the Kingdom, the soul, being reborn, personal re-prioritization of choices, the fruits of the spirit led life, and the search for values and meanings, the natural urge to serve….and so much more….all of the Master’s teachings were about Religion In Human Experience I think.
In the coming sections of Paper 100 (and the Papers which follow), we will come to learn about how faith and Spirit-response can be both natural but unintentional and, more effectively, deliberate, purposeful, and intentional indeed.
We are not born in the Spirit intentionally…but we cannot be reborn any other way. We enter the Circles – as children or primitives – simply by a natural response to the Adjutants which gives birth to the soul. But upon sufficient progress in the Circles, further progress requires (I think) a “new orientation” and “new standard of values” and “remotivation” – all of which must be deliberately chosen. So we may enter the Circles and we may progress in the Circles by a natural and normal inner response to the Adjutants, but fusion will never come without deliberate and intentional choices in true partnership with the Spirit(s) within.
We are taught that we become weaned away from the Adjutants as we partner more and more with the God Fragment…intentionally. I wonder can the soul grow sufficiently to begin worship through the TA without the mind’s intent and purpose to do so?
I know I sound a little discombobulated….so many concepts flow into one another and integrate in this Paper…I find it difficult to articulate in words of my own. But in this Paper there is much to learn about unintentional and intentional growth in religious experience. Those of us who think all religious experience is intentional are incorrect as there is much growth in the spirit and the circles that are simply the natural ‘response’ to normal mortal minded wiring and ministry….one must actively oppose it to prevent it.
Religion In Human Experience is a full spectrum of experiences not all of which are deliberate and intentional choices but which includes the experience of children and primitives in response to internalized yearnings, fears, hopes, and many forms of experiences which are delivered by the angels, the adjutants, the Son’s Spirit, and the TA’s….all of which do require our free will to respond and to act and not oppose or prevent….but much of which does not require cognition, understanding, purpose, and intention. Cooperation is something less than cognitive choice and the exercise of will with purpose and intention.
But how much more certain is that religious experience which is sought after with purpose and intention! Motivation to transform ourselves brings profound changes to our motives for being, our intentions at the intersections of choice, our priorities for both daily living and our entire life experience, and the loss of self importance in all of those and in our relationships with others. Religion In Human Experience is always transforming….or it is not religious experience I do not think.
100:2.8 (1096.5) After such spiritual attainment, whether secured by gradual growth or specific crisis, there occurs a new orientation of personality as well as the development of a new standard of values. Such spirit-born individuals are so remotivated in life that they can calmly stand by while their fondest ambitions perish and their keenest hopes crash; they positively know that such catastrophes are but the redirecting cataclysms which wreck one’s temporal creations preliminary to the rearing of the more noble and enduring realities of a new and more sublime level of universe attainment.
3. Concepts of Supreme Value
100:3.1 (1096.6) Religion is not a technique for attaining a static and blissful peace of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service. It is the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God and serving man. Religion pays any price essential to the attainment of the supreme goal, the eternal prize. There is a consecrated completeness in religious loyalty which is superbly sublime. And these loyalties are socially effective and spiritually progressive.
100:3.2 (1096.7) To the religionist the word God becomes a symbol signifying the approach to supreme reality and the recognition of divine value. Human likes and dislikes do not determine good and evil; moral values do not grow out of wish fulfillment or emotional frustration.
100:3.3 (1096.8) In the contemplation of values you must distinguish between that which is value and that which has value. You must recognize the relation between pleasurable activities and their meaningful integration and enhanced realization on ever progressively higher and higher levels of human experience.
In 3:1 above I am reminded of the Pearl of Great Price…and similar parables!
Mara – Here’s another suggestion from the book in relation to measuring one’s spiritual progress.
Worship is the yardstick which measures the extent of the soul’s detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure attachment to the spiritual realities of all creation. 143.7.6
And some thoughts on the subject from Rodan….philosopher extraordinaire!
160:3.5 (1778.3) This new gospel of the kingdom renders a great service to the art of living in that it supplies a new and richer incentive for higher living. It presents a new and exalted goal of destiny, a supreme life purpose. And these new concepts of the eternal and divine goal of existence are in themselves transcendent stimuli, calling forth the reaction of the very best that is resident in man’s higher nature. On every mountaintop of intellectual thought are to be found relaxation for the mind, strength for the soul, and communion for the spirit. From such vantage points of high living, man is able to transcend the material irritations of the lower levels of thinking — worry, jealousy, envy, revenge, and the pride of immature personality. These high-climbing souls deliver themselves from a multitude of the crosscurrent conflicts of the trifles of living, thus becoming free to attain consciousness of the higher currents of spirit concept and celestial communication. But the life purpose must be jealously guarded from the temptation to seek for easy and transient attainment; likewise must it be so fostered as to become immune to the disastrous threats of fanaticism.
160:5.7 (1781.3) The religion of Jesus transcends all our former concepts of the idea of worship in that he not only portrays his Father as the ideal of infinite reality but positively declares that this divine source of values and the eternal center of the universe is truly and personally attainable by every mortal creature who chooses to enter the kingdom of heaven on earth, thereby acknowledging the acceptance of sonship with God and brotherhood with man. That, I submit, is the highest concept of religion the world has ever known, and I pronounce that there can never be a higher since this gospel embraces the infinity of realities, the divinity of values, and the eternity of universal attainments. Such a concept constitutes the achievement of the experience of the idealism of the supreme and the ultimate.
160:5.10 (1782.1) I see in the teachings of Jesus, religion at its best. This gospel enables us to seek for the true God and to find him. But are we willing to pay the price of this entrance into the kingdom of heaven? Are we willing to be born again? to be remade? Are we willing to be subject to this terrible and testing process of self-destruction and soul reconstruction? Has not the Master said: “Whoso would save his life must lose it. Think not that I have come to bring peace but rather a soul struggle”? True, after we pay the price of dedication to the Father’s will, we do experience great peace provided we continue to walk in these spiritual paths of consecrated living.
160:5.12 (1782.3) The religion of Jesus demands living and spiritual experience. Other religions may consist in traditional beliefs, emotional feelings, philosophic consciousness, and all of that, but the teaching of the Master requires the attainment of actual levels of real spirit progression.
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