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The Adjusters are fragments of the prepersonal reality of the First Source and Center (30:1.100) God doesn’t send his actual personality to indwell us, he sends a fragment of personality from the reservoir which gave rise to his own. And when this fragment enters our heads it behaves as the Father’s personality since it’s of the same origin.
The Adjuster is a fragment of the Deity of the “prepersonal reality of the First Source and Center” (30.1.100) not “a fragment of personality.” Deity is not the same as personality, it is something more: “DEITY is personalizable as God, is prepersonal and superpersonal in ways not altogether comprehensible by man.” (0:1.5) The Paradise Father is the personality of the First Source and Center who has infinite freewill. The personality of Deity is indivisible and non-fragment-able. The prepersonal reality of Deity is fragment-able. Adjusters are not personalities; they are potentially personal identities. The Father “is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes.” (1:3.6)
It is because the Adjuster is a spirit identity and not a personality that it is possible for our personality to transfer the seat of identity from the mortal intellect to the personalizing soul-spirit identity emerging around the Adjuster.
I agree with you that “God is a personal presence who lives in my head,” that this personal presence has “mind and will.” But mind and will are not sufficient to personhood. A person must have a mind and a will which are unified by the freewill of a personality, which is bestowed by the Father. The self-conscious intellectual ego is our (initial) personal identity and has will, but this personal identity is not the personality. The soul is our emerging eternal identity and it has a spiritualizing will. It is only the freewill of personality which can transfer the seat of personal identity from the intellect to soul-spirit identity by choosing to act upon the will of this higher identity.
Jesus often mentions that our Father is the Creator of all things and, as such, must be the First Cause, or Source, although he never uses this specific wording (as far as we are told). And while he often mentions our Paradise Father, he also refers to Paradise as a place and a destiny, and by what he says, I think the listener could only conclude that Paradise is both the dwelling place of our Father as well as our ultimate goal.
You bring up a central tenet of all major religions, Mark: God is the creator of the universe. He is not only sovereign over all things spiritual; he also reigns over all things material. The sovereign Creator is always thought of as actually dwelling in the heavens. Although different religions have different ideas about where exactly, they all believe God is transcendently present in the universe. According to Rodan, the religion of Jesus includes the concept of the Father dwelling at the center of the universe. We are told that the concept of the transcendence of a personal God is essential for religion. The other is the immanence of God: “‘The kingdom of God is within you’ was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving spirit.” (195:10.4)
So, it would seem that the concept of the Father dwelling in the universe is a part of the religion of Jesus. This concept, along with the immanence of God, justifies “intelligent worship and validate(s) the hope of personality survival.”
So George, you actually do understand what I mean when I say God is a person in my head. His prepersonality is my alter ego. If I can fellowship with this prepersonal entity; if I can increase my ability to feel his presence; if I can get to know his will well enough to choose it; and if I’m transferring my identity to him because I trust him, then he’s essentially becoming a bona fide person. Otherwise, my personality wouldn’t be able to do this. Only personalities fellowship with one another.
Prepersonality is simply a phase of personality, but all phases of personality are linked together associatively and cocreatively. (0:5.4) Prepersonality arises from existential personality reality which existed before the Trinity qualified personality. The prepersonality who lives in my head is in the process of becoming qualified. God qualified personality by trinitization; I will qualify my existential prepersonality fragment by association and cocreational experiential actualization. This is why the alter ego approach works so well. My alter ego is my prepersonalized self whom I learn to identify with and cocreationally actualize in Supremacy.
(2.9) 0:1.9 6. Supreme — self-experiential and creature-Creator-unifying Deity. Deity functioning on the first creature-identificational level as time-space overcontrollers of the grand universe, sometimes designated the Supremacy of Deity.
So, it would seem that the concept of the Father dwelling in the universe is a part of the religion of Jesus.
Isn’t that evident in the Lord’s Prayer? “Our Father who is in heaven” (144:3.2). But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus. The religion of Jesus is about personal religious experience, a relationship between God and man. The religion of Jesus is ” . . . salvation from self, deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.”(5:4.5) We’re told that when we search for God, we’re searching for everything (117:6.9), and the best place to search is in our own hearts/souls, not in the heavens. In fact, TUB says it’s a mistake to dream of a far-off God, that doing so can lead a soul to famish.
5:2.3 Adjuster. What a mistake to dream of God far off in the skies when the spirit of the Universal Father lives within your own mind!
131:1.5 We search for the Most High and then find him in our hearts. You go in quest of a dear friend, and then you discover him within your soul.
159:3.8 The world is filled with hungry souls who famish in the very presence of the bread of life; men die searching for the very God who lives within them.
So George, you actually do understand what I mean when I say God is a person in my head. His prepersonality is my alter ego. If I can fellowship with this prepersonal entity; if I can increase my ability to feel his presence; if I can get to know his will well enough to choose it; and if I’m transferring my identity to him because I trust him, then he’s essentially becoming a bona fide person.
As a matter of practical religious experience, I think I understand and agree with what you are saying. What is problematic for me is the idea of equating the reality of identity with the reality of personality. The intellectual ego is part of me, not the whole; it is a personal identity within me. The spiritual alter ego is another personal identity within me, not the whole. Unlike these two separate and distinct identities, the reality of personality embraces and unifies the whole of the reality of personhood. Where you conceive of the Adjuster becoming a “bona fide person,” I conceive of the spirit Adjuster as becoming the dominant personal identity within the personhood of the material personality, which also includes the personal material intellect.
The material self has personality and identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal spirit Adjuster also has identity, eternal identity. This material personality and this spirit prepersonality are capable of so uniting their creative attributes as to bring into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul. (5:6.7)
I may be belaboring this point, but I think it is an important one for the religion of Jesus. Jesus is both the son of God and son of man, but he is always and forever one personality. At his baptism he had perfected the will of his temporal identity until it was in complete harmony with the will of his eternal identity. The will of God did not become a person within him. It became his divine spirit identity which fully dominated his temporal identity within the personhood of his personality. His Adjuster was not personalized while dwelling within him. This could not happen, because then there would have been two personalities with different identities associated with the person of Jesus, instead of one personality with two identities, the son of God and son of man.
But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus.
I am puzzled by this statement. Why do you suppose we are explicitly told that both the transcendence and immanence of God are essential religious concepts which are required to justify “intelligent worship and validate the hope of eternal survival“? I am sure you aren’t implying that the religion of Jesus fails to provide this justification.
Above is a link for the keyword search for value OR values….so many!! Meanings and values are critical to Religion In Human Experience. We are approaching the intersection of meanings, values, truth, experience, and wisdom….growth and progress!!
Great discussion…thanks George and Mark for joining in!! Again….feel free to move back, or forward, or sideways on this topical consideration of personal religious experience….and the example of the Master.
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.
100:3.4 (1097.1) Meaning is something which experience adds to value; it is the appreciative consciousness of values. An isolated and purely selfish pleasure may connote a virtual devaluation of meanings, a meaningless enjoyment bordering on relative evil. Values are experiential when realities are meaningful and mentally associated, when such relationships are recognized and appreciated by mind.
100:3.5 (1097.2) Values can never be static; reality signifies change, growth. Change without growth, expansion of meaning and exaltation of value, is valueless — is potential evil. The greater the quality of cosmic adaptation, the more of meaning any experience possesses. Values are not conceptual illusions; they are real, but always they depend on the fact of relationships. Values are always both actual and potential — not what was, but what is and is to be.
100:3.6 (1097.3) The association of actuals and potentials equals growth, the experiential realization of values. But growth is not mere progress. Progress is always meaningful, but it is relatively valueless without growth. The supreme value of human life consists in growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences. And such an experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness. Such a mortal, while not supernatural, is truly becoming superhuman; an immortal soul is evolving.
I am puzzled by this statement. Why do you suppose we are explicitly told that both the transcendence and immanence of God are essential religious concepts which are required to justify “intelligent worship and validate the hope of eternal survival“? I am sure you aren’t implying that the religion of Jesus fails to provide this justification.
I think you’re missing my word comprehend. Here’s what I said: “But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus.” Here’s the quote in question again:
(69.1) 5:5.6 Religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God’s transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival. The difficulties and paradoxes of religion are inherent in the fact that the realities of religion are utterly beyond the mortal capacity for intellectual comprehension.
I think you’re missing my word comprehend. Here’s what I said: “But I don’t think it is necessary to comprehend both the transcendence and immanence of God in order to practice the religion of Jesus.”
These two concepts do create a paradox, which is difficult to comprehend, so I take your point. However, the original question was if both concepts are essential to religion, not whether or not logic and reason can comprehend how both can be true. Clearly, in the religion of Jesus it is faith-insight which discerns that the personality of the Father is transcendently present in the universe on Paradise and his spirit is immanently present within us, even though the intellect cannot really comprehend how this is so.
What is problematic for me is the idea of equating the reality of identity with the reality of personality.
Did I do that? I don’t think I did.
Where you conceive of the Adjuster becoming a “bona fide person,” I conceive of the spirit Adjuster as becoming the dominant personal identity within the personhood of the material personality, which also includes the personal material intellect.
Same idea, different words. But I differ in the details. I think of it flipped around somewhat. The Adjuster doesn’t dominate the material intellect, he can’t do that because it is so incompatible with his own. Instead, we learn to identify with the dominating spirit premind of the Adjuster (after we’ve discovered, recognized, and interpreted it within the soul using the soul supermind), then, as a result of choosing that identification, naturally bear fruits in the material world (which will affect the material mind in the process). Subtle difference, very subtle, not sure if I’ve made it clear though.
The will of God did not become a person within him. It became his divine spirit identity which fully dominated his temporal identity within the personhood of his personality. His Adjuster was not personalized while dwelling within him. This could not happen, because then there would have been two personalities with different identities associated with the person of Jesus, instead of one personality with two identities, the son of God and son of man.
Well of course complete identification and transfer of dominance does not result in two personalities. Fusion results in one single personality with the actual and potential qualities of both. Hence qualified.
112.7.1 7. ADJUSTER FUSION Thought Adjuster fusion imparts eternal actualities to personality which were previously only potential. Among these new endowments may be mentioned: fixation of divinity quality, past-eternity experience and memory, immortality, and a phase of qualified potential absoluteness.
110:7.4 Subsequent to mortal fusion the Adjusters share your destiny and experience; they are you. After the fusion of the immortal morontia soul and the associated Adjuster, all of the experience and all of the values of the one eventually become the possession of the other, so that the two are actually one entity. In a certain sense, this new being is of the eternal past as well as for the eternal future. All that was once human in the surviving soul and all that is experientially divine in the Adjuster now become the actual possession of the new and ever-ascending universe personality. But on each universe level the Adjuster can endow the new creature only with those attributes which are meaningful and of value on that level. An absolute oneness with the divine Monitor, a complete exhaustion of the endowment of an Adjuster, can only be achieved in eternity subsequent to the final attainment of the Universal Father, the Father of spirits, ever the source of these divine gifts.
Also, I don’t think our Master Michael has two identities. He is one person with one identity. He is ” . . . the 611,121st original concept of infinite identity.” (33:1.1) They would have to give him another number if he had two identities, and then he’d have a split personality, which he does not have.
These two concepts do create a paradox, which is difficult to comprehend, so I take your point. However, the original question was if both concepts are essential to religion, not whether or not logic and reason can comprehend how both can be true. Clearly, in the religion of Jesus it is faith-insight which discerns that the personality of the Father is transcendently present in the universe on Paradise and his spirit is immanently present within us, even though the intellect cannot really comprehend how this is so.
Yes, I think both concepts are part of religion but I’m not sure the essential qualities of either concept matter much because religion evolves. Religion is a natural phenomenon. Religion will happen and it will evolve regardless of concepts. The concept of a transcendental God was already part of most religions at the time Jesus taught. It was the concept of fatherhood and the concept of God being within each individual that was so revelational. I think religion begins its evolution with fear of the unknown and that fear becomes a Great Fear, one that can be bargained with, awed, reverenced and finally trusted. The evolution of religion is to make this Great Fear personable and friendly. Isn’t that what Jesus taught, the Creator-creature connection? how the creature reaches up because the Creator is reaching down? Didn’t he teach sonship which connects the transcendent with the immanent and unifies it all in the Supreme?
(1262.1) 115:3.4 It is only man’s distance from infinity that causes this concept to be expressed as one word. While infinity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DIVERSITY without end or limit. Infinity, as it is observed by finite intelligences, is the maximum paradox of creature philosophy and finite metaphysics. Though man’s spiritual nature reaches up in the worship experience to the Father who is infinite, man’s intellectual comprehension capacity is exhausted by the maximum conception of the Supreme Being. Beyond the Supreme, concepts are increasingly names; less and less are they true designations of reality; more and more do they become the creature’s projection of finite understanding toward the superfinite.
Not to belabor the function of the soul here, but isn’t the soul our personal maximum conception of the Supreme? And, isn’t that where Jesus lives, the fella who reveals the potential of the Supreme to us, the fella who already attained the level of Supremacy? Isn’t his Spirit of Truth really the Spirit of the Father and the Son? Personally, I’m not all that concerned about the transcendence of God, I take that for granted. What I don’t take for granted is the evolution of my own soul which involves the immanence of God. My surviving identity is totally dependent upon the growth of my soul, and that growth also depends on God partnering with me, his lowly critter.
At his baptism he had perfected the will of his temporal identity until it was in complete harmony with the will of his eternal identity.
I’ve been thinking about this, and I want you to know that I understand what you mean here and I essentially agree. But, I would describe the evolution of dominance in a slightly different way; it’s a transfer.
First, I don’t think humans can perfect their own will. I think they can control it, or master it. Perfecting is the job of the Adjuster, no? The human will desires perfection, identifies with perfection and then makes a volitional response to it (once discovered, recognized and interpreted). In the process, identity is slowly transferred from the material mind to the morontial soul. The temporal, material identity eventually vanishes and the morontia soul becomes the new identity. This is not a harmonization of identity. It is rather a transfer of identity from material to supermaterial and this is accomplished by the personality. The personality is the pattern of identity; it chooses its dominating power and expands its identity accordingly (power-personality synthesis).
112:2.15 The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and leading of the Thought Adjuster. Personality, both human and superhuman, is characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called “the evolution of dominance,” the expansion of the control of both itself and its environment.
112:2.20 But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle — the material body — to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, spirit reality. This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature.
George Park wrote: At his baptism he had perfected the will of his temporal identity until it was in complete harmony with the will of his eternal identity.
I’ve been thinking about this, and I want you to know that I understand what you mean here and I essentially agree. But, I would describe the evolution of dominance in a slightly different way; it’s a transfer. First, I don’t think humans can perfect their own will. I think they can control it, or master it. Perfecting is the job of the Adjuster, no? The human will desires perfection, identifies with perfection and then makes a volitional response to it (once discovered, recognized and interpreted). In the process, identity is slowly transferred from the material mind to the morontial soul. The temporal, material identity eventually vanishes and the morontia soul becomes the new identity. This is not a harmonization of identity. It is rather a transfer of identity from material to supermaterial and this is accomplished by the personality.
This is such a hard issue to address, because it goes right to the mystery at the heart of religious experience. But I’m willing to share a few of my thoughts on it, with the proviso that this represents my limited understanding of this mystery. I don’t believe the material identity vanishes as the seat of identity is transferred to the soul; at least, not exactly. Instead, I think the spiritualizing intellectual identity of the adjutant mind determines the identity and character of the morontia soul.
This evolving soul does, however, possess a continuing character derived from the decisions of its former associated adjutant mind, and this character becomes active memory when the patterns thereof are energized by the returning Adjuster. (112:6.7)
The soul faithfully reflects the character of the spiritualizing material intellect. Death adds nothing to it. Those protoplasmic memories of the material life with survival value are duplicated and retained by the Adjuster.
The pre-existent Thought Adjuster, with the memory transcription of the mortal career, proceeds to Divinington; (112:3.5)
The pattern of memory persists in the soul, but this pattern requires the presence of the former Adjuster to become immediately self-realizable as continuing memory. (112:6.8)
The material mind is no more, but the spiritualizing character of the intellectual identity once resident in this adjutant mind, along with all of its worthwhile material memories, survives. The material mind has vanished, but the spiritualizing identity of this material mind endures forever. And this is how I understand something the Divine Counselor tells us about the unified personality of Michael of Nebadon and Jesus of Nazareth.
Even God and man can coexist in a unified personality, as is so exquisitely demonstrated in the present status of Christ Michael—Son of Man and Son of God. (0:5.3)
Instead, I think the spiritualizing intellectual identity of the adjutant mind determines the identity and character of the morontia soul.
Granted, thoughts get spiritized, but that is something that happens within the soul, not the material mind, as I understand it. Once something gets spiritualized it transmutes from material to morontial and resides in the soul. This is a superadjutant process. Anything that contributes to the growth of a noble character is captured by the spirit gravity circuit and resides in the soul, where it stays. In fact, I think the whole business of character growth actually happens within the soul, not the material mind. Plus, the psychic circles are part of the process of weaning the mind off of adjutant mind influence and relying more on superadjutant influence (Holy Spirit).
p1211:5 110:6.20 From the seventh to the third circle there occurs increased and unified action of the seven adjutant mind-spirits in the task of weaning the mortal mind from its dependence on the realities of the material life mechanisms preparatory to increased introduction to morontia levels of experience. From the third circle onward the adjutant influence progressively diminishes.
p1211:6 110:6.21 The seven circles embrace mortal experience extending from the highest purely animal level to the lowest actual contactual morontia level of self-consciousness as a personality experience. The mastery of the first cosmic circle signalizes the attainment of premorontia mortal maturity and marks the termination of the conjoint ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits as an exclusive influence of mind action in the human personality. Beyond the first circle, mind becomes increasingly akin to the intelligence of the morontia stage of evolution, the conjoined ministry of the cosmic mind and the superadjutant endowment of the Creative Spirit of a local universe.
Something must take over for the adjutants as they diminish. That would be the supermind of the soul, which is described in the above quote as the superadjutant endowment of the Creative Spirit. All of this happens as a result of soul growth, or spiritual growth, and involves the entire personality, not just the intellect. So, I’m not really certain what you mean by spiritualizing intellectual identity unless you mean the soul. In this next quote the spiritualized intellect is capable of discerning true values.
130:4.10 The eye of the material mind perceives a world of factual knowledge; the eye of the spiritualized intellect discerns a world of true values. These two views, synchronized and harmonized, reveal the world of reality, wherein wisdom interprets the phenomena of the universe in terms of progressive personal experience.
We know that true values can only be discerned in the soul and that true character transformation also takes place in the soul. So, I’m pretty sure this has nothing to do with the adjutants. They play no role other than opening the gateway to the soul.
152:6.4 Jesus taught the appeal to the emotions as the technique of arresting and focusing the intellectual attention. He designated the mind thus aroused and quickened as the gateway to the soul, where there resides that spiritual nature of man which must recognize truth and respond to the spiritual appeal of the gospel in order to afford the permanent results of true character transformations.
Granted, thoughts get spiritized, but that is something that happens within the soul, not the material mind, as I understand it. Once something gets spiritualized it transmutes from material to morontial and resides in the soul.
I can appreciate this interpretation, but I have a somewhat different understanding of spiritualization. The material mind is not entirely material; it contains spiritual potentials. The adjutant mind-spirits of worship and wisdom are included in the spiritual circuits of the local universe.
This ministry of the sixth and seventh adjutants indicates mind evolution crossing the threshold of spiritual ministry. And immediately are such minds of worship- and wisdom-function included in the spiritual circuits of the Divine Minister. (34:5.3)
This labor of the Spirit is largely effected through the seven adjutants, the spirits of promise, the unifying and co-ordinating spirit-mind of the evolving planets, ever and unitedly leading the races of men towards higher ideas and spiritual ideals. (34:5.2)
It is by virtue of these two adjutants that we make our first moral choice around the age of six, at which time the Adjuster is dispatched from Divinington. This initial choice between spiritual values is made in the consciousness of material mind and spiritualizes a thought in the adjutant mind. And this happens before the creation of the morontia soul by the Adjuster. This spiritualized thought in the material mind is not transmuted to a morontia reality. Rather, the Adjuster creates a morontia pattern of this thought in the soul and retains a spirit duplicate of this memory. This morontia pattern and spirit memory overlay the spiritualized thought in adjutant mind; in some sense, they are added to it. We may be aware of the soul to a greater or lesser degree, but we live, think and are conscious in the adjutant mind. We are never fully conscious of the morontia soul in this life.
During the life in the flesh the evolving soul is enabled to reinforce the supermaterial decisions of the mortal mind. The soul, being supermaterial, does not of itself function on the material level of human experience…. During life the mortal will, the personality power of decision-choice, is resident in the material mind circuits; (111:3.2)
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. (111:1.5)
The attainment of the first psychic circle marks the termination of “the adjutant mind-spirits as an exclusive influence of mind action in the human personality,” but their influence does not end; the influence of the superadjutant endowment of the Creative Spirit is added to it and presumably becomes dominant. The influence of the adjutant mind-spirits does not end until physical death.
While I find this particular interpretation of spiritualization personally helpful, I am not certain that someone else does not have a better one. Interpretations can change with the evidence, or at least they should be able to, if they’re not dogmatic. What I am certain about is the potential for personality to realize and unify three levels of conscious experience.
Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness—contact with the divine presence. (196:3.34)
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