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I don’t think that there is such a thing in God’s kingdom as a law of reciprocity. Reciprocity is primitive (68:1.3). Reciprocity is the practice of mutual exchange of benefits and privileges. Those engaging in reciprocity expect to receive something of equal value in exchange for what they are giving.
Yes that is one definition, here’s another but it’s probably not the best word to define what I mean:
Full Definition of RECIPROCITY
1: the quality or state of being reciprocal : mutual dependence, action, or influence
It’s sort of like for every action there is a reaction. Our being is dependent upon our choices – our choices depend upon our being – they are mutually dependent – they each lead to the other – sow, reap, sow, reap. We can only change our being by changing our choices….a real chicken and egg paradox. How can my being change my choices which depend upon WHO I am? But WHO I am is determined by my choices. Every choice has an effect on the one who so chooses. I don’t believe in instant karma or that karma has anything at all to do with materialisms – greedy SOBs and mean ones may prosper materially but it erodes, even destroys the person. If we choose from fear, we will reap what fear brings. If we sow from love, we will reap what love brings. The motive of our choosing returns upon our being in ways I cannot describe but know to be true. As we shift the seat of our identity and become attuned to the spirit and change the why of our choosing, the results of that choosing change in a corresponding or reciprocal manner. Perhaps there is a better term for this truth?? Anyway, I do not mean quid pro quo or an exchange for value but the exchange for value is not altogether inaccurate either…..we receive in value back that true value given in our choices I think in a way.
Thanks Bonita….accuracy and clarity are always important….perhaps you could add some here too.
Bradly wrote: . . . perhaps you could add some here tooI’ll be honest that I really don’t know exactly what you’re talking about so it’s hard to comment. The whole response-able thing confuses me. But I’ll give it a go. You know I love writing essays.
We already have everything we need, so the response is really recognizing God’s gifts and giving something in return (response), as best we are capable (able). Instead of reciprocity, I like to use the reciprocality and I think prayer is its essential avenue. God gives of himself liberally. His nature is free for the taking and he does not demand reciprocity. Reciprocality, on the other hand, involves giving in return. Giving, in this case, is of the free will and in recognition of having already received a gift. Reciprocality in prayer is slightly more enlightened than reciprocity because it is a free will offering in recognition of having already received something of value. A reciprocal prayer is the type of personality sharing which leads to communion with Deity because it is a free-will act of gratitude. Reciprocity is primitive because it is more like bargaining with God, like saying, “I’ll do this for you God if you will do this for me.” Reciprocity is backwards. Instead we can say reciprocally, “Because I recognize and am grateful for all you have given me God, I will give you all I have.”
God is the originator of love, always the initiator, the first to establish a relationship with mortals. When man begins to seek for a relationship with God, it is evidence that God is already present in the soul guiding the personality toward him. Recognition of this gift is the fertile soil of an eternal relationship sustained by prayer and overflowing with fruits. Union with God is the process of gradually attaining the gifts of his divine nature. Those gifts are waiting to be discovered in the depths of the soul. They can be realized through wholehearted devotion to sharing the inner life with God, which is the same as saying, doing the will of God. All mortals who are “lighted by the true light,” have the capacity for reciprocal contact with God and to share his nature.
Prayer is the avenue by which the mind shares the inner life with God. It is essentially the reciprocal recognition of having already received the gifts of God without having done a thing to earn them except for the sincere attitude of willingness. Willingness is the choicest gift that man can give back to God, in fact, the only one. God’s divine love is bestowed selflessly and blossoms within the willing mind. So, I guess my take on response-ability is to always be grateful and willing, then leave everything else to God. I really don’t think about my decisions. I don’t dissect life and I don’t try to control it (that’s what a Thought Controller is for). I do try to share it though. Life, mind and spirit are all interconnected. Add the willingness of personality and you have quite a wonderful formula for success. The key is to keep the mind God-centered 24/7, and the only way I know to do that is through constant prayer, sharing of the inner life with God.
Lovely. And I have managed to confuse you. You speak of the inner response to Spirit. My thoughts have been how best to respond to our material life and the more mundane daily decisions, vicissitudes, and crossroads choices we face in that regard. Nonetheless, a constant prayer state would bring those far better responses to our daily walk for sure. I do often “lift up” my decisions in the moment for guidance and seek out His touch upon my heart but not so much as I should.
The choices I make every day have repercussions – they add to soul and circle progress, or they diminish progress, they accelerate our spirit gravity response or decelerate that. We are told in text that we always move closer or further away by our choices. It is this sowing and reaping cycle I speak of – a continuous learning cycle to discern what choice to make and why at every intersection of choosing. Our choices bring results of and by those choices. We choose our way along the pilgrim’s path – and each chooses differently. But if we choose with sincerity and a pure heart, that path straightens and shortens compared to choices we make otherwise. I think it is by this choosing that we become more and more spiritized and is what shifts our seat of identity away from the material toward the spirit – this transfer is by this choosing or our response-ability; the ability to respond in spirit, or lack thereof, determines who we are and who we become. Our response choices are consequential and are determined by who we are by our prior choices.
We cannot make better choices for better reasons without spirit response. We are taught to begin this transition by recognizing the levels of the golden rule to rise above ethics and morality to the love filled and love led life to make these better responses in our daily life I think. Thanks Bonita. Nicely said.
The ability to respond to the choices of every day:
69. THE RULE OF LIVING
“On the evening of this same Sabbath day, at Bethany, while Jesus, the twelve, and a group of believers were assembled about the fire in Lazarus’s garden, Nathaniel asked Jesus this question: ‘Master, although you have taught us the positive version of the old rule of life, instructing us that we should do to others as we wish them to do to us, I do not fully discern how we can always abide by such an injunction. Let me illustrate my contention by citing the example of a lustful man who thus wickedly looks upon his intended consort in sin. How can we teach that this evil-intending man should do to others as he would they should do to him?’
“When Jesus heard Nathaniel’s question, he immediately stood upon his feet and, pointing his finger at the apostle, said: ‘Nathaniel, Nathaniel! What manner of thinking is going on in your heart? Do you not receive my teachings as one who has been born of the spirit? Do you not hear the truth as men of wisdom and spiritual understanding? When I admonished you to do to others as you would have them do to you, I spoke to men of high ideals, not to those who would be tempted to distort my teaching into a license for the encouragement of evil doing.’
“When the Master had spoken, Nathaniel stood up and said: ‘But, Master, you should not think that I approve of such an interpretation of your teaching. I asked the question because I conjectured that many such men might thus misjudge your admonition, and I hoped you would give us further instruction regarding these matters.’ And then when Nathaniel had sat down, Jesus continued speaking: ‘I well know, Nathaniel, that no such idea of evil is approved in your mind, but I am disappointed in that you all so often fail to put a genuinely spiritual interpretation upon my commonplace teachings, instruction which must be given you in human language and as men must speak. Let me now teach you concerning the differing levels of meaning attached to the interpretation of this rule of living, this admonition to “do to others that which you desire others to do to you”:
“‘1. The level of the flesh. Such a purely selfish and lustful interpretation would be well exemplified by the supposition of your question.
“‘2. The level of the feelings.This plane is one level higher than that of the flesh and implies that sympathy and pity would enhance one’s interpretation of this rule of living.
“‘3. The level of mind. Now come into action the reason of mind and the intelligence of experience. Good judgment dictates that such a rule of living should be interpreted in consonance with the highest idealism embodied in the nobility of profound self-respect.
“‘4. The level of brotherly love. Still higher is discovered the level of unselfish devotion to the welfare of one’s fellows. On this higher plane of wholehearted social service growing out of the consciousness of the fatherhood of God and the consequent recognition of the brotherhood of man, there is discovered a new and far more beautiful interpretation of this basic rule of life.
“‘5. The moral level. And then when you attain true philosophic levels of interpretation, when you have real insight into the rightness and wrongness of things, when you perceive the eternal fitness of human relationships, you will begin to view such a problem of interpretation as you would imagine a highminded, idealistic, wise, and impartial third person would so view and interpret such an injunction as applied to your personal problems of adjustment to your life situations.
“‘6. The spiritual level. And then last, but greatest of all, we attain the level of spirit insight and spiritual interpretation which impels us to recognize in this rule of life the divine command to treat all men as we conceive God would treat them. That is the universe ideal of human relationships. And this is your attitude toward all such problems when your supreme desire is ever to do the Father’s will. I would, therefore, that you should do to all men that which you know I would do to them in like circumstances.’” (1650.2) 147:4.1
(68.4) 5:5.1 Morality has its origin in the reason of self-consciousness; it is superanimal but wholly evolutionary. Human evolution embraces in its unfolding all endowments antecedent to the bestowal of the Adjusters and to the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth. But the attainment of levels of morality does not deliver man from the real struggles of mortal living. Man’s physical environment entails the battle for existence; the social surroundings necessitate ethical adjustments; the moral situations require the making of choices in the highest realms of reason; the spiritual experience (having realized God) demands that man find him and sincerely strive to be like him.
(68.5) 5:5.2 Religion is not grounded in the facts of science, the obligations of society, the assumptions of philosophy, or the implied duties of morality. Religion is an independent realm of human response to life situations and is unfailingly exhibited at all stages of human development which are postmoral. Religion may permeate all four levels of the realization of values and the enjoyment of universe fellowship: the physical or material level of self-preservation; the social or emotional level of fellowship; the moral or duty level of reason; the spiritual level of the consciousness of universe fellowship through divine worship.
(1204.2) 110:1.4 Adjusters are interested in, and concerned with, your daily doings and the manifold details of your life just to the extent that these are influential in the determination of your significant temporal choices and vital spiritual decisions and, hence, are factors in the solution of your problem of soul survival and eternal progress. The Adjuster, while passive regarding purely temporal welfare, is divinely active concerning all the affairs of your eternal future.
(1204.3) 110:1.5 The Adjuster remains with you in all disaster and through every sickness which does not wholly destroy the mentality. But how unkind knowingly to defile or otherwise deliberately to pollute the physical body, which must serve as the earthly tabernacle of this marvelous gift from God. All physical poisons greatly retard the efforts of the Adjuster to exalt the material mind, while the mental poisons of fear, anger, envy, jealousy, suspicion, and intolerance likewise tremendously interfere with the spiritual progress of the evolving soul.
Bradly wrote: My thoughts have been how best to respond to our material life and the more mundane daily decisions, vicissitudes, and crossroads choices we face in that regard.I don’t think that way. In fact, that’s backwards to the way I think. But I am odd and different and have been known to mislead every single person on this forum, so take what I say with a grain of salt. My thinking is the other way around when it comes to life and its mundane decisions, vicissitudes and crossroads. I don’t really wait to respond to those things in life, I am constantly responding to my inner relationship with God. Over time, I’ve discovered that life begins to respond to the relationship.
When these problems of living come to me, I see how they relate to that inner life, and then choose the one which maintains the peaceful relationship that I have established with God. If I’m tempted to make a different choice I know immediately because the relationship suffers and I lose that intimate, loving contact. My mind begins to spin into confusional chaos and I start to argue with myself. Having done that a few times, I steer clear of it now and opt for the one that I know will keep the relationship going. The soul’s desires are to keep growing and I’ve given in to those desires; they are mine now, and I, Bonita, now identify with and own them. I’ve given up the other way of thinking; but, having done so doesn’t mean that I can’t go back to it if I will it. I just don’t will it.
It’s guaranteed to work as long as you establish the relationship first and then apply everything in your life to it, give all that you have to the relationship. And you have to do that all of the time, not just when making big decisions. I even do it for the most ridiculous of decisions, the ones you would think that God doesn’t care about. But even if he doesn’t have an opinion on something, a simple decision can make a difference in the particular quality of beauty you bring into the world. I’m always looking to make the world more beautiful, it’s a way of thinking that I find has the most impact on my life and on others. Of course, my idea of beauty may not be yours and that’s what makes us unique.
But I do imagine that some people can become delusional and think that they have a relationship with God when they are really having a relationship with a phantasm of their imagination. However, that would slowly spiral into non-reality and bring conflict, confusion, unhappiness and psychic pain if it persists. And that should be an indication that things are amiss internally. Some people are stubborn and keep it up though; I’ve known a few. So I don’t know how to tell you to live, but I can recognize when someone is NOT living well, when they’re ignoring that inner relationship or have established a false one. And we can all recognize someone who IS living well. Usually the person who is living according to God’s will is the one being persecuted by those who refuse to. Their liaison forces are always working to undo the relationship, to break the bonds of loyalty to one’s true love. At least that’s so here on Urantia. But those liaison forces are impotent when faced with Michael, who is right there within the relationship. Ya gotta love it. My hero. I would never make a decision to jeopardize that! I’m committed.
Thank you Bonita. I do so aspire to that which you describe. I am a tadpole with many miles of pilgrim’s path journey and some progress homeward too. I appreciate your sharing of that devotion of will and attenuation of mind so that daily decisions are approached by a unified, harmonized, and experienced mind that can penetrate each choice with that level of discernment and response. I do think this becomes a natural, almost effortless, response mechanism given sufficient experience in the spirit. Jesus did not “agonize” over most or even many decisions – He just WAS himself – although there were times and situations that required no little reflection and prayer for even him to “choose” or decide which way to go. He always sought Father’s way and will but the older he got and the more experienced in such a choosing process, the more natural and “reflexive” his responses became.
Bradly wrote: I do think this becomes a natural, almost effortless, response mechanism given sufficient experience in the spirit.I think that’s why they call the Adjusters Thought Controllers after the age of discretion. They don’t control your thoughts unless you’ve given over everything to them. I think the age of discretion is that time when it starts to dawn on you that there’s a better way and that the better way is to just hand it over to God. That doesn’t mean that you become a passive passenger in life though. It means that you learn to identify yourself with that better way revealed within the relationship. The soul IS that relationship. If you allow the relationship to control your thinking and your actions, then you are definitely a part of it. But it is your soul that is driving your mind . . . I’ve never been able to explain that to people in a way that they understand, but it’s really something a bit beyond understanding. You just have to do it and the experience is the explanation.The alter ego approach is the best approach to establishing the relationship. Prayer is the best approach to maintaining the relationship. Everything else in life lines up with the relationship and is put right. Some people think that they have to put their life just right in order to start or keep the relationship. That’s backward. It’s primitive thinking. That’s the kind of thinking that creates religious rites, rituals and formal prayers. It’s not without its merits though, so I’ll never condemn it. I’m just sayin’ that if you really want to be happy, turn it around the other way. Then it doesn’t matter what happens in life, in fact, all of life can tumble into chaos and it wouldn’t matter one iota. Actually, I have discovered that when you live your life this way, the outer life tends to follow the inner life of peace. It’s not guaranteed though. Calamity can come to all of us, but I can be sure that when calamity comes my way , it will not have been of my own making. So many of people’s problems are of their own making and they just don’t realize it because they’re living backwards. We’re a spiritually dyslexic people here on Urantia.Thank you Bonita. I’ve been considering your perspective and been led to additional study on the topic of the need for and reality of response-ability. Indeed, you are again correct. All minds and personalities are “response” based, at least in the realms of time and space. The level of our response to the spirit directly determines – or at least profoundly affects – our experiential responses to every intersection of choice we will ever face. I propose that we cannot begin to shift the seat of our identity from the material life and world to the spirit/morontia realities until we are first spirit responsive.
We will not respond to material life challenges “correctly” until we are love responsive, then spirit responsive. The greater our experience is response-able, the more we transcend from one level, the initial level, of reality to the next level of universe realities. I will be posting some supporting text time to time and anticipate further discussion. Bonita started a thread on the Adjutants which includes many applicable and associated elements – we begin this response-ability through and by the Adjutants’ ministry to mind – a circuitry response if you will. And that circuit only enlarges and gains power by our response-ability to those forces of mind ministry.
(1153.4) 105:1.7 The universe of universes, with its innumerable host of inhabiting personalities, is a vast and complex organism, but the First Source and Center is infinitely more complex than the universes and personalities which have become real in response to his willful mandates. When you stand in awe of the magnitude of the master universe, pause to consider that even this inconceivable creation can be no more than a partial revelation of the Infinite.
6. Repercussions of Finite Reality
(1159.1) 105:6.1 The entire promulgation of finite existences represents a transference from potentials to actuals within the absolute associations of functional infinity. Of the many repercussions to creative actualization of the finite, there may be cited:
(1159.2) 105:6.2 1. The deity response, the appearance of the three levels of experiential supremacy: the actuality of personal-spirit supremacy in Havona, the potential for personal-power supremacy in the grand universe to be, and the capacity for some unknown function of experiential mind acting on some level of supremacy in the future master universe.
(1159.3) 105:6.3 2. The universe response involved an activation of the architectural plans for the superuniverse space level, and this evolution is still progressing throughout the physical organization of the seven superuniverses.
(1159.4) 105:6.4 3. The creature repercussion to finite-reality promulgation resulted in the appearance of perfect beings on the order of the eternal inhabitants of Havona and of perfected evolutionary ascenders from the seven superuniverses. But to attain perfection as an evolutionary (time-creative) experience implies something other-than-perfection as a point of departure. Thus arises imperfection in the evolutionary creations. And this is the origin of potential evil. Misadaptation, disharmony, and conflict, all these things are inherent in evolutionary growth, from physical universes to personal creatures.
(1159.5) 105:6.5 4. The divinity response to the imperfection inherent in the time lag of evolution is disclosed in the compensating presence of God the Sevenfold, by whose activities that which is perfecting is integrated with both the perfect and the perfected. This time lag is inseparable from evolution, which is creativity in time. Because of it, as well as for other reasons, the almighty power of the Supreme is predicated on the divinity successes of God the Sevenfold. This time lag makes possible creature participation in divine creation by permitting creature personalities to become partners with Deity in the attainment of maximum development. Even the material mind of the mortal creature thus becomes partner with the divine Adjuster in the dualization of the immortal soul. God the Sevenfold also provides techniques of compensation for the experiential limitations of inherent perfection as well as compensating the preascension limitations of imperfection.
(82.5) 7:1.6 Spirit-gravity pull and response thereto operate not only on the universe as a whole but also even between individuals and groups of individuals. There is a spiritual cohesiveness among the spiritual and spiritized personalities of any world, race, nation, or believing group of individuals. There is a direct attractiveness of a spirit nature between spiritually minded persons of like tastes and longings. The term kindred spirits is not wholly a figure of speech.
(82.7) 7:1.8 All reactions of the spirit-gravity circuit of the grand universe are predictable. We recognize all actions and reactions of the omnipresent spirit of the Eternal Son and find them to be dependable. In accordance with well-known laws, we can and do measure spiritual gravity just as man attempts to compute the workings of finite physical gravity. There is an unvarying response of the Son’s spirit to all spirit things, beings, and persons, and this response is always in accordance with the degree of actuality (the qualitative degree of reality) of all such spiritual values.
(1227.3) 112:1.13 Life is really a process which takes place between the organism (selfhood) and its environment. The personality imparts value of identity and meanings of continuity to this organismal-environmental association. Thus it will be recognized that the phenomenon of stimulus-response is not a mere mechanical process since the personality functions as a factor in the total situation. It is ever true that mechanisms are innately passive; organisms, inherently active.
(1227.4) 112:1.14 Physical life is a process taking place not so much within the organism as between the organism and the environment. And every such process tends to create and establish organismal patterns of reaction to such an environment. And all such directive patterns are highly influential in goal choosing.
(1227.5) 112:1.15 It is through the mediation of mind that the self and the environment establish meaningful contact. The ability and willingness of the organism to make such significant contacts with environment (response to a drive) represents the attitude of the whole personality.
(1229.2) 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.
(1229.3) 112:2.16 An ascending onetime human personality passes through two great phases of increasing volitional dominance over the self and in the universe:
(1229.4) 112:2.17 1. The prefinaliter or God-seeking experience of augmenting the self-realization through a technique of identity expansion and actualization together with cosmic problem solving and consequent universe mastery.
(1229.7) 112:2.20 The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life. 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.
I propose that we cannot begin to shift the seat of our identity from the material life and world to the spirit/morontia realities until we are first spirit responsive.
That’s what I call, born of the spirit. It has to do with an awakening to the inner religious attitude of the soul. It is also called the new birth, meaning a change of mind by faith. When attitude is properly aligned inwardly toward spirit it is capable of being properly aligned outwardly with the universe.
142:6.7 And Nicodemus said: “But how can I begin to lay hold upon this spirit which is to remake me in preparation for entering into the kingdom?” Jesus answered: “Already does the spirit of the Father in heaven indwell you. If you would be led by this spirit from above, very soon would you begin to see with the eyes of the spirit, and then by the wholehearted choice of spirit guidance would you be born of the spirit since your only purpose in living would be to do the will of your Father who is in heaven. And so finding yourself born of the spirit and happily in the kingdom of God, you would begin to bear in your daily life the abundant fruits of the spirit.”
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