-
Posts
-
100:4.1 (1097.5) Religious living is devoted living, and devoted living is creative living, original and spontaneous. New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns. New meanings only emerge amid conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the higher values connoted in superior meanings.
100:4.2 (1097.6) Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.
100:4.3 (1097.7) But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of love. Health, mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
111:4.7 (1220.6) Happiness and joy take origin in the inner life. You cannot experience real joy all by yourself. A solitary life is fatal to happiness. Even families and nations will enjoy life more if they share it with others.
140:5.6 (1573.8) The faith and the love of these beatitudes strengthen moral character and create happiness. Fear and anger weaken character and destroy happiness. This momentous sermon started out upon the note of happiness.
140:5.7 (1573.9) 1. “Happy are the poor in spirit—the humble.” To a child, happiness is the satisfaction of immediate pleasure craving. The adult is willing to sow seeds of self-denial in order to reap subsequent harvests of augmented happiness. In Jesus’ times and since, happiness has all too often been associated with the idea of the possession of wealth. In the story of the Pharisee and the publican praying in the temple, the one felt rich in spirit—egotistical; the other felt “poor in spirit”—humble. One was self-sufficient; the other was teachable and truth-seeking. The poor in spirit seek for goals of spiritual wealth—for God. And such seekers after truth do not have to wait for rewards in a distant future; they are rewarded now. They find the kingdom of heaven within their own hearts, and they experience such happiness now.140:5.8 (1574.1) 2. “Happy are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Only those who feel poor in spirit will ever hunger for righteousness. Only the humble seek for divine strength and crave spiritual power. But it is most dangerous to knowingly engage in spiritual fasting in order to improve one’s appetite for spiritual endowments. Physical fasting becomes dangerous after four or five days; one is apt to lose all desire for food. Prolonged fasting, either physical or spiritual, tends to destroy hunger.
140:5.9 (1574.2) Experiential righteousness is a pleasure, not a duty. Jesus’ righteousness is a dynamic love—fatherly-brotherly affection. It is not the negative or thou-shalt-not type of righteousness. How could one ever hunger for something negative—something “not to do”?
140:5.10 (1574.3) It is not so easy to teach a child mind these first two of the beatitudes, but the mature mind should grasp their significance.
140:5.11 (1574.4) 3. “Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Genuine meekness has no relation to fear. It is rather an attitude of man co-operating with God—“Your will be done.” It embraces patience and forbearance and is motivated by an unshakable faith in a lawful and friendly universe. It masters all temptations to rebel against the divine leading. Jesus was the ideal meek man of Urantia, and he inherited a vast universe.
140:5.12 (1574.5) 4. “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Spiritual purity is not a negative quality, except that it does lack suspicion and revenge. In discussing purity, Jesus did not intend to deal exclusively with human sex attitudes. He referred more to that faith which man should have in his fellow man; that faith which a parent has in his child, and which enables him to love his fellows even as a father would love them. A father’s love need not pamper, and it does not condone evil, but it is always anticynical. Fatherly love has singleness of purpose, and it always looks for the best in man; that is the attitude of a true parent.
140:5.13 (1574.6) To see God—by faith—means to acquire true spiritual insight. And spiritual insight enhances Adjuster guidance, and these in the end augment God-consciousness. And when you know the Father, you are confirmed in the assurance of divine sonship, and you can increasingly love each of your brothers in the flesh, not only as a brother—with brotherly love—but also as a father—with fatherly affection.
140:5.14 (1574.7) It is easy to teach this admonition even to a child. Children are naturally trustful, and parents should see to it that they do not lose that simple faith. In dealing with children, avoid all deception and refrain from suggesting suspicion. Wisely help them to choose their heroes and select their lifework.
Fear
Anxiety
Anger
Envy
Jealousy
Suspicion
Impatience
Intolerance
Resentment
Greed
Pride
PrejudiceSuch poisons deliver some very bitter repercussions to our life and family. Try a soothing dose of hope, faith, charity, kindness, generosity, and mercy.
Sincere prayer can deliver those to us anytime and all the time. Anywhere and everywhere. No matter our uncertainties, confusion, or doubts. Or the situation, or the circumstances
There is a fountain of love and truth within us and a banquet of happiness to share…the fruits of the Spirit.
Peace to all who suffer the consequences of these spirit poisons, especially the victims of violence and war and greed and isolation and intolerance and pain and disease and hunger and all manner of human sin and evil. May such suffering find release and relief and receive the kindness and love we are taught to have for one another.
Only sharing and caring delivers such relief. Let us serve one another. ‘Tis the reason for this season…and every day of every season too!
BradlySpirit poisons damage our Deity Connections and our ability to “hear” the whisper within and to “see” or discern truth, beauty, and goodness.
101:0.3 (1104.3) Religion, the conviction-faith of the personality, can always triumph over the superficially contradictory logic of despair born in the unbelieving material mind. There really is a true and genuine inner voice, that “true light which lights every man who comes into the world.” And this spirit leading is distinct from the ethical prompting of human conscience. The feeling of religious assurance is more than an emotional feeling. The assurance of religion transcends the reason of the mind, even the logic of philosophy. Religion is faith, trust, and assurance.
1. True Religion
101:1.1 (1104.4) True religion is not a system of philosophic belief which can be reasoned out and substantiated by natural proofs, neither is it a fantastic and mystic experience of indescribable feelings of ecstasy which can be enjoyed only by the romantic devotees of mysticism. Religion is not the product of reason, but viewed from within, it is altogether reasonable. Religion is not derived from the logic of human philosophy, but as a mortal experience it is altogether logical. Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfactions while yet in the flesh.
101:1.2 (1104.5) The Thought Adjuster has no special mechanism through which to gain self-expression; there is no mystic religious faculty for the reception or expression of religious emotions. These experiences are made available through the naturally ordained mechanism of mortal mind. And therein lies one explanation of the Adjuster’s difficulty in engaging in direct communication with the material mind of its constant indwelling.
101:1.3 (1104.6) The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. The divine nature may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind. “Without holiness no man may see the Lord.” All such inner and spiritual communion is termed spiritual insight. Such religious experiences result from the impress made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God.
101:1.4 (1105.1) Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.
109:5.2 (1199.3) It is sometimes possible to have the mind illuminated, to hear the divine voice that continually speaks within you, so that you may become partially conscious of the wisdom, truth, goodness, and beauty of the potential personality constantly indwelling you.
109:5.3 (1199.4) But your unsteady and rapidly shifting mental attitudes often result in thwarting the plans and interrupting the work of the Adjusters. Their work is not only interfered with by the innate natures of the mortal races, but this ministry is also greatly retarded by your own preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices. Because of these handicaps, many times only their unfinished creations emerge into consciousness, and confusion of concept is inevitable. Therefore, in scrutinizing mental situations, safety lies only in the prompt recognition of each and every thought and experience for just what it actually and fundamentally is, disregarding entirely what it might have been.
109:5.4 (1199.5) The great problem of life is the adjustment of the ancestral tendencies of living to the demands of the spiritual urges initiated by the divine presence of the Mystery Monitor. While in the universe and superuniverse careers no man can serve two masters, in the life you now live on Urantia every man must perforce serve two masters. He must become adept in the art of a continuous human temporal compromise while he yields spiritual allegiance to but one master; and this is why so many falter and fail, grow weary and succumb to the stress of the evolutionary struggle.
Faith assurance is the result of those motives, intentions, priorities, and freewill choices that are the earmarks of our personal religious experience based on our hopes, ideals, aspirations, and our recognition and pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness.
Spirit poisons do not help such perception or universe realities perspective. These poisons pervert and distort our expectations and our choices and our outcomes.
Religious living aligned with universe reality delivers a sublime confidence in the flow of the river of life. There is a growing trust also in the course and the intersections of choice I am led to by the angels and my TA and the ministers of and to my adventures in time. I am delivered to those places, people, and times where I can find opportunities to serve, and love, and learn….moments where new meanings are discovered and meanings already learned are reinforced and with new angles of perception to further expand my perspective of life and destiny.
Now, lest any feel I am pious or self righteous or even bragadocious in my reflections, I assure you all I still consider myself but a tadpole, a child in this spiritualization and growth of soul….I do not understand this transfer of the seat of identity and am no guru of style and technique…..my life is still filled with uncertainty and vicissitudes and confusion and conflict and perplexing conundrums and consternation.
I only claim that when we believe the teachings of the Master and act on such belief with trust and faith, that such will change one’s motives for living, intentions in living, priorities of our choices, and our decisions at the intersections of choice….and that, over time, most definitely changes ME and my life and my perspective and my ideals and hopes. It does not deliver ease, fame, wealth, or make the material vicissitudes any less real or uncertain….only less difficult and less important compared to the growth in spirit and of soul.
The transition is hard to describe without sounding pompous. But I can assure all that there is also an accompanying humility and smallness that always comes as one begins to realize how much greater is all reality and how much more truth, beauty, and goodness there is compared to that which I can recognize or grasp or realize myself.
Personally, I have only begun, over decades of my life, this inner journey; the beginning of this endless path of progress is still in sight to me…I am such a tadpole still. But a joyous one and a confident one. Only my direction is certain and not the distance of my not so great progress! But to those who knowingly embark on this road and river of faith, it is a great adventure!
6. Marks of Religious Living
100:6.1 (1100.3) Evolutionary religions and revelatory religions may differ markedly in method, but in motive there is great similarity. Religion is not a specific function of life; rather is it a mode of living. True religion is a wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind. And the outstanding characteristics of all religions are: unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to supreme values. This religious devotion to supreme values is shown in the relation of the supposedly irreligious mother to her child and in the fervent loyalty of nonreligionists to an espoused cause.
100:6.2 (1100.4) The accepted supreme value of the religionist may be base or even false, but it is nevertheless religious. A religion is genuine to just the extent that the value which is held to be supreme is truly a cosmic reality of genuine spiritual worth.
100:6.3 (1100.5) The marks of human response to the religious impulse embrace the qualities of nobility and grandeur. The sincere religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and is aware of making contact with sources of superhuman power. He is thrilled and energized with the assurance of belonging to a superior and ennobled fellowship of the sons of God. The consciousness of self-worth has become augmented by the stimulus of the quest for the highest universe objectives — supreme goals.
100:6.4 (1100.6) The self has surrendered to the intriguing drive of an all-encompassing motivation which imposes heightened self-discipline, lessens emotional conflict, and makes mortal life truly worth living. The morbid recognition of human limitations is changed to the natural consciousness of mortal shortcomings, associated with moral determination and spiritual aspiration to attain the highest universe and superuniverse goals. And this intense striving for the attainment of supermortal ideals is always characterized by increasing patience, forbearance, fortitude, and tolerance.
Perhaps this is a good point to reiterate that anything and everything written and posted here that is not a direct quotation from the UB text itself are but opinions and understanding that are personal and subjective and lacking any and all authority.
We must each perceive, pursue, and apply truth individually, and according to our own understanding, appreciation, and application, in our own situation and circumstances, based on our own highest hopes and ideals and universe reality perspective.
My posts are but the reflection of a tadpole’s UB studies and ponderments!
More on personal prayer:
91:3.3 (997.1) As it is conceived by successive generations of praying mortals, the alter ego evolves up through ghosts, fetishes, and spirits to polytheistic gods, and eventually to the One God, a divine being embodying the highest ideals and the loftiest aspirations of the praying ego. And thus does prayer function as the most potent agency of religion in the conservation of the highest values and ideals of those who pray. From the moment of the conceiving of an alter ego to the appearance of the concept of a divine and heavenly Father, prayer is always a socializing, moralizing, and spiritualizing practice.
91:3.4 (997.2) The simple prayer of faith evidences a mighty evolution in human experience whereby the ancient conversations with the fictitious symbol of the alter ego of primitive religion have become exalted to the level of communion with the spirit of the Infinite and to that of a bona fide consciousness of the reality of the eternal God and Paradise Father of all intelligent creation.
91:3.5 (997.3) Aside from all that is superself in the experience of praying, it should be remembered that ethical prayer is a splendid way to elevate one’s ego and reinforce the self for better living and higher attainment. Prayer induces the human ego to look both ways for help: for material aid to the subconscious reservoir of mortal experience, for inspiration and guidance to the superconscious borders of the contact of the material with the spiritual, with the Mystery Monitor.
91:3.6 (997.4) Prayer ever has been and ever will be a twofold human experience: a psychologic procedure interassociated with a spiritual technique. And these two functions of prayer can never be fully separated.
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.
Me here: 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!
Spirit poisons erode the citadel of assurance from the inside out. Only faith and its fruits can hold the citadel from the material assaults and confusion and doubts all tadpoles must endure. The afflictions and suffering by the hammer and anvil of freewill choices and the evolutionary acquirement of wisdom by the experiential repercussions of our choices can be embraced by the Faithful who share the universe reality perspective of eternal adventures in God’s friendly universe.
Faith and assurance are our citadel of sanctuary and security.
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!
The human mind is a powerful thing, with the capability of imagination, intuition, invention, reason, discernment, estimating potentials and probabilities, self transformation and experiential wisdom, time transcendency, and superconsciousness.
The human mind is connected to Deity and our soul is the co-creative and eternal self formed by spirit and mind by our moral nature delivered by personality. Mind, spirit, and personality are all derivitives of Deity origin.
Mind and spirit poisons interfere with the mind and the soul by distortions of our perception and perspective and expectations and experience. Such interference and distortions slow progress and prevent personal growth. Our human nature is transcendent, the ability to grow and improve and achieve and overcome and persevere and learn and project and transcend material limitations are human nature.
The spirit nature IS human nature. If we choose to respond to that nature, we increasingly become more and more spirit identified and less and less constrained by the material limitations of our bio/chemical brains and bodies. The brain is not mind, it is but the host. Or so I understand the UB to teach…
133:7.10 (1480.2) A human mind, built up solely out of the consciousness of physical sensations, could never attain spiritual levels; this kind of material mind would be utterly lacking in a sense of moral values and would be without a guiding sense of spiritual dominance which is so essential to achieving harmonious personality unity in time, and which is inseparable from personality survival in eternity.
133:7.11 (1480.3) The human mind early begins to manifest qualities which are supermaterial; the truly reflective human intellect is not altogether bound by the limits of time. That individuals so differ in their life performances indicates, not only the varying endowments of heredity and the different influences of the environment, but also the degree of unification with the indwelling spirit of the Father which has been achieved by the self, the measure of the identification of the one with the other.
133:7.12 (1480.4) The human mind does not well stand the conflict of double allegiance. It is a severe strain on the soul to undergo the experience of an effort to serve both good and evil. The supremely happy and efficiently unified mind is the one wholly dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. Unresolved conflicts destroy unity and may terminate in mind disruption. But the survival character of a soul is not fostered by attempting to secure peace of mind at any price, by the surrender of noble aspirations, and by the compromise of spiritual ideals; rather is such peace attained by the stalwart assertion of the triumph of that which is true, and this victory is achieved in the overcoming of evil with the potent force of good.
Human nature is far more than the animal nature of our origin and biological and evolutionary legacy. But it is far less than the existential spirit nature we may aspire to through our Deity Connections. We are experiential personalities with freewill and insight and perspective that is far beyond the animal level of existence.
7. Morals, Virtue, and Personality
16:7.1 (192.8) Intelligence alone cannot explain the moral nature. Morality, virtue, is indigenous to human personality. Moral intuition, the realization of duty, is a component of human mind endowment and is associated with the other inalienables of human nature: scientific curiosity and spiritual insight. Man’s mentality far transcends that of his animal cousins, but it is his moral and religious natures that especially distinguish him from the animal world.
16:7.2 (193.1) The selective response of an animal is limited to the motor level of behavior. The supposed insight of the higher animals is on a motor level and usually appears only after the experience of motor trial and error. Man is able to exercise scientific, moral, and spiritual insight prior to all exploration or experimentation.
16:7.3 (193.2) Only a personality can know what it is doing before it does it; only personalities possess insight in advance of experience. A personality can look before it leaps and can therefore learn from looking as well as from leaping. A nonpersonal animal ordinarily learns only by leaping.
16:7.4 (193.3) As a result of experience an animal becomes able to examine the different ways of attaining a goal and to select an approach based on accumulated experience. But a personality can also examine the goal itself and pass judgment on its worth-whileness, its value. Intelligence alone can discriminate as to the best means of attaining indiscriminate ends, but a moral being possesses an insight which enables him to discriminate between ends as well as between means. And a moral being in choosing virtue is nonetheless intelligent. He knows what he is doing, why he is doing it, where he is going, and how he will get there.
16:7.5 (193.4) When man fails to discriminate the ends of his mortal striving, he finds himself functioning on the animal level of existence. He has failed to avail himself of the superior advantages of that material acumen, moral discrimination, and spiritual insight which are an integral part of his cosmic-mind endowment as a personal being.
16:7.6 (193.5) Virtue is righteousness—conformity with the cosmos. To name virtues is not to define them, but to live them is to know them. Virtue is not mere knowledge nor yet wisdom but rather the reality of progressive experience in the attainment of ascending levels of cosmic achievement. In the day-by-day life of mortal man, virtue is realized by the consistent choosing of good rather than evil, and such choosing ability is evidence of the possession of a moral nature.
16:7.7 (193.6) Man’s choosing between good and evil is influenced, not only by the keenness of his moral nature, but also by such influences as ignorance, immaturity, and delusion. A sense of proportion is also concerned in the exercise of virtue because evil may be perpetrated when the lesser is chosen in the place of the greater as a result of distortion or deception. The art of relative estimation or comparative measurement enters into the practice of the virtues of the moral realm.
16:7.8 (193.7) Man’s moral nature would be impotent without the art of measurement, the discrimination embodied in his ability to scrutinize meanings. Likewise would moral choosing be futile without that cosmic insight which yields the consciousness of spiritual values. From the standpoint of intelligence, man ascends to the level of a moral being because he is endowed with personality.16:7.9 (193.8) Morality can never be advanced by law or by force. It is a personal and freewill matter and must be disseminated by the contagion of the contact of morally fragrant persons with those who are less morally responsive, but who are also in some measure desirous of doing the Father’s will.
16:7.10 (193.9) Moral acts are those human performances which are characterized by the highest intelligence, directed by selective discrimination in the choice of superior ends as well as in the selection of moral means to attain these ends. Such conduct is virtuous. Supreme virtue, then, is wholeheartedly to choose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
The Master teaches us about pure hearts and the dangers of a poisoned mind:
111:4.8 (1220.7) You cannot completely control the external world—environment. It is the creativity of the inner world that is most subject to your direction because there your personality is so largely liberated from the fetters of the laws of antecedent causation. There is associated with personality a limited sovereignty of will.
111:4.9 (1220.
Since this inner life of man is truly creative, there rests upon each person the responsibility of choosing as to whether this creativity shall be spontaneous and wholly haphazard or controlled, directed, and constructive. How can a creative imagination produce worthy children when the stage whereon it functions is already preoccupied by prejudice, hate, fears, resentments, revenge, and bigotries?111:4.10 (1220.9) Ideas may take origin in the stimuli of the outer world, but ideals are born only in the creative realms of the inner world. Today the nations of the world are directed by men who have a superabundance of ideas, but they are poverty-stricken in ideals. That is the explanation of poverty, divorce, war, and racial hatreds.
111:4.11 (1220.10) This is the problem: If freewill man is endowed with the powers of creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and sin—oppression, war, and destruction. Evil is a partiality of creativity which tends toward disintegration and eventual destruction. All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life—it is a species of civil war in the personality.
111:4.12 (1221.1) Inner creativity contributes to ennoblement of character through personality integration and selfhood unification. It is forever true: The past is unchangeable; only the future can be changed by the ministry of the present creativity of the inner self.
Me here: So….the ends never justify the means. Unrighteous means to achieve righteousness is a ridiculous oxymoron. The ‘means’ – or tactics, strategies, and methods – employed for any objective must be as righteous as the ideal or result or ‘ends’ or we have utterly failed all righteousness.
The repercussions of freewill choices are profound. Our choices become our future reality and very being. We benefit by or suffer from those choices and the motivation and intentions and perspective and priorities we apply to those choices…. “decisions, decisions, and more decisions…” and every single decision with future repercussions… the endless outcomes from causes and effects driving more decisions and outcomes.
Every choice creates new future potentials. Good choices result in eternal and infinite repercussions that reverberate throughout time, space, and reality. Bad choices deliver temporal delays and obstacles to the Divine outworking of truth, beauty, and goodness but love and mercy and patience always triumphs over error, evil, and sin….always….eventually or sooner.
Spirit poisons deliver bad decisions and inferior outcomes… and suffering. The elimination of poisons would deliver profoundly different outcomes for each of us…and all of us.
42:12.14 (484.2) The spirit is the creative reality; the physical counterpart is the time-space reflection of the spirit reality, the physical repercussion of the creative action of spirit-mind.
42:12.15 (484.3) Mind universally dominates matter, even as it is in turn responsive to the ultimate overcontrol of spirit. And with mortal man, only that mind which freely submits itself to the spirit direction can hope to survive the mortal time-space existence as an immortal child of the eternal spirit world of the Supreme, the Ultimate, and the Absolute: the Infinite.
So…..consider: our freewill choices determines every aspect of our future…perspective, expectations, reactions and responses in every situation and circumstance, our motives and intentions and priorities in life, our very philosophy of living, our relationships with Deity and with each other, our loyalties, and our very character too!
Our choices blaze our trail of experience through time but also determines ‘who’ we are and what we become. It is very difficult to escape from the mass and force and momentum and trajectories created by our freewill choices. Spiritual awakening and personal religious growth and the wisdom delivered by suffering and insight – all by our response to our Deity Connections within – can transcend and reorient and redirect our personal mass and momentum and trajectory.
We can change our future reality and reality perspective and reality responses and experiential outcomes by faith alone.
The Urantia Papers describe this as shifting the seat of our identity.
5:6.6 (71.1) Capacity for divine personality is inherent in the prepersonal Adjuster; capacity for human personality is potential in the cosmic-mind endowment of the human being. But the experiential personality of mortal man is not observable as an active and functional reality until after the material life vehicle of the mortal creature has been touched by the liberating divinity of the Universal Father, being thus launched upon the seas of experience as a self-conscious and a (relatively) self-determinative and self-creative personality. The material self is truly and unqualifiedly personal.
5:6.7 (71.2) 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.
5:6.8 (71.3) Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man’s inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.
112:5.3 (1232.4) Mortal identity is a transient time-life condition in the universe; it is real only in so far as the personality elects to become a continuing universe phenomenon. This is the essential difference between man and an energy system: The energy system must continue, it has no choice; but man has everything to do with determining his own destiny. The Adjuster is truly the path to Paradise, but man himself must pursue that path by his own deciding, his freewill choosing.
112:5.4 (1232.5) Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human personality. But this is a material and purely temporary manifestation, just as the human embryo is a transient parasitic stage of human life. Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.
112:5.5 (1233.1) And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood, that constitutes man’s greatest opportunity and his supreme cosmic responsibility. Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the eternal destiny of the future finaliter; upon the sincerity of the mortal free will the divine Adjuster depends for eternal personality; upon the faithfulness of mortal choice the Universal Father depends for the realization of a new ascending son; upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution.
Fear
Anxiety
Anger
Envy
Jealousy
Suspicion
Impatience
Intolerance
Resentment
Greed
Pride
PrejudiceThese poisons deliver lasting effects that shape our perspective and expectations and our personal experiences and our outcomes, but they also shape and determine and drive our reactions, responses, reflexes, and future situational choices at every intersection of circumstance and decision.
Negativity corrupts and distorts our freewill choices and always results in personal suffering and unhappiness.
Spiritual growth delivers true happiness and peace of mind to all personalities. Insight and discovery and discernment and understanding of universe reality (described as truth, beauty, and goodness in the UB) are achievements that bring great satisfaction to those who hunger and thirst for happiness and hope.
Such personal discoveries regarding meanings and values are a functional and inherent element of selfhood itself. Mind, spirit,
and personality combine in selfhood and creates the urge for self realization…or reality-ization…the reality-response! Personal progress is the very point of experiential evolution and that which delivers social, even universal and eternal effects.Spiritual growth and personal progress delivers the fruits of the Spirit and the effects of such fruit radiate from us to those near and far and now and forever. Experiential wisdom is never squandered or lost and its impacts are universal and eternal. We have the power to change ourselves, and our families, and communities, and world, and also the present and the future.
These poisons inhibit “the innate drives toward growth and self realization”. The elimination of these poisons liberates us from the bitter fruit they always deliver. Or so I understand the Papers to teach….
100:1.6 (1095.1) Religious experience is markedly influenced by physical health, inherited temperament, and social environment. But these temporal conditions do not inhibit inner spiritual progress by a soul dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. There are present in all normal mortals certain innate drives toward growth and self-realization which function if they are not specifically inhibited. The certain technique of fostering this constitutive endowment of the potential of spiritual growth is to maintain an attitude of wholehearted devotion to supreme values.
100:1.7 (1095.2) 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.
100:1.8 (1095.3) 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.
100:1.9 (1095.4) The unconscious nature of religious growth does not, however, signify that it is an activity functioning in the supposed subconscious realms of human intellect; rather does it signify creative activities in the superconscious levels of mortal mind. The experience of the realization of the reality of unconscious religious growth is the one positive proof of the functional existence of the superconsciousness.
2. Spiritual Growth
100:2.1 (1095.5) Spiritual development depends, first, on the maintenance of a living spiritual connection with true spiritual forces and, second, on the continuous bearing of spiritual fruit: yielding the ministry to one’s fellows of that which has been received from one’s spiritual benefactors. Spiritual progress is predicated on intellectual recognition of spiritual poverty coupled with the self-consciousness of perfection-hunger, the desire to know God and be like him, the wholehearted purpose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
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.
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.
Dear Bradly,
I wish to thank you for these timely reminders from the UB on how we can consciously avoid these spirit poisons and aspire to develop the fruits of the spirit which are in accordance with divine truth, beauty, and goodness.
Thank you again Bradly for your dedication to the spirit values that permeate thoughout this extraordinary revelation.
Love and respect,
Julian
Login to reply to this topic.
Not registered? Sign up here.