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Thanks Bradly for your confidence in me. I’ve been struggling with my role here on the forum and have decided that since there is no one left to talk to, it’s time to retire.
Still here doing more reading than talking.
Thanks Bradly for your confidence in me. I’ve been struggling with my role here on the forum and have decided that since there is no one left to talk to, it’s time to retire. But before taking leave, I certainly don’t mind addressing the topics you bring up. Each time I go through this stuff I learn something new, so it’s all good – especially if I can share it.
As the birth of soul is a function of our conscious mind and choice, what about rebirth or being born again?
Rebirth, born again, and born of the spirit is just another level of consciousness. If your normal everyday run-of-the-mill self-consciousness is elevated to engage worship and wisdom, which overlap with the Holy Spirit in the soul, then consciousness crosses the threshold into a new realm as though being born again. That new realm is an emerging soul-consciousness, a level of mind in contact with spirit presence and the beginning of the process of discovering and recognizing the living God within your very own mind. As the soul grows, soul-consciousness also grows with the caveat that the adjutants of worship and wisdom are habitually engaged. How do you habitually engage worship and wisdom? By consciously training your mind to mature the spiritual reflex explained in 100:1.8. It’s pretty easy, it just takes a little devotion to effort, a gentle reminder to yourself to stay focused and not let emotion carry you off into crazy land.
Again thank you for your help and friendship over the years. To study by your side and in the company of your wit and kindness has been an immeasurable help to me in my own discoveries of fact and reality and transformative growth and embrace of truth, beauty, and goodness. I am utterly convinced that many have so benefitted….and will continue to benefit by what you have shared already and that which you may still come to share….and repeat!! You have been most helpful in my study of the Papers 100-102 as I am approaching such favorite material now and again with a whole new appreciation!
The reason for my recent line of inquiry is due to a conversation at another study group about soul growth and survival of material death related to the conscious choice of being born again…the conscious volitional embrace of spirituality vs. or compared to the natural or unconscious religious life of the evolved religious experience prior to and after soul birth and the revelatory truth religious experience which adds to our religious life once soul is born. But I’m not sure I am correctly understanding the meaning even of “conscious”, let alone unconscious and superconscious! People “think” very differently from one another regarding duty and morality and causation and relationship of self to “other”…there is so much familial, tribal, cultural, and epochal reference framework for our conscious thinking and choosing.
But each person is having a religious experience. It seems to me those personal religious experiences are or can be so very different from each other in context and perception – the uniqueness of the experience, if so similar to one another in component and function – the universality of the religious experience. I would think that over the mortal epochs of time and based upon the functionality and influence of our planetary rulers, leaders, and guides, that the context and perception becomes more universal? But that in the earlier epochs and upon a confused world without corporeal leadership and example, where ignorance of reality and those superstitions and beliefs based on lack of information and example fill the minds of more primitive mortals, that the term “conscious” choice is not so clearly defined?
Conscious but misinformed, misdirected, fear driven, confused, doubtful, and not only ignorant of reality, but the willful embracing of a self or social invented reality-construct. Even such a misinformed mind still is making conscious choices of will which grow soul, and transfer the seat of identity, and makes circle progress. This seems to me make it impossible for one person to measure or assess the religious experience of any other person based on their own evaluation and determination of what constitutes a “conscious” choice or decision. But there are those, including UB students, which hold a creedal and doctrinal standard of beliefs and acts which require specific consciousness of choice and commitment – an awareness of great specificity – the embrace and declaration of which presumes a true conscious choice and change which may or may not truly occur.
One point I am attempting to articulate is that an ignorant mind without knowledge or proper contextual reference points and with a mostly false and invented reality construct can still have a “conscious” religious experience and make conscious and volitional choices which grow soul and transfer the seat of identity. I think I have been incorrectly presuming such a religious life is “unconscious” while it really is conscious…..but conscious by another is not so easily described, defined, or understood by another mortal mind, for what one mind knows or believes is not the same as another’s. We recently read the quote that says we should not judge the religion of a primitive or a primitive religion by our own knowledge, beliefs, or perspective…..and I am guessing this is why…..even the person in the same time frame and family and tribe and culture is having a very unique religious experience based on a very unique perspective and reality construct.
I am thinking then that being born again and the growth of soul is not something with any universal definition related to mortal consciousness and beliefs but one of functional outcomes really known to and measurable by the Spirit within? And why only the fruits of the Spirit are any form of true measurement or awareness by other mortals? One’s faith experience cannot be compared to another’s to evaluate who is transferring their identity and who has been born again with any great accuracy or certainty? And spiritualization and growth can occur slowly or in spurts or cycles of accelerated growth or even instant flux of transformation along the entire spectrum curve of the experiential and conscious transfer of the seat of identity in our personal religious experience.
102:6.5 (1124.7) Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience. In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares to say, “I know,” even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies, “How do you know that I do not know?”
102:6.6 (1125.1) Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability which faith can transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the first truth and the last fact; therefore does all truth take origin in him, while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth one may know God, but to understand—to explain—God, one must explore the fact of the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and universal fact.
102:6.7 (1125.2) Belief may not be able to resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith is always triumphant over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience. Said Jesus: “If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples.”
102:6.8 (1125.3) To science God is a possibility, to psychology a desirability, to philosophy a probability, to religion a certainty, an actuality of religious experience. Reason demands that a philosophy which cannot find the God of probability should be very respectful of that religious faith which can and does find the God of certitude. Neither should science discount religious experience on grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the assumption that man’s intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from increasingly lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking origin in primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling.
102:6.9 (1125.4) The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living of the God-knowing mortal. Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact. Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower. Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator.
102:6.10 (1125.5) Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach.
The reason for my recent line of inquiry is due to a conversation at another study group about soul growth and survival of material death related to the conscious choice of being born again…the conscious volitional embrace of spirituality vs. or compared to the natural or unconscious religious life of the evolved religious experience prior to and after soul birth and the revelatory truth religious experience which adds to our religious life once soul is born.
Oh man . . . that is one long and confusing sentence Bradly. Because there are so many tangled, knotted ideas there, I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying, but the first thing that comes to mind is this: Being born again is not the only requirement for salvation. If that were true children who die before the age of 5+ wouldn’t have a chance in hell. We know they do survive because they have potential, they go to the probationary nurseries where they are considered to be attached to their surviving parent’s soul. Of course they have to have a parent with a surviving soul, and that makes parenting a cosmic responsibility. No wonder it’s considered a necessary part of the ascension plan.
(516.5) 45:6.7 This probation nursery of Satania is maintained by certain morontia personalities on the finaliters’ world, one half of the planet being devoted to this work of child rearing. Here are received and reassembled certain children of surviving mortals, such as those offspring who perished on the evolutionary worlds before acquiring spiritual status as individuals. The ascension of either of its natural parents insures that such a mortal child of the realms will be accorded repersonalization on the system finaliter planet and there be permitted to demonstrate by subsequent freewill choice whether or not it elects to follow the parental path of mortal ascension. Children here appear as on the nativity world except for the absence of sex differentiation. There is no reproduction of mortal kind after the life experience on the inhabited worlds.
(570.1) 49:6.12 Children who die when too young to have Thought Adjusters are repersonalized on the finaliter world of the local systems concomitant with the arrival of either parent on the mansion worlds. A child acquires physical entity at mortal birth, but in the matter of survival all Adjusterless children are reckoned as still attached to their parents.
In your sentence above you bounced around between consciousness and experience. Not all experience is fully conscious, and not all conscious experience is fully understood, obviously. For instance, right now, no doubt, your ass is in contact with some kind of seat. Until I just drew your attention to it, you were probably not conscious of it. Nor were you conscious of the pressure on your coccyx and the effect that pressure has on your spine. And it’s possible that you don’t understand any of those physical mechanics and don’t care about them either until your ass or back begins to hurt. Which is why some folks don’t begin to focus on their higher consciousness until they’re in trouble with some kind of pain. Being born again involves shifting your attention toward those higher channels.
But all of those things I mentioned about your ass are subconscious and can easily be brought into focus and made conscious and eventually understood. On the other hand, the fact that your pancreas is right now madly shooting out insulin because you decided to eat that donut, can never be made conscious, as it is happening, even though it is a vital part of your life experience. You’ll only know it happened from its effects, when you have the sugar crash that follows overproduction of insulin. Then, because you probably read about it somewhere, or your doctor explains it to you, you eventually begin to understand why you feel like crap.
Anyway, what am I getting at? (I hardly know myself.) Being “born again” is also a state of consciousness with varying levels of awareness. In a sense, it is a budding morontia consciousness. Just as a woman is not conscious of the initial union of a sperm and egg within her body, a 5+ year old is not aware of the union of a material moral choice with a spiritual ideal which results in the birth of a soul. But similarly, just as a woman can begin to feel that something is different in her body during those early days post conception, a child can begin to sense there is something different within his/her mind after the conception of a soul.
A budding morontia conscious of something new in the mind is an emerging awareness of spirit presence; the existence of an “other-than-self” within the arena of thought, and the experience of that presence is felt rather than understood. However, engaging with that presence, seeking out that feeling, yearning to be a part of it and striving to understand on some level is a conscious choice. So, the “born again” experience is not always fully conscious, nor is it always fully understood, but its effects are experienced not unlike the sugar crash after the donut. You might not know why, where or how it came to be, but you know something happened.
Sometimes, there is no “born again” experience at all, yet there is still a consciousness of spirit presence, and that is because the birthing process was natural and gradual. Nothing spectacular happened but the experience grew to such a point that it cannot be denied, in fact it begins to take over. That’s soul-consciousness, or the primitive morontia consciousness of a circle progressing personality who is living in the spirit. That personality may not have been conscious of the birth, but gradually becomes aware of the new life which results from that birth. The person would know it’s happening, would feel it, experience it, and witness the effects, and it would be recognized as real.
Of course we are not conscious of every moment of growth, nor can we fully understand it, but we can be conscious of striving, yearning, desiring and hoping to be more and more engaged with that mysterious presence, and we can certainly feel it as a real and living experience. As long as a personality is striving, yearning, desiring and hoping, that personality will survive even if he/she is not fully conscious or fully understanding of any of it.
But each person is having a religious experience.
I think you should define religious experience. Heck, there are some people who think chocolate is a religious experience.
It seems to me those personal religious experiences are or can be so very different from each other in context and perception – the uniqueness of the experience, if so similar to one another in component and function – the universality of the religious experience.
I need you to translate this sentence for me because I don’t understand it. What’s the “universality of religious experience”? Not everyone has genuine religious experiences, in case that’s what you mean by universality. But religious experience is pretty much universally available to anyone with a normal mind. Maybe that’s what you mean?
TUB defines a primitive religious experience as choosing to be unselfish when faced with the desire to be selfish. Imagine what it takes to have an advanced religious experience! Personally, I’m still having issues experiencing the primitive type.
(1131.7) 103:2.8 When a moral being chooses to be unselfish when confronted by the urge to be selfish, that is primitive religious experience.
I would think that over the mortal epochs of time and based upon the functionality and influence of our planetary rulers, leaders, and guides, that the context and perception becomes more universal?
The “context and perception” of what? Do you mean religious experience? That religious experience becomes more universal? Yeah, I think religious experience certainly becomes more likely since all the spiritually dysfunctional, socially defective and biologically deficient will have been weeded out. It’s likely there will be a population of people with a greater spiritual capacity of receptivity.
5:2.1 The spiritual presence of Divinity must of necessity be differential in the universe. It is determined by the spiritual capacity of receptivity and by the degree of the consecration of the creature’s will to the doing of the divine will.
52:2.3 Religion is wholly an evolutionary process prior to the arrival of the Planetary Prince. Subsequently, religion progresses by graduated revelation as well as by evolutionary growth. Each dispensation, each mortal epoch, receives an enlarged presentation of spiritual truth and religious ethics. The evolution of the religious capacity of receptivity in the inhabitants of a world largely determines their rate of spiritual advancement and the extent of religious revelation.
92:4.1 Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man’s capacity of receptivity.
But that in the earlier epochs and upon a confused world without corporeal leadership and example, where ignorance of reality and those superstitions and beliefs based on lack of information and example fill the minds of more primitive mortals, that the term “conscious” choice is not so clearly defined?
Yeah, but it’s still a conscious choice regardless. What I think is different are the expectations. For example, look at what happened with Andon and Fonta. All they had to do is make a choice for a superior option over an inferior option. It wasn’t complicated, but absolutely appropriate for their level of development. The same applies to us here on the backward planet. We are only expected to choose from what we are capable of being conscious of and able to apply the ministry of wisdom to. God is kind, he knows the human will must be slowly and gradually adjusted.
1:3.7 The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led.
This seems to me make it impossible for one person to measure or assess the religious experience of any other person based on their own evaluation and determination of what constitutes a “conscious” choice or decision.
I agree. If you have faith, have it to yourself. There’s no way I can know the intimate details of your faith. All I can do is look for some spiritual fruits as overt indication that you actually have faith, and if you have faith, that’s good enough for me. That means you’re a fellow faith-son, a member of the family, and that gives me a moral inclination to love you as a brother.
One point I am attempting to articulate is that an ignorant mind without knowledge or proper contextual reference points and with a mostly false and invented reality construct can still have a “conscious” religious experience and make conscious and volitional choices which grow soul and transfer the seat of identity.
Yup, that’s exactly right. God consciousness is not dependent upon mental environment, but it is dependent upon mental capacity. The mental environment, or culture, a person lives in changes frequently, it can cover a wide range of possibilities and it can also be taken away; but God consciousness is inalienable, meaning it cannot be taken away. Mental capacity is different; it has to do with DNA inheritance. It’s nearly set in stone. Some people have a better inheritance than others and that’s not very changeable. But God is kind, he doesn’t hold that against anyone. That’s why God considers what you’re trying to become much more important than what you actually are.
(739.8) 65:8.4 As mind evolution is dependent on, and delayed by, the slow development of physical conditions, so is spiritual progress dependent on mental expansion and unfailingly delayed by intellectual retardation. But this does not mean that spiritual evolution is dependent on education, culture, or wisdom. The soul may evolve regardless of mental culture but not in the absence of mental capacity and desire — the choice of survival and the decision to achieve ever-increasing perfection — to do the will of the Father in heaven. Although survival may not depend on the possession of knowledge and wisdom, progression most certainly does.
But each person is having a religious experience.
I think you should define religious experience. Heck, there are some people who think chocolate is a religious experience.
I mean a genuine religious experience…whether conscious (aware) or unconscious (unaware)…something that contributes to soul and circle progress….funny though…chocolate indeed!
Bradly wrote:
It seems to me those personal religious experiences are or can be so very different from each other in context and perception – the uniqueness of the experience, if so similar to one another in component and function – the universality of the religious experience.I need you to translate this sentence for me because I don’t understand it. What’s the “universality of religious experience”? Not everyone has genuine religious experiences, in case that’s what you mean by universality. But religious experience is pretty much universally available to anyone with a normal mind. Maybe that’s what you mean? TUB defines a primitive religious experience as choosing to be unselfish when faced with the desire to be selfish. Imagine what it takes to have an advanced religious experience! Personally, I’m still having issues experiencing the primitive type.
If we give birth to soul and soul can grow of its own accord and relationship with the TA….then not all religious experience is conscious and it is pretty universal I would think…at least for a significant season….and even later on an unconscious level….my butt on the chair thing. God created the yearn, hunger, thirst, and the adjutants bring faith and faith assurance by evolved religion even after the birth of the soul….so how can religious experience be anything other than universal?
I read about the “assurance” of faith (evolved religion) and that of truth (revealed religion) and that the TA gives us this feeling of his otherness and our survival and sense of personal being in association with the other….these realities are hardwired into our minds and very being….this is what I meant by the universality of religious experience….tempered by our “spiritual capacity for receptivity” of course, and the degree of our consecration of will which we choose to respond with….or not.
(1131.7) 103:2.8 When a moral being chooses to be unselfish when confronted by the urge to be selfish, that is primitive religious experience.
I would think that over the mortal epochs of time and based upon the functionality and influence of our planetary rulers, leaders, and guides, that the context and perception becomes more universal?
The “context and perception” of what? Do you mean religious experience? (Yes) That religious experience becomes more universal? Yeah, I think religious experience certainly becomes more likely since all the spiritually dysfunctional, socially defective and biologically deficient will have been weeded out. It’s likely there will be a population of people with a greater spiritual capacity of receptivity.
5:2.1 The spiritual presence of Divinity must of necessity be differential in the universe. It is determined by the spiritual capacity of receptivity and by the degree of the consecration of the creature’s will to the doing of the divine will. 52:2.3 Religion is wholly an evolutionary process prior to the arrival of the Planetary Prince. Subsequently, religion progresses by graduated revelation as well as by evolutionary growth. Each dispensation, each mortal epoch, receives an enlarged presentation of spiritual truth and religious ethics. The evolution of the religious capacity of receptivity in the inhabitants of a world largely determines their rate of spiritual advancement and the extent of religious revelation. 92:4.1 Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man’s capacity of receptivity.
But that in the earlier epochs and upon a confused world without corporeal leadership and example, where ignorance of reality and those superstitions and beliefs based on lack of information and example fill the minds of more primitive mortals, that the term “conscious” choice is not so clearly defined?
Yeah, but it’s still a conscious choice regardless. What I think is different are the expectations. For example, look at what happened with Andon and Fonta. All they had to do is make a choice for a superior option over an inferior option. It wasn’t complicated, but absolutely appropriate for their level of development. The same applies to us here on the backward planet. We are only expected to choose from what we are capable of being conscious of and able to apply the ministry of wisdom to. God is kind, he knows the human will must be slowly and gradually adjusted.
1:3.7 The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led.
This seems to me make it impossible for one person to measure or assess the religious experience of any other person based on their own evaluation and determination of what constitutes a “conscious” choice or decision.
I agree. If you have faith, have it to yourself. There’s no way I can know the intimate details of your faith. All I can do is look for some spiritual fruits as overt indication that you actually have faith, and if you have faith, that’s good enough for me. That means you’re a fellow faith-son, a member of the family, and that gives me a moral inclination to love you as a brother.
One point I am attempting to articulate is that an ignorant mind without knowledge or proper contextual reference points and with a mostly false and invented reality construct can still have a “conscious” religious experience and make conscious and volitional choices which grow soul and transfer the seat of identity.
Yup, that’s exactly right. God consciousness is not dependent upon mental environment, but it is dependent upon mental capacity. The mental environment, or culture, a person lives in changes frequently, it can cover a wide range of possibilities and it can also be taken away; but God consciousness is inalienable, meaning it cannot be taken away. Mental capacity is different; it has to do with DNA inheritance. It’s nearly set in stone. Some people have a better inheritance than others and that’s not very changeable. But God is kind, he doesn’t hold that against anyone. That’s why God considers what you’re trying to become much more important than what you actually are.
(739.8) 65:8.4 As mind evolution is dependent on, and delayed by, the slow development of physical conditions, so is spiritual progress dependent on mental expansion and unfailingly delayed by intellectual retardation. But this does not mean that spiritual evolution is dependent on education, culture, or wisdom. The soul may evolve regardless of mental culture but not in the absence of mental capacity and desire — the choice of survival and the decision to achieve ever-increasing perfection — to do the will of the Father in heaven. Although survival may not depend on the possession of knowledge and wisdom, progression most certainly does.
Thanks Bonita. Very Helpful.
. . . the adjutants bring faith and faith assurance by evolved religion . . .
No they don’t. Faith is a gift from the indwelling Spirit. Faith in the material mind is the recognition of spiritual consciousness, or God consciousness. (103:7.13) You can’t have faith without the presence of Spirit. Faith also cannot be had without the spirit within inspiring the creative imagination. (132:3.5) The adjutant of wisdom opens the door to faith, but it is not the source of faith.
102:1.1 The work of the Thought Adjuster constitutes the explanation of the translation of man’s primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into that higher and more certain faith in the eternal realities of revelation.
I think you mean the adjutants are responsible for the urge to establish belief. And unfortunately, humans delight in establishing systems of belief.
So, how is it that the child comes to that level of moral choosing and religious experience that the TA arrives and soul is born? For prior to that we already have the Holy Spirit and higher Adjutants fully engaged.
The Holy Spirit is not engaged until the soul is born. The Holy Spirit is the matrix of the soul and she requires that the mind be fully prepared for her presence by being encircuited by all seven of the adjutants. So no, prior to the birth of the soul, the Holy Spirit is NOT engaged. The Holy Spirit does not encircuit the mind until after the first moral decision and entry into the 7th psychic circle.
We have a dual nature only after the TA?
Yup, that’s right. The material nature comes from our DNA. The spiritual nature comes from a “spark of infinity”, also known as the Adjuster.
And what of the religious life of primitives prior to the TA?
First of all, the religious life is not the same as the dual nature. The religious impulse comes from the 6th adjutant (36:5.11; 103:01). Primitives, like Andon and Fonta, evolved to the point where they engaged all seven adjutants and subsequently entered the 7th psychic circle, thereby engaging the Holy Spirit. Although they both got Adjusters, not all primitives did. However, primitives who made it to the 7th psychic circle had souls and the Holy Spirit’s influence to advance them spiritually. The Holy Spirit cannot encircuit the mind until it has been prepared by all seven of the adjutants.(36:5.16; 108:2.2; 110:6.13)
Bradly wrote:The TA comes so naturally and easily now compared to prior epochs but there has to be some religious nature and experience which is functional and makes or delivers those “moral impulses”.
Yes, moral impulses come from the 6th and 7th adjutants. You know, the gateway I keep yakking about. Remember that morality is superanimal but not superhuman (5:5.1). The soul and the Holy Spirit are superhuman.
There is the evolutionary religious life prior to the TA and the revelatory religious life afterward. How are these distinct in their function within?
Not sure exactly what you’re asking. Could you be more specific? Revelatory religion, in regards to the Adjuster, is dependent upon the capacity of receptivity and willingness of the individual to do God’s will. Evolutionary religion has its roots in the material adjutants; revelatory religion has its roots in the morontia soul.
Even that without personality but only with life has such an urge and “insatiable drive” for ever increasing perfection.
Life is so amazing. Think about it. How many times do they refer to living energy, living ministry, living truth, living Way, living God . . . life is at the very crux of it all. Sorry that some folks take it so lightly.
Bradly wrote:
. . . the adjutants bring faith and faith assurance by evolved religion . . .Bonita replies: No they don’t. Faith is a gift from the indwelling Spirit. Faith in the material mind is the recognition of spiritual consciousness, or God consciousness. (103:7.13) You can’t have faith without the presence of Spirit. Faith also cannot be had without the spirit within inspiring the creative imagination. (132:3.5) The adjutant of wisdom opens the door to faith, but it is not the source of faith.
102:1.1 The work of the Thought Adjuster constitutes the explanation of the translation of man’s primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into that higher and more certain faith in the eternal realities of revelation.
I think you mean the adjutants are responsible for the urge to establish belief. And unfortunately, humans delight in establishing systems of belief.
Me here now: I hope you will not take my confusion and hope to understand as disagreement or stubbornness but I am having trouble with these positions here. The quotes below would seem, to me, to state that the Holy Spirit’s ministry to mind does not await and is not dependent upon the birth of soul. I stand corrected about the adjutants being the gateway to the faith experience delivering the (initial) urge to believe in “the other” within, but doesn’t the Holy Spirit create a presence within mind of “otherness” prior to the TA’s arrival and the co-creation/birth of soul? In the earlier papers on the history of mortal religious experience, we are told:
The Later Evolution of Religion
92:0.1 (1003.1) MAN possessed a religion of natural origin as a part of his evolutionary experience long before any systematic revelations were made on Urantia. But this religion of natural origin was, in itself, the product of man’s superanimal endowments. Evolutionary religion arose slowly throughout the millenniums of mankind’s experiential career through the ministry of the following influences operating within, and impinging upon, savage, barbarian, and civilized man:
92:0.2 (1003.2) 1. The adjutant of worship—the appearance in animal consciousness of superanimal potentials for reality perception. This might be termed the primordial human instinct for Deity.
92:0.3 (1003.3) 2. The adjutant of wisdom—the manifestation in a worshipful mind of the tendency to direct its adoration in higher channels of expression and toward ever-expanding concepts of Deity reality.
92:0.4 (1003.4) 3. The Holy Spirit—this is the initial supermind bestowal, and it unfailingly appears in all bona fide human personalities. This ministry to a worship-craving and wisdom-desiring mind creates the capacity to self-realize the postulate of human survival, both in theologic concept and as an actual and factual personality experience.
92:0.5 (1003.5) The co-ordinate functioning of these three divine ministrations is quite sufficient to initiate and prosecute the growth of evolutionary religion. These influences are later augmented by Thought Adjusters, seraphim, and the Spirit of Truth, all of which accelerate the rate of religious development. These agencies have long functioned on Urantia, and they will continue here as long as this planet remains an inhabited sphere. Much of the potential of these divine agencies has never yet had opportunity for expression; much will be revealed in the ages to come as mortal religion ascends, level by level, toward the supernal heights of morontia value and spirit truth.
I am also somewhat confused by the difference in timing on a world and in a mind prior to and after the Son’s Spirit is gifted; for we are also told:
The Reality of Religious Experience
103:0.1 (1129.1) ALL of man’s truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom. Man’s first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man’s viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality. Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths. As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.
103:0.2 (1129.2) The religious tendencies of the human races are innate; they are universally manifested and have an apparently natural origin; primitive religions are always evolutionary in their genesis. As natural religious experience continues to progress, periodic revelations of truth punctuate the otherwise slow-moving course of planetary evolution.
108:2.2 (1187.1) The Adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit. And it requires the co-ordinate function of all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an Adjuster. Creature mind must exhibit the worship outreach and indicate wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil—moral choice.
108:2.3 (1187.2) Thus is the stage of the human mind set for the reception of Adjusters, but as a general rule they do not immediately appear to indwell such minds except on those worlds where the Spirit of Truth is functioning as a spiritual co-ordinator of these different spirit ministries. If this spirit of the bestowal Sons is present, the Adjusters unfailingly come the instant the seventh adjutant mind-spirit begins to function and signalizes to the Universe Mother Spirit that it has achieved in potential the co-ordination of the associated six adjutants of prior ministry to such a mortal intellect. Therefore have the divine Adjusters been universally bestowed upon all normal minds of moral status on Urantia ever since the day of Pentecost.
The above quotes also support my prior statements about the universality of the religious experience, regardless of the level of awareness or consciousness and willful and intentional volition the mortal mind might have or apply to the experience. All normal and average minded people on Urantia are having a “religious experience”….regardless of their understanding or ability or willingness to articulate that experience.
One of my growing senses or thoughts coming forth by this study is that all people are engaged, to some degree or another, in religious experience and soul growth, and while some (or many) may be stifling and embracing delays and obstacles to that experience by self importance and materialism, but that very few people are actually engaged in active resistance and the embrace of sin to live lives of iniquity and by so doing extinguishing the flame and flicker of faith and the hope for survival and the ideals that faith and truth assurance deliver to us early and often in this life.
Our world is filled with goodness and kindness and hope and faith….billions and billions of us pray and believe in God and heaven and live with hope for a better tomorrow for our children and world and work in ways small and large to bring love and light to others. Some of us cannot see this and are entirely focused on the evil and repercussions of evil on our world and mostly because this is the exceptional and sensational focus of attention and not because it is the rule or way of life of Urantia for most people. Even the suffering and those in desperate situations and times demonstrate hope, faith, generosity, courage, trust and all the good fruits of the religious life within.
Those of us who mistakenly believe and claim that others must believe, profess, and behave as we do to prove their religious experience demonstrate their/our own blindness to how natural, normal, inherent, persistent, relentless, and integrated are the Spirit ministries which deliver the religious experience to all normal minds in ways we may not perceive or understand or might articulate but are very real and very effective nonetheless. I really appreciate Bonita’s voice which amplifies this truth that the light of God shines within many, even most, of us tadpoles whether we have the wisdom and love and insight to witness that fact and reality.
7. The Certitude of the Divine
102:7.1 (1126.1) The Universal Father, being self-existent, is also self-explanatory; he actually lives in every rational mortal. But you cannot be sure about God unless you know him; sonship is the only experience which makes fatherhood certain. The universe is everywhere undergoing change. A changing universe is a dependent universe; such a creation cannot be either final or absolute. A finite universe is wholly dependent on the Ultimate and the Absolute. The universe and God are not identical; one is cause, the other effect. The cause is absolute, infinite, eternal, and changeless; the effect, time-space and transcendental but ever changing, always growing.
102:7.2 (1126.2) God is the one and only self-caused fact in the universe. He is the secret of the order, plan, and purpose of the whole creation of things and beings. The everywhere-changing universe is regulated and stabilized by absolutely unchanging laws, the habits of an unchanging God. The fact of God, the divine law, is changeless; the truth of God, his relation to the universe, is a relative revelation which is ever adaptable to the constantly evolving universe.
102:7.3 (1126.3) Those who would invent a religion without God are like those who would gather fruit without trees, have children without parents. You cannot have effects without causes; only the I AM is causeless. The fact of religious experience implies God, and such a God of personal experience must be a personal Deity. You cannot pray to a chemical formula, supplicate a mathematical equation, worship a hypothesis, confide in a postulate, commune with a process, serve an abstraction, or hold loving fellowship with a law.
102:7.4 (1126.4) True, many apparently religious traits can grow out of nonreligious roots. Man can, intellectually, deny God and yet be morally good, loyal, filial, honest, and even idealistic. Man may graft many purely humanistic branches onto his basic spiritual nature and thus apparently prove his contentions in behalf of a godless religion, but such an experience is devoid of survival values, God-knowingness and God-ascension. In such a mortal experience only social fruits are forthcoming, not spiritual. The graft determines the nature of the fruit, notwithstanding that the living sustenance is drawn from the roots of original divine endowment of both mind and spirit.
102:7.5 (1126.5) The intellectual earmark of religion is certainty; the philosophical characteristic is consistency; the social fruits are love and service.
The quotes below would seem, to me, to state that the Holy Spirit’s ministry to mind does not await and is not dependent upon the birth of soul.
OK. Let’s go one step at a time. Do you accept this:
The Holy Spirit does not appear until the mind has entered the seventh psychic circle. The soul is born the moment the mind enters the seventh psychic circle.
In the following quote it is explained that all seven of the adjutants must make contact with the mind before entering the seventh circle and when they do that mind is immediately encircuited by the Holy Spirit. It also states that in our post-bestowal age we get the additional benefit of the Spirit of Truth and the Adjuster. They all live in or with the soul. The last sentence informs us that the seventh circle turns a personality into a potential universe citizen. What makes that personality a potential citizen? The soul. This seventh circle is where the soul is born and the first appearance of the Holy Spirit.
(1210.8) 110:6.13 The seventh circle. This level is entered when human beings develop the powers of personal choice, individual decision, moral responsibility, and the capacity for the attainment of spiritual individuality. This signifies the united function of the seven adjutant mind-spirits under the direction of the spirit of wisdom, the encircuitment of the mortal creature in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and, on Urantia, the first functioning of the Spirit of Truth, together with the reception of a Thought Adjuster in the mortal mind. Entrance upon the seventh circle constitutes a mortal creature a truly potential citizen of the local universe.
Before I go to the next step, let me know if you agree or disagree with any of the above.
OK. That’s great. I won’t go to step 2 yet. First we’ll unpack quote 103:0.1.
As an overview, this quote is describing the difference between pre-bestowal souls and post-bestowal souls. I think one of the things that might be tangling you up is the notion that there is no soul without an Adjuster. That is not the case. In the pre-bestowal ages not all souls have Adjusters. In post-bestowal ages all souls have Adjusters. So, now that I laid down that framework, let’s pick this quote apart sentence by sentence.
SENTENCE NUMBER ONE: All of man’s truly religious reactions are sponsored by the early ministry of the adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom.
First of all note that they use the word man, as in human. The spirit of worship (adjutant #6) turns an animal into a superanimal, meaning a level above animal but not yet human (recall the story of Andon & Fonta). It’s the religious instinct, the impulse to worship which prods the mind to seek the superior, or higher quality of thought. When this worship seeking impulse is censored, admonished, or directed toward a deeper, or more coordinated, level of thinking by the spirit of wisdom, the mind is able to distinguish the difference between the inferior and superior way of thought, thereby opening the door for personality to act upon it.
SENTENCE NUMBER TWO: Man’s first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man’s viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality.
This describes what happens after the personality acts upon the spirit of wisdom’s exposure of the better way. Instantly the mind is encircuited by the personal presence of the Creative Spirit known as the Holy Spirit, the supermind of the soul. The word supermind does not mean turbo-mind, it means the level of mind ministry above the adjutant level. It’s supermaterial. Concomitant with the Holy Spirit’s arrival and the birth of the soul, the personality in question is considered to have confirmed its ability to exercise free will in accordance with universe guidance and becomes recognized as a bona fide human being. This means the superanimal who was responding to the spirit of worship has been transformed, by acting with wisdom, into a human or man, a mortal with ascension potential. (Go back and read 110:6.13, the seventh circle, where humans display free-will choice, moral responsibility, and the capacity for attaining spiritual individuality.)
This sentence also explains what happens in the pre-bestowal ages where Adjusters do not automatically indwell. In such a case the Holy Spirit, which is essentially the womb of the soul, provides the spirit presence necessary to inspire the mind to discover, recognize, interpret and choose divinity.
SENTENCE NUMBER THREE: Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths.
Obviously this sentence is referring to post-bestowal souls. The Spirit of Truth cannot reside with the soul without the Holy Spirit. The two partner as one, the Holy Spirit provides the morontia mind ministry, the arena, and the Spirit of Truth uses that mind ministry to posit and coordinate philosophical meanings which are true and actionable.
SENTENCE FOUR: As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight.
The purpose of evolution is transfer of dominance from the material level of reality through the morontia level, toward spiritual reality. Clearly then, as minds evolve more toward spirit dominance, it is easier for the Adjuster to participate with such minds in co-creation, which is possible because of the Adjuster’s gift of insight.
SENTENCE FIVE: The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.
The key-word here is faith-glimpse. That’s because as long as we are in our physical tabernacles operating with material level minds, the morontia realities of the soul are only felt, or sensed. Although we are aware of our souls, and we have varying levels of consciousness of our souls, we cannot think solely with the morontia mind while in the physical state. What we are aware of mostly is the presence of the divine nature residing there, and it is that nature which our personalities preferentially relate to and strive to be like. The personality can function on the morontia level and the physical level at the same time. But the morontia level of mind itself does not function on the physical level, therefore it is paramount to evolve the soul and develop a budding soul-consciousness, a glimpse through the cosmic window supported by the gift of faith coming from the Adjuster. The gift of faith is that sense of the presence of the nature of God which you can feel and commune with. Such a divine nature can be from the Holy Spirit herself (pre-bestowal), or the combined ministry of all three: Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth and Adjuster.
OK then. First let me say that there are dozens of supporting quotes which I am not including because I think they will only complicate the discussion. When thoughts are all in a knot, the best way to untangle them is to find a single string, follow it through and unwind it. We can always go back and fill in those quotes if you like, and I know you like them.
So . . . is there anything I’ve said in this post that bothers you?
Bother? No. Illuminate and satisfy? Yes! I did recognize the pre- and post-bestowal aspects but did not really understand or appreciate the differences…..thank you so much. I hope for further knotty untanglements!
Awesome! So, if you understand my unpacking of 103:0.1, then 108:2.2 should be self-explanatory.
108:2.2 (1187.1) The Adjusters cannot invade the mortal mind until it has been duly prepared by the indwelling ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits and encircuited in the Holy Spirit. And it requires the co-ordinate function of all seven adjutants to thus qualify the human mind for the reception of an Adjuster. Creature mind must exhibit the worship outreach and indicate wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil—moral choice.
What it’s telling us is that Adjusters need a soul before they can indwell. All seven adjutants are necessary to prepare the mind for the soul then the Holy Spirit provides it.
So now I have to make a point about this:
All normal and average minded people on Urantia are having a “religious experience”….regardless of their understanding or ability or willingness to articulate that experience.
I personally do not think that ALL normal and average minded people on this planet are having genuine religious experiences. Genuine religious experiences require some level of moral free-will choice (103:3.1). We know there are several types of religious experiences which are not based on moral choice and are therefore entirely bogus (think mysticism). But I do think it is safe to say that all normal minded people experience the worship impulse. Of course, not all folks interpret that impulse the same way and some do their utmost to bend and twist it into humanistic channels (worshipping humans instead). Then there are those who unfortunately filter the impulse to worship through their Andonite propensities for fear and superstition which color the entire experience. Notwithstanding, I am totally confident that God, who intimately knows the inner motivations of every person, is quite generous, kind and merciful in his willingness to give all humans enough time to sort out these things and learn to “see” him more clearly. The fact that we are bona fide humans makes us worship-craving and wisdom-desiring. I think that’s part of the definition of being human.
So after all that long winded blather, I think you should qualify your use of the phrase religious experience to make it easier to understand. Here’s a list I compiled with descriptions of what a genuine religious experience is about:
Genuine Religious Experience:
1. Is God-consciousness
2. Is the mechanism by which we encounter the personality of God
3. Is perfectly manifested in the life of Jesus
4. Is the only way that the goodness of God is revealed to man.
5. Reveals God as a loving person and a personal love.
6. Is a spiritual experience which can never be completely understood by mind.
7. Allows man to intellectually secure the satisfaction of a more unified consciousness, philosophically enjoy the validity of his ideals and moral values, spiritually thrive with divine companionship, and experience the satisfaction of true worship.
8. Is the personal realization of divine fellowship, spirit values and eternal survival.
9. Is the highest insight, most reverential and worshipful form of the cosmic mind perception.
10. Is the quest for spiritual values.
11. Unfailingly yields the “fruits of the spirit” in the daily life of the spirit-led mortal.
12. Results from the impact made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they work with ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving persons.
13. Is a profoundly deep spiritual communion with the spirit influences within the mind. (and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of the reality of believing in God as a purely personal experience. ( meaning the sublime feeling of personally experiencing the love of God and the love for God without material proof of it )
14. Results in the certain consciousness of God and in the undoubted assurance of the survival of the believing personality.
14. Is the avenue by which man discovers divinity.
15. Is the means by which man’s concepts of ideality are endowed with reality.
16. Is something of a paradox in that it is both humanly original and Adjuster derivative.
17. Is to live and carry on as if already in the presence of the Eternal.
18. Results in a stabilization of personality and a tranquillity of character not explained by the laws of physiology, psychology, and sociology.
19. Means incessant activity in spiritual growth, intellectual expansion, factual enlargement, and social service.
20. Is the realization of the consciousness of having found God.
21. Leads to value consciousness.
22. Allows the reflective powers of the mind to be deepened and broadened by worship
I like the qualifier of “genuine” and did some research on the term related to religious experience. Some very interesting results. We are taught that although evolutionary religion is genuine in source and result, it is revelatory religious experience that is both genuine and excellent! I think revelatory religion and the truth assurance which results might, in some ways, remain an unconscious cause and effect circuit of personal transformation, however all genuine religious experience does lead to such personal transformation – one’s view of life and of others and of the world and the universe truly changes and progresses or we are not truly having a genuine and excellent religious experience. The measure of our progress is expressed regardless of our science or knowledge of reality and even despite our misconceptions and ignorance and embrace of false reality constructs.
103:9.1 [Part III]
Theology deals with the intellectual content of religion, metaphysics (revelation) with the philosophic aspects. Religious experience is the spiritual content of religion. Notwithstanding the mythologic vagaries and the psychologic illusions of the intellectual content of religion, the metaphysical assumptions of error and the techniques of self-deception, the political distortions and the socioeconomic perversions of the philosophic content of religion, the spiritual experience of personal religion remains genuine and valid.103:9.2 [Part III]
Religion has to do with feeling, acting, and living, not merely with thinking. Thinking is more closely related to the material life and should be in the main, but not altogether, dominated by reason and the facts of science and, in its nonmaterial reaches toward the spirit realms, by truth. No matter how illusory and erroneous one’s theology, one’s religion may be wholly genuine and everlastingly true.A genuine religious experience leads to certain results, inevitably and inherently so according to the teachings. Those results take two forms: personal perspective and the spiritual fruits – both – arrive in one’s mind and life. Genuine religious experience delivers real results and the lack of those results reflects a religion and philosophy that is tainted in some ways which limit its results making it less than excellent or genuine I think. And while all personal growth in the spirit is unconscious as it occurs and growth may not be consciously conjured up or created by any singular decision or act of volition, meaning only that we do not ‘decide’ to grow any certain way or amount by any one decision (growth requires time and is a result or effect of the causes of choice….many choices in many circumstances and situations – we supply the soil and conditions as I recall) – still may we be conscious of the some or many of the results of our growth and our religious experience.
I have been aware, as most UB students have been, of the “fruits of the Spirit” and their desirability and functional balm to mind, soul, and in the sharing and service results that the genuine religious experience delivers. What I have been less aware of is that intrinsic companion of the fruits and how dependent the fruits are on this other result of true and genuine religious experience. Jesus taught us about it though in both the NT and now again in the UB.
103:9.5 [Part III]
Although religious experience is a purely spiritual subjective phenomenon, such an experience embraces a positive and living faith attitude toward the highest realms of universe objective reality. The ideal of religious philosophy is such a faith-trust as would lead man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes. Such a genuine religious experience far transcends the philosophic objectification of idealistic desire; it actually takes salvation for granted and concerns itself only with learning and doing the will of the Father in Paradise. The earmarks of such a religion are: faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternal survival, and love, especially of one’s fellows.140:10.6 [Part IV]
This new religion of Jesus was not without its practical implications, but whatever of practical political, social, or economic value there is to be found in his teaching is the natural outworking of this inner experience of the soul as it manifests the fruits of the spirit in the spontaneous daily ministry of genuine personal religious experience.Me here: true, excellent, and genuine religious experience is transformative on 3 distinct levels and in 3 distinct and effectual ways – it is one great cause with many effects!! The world changes for us in 3 ways and very profound ways too!
First it transforms the believer’s inner point of view or perspective and all associated context – the paradigm of reality. Faith transforms the picture we have of reality – our reality construct. No matter how mistaken or how few our facts and knowledge – still does faith and revelation and truth transform our view! If our experience is genuine and excellent then we begin to see the universe, the world, and all other people through a new lens and with a new appreciation and a whole new perspective…which results in a paradigm shift that superimposes spiritual realities onto all material realities whereby truth is discovered and realized and actualized within no matter how faulty our knowledge/science…our philosophy of living is sufficient to integrate and harmonize the truths of our religious experience with our material world no matter how little or how much we really understand OF the material world.
The world around us does not empirically and factually change due to such personal transformation but the world does profoundly change according to our transformed subjective perspective….the objective view can only come into focus by the adjustment or transformation of the subjective lens! If our world view is not changing and if we obsess over the shadows and not the light making the shadows, then we are NOT transforming or having an excellent and genuine religious experience! Our view of the world around us must change or there is no growth to be conscious of or witness its fruits. The transformation of world view is the inherent companion to the fruits of the Spirit.
The second way or great effect of the cause of genuine religious experience is the believer is compelled to share this profound motive for living with others….we learn to love and to serve. We truly cannot help it or prevent it if our religious experience is true. We begin to reshape and transform our own reality and also our world by the flow of love we receive by our attachment to the vine or source of love and personal religious experience. Genuine religious experience must be shared…generously and patiently and kindly and sweetly and without demand or requirement or reciprocation even. The fruit of the Spirit is something we enjoy and benefit from but, if true, they must be shared and shared in genuine love and affection to God’s other children!
152:6.3 [Part IV]
The second night of their sojourn at Gennesaret the Master again told the apostles the parable of the sower and added these words: “You see, my children, the appeal to human feelings is transitory and utterly disappointing; the exclusive appeal to the intellect of man is likewise empty and barren; it is only by making your appeal to the spirit which lives within the human mind that you can hope to achieve lasting success and accomplish those marvelous transformations of human character that are presently shown in the abundant yielding of the genuine fruits of the spirit in the daily lives of all who are thus delivered from the darkness of doubt by the birth of the spirit into the light of faith — the kingdom of heaven.”Me here: The third way genuine religious experience delivers transformation is of the epochal or global/planetary variety. As go the parts, so goes the whole. The more of us who have a genuine and excellent religious experience then the more the whole world becomes spiritualized and transformed. This is the effect upon the whole by the part.
And as we are personally transformed and our perspective/lens adjusts and as we love and serve others and as the world is transformed by this new lens of view and the results of love and service, so is the Supreme served and strengthened and delivered to destiny.
So glad to be here! Growing and transforming……
102:6.7 [Part III]
Belief may not be able to resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith is always triumphant over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience. Said Jesus: “If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples.”I like the qualifier of “genuine” and did some research on the term related to religious experience. Some very interesting results. We are taught that although evolutionary religion is genuine in source and result, it is revelatory religious experience that is both genuine and excellent! I think revelatory religion and the truth assurance which results might, in some ways, remain an unconscious cause and effect circuit of personal transformation, however all genuine religious experience does lead to such personal transformation – one’s view of life and of others and of the world and the universe truly changes and progresses or we are not truly having a genuine and excellent religious experience. The measure of our progress is expressed regardless of our science or knowledge of reality and even despite our misconceptions and ignorance and embrace of false reality constructs.
Yeah, I think you nailed it. I also think it’s important to differentiate between responding to the adjutant urge to worship and responding to the higher cosmic mind urge for communion as two related but different experiences. The adjutant urge is meant to direct the mind toward the spirit urges coming from a higher level of consciousness, toward that two-way liaison zone in the soul where human and divine meet. (110:5.3) And since that level of consciousness is morontial it cannot be readily comprehended by the lower adjutant level of consciousness. I think that’s why so many create religious rules and guidelines. Their scientific and philosophic instincts are much more real to them than their spiritual instincts (think three reality responses of the cosmic mind).
But there is an interplay between all those things which should result in eventual forward evolution of the adjutant impulse of fear, reverence and awe to a new impulse from above which is to both love God as a person and be loved by him as a person in a relationship. (149:6.3) It’s a deeper penetration into the character and real nature of the personality of God rather than a fixation on all the trappings surrounding him. It also should result in a gradual shedding of the anthropomorphic attributions people attach to God once they get familiar with his true personality as part of a genuine personal religious experience. Divine things must be loved in order to be known (102:1.1), and love cannot be created, it must grow (100:3.7). It takes both time and the effort of love.
100:3.7 Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow. Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth is not had by improved administration. Man may manufacture a machine, but its real value must be derived from human culture and personal appreciation. Man’s sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality—living faith.
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