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Nathaniel asked Jesus a thought-provoking question about the meaning of the teaching of doing to others that which you desire others to do to you. While I was not raised in nor ingrained with a particular Christian religion as a little girl, on a rare occasion I did go to church with my grandmother. She was a Methodist. I remember going to a Foursquare church a few times with a school friend. This church was a couple of blocks away and my parents let me walk there. I passed it every day as I walked to school. This very small and friendly church was certainly different from the large and chilly big one my grandmother went to. We moved away before I was a teen. The doing-to-others teaching seemed right to me, though I can’t pinpoint when I first heard of it. It is really fundamental to Jesus’ teachings. I had no idea about the layers and levels to this living teaching, until I read in the UB this most astonishing and amazing section called “The Rule of Living”. 147:4.0
(1650.2) 147:4.1 On the evening of this same Sabbath day, at Bethany, while Jesus, the twelve, and a group of believers were assembled about the fire in Lazarus’s garden, Nathaniel asked Jesus this question: “Master, although you have taught us the positive version of the old rule of life, instructing us that we should do to others as we wish them to do to us, I do not fully discern how we can always abide by such an injunction. Let me illustrate my contention by citing the example of a lustful man who thus wickedly looks upon his intended consort in sin. How can we teach that this evil-intending man should do to others as he would they should do to him?”
(1650.3) 147:4.2 When Jesus heard Nathaniel’s question, he immediately stood upon his feet and, pointing his finger at the apostle, said: “Nathaniel, Nathaniel! What manner of thinking is going on in your heart? Do you not receive my teachings as one who has been born of the spirit? Do you not hear the truth as men of wisdom and spiritual understanding? When I admonished you to do to others as you would have them do to you, I spoke to men of high ideals, not to those who would be tempted to distort my teaching into a license for the encouragement of evil-doing.”
(1650.4) 147:4.3 When the Master had spoken, Nathaniel stood up and said: “But, Master, you should not think that I approve of such an interpretation of your teaching. I asked the question because I conjectured that many such men might thus misjudge your admonition, and I hoped you would give us further instruction regarding these matters.” And then when Nathaniel had sat down, Jesus continued speaking: “I well know, Nathaniel, that no such idea of evil is approved in your but I am mind, in that you all so often fail to put a genuinely spiritual interpretation upon my commonplace teachings, instruction which must be given you in human language and as men must speak. Let me now teach you concerning the differing levels of meaning attached to the interpretation of this rule of living, this admonition to ‘do to others that which you desire others to do to you’:
“1. The level of the flesh. Such a purely selfish and lustful interpretation would be well exemplified by the supposition of your question.
“2. The level of the feelings. This plane is one level higher than that of the flesh and implies that sympathy and pity would enhance one’s interpretation of this rule of living.
“3. The level of mind. Now come into action the reason of mind and the intelligence of experience. Good judgment dictates that such a rule of living should be interpreted in consonance with the highest idealism embodied in the nobility of profound self-respect.
“4. The level of brotherly love. Still higher is discovered the level of unselfish devotion to the welfare of one’s fellows. On this higher plane of wholehearted social service growing out of the consciousness of the fatherhood of God and the consequent recognition of the brotherhood of man, there is discovered a new and far more beautiful interpretation of this basic rule of life.
“5. The moral level. And then when you attain true philosophic levels of interpretation, when you have real insight into the rightness and wrongness of things, when you perceive the eternal fitness of human relationships, you will begin to view such a problem of interpretation as you would imagine a high-minded, idealistic, wise, and impartial third person would so view and interpret such an injunction as applied to your personal problems of adjustment to your life situations.
“6. The spiritual level. And then last, but greatest of all, we attain the level of spirit insight and spiritual interpretation which impels us to recognize in this rule of life the divine command to treat all men as we conceive God would treat them. That is the universe ideal of human relationships. And this is your attitude toward all such problems when your supreme desire is ever to do the Father’s will. I would, therefore, that you should do to all men that which you know I would do to them in like circumstances.”
(1651.4) 147:4.10 Nothing Jesus had said to the apostles up to this time had ever more astonished them. They continued to discuss the Master’s words long after he had retired. While Nathaniel was slow to recover from his supposition that Jesus had misunderstood the spirit of his question, the others were more than thankful that their philosophic fellow apostle had had the courage to ask such a thought-provoking question.
These levels of interpretation are ranked. I notice the level of brotherly love is lower on the list than the moral level. Do you have any ideas about these levels?
This is a great topic to consider. In recent months the word “value” has emerged in my thinking and this illuminates the underlying basis for most of Jesus’ teachings. The UB authors asked ‘why would the Gods expend so much time and energy training….’ or something like this question.
If we think of human nature we can easily see revenge, anger, selfishness, animal nature ad infinitum. But when we think of God’s multiple revealing ministry we see re-definitions! Think about that! Revelation is actually redefinition. Now, with the UB FER we see more clearly human mortals are valuable, which changes personal behavior when we accept the higher meaning of the Golden Rule.
Considering the philosophical nature of much of the FER. Visualize the Father as an Inventor! The First Source and Center is the Original Thinker and Planner with Ideas!!!! Then He goes to the Eternal Son and they discuss an Invention idea to create men and angels, etc etc. Then they have a Meetup with the Infinite Spirit and together develop a Plan to begin the Invention Process and Protocol to include persons per the Invention Idea. The whole Plan is beyond our scope of possible visualization, so we see a small part of the working features in the Plan. The Father and the Son watch the marvelous workings of the Infinite Spirit with all the many Seraphim levels.
As the Plan unfolds, the Inventor(s) scale up the Plan with making human figures, not robots, but with thinking mind so lavishly given by the Infinite Spirit. All the details, features, adventures, life, and fully possible feelings of the Inventors are involved in a Divine Goal. You can now imagine from your UB understandings the “rest of the story” in imagining how valuable we all are to the Inventors as they observe the Plan unfold! Feel it if you can!!!! I’m struggling to feel more of it and bestow love!
With crude beginnings, life and imagination for us human mortals is limited, but with multiple, value-added defining revelation over time, the Inventors lead us to the various levels Jesus taught to the Apostles. Such great uptick, update and upgrade Jesus brought to us in his life. We are valuable! Every one of us is valued on High. Imagine the gifting in the mind of God! Imagine how much we could have reached had Caligastia not betrayed us! Imagine the value we would each deeply feel for people. Perhaps Mother Theresa could be an example? Maybe?
Imagine which level Jesus refers to if we hold the door open for a person to pass through, say at a house or whatever. Imagine what level is Jesus referring to when someone walks a Christmas gift to a neighbor and the neighbor feels obligated to return the kindness. Imagine the value Jesus had in mind (demonstrated) when he ceased teaching while noticing a bent-over woman carrying a burden in the street outside. He left the teaching, went to the woman, wiped her brow and gave her encouraging words.
Then, at the Last Supper, Jesus asked us to love as he loves, speaking to the 11 Apostles. His level is divine value that he says we can reach now as we read the book and share with others. It is a basic reason Jesus could smile upon anyone. The more we value others the more we will bestow ourselves in mission and service as he does.
It’s humbling to realize we are divinely valued. Now, you could add a discussion of why we are valued!
This is a great topic to consider. In recent months the word “value” has emerged in my thinking and this illuminates the underlying basis for most of Jesus’ teachings. The UB authors asked ‘why would the Gods expend so much time and energy training….’ or something like this question.
If we think of human nature we can easily see revenge, anger, selfishness, animal nature ad infinitum. But when we think of God’s multiple revealing ministry we see re-definitions! Think about that! Revelation is actually redefinition. Now, with the UB FEF we see more clearly human mortals are valuable, which changes personal behavior when we accept the higher meaning of the Golden Rule.
Considering the philosophical nature of much of the FEF. Visualize the Father as an Inventor! The First Source and Center is the Original Thinker and Planner with Ideas!!!! Then He goes to the Eternal Son and they discuss an Invention idea to create men and angels, etc etc. Then they have a Meetup with the Infinite Spirit and together develop a Plan to begin the Invention Process and Protocol to include persons per the Invention Idea. The whole Plan is beyond our scope of possible visualization, so we see a small part of the working features in the Plan. The Father and the Son watch the marvelous workings of the Infinite Spirit with all the many Seraphim levels.
As the Plan unfolds, the Inventor(s) scale up the Plan with making human figures, not robots, but with thinking mind so lavishly given by the Infinite Spirit. All the details, features, adventures, life, and fully possible feelings of the Inventors are involved in a Divine Goal. You can now imagine from your UB understandings the “rest of the story” in imagining how valuable we all are to the Inventors as they observe the Plan unfold! Feel it if you can!!!! I’m struggling to feel more of it and bestow love!
With crude beginnings, life and imagination for us human mortals is limited, but with multiple, value-added defining revelation over time, the Inventors lead us to the various levels Jesus taught to the Apostles. Such great uptick, update and upgrade Jesus brought to us in his life. We are valuable! Every one of us is valued on High. Imagine the gifting in the mind of God! Imagine how much we could have reached had Caligastia not betrayed us! Imagine the value we would each deeply feel for people. Perhaps Mother Theresa could be an example? Maybe?
Imagine which level Jesus refers to if we hold the door open for a person to pass through, say at a house or whatever. Imagine what level is Jesus referring to when someone walks a Christmas gift to a neighbor and the neighbor feels obligated to return the kindness. Imagine the value Jesus had in mind (demonstrated) when he ceased teaching while noticing a bent-over woman carrying a burden in the street outside. He left the teaching, went to the woman, wiped her brow and gave her encouraging words.
Then, at the Last Supper, Jesus asked us to love as he loves, speaking to the 11 Apostles. His level is divine value that he says we can reach now as we read the book and share with others. It is a basic reason Jesus could smile upon anyone. The more we value others the more we will bestow ourselves in mission and service as he does.
It’s humbling to realize we are divinely valued. Now, you could add a discussion of why we are valued!
Thank you Mark! I do feelingly visualize your words and remember with you what Jesus did. I, too, am humbled within my soul and worship our Father without end, the Father of all Creators, Him who made my life and everything else possible!
I notice the level of brotherly love is lower on the list than the moral level.
I’m attempting to figure out why. I’m beginning to think the reason I haven’t yet succeeded is that I have not experienced the moral level. I wonder what the nuance is between the brotherly love level and the moral level?
Maybe it’s much more than a nuance. Nebadon, when built out, is to have near ten million inhabited worlds. 6:8.3 Michael experienced his seventh and final bestowal on Urantia. His life-revelation were meant to benefit, inspire and advance his entire universe, not just Urantia, as we are reminded:
129:3.6 It will also always be helpful in understanding Jesus’ life on earth if all mortal students of this divine bestowal will remember that, while he lived this life of incarnation on Urantia, he lived it for his entire universe. There was something special and inspiring associated with the life he lived in the flesh of mortal nature for every single inhabited sphere throughout all the universe of Nebadon. The same is also true of all those worlds which have become habitable since the eventful times of his sojourn on Urantia. And it will likewise be equally true of all worlds which may become inhabited by will creatures in all the future history of this local universe.Perhaps the brotherly love level of interpretation of the golden rule is as much as we can aspire to in the 21st Century.140:5.1 From the Sermon on the Mount to the discourse of the Last Supper, Jesus taught his followers to manifest fatherly love rather than brotherly love. Brotherly love would love your neighbor as you love yourself, and that would be adequate fulfillment of the “golden rule.” But fatherly affection would require that you should love your fellow mortals as Jesus loves you.
Here is a thought provoking paragraph about brotherly love:
68:1.1 When brought closely together, men often learn to like one another, but primitive man was not naturally overflowing with the spirit of brotherly feeling and the desire for social contact with his fellows. Rather did the early races learn by sad experience that “in union there is strength”; and it is this lack of natural brotherly attraction that now stands in the way of immediate realization of the brotherhood of man on Urantia.
68:1.1 . . . this lack of natural brotherly attraction that now stands in the way of immediate realization of the brotherhood of man on Urantia.
Why is brotherly love so hard to do?
Mara, I’ve been thinking about your very good topic and comments. Jesus reminded us there are varying quality levels of relationships, as you noted opening the topic.
Note from 100:4.3-4.”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.
(1098.1) 100:4.4 In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.
The nuances seem to be in the value of personal growth, sometimes slow and unnoticeable perhaps. As I think of this, a club or common purpose group comes to mind, such as a civic or hobby club. Members may feel good to join and participate because of being accepted and for satisfying socializing, even for service opportunities. They like being there and like the people, but would they die for one another as Jesus did? The associations may be brotherly because of social value and personal satisfaction. A member may not give a lot of money to be there or may spend only minimal effort in the club’s projects.
Civic and other clubs offer team project opportunities wherein we learn more can be accomplished by working together. A good and valuable project completed can yield pleasant satisfaction. We feel good when something right is accomplished. Membership is happiness in action when we love in a brotherly way.
The moral level would inspire a person to speak up if a club officer was caught abusing duties and authority. Persons who become aware of misuse of funds would call attention to the club and still like the club, perhaps even the wrong doer. But a sense of right and wrong would impel a person to speak up and ask for corrections. Moral feelings would impact decisions for officers and other members alike. Such level would be greater than just brotherly because it requires action, perhaps even to teach a wrong doer.
The moral level cannot exist without first learning, experiencing the lower levels. Realizing a moral value stirs action when needed, to speak up for good or to question behavior.
The spiritual level arises from soul desire to love as Jesus loves regardless of the soul status of another person. This is not so easy for us “animal origin beings.” If we love as He loves, we change our agenda and act on our soul desires for Godlike relations. But, we often do not. If we loved others as He loves us, we apparently would mobilize that goodness within ourselves to do good and spare nothing of our motives and desires to help someone and affirm mind movements toward God. Life agenda would change!
You asked, Why is brotherly love so hard to do? We are still too much animal! We haven’t found real happiness!
But, we can join the Super Club with active membership in a Cosmic Family of The Father’s Children. What better civic or group personalities club is there? And in that club is new insight about Jesus’ intentions for His love level. It is movement, ascending the psychic circles, he taught and that is decision, decision and more affirming decisions to be God like, to accept relationship with the Original Lover Person. We’ll get there.
Maybe more later. Thank you!!!
Thank you for such an important and illuminating topic. My reflections and studies on the questions posed here led to Paper 140 and the Ordination. Like the Q&A in Paper 147 posted by Mara above, the different types of love and levels of love were an advanced training I think for the Apostles – although universally true.
The UB teaches us that our aspiration to reach Divine levels of love for others, as distinct from and in addition to the brotherly forms of affection, is natural, evolutionary and progressive, and inherent expansions and amplifications of love itself.
All love has origin as Divine love and affection. But the understanding and appreciation and application of love is only partial and incremental in all beings who are created and born as experiential beings. As we personally embrace the Divine Affection and Assurance relationship (the religious experience), our reality perspective evolves and grows to both experience and express deeper and fuller and perfecting levels of love. This includes all ethical and self/social levels of true liberty applications of fairness. And includes our gregarious social inclinations of sharing and caring. But also reaches levels of mercy and forgiveness and patience and forbearance and affection known to most parents.
Love is a spectrum of experience and expression. Spiritual growth will eventually result in a greater comprehension and expression of love. This continuum of true love includes every form of love that is not self centered and self important I think.
All true love is given and received within a circuitry requiring relationship rather than isolation I think. It is not an exchange or trade of any equivalency however, as that is conditional AND self serving. Love that is freely given has the most power and effect. Conditional love seeks reciprocity and delivers less effect while advanced levels of love include and deliver desirable effects – personal AND social effects and progress!!!
Love is both a cause and an effect which is all at the same time the realization of reality and actualization of potential resulting in progress and ever greater potential!!
5. Fatherly and Brotherly Love
140:5.1 (1573.3) From the Sermon on the Mount to the discourse of the Last Supper, Jesus taught his followers to manifest fatherly love rather than brotherly love. Brotherly love would love your neighbor as you love yourself, and that would be adequate fulfillment of the “golden rule.” But fatherly affection would require that you should love your fellow mortals as Jesus loves you.
140:5.2 (1573.4) Jesus loves mankind with a dual affection. He lived on earth as a twofold personality—human and divine. As the Son of God he loves man with a fatherly love—he is man’s Creator, his universe Father. As the Son of Man, Jesus loves mortals as a brother—he was truly a man among men.
140:5.3 (1573.5) Jesus did not expect his followers to achieve an impossible manifestation of brotherly love, but he did expect them to so strive to be like God—to be perfect even as the Father in heaven is perfect—that they could begin to look upon man as God looks upon his creatures and therefore could begin to love men as God loves them—to show forth the beginnings of a fatherly affection. In the course of these exhortations to the twelve apostles, Jesus sought to reveal this new concept of fatherly love as it is related to certain emotional attitudes concerned in making numerous environmental social adjustments.
140:5.4 (1573.6) The Master introduced this momentous discourse by calling attention to four faith attitudes as the prelude to the subsequent portrayal of his four transcendent and supreme reactions of fatherly love in contrast to the limitations of mere brotherly love.
140:5.5 (1573.7) He first talked about those who were poor in spirit, hungered after righteousness, endured meekness, and who were pure in heart. Such spirit-discerning mortals could be expected to attain such levels of divine selflessness as to be able to attempt the amazing exercise of fatherly affection; that even as mourners they would be empowered to show mercy, promote peace, and endure persecutions, and throughout all of these trying situations to love even unlovely mankind with a fatherly love. A father’s affection can attain levels of devotion that immeasurably transcend a brother’s affection.
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.
180:5.2 (1949.4) Divine truth is a spirit-discerned and living reality. Truth exists only on high spiritual levels of the realization of divinity and the consciousness of communion with God. You can know the truth, and you can live the truth; you can experience the growth of truth in the soul and enjoy the liberty of its enlightenment in the mind, but you cannot imprison truth in formulas, codes, creeds, or intellectual patterns of human conduct. When you undertake the human formulation of divine truth, it speedily dies. The post-mortem salvage of imprisoned truth, even at best, can eventuate only in the realization of a peculiar form of intellectualized glorified wisdom. Static truth is dead truth, and only dead truth can be held as a theory. Living truth is dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential existence in the human mind.
180:5.3 (1949.5) Intelligence grows out of a material existence which is illuminated by the presence of the cosmic mind. Wisdom comprises the consciousness of knowledge elevated to new levels of meaning and activated by the presence of the universe endowment of the adjutant of wisdom. Truth is a spiritual reality value experienced only by spirit-endowed beings who function upon supermaterial levels of universe consciousness, and who, after the realization of truth, permit its spirit of activation to live and reign within their souls.
180:5.4 (1949.6) The true child of universe insight looks for the living Spirit of Truth in every wise saying. The God-knowing individual is constantly elevating wisdom to the living-truth levels of divine attainment; the spiritually unprogressive soul is all the while dragging the living truth down to the dead levels of wisdom and to the domain of mere exalted knowledge.
180:5.5 (1949.7) The golden rule, when divested of the superhuman insight of the Spirit of Truth, becomes nothing more than a rule of high ethical conduct. The golden rule, when literally interpreted, may become the instrument of great offense to one’s fellows. Without a spiritual discernment of the golden rule of wisdom you might reason that, since you are desirous that all men speak the full and frank truth of their minds to you, you should therefore fully and frankly speak the full thought of your mind to your fellow beings. Such an unspiritual interpretation of the golden rule might result in untold unhappiness and no end of sorrow.
180:5.6 (1950.1) Some persons discern and interpret the golden rule as a purely intellectual affirmation of human fraternity. Others experience this expression of human relationship as an emotional gratification of the tender feelings of the human personality. Another mortal recognizes this same golden rule as the yardstick for measuring all social relations, the standard of social conduct. Still others look upon it as being the positive injunction of a great moral teacher who embodied in this statement the highest concept of moral obligation as regards all fraternal relationships. In the lives of such moral beings the golden rule becomes the wise center and circumference of all their philosophy.
180:5.7 (1950.2) In the kingdom of the believing brotherhood of God-knowing truth lovers, this golden rule takes on living qualities of spiritual realization on those higher levels of interpretation which cause the mortal sons of God to view this injunction of the Master as requiring them so to relate themselves to their fellows that they will receive the highest possible good as a result of the believer’s contact with them. This is the essence of true religion: that you love your neighbor as yourself.
180:5.8 (1950.3) But the highest realization and the truest interpretation of the golden rule consists in the consciousness of the spirit of the truth of the enduring and living reality of such a divine declaration. The true cosmic meaning of this rule of universal relationship is revealed only in its spiritual realization, in the interpretation of the law of conduct by the spirit of the Son to the spirit of the Father that indwells the soul of mortal man. And when such spirit-led mortals realize the true meaning of this golden rule, they are filled to overflowing with the assurance of citizenship in a friendly universe, and their ideals of spirit reality are satisfied only when they love their fellows as Jesus loved us all, and that is the reality of the realization of the love of God.
180:5.9 (1950.4) This same philosophy of the living flexibility and cosmic adaptability of divine truth to the individual requirements and capacity of every son of God, must be perceived before you can hope adequately to understand the Master’s teaching and practice of nonresistance to evil. The Master’s teaching is basically a spiritual pronouncement. Even the material implications of his philosophy cannot be helpfully considered apart from their spiritual correlations. The spirit of the Master’s injunction consists in the nonresistance of all selfish reaction to the universe, coupled with the aggressive and progressive attainment of righteous levels of true spirit values: divine beauty, infinite goodness, and eternal truth—to know God and to become increasingly like him.
180:5.10 (1950.5) Love, unselfishness, must undergo a constant and living readaptative interpretation of relationships in accordance with the leading of the Spirit of Truth. Love must thereby grasp the ever-changing and enlarging concepts of the highest cosmic good of the individual who is loved. And then love goes on to strike this same attitude concerning all other individuals who could possibly be influenced by the growing and living relationship of one spirit-led mortal’s love for other citizens of the universe. And this entire living adaptation of love must be effected in the light of both the environment of present evil and the eternal goal of the perfection of divine destiny.
180:5.11 (1950.6) And so must we clearly recognize that neither the golden rule nor the teaching of nonresistance can ever be properly understood as dogmas or precepts. They can only be comprehended by living them, by realizing their meanings in the living interpretation of the Spirit of Truth, who directs the loving contact of one human being with another.
180:5.12 (1951.1) And all this clearly indicates the difference between the old religion and the new. The old religion taught self-sacrifice; the new religion teaches only self-forgetfulness, enhanced self-realization in conjoined social service and universe comprehension. The old religion was motivated by fear-consciousness; the new gospel of the kingdom is dominated by truth-conviction, the spirit of eternal and universal truth. And no amount of piety or creedal loyalty can compensate for the absence in the life experience of kingdom believers of that spontaneous, generous, and sincere friendliness which characterizes the spirit-born sons of the living God. Neither tradition nor a ceremonial system of formal worship can atone for the lack of genuine compassion for one’s fellows.
It’s humbling to realize we are divinely valued.
I’ve been thinking about value more deeply. And about divine love.
100:4.4 In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.Understanding leads to tolerance. Tolerance will grow into friendship. Friendship will grow into love. The love-outcome can’t be forced or legislated. It springs from the source of divine love, our Heavenly Father, who has gifted each one of us with a unique personality and with a spirit fragment of Himself. I often think of the role of mind in the outworking of the golden rule: the interpretation of it and its application. Reminds me of two thought-gems:196:3.10 The human mind does not create real values; human experience does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight, the recognition of moral values and the discernment of spiritual meanings, all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose..48:7.13 11. The weak indulge in resolutions, but the strong act. Life is but a day’s work — do it well. The act is ours; the consequences God’s.I think there is only one full and true love. And only one universe reality. And only one pure truth. And I think only Existential Deity knows and experiences and gives those to creation and all other personalities and minds within creation.
However….all other beings, not Existential/Original Deity, can only experience and express a partial and incremental love, reality, and truth based on their individual spiritization.
So….the differences between brotherly love and moral love and paternal love are not real differences. Rather, they are experiential differences and expressive limitations, which are determined by and dependent upon personal experiential progress and wisdom and reality response. The greater our spiritization and evolutionary progress, the purer becomes our love for others and for God and the more objective and less subjective is our view of reality and our appreciation of truth.
And this is why the ability to forgive and extend mercy and understand others and to love others despite their differences to ourselves is progressive and illustrates/demonstrates our own progress….the fruits of the Spirit reflect our own love response and our own expression of that experience within. Or so I understand…..
0:3.20 (5.19) REALITY, as comprehended by finite beings, is partial, relative, and shadowy….
105:1.7 (1153.4) The universe of universes, with its innumerable host of inhabiting personalities, is a vast and complex organism, but the First Source and Center is infinitely more complex than the universes and personalities which have become real in response to his willful mandates. When you stand in awe of the magnitude of the master universe, pause to consider that even this inconceivable creation can be no more than a partial revelation of the Infinite.
Thank you for such an important and illuminating topic. My reflections and studies on the questions posed here led to Paper 140 and the Ordination.Thank you for directing us to brotherly and fatherly love (Paper 140). This paragraph in Paper 180 helps us better understand the levels of interpretation of the golden rule:180:5.6 Some persons discern and interpret the golden rule as a purely intellectual affirmation of human fraternity. Others experience this expression of human relationship as an emotional gratification of the tender feelings of the human personality. Another mortal recognizes this same golden rule as the yardstick for measuring all social relations, the standard of social conduct. Still others look upon it as being the positive injunction of a great moral teacher who embodied in this statement the highest concept of moral obligation as regards all fraternal relationships. In the lives of such moral beings the golden rule becomes the wise center and circumference of all their philosophy.I was just about ready to post when I received your most recent post.So….the differences between brotherly love and moral love and paternal love are not real differences. Rather, they are experiential differences and expressive limitations, which are determined by and dependent upon personal experiential progress and wisdom and reality response.Your view that the levels are experiential rings true to me, because my experiential level is still at the brotherly love level. I don’t believe I’ve reached the moral level yet. But I do think there are differences among the levels, as the reference from Paper 180 begins to explicate.Mara…I can find no text that teaches that there are different levels of love. God does not give varying degrees of love. No being gets more or less or any different “level” of love. The levels described are levels of understanding and experience and expression. Or so I understand. I think the importance of that understanding of the reality and concept of love is great. Love, reality, and truth are not themselves partial or layered or in levels….only their appreciation and perception by individuals is so differentiated.
“Let me now teach you concerning the differing levels of meaning attached to the interpretation of this rule of living, this admonition to ‘do to others that which you desire others to do to you’:” (from 147:4.3 posted above by Mara)
Me here: If you are a parent, then I think it is likely you have experienced and expressed paternal love, a much deeper and higher and purer form of love indeed!! I think each of us has experience with different “levels of meaning attached to the interpretation” related to love.
Consider again:
180:5.10 (1950.5) Love, unselfishness, must undergo a constant and living readaptative interpretation of relationships in accordance with the leading of the Spirit of Truth. Love must thereby grasp the ever-changing and enlarging concepts of the highest cosmic good of the individual who is loved. And then love goes on to strike this same attitude concerning all other individuals who could possibly be influenced by the growing and living relationship of one spirit-led mortal’s love for other citizens of the universe. And this entire living adaptation of love must be effected in the light of both the environment of present evil and the eternal goal of the perfection of divine destiny.
Me here: Just because you may not feel this level of love for all does not mean you have not felt it at all…or for a particular person in your life!!!
12:7.8 (138.3) The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man present the paradox of the part and the whole on the level of personality. God loves each individual as an individual child in the heavenly family. Yet God thus loves every individual; he is no respecter of persons, and the universality of his love brings into being a relationship of the whole, the universal brotherhood.
12:7.9 (138.4) The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity. The Father’s love glorifies each child of God, illuminating each member of the celestial family, sharply silhouetting the unique nature of each personal being against the impersonal levels that lie outside the fraternal circuit of the Father of all. The love of God strikingly portrays the transcendent value of each will creature, unmistakably reveals the high value which the Universal Father has placed upon each and every one of his children from the highest creator personality of Paradise status to the lowest personality of will dignity among the savage tribes of men in the dawn of the human species on some evolutionary world of time and space.
12:7.10 (138.5) This very love of God for the individual brings into being the divine family of all individuals, the universal brotherhood of the freewill children of the Paradise Father. And this brotherhood, being universal, is a relationship of the whole. Brotherhood, when universal, discloses not the each relationship, but the all relationship. Brotherhood is a reality of the total and therefore discloses qualities of the whole in contradistinction to qualities of the part.
12:7.11 (138.6) Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality in universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the penalties that may come as a result of relationship to other persons. The part profits or suffers in measure with the whole. The good effort of each man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the tribulation of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the progress of the whole, so the progress of the part. The relative velocities of part and whole determine whether the part is retarded by the inertia of the whole or is carried forward by the momentum of the cosmic brotherhood.
Me here: Do you recall the reality we are taught regarding the “new” meanings found in “old” facts due to new insight, inspiration, personal revelation, and spiritual growth? I think that is relevant to this discussion as well. When we experience and realize higher “levels” of love, it is not love or any level of love that has changed but, rather, it is us who have grown to a greater understanding of love.
The levels described are levels of understanding and experience and expression.
Yes, I think so.
Jesus teaches us the second great commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, as springing from the greatest commandment of all.
174:4.2 Then came forward one of the groups of the Pharisees to ask harassing questions, and the spokesman, signaling to Jesus, said: “Master, I am a lawyer, and I would like to ask you which, in your opinion, is the greatest commandment?” Jesus answered: “There is but one commandment that one is the greatest of all, and that commandment is:’Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second commandment is like this first; indeed, it springs directly therefrom, and it is:’You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”.The golden rule, the rule of living, as presented by the revelators, opens the door for us to look more deeply into the rule in order to discern the meaning of the UB statements written on this subject. On the occasion of Nathaniel’s question, Jesus offers up more information,wherein he says in part:“Let me now teach you concerning the differing levels of meaning attached to the interpretation of this rule of living, this admonition to ‘do to others that which you desire others to do to you’.”Jesus chastises Nathaniel for the way he asks the question. But I thank Nathanial for asking the way he did, because look what we now have received from Jesus by way of his elaboration of the rule of living! I aspire to love my neighbor, to do to my neighbor as Jesus would do unto him, and, if I do to my neighbor what Jesus does to him, I then think I would be doing what our Father in Heaven wishes to be done to him. Or in other words, I would be doing God’s will on earth as regards my neighbor in theory. It’s aspirational.I aspire to love my neighbor.
I think about this a lot, because of a previous difficulty with my neighbor. I think I have failed in my relationship with my neighbor and failed to live in accordance with my philosophy to love my neighbor, which is to say to do to others what I would want them to do to me.100:4.6 You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.Is this the caveat: “Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate”?
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