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101:5.13 (1111.3) Evolutionary religion provides only the assurance of faith and the confirmation of conscience; revelatory religion provides the assurance of faith plus the truth of a living experience in the realities of revelation. The third step in religion, or the third phase of the experience of religion, has to do with the morontia state, the firmer grasp of mota. Increasingly in the morontia progression the truths of revealed religion are expanded; more and more you will know the truth of supreme values, divine goodnesses, universal relationships, eternal realities, and ultimate destinies.
101:5.14 (1111.4) Increasingly throughout the morontia progression the assurance of truth replaces the assurance of faith. When you are finally mustered into the actual spirit world, then will the assurances of pure spirit insight operate in the place of faith and truth or, rather, in conjunction with, and superimposed upon, these former techniques of personality assurance.
It is interesting to consider the phrase “…the assurance of truth replaces the assurance of faith.” Then as we approach finality upon Paradise, “…the assurances of pure spirit insight operate in the place of faith and truth….”, or more accurately with those “…techniques of personality assurance.” What an illumination of personal transformation and progression. So, circle progress and the transfer of our personal identity, or spiritization and spiritualization, are forms of personality assurance which derive from our grasp of reality and the progressive perspective of reality….we will know more and more of reality by experience and education over time and enjoy an increasing quality of reality perspective by the experiential wisdom gained as we traverse first the psychic circles and then the distance in time and wisdom accumulation between fusion and finality.
Every step of this journey and adventure we become more and more spiritual as our personality experiences the transformation of assurance….faith trust to truth trust to spirit trust. This is The Real Nature of Religion….the transformation of our being. Much of this transcendence can be experienced in this life of origin. Our dual nature will never be lost I do not think. It is our identity that will be and must be transitioned to our original source and nature from the material (or in the case of celestials – the morontial material) form of birth (or creation) to the pure spirit from which we are truly originated….by them in time and space, to return by free will choice and the intentional embrace of truth, beauty, goodness, and love in the time and space adventure. Even our celestial cousins must be “humanized” to fully embrace their own spiritization potential in time.
Kind of like water from the sea evaporating into the clouds to rain upon the land to nourish and transform it while it returning to the sea!! Or like a seed sprouting in the dirt to become flower and then fruit and then seed again delivered back to the soil. Can we see our story and destiny in the world around us? The circle of life…the transformation of form itself….trans-form-ation. We who transform the most and who begin without mota and truth assurance but must instead rely upon faith assurance are the most blessed of all as we will enjoy the greatest of transformations and have the greatest of faith and truth assurances as we also become pure spirit in our “knowing” and our “being”…and such an experience will make us uniquely qualified to serve and to love in the eternities to come!
We are the faith children of the universe of universes! And some of us are the future agondonter faith children….those who respond to faith without example and originate from worlds of separation and isolation by rebellion and default. How lucky we will come to feel by this most difficult and treacherous beginning. I am reminded of those wizened and most beautiful of trees along the coast of my birth, clinging to the cliffs and growing from the rock, gale and storm blown into the most beautiful and inspiring and tenacious of individually sculpted shapes – each a unique expression of adaptation, formation, transformation, and survival with roots deeply anchored into stone, ancient in their wisdom of “being” and “becoming”, content and unperturbed in sunshine, rain, storm, or raging gale! Giving seed, shade, shelter, and beauty to all who visit (you may see such a view in my avatar photo here!)
6. Progressive Religious Experience
101:6.1 (1111.5) The morontia phase of revealed religion has to do with the experience of survival, and its great urge is the attainment of spirit perfection. There also is present the higher urge of worship, associated with an impelling call to increased ethical service. Morontia insight entails an ever-expanding consciousness of the Sevenfold, the Supreme, and even the Ultimate.
101:6.2 (1111.6) Throughout all religious experience, from its earliest inception on the material level up to the time of the attainment of full spirit status, the Adjuster is the secret of the personal realization of the reality of the existence of the Supreme; and this same Adjuster also holds the secrets of your faith in the transcendental attainment of the Ultimate. The experiential personality of evolving man, united to the Adjuster essence of the existential God, constitutes the potential completion of supreme existence and is inherently the basis for the superfinite eventuation of transcendental personality.
101:6.3 (1111.7) Moral will embraces decisions based on reasoned knowledge, augmented by wisdom, and sanctioned by religious faith. Such choices are acts of moral nature and evidence the existence of moral personality, the forerunner of morontia personality and eventually of true spirit status.
101:6.4 (1111.8) The evolutionary type of knowledge is but the accumulation of protoplasmic memory material; this is the most primitive form of creature consciousness. Wisdom embraces the ideas formulated from protoplasmic memory in process of association and recombination, and such phenomena differentiate human mind from mere animal mind. Animals have knowledge, but only man possesses wisdom capacity. Truth is made accessible to the wisdom-endowed individual by the bestowal on such a mind of the spirits of the Father and the Sons, the Thought Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth.
101:6.5 (1112.1) Christ Michael, when bestowed on Urantia, lived under the reign of evolutionary religion up to the time of his baptism. From that moment up to and including the event of his crucifixion he carried forward his work by the combined guidance of evolutionary and revealed religion. From the morning of his resurrection until his ascension he traversed the manifold phases of the morontia life of mortal transition from the world of matter to that of spirit. After his ascension Michael became master of the experience of Supremacy, the realization of the Supreme; and being the one person in Nebadon possessed of unlimited capacity to experience the reality of the Supreme, he forthwith attained to the status of the sovereignty of supremacy in and to his local universe.
Section six of this paper connects to the other thread about salvation and survival. Note the very first paragraph mentions the links between revelation, the morontia life and the experience of survival (101:6.1 above). It sounds like a continuum to me. Here we are with a wonderful epochal revelation which is designed to enhance our personal revelation of the morontia life which cannot actually be experienced as an actuality until we land on the mansion worlds. Yet we’re told that the morontia career begins right here with the birth of the soul. Is it possible that personal revelation is a foretaste of the survival experience? Is that why some folks are more assured of survival than others, because of their soul consciousness? It is a fact that soul consciousness enables the consciousness of other souls – the brotherhood phenomenon – which brings confidence of other’s survival as well. Soul consciousness is essentially a budding (emerging) consciousness of the Supreme.
Later in this section (paragraph 9) we’re told about seven kinds of salvation the religion of Jesus offers. I think they’re fascinating topics for discussion. The first talks about sonship, which I’ve mentioned is an essential feature of that morontian foretaste of survival. Here they are to think over:
1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with God, who is spirit.
2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.
3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-revelation of the goodness of spirit values.
4. Salvation from incompleteness of self through the attainment of the spirit levels of the universe and through the eventual realization of the harmony of Havona and the perfection of Paradise.
5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings.
6. Salvation from time, the achievement of an eternal life of unending progression in God-recognition and God-service.
7. Salvation from the finite, the perfected oneness with Deity in and through the Supreme by which the creature attempts the transcendental discovery of the Ultimate on the postfinaliter levels of the absonite.
101:6.1 (1111.5) The morontia phase of revealed religion has to do with the experience of survival, and its great urge is the attainment of spirit perfection….
Bonita asks above: “Is it possible that personal revelation is a foretaste of the survival experience?”
I think it is that indeed….and perhaps even more…like the foretaste of eternal life too, even beyond survival of material death. Or perhaps it is the foretaste of eternity that is the first experience of survival of this life? The soul grows in its self awareness and confidence of its relationship with Deity and feels assurance by the fact and function of revelation! We’re told the soul can become more aware of us and our mind as its co-parent than our mind may be aware of soul and that our morontia mind/soul in its growing self awareness may experience truth and reality and volitionally worship and commune, also without the material mind’s cognition….as I recall.
The power of faith is the foundation for the power of revelation, both of which deliver assurance…confidence in safety and the love of God….which should lead to contentment and poise of being, despite all material uncertainties and suffering….enough poise and confidence to stand firm in the midst of material chaos and tragedy and loss when all things earthly might crash down about us! We will, by such assurance, learn to even feast and fatten on all such uncertainties and to persevere in all material failures with flapless certainty of such assurance!
Like Bonita, I’ve been reading ahead on the topic, regarding the role and purpose of epochal revelation and fact and knowledge in our transformation of transitioning by truth assurance from faith assurance. How are these different? How does epochal revelation and material science…or the knowledge of things and how things work….assist in such transformation and progress? It appears that philosophy is only as effective in unifying and integrating truth from personal revelation as is the facts and knowledge of reality which underpin the truths received and experienced by personal revelation….or so I understand.
“Mind cannot operate without facts…” we are taught below. Apparently false fact or falsehoods will suffice if true facts and knowledge are unavailable…thusly do we create myths and fantasies and heroes! To explain what we do not understand. One purpose of epochal revelation is to eliminate errors and reduce confusions by the presentation of fact and knowledge for the mind to better function and develop more useful philosophy.
Also had the thought that the life of Jesus was an epochal revelation but the gift of his Spirit is both epochal in nature and personal in function…the double whammy of Revelation!! For the Spirit of Truth is not just to the each…it is also to the all…personal and planetary at the same time!
102:2.5 (1120.2) Even the discoveries of science are not truly real in the consciousness of human experience until they are unraveled and correlated, until their relevant facts actually become meaning through encircuitment in the thought streams of mind. Mortal man views even his physical environment from the mind level, from the perspective of its psychological registry. It is not, therefore, strange that man should place a highly unified interpretation upon the universe and then seek to identify this energy unity of his science with the spirit unity of his religious experience. Mind is unity; mortal consciousness lives on the mind level and perceives the universal realities through the eyes of the mind endowment. The mind perspective will not yield the existential unity of the source of reality, the First Source and Center, but it can and sometime will portray to man the experiential synthesis of energy, mind, and spirit in and as the Supreme Being. But mind can never succeed in this unification of the diversity of reality unless such mind is firmly aware of material things, intellectual meanings, and spiritual values; only in the harmony of the triunity of functional reality is there unity, and only in unity is there the personality satisfaction of the realization of cosmic constancy and consistency.
102:2.6 (1120.3) Unity is best found in human experience through philosophy. And while the body of philosophic thought must ever be founded on material facts, the soul and energy of true philosophic dynamics is mortal spiritual insight.
106:0.1 (1162.1) IT IS not enough that the ascending mortal should know something of the relations of Deity to the genesis and manifestations of cosmic reality; he should also comprehend something of the relationships existing between himself and the numerous levels of existential and experiential realities, of potential and actual realities. Man’s terrestrial orientation, his cosmic insight, and his spiritual directionization are all enhanced by a better comprehension of universe realities and their techniques of interassociation, integration, and unification.
111:6.6 (1222.5) Science is the source of facts, and mind cannot operate without facts. They are the building blocks in the construction of wisdom which are cemented together by life experience. Man can find the love of God without facts, and man can discover the laws of God without love, but man can never begin to appreciate the infinite symmetry, the supernal harmony, the exquisite repleteness of the all-inclusive nature of the First Source and Center until he has found divine law and divine love and has experientially unified these in his own evolving cosmic philosophy.
111:6.7 (1222.6) The expansion of material knowledge permits a greater intellectual appreciation of the meanings of ideas and the values of ideals. A human being can find truth in his inner experience, but he needs a clear knowledge of facts to apply his personal discovery of truth to the ruthlessly practical demands of everyday life.
Me here: I think personality assurance requires facts as well as truth for experiential unification of reality in mind…it is part of the pursuit for perfection! Curiosity is the foundational urge to understand….everything!
It’s not the facts but the meaning of facts that really matter. A computer/robot can function with facts alone. Facts can’t be false. It’s the interpretation of facts which are often false (think man-made global warming). So it really comes down to meanings and values. Truth is about relationships; it’s about interpreting facts from a spiritual perspective which reveals their relationship to all three levels of reality, and that’s what revelation is about. It’s about cosmic interrelatedness, the Supreme, which is why the Spirit of Truth is so vital to the process.
TUB may be filled with facts but that alone does not make it a revelation. Facts don’t participate in revelation until they have been given meaning from the inner spirit (0:12.13). I don’t think meanings derived by the material mind alone are considered revelatory, yet these meanings are an indispensable part of evolutionary human life. Revelation elevates (up-steps) evolutionary thinking to the discovery, recognition and interpretation of new meanings in old facts.
There are those who read TUB who have difficulty allowing the inner spirit help them discover new meanings in the facts presented. I think it’s a matter of one’s capacity of receptivity, but that’s another subject. The facts, when filtered by the material mind alone don’t always seem to add up, which leads to fault-finding doubt. Then there are those who love mysticism and attempt to attach metaphysical symbolic meanings to TUB’s facts, many of which are arcane, esoteric, magical and mythological (think Kabbalism).
Like Bonita, I’ve been reading ahead on the topic, regarding the role and purpose of epochal revelation and fact and knowledge in our transformation of transitioning by truth assurance from faith assurance. How are these different?
I think the difference between faith assurance and truth assurance has to do with soul consciousness and the capacity to open the mind to relations. Truth is a relation. (56:10.13) Truth is about love. It is not about a romantic sensation of bliss, but about relations.
(1615.5) 143:6.4 The theme of Jesus’ teaching on Mount Gerizim was: That he wants all men to see God as a Father-friend just as he (Jesus) is a brother-friend. And again and again he impressed upon them that love is the greatest relationship in the world — in the universe — just as truth is the greatest pronouncement of the observation of these divine relationships.
There are only three kinds of reality (for us mortals): fact, idea and relation. AKA: science, philosophy and truth. (196:3.2). Truth is what gives life to dead facts and makes them actionable. Without truth life is rather protoplasmic. Faith lifts up protoplasmic living by compelling the mind to strive for wisdom (philosophy), and wisdom opens the gateway to spirit. The Spirit of Truth is not only the truth revealer (meaning of how all things and all people relate to one another as part of the Supreme), but he is also the revealer of idealistic beauty (155:6.11), the philosophic consistency, stability and unity which comes from the integration and coordination of all the contrasting features of the three elements of reality.
(1112.6) 101:6.10 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.
The Spirit of Truth offers salvation from the intellectual bondage of protoplasmic living, but faith is necessary for salvation. Faith is the first step a personality makes toward salvation. Those first steps may be merely groping in the shadows, but the discovery of truth is illuminating, enlightening and freeing when chosen. Why? Because it’s actionable. It lives! It is part of the eternal Supreme.
Bradly wrote:How does epochal revelation and material science…or the knowledge of things and how things work….assist in such transformation and progress? It appears that philosophy is only as effective in unifying and integrating truth from personal revelation as is the facts and knowledge of reality which underpin the truths received and experienced by personal revelation….or so I understand.
Philosophy coordinates quality with the quantities of facts. This is a basic adjutant mind function, but the spirit of wisdom is necessary to elevate human philosophy to morontia philosophy (mota). It’s the driver of that up-escalator. The adjutants alone are capable of evolutionary wisdom, but true wisdom requires the additional step of contacting morontia realities. The Spirit of Truth is our most familiar morontia reality because we’ve already been introduced to him as Jesus. The human, material, adjutant mind knows this person intimately. The secret of revelatory transformation is the process of searching for him (a person) in the soul where he is responsible for revealing mota – spiritual philosophy, or ” . . . the superphilosophic sensitivity for truth discernment and unity perception.” (102:3.2)
101:3.2 Faith-insight, or spiritual intuition, is the endowment of the cosmic mind in association with the Thought Adjuster, which is the Father’s gift to man. Spiritual reason, soul intelligence, is the endowment of the Holy Spirit, the Creative Spirit’s gift to man. Spiritual philosophy, the wisdom of spirit realities, is the endowment of the Spirit of Truth, the combined gift of the bestowal Sons to the children of men. And the co-ordination and interassociation of these spirit endowments constitute man a spirit personality in potential destiny.
The only way I know to do this is to fall in love with Jesus, to adopt him as the alter ego, and in partnership through persistent prayer, attempt to exchange his mota-mind for the protoplasmic one. It can be done. We’re told it can be done, I’ve experienced it myself and I know others have as well. It’s not always a human-mind conscious event, but a soul-conscious event. However, the scintillating, illuminating inspiration which comes from contact with his personality and mind is enough to spur action in a faithful, wisdom directed heart. And it’s the choice to act on such inspiration that becomes personal religious experience – personal revelation, the assurance of truth and personality survival, because it is real, which leaves no doubt.
102:3.9 Knowledge yields pride in the fact of personality; wisdom is the consciousness of the meaning of personality; religion is the experience of cognizance of the value of personality; revelation is the assurance of personality survival.
180:5.10 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.
TUB may be filled with facts but that alone does not make it a revelation. Facts don’t participate in revelation until they have been given meaning from the inner spirit (0:12.13). I don’t think meanings derived by the material mind alone are considered revelatory, yet these meanings are an indispensable part of evolutionary human life. Revelation elevates (up-steps) evolutionary thinking to the discovery, recognition and interpretation of new meanings in old facts.
I agree facts are not particularly useful when not utilized in conjunction with a reality based perspective, a unification and harmonization of both the material world and the spiritual world, the integration of our very being and place of being…and this requires the evolutionary assurances of faith and the revelatory assurance of truth to bring meaning to facts/knowledge.
And, as you say, we are taught that experience, wisdom, and additional revelation (both personal and epochal) in combination with greater experience and wisdom will deliver new meanings to old facts….new perceptions from greater context and additional content, both. Just as personal revelation elevates (up-steps) evolutionary thinking, so does epochal revelation also up-step our thinking even more, just as mota will, still again, further up-step our thinking and its ability to perceive and utilize truth.
As you also say, a continuum is described whereby one level leads and adds to another and increases the power and improves our clarity of perception as the strength of assurance grows and grows….assisting us in”….the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience — God-consciousness.” Isn’t our growing “assurance” also this “consciousness”? Delivered to us together by faith and truth?
#4 below is very interesting to me…the “pre-eminence” of the spirit nature over the material nature – the conviction of the reality of the I AM and the true nature of our very being…despite the material “facts” of our existence, nonetheless is the spirit real to us! The function of all assurance ministry, whether evolutionary or revelatory, is the dominance of the Spirit nature over the material…this is the truth and the source of truth and is required to find meaning and value in, by, or from facts and knowledge – otherwise it is purely mechanical and temporal in nature and function…or so I think.
All of which goes directly to Bonita’s “Salvation From” quotes above…assurance saves us from many forms of material confusions and suffering it appears!
pre-eminence (noun)
the fact of surpassing all others; superiority.
synonyms: superiority · supremacy · greatness · excellence · distinction · prominence · predominance · eminence · peerlessness · transcendence · importance · prestige ·
0:12.13 (17.2) We are fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we recognize the impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite concepts of the mortal mind. But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience — God-consciousness.
Regarding Religion In Human Experience and The Real Nature of Religion:
170:2.1 (1859.11) The Master made it clear that the kingdom of heaven must begin with, and be centered in, the dual concept of the truth of the fatherhood of God and the correlated fact of the brotherhood of man. The acceptance of such a teaching, Jesus declared, would liberate man from the age-long bondage of animal fear and at the same time enrich human living with the following endowments of the new life of spiritual liberty: *
170:2.2 (1859.12) 1. The possession of new courage and augmented spiritual power. The gospel of the kingdom was to set man free and inspire him to dare to hope for eternal life.
170:2.3 (1859.13) 2. The gospel carried a message of new confidence and true consolation for all men, even for the poor.
170:2.4 (1859.14) 3. It was in itself a new standard of moral values, a new ethical yardstick wherewith to measure human conduct. It portrayed the ideal of a resultant new order of human society.
170:2.5 (1859.15) 4. It taught the pre-eminence of the spiritual compared with the material; it glorified spiritual realities and exalted superhuman ideals.
170:2.6 (1860.1) 5. This new gospel held up spiritual attainment as the true goal of living. Human life received a new endowment of moral value and divine dignity.
170:2.7 (1860.2) 6. Jesus taught that eternal realities were the result (reward) of righteous earthly striving. Man’s mortal sojourn on earth acquired new meanings consequent upon the recognition of a noble destiny.
170:2.8 (1860.3) 7. The new gospel affirmed that human salvation is the revelation of a far-reaching divine purpose to be fulfilled and realized in the future destiny of the endless service of the salvaged sons of God.
170:2.9 (1860.4) These teachings cover the expanded idea of the kingdom which was taught by Jesus….
Me here: These are elements to the 4th Epochal Revelation and the personal revelation given to every mind in every generation by personal revelation ever since! Assurance of our loving creator and our destiny and the family of creation in this friendly universe!
I agree facts are not particularly useful when not utilized in conjunction with a reality based perspective, a unification and harmonization of both the material world and the spiritual world, the integration of our very being and place of being…and this requires the evolutionary assurances of faith and the revelatory assurance of truth to bring meaning to facts/knowledge.
Yeah, I think that most people think facts are truth. That’s not so. Facts and the knowledge of facts do not add up to truth. Knowledge is factualized in the mind, truth is actualized in experience. That’s why I don’t think TUB is just a collection of facts, and knowledge of the facts alone won’t reveal truth. Truth is more than just coordinating, integrating and harmonizing the relationship between facts. Truth is a relational experience in which facts become divinity attuned – given both cosmic and personal meaning. Truth is always a revelation, and revelation is always an experience of the personality, which is a relational reality in itself. The relationship of the personality to both the cosmos and Deity is what makes the experience of truth both personal and revelatory. The presence of Deity is critical to the revelation of truth and personal religious experience. The co-creative factor cannot be left out. If it is, there’s no truth, only facts.
180:5.3 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.
As you also say, a continuum is described whereby one level leads and adds to another and increases the power and improves our clarity of perception as the strength of assurance grows and grows….assisting us in”….the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience — God-consciousness.” Isn’t our growing “assurance” also this “consciousness”? Delivered to us together by faith and truth?
Have you reread 142:5 recently? It’s Jesus’ discourse on assurance. He says that consciousness of sonship is our assurance because what father, either human or divine, would leave his child anxious and concerned about his/her family standing. At the end he mentions that his own Spirit of Truth is our assurance.
It makes sense to me that accepting God as one’s Father is the same as sonship, which is the same as being born of the spirit, which is what assurance is all about. It’s about being part of the universal family of sons (big and little “s”). We begin as faith-sons, then faith introduces us to Truth who brings us through the doorstep of eternity, because Truth is a person.
(1141.5) 103:9.7 Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of TRUTH.
The idea of truth can be entertained apart from personality, but experience with truth is not possible without at least two personalities: creature and Creator. And experience with truth is our personality assurance.
(31.3) 1:7.3 The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the concept of beauty may exist without personality, but the concept of divine goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a person can love and be loved. Even beauty and truth would be divorced from survival hope if they were not attributes of a personal God, a loving Father.
I believe it is possible, with a flicker of faith, to unconsciously following the leading of one’s Thought Adjuster and still willingly attempt to do God’s will. Nothing else is needed for survival, but I think more is needed for the actual feeling of assurance, that feeling of belonging to an actual co-creative relationship with eternity potential. I would think there must to be a conscious element to it, specifically, an awareness of the presence of God. (The Other-Than-Self who lives in your head. – your true alter ego.)
(195.10) 16:9.4 Human self-consciousness implies the recognition of the reality of selves other than the conscious self and further implies that such awareness is mutual; that the self is known as it knows. This is shown in a purely human manner in man’s social life. But you cannot become so absolutely certain of a fellow being’s reality as you can of the reality of the presence of God that lives within you. The social consciousness is not inalienable like the God-consciousness; it is a cultural development and is dependent on knowledge, symbols, and the contributions of the constitutive endowments of man — science, morality, and religion. And these cosmic gifts, socialized, constitute civilization.
Sorry for the lengthy post of text here but it includes the “Salvation from….” list already posted by Bonita and completes this current section of Paper 101.
Before that, thanks again to Bonita for her tireless contributions on the topic…the subject of assurance is wonderful to contemplate and the concepts of ‘faith assurance’ and ‘truth assurance’ and the Spirit of Truth’s contributions to our personal assurance and the confirmations of truth assurance felt within are profoundly important to my understanding…as is the personalizations of the Father and Son as relationships and not just sources or voices of guidance and truth revelation.
Do we have assurance of our destiny and the love with which we are embraced? For this is the Divine Will, that we feel and know this belonging…which comes on the other side of the longing and yearning, also given to us by the Spirit within. We hunger and thirst and are given the bread and waters of Life. We are told the very hunger for truth is revelation as is the feast which follows! The feast of the Divine Table is generously laid before us. Truly God knocks on the door of our heart and mind…and if we open the door, in comes the light and the love to comfort us, assure us, and confirm us….as beloved children of God.
170:2.20 (1861.2) Jesus taught that, by faith, the believer enters the kingdom now. In the various discourses he taught that two things are essential to faith-entrance into the kingdom:
170:2.21 (1861.3) 1. Faith, sincerity. To come as a little child, to receive the bestowal of sonship as a gift; to submit to the doing of the Father’s will without questioning and in the full confidence and genuine trustfulness of the Father’s wisdom; to come into the kingdom free from prejudice and preconception; to be open-minded and teachable like an unspoiled child.
170:2.22 (1861.4) 2. Truth hunger. The thirst for righteousness, a change of mind, the acquirement of the motive to be like God and to find God.
Back to Paper 101:
101:6.6 (1112.2) With man, the eventual fusion and resultant oneness with the indwelling Adjuster — the personality synthesis of man and the essence of God — constitute him, in potential, a living part of the Supreme and insure for such a onetime mortal being the eternal birthright of the endless pursuit of finality of universe service for and with the Supreme.
101:6.7 (1112.3) Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth — universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.
101:6.8 (1112.4) The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance of personal survival. The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for:
101:6.9 (1112.5) 1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with God, who is spirit.
101:6.10 (1112.6) 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.
101:6.11 (1112.7) 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-revelation of the goodness of spirit values.
101:6.12 (1113.1) 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self through the attainment of the spirit levels of the universe and through the eventual realization of the harmony of Havona and the perfection of Paradise.
101:6.13 (1113.2) 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings.
101:6.14 (1113.3) 6. Salvation from time, the achievement of an eternal life of unending progression in God-recognition and God-service.
101:6.15 (1113.4) 7. Salvation from the finite, the perfected oneness with Deity in and through the Supreme by which the creature attempts the transcendental discovery of the Ultimate on the postfinaliter levels of the absonite.101:6.16 (1113.5) Such a sevenfold salvation is the equivalent of the completeness and perfection of the realization of the ultimate experience of the Universal Father. And all this, in potential, is contained within the reality of the faith of the human experience of religion. And it can be so contained since the faith of Jesus was nourished by, and was revelatory of, even realities beyond the ultimate; the faith of Jesus approached the status of a universe absolute in so far as such is possible of manifestation in the evolving cosmos of time and space.
101:6.17 (1113.6) Through the appropriation of the faith of Jesus, mortal man can foretaste in time the realities of eternity. Jesus made the discovery, in human experience, of the Final Father, and his brothers in the flesh of mortal life can follow him along this same experience of Father discovery. They can even attain, as they are, the same satisfaction in this experience with the Father as did Jesus as he was. New potentials were actualized in the universe of Nebadon consequent upon the terminal bestowal of Michael, and one of these was the new illumination of the path of eternity that leads to the Father of all, and which can be traversed even by the mortals of material flesh and blood in the initial life on the planets of space. Jesus was and is the new and living way whereby man can come into the divine inheritance which the Father has decreed shall be his for but the asking. In Jesus there is abundantly demonstrated both the beginnings and endings of the faith experience of humanity, even of divine humanity.
101:6.7 (1112.3) Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth — universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.
Jesus taught these lessons too as he tarried here – this with Ganid; I find it so interesting that we are provided such a model student as well as a masterful teacher in the Papers for our consideration and illumination!
133:7.7 (1479.7) Ideas are not simply a record of sensations; ideas are sensations plus the reflective interpretations of the personal self; and the self is more than the sum of one’s sensations. There begins to be something of an approach to unity in an evolving selfhood, and that unity is derived from the indwelling presence of a part of absolute unity which spiritually activates such a self-conscious animal-origin mind.
133:7.8 (1479.8) No mere animal could possess a time self-consciousness. Animals possess a physiological co-ordination of associated sensation-recognition and memory thereof, but none experience a meaningful recognition of sensation or exhibit a purposeful association of these combined physical experiences such as is manifested in the conclusions of intelligent and reflective human interpretations. And this fact of self-conscious existence, associated with the reality of his subsequent spiritual experience, constitutes man a potential son of the universe and foreshadows his eventual attainment of the Supreme Unity of the universe.
133:7.9 (1480.1) Neither is the human self merely the sum of the successive states of consciousness. Without the effective functioning of a consciousness sorter and associator there would not exist sufficient unity to warrant the designation of a selfhood. Such an ununified mind could hardly attain conscious levels of human status. If the associations of consciousness were just an accident, the minds of all men would then exhibit the uncontrolled and random associations of certain phases of mental madness. *
133:7.10 (1480.2) A human mind, built up solely out of the consciousness of physical sensations, could never attain spiritual levels; this kind of material mind would be utterly lacking in a sense of moral values and would be without a guiding sense of spiritual dominance which is so essential to achieving harmonious personality unity in time, and which is inseparable from personality survival in eternity.
133:7.11 (1480.3) The human mind early begins to manifest qualities which are supermaterial; the truly reflective human intellect is not altogether bound by the limits of time. That individuals so differ in their life performances indicates, not only the varying endowments of heredity and the different influences of the environment, but also the degree of unification with the indwelling spirit of the Father which has been achieved by the self, the measure of the identification of the one with the other.
133:7.12 (1480.4) The human mind does not well stand the conflict of double allegiance. It is a severe strain on the soul to undergo the experience of an effort to serve both good and evil. The supremely happy and efficiently unified mind is the one wholly dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. Unresolved conflicts destroy unity and may terminate in mind disruption. But the survival character of a soul is not fostered by attempting to secure peace of mind at any price, by the surrender of noble aspirations, and by the compromise of spiritual ideals; rather is such peace attained by the stalwart assertion of the triumph of that which is true, and this victory is achieved in the overcoming of evil with the potent force of good.
While related to so many areas of study, Paper 196 is truly a must read when considering The Real Nature of Religion and Religion In Human Experience….it is a summation of all these central/middle Papers on the religious life and the progressive transformation of self as it strives to identify with the Spirit within and begins to perceive the entirety of personal existence through the lens of universe and reality perspective!!
196:3.17 (2095.1) Moral evaluation with a religious meaning — spiritual insight — connotes the individual’s choice between good and evil, truth and error, material and spiritual, human and divine, time and eternity. Human survival is in great measure dependent on consecrating the human will to the choosing of those values selected by this spirit-value sorter — the indwelling interpreter and unifier. Personal religious experience consists in two phases: discovery in the human mind and revelation by the indwelling divine spirit……
196:3.20 (2095.4) Every time man makes a reflective moral choice, he immediately experiences a new divine invasion of his soul. Moral choosing constitutes religion as the motive of inner response to outer conditions. But such a real religion is not a purely subjective experience. It signifies the whole of the subjectivity of the individual engaged in a meaningful and intelligent response to total objectivity — the universe and its Maker.
196:3.24 (2095.8) God is not the mere invention of man’s idealism; he is the very source of all such superanimal insights and values. God is not a hypothesis formulated to unify the human concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness; he is the personality of love from whom all of these universe manifestations are derived. The truth, beauty, and goodness of man’s world are unified by the increasing spirituality of the experience of mortals ascending toward Paradise realities. The unity of truth, beauty, and goodness can only be realized in the spiritual experience of the God-knowing personality.
196:3.34 (2097.2) The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.
196:3.35 (2097.3) And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. Only the spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Sons’ sons — mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God. *
WE ARE FAMILY!!
Above in 101:6.8 we read: “The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for:….Salvation from…..
This is a description of what Spirit identification begins to shift our attention and material gravity dependence away from – the material self nature and that which we are to become identified with and by – the spirit self nature. We are dual natured beings and our religious experience and the real nature of religious experience is for that experiential adventure of identity transfer – to see the world around us and the universe itself through the lens of universe citizen and child of God perspective. To belong to the family of creation as happy children of the Spirit and the eternity adventure, rather than remain the lost and confused orphans of materialism and the temporalness of time.
This is a description of what Spirit identification begins to shift our attention and material gravity dependence away from – the material self nature and that which we are to become identified with and by – the spirit self nature. We are dual natured beings and our religious experience and the real nature of religious experience is for that experiential adventure of identity transfer – to see the world around us and the universe itself through the lens of universe citizen and child of God perspective. To belong to the family of creation as happy children of the Spirit and the eternity adventure, rather than remain the lost and confused orphans of materialism and the temporalness of time.
Maybe it’s the way I’m reading this, but it reads as though you’re saying that identity shift is supposed to be a straight line from one nature to another. Isn’t it more like a circle? Our attention, rather than moving away from the material, is supposed to circle around and bring the gifts of our higher nature back into the material world. If we shift our attention away from our material nature, we’d be living in the clouds, right?
Our higher nature is supposed to dominate our lower nature; but there’s no way we can completely abandon our lower nature until after we die. (And even then we bring some of its incompleteness with us.) To move in a straight line suggests relinquishing the material in favor of the morontia. I don’t think that’s possible. Revelation is evolutionary (92:4.1). Personal revelation up-steps our evolutionary selves. But the progress of such up-stepping is not like a snake grows, by shedding its skin. We keep our material “skin” as long as we live in a material world. Growth and progress simply transforms it into something more true, beautiful and good.
I personally don’t see the evolution of dominance working in a straight line in my life. Instead, I believe the morontia soul level of personal revelation, which is only a part, functions with personality to reorganize, coordinate and integrate the material level to fit the whole, making it more stable and perhaps moving it closer to individual light and life right here on earth. The prayer does say: ” . . . thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.” Material life is an essential part of that whole.
I don’t think it’s possible to abandon materialism without dying. We’re supposed to circle around, bring what we find within our higher nature back to earth, actualize it within our material lives with our material selves in order to enrich the material which then provides opportunity for more growth. It’s a circle. One feeds the other and vice versa. I used to call this bringing love to life. It’s about actualizing our spirit nature within the material world by using the material in more spiritual ways, (new meanings in old facts). Our souls cannot function on the material level; they need the material body and the material mind to participate in this cyclic regeneration, the evolution of dominance. Bringing love to life in the material world is what the quote below is referring to. We discover living truth in our souls then actually live it out in the material world, just like Jesus did.
194:3.1 The chief mission of this outpoured spirit of the Father and the Son is to teach men about the truths of the Father’s love and the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of divinity which men can comprehend more fully than all the other divine traits of character. The Spirit of Truth is concerned primarily with the revelation of the Father’s spirit nature and the Son’s moral character. The Creator Son, in the flesh, revealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, reveals the Creator Son to men. When man yields the “fruits of the spirit” in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the Master manifested in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on earth, he lived his life as one personality — Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the “new teacher,” the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer.
Agree with all of that! Well said…..yes, as we transfer the seat of identity, we do not become less material and we should become more materially functional we are taught. It is not a displacement of the one by the other so much as the transforming perspective, we become more spiritized but no less material but our philosophy and perspective do transition…we expand perspective and our lens becomes more wide angled…we see the material world differently over time by experience and wisdom gained through the spiritualization of perspective.
112:2.20 (1229.7) The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life. But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle — the material body — to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, spirit reality. This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature.
112:5.4 (1232.5) Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human personality. But this is a material and purely temporary manifestation, just as the human embryo is a transient parasitic stage of human life. Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.
112:5.5 (1233.1) And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood, that constitutes man’s greatest opportunity and his supreme cosmic responsibility. Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the eternal destiny of the future finaliter; upon the sincerity of the mortal free will the divine Adjuster depends for eternal personality; upon the faithfulness of mortal choice the Universal Father depends for the realization of a new ascending son; upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution.
It is not a displacement of the one by the other so much as the transforming perspective, we become more spiritized but no less material but our philosophy and perspective do transition…we expand perspective and our lens becomes more wide angled…we see the material world differently over time by experience and wisdom gained through the spiritualization of perspective.
Perspective is an interesting phenomenon – recalling the broadened picture of the snarling caveman – perspective changes everything. But what is changed in that scenario are meanings and values. The image of a fierce and filthy primitive man provides one set of meanings to the fact, but the broader perspective ,which includes the tiger and the woman and children. offers a whole new set of meanings along with values. It’s so much richer in depth and spiritually effective if values are added.
TUB tells us it is more than just widening our angle of perception. We’re supposed to deepen our perception as well. I think it’s about length, breadth and depth actually. Length represents meanings, depth represents value, and breadth represents spiritual insight (112:1.10). I think it all adds up to the development of cosmic consciousness – which isn’t navel gazing – but awareness of, participation with, and a living relationship to the Supreme. Depth of perception is also about mota, which is a emerging cosmic perspective of reality (48:6.28). Mota is an augmentation of perception which is like seeing with two eyes instead of one.
(1434.3) 130:4.4 A one-eyed person can never hope to visualize depth of perspective. Neither can single-eyed material scientists nor single-eyed spiritual mystics and allegorists correctly visualize and adequately comprehend the true depths of universe reality. All true values of creature experience are concealed in depth of recognition.
I suppose length also has to do with the perception and meaning of the time unit, but depth of perception is what particularly intrigues me because it determines the quality of worship and one’s religious experience. Depth of perception increases appreciation of value, and appreciation of value involves intimacy with the nature of God, who lives within the depths of my head (sorry George). Depth of perception seems to be related to one’s capacity for receptivity as well. And all this is associated with a deepening desire and motivation to become more Godlike by doing his will.
Yes…it’s no compliment to be considered ‘shallow’. It seems to describe those who are completely self absorbed or focused primarily on trivial pursuits and can’t seem to ‘see’ beyond the surface of any ideas or issues. Depth of character and perception are notable traits…still waters run deep while shallow waters are always noisy!!
I want to revisit the list of “Salvation from…” for further consideration of how the spiritization of mind affects us and changes our perspective:
101:6.9 (1112.5) 1. Salvation from material fetters….
101:6.10 (1112.6) 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage….
101:6.11 (1112.7) 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness….
101:6.12 (1113.1) 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self…..
101:6.13 (1113.2) 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness…..
101:6.14 (1113.3) 6. Salvation from time….
101:6.15 (1113.4) 7. Salvation from the finite…..These describe the transfer of the seat of identity, the spiritization of mind, and the spiritualization of perspective and demonstrates that this growth and progress is an additive to our experience more than anything removed…a positive experience that is not based on elimination but on illumination! Liberation from the fetters of materialism and intellectual bondage and blindness and incompleteness and the limitation of self-consciousness/importance and from time and the finite…..true liberty from these limitations of materialism delivers the spirit perspective which unites and integrates material realities with spiritual realities…wherein and whereby coordination and harmony deliver greater meanings to us and value is discovered for our embrace….a rich harvest of truth and wisdom comes from such ‘salvation’ and transference of the seat of our identity….spiritization! This new perspective also releases us from many sources of suffering like anxiety, doubt, fear, and uncertainty! We are not only saved from certain things and perspective but also delivered to a whole new paradigm and way of being and seeing!
Such “salvation from” also describes the branch’s attachment to the vine and that flow of truth and love which delivers the fruit of the vine to the branch. As we identify with our Spirit Nature within and the realities of universe citizenship and sonship with Deity, then do we begin to live in Light and Life itself. The Master said that the ‘kingdom’ of heaven is here and now, not somewhere else and some other time. What did he mean by this teaching? Spirit identification and survival assurance delivers the kingdom right here and right now!!
102:2.3 (1119.8) It is difficult to identify and analyze the factors of a religious experience, but it is not difficult to observe that such religious practitioners live and carry on as if already in the presence of the Eternal. Believers react to this temporal life as if immortality already were within their grasp. In the lives of such mortals there is a valid originality and a spontaneity of expression that forever segregate them from those of their fellows who have imbibed only the wisdom of the world. Religionists seem to live in effective emancipation from harrying haste and the painful stress of the vicissitudes inherent in the temporal currents of time; they exhibit a stabilization of personality and a tranquillity of character not explained by the laws of physiology, psychology, and sociology.
Moving forward in Paper 101:
7. A Personal Philosophy of Religion
101:7.1 (1113.7) An idea is only a theoretical plan for action, while a positive decision is a validated plan of action. A stereotype is a plan of action accepted without validation. The materials out of which to build a personal philosophy of religion are derived from both the inner and the environmental experience of the individual. The social status, economic conditions, educational opportunities, moral trends, institutional influences, political developments, racial tendencies, and the religious teachings of one’s time and place all become factors in the formulation of a personal philosophy of religion. Even the inherent temperament and intellectual bent markedly determine the pattern of religious philosophy. Vocation, marriage, and kindred all influence the evolution of one’s personal standards of life.
101:7.2 (1113.8) A philosophy of religion evolves out of a basic growth of ideas plus experimental living as both are modified by the tendency to imitate associates. The soundness of philosophic conclusions depends on keen, honest, and discriminating thinking in connection with sensitivity to meanings and accuracy of evaluation. Moral cowards never achieve high planes of philosophic thinking; it requires courage to invade new levels of experience and to attempt the exploration of unknown realms of intellectual living.
101:7.3 (1114.1) Presently new systems of values come into existence; new formulations of principles and standards are achieved; habits and ideals are reshaped; some idea of a personal God is attained, followed by enlarging concepts of relationship thereto.
Bonita – your prior point about integrating the material and spiritual rather than attempting to be less material in our being, seeing, and doing is supported in 7.2 above!
Maybe it’s the way I’m reading this, but it reads as though you’re saying that identity shift is supposed to be a straight line from one nature to another. Isn’t it more like a circle? Our attention, rather than moving away from the material, is supposed to circle around and bring the gifts of our higher nature back into the material world. If we shift our attention away from our material nature, we’d be living in the clouds, right?
Our higher nature is supposed to dominate our lower nature; but there’s no way we can completely abandon our lower nature until after we die. (And even then we bring some of its incompleteness with us.) To move in a straight line suggests relinquishing the material in favor of the morontia. I don’t think that’s possible. Revelation is evolutionary (92:4.1). Personal revelation up-steps our evolutionary selves. But the progress of such up-stepping is not like a snake grows, by shedding its skin. We keep our material “skin” as long as we live in a material world. Growth and progress simply transforms it into something more true, beautiful and good.
Thanks to you for your help in understanding the teachings and applying them to our own religious experience and study of the UB!
Above we read: “The soundness of philosophic conclusions depends on keen, honest, and discriminating thinking in connection with sensitivity to meanings and accuracy of evaluation.”
I like the way you think!
How does the phrase “moral cowards” differ from being “prejudice” do you think? And what of the phrase “…modified by the tendency to imitate associates.” – what does that describe I wonder? The phrase seems neutral, neither a warning nor a recommendation….just a fact related to the human condition and development of a personal philosophy?
I recall (perhaps in error) text which says or suggests that, eventually, as a world achieves light and life and a more uniform understanding of reality that all people tend toward a singular philosophy of living. If I recall this correctly, that would indicate that a philosophy of living that is founded upon the unification and integration of material and spiritual realities has a perspective of that harmonized reality that is less individualized or unique….which differences today are primarily a result of the lack of agreement and enjoyment of true reality-perspective.
Which is to say that while our religious and life experiences will always be unique, personalized, and individual….reality is not truly different for the each as it is not for the all either….reality is what it is….it is the same for each when the each of us truly sees that reality. So if philosophy is that which bridges and unifies and integrates material and spiritual realities, then the philosophy of living would share many precepts and details of its content.
Our philosophy of living is not the journey or the actual adventure of living, it is but the view/perspective/context/attitude for approaching the trail ahead I think. The UB, to me at least, is like a map of the terrain of the spiritualizing adventure ahead – it is not the journey or the trail or the pilgrim or the pilgrim’s experience on the journey upon the trail illustrated by the map. So if the map of reality is shared, perhaps the philosophy for the approach to the trail is also shared? What do pilgrims upon the trail share in common? Perhaps the actual terrain of reality, the map into that terrain of reality, and the philosophy of the faith child whose view is based on reality as delivered by faith, truth, and knowledge of that reality. Those who approach or are within the mortal epochs of light and life do certainly share significant epochal revelation and education related to actual reality – certainty of facts and a knowledge of reality few of us on this world have enjoyed so far.
There seems to be as many different philosophies for living as there are pilgrims today. I don’t think this will continue as more and more of us enjoy a more factual reality-orientation. When we see the same reality and that vision of reality is more factual, then our individual orientation relative to that reality will have more and more in common. We will enjoy a more factual orientation only as we also begin to share a far more spiritized orientation as well….the material and the spiritual will become more integrated by the all as it becomes more so by the each. And this, I think, will lead to a philosophy of living that becomes more shared and common than different. The differences today arise primarily form the lack of or distortion of reality-perspective shared by the pilgrims of time today on Urantia.
I’m probably not being clear here….I’ll see if I can find the related text.
How does the phrase “moral cowards” differ from being “prejudice” do you think? And what of the phrase “…modified by the tendency to imitate associates.” – what does that describe I wonder?
Well, to make it as simple as possible, don’t you think prejudice has to do with thinking and moral cowardice has to do with acting? Thinking does lead to action, so prejudice definitely can influence action. But cowards don’t act, right? They don’t make that leap of faith. Presumably a coward’s failure to act is primarily due to fear, but there are other reasons too, such as laziness, indecision and indifference. Whether or not any of those reasons are motivated by prejudice I suppose is a personal matter. I think there are many different motivations behind the soul becoming frozen (failure to thrive).
The quote about modern people being afraid of the religion of Jesus comes to mind (195:9.6). They fear what it will do to them, that it might rock their little world. Granted, some people’s egos are too big for Jesus’ religion, but egomaniacs wouldn’t fear it; they’d use it and abuse it and try to do everything they can to control it. No, I think it’s honest people who fear it, people with honest doubts. Their cowardice stems from not knowing what will happen to them, so it’s better to hold onto what they do know rather than take a chance. Hence, I believe that most people today would rather conform to an ideology than take the courageous step of evolving a religious philosophy of their own based upon a inner relationship with God, or Jesus, the person – a person whom you can’t control, by the way.
Now if you ask some folks, they’ll tell you they do have a religious philosophy of living, but if you press them on the subject, you discover it’s really not a philosophy at all, but rather an ideology. I think a lot of folks confuse the two. And that reminds me of the quote about the four phases of evolution of religious philosophy – how great minds can stagnate in the cultural bondage of an ideology (101:7.4). Social media is probably one of the biggest curses when it comes to this.
TUB tells us we human animals love to imitate each other . . . so . . . if all your friends believe it’s morally superior to drive an electric car, if they all wax prophetic about it and post wonderful pictures of puppies and unicorns in their back seats, you’re gonna want one too. You’re gonna want to imitate what everyone says is morally correct, rather than exercise the moral courage to declare that what car you buy has nothing at all to do with morality. True morality has that spiritual fragrance which attracts people to real value, rather than what society says has value. (Quotes about all of that are in 100:3). TUB also tells us that true morality is a personal, free-will matter which can only be disseminated through contact between morally fragrant people and those less morally responsive (moral cowards), who are desiring, on some level, to do God’s will – those who will eventually imitate the morally fragrant.
195:9.6 Primitive man lived a life of superstitious bondage to religious fear. Modern, civilized men dread the thought of falling under the dominance of strong religious convictions. Thinking man has always feared to be held by a religion. When a strong and moving religion threatens to dominate him, he invariably tries to rationalize, traditionalize, and institutionalize it, thereby hoping to gain control of it. By such procedure, even a revealed religion becomes man-made and man-dominated. Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them — and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.
101.7.4 The great difference between a religious and a nonreligious philosophy of living consists in the nature and level of recognized values and in the object of loyalties. There are four phases in the evolution of religious philosophy: Such an experience may become merely conformative, resigned to submission to tradition and authority. Or it may be satisfied with slight attainments, just enough to stabilize the daily living, and therefore becomes early arrested on such an adventitious level. Such mortals believe in letting well enough alone. A third group progress to the level of logical intellectuality but there stagnate in consequence of cultural slavery. It is indeed pitiful to behold giant intellects held so securely within the cruel grasp of cultural bondage. It is equally pathetic to observe those who trade their cultural bondage for the materialistic fetters of a science, falsely so called. The fourth level of philosophy attains freedom from all conventional and traditional handicaps and dares to think, act, and live honestly, loyally, fearlessly, and truthfully.
16:7.9 Morality can never be advanced by law or by force. It is a personal and freewill matter and must be disseminated by the contagion of the contact of morally fragrant persons with those who are less morally responsive, but who are also in some measure desirous of doing the Father’s will.
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