-
Posts
-
Nigel…thank you too for your generous willingness to share your own perspective and light in this discovery of The Reality of Religious Experience! As to sharing this pollination of our faith by the truth experience that should compel us all to enthusiastically share “such intimately personal discoveries”, I know how clumsy and difficult that can be for me and how I can so often, and in error, lack graciousness and effectiveness in such efforts!
103:8.2 (1140.2) The confusion about the experience of the certainty of God arises out of the dissimilar interpretations and relations of that experience by separate individuals and by different races of men. The experiencing of God may be wholly valid, but the discourse about God, being intellectual and philosophical, is divergent and oftentimes confusingly fallacious.
Jesus had such a knack for finding the common understanding and shared perspectives of such divergent and confusing issues that language seems lacking in its capabilities to communicate such experiences. He seemed able to do so no matter the wisdom or its lack in the other seeker or how weak the flicker or strong the flame of the believers around him. Indeed, could he present to a crowd filled with every spectrum point of comprehension and appreciation in ways to brighten the illumination of all within.
Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it! He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?
I think we should consider how to become effective evangels of truth, beauty, and goodness. Not to become preachers or teachers or those intent to “save” others or humanity from anything. But how to share our own inner light and experience and relationship in ways which becoming “confusingly fallacious”. How can we add fuel to the fire to kindle the existing light within others that we might serve others kindly and lovingly and graciously? How do we achieve that without attempting to remove things and correct beliefs and replace the metaphysics of others with our own? For it is a fact that even armed with the knowledge contained in this epochal revelation about reality which replaces our own metaphysical constructions and inventions, until someone else has also accepted the authority and the facts provided in the UB, then even those facts are but our personal metaphysics of belief when compared to any other’s!
In other words, we may not take any great assumption of superior knowledge with us to our efforts to evangelize truth, beauty, and goodness to others. Think of the knowledge the Son of God had to deliver and share with others that contradicted the fictions and fallacies of this world. Yet he championed reality and truth without such knowledge as a tool or a weapon of conviction or conversion! He gently fanned the flames of faith and added kindling to the fires of truth within everyone he met. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately and there are two key words and strategies I’d like to consider here related to how best to share our inner light and life with others in the most effective and loving way possible.
They are “inspire” and “assure” or inspiration and assurance. It is my opinion that the words of the Master and those within the Revelation have these elements in common and that this pattern of reality-presentation and truth-sharing is tactically effective in removing barriers of inherent disagreement over the description and understanding of reality and the religious experience. We are taught that although The Reality of Religious Experience is personal and unique to the each of us, it is also common among the all of us. It is not unique or personal to have a religious experience or to have faith or to give birth to soul or to host the God Fragment within or to deal with realities from the dual nature perspective and to enjoy the urges, yearns, hungers, and thirsts of righteousness and the rewards and fruits of the spirit by the attachment of the branch to the vine. These are not unique to any of us except in their experience!
So I wonder if the most successful evangels find ways to inspire others and assure others of God’s love and our familial relationship in this friendly universe while assuaging fears and reducing anxieties by sharing our faith and inner peace and poise and confidence in the fact of love and the results of love?
While we near the end of Paper 103, I hope we have only begun to explore its contents and meanings……
Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it! He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?
Shouldn’t it just naturally flow? If you have to think about how to do be honest and sincere, then there’s something wrong, no?
I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately and there are two key words and strategies I’d like to consider here related to how best to share our inner light and life with others in the most effective and loving way possible. They are “inspire” and “assure” or inspiration and assurance.
Don’t forget the word graciousness.
171:7.1-2 Jesus spread good cheer everywhere he went. He was full of grace and truth. His associates never ceased to wonder at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. You can cultivate gracefulness, but graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul. Goodness always compels respect, but when it is devoid of grace, it often repels affection. Goodness is universally attractive only when it is gracious. Goodness is effective only when it is attractive.
Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it! He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?
Shouldn’t it just naturally flow? If you have to think about how to do be honest and sincere, then there’s something wrong, no?
Perhaps. It was a natural and unconscious behavior for Jesus. But honesty and sincerity are not wisdom and graciousness either. Both require experience and skill prior to becoming a natural expression of a wise and gracious evangel of light and truth.
The discourse about God and the religious experience is too often based on the difference between beliefs and believers. Amusingly, those differences are as faulty and fictional on either side as the other…we embrace prejudices over metaphysical inventions for fallacious presentations, discourse, and defense of fictions.
One day there will be one philosophy and a more factually correct and shared reality perspective with less metaphysical confusions to generate such disparities of experience.
But for now, and for me, it requires intention to focus on assurance and inspiration rather than agreement and beliefs. I do hope to be warm, generous, kind, friendly, and sincere with others and presume their own inner light within. This is becoming more and more reflexive it is true but I cannot claim any great graciousness to be sure!
But honesty and sincerity are not wisdom and graciousness either. Both require experience and skill prior to becoming a natural expression of a wise and gracious evangel of light and truth.
I disagree completely. Little children are honest, sincere and sometimes gracious without any wisdom, experience or special skills.
Jesus had such a knack for finding the common understanding and shared perspectives of such divergent and confusing issues that language seems lacking in its capabilities to communicate such experiences. He seemed able to do so no matter the wisdom or its lack in the other seeker or how weak the flicker or strong the flame of the believers around him. Indeed, could he present to a crowd filled with every spectrum point of comprehension and appreciation in ways to brighten the illumination of all within.
That’s because Jesus loved people. He really loved even the unlovely. How did Jesus come to love people? He spent his entire life learning about them – listening, asking questions and getting to know people. Human things/beings must be known in order to be loved. (102:1.1) Loving the spirit who lives in each person is not the same as loving the human person who is housing that spirit. Jesus gave this as one of his final instructions: “I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men.” (191:5.3)
Jesus also taught that the most frequent cause of others rejecting your evangelism is your own failure to live the righteous life (155:1.5). Why is that? Because love is contagious. If you truly love someone it awakens the love response in that person like a magnet. That’s how Jesus was able to enlighten the mind, heart and soul. Don’t forget that appealing to the emotions focuses the attention and the intellect, and the mind so aroused is the gateway to the soul.
188:5.2 Jesus loves men so much that his love awakens the response of love in the human heart. Love is truly contagious and eternally creative.
152:6.4 Jesus taught the appeal to the emotions as the technique of arresting and focusing the intellectual attention. He designated the mind thus aroused and quickened as the gateway to the soul, where there resides that spiritual nature of man which must recognize truth and respond to the spiritual appeal of the gospel in order to afford the permanent results of true character transformations.
That’s the difference between graciousness and gracefulness. Gracefulness is a learned conscious behavior which is not always genuine. It can be an affectation. Graciousness, on the other hand, is an unconscious gift arising from the love relationship between creature and Creator. It is a natural fruit of the spirit which provides that fragrance which is so attractive and alluring in its ability to win the hearts of others. That’s why Jesus said this:
181:2.5 “You will learn to love your brethren more when you first learn to love their Father in heaven more, and after you have become truly more interested in their welfare in time and in eternity.”
Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it!
That’s because it’s impossible to keep the effects of a true religious experience inside yourself. The quote below says you can never do it, it’s just not possible. If a religious experience is true, it is a love experience within the Father’s personality circuit, both creature and Creator communing. Yes, you can keep to yourself the intellectual understanding of the meanings and values revealed by such an experience, but the outgrowth of a true religious experience is a natural, unstoppable universe phenomenon. It’s called the great circuit of love, a circuit of fragrant, love-saturated fruit.
117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.
Bradly wrote:He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?
That’s because it’s not an urge, it’s a natural, unconscious outgrowth of love. The only thing you can do to foster such a thing is prayer and worship – a simple faith-trust in sonship which opens the heart to love and therefore creates the desire to love in return – the great circuit. (2:5.8) To be an honest and sincere evangel is simply to live the religious life as an ambassador of the kingdom, and to never forget that it is not our kingdom. The great circuits of mind, spirit and even love are not ours to keep. They are all gifts we are given to participate in. The best way to participate is to share the personality with other personalities, both human and divine – to actively love divine personalities and to learn to love human personalities so the great circuit of love from the Father’s personality circuit can flow abundantly. We’re told, even if we learn to understand and love just one other person each day or week, we are socializing and spiritualizing our personality. (100:4.6)
160:5.3 If something has become a religion in your experience, it is self-evident that you already have become an active evangel of that religion since you deem the supreme concept of your religion as being worthy of the worship of all mankind, all universe intelligences. If you are not a positive and missionary evangel of your religion, you are self-deceived in that what you call a religion is only a traditional belief or a mere system of intellectual philosophy.
It says in the above quote exactly what I’ve been saying. If something is a religion to you, then you are already an active evangel. It’s a natural consequence, not an urge. The supreme concept you deem worthy of worship can only be a personality if your religion is true, and that person is Love. Rodan is talking about the great circuit of love. If you have to figure this out and devise a way to become an active evangel, then your religion is false. You’re wasting time or talents.
Related quotes:
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.
174:1.5 Love is the outworking of the divine and inner urge of life. It is founded on understanding, nurtured by unselfish service, and perfected in wisdom.
2:5.8 The experience of loving is very much a direct response to the experience of being loved.
140:10.6 This new religion of Jesus was not without its practical implications, but whatever of practical political, social, or economic value there is to be found in his teaching is the natural outworking of this inner experience of the soul as it manifests the fruits of the spirit in the spontaneous daily ministry of genuine personal religious experience.
I think we should consider how to become effective evangels of truth, beauty, and goodness. Not to become preachers or teachers or those intent to “save” others or humanity from anything. But how to share our own inner light and experience and relationship in ways which becoming “confusingly fallacious”. How can we add fuel to the fire to kindle the existing light within others that we might serve others kindly and lovingly and graciously? How do we achieve that without attempting to remove things and correct beliefs and replace the metaphysics of others with our own?
Well, doesn’t it matter a whole lot if you’re sharing facts or if you’re sharing truth? People can reject facts all they want and it’s okay. But, to reject truth is self-destructive. It’s not facts that drives out, or crowds out all error, it’s truth:
141:6:2 . . . Lead men into the kingdom, and the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error.
132:0.4 And this was his method of instruction: Never once did he attack their errors or even mention the flaws in their teachings. In each case he would select the truth in what they taught and then proceed so to embellish and illuminate this truth in their minds that in a very short time this enhancement of the truth effectively crowded out the associated error.
You ask how to become an effective evangel of truth, beauty and goodness? Aren’t we told that goodness is unconscious? How can you create truth, beauty and goodness by a sheer act of will? You can’t. You become an evangel by being an active worshiper, by always living in the presence of God, by being a living example of sonship. People with any truth sensitivity at all do marvel at that sort of thing when they recognize it. And, the more spiritual personality is always dominant over the lesser spiritual personality in any contest concerning reality; it’s a universe law:
2:3.5 In any universe contest between actual levels of reality, the personality of the higher level will ultimately triumph over the personality of the lower level. This inevitable outcome of universe controversy is inherent in the fact that divinity of quality equals the degree of reality or actuality of any will creature. Undiluted evil, complete error, willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically suicidal. Such attitudes of cosmic unreality can survive in the universe only because of transient mercy-tolerance pending the action of the justice-determining and fairness-finding mechanisms of the universe tribunals of righteous adjudication.
So the bottom line, if you desire to be an effective evangel, is to be more real. You become more real by being more sincere, honest and truth-loving.
39:4.14 The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity.
People with any truth-sensitivity at all do recognize sincerity when they see it. The biggest problem I’ve had on forums is the inability to translate sincerity into words. People tend to be suspicious, even Nigel accuses me of producing straw men when I’m actually being very sincere. Sometimes people don’t believe me even when I write over and over again that I’m being sincere. It’s a conundrum. That’s why I think being an effective evangel on internet forums is not really possible, or at least it’s absurdly difficult. I think there are better, more effective ways to live the love you feel in your heart, experience in your soul, and know to be true in your mind.
Bradly wrote:For it is a fact that even armed with the knowledge contained in this epochal revelation about reality which replaces our own metaphysical constructions and inventions, until someone else has also accepted the authority and the facts provided in the UB, then even those facts are but our personal metaphysics of belief when compared to any other’s!
Again, it’s not about the facts; it’s about truth. But even so, here on the forums we study the facts and it is up to each individual to discover, recognize and interpret truth for themselves, within their individual souls, the only place where this transformation can take place. That sort of work does not happen on a keyboard, and you can’t force people to open the gateway to their souls and do soul work no matter what you say. There are plenty of people who are only interested in intellectual work, and that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with revelation. Revelation happens in the soul and nowhere else, and truth is always a revelation.
Facts are not a revelation, but the meaning of facts can be when soul work is done. How one inspires people to look toward their souls for interpretation of meanings is an artform I think. Earlier I asked if words can be an artform capable of accomplishing such a thing. I imagine they can be at times, at least the TUB authors think so, but I don’t think the artist has any control over the effect on the reader. Either the words inspire or they don’t inspire the reader to seek spiritual meanings, or truth, on their own. But above all, the artist should not assume that even spiritual meanings are identical in nature. Like personality, I think they are rather unique, because truth is a relationship. So, being an evangel is rather simple, being an effective evangel is not entirely under your personal control. All you can do is strive for more righteousness – become more real.
I say, produce your art, live your experience with truth, forget about authority because it’s not your kingdom, place less emphasis on facts and more on loving, living truth, and it will eventually crowd out all error. If you’re sincere and honest about the things you say and do, if you strive to always live in the presence of God (do his will), then it doesn’t really matter much what others think or say about any of it. The whole world could come tumbling down on you and it wouldn’t matter, right? You’d still be an evangel, your loving acts would be your gift, but the consequences of those actions would be God’s. It is his kingdom. Be your best and let God do his own work. He knows better than any of us what really works, and he lives in everyone’s head.
Thank you André. I was wondering if there was anyone left on this forum to read it. Certainly no one is interested in discussing the topic, that’s for sure – a chronic problem here. It seems most folks prefer the other forum to study the exact same material. Odd isn’t it?
Personnally Bonita, I prefer this english forum as well the french’s one.Forum principal du livre d’Urantia.
So far others Urantia’s medias as Facebook, Youtube, Tidings are’nt my first choice. Doesn’t despite them… just doesn’t kept my attention.
I’ve done UBIS’courses, Urantia University Inc. UUI, at this latest I’ve found more deepest topics course and experienced deep thinking professorship about UB and kindhearted, accountable administrators (my perception)and live Zoom videos conferences once in a while for a Brotherhood immersion.
Bonita wrote:
“Thank you André. I was wondering if there was anyone left on this forum to read it.”
Dear Bonita, don’t forget to savor the fact that, having sculpted such beautiful contributions, both the angels of progress and the “angels of the churches” can now make use of such humanly-created insights. Well done!
seed is sown, vineyard is pruned…
NigelBonita wrote:
“Thank you André. I was wondering if there was anyone left on this forum to read it.”
Dear Bonita, don’t forget to savor the fact that, having sculpted such beautiful contributions, both the angels of progress and the “angels of the churches” can now make use of such humanly-created insights. Well done! seed is sown, vineyard is pruned…
NigelKeep sowing!! I often re-read and reference your posts on diverse topics to learn or reinforce concepts and relationships of concepts in my studies. Thank you for your patient and generous service in sharing such insightful and thoughtful perspective. It is unfortunate that more students do not take advantage of the opportunity to engage more directly in shared studies with their own questions and opinions and favorite text and their own confusions and perplexions delivered by study. I have no doubt there are many who have benefitted and will continue to benefit by their time in study here and that future scholars and student/teachers will find a rich harvest here of valuable lessons. But I would encourage others that the best learning comes by engagement and extending oneself into relationship and interaction. Do not be shy or timid in seeking understanding or expressing truth. I am often in need of correction here or redirecting and reconsideration and position modification and fail to make myself understood and cause confusions and misunderstandings. That’s okay. Part of learning and classroom/group dynamics. It can be a little clumsy and even a little embarrassing sometimes. That’s okay too.
Jesus encouraged questions from others and offered questions to begin conversations and shared discovery. It would be such a pity if the audience here had questions which did not get asked. Consider that your question, if asked, might also deliver answers and relief to others who read along…and in such a way does the student and the question asked become the teacher and lesson for others.
Thanks to all who attend and especially to all who participate!!
Now to the final quote in Paper 103…………………
Login to reply to this topic.
Not registered? Sign up here.