The Reality of Religious Experience – Paper 103

Home Forums Urantia Book General Discussions The Reality of Religious Experience – Paper 103

Viewing 15 posts - 61 through 75 (of 230 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #31239
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    that last part about the spirit gravity circuit: there is a mechanism that gives us feedback or let’s us know that our prayers have real spiritual value. Otherwise we would always be praying for the wrong thing.

    Even when you’re praying for the wrong thing, praying is the right way to go about it.  The sincerity  of a request guarantees it will be heard but not necessarily answered, or answered the way a person expects. (142:2.6)  Sometimes an answer cannot come right away for a variety of reasons, but that’s not necessarily because the prayer is for the wrong thing, but there might be an even better thing.  Occasionally more time is necessary for the best answer to a prayer (168:4.12), but it doesn’t mean you should stop praying for it.  I prayed for something for nine years once before it happened, and when it did, the answer was far superior than I could have ever imagined.  It was jackpot level, but that too took me a few years to realize.  Time is a huge factor in the acquirement of wisdom and wisdom, or maturity, is necessary in order to know if your own prayers are entirely selfish and material in nature.

    146:2.6  The sincerity of any prayer is the assurance of its being heard; the spiritual wisdom and universe consistency of any petition is the determiner of the time, manner, and degree of the answer. A wise father does not literally answer the foolish prayers of his ignorant and inexperienced children, albeit the children may derive much pleasure and real soul satisfaction from the making of such absurd petitions.

    168:4.12  9. Do not hesitate to pray the prayers of spirit longing; doubt not that you shall receive the answer to your petitions. These answers will be on deposit, awaiting your achievement of those future spiritual levels of actual cosmic attainment, on this world or on others, whereon it will become possible for you to recognize and appropriate the long-waiting answers to your earlier but ill-timed petitions.

     

    #31293
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    A very interesting discussion on Prayer and Worship here:

    https://urantia-association.org/forums/topic/worship-as-an-individual-experience/

     

     

    3. Religion and the Human Race

    103:3.1 (1132.1) While the belief in spirits, dreams, and diverse other superstitions all played a part in the evolutionary origin of primitive religions, you should not overlook the influence of the clan or tribal spirit of solidarity. In the group relationship there was presented the exact social situation which provided the challenge to the egoistic-altruistic conflict in the moral nature of the early human mind. In spite of their belief in spirits, primitive Australians still focus their religion upon the clan. In time, such religious concepts tend to personalize, first, as animals, and later, as a superman or as a God. Even such inferior races as the African Bushmen, who are not even totemic in their beliefs, do have a recognition of the difference between the self-interest and the group-interest, a primitive distinction between the values of the secular and the sacred. But the social group is not the source of religious experience. Regardless of the influence of all these primitive contributions to man’s early religion, the fact remains that the true religious impulse has its origin in genuine spirit presences activating the will to be unselfish.

    103:3.2 (1132.2) Later religion is foreshadowed in the primitive belief in natural wonders and mysteries, the impersonal mana. But sooner or later the evolving religion requires that the individual should make some personal sacrifice for the good of his social group, should do something to make other people happier and better. Ultimately, religion is destined to become the service of God and of man.

    103:3.3 (1132.3) Religion is designed to change man’s environment, but much of the religion found among mortals today has become helpless to do this. Environment has all too often mastered religion.

    103:3.4 (1132.4) Remember that in the religion of all ages the experience which is paramount is the feeling regarding moral values and social meanings, not the thinking regarding theologic dogmas or philosophic theories. Religion evolves favorably as the element of magic is replaced by the concept of morals.

    103:3.5 (1132.5) Man evolved through the superstitions of mana, magic, nature worship, spirit fear, and animal worship to the various ceremonials whereby the religious attitude of the individual became the group reactions of the clan. And then these ceremonies became focalized and crystallized into tribal beliefs, and eventually these fears and faiths became personalized into gods. But in all of this religious evolution the moral element was never wholly absent. The impulse of the God within man was always potent. And these powerful influences—one human and the other divine—insured the survival of religion throughout the vicissitudes of the ages and that notwithstanding it was so often threatened with extinction by a thousand subversive tendencies and hostile antagonisms.

    #31299
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    Bonita wrote:

    “I’m just curious.  Do you, or anyone else reading this, think it’s possible, by willpower alone, to affectively alter your nervous system reflexes or your ability to automatically associate ideas
    Still thinkin about this in regard to our responses to the Adjutants I found these quotes while reading early in the forward as well as about the Master Physical Controllers.
    ”0:5.8 [Part I]

    2. Mind. The thinking, perceiving, and feeling mechanism of the human organism. The total conscious and unconscious experience. The intelligence associated with the emotional life reaching upward through worship and wisdom to the spirit level.

    Me here: this refers to humans directly but in higher minds, aren’t Mind still mechanisms? I’ll try to make some sense out of my thinking:
    On the Master Physical Controllers:
    29:4.12 Not all of these orders are persons in the sense of possessing individual powers of choice. Especially do the last four seem to be wholly automatic and mechanical in response to the impulses of their superiors and in reaction to existing energy conditions. But though such response appears wholly mechanistic, it is not; they may seem to be automatons, but all of them disclose the differential function of intelligence.
    The first quote about mind is reasonably straight forward – mind is a “mechanism”.
    But tie that in with the second quote (a bit more difficult for me to undersand) and I find a message for us beyond a description of the nature of the Controllers:
    The first thing that comes to mind is that Personality is above mind and is capable of altering, coordinating or reorganizing mind because Personality is spirit pattern and spirit controls mind.
    Next is (not part of the quote but getting back to Adjutants) the word used for lower mind ministry – “Adjutant” – Miriam Webster defines Adjutant as “assistant” or aid.
    Next where in 29:4.12 I highlighted CHOICE. It takes a person to make a choice and the authors are making a distinction here between the Controllers and us imho.
    Next in the same paragraph I highlighted INTELLIGENCE. Doesnt this imply “reachable mind”? Again, the authors are making a similar distinction between the Controllers and us where making decisions independent of Adjutant happens.
    So looking at Adjutants as “mechanisms or assistants or aids” and personality as spirit pattern above mind, isnt it true that Personality can reform mechanisms?
    Shouldn’t we as “Personal Slefs” avoid seeing ourselfs as “Mind Selfs” and realize that the former can control the latter?
    Also, one other thought on this: the concept of teachable mind is something I think about in regard to Adjutants.
    Just who is doing the teaching?
    How does the Adjutants engage us?
    Maybe it is through our DNA?
    If this is true, wouldn’t it be a learning experience for any of the Adjutants to have a need to learn how do unlock the DNA code of each individual living thing in order to engage it on any of at least the lowest 5 levels?
    So maybe yes, it is possible to make things happen independent of Adjutant influence. Please don’t mistake me as thinking we can control Adjutant mind, but more along the line of controlling our response to that mind.
    And possibly the idea im getting at is more along the line of seeing ourselves as Personality selves as opposed to Mind selves.
    doesnt it say somewhere in the revelation that spirit substance is more real than finite material substance and that spirit beings (Persons) see finite matter as hazy and difficult to precieved as opposed to the more real and dominate spirit substance? We as mortal Persons cannot precieved spirit substance so we have a long way to go in precieving ourselves as Personality Selfs with the ability to precieved the more dominate spirit substance.
    #31301
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    Me here: this refers to humans directly but in higher minds, aren’t they still mechanisms? . . . The first thing that comes to mind is that Personality is above mind and is capable of altering, coordinating or reorganizing mind because Personality is spirit pattern and spirit controls mind.

    All  mind is a ministry mechanism provided by the Third Source and Center.  Cosmic mind is adapted for experiential beings by the Seven Master Spirits, then further adapted by the Creative Spirit/Divine Minister. (0:3.14; 3:1.8; 9:4.3)  It should be noted that the First Source and Center, who provides personality, transcends all mind, matter and spirit. (1:7.7).  Personality is pattern and has paid all gravity debt (0:6.11), which includes mind gravity, matter gravity and spirit gravity.  Personality responds only to the personality circuit of the Universal Father, which is a type of gravity that cannot be quantified (9:6.4; 12:3.12; 112:0.8); and the Universal Father is the personality of the First Source and Center. (0:3.10)

    29:4.12 Not all of these orders are persons in the sense of possessing individual powers of choice. Especially do the last four seem to be wholly automatic and mechanical in response to the impulses of their superiors and in reaction to existing energy conditions. But though such response appears wholly mechanistic, it is not; they may seem to be automatons, but all of them disclose the differential function of intelligence.

    Mind without the power of personality volition is capable of differential function because mind itself is unity. (102:2.5) Said another way, the natural impulse of mind gravity is toward unity with spirit, towards stability.  Unhindered mind, even without personality and no ability to choose, will naturally direct its energy system toward the best, most unified and stable option available. That’s how intelligence works. That’s how mind ministry works. That’s how evolution works.  All mind endowments have self-preservative endowments (36:5.6) which direct it’s energy system accordingly.

    Gene wrote:Next where in 29:4.12 I highlighted CHOICE. It takes a person to make a choice and the authors are making a distinction here between the Controllers and us imho.
    Some physical controllers are personalities and do have the power of choice so I’m not sure what you mean.
    Gene wrote: Next in the same paragraph I highlighted INTELLIGENCE. Doesnt this imply “reachable mind”?
    Do you mean teachable mind?
    Gene wrote: Again, the authors are making a similar distinction between the Controllers and us where making decisions independent of Adjutant happens. So looking at Adjutants as “mechanisms or assistants or aids” and personality as spirit pattern above mind, isnt it true that Personality can reform mechanisms?
    I think it’s more accurate to say that personality unifies mechanisms.  By the choices personality makes it can change its identification and in doing so can cause a reformation of attitude, but the mind ministry itself isn’t reformed, it’s rather the false scaffolding built by the personality’s use of mind ministry while in the experience of living which is reformed.  Mind ministry itself doesn’t change, personality doesn’t change, but character can change according to the way personality chooses to use mind ministry.  Hope that makes sense.

    Shouldn’t we as “Personal Slefs” avoid seeing ourselfs as “Mind Selfs” and realize that the former can control the latter?

    We are completely responsible for everything we consciously think.  Some thoughts are unconscious and therefore are not under direct control of the personality.  Personality can only choose from those things it is conscious of within its associated mind. (34:3.8)   Personality is what unifies all the parts of the self, which include both minds, adjutant and supermind/soul, as well as the body and the spirit. (9:4.6)  It has to juggle all of those parts and make them a stable whole.  Some personalities do it with grace, others with not so much grace.  Some personalities are stable and some are unbalanced.

    Just who is doing the teaching?

    Teachable mind is mind that can learn by experience and adapt its behavior accordingly.  Animals are taught by trial and error; humans are capable of reflective thought and have spirit guidance, therefore experience provides more than just trials and errors for teaching purposes.( (16:7.2-3) Because of the presence of personality, the human mind can imagine. (5:6.4; 112:0.5)  Imagination provides various options for personality to choose.  Animals don’t have personality, nor do they have the spirits of worship and wisdom which open up the opportunity for cosmic level learning and self-revelation.  The opportunities of human adaptation of behavior are limitless whereas animal adaptation is limited.  And don’t forget that the most important experience of all is the experience of living. (39:4.13)

    How does the Adjutants engage us? Maybe it is through our DNA? If this is true, wouldn’t it be a learning experience for any of the Adjutants to have a need to learn how do unlock the DNA code of each individual living thing in order to engage it on any of at least the lowest 5 levels?

    The adjutants do not engage DNA. (65:7.5)  They are mind ministers, not matter ministers. (65:06) Life itself is what engages DNA and animates it.  The mind ministry of the physical controllers then engage life and activate it.  The first adjutant makes contact with physical controller mind ministry, then the second adjutant ministers to the first and the physical controller mind, then the rest of the adjutants minister, each sequentially.  Mind ministers to mind.(65:06)  So no, there is no unlocking of DNA code by mind ministry.  If anything is going to unlock DNA code, it’s life itself.

    So maybe yes, it is possible to make things happen independent of Adjutant influence.  And possibly the idea im getting at is more along the line of seeing ourselves as Personality selves as opposed to Mind selves.

    Human personality cannot function without mind mediation. (112:0.6) Mind is necessary to intervene between matter and spirit, and personality can only choose from the options it is conscious of. (34:3.8) Without mind, personality has nothing to choose from.  Personality is the pattern of the identity of selfhood (42:12.9); without its constituent parts, it has nothing to unify.  I think what you’re getting at is identity issues, where the personality is free to identify with a mind ministry which is not solely materially oriented.

    I don’t know what you mean by “Personality selves” or “Mind selves”.   Selfhood is something other than personality.   Selfhood is a summation of  constituent parts by the personality:

    112:1.18 In the human organism the summation of its parts constitutes selfhood – individuality – but such a process has nothing whatever to do with personality, which is the unifier of all these factors as related to cosmic realities.

    #31303
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    Bonita wrote:

    I don’t know what you mean by “Personality selves” or “Mind selves”.   Selfhood is something other than personality.   Selfhood is a summation of  constituent parts by the personality:

    ill try to elaborate on my thinking about this without getting confusing  and maybe self was a poor choice of term:

    i start by considering illogical thinking, looking for the magic man: for example: many science people do it: the Big Bang idea, the uncaused cause cannot be explained so best left to the magic man, everything came from nothing – magic, or mass has gravity but no explaination of what gravity is or how mass is endowed with gravity – magic readily accepted. Modern science deals with effects, not causes because it’s easy, it’s minded, and  it takes courage to look for the creative cause (personality) and so few people regrettably do not cultivate this. I can make similar analogy to traditional religionists who look for the magic man.

    i chose  the quote from the forward to identify mind as a mechanism because mind is involved with effects and I make the distinction with personality because the latter deals with causes.

    We deal with effects in the universe we live in constantly. Mind, as an assistant, aid, or Adjutant helps us navigate the effects in a way that is part of the divine plan of ascension and or progressive evolution. But we seldom can precieved the divine planner (cause) or (person or persons). We can’t even precieve the lowest form of spirit substance even though it is so abundant and close to us. Spirit has everything to do with persons and it makes sense that it takes a person to know a person. It takes our personality to precieve spirit.

    how far along our ascension path until us as persons can even see/precieve our guardian angel? Sometime after fusion, no??

    if we were not in isolation and our races had received the adamic upgrade, wouldn’t our personalities be able to precieve some forms of spirit?

    so this is my thinking about how we can perceive ourselves -either  as minded beings navigating through and anchored to a universe of effects perspective  or as personalities living in a unifying, perfecting universe from a spirit or cause perspective.

    How do we precieve our place in the universe-from a bottom up or top down perspective?

    i sometimes imagine that like the Buddha I could let go of everything material and then allow myself to be caught in the spirit gravity circuit. Well, it don’t really work but from the spirit perspective I equate with personality perspective. It’s about perspective and we really know very little about personality but much more about mind.

    sorry if I’m getting off track or being confusing.

     

    #31305
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    i chose  the quote from the forward to identify mind as a mechanism because mind is involved with effects and I make the distinction with personality because the latter deals with causes.

    I don’t think that’s accurate.  Mind enables us to discover causes as well as effects.  It’s not a zero sum game.  The problem we have stems from a cultural indoctrination which demands that logic give us only two alternatives: good and evil; life and death; cause and effect, etc.. Reality is triune and mind itself is the third reality which functions as an arbiter between the other two.  If mind could not do that, it would not serve its purpose of providing meaning.

    so this is my thinking about how we can perceive ourselves -either  as minded beings navigating through and anchored to a universe of effects perspective  or as personalities living in a unifying, perfecting universe from a spirit or cause perspective.

    With either perspective you gotta have mind.  Personality without mind has no identity.  But I do agree that our best perspective is Godward, not because he is the First Uncaused Cause, but because he is a personality, our Divine Father.  But that does not rule out the necessity to deal with effects too, we need both perspectives.  Recall that the first reality response has to do with the mathematical discrimination of causation.  This is the material level of reality having to do with cause and effect which cannot be avoided if you want a well-balanced personality.

    How do we precieve our place in the universe-from a bottom up or top down perspective?

    Well, they do tell us this that either an inside-out or outside-in perspective will result in a distorted view of reality.  Only through mind can the two viewpoints be reconciled. (103:6.3-6).  We are also told that we should approach philosophic problems from the top down perspective, but must include a trifold approach which uses all three phases of universe reality:

    19:1.6 Even in the study of man’s biologic evolution on Urantia, there are grave objections to the exclusive historic approach to his present-day status and his current problems. The true perspective of any reality problem—human or divine, terrestrial or cosmic—can be had only by the full and unprejudiced study and correlation of three phases of universe reality: origin, history, and destiny. The proper understanding of these three experiential realities affords the basis for a wise estimate of the current status.

    19:1.7 When the human mind undertakes to follow the philosophic technique of starting from the lower to approach the higher, whether in biology or theology, it is always in danger of committing four errors of reasoning:

    19:1.8 1. It may utterly fail to perceive the final and completed evolutionary goal of either personal attainment or cosmic destiny.
    19:1.9 2. It may commit the supreme philosophical blunder by oversimplifying cosmic evolutionary (experiential) reality, thus leading to the distortion of facts, to the perversion of truth, and to the misconception of destinies.
    19:1.10 3. The study of causation is the perusal of history. But the knowledge of how a being becomes does not necessarily provide an intelligent understanding of the present status and true character of such a being.
    19:1.11 4. History alone fails adequately to reveal future development—destiny. Finite origins are helpful, but only divine causes reveal final effects. Eternal ends are not shown in time beginnings. The present can be truly interpreted only in the light of the correlated past and future.

    19:1.12 Therefore, because of these and for still other reasons, do we employ the technique of approaching man and his planetary problems by embarkation on the time-space journey from the infinite, eternal, and divine Paradise Source and Center of all personality reality and all cosmic existence.

    i sometimes imagine that like the Buddha I could let go of everything material and then allow myself to be caught in the spirit gravity circuit. Well, it don’t really work . . .

    No, it can’t work.  We’re not supposed to let go of everything material, we’re supposed to integrate it and give it meaning.  Also, only spirit gets caught in the spirit gravity circuit.  Personality doesn’t get caught in the spirit gravity circuit.  True worship gets caught in the personality gravity circuit.

    5:3.2  . . . But worship is undoubtedly encircuited and dispatched to the person of the Creator by the function of the Father’s personality circuit. . . .

    #31743
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    This next session teaches us about the value of community – spiritually focused and the caring and sharing community where the gathering helps, I think, each member to feel a certain group assurance, a belonging to that family which the paternity of God inherently results in, to feel validation, and safety.   Ideally, it is a continuation of and expansion of our personal sense of relationship with the Spirit within.  I don’t think it can happen without the personal sense of relationship…it is not a replacement.

    But I do believe that a non-believer might be very affected by their presence in such a communion event…that group prayer, worship, song, and the positive love based emotions being felt and expressed might indeed move one’s mind, heart, and soul to feel the presence within and to hear the whisper.  I think the congregation is or can be an instrument of witness, testimony, influence, and power in “winning souls to the kingdom”….by appealing to our sense of purpose and connection with one another and with our loving parent.

    I wonder if we might deliver such a feeling of communion as we pass by when we cheer someone and uplift the down trodden by a voice and act of kindness and faith and reassurance of their own value and status as another child of God and our own brother and sister?  So we add fuel to their light?  Do we brighten the flicker?

     

     

    4. Spiritual Communion

    103:4.1 (1133.1) The characteristic difference between a social occasion and a religious gathering is that in contrast with the secular the religious is pervaded by the atmosphere of communion. In this way human association generates a feeling of fellowship with the divine, and this is the beginning of group worship. Partaking of a common meal was the earliest type of social communion, and so did early religions provide that some portion of the ceremonial sacrifice should be eaten by the worshipers. Even in Christianity the Lord’s Supper retains this mode of communion. The atmosphere of the communion provides a refreshing and comforting period of truce in the conflict of the self-seeking ego with the altruistic urge of the indwelling spirit Monitor. And this is the prelude to true worship—the practice of the presence of God which eventuates in the emergence of the brotherhood of man.

    103:4.2 (1133.2) When primitive man felt that his communion with God had been interrupted, he resorted to sacrifice of some kind in an effort to make atonement, to restore friendly relationship. The hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the discovery of truth, and truth augments ideals, and this creates new problems for the individual religionists, for our ideals tend to grow by geometrical progression, while our ability to live up to them is enhanced only by arithmetical progression.

    103:4.3 (1133.3) The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one’s moral ideals. Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that one’s highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him.

    103:4.4 (1133.4) Jesus swept away all of the ceremonials of sacrifice and atonement. He destroyed the basis of all this fictitious guilt and sense of isolation in the universe by declaring that man is a child of God; the creature-Creator relationship was placed on a child-parent basis. God becomes a loving Father to his mortal sons and daughters. All ceremonials not a legitimate part of such an intimate family relationship are forever abrogated.

    103:4.5 (1133.5) God the Father deals with man his child on the basis, not of actual virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child’s motivation—the creature purpose and intent. The relationship is one of parent-child association and is actuated by divine love.

    #31745
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    So reassuring

    103:4.3 (1133.3) The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one’s moral ideals. Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that one’s highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him.

    #31815
    André
    André
    Participant

    Hi Gene, everyone,

    How does the Adjutants engage us?Maybe it is through our DNA?           Post # 31299 Gene

    I view the engagement of Adjutants [Creative Mother’s consciousness] originated as an inner influence from …

    34:1.2 … the Conjoint Creator there proceed the established currents and the ordained circuits of spirit power and spiritual influence destined to pervade all the worlds.

    As Bonita explain below (31301) DNA must be engaged by life.

    If anything is going to unlock DNA code, it’s life itself.  post # 31301

    p.s. . Gene watch the animation at the link below to see this marvelous molecular machine in action.

    André

    #31847
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    Hi Gene, everyone,

    How does the Adjutants engage us?Maybe it is through our DNA? Post # 31299 Gene

    I view the engagement of Adjutants [Creative Mother’s consciousness] originated as an inner influence from …

    34:1.2 … the Conjoint Creator there proceed the established currents and the ordained circuits of spirit power and spiritual influence destined to pervade all the worlds.

    As Bonita explain below (31301) DNA must be engaged by life.

    If anything is going to unlock DNA code, it’s life itself. post # 31301

    p.s. . Gene watch the animation at the link below to see this marvelous molecular machine in action.

    <iframe src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/SMtWvDbfHLo?feature=oembed&#8221; width=”708″ height=”398″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen” data-mce-fragment=”1″></iframe>

    André :good:

    #31944
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    More on the innate, natural, and evolutionary aspects of personal religion and the social fruits that come by the embrace of “ideals”.  I think it important to measure social progress and regression by the state of social ideals.  Which ideals are dominant?  Which ideals are on people’s minds?  Which ideals are getting attention and focus?  Ideals are critical for progress.  The failure to achieve ideals is often the myopic or sole focus of the human lens…the intent attention on failure and fault….rather than on those who strive to experience and express the ideal.

    This reality and function of the ideal is not accidental.  Ideals originate from urges and impulses and from rewards which attend the response to those urges andimpulses.  There are benefits to acting on altruistic urges.  There’s a payoff.  Enough of one…we might call them blessings….to continue the behavior and form ideals around altruism and discover that life is a balance between doing for ourselves and doing for others….the discovery of our other nature – the spirit nature – which leads to The Reality of Religious Experience!

     

    5. The Origin of Ideals

    103:5.1 (1133.6) The early evolutionary mind gives origin to a feeling of social duty and moral obligation derived chiefly from emotional fear. The more positive urge of social service and the idealism of altruism are derived from the direct impulse of the divine spirit indwelling the human mind.

    103:5.2 (1133.7) This idea-ideal of doing good to others—the impulse to deny the ego something for the benefit of one’s neighbor—is very circumscribed at first. Primitive man regards as neighbor only those very close to him, those who treat him neighborly; as religious civilization advances, one’s neighbor expands in concept to embrace the clan, the tribe, the nation. And then Jesus enlarged the neighbor scope to embrace the whole of humanity, even that we should love our enemies. And there is something inside of every normal human being that tells him this teaching is moral—right. Even those who practice this ideal least, admit that it is right in theory.

    103:5.3 (1134.1) All men recognize the morality of this universal human urge to be unselfish and altruistic. The humanist ascribes the origin of this urge to the natural working of the material mind; the religionist more correctly recognizes that the truly unselfish drive of mortal mind is in response to the inner spirit leadings of the Thought Adjuster.

    103:5.4 (1134.2) But man’s interpretation of these early conflicts between the ego-will and the other-than-self-will is not always dependable. Only a fairly well unified personality can arbitrate the multiform contentions of the ego cravings and the budding social consciousness. The self has rights as well as one’s neighbors. Neither has exclusive claims upon the attention and service of the individual. Failure to resolve this problem gives origin to the earliest type of human guilt feelings.

    103:5.5 (1134.3) Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection.

    103:5.6 (1134.4) The attempt to secure equal good for the self and for the greatest number of other selves presents a problem which cannot always be satisfactorily resolved in a time-space frame. Given an eternal life, such antagonisms can be worked out, but in one short human life they are incapable of solution. Jesus referred to such a paradox when he said: “Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for the sake of the kingdom, shall find it.”

    #32116
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    More now about the interaction and interdependence of social/planetary progress and personal religious experience.  Papers 79-99 outline the story and give us a narrative of the hand-in-glove relationship of personal religious growth and our planetary progress through the mortal epochs.  Each depends upon the other and is a result of the other as well.  In the Papers still to come we will discover more about the similar but trilateral co-dependencies and relationships of the experientially evolving creatures in the universes of time and their collective results and the growth of the Supreme…and its growing effects as the feedback of the experiential wisdom of God is also added to the ministry and process of maturation of the creatures and creations of time.

    The story of the co-dependence and inter-dependence of every being and the very creations of time and space is wondrous to consider and a whole new paradigm and spectrum of concept to consider for the mortal mind.  It is liberating and transcending all prior human thinking about reality and its operational meanings and how we mortals are participants in the co-creation of reality and the future of that co-created reality.  Our own soul is not the end, but the beginning, of the mortal’s contributions to creation and the future of reality – even God’s reality and that of Michael, our Creator/Master Son!!

    The Most Highs guide evolutionary worlds through the Mortal Epochs of Time and Planetary Progress by weaving together new planetary realities from the potentials realized by the millions and billions of mortals on each world based on the individual religious experience which, generation after generation, grows in truth and reality content and experiential wisdom which accumulates and integrates and actualizes as social consciousness and aggregates as social progress and the many expressions of that group-effect/result enables further individual opportunities for additional personal growth whose growing and radiating effects further changes culture and society to further enable individual progress.  Much of that progress is material and secular but even that progress results in more and greater opportunity for the personal experience and the expression of the spirit led life and the scientific examination of material reality for its further manipulations in favor of the group and the individual.

    Planetary and personal progress is an amazingly intricate integration of forces and harmonization of so many effects from so many causes!  And no matter the lack of progress by either the planet or the individual person, the other may still progress in any given generation!  This holds true in the morontial realms as well as the evolutionary material realms – the process of perfecting is a result of the symbiotic inter-dependence of the individual and the group and how the rulers and creators of the universe of universes respond to and manage the experiential effects and expressions of free will in time and space.  Glorious!

     

    103:5.7 (1134.5) The pursuit of the ideal—the striving to be Godlike—is a continuous effort before death and after. The life after death is no different in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life. Real religion does not foster moral indolence and spiritual laziness by encouraging the vain hope of having all the virtues of a noble character bestowed upon one as a result of passing through the portals of natural death. True religion does not belittle man’s efforts to progress during the mortal lease on life. Every mortal gain is a direct contribution to the enrichment of the first stages of the immortal survival experience.

    103:5.8 (1134.6) It is fatal to man’s idealism when he is taught that all of his altruistic impulses are merely the development of his natural herd instincts. But he is ennobled and mightily energized when he learns that these higher urges of his soul emanate from the spiritual forces that indwell his mortal mind.

    103:5.9 (1134.7) It lifts man out of himself and beyond himself when he once fully realizes that there lives and strives within him something which is eternal and divine. And so it is that a living faith in the superhuman origin of our ideals validates our belief that we are the sons of God and makes real our altruistic convictions, the feelings of the brotherhood of man.

    103:5.10 (1134.8) Man, in his spiritual domain, does have a free will. Mortal man is neither a helpless slave of the inflexible sovereignty of an all-powerful God nor the victim of the hopeless fatality of a mechanistic cosmic determinism. Man is most truly the architect of his own eternal destiny.

    103:5.11 (1135.1) But man is not saved or ennobled by pressure. Spirit growth springs from within the evolving soul. Pressure may deform the personality, but it never stimulates growth. Even educational pressure is only negatively helpful in that it may aid in the prevention of disastrous experiences. Spiritual growth is greatest where all external pressures are at a minimum. “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Man develops best when the pressures of home, community, church, and state are least. But this must not be construed as meaning that there is no place in a progressive society for home, social institutions, church, and state.

    103:5.12 (1135.2) When a member of a social religious group has complied with the requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to enjoy religious liberty in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the truths of religious belief and the facts of religious experience. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of freethinking without having to become “freethinkers.” There is great hope for any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.

    #32117
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    Next we are challenged by the very real need for balancing our dual natures and our inner and outer perspectives of both material and spiritual universe realities.

     

    6. Philosophic Co-ordination

    103:6.1 (1135.3) Theology is the study of the actions and reactions of the human spirit; it can never become a science since it must always be combined more or less with psychology in its personal expression and with philosophy in its systematic portrayal. Theology is always the study of your religion; the study of another’s religion is psychology.

    103:6.2 (1135.4) When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when he approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives origin to theology and metaphysics. The later art of philosophy develops in an effort to harmonize the many discrepancies which are destined at first to appear between the findings and teachings of these two diametrically opposite avenues of approaching the universe of things and beings.

    103:6.3 (1135.5) Religion has to do with the spiritual viewpoint, the awareness of the insideness of human experience. Man’s spiritual nature affords him the opportunity of turning the universe outside in. It is therefore true that, viewed exclusively from the insideness of personality experience, all creation appears to be spiritual in nature.

    103:6.4 (1135.6) When man analytically inspects the universe through the material endowments of his physical senses and associated mind perception, the cosmos appears to be mechanical and energy-material. Such a technique of studying reality consists in turning the universe inside out.

    103:6.5 (1135.7) A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be built up on the postulations of either materialism or spiritism, for both of these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are compelled to view the cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a universe turned inside out, the latter realizing the nature of a universe turned outside in. Never, then, can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.

    #32373
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    Only mortal mindedness delivers the realization and victory of the higher Adjutants to our experience of both phases of reality perceived by us…the inner/spiritual and the outer/material realities.  Both of our dual natures are inaccurate and incomplete in perception of reality to the degree that philosophy and revelation fail to bridge and harmonize the chasm of difference and to the degree that our soul fails to intervene as that part of us which has awareness and appreciation of both the material and the spiritual natures of reality.   Mind is the bridge of harmonization and integration and soul (morontia mind) adds the integration of these divergent perspectives of reality beyond the harmonization of material mind and philosophy.  Revelation brings light, insight, clarity, and unity to our dual natures and philosophical perspectives of reality.

    We gain a confidence in perception and understanding which we find more difficult to articulate to other minds than to believe by the internal religious experience which includes not only insights but also confirmations and assurances  that all of reality is integrated – it is only its perception that is divided into two distinctions – the material and the spiritual.  The closer we get to Paradise in our adventures, the more singular does reality become I think.  The challenge is to unite these perspectives on this world so that society views, approaches, manages, and exists in a material world and life that is harmonized and integrated by spiritual realities.  To live in a world that is purely material and secular is to merely exist and be devoid of real purpose and meaning and value.  Only religious/spiritual experience can make the material life meaningful and deliver happiness to our lives.

     

    103:6.6 (1136.1) Always must man’s inner spirit depend for its expression and self-realization upon the mechanism and technique of the mind. Likewise must man’s outer experience of material reality be predicated on the mind consciousness of the experiencing personality. Therefore are the spiritual and the material, the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind activity. Man experiences matter in his mind; he experiences spiritual reality in the soul but becomes conscious of this experience in his mind. The intellect is the harmonizer and the ever-present conditioner and qualifier of the sum total of mortal experience. Both energy-things and spirit values are colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness.

    103:6.7 (1136.2) Your difficulty in arriving at a more harmonious co-ordination between science and religion is due to your utter ignorance of the intervening domain of the morontia world of things and beings. The local universe consists of three degrees, or stages, of reality manifestation: matter, morontia, and spirit. The morontia angle of approach erases all divergence between the findings of the physical sciences and the functioning of the spirit of religion. Reason is the understanding technique of the sciences; faith is the insight technique of religion; mota is the technique of the morontia level. Mota is a supermaterial reality sensitivity which is beginning to compensate incomplete growth, having for its substance knowledge-reason and for its essence faith-insight. Mota is a superphilosophical reconciliation of divergent reality perception which is nonattainable by material personalities; it is predicated, in part, on the experience of having survived the material life of the flesh. But many mortals have recognized the desirability of having some method of reconciling the interplay between the widely separated domains of science and religion; and metaphysics is the result of man’s unavailing attempt to span this well-recognized chasm. But human metaphysics has proved more confusing than illuminating. Metaphysics stands for man’s well-meant but futile effort to compensate for the absence of the mota of morontia.

    103:6.8 (1136.3) Metaphysics has proved a failure; mota, man cannot perceive. Revelation is the only technique which can compensate for the absence of the truth sensitivity of mota in a material world. Revelation authoritatively clarifies the muddle of reason-developed metaphysics on an evolutionary sphere.

    103:6.9 (1136.4) Science is man’s attempted study of his physical environment, the world of energy-matter; religion is man’s experience with the cosmos of spirit values; philosophy has been developed by man’s mind effort to organize and correlate the findings of these widely separated concepts into something like a reasonable and unified attitude toward the cosmos. Philosophy, clarified by revelation, functions acceptably in the absence of mota and in the presence of the breakdown and failure of man’s reason substitute for mota—metaphysics.

    103:6.10 (1136.5) Early man did not differentiate between the energy level and the spirit level. It was the violet race and their Andite successors who first attempted to divorce the mathematical from the volitional. Increasingly has civilized man followed in the footsteps of the earliest Greeks and the Sumerians who distinguished between the inanimate and the animate. And as civilization progresses, philosophy will have to bridge ever-widening gulfs between the spirit concept and the energy concept. But in the time of space these divergencies are at one in the Supreme.

    #32383
    André
    André
    Participant

    Dear Bradly,

    Post # #32373

    I acknowledge and praise your diligent efforts to understand dual reality.

    And the grateful warmth to hand out within yours brothers and sisters. I really do appreciated such furry to make cristal/clear and go shares.

    This morning after tensioned period of turmoil. What a consolation your contribution.

    Merci Bradly,

    André

    p.s. Praise oneanother do not undermined, weakened all determined will of each of you.

Viewing 15 posts - 61 through 75 (of 230 total)

Login to reply to this topic.

Not registered? Sign up here.