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One of the major revelations contained within the Urantia Book concerns the soul. The idea of the soul has been around for millennia, but TUB reveals some new and amazing information worth pondering. In another thread, member Zuimon posted his views on the soul which are much different from those revealed in TUB, yet with commonality to many existing belief systems. I decided not to wait for him to start another thread, so I moved his post here for discussion. I’d like to use it in order to highlight what is written in TUB. My intent is not to make arguments, but to present ideas consistent with the revelation.
For me the soul is existential, that being what God’s Soul is all about. That God (and the same being for us) is first and foremost SOUL. And that our whole life in Creation is to grow in truth through personality experience, which really means, helps us to understand the soul that we are. So soul, His and our souls, exist in ‘existential land’ wherever that might be. But it is not in Creation, not in time and space which is ‘experiential land’, the place where our existential soul expresses its two experiential personalities. And the incredible thing about Paradise as I understand is it being something of a manifestation of the existential Soul that is God. So that’s why it’s such a big deal being there in our Father’s ‘House’, as you said, being face to face with Him. So I see God (our Mother and Father), created our souls – the souls of all Their children. And then bestow two personalities on them in our ascending soul status. And when the time is right, the soul ‘incarnates’, which means, it starts expressing its personalities in Creation. The soul stays where it is in soul-land, with Creation being, the creation of Soul, so all our souls from God’s through to ours, are Creating – expressing personalities in all the different ways we do. The soul expressing its personalities is creative, it has an impact on Creation, as we all do by simply living. So the idea of soul being somehow with us and which follows us or is the part of us that survives physical death to wake up in spirit, is simply confusing the spirit-body and spirit part of us with the soul. And that because the soul is the cause of Creation, so the soul doesn’t need to go anywhere as it is already everywhere and in any time. However still I feel our souls have a defined ‘space’ within soul-land. And I even think they are ‘created’, ‘bought into being’, ‘made’, in batches by our Heavenly Soul Parents as the Feelings, move Them. So for me the soul is expressing itself in Creation through its two personalities right from conception, and even possibly before that on other higher levels; and then within the soul is coded all our life’s experiences for eternity, with the pattern simply unfolding as required by its personality expression. So the soul is seeking self-realisation through its personalities in life, just as we being focused on the personality part are trying to also express ourselves truly and lovingly, which in turn is leading us in truth to understand what our own soul is all about. So our ascension is the first leg of our journey in understanding, not only our own soul, but the Soul that created us. So by focusing on our feelings and thoughts and trying to understand the truth of them – why we have them, is helping us to get to know the truth of ourselves, which is the truth of soul. And as we come to understand the truth of our soul, so we are also coming to understand the truth of Soul. And I wonder, can’t you sense or perceive or feel that your soul has been in existence before your adjuster arrived, and that your soul is something far more than just an experientially evolving part of yourself? Don’t have a longing to be with another person so you can experience all of this together? Don’t you want to have that other persons indwelling spirit speaking to you through them, knowing it is are helping you become unified in your relationship together? And conversely knowing your indwelling spirit is inspiring your thoughts so as to communicate your feelings across to them? And can’t you see within your own life that everything is meticulously planned – even pre-planned, even taking into consideration your free will and every decision and act of will? That our free will pertains to our personality expression to some small degree, whereas underlying it all is absolute perfection and no freedom whatsoever. And that the existential needs the experiential so as to experience its existentialism. Which is why the Soul of God set the whole Creation in motion. I think the animals and the plants, all of nature is perfect in its Natural love, and it’s created. I think we too are perfect, yet it’s owing to the Rebellion and Default that we’ve become imperfect. I see perfect as being a relative term. Sure those humans before the Rebellion were not as ‘perfect’ as more truth-evolved humans are, but they are still perfect in their ‘imperfection’ because they were untainted by Rebellion. I see imperfection so far as it concerns us humans on Earth is ONLY caused by rebellion, with the Default adding to our woes. And that at some point we are to no longer want to live in our wrongness, we will want to stop being evil and rebellious, and want to deal with our imperfection, which is what I call doing my Healing, by looking to my feelings for the truth of my problems.
Zuimon wrote: “For me the soul is existential, that being what God’s Soul is all about. That God (and the same being for us) is first and foremost SOUL”
The revelation tells us that the soul is morontial, not existential. Because God the Father is existential, he does not have a soul. Existential means without beginning or end. Souls have beginnings; they are brand new realities on the experiential level. Existential beings are perfect; they do not require experience for perfection, whereas the soul is an experiential acquirement.
0:5.10 Soul. The soul of man is an experiential acquirement. As a mortal creature chooses to “do the will of the Father in heaven,” so the indwelling spirit becomes the father of a new reality in human experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual–it is morontial. This is the emerging and immortal soul which is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension.
Zuimon wrote: “And that our whole life in Creation is to grow in truth through personality experience, which really means, helps us to understand the soul that we are.”
This is not too far from the truth. However, growing in truth and personality experience does not mean “help us understand the soul that we are,” it means: help us realize the personality that we are. The seven psychic circles of personality realization are circles of soul growth as well.
110:6.1 The sum total of personality realization on a material world is contained within the successive conquest of the seven psychic circles of mortal potentiality. Entrance upon the seventh circle marks the beginning of true human personality function. Completion of the first circle denotes the relative maturity of the mortal being. Though the traversal of the seven circles of cosmic growth does not equal fusion with the Adjuster, the mastery of these circles marks the attainment of those steps which are preliminary to Adjuster fusion.
110:6.3 The psychic circles are not exclusively intellectual, neither are they wholly morontial; they have to do with personality status, mind attainment, soul growth, and Adjuster attunement. The successful traversal of these levels demands the harmonious functioning of the entire personality, not merely of some one phase thereof. The growth of the parts does not equal the true maturation of the whole; the parts really grow in proportion to the expansion of the entire self — the whole self — material, intellectual, and spiritual.
Zuimon wrote: “So soul, His and our souls, exist in ‘existential land’ wherever that might be. But it is not in Creation, not in time and space which is ‘experiential land’, the place where our existential soul expresses its two experiential personalities.”
To reiterate, God does not have a soul, but he does have a personality. The two, soul and personality, should not be confused with one another; they are two entirely different entities. Yes, God does exist in “existential land,” it is called Paradise. Eventually morontia souls will reach a level of spirit perfection and also exist on Paradise before embarking on new careers as finaliters. The soul does not have any personality at all initially. The mother of the soul is the human mind dominated by one single and unique personality with free will. The father of the soul is the Adjuster, a fragment of God’s personality who leaves “existential land” as a PRE-personality. Prepersonal Adjusters are impersonal until they fuse with a personality and become a part of it, but the free will of the single and unique personality continues to reign because the individual is now wholly unwilling to do anything other than God’s will.
0:5.9 Spirit. The divine spirit that indwells the mind of man — the Thought Adjuster. This immortal spirit is prepersonal — not a personality, though destined to become a part of the personality of the surviving mortal creature.
I think that’s enough for a first post. I’ll address the rest in subsequent posts and welcome any other comments.
I can’t do a deep dive into the topic myself unfortunately because of time constraints, but just an observation that Zuimon’s perspective fits more in place when considering his perspective on “God” as being of “God the Supreme” rather than “God the Father”.
While there isn’t a “soul” to God the Father like you point out, there is the “oversoul”, which is the Supreme, 117:5:
“The great Supreme is the cosmic oversoul of the grand universe … his deity nature is the mosaic composite of the total vastness of all creature-Creator nature throughout the evolving universes.” (117:5.1)
“Even the experience of man and Adjuster must find echo in the divinity of God the Supreme, for, as the Adjusters experience, they are like the Supreme, and the evolving soul of mortal man is created out of the pre-existent possibility for such experience within the Supreme.” (117:5.11)
Then from the paper before this one, this interesting relationship is spelled out:
“The Mystery Monitors are to human beings what the Paradise Trinity is to the Supreme Being. The Adjusters are absolute foundations, and upon absolute foundations freewill choice can cause to be evolved the divine reality of an eternaliter nature, finaliter nature in the case of man, Deity nature in God the Supreme.” (116:3.4)
For people you have this:
freewill creature personality decisions + Adjuster = soul development
For Deity you have?:
freewill creature-Creator personality decisions + Trinity = oversoul (aka “the great Supreme”) development
tas wrote: Zuimon’s perspective fits more in place when considering his perspective on “God” as being of “God the Supreme” rather than “God the Father”.Absolutely! I agree there are similarities. I was going to get to the Supreme later since I’m responding to his post sentence by sentence. The only problem is that he insists that the source of soul is existential, and we all know the Supreme is experiential. He also states that God is both mother and father to the soul. Yes, the soul has both a mother and father, but the father is the Adjuster and the mother is the mortal mind, an individual circuit of the cosmic mind dominated by a personality who makes choices that resonate in the Supreme. The psychic circles of personality realization and Adjuster attunement is the process by which the soul becomes conscious of a relationship with the Supreme. Also, both the Supreme and the soul are evolutionary, God the Father is not.
117:6.5 The morontia soul of an evolving mortal is really the son of the Adjuster action of the Universal Father and the child of the cosmic reaction of the Supreme Being, the Universal Mother.
117:6.8 All soul-evolving humans are literally the evolutionary sons of God the Father and God the Mother, the Supreme Being.
110:6.16 Perhaps these psychic circles of mortal progression would be better denominated cosmic levels — actual meaning grasps and value realizations of progressive approach to the morontia consciousness of initial relationship of the evolutionary soul with the emerging Supreme Being.
As Jesus said below:
(1630.3) 145:2.7 “Have you not read also where Ezekiel taught even your fathers that religion must become a reality in your individual experiences? No more shall you use the proverb which says, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son. Only the soul that sins shall die.’ And then Ezekiel foresaw even this day when he spoke in behalf of God, saying: ‘A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.’
(2093.6) 196:3.1 Personal, spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. Religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True religion unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements. Religious faith — the positive leading of the indwelling divine presence — unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to bridge that gulf existing between the intellectual logic which recognizes the Universal First Cause as It and those positive affirmations of the soul which aver this First Cause is He, the heavenly Father of Jesus’ gospel, the personal God of human salvation.
Zuimon wrote: “And the incredible thing about Paradise as I understand is it being something of a manifestation of the existential Soul that is God.”Paradise is a manifestation of the theoretical I AM.
0:3.22 In this original transaction the theoretical I AM achieved the realization of personality by becoming the Eternal Father of the Original Son simultaneously with becoming the Eternal Source of the Isle of Paradise.
I’ve never heard of the I AM being referred to as the existential soul. The word “soul,” as used in TUB, means an experiential, evolutionary, morontia entity. Even the oversoul of creation is an experiential, evolutionary entity. So, soul is always experiential. The I AM, the theoretical source of the Trinity, are all existential, non-evolutionary and spiritual.
Zuimon wrote: “So I see God (our Mother and Father), created our souls – the souls of all Their children. And then bestow two personalities on them in our ascending soul status.”
This is not far from the truth. As stated before, God the Father is one of the parents of our souls, the mother is our own mind, which is provided for us by the local universe Creative Spirit, Divine Minister or Universe Mother Spirit. I might add that the Father of the soul, the Adjuster, is existential and spiritual. The mother of the soul, the human mind, is experiential and material. The soul is morontial and morontial reality is a combination of material and spiritual reality.
0:5.12 The warp of morontia is spiritual; its woof is physical.
It is also true that souls are created, which is why they are not existential and do not come from “existential land”. Existential beings and entities are not created, they simply are. That which comes from “existential land” is personality and the soul could not exist without a mortal personality making the choice to create one. Each person on this earth gets only one unique personality. The Adjuster is a pre-personality, not a personality.
16:8.3 Personality is a unique endowment of original nature whose existence is independent of, and antecedent to, the bestowal of the Thought Adjuster.
Zuimon wrote: “And when the time is right, the soul ‘incarnates’, which means, it starts expressing its personalities in Creation.”
Souls do not incarnate. It’s impossible. Souls are morontia and cannot function on the material, or carnal, level of reality. And philosophically, if you concede to incarnation, then logically you must concede to reincarnation, something that also doesn’t happen to souls. So it’s murky and dangerous ground to claim that souls incarnate.
111:3.2 The soul, being supermaterial, does not of itself function on the material level of human experience.
But I agree that once the soul is born, (created by both its parents), it is capable of “expressing” itself. It expresses itself by growing in and of itself.
p1282:1 117:3.6 Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions; he also grows as his Thought Adjuster develops new techniques for reaching down from the spiritual to the morontial soul levels; and once the soul comes into being, it begins to grow in and of itself.
Zuimon wrote: “The soul stays where it is in soul-land, with Creation being, the creation of Soul, so all our souls from God’s through to ours, are Creating – expressing personalities in all the different ways we do.The soul expressing its personalities is creative, it has an impact on Creation, as we all do by simply living.”There is no such place as “soul-land” unless you are referring to the oversoul of creation, the Supreme. But the Supreme does not create souls, store souls or dispense souls. Souls exist only if they have an identity in the universe, and the soul must have a Spirit partner, for us an Adjuster, in order to have universe identity.113:6.5 The guardian seraphim is the custodial trustee of the survival values of mortal man’s slumbering soul as the absent Adjuster is the identity of such an immortal universe being.The soul does not create, it is the product of co-creation, a relationship between creature and Creator. Personality is necessary for co-creation because it is the source of volition (power). The expression of the Supreme is based upon the co-creative activities of all the personalities in “experiential land”. One soul, one personality, one Adjuster co-creating at a time, contributing to the whole. These co-creations are part of the evolution of the Supreme, in a sense, bringing him to fruition. Personalities who prefer not to co-create are absorbed into the Deity of the Supreme. The soul is not absorbed since the soul ceases to exist. It is the personality that returns to the oversoul of creation. The personality is divine and must return to Deity. Having had experience, instead of returning to the Universal Father on Paradise, its source, it returns to the Supreme in “experience-land”.117:4.2 Throughout the grand universe the Supreme struggles for expression. His divine evolution is in measure predicated on the wisdom-action of every personality in existence. When a human being chooses eternal survival, he is cocreating destiny; and in the life of this ascending mortal the finite God finds an increased measure of personality self-realization and an enlargement of experiential sovereignty. But if a creature rejects the eternal career, that part of the Supreme which was dependent on this creature’s choice experiences inescapable delay, a deprivation which must be compensated by substitutional or collateral experience; as for the personality of the nonsurvivor, it is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the Deity of the Supreme.
And “simply living” is not synonymous with creating or co-creating. To co-create requires doing God’s will. Co-creation is a process of bring truth, beauty and goodness to life. Just being alive is not good enough. We must commit our lives to doing God’s will on earth, co-create with him.
116:4.8 The local universes are the starting points of true evolution, the spawning grounds of bona fide imperfect personalities endowed with the freewill choice of becoming cocreators of themselves as they are to be.
117:1.4 Man can work in liaison with God and thereby cocreate an eternal finaliter.
117:4.2 When a human being chooses eternal survival, he is cocreating destiny; and in the life of this ascending mortal the finite God finds an increased measure of personality self-realization and an enlargement of experiential sovereignty.Zuimon wrote: “So the idea of soul being somehow with us and which follows us or is the part of us that survives physical death to wake up in spirit, is simply confusing the spirit-body and spirit part of us with the soul.”I wish I could understand this sentence, but I can’t, so there’s little to say except that the soul does survive physical death in the hands of the guardians, and the spirit, or Adjuster, is eternal. When the two combine in the resurrection halls, identity resumes in morontia form. What the spirit-body is, I cannot say.Zuimon wrote: “And that because the soul is the cause of Creation, so the soul doesn’t need to go anywhere as it is already everywhere and in any time.”Obviously the soul is not the cause of Creation; it is co-creational. Creation, at least in “experiential-land” is the role of the Creative Sons and Creative Spirits. And, if this is in reference to the Supreme, neither is the Supreme the cause of creation. Yes the Supreme is evolving in every space and every time, but again, the Supreme is not a soul. However, the evolution of the Supreme can be compared to the evolution of the soul:117:3.7 This is somewhat like the way in which the Supreme Being expands. His sovereignty grows in and out of the acts and achievements of the Supreme Creator Personalities; that is the evolution of the majesty of his power as the ruler of the grand universe. His deity nature is likewise dependent on the pre-existent unity of the Paradise Trinity. But there is still another aspect to the evolution of God the Supreme: He is not only Creator-evolved and Trinity-derived; he is also self-evolved and self-derived. God the Supreme is himself a volitional, creative participant in his own deity actualization. The human morontial soul is likewise a volitional, cocreative partner in its own immortalization.117:3.12 The Supreme Being did not create man, but man was literally created out of, his very life was derived from, the potentiality of the Supreme. Nor does he evolve man; yet is the Supreme himself the very essence of evolution. From the finite standpoint, we actually live, move, and have our being within the immanence of the Supreme.
Zuimon wrote: “However still I feel our souls have a defined ‘space’ within soul-land. And I even think they are ‘created’, ‘bought into being’, ‘made’, in batches by our Heavenly Soul Parents as the Feelings, move Them.”To reiterate, there is no “soul-land” and each soul is co-created. Souls are not made in batches, like cookies. Each soul is a unique co-creation between God and man. And, souls are not co-created by feelings; they are born as the result of a decision and they grow with repeated decisions to do God’s will.Appreciate your starting this topic on the soul, Bonita. It helps tremendously to have these concepts described so clearly. Look forward to further illumination on the Supreme Being also.
The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality — actuality — of that man. 117:4.14 (1285.3)
Hi everyone,
My intent is not to make arguments, but to present ideas consistent with the revelation. Bonita
Idem, Zuimon. I can’t really discuss your opinion.
Regarding your standpoint: I’m out.
Brotherly yours,
Thank you Andre and Angela. I appreciate your comments. I’m glad that you recognize that I’m not here to argue or belittle Zuimon’s beliefs, but to contrast them against what is written in TUB. I’m trying to highlight the differences (and some similarities) strictly for learning purposes. I don’t know if I’m doing a good enough job of that, but I just wanted to establish my intentions so there is no confusion.
Zuimon wrote: “So for me the soul is expressing itself in Creation through its two personalities right from conception, and even possibly before that on other higher levels; and then within the soul is coded all our life’s experiences for eternity, with the pattern simply unfolding as required by its personality expression.”
Again, the soul has no personality until the personality of the mortal makes the decision to identify with it. Souls and personalities are different entities entirely. Also, the soul does not exist prior to its conception. What exists prior to the conception of the soul are its parents, the human moral mind and the Adjuster. The soul is conceived the moment a personality chooses to do the will of God, also known as the first moral decision.
0:5.10-11 Soul. The soul of man is an experiential acquirement. As a mortal creature chooses to “do the will of the Father in heaven,” so the indwelling spirit becomes the father of a new reality in human experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual–it is morontial. This is the emerging and immortal soul which is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension.
Personality. The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul.
But I agree that within the soul there is a “code” or “pattern”. That code or pattern is brought from Paradise by the Adjuster. Our potential in the universe is more or less predetermined, and it is up to each of us to choose to go along with it or not.
p1204:5 110:2.1 When Thought Adjusters indwell human minds, they bring with them the model careers, the ideal lives, as determined and foreordained by themselves and the Personalized Adjusters of Divinington, which have been certified by the Personalized Adjuster of Urantia. Thus they begin work with a definite and predetermined plan for the intellectual and spiritual development of their human subjects, but it is not incumbent upon any human being to accept this plan. You are all subjects of predestination, but it is not foreordained that you must accept this divine predestination; you are at full liberty to reject any part or all of the Thought Adjusters’ program. It is their mission to effect such mind changes and to make such spiritual adjustments as you may willingly and intelligently authorize, to the end that they may gain more influence over the personality directionization; but under no circumstances do these divine Monitors ever take advantage of you or in any way arbitrarily influence you in your choices and decisions. The Adjusters respect your sovereignty of personality; they are always subservient to your will.
Zuimon wrote: “So the soul is seeking self-realisation through its personalities in life, just as we being focused on the personality part are trying to also express ourselves truly and lovingly, which in turn is leading us in truth to understand what our own soul is all about.”
Yes, the soul seeks God, or spirit reality, but it is the personality that seeks self-realization, or realization of the self as an ongoing universe reality. (Self-realization does not mean finding yourself, also known as psychotherapy.)
Personality is the unifying pattern of selfhood. The soul becomes a part of selfhood when the personality identifies with it. The soul does not have a personality of its own, but it does have a mind. However, the soul’s mind cannot make decisions; only personalities make decisions because only personalities have free will. Souls have no volition until after physical death when the personality joins it.
The goal in this life is to get the personality to identify with the soul, to transfer its seat of power from the material mind to the mind of the soul, in which case the personality is making decisions with the soul. The more the personality identifies itself with the soul, uses the soul to help make decisions, the closer it comes to self realization and divinity attainment. When the personality finally, fully and wholly identifies with the soul, it has attained divinity and will fuse with its source of divinity, the Adjuster.
Zuimon wrote: “So our ascension is the first leg of our journey in understanding, not only our own soul, but the Soul that created us. “
We don’t become ascending sons until we fuse with our Adjusters, before that time we are called faith-sons. The first leg of our journey begins the moment the soul is born. The birth of the soul is the beginning of our pre-morontia career. That first moral decision is essentially passing the entrance exam into pre-school. The soul qualifies us to be recognized in the universe as potential eternal citizens, with all the benefits associated with membership in the family of God.
112:6.9 The soul of survival value faithfully reflects both the qualitative and the quantitative actions and motivations of the material intellect, the former seat of the identity of selfhood. In the choosing of truth, beauty, and goodness, the mortal mind enters upon its premorontia universe career under the tutelage of the seven adjutant mind-spirits unified under the direction of the spirit of wisdom. Subsequently, upon the completion of the seven circles of premorontia attainment, the superimposition of the endowment of morontia mind upon adjutant mind initiates the prespiritual or morontia career of local universe progression.
Zuimon wrote: “So by focusing on our feelings and thoughts and trying to understand the truth of them – why we have them, is helping us to get to know the truth of ourselves, which is the truth of soul. And as we come to understand the truth of our soul, so we are also coming to understand the truth of Soul.”
Understanding why we have thoughts is like trying to understand why water is wet. The purpose of thinking is to elevate it not to analyze it. If you’re always circling around back searching for causes for effects, you will get stuck in a cause and effect loop that can only make you nauseated and vertiginous. This is the work of science. Science is concerned with cause and effect. The science of psychoanalysis is concerned with the cause and effect of feeling and emotion. Science will not get you to the “truth of your soul”. Finding yourself through psychoanalysis is a method of conflict analysis, an attempt to neutralize conflicting thoughts and feelings. The truth is, if your thoughts and feelings are constantly conflicted, chances are you are fighting against reality and ignoring God’s will. It’s not about finding yourself and the truth of your feelings, it’s about finding God’s will, the only thing that can make you happy. The truth makes you happy because it can be acted out.
p42:7 2:7.6 Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.
The truth of your soul is the Spirit of Truth. What gets you to the Spirit of Truth? Jesus explained this when he spoke of himself as the “vine”. He taught that if we stay connected to him we will bear fruit. The fruit is spiritual fruit and the vine is living truth. He also taught that if we separate ourselves from him, we will die. He meant, of course, our souls will die and we will be denied eternal life. The prayer of communion is the best way to stay connected to the vine, which is staying connected to the Spirit of Truth, the spirit presence of Michael/Jesus.
180:2.1 Then Jesus stood up again and continued teaching his apostles: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. I am the vine, and you are the branches. And the Father requires of me only that you shall bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to increase the fruitfulness of its branches. Every branch coming out of me which bears no fruit, the Father will take away. Every branch which bears fruit, the Father will cleanse that it may bear more fruit. Already are you clean through the word I have spoken, but you must continue to be clean. You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is separated from the vine. As the branch cannot bear fruit except it abides in the vine, so neither can you yield the fruits of loving service except you abide in me. Remember: I am the real vine, and you are the living branches. He who lives in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit of the spirit and experience the supreme joy of yielding this spiritual harvest. If you will maintain this living spiritual connection with me, you will bear abundant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to commune freely with me, and then can my living spirit so infuse you that you may ask whatsoever my spirit wills and do all this with the assurance that the Father will grant us our petition. Herein is the Father glorified: that the vine has many living branches, and that every branch bears much fruit. And when the world sees these fruit-bearing branches — my friends who love one another, even as I have loved them — all men will know that you are truly my disciples.
91:8.10 Genuine prayer adds to spiritual growth, modifies attitudes, and yields that satisfaction which comes from communion with divinity. It is a spontaneous outburst of God-consciousness.
144:2.2 Prayer is entirely a personal and spontaneous expression of the attitude of the soul toward the spirit; prayer should be the communion of sonship and the expression of fellowship. Prayer, when indited by the spirit, leads to co-operative spiritual progress. The ideal prayer is a form of spiritual communion which leads to intelligent worship. True praying is the sincere attitude of reaching heavenward for the attainment of your ideals.
196:0.10 The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship — unbroken communion with God — and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices.
Bonjour à tous/toutes,
2 things with significance and value happened to me today, Sunday April 17, 2016.
How grateful I am.
Merci beaucoup
andre wrote: Merci beaucoupVous êtes très bienvenu!
Zuimon wrote: “And I wonder, can’t you sense or perceive or feel that your soul has been in existence before your adjuster arrived, and that your soul is something far more than just an experientially evolving part of yourself?”
No, not at all. The fact that I can sense spiritual reality is proof that I have a soul. The Adjuster is the window to the spiritual world. Prior to the birth of the soul, prior to the advent of the Adjuster, the individual is ministered to by the adjutant spirits. When the adjutant of worship makes contact with a developing mind, it provides the religious impulse to seek for God. And once a personality becomes conscious of the desire to find God and be like him, it is proof that God has already arrived in that mind. The soul is born. When it comes to spiritual reality, if we seek, we will find. It’s guaranteed. It’s a universe law.
103:0.1 The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.
195:6.16 And so, when you once start out to find God, that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you. 36:5.11 6. The spirit of worship – the religious impulse, the first differential urge separating mind creatures into the two basic classes of mortal existence.
167:5.2 The law of the universe is: Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find.
What good is a pre-existent soul to me if I haven’t earned it, if I haven’t sought for it and acquired it by my own free will? My soul cannot pre-exist because it is unique to me in that I have been gifted with the freedom to co-create it. Without my input, it would not exist. The soul is an individual acquirement which results from choosing to God’s will, of my own free will. Everyone knows that something you’ve earned has much more value to you than a free handout you had no choice in.
3:5.16 Mortal man earns even his status as an ascension candidate by his own faith and hope. Everything divine which the human mind grasps and the human soul acquires is an experiential attainment; it is a reality of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession in contrast to the inherent goodness and righteousness of the inerrant personalities of Havona.
5:6.8 Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man’s inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing.
In fact, I’m convinced that the process of transferring identity requires that you own the experience of choosing God’s will. By owning it, I mean you agree wholeheartedly with God’s will, then put every bit of effort into it that you can muster in order to make it a part of you that will never slip away. You nail it down by making it a permanent reality, by making it a tangible part of your relationship with the world of persons and things, human and divine. The soul may not function in the material world, but the personality does. And the personality has a choice to either follow the soul, illuminated by God, or follow the lower mind with its cacophony of ego-centric feelings .
1:7.2 Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean. Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities.
91:9.5 You must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must obliterate the dead center of indecision.
100:2.1 Spiritual progress is predicated on intellectual recognition of spiritual poverty coupled with the self-consciousness of perfection-hunger, the desire to know God and be like him, the wholehearted purpose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
100:2.2 Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a discovery of values. The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the exhibition of a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholeheartedworship of the perfection ideals of divinity.
3:5.13 Is unselfishness — the spirit of self-forgetfulness — desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.
However, I admit that I do feel something which is more than me, and that is God’s love. God pre-exists me, and because he does, he can gift me with my own personality, as well as a fragment of his very own pre-existent personality, a pre-personality, the Adjuster.
0:5.4 Personality is never spontaneous; it is the gift of the Paradise Father.
6:5.3 Personality is the exclusive gift of the Universal Father.
0:2.3 1. Prepersonal — as in the ministry of the Father fragments, such as the Thought Adjusters.
7:5.2 The Eternal Son cannot contact directly with human beings as does the Father through the gift of the prepersonal Thought Adjusters . .
Souls grow, they do not suddenly appear in a state of perfection; they must evolve to a perfected state. God is capable of making us all instantly perfect, but that would deny us the opportunity to choose. Choosing to become perfected has much more value than being born that way, as evidenced by the description of Havona natives in quote 3:5.17. There is a wide difference between a state of perfection and a perfected state, and that difference is the difference between Creator and creature. Only the Creator is perfect. We creatures can never be perfect in the sense that our Creator is perfect, but we can become perfected. As finaliters we become a unique combination of perfect and perfected, but that’s another topic.
32:3.11 In all this is shown the wisdom of the Creators. It would be just as easy for the Universal Father to make all mortals perfect beings, to impart perfection by his divine word. But that would deprive them of the wonderful experience of the adventure and training associated with the long and gradual inward climb, an experience to be had only by those who are so fortunate as to begin at the very bottom of living existence.
3:5.17 The creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not courageous in the human sense. They are innately kind and considerate, but hardly altruistic in the human way. They are expectant of a pleasant future, but not hopeful in the exquisite manner of the trusting mortal of the uncertain evolutionary spheres. They have faith in the stability of the universe, but they are utter strangers to that saving faith whereby mortal man climbs from the status of an animal up to the portals of Paradise. They love the truth, but they know nothing of its soul-saving qualities. They are idealists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ignorant of the ecstasy of becoming such by exhilarating choice. They are loyal, but they have never experienced the thrill of wholehearted and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of temptation to default. They are unselfish, but they never gained such levels of experience by the magnificent conquest of a belligerent self. They enjoy pleasure, but they do not comprehend the sweetness of the pleasure escape from the pain potential.
117:7.6 Man’s urge for Paradise perfection, his striving for God-attainment, creates a genuine divinity tension in the living cosmos which can only be resolved by the evolution of an immortal soul; this is what happens in the experience of a single mortal creature.
105:5.9 These, then, are the two original manifestations: the constitutively perfect and the evolutionally perfected. The two are co-ordinate in eternity relationships, but within the limits of time they are seemingly different. A time factor means growth to that which grows; secondary finites grow; hence those that are growing must appear as incomplete in time. But these differences, which are so important this side of Paradise, are nonexistent in eternity.
181:1.2 And so will the children of light go on from glory to glory until they attain the divine estate wherein they are spiritually perfected even as the Father is perfect in all things.
Thanks Bonita….enjoying all of this very much. Perhaps you could provide additional information linking the soul, the gravity circuits, and the transference of the seat of our identity. Love and peace Sister.
Love and peace Sister.
Right backatcha Brother. So glad you’re enjoying my work. It makes it more worthwhile knowing that. So, in regards to gravity circuits and transfer of dominance, do you want that all tied together into an essay on soul growth and circle progress? Or, did you want each type of gravity discussed individually? There’s so much to talk about there. Everything overlaps and circles around again, so I’m not sure how to organize it all. If I don’t prioritize it, I will write for days and days and days . . . until you get sick of it.
Zuimon wrote: “Don’t have a longing to be with another person so you can experience all of this together? Don’t you want to have that other persons indwelling spirit speaking to you through them, knowing it is are helping you become unified in your relationship together? And conversely knowing your indwelling spirit is inspiring your thoughts so as to communicate your feelings across to them?”
I think all personalities yearn to share with other personalities. There is no such thing as a personality in total isolation. An isolated personality is a non-existent personality. The longing I feel in my soul is to share my personality with the personality residing in it. Jesus left his Spirit of Truth for us as a companion. He said that without him, we would feel like orphans. Sharing my personality with the Spirit of Truth in my soul relieves me of any possible loneliness I can feel.
194.2.2 The first mission of this spirit is, of course, to foster and personalize truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this spirit to destroy the believer’s feeling of orphanhood. Jesus having been among men, all believers would experience a sense of loneliness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men’s hearts.
The idea of having another person’s indwelling Spirit talk to me is just weird. I don’t think it works that way. My Adjuster is in my mind and and your Adjuster is in yours. They pretty much stay there. My Adjuster is not interested in telling you what is good for you and if your Adjuster starts telling me what is good for me, I’ll be looking for the fastest escape route. No thanks. When Jesus said that we are all the same in Spirit, he meant that we all have the same Father. Adjusters are all identical; they only differ in experience.
108:1.1 When Adjusters are dispatched for mortal service from Divinington, they are identical in the endowment of existential divinity, but they vary in experiential qualities proportional to previous contact in and with evolutionary creatures.
16:8.3 Thought Adjusters, when they come forth from the Father, are identical in nature, . . .
Zuimon wrote: “And can’t you see within your own life that everything is meticulously planned – even pre-planned, even taking into consideration your free will and every decision and act of will? That our free will pertains to our personality expression to some small degree, whereas underlying it all is absolute perfection and no freedom whatsoever. And that the existential needs the experiential so as to experience its existentialism. Which is why the Soul of God set the whole Creation in motion.”
No freedom whatsoever? The whole reason for creation is to exercise freedom. God, the I AM, freed himself from the fetters of unqualified reality by exercising his free will. That is how the Trinity came into existence, as well as the Isle of Paradise, “existential land”. And then free will created the Central Universe, and then went on to create God the Sevenfold, “experiential land”. If God has free will, we all have it too, being made in his image. And God has decreed that no one and no thing can interfere with the sovereignty of free will, and his decree is absolute. But, if and when God the Absolute finally emerges, perhaps at that time there will be an exhaustion of all potential choices, but not necessarily the end of free will. Even the revelators have no idea what will happen then.
0:3.21 As a time-space creature would view the origin and differentiation of Reality, the eternal and infinite I AM achieved Deity liberation from the fetters of unqualified infinity through the exercise of inherent and eternal free will, and this divorcement from unqualified infinity produced the first absolute divinity-tension.
0:10.2 God the Absolute is the realization-attainment goal of all superabsonite beings, but the power and personality potential of the Deity Absolute transcends our concept, and we hesitate to discuss those realities which are so far removed from experiential actualization.
5:6.8 Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man’s inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.
Perfection actually means freedom. The more perfected we become, the more freedom and personal liberty we have. This is because the perfecting process results in greater self-control, or self-mastery.
132:3.10 Universe progress is characterized by increasing personality freedom because it is associated with the progressive attainment of higher and higher levels of self-understanding and consequent voluntary self-restraint. The attainment of perfection of spiritual self-restraint equals completeness of universe freedom and personal liberty.
195:6.16 Freedom or initiative in any realm of existence is directly proportional to the degree of spiritual influence and cosmic-mind control; that is, in human experience, the degree of the actuality of doing “the Father’s will.” And so, when you once start out to find God, that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you. Jesus came to set men free. He opened the door and showed the way to self-mastery. Self-mastery is the purpose the psychic or cosmic circles. They are the means by which we learn cosmic-mind control, soul growth and personality realization. He set us free to grow, not just spiritually, but as whole personalities. There is no way to do that without making choices and there is no way to make choices without the ability to pick between all the options.
39:4.14 The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. Men use them — advance in spirit status — by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions.
Love and peace Sister.
Right backatcha Brother. So glad you’re enjoying my work. It makes it more worthwhile knowing that. So, in regards to gravity circuits and transfer of dominance, do you want that all tied together into an essay on soul growth and circle progress? Or, did you want each type of gravity discussed individually? There’s so much to talk about there. Everything overlaps and circles around again, so I’m not sure how to organize it all. If I don’t prioritize it, I will write for days and days and days . . . until you get sick of it.
Might we begin with the “tied together” essay? And then dive into a more detailed articulation of the many moving parts? Agreed there is so much to tie together….there are so many agents, influences, circuits to consider. To harmonize or unify them provides an important perspective. I am sorry Zuimon has left us but glad for his posts here as I think so much of his personal philosophy and perspective is quite representative of a wide spectrum of beliefs commonly held by many who do not benefit by the facts and relationships portrayed in the Revelation to help sort out truth from error – so many New/Old Age beliefs grip so many perspectives of so many God believers (while some are truly creative and personalized, so many more are just forms of primitivisms and falsehoods). While I certainly agree that no believer (in God) requires such information as provided in the Papers for soul growth and spirit progress, those of us who have such knowledge are guided more clearly and we are blessed thereby. But it is my confident belief that we are but the tip of what such knowledge will bring and result in over the coming decades and centuries for Urantia. This is a gift FOR epochal transformation of our world….another seed of truth and fact gifted for this purpose….as go the parts, so goes the whole!
I think the student body of sincere readers has an opportunity to develop personal understanding and utilization/implementation of the teachings, but even more importantly, in its way, is to develop scholarship and formats of learning from AND teaching one another what the Papers say. What it means depends upon each student to discern, embrace, and express what it says/teaches in our daily life to truly learn and progress thereby. I will not say students are so obligated to share, to learn together, and teach one another – however, this is the model of the past 4 epochals and the universe at large, so why not embrace that here and now (as all here do!). The seeds of truth, beauty, and goodness that bring forth spirit fruit in our own lives may be shared in so many ways. But the effects over time to our world and long after we have departed of such sharing and caring create an ever growing and lasting legacy, a gift from the present for the future of our world.
Those who attend here now benefit…but the footprints upon this trail of discovery will remain for those who come long after. We create a culture of learning, sharing, and caring that is very important both now and in time to come. Unity of purpose without uniformity of perspective is not so easy…..or not so in a world where differences define us more than all that we have in common. As more and more of humanity looks inward and upward and outward into the heavens of creation, those differences will come to be appreciated and embraced as we all face eternity together as the family we truly are. All souls and every soul has the capacity and potential for never ending adventure – the adventure of discovery, learning, doing, transcending, serving, and creating.
This common destiny potential is best approached and appreciated by undying hope, faith confidence, sincere effort, and in a state of curiosity, peace of mind, happiness, and true joy! Soul building is obstructed by anxiety, fear, anger, impatience, discomfort with uncertainties (the very intersection of opportunity and adventure and discovery), and all material attachments (not the material reality but the attachment to that reality at the great cost of identifying WITH our material nature rather than transferring the very seat of our personal identity to the Spirit nature gifted to us each and all).
Thanks Bonita for all the illumination and inspiration to know more, be more, do more…and to be thrilled to live every day as God’s children in this friendly universe! You’re a peach!!
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