What is conscience?

[Van Amadon]

Bradly wrote:

48:5.8 (551.3) After the life in the flesh, time is no longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations.

What’s that last line saying I wonder? There’s still plenty of time.

The last line is saying there is not plenty of time. In fact, there isn’t any time. The line says: no time available.

In this regard Heaven may not be so heavenly.

Or the line might be saying that if you didn’t stop “dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations” while you where living the life in the flesh, it will be impossible to do it in heaven.

Because there “time is no longer available”.

 

[Bonita]

Bradly wrote: After the life in the flesh, time is no longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations.

What’s that last line saying I wonder? There’s still plenty of time.

Wouldn’t you say the bad habit of “circumventing disagreeable obligations” is basically selfish?  What makes an obligation disagreeable?  Probably because it’s something you don’t want to do. Why don’t you want to do it?  Does doing this thing require you to be less self-absorbed and more selfless? Is it possibly mean going God’s way instead of your own?

In regards to time. Time is the one talent we’re given to work out our survival.  Once we get to the mansion worlds, haven’t we gained survival, at least provisional survival? This is where we’re supposed to retrieve our losses from our earlier creature life. Burying time under such circumstances would be regressive, it could be fatal to eternal survival (fusion).  I would think the business of survival is the only business on the mansion worlds and no one there would tolerate any squandering of time.  Isn’t that what the teachers, companions and aids are all about?   Making sure you stay focused on the ascension road ahead?  Sure you have plenty of time, but it still has to be used productively.  If not, you sink, you might not fuse, you might not ever get to where you’re supposed to go.  It could be really bad.  It makes sense that procrastination is one of the vestiges of animal nature that must do a disappearing act.  It also makes sense since it is basically selfish, and selfishness also has to do a disappearing act.

28:6.9 3. The Import of Time. Time is the one universal endowment of all will creatures; it is the “one talent” intrusted to all intelligent beings. You all have time in which to insure your survival; and time is fatally squandered only when it is buried in neglect, when you fail so to utilize it as to make certain the survival of your soul. Failure to improve one’s time to the fullest extent possible does not impose fatal penalties; it merely retards the pilgrim of time in his journey of ascent. If survival is gained, all other losses can be retrieved.

Bradly wrote:I wonder also if the scale from should-nots up through the shoulds somehow mirrors the spectrum of ethics-morality-the rungs of the Golden Rule?

If we “shoulds” and “should-nots” are conscience, and if conscience is about morality, then the six levels of the golden rule are ascending steps of conscience telling the material mind what it should and should not do.  Clearly, the six levels are also of ascending selflessness.  The self-absorption factor becomes less and less as you ascend.  The ability to put other people’s needs before your own grows.  At a certain point, I’ll bet the conscience “shoulds” and “should-nots” don’t even factor into it because you begin to think with the higher soul system of thought instead of the animal me-centric mind.  I don’t think the soul has a conscience.  I think the voice within your head telling you what you should and should not do is the critter voice.  The voice of the Adjuster (in whatever form he uses), is what guides the soul.  And I think that is the voice of love, which must always be outgoing.  “Always outgoing” means that it cannot turn around and start circling the self in self-love.  If it does, it’s no longer love, it’s something else called “evil,” or spiritual pride, or worse.

156:5.11 You are destined to live a narrow and mean life if you learn to love only those who love you. Human love may indeed be reciprocal, but divine love is outgoing in all its satisfaction-seeking. The less of love in any creature’s nature, the greater the love need, and the more does divine love seek to satisfy such need. Love is never self-seeking, and it cannot be self-bestowed. Divine love cannot be self-contained; it must be unselfishly bestowed.

Bradly wrote: Opposite of procrastination might be found impulsiveness and/or impatience.

That’s interesting Bradly.  Impatience is just as self-absorbed as procrastination, isn’t it?  Impatience is the unwillingness to do God’s will because of the overwhelming desire to do what you want instead, right now this moment.  It’s sorta like a terrible two .  It’s hard to believe that Eve had acted like a terrible two, but trying to short-circuit time to suit yourself kinda is an immature thing to do in the grand universe scheme of things.  It’s a good thing that immaturity is not held against us.  So, I don’t know what’s worse, procrastination or impatience, but I think they’re both not so good.  They both mess with time (our one talent) in a negative way.

[Van Amadon]

Could it be Bonita, that this is the point of no return? That the one talent (time) if squandered with consistent impulsive procrastination while living the life in the flesh, will make it impossible to get to heaven, where time is no longer available for it?

The one talent of time is only available here, not there. If you bury it here, it will stay here, and so will you.

Are you sure there’s plenty of time?

[Anonymous]

Bradly wrote:

Great stuff here!! The “should’s” got me thinking about procrastination:

48:5.8 (551.3) One of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and ease seeking. The mansonia life early teaches the young morontia pupils that postponement is in no sense avoidance. After the life in the flesh, time is no longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations.

What’s that last line saying I wonder? There’s still plenty of time.

Bradly, I’m surprised that you question what the UB actually says, or is this one of the areas where it doesn’t say?  This last line is straight forward in understanding when one realizes where it has been presented, and in this case it is in the section listed as “5. The Mansion World Teachers”.  It also indicates that this line applies to after “the life in the flesh,” not your current understanding of reality in the now.  Therefore, if you also read the paragraphs which precede and follow this specific UB quote, one could better understand that in this case, that time, not being available refers to progression forward, and not being willing to just being a tadpole.  The reference then to time for an individual, indicates that one does not progress until they get it right, and then can move on to the next stage from their “initial phases of the progression career.”  Like, becoming a frog?

[Bonita]

VanAmadon wrote:Could it be Bonita, that this is the point of no return? That the one talent (time) if squandered with consistent impulsive procrastination while living the life in the flesh, will make it impossible to get to heaven, where time is no longer available for it??

Van, are you a new reader?  I need to know before attempting to explain this.  Time exists everywhere in the evolutionary universes.  The place we call “heaven” is also in the evolutionary universes.   But I think if you want to discuss time or heaven, you should start a separate thread in that it is only peripherally related to conscience. Conscience is something that belongs to the adjutant level of mind.  We do not take the adjutant mind with us to “heaven”.

[Van Amadon]

Forgive me Bonita. Conscience works primarily to keep pressure on the fact that time is limited. Big time. One talent’s worth.

I’ve been reading the Urantia Book for 34 years. I know what it says. What it doesn’t say intrigues me very much.

You?

[Bradly]

Thanks Bonita!!  Yes, I agree that both impatience and procrastination are forms of self indulgence and self importance and, also, misappropriation or misapplication of time.  The difference between patience and procrastination is profound.  Patience requires time for process or timing for effectiveness.  On a planetary progress level, it often requires an appreciation of evolution and pattern adjustments over time rather than attempting to circumvent time and evolution.

When personal conscience precedes social conscience, impatience is a likely companion…so those with vision may face righteous indignation on behalf of others (not self centered) and yet frustration, disappointment, impatience, etc. will be magnified without the proper “time unit” perspective….or patience with process and pattern alignment as the individuals en masse, or collectively, also progress.  There’s something in the text about the balance between the social accelerator and the social brake (resistance) which only time can properly balance into progress….or so I remember (or misremember!  hahaha).

Jesus said every decision moves us forward or backward….this is true on the Mansion Worlds too….maybe even more measurably or radically than here?

Interesting indeed!   = )

 

[Bonita]

VanAmadon wrote:

I’ve been reading the Urantia Book for 34 years.

Excellent!  That means I don’t have to start at the beginning.  First, did you read what I said procrastination is in my earlier post?  Do you have a problem with my definition?

VanAmadon wrote:  Conscience works primarily to keep pressure on the fact that time is limited.

Conscience has to do with morality. Questions like: Should I tolerate this a-hole or not?  Should I do more than tolerate him and actually try to be nice to him?  Or, should I just walk away and ignore him, put the whole thing on ice until I’m forced to deal with his a-holeness later?

Procrastination has to do with the last option.  It still has to be dealt with, now or later, it doesn’t matter. If I chose the first one, trying to be tolerant, that would have been at least showing some effort.  If I had been wise and chose the second option, I would have shown a little spirit leading in trying hard to return good for evil.  But, if I do nothing at all, put it on ice, means I haven’t made a decision at all. I know that something must be done, but I don’t care enough right now to do it.  Nothing happens when you don’t make decisions. On the mansion worlds, you can’t float decisions until you feel like making them.  You can only float them until you understand all aspects you’re capable of understanding, which is what all the teachers and helpers are there for.

Procrastination is evidence of partial loyalty or dying loyalty of indifference, both of which are basically sinful but remediable because they are signs of immaturity.  The quote Bradly offered is about the abuse of time for your own self interest.  There is plenty of time, but the abuse of time is limited.  And it’s limited because it’s evil.  The conscience may or may not put pressure on the personality who is abusing time.  It depends on how well developed the conscience is and how habitual the abuse of time has become, among other things.

 

 

[Mara]

I edited these comments. 

[Anonymous]

Bonita wrote:

Conscience has to do with morality. Questions like: Should I tolerate this a-hole or not? Should I do more than tolerate him and actually try to be nice to him? Or, should I just walk away and ignore him, put the whole thing on ice until I’m forced to deal with his a-holeness later?

I am curious as to how the definition above regarding how morality can represent some form of conscience specifically if it is subjective to one’s opinion that they are dealing with someone who has been judged an “a-hole”?  Would this not indicate an intimate understanding of a person (a-hole) and, also a relationship which the obsolete definition of “conscience” — “consciousness; self-knowledge” and “strict and reverential observance”, applies?

[Mara]

VanAmadon wrote:  Conscience works primarily to keep pressure on the fact that time is limited.

So it seems, especially if one were to consider “time” as measured by the length of one’s life.

65:8:3 The individual’s yardstick for time measurement is the length of his life. All creatures are thus time conditioned, and therefore do they regard evolution as being a long-drawn-out process. To those of us whose life span is not limited by a temporal existence, evolution does not seem to be such a protracted transaction. On Paradise, where time is nonexistent, these things are all present in the mind of Infinity and the acts of Eternity.

Here is a note about time consciousness.

118:1:3 There is a direct relationship between maturity and the unit of time consciousness in any given intellect. The time unit may be a day, a year, or a longer period, but inevitably it is the criterion by which the conscious self evaluates the circumstances of life, and by which the conceiving intellect measures and evaluates the facts of temporal existence.

Does time consciousness go hand-in-hand with conscience?

Bonita wrote   . . . but the abuse of time is limited. And it’s limited because it’s evil.

This seems exaggerated to me. I do a lot of things that require much time to accomplish, but which I consider not to be contributory to spiritual pursuits. Work, for example.   But regarding evil:

48:6:33  Law is life itself and not the rules of its conduct. Evil is a transgression of law, not a violation of the rules of conduct pertaining to life, which is the law.

Conscience pertains to one’s perception of whether or not one has violated the rules of conduct in a particular situation.  And perhaps also an estimation of whether or not one can get away with violating the rules of conduct without personal repercussions.  The brigand on a cross next to Jesus was saved moments before he expired.  We live in a merciful universe.

[Van Amadon]

Mara wrote:

Conscience pertains to one’s perception of whether or not one has violated the rules of conduct in a particular situation. And perhaps also an estimation of whether or not one can get away with violating the rules of conduct without personal repercussions. The brigand on a cross next to Jesus was saved moments before he expired.

And the other brigand railed at Jesus. Probably due to the failure of his conscience to register in his mind that even when faced with the absolute limit of time to live the life of the flesh, he may have thought incorrectly that there was still plenty of time to be an a-hole

[Bradly]

MidiChlorian wrote:

Bradly wrote:

Great stuff here!! The “should’s” got me thinking about procrastination:

48:5.8 (551.3) One of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and ease seeking. The mansonia life early teaches the young morontia pupils that postponement is in no sense avoidance. After the life in the flesh, time is no longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations.

What’s that last line saying I wonder? There’s still plenty of time.

Bradly, I’m surprised that you question what the UB actually says, or is this one of the areas where it doesn’t say? This last line is straight forward in understanding when one realizes where it has been presented, and in this case it is in the section listed as “5. The Mansion World Teachers”. It also indicates that this line applies to after “the life in the flesh,” not your current understanding of reality in the now. Therefore, if you also read the paragraphs which precede and follow this specific UB quote, one could better understand that in this case, that time, not being available refers to progression forward, and not being willing to just being a tadpole. The reference then to time for an individual, indicates that one does not progress until they get it right, and then can move on to the next stage from their “initial phases of the progression career.” Like, becoming a frog?

Thanks for the response.  I did not mean to “question what the UB actually says” but to seek illumination from others as to the meaning.  I am aware of the Mansion World connection and life phase for the quote, thank you.  My understanding of reality, thanks to the UB, is greater than my experience so far within that reality.  I’m sure I’ll be a tadpole until lungs and legs replace gills and tail as my unconscious growth progresses sufficiently by my loyalty and sincerity to seek the spirit within and aspire to ultimate destiny potential…fusion is but another step along the Paradise Path, if indeed a glorious moment!

As to “not progressing until they get it right”; an interesting proposition that….it is my understanding that intention to progress combined with the motive to love and serve will always result in progress of one kind or another and that there is much progress to be made in balancing and harmonizing multiple aspects of being and experience which result in an increasing experiential wisdom and enlarged perspective of reality.  It is true that each circle is attained by some weight, measure, and evaluation of our Thought Adjuster who knows of a certainty when sufficient progress is accomplished which is finally recognized by actual fusion….and that this will always happen, regardless of the time it takes, if we but resist not these gentle urgings forward during our tadpoleness.

Bonita…you still crack me up….the 3 choices one has for responding to insult/evil are a ponderment for sure.  The Master taught we are not to simply avoid or even resist such evil or cleverness but to find some form of response that returns good in some form as the response of choice.  Not easy.  Avoidance, surrender, or abandoning the encounter are poor ways to demonstrate courage and faithfulness.  We must do better than being more clever than those who assail us and we cannot let ourselves betray the truth of a situation either.  A quandary.

I disagree with the notion that there is ever a shortage of time….here or there.  The explanation Bonita gave is excellent – it is the abuse of time that is a false luxury that does not exist which does not mean there is any hurry….it is not the speed but the direction of progress which matter I think.  Half our time in the next life is leisure, respite, reversionary time.  On a world of L&L, only 1-2 hours of “work” or employment per day is necessary to make a “living” and pay our “taxes” of 10% which runs the administration of a whole world.  The text says, as I now understand it, that time “…as a technique for…dodging…and circumventing…”; it does not say “time” is short….but procrastinating and avoidance don’t find any form of tolerance or indifference.  It will be pointed out and addressed and corrected.

There is no time shortage.  We will learn great skills and express great talents…that take great time to develop and express.  We will work with the artisans to design and build magnificent gardens and edifices and we will learn that which will not fit into a thousand Urantia Books about the same topics of history, science, cosmology, relationship, etc.  Oh yes…..there’s lots of time!!!!  Along with mercy credits, patience, and most excellent teachers, guides, companions, and helpers….not to mention fellow tadpoles and then fellow frogs along the whole glorious adventure!!

Sorry to get off the conscience topic Bonita.  My point on procrastination is that in myself it tends to create a sense of guilt and irresponsibility until I actually deal with whatever I am avoiding.  Should have said so earlier but it seems everyone (or mostly) got the connection.   = )

[Bonita]

Mara wrote: Bonita wrote   . . . but the abuse of time is limited. And it’s limited because it’s evil. This seems exaggerated to me. I do a lot of things that require much time to accomplish, but which I consider not to be contributory to spiritual pursuits. Work, for example.

So you consider your job to be an abuse of time?  You don’t consider your job important spiritually?  Jesus thought his everyday job was. Everything he did was a spiritual pursuit.  All work is sacred to a kingdom dweller.  Even making a living requires religion if it is to be ideal.

 p1778:4  160:4.1  While you have an eye single to the attainment of eternal realities, you must also make provision for the necessities of temporal living. While the spirit is our goal, the flesh is a fact. Occasionally the necessities of living may fall into our hands by accident, but in general, we must intelligently work for them. The two major problems of life are: making a temporal living and the achievement of eternal survival. And even the problem of making a living requires religion for its ideal solution. These are both highly personal problems. True religion, in fact, does not function apart from the individual.

192.2.13  Never forget that, when you are a faith son of God, all upright work of the realm is sacred. Nothing which a son of God does can be common. Do your work, therefore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and better worlds where you shall likewise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you.

155:3.7 They learned that, when religion is wholly spiritual in motive, it makes all life more worth while, filling it with high purposes, dignifying it with transcendent values, inspiring it with superb motives, all the while comforting the human soul with a sublime and sustaining hope. True religion is designed to lessen the strain of existence; it releases faith and courage for daily living and unselfish serving. Faith promotes spiritual vitality and righteous fruitfulness.

Compartmentalizing one’s life into spiritual and nonspiritual activities is counterproductive to spiritual progress which requires the integration and coordination of all levels of reality, including what you do to put food in your stomach, a roof over your head and clothes on your body.

102:6.1  To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none.

[Bonita]

Bradly wrote:  . . . it is not the speed but the direction of progress which matter I think.

Right on!

147:5.7 That same evening Jesus made the long-to-be-remembered address to the apostles regarding the relative value of status with God and progress in the eternal ascent to Paradise. Said Jesus: “My children, if there exists a true and living connection between the child and the Father, the child is certain to progress continuously toward the Father’s ideals. True, the child may at first make slow progress, but the progress is none the less sure. The important thing is not the rapidity of your progress but rather its certainty. Your actual achievement is not so important as the fact that the direction of your progress is Godward. What you are becoming day by day is of infinitely more importance than what you are today.

And a slowly progressing child is also a slowly progressing tadpole.  But it’s not about the speed of progress, it’s about the certainty.  Have you made a commitment, have you consecrated your will?  If so, you’re right on target and it’s sure to happen.  Yippee yahoo!

Bradly wrote: Sorry to get off the conscience topic Bonita.

Hey, it’s not my topic.  Apologize to Mara.

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