420 posts · 13 participants · started Mar 23, 2017, 2:39 PM
We are taught by TUB that we are to seek out and focus our attention on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. All the rest can be cast aside. Sure, we can “see” those things that ‘aren’t good’ but they don’t contribute to soul growth. We should reach for better things.
3:5.11 (51.10) 6. Is idealism — the approaching concept of the divine — desirable? Then must man struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.
(151:4.6) “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a sweep net which was cast into the sea, and it gathered up every kind of fish. Now, when the net was filled, the fishermen drew it up on the beach, where they sat down and sorted out the fish, gathering the good into vessels while the bad they threw away.”
We are also taught that since the kingdom is like a sweep net, it’s important to “see” all that isn’t good too, and be better prepared. This way, you’ll be more capable to “see” and distinguish the pearl of great price that is the kingdom, when it appears where you’re not looking.
195:5.12 [Part IV]As you view the world, remember that the black patches of evil which you see are shown against a white background of ultimate good. You do not view merely white patches of good which show up miserably against a black background of evil.
Nothing gray about it.
176:3.7 [Part IV]Truth is living; the Spirit of Truth is ever leading the children of light into new realms of spiritual reality and divine service. You are not given truth to crystallize into settled, safe, and honored forms. Your revelation of truth must be so enhanced by passing through your personal experience that new beauty and actual spiritual gains will be disclosed to all who behold your spiritual fruits and in consequence thereof are led to glorify the Father who is in heaven. Only those faithful servants who thus grow in the knowledge of the truth, and who thereby develop the capacity for divine appreciation of spiritual realities, can ever hope to “enter fully into the joy of their Lord.” What a sorry sight for successive generations of the professed followers of Jesus to say, regarding their stewardship of divine truth: “Here, Master, is the truth you committed to us a hundred or a thousand years ago. We have lost nothing; we have faithfully preserved all you gave us; we have allowed no changes to be made in that which you taught us; here is the truth you gave us.” But such a plea concerning spiritual indolence will not justify the barren steward of truth in the presence of the Master. In accordance with the truth committed to your hands will the Master of truth require a reckoning.
I’m reminded of these two quotes:
195:5.12 As you view the world, remember that the black patches of evil which you see are shown against a white background of ultimate good. You do not view merely white patches of good which show up miserably against a black background of evil.
195:5.13 When there is so much good truth to publish and proclaim, why should men dwell so much upon the evil in the world just because it appears to be a fact? The beauties of the spiritual values of truth are more pleasurable and uplifting than is the phenomenon of evil.
Life in the psychic circles requires that we repeat decisions over and over and over again. Part of that is a form of patterning, the other is a form of education: learning how to recognize truth, beauty and goodness in multiple settings with multiple factors affecting one’s vision and figuring out how to coordinate it all (elliptical symmetry of all reality). How we “see” life really matters.
Getting back to what Gene was talking about concerning “thou shalt not” thinking . . . mature thinking no longer needs “shalt and shalt not” thinking, black or white, good or evil. Mature individuals coordinate truth, beauty and goodness through love. It’s all good.
140:5.9-10 Experiential righteousness is a pleasure, not a duty. Jesus’ righteousness is a dynamic love—fatherly-brotherly affection. It is not the negative or thou-shalt-not type of righteousness. How could one ever hunger for something negative—something “not to do”? It is not so easy to teach a child mind these first two of the beatitudes, but the mature mind should grasp their significance.
2:7.12 Truth is coherent, beauty attractive, goodness stabilizing. And when these values of that which is real are co-ordinated in personality experience, the result is a high order of love conditioned by wisdom and qualified by loyalty. The real purpose of all universe education is to effect the better co-ordination of the isolated child of the worlds with the larger realities of his expanding experience. Reality is finite on the human level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine levels.
Hey there Mara! I guess I was busy composing my last post and didn’t notice you offered the same quote about black patches. Great minds think alike!
Mature individuals coordinate truth, beauty and goodness through love. It’s all good.
Did Jesus think it was all good?
(157:6.9) “And mark well my words: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
Thank God Jesus knows it isn’t all good.
Thank God Jesus knows it isn’t all good.
And that’s very good for all sinners, don’t you think?
Hey there Mara! I guess I was busy composing my last post and didn’t notice you offered the same quote about black patches. Great minds think alike!
Hey Bonita, nothing personal here, but I sometimes think my mind is pretty great too.
Then Jesus reminds me.
It isn’t all good.
Said Jesus,
178:1.12 You may always labor to persuade men’s minds, but you must never dare to compel them. You must not forget the great law of human fairness which I have taught you in positive form: Whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.
Good day brotherhood,
post #24805 Bradly
- What do others think of this “cost”?
- Those who believe in sacrifice for salvation have missed the point of the last two epochal revelations.
Misstatements, inaccuracy of Reality are parts of teething …
I adore Bradley when you show us a milk tooth replace by wisdom tooth. ;)
Brotherly
Whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.
Does anybody besides me think the “sweep net parable” and the “wheat and tares parable” are about the same thing? We recently had a discussion on the wheat and tares, right? I think we came up with at least three good reasons for allowing the tares to grow with the wheat (which is the same as gathering all the “good and bad” fish together). (Or perhaps mixing black and white?)
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is how and when the idea of black or white, good or bad and nothing in between started. I think the religious philosophy of dualism started in Persia with Zoroaster, but it goes back farther than that. It’s a really primitive idea and I recall it had something to do with the notion of good luck and bad luck, which eventually morphed into black and white smiths, who evolved into black or white magicians, then good or bad spirits. Good and evil at odds and fighting with one another is a pretty primitive idea, I think. If there are only two choices, it means black is equal with white; evil is equal with good. Although we are always faced with choices, the good outweighs evil on all counts. It’s not even a fair match, so it can’t be an either or situation. It’s possible that choice can be between good and gooder. It’s all good, and only when you fight good are you slipping into “bad”. That’s how I see it, and I see life as good . . . . very, very, very good . . . getting gooder and gooder all the time.
And don’t agondonters persistently see white despite all the “so-called” blackness?
102:6.7 . . . but faith is always triumphant over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience. Said Jesus: “If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples.”
And don’t agondonters persistently see white despite all the “so-called” blackness?
Persistently see white?
That used to be considered primitive, didn’t it?
Is the truth prejudiced now?
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is how and when the idea of black or white, good or bad and nothing in between started.
103:1.5[Part III]That religionists have believed so much that was false does not invalidate religion because religion is founded on the recognition of values and is validated by the faith of personal religious experience. Religion, then, is based on experience and religious thought; theology, the philosophy of religion, is an honest attempt to interpret that experience. Such interpretative beliefs may be right or wrong, or a mixture of truth and error.
. . . . Such interpretative beliefs may be right or wrong, or a mixture of truth and error. (103:1.5)
UH OH!!! A mixture huh? Whoa. So people believe in black, white and gray . . . the whole gamut. How’s about that? I wonder why that is? Don’t you think it’s because of the evolution of thought? I don’t think jumping from black to white is always a one-step process. Isn’t growth slow and unconscious? I think we have to train our minds to think optimistically, to always look for truth, beauty and goodness and coordinate it in love. Jesus was certainly optimistic. I think TUB actually calls it “divine optimism”! And I think divine optimism includes wisdom (that highest adjutant thing).
I was thinking too of how the Adjuster works in the mind. Doesn’t he consider both the egoistic needs of the individual and the altruistic motive, putting a preference on the altruistic option? Doesn’t the Adjuster gently urge us toward that goal? He doesn’t demand a black or white decision, but a decision that favors his altruistic will, a slight nudge towards a more loving nature. Yeah, it’s all good, getting gooder all the time.
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So people believe in black, white and gray . . . the whole gamut.
. . . due perhaps “. . . owing to this relativity in the completeness of knowledge and in the repleteness of personal experience as well as in the length and extent of that experience.”
2:7.3 Divine truth, final truth, is uniform and universal, but the story of things spiritual, as it is told by numerous individuals hailing from various spheres, may sometimes vary in details owing to this relativity in the completeness of knowledge and in the repleteness of personal experience as well as in the length and extent of that experience. While the laws and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of the First Great Source and Center are eternally, infinitely, and universally true; at the same time, their application to, and adjustment for, every universe, system, world, and created intelligence, are in accordance with the plans and technique of the Creator Sons as they function in their respective universes, as well as in harmony with the local plans and procedures of the Infinite Spirit and of all other associated celestial personalities.
A pint cannot hold a quart.
I was thinking too of how the Adjuster works in the mind.
Here is another way to see how the Adjuster works:
111:1.9 [Part III]Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the morontia harbors of eternal survival. Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and on beyond, even to the Paradise Father of Adjusters.
