143 posts · 7 participants · started Oct 9, 2016, 9:13 PM
“Many times, when you have done evil, you have thought to charge up your acts to the influence of the evil one when in reality you have but been led astray by your own natural tendencies.”
Bonita,
Let me help you, did you forget to compare me to Donald Trump?
Van/nod, I cannot believe that you are as dense as you seem. Surely you understand the position I am attempting to present. Your assertion of being the “uplift”, needs qualification. The premise you present is only partially true. Surely you’ve read the quote which tells us that partial knowledge is potentially evil. Your claim of being the “uplift” should not be taught to others in its incomplete state since it can lead others to make mistakes similar to the ones Lucifer made. Lucifer believed that God is not necessary for everything to be wonderful, that equality of mind and the brotherhood of intelligence is all that’s necessary for everything to be on the up and up. And without qualification, your assertion that you are the “uplift” does the same thing.
The big problem is that believing that you are the “uplift” completely omits the concept of service in the form of willingness to do God’s will by an act of one’s own will. It’s a natural consequence that human logic would consider that mortal will alone is sufficient to do the uplifting. Surely you see that wide open loop hole in your statement! You must be able to see that. So, what is wrong with amending your statement to include something about partnership with God? Leaving God out of “uplift” leaves it a little flat, don’t you think? Surely you are a reasonable enough individual to accept the truth in that.
Spiritual pride is extremely dangerous and can be quite insidious. These little openings of partial truth don’t seem like much to some. I’m sure there are those out there who think I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill, but we all know how these things go if not corrected. All sorts of crazy ideas start grow like weeds and threaten to crowd out the truth. The truth will still be there, it will survive, but why waste time and energy with weeds? Humans are weak in the thinking department and they love to fantasize and make myths. “You are the uplift” can come to mean all manner of ridiculous and distorted things given enough time. I recommend you read this next quote and think about my suggestion of qualifying your statement because I truly think if you don’t, you will be perverting the truth. And the fact that I’ve explained, in many different ways, and offered TUB quotes to support my explanations, means that you are on the verge of a premeditated perversion of truth. That is, unless you cannot recognize the truth, which I sincerely doubt. To deny God is the uplifter is a falsehood no matter how you look at it. I don’t see how your conscience wouldn’t go crazy with conflict if you repudiate that.
48:6.33 Falsehood is not a matter of narration technique but something premeditated as a perversion of truth. The creation of new pictures out of old facts, the restatement of parental life in the lives of offspring — these are the artistic triumphs of truth. The shadow of a hair’s turning, premeditated for an untrue purpose, the slightest twisting or perversion of that which is principle — these constitute falseness. But the fetish of factualized truth, fossilized truth, the iron band of so-called unchanging truth, holds one blindly in a closed circle of cold fact. One can be technically right as to fact and everlastingly wrong in the truth.
Here’s another way to think about it. Ask yourself, what causes the “uplift”. What is it about you that is the “uplift”. Is it your personality, your mere presence? I think most of us can agree that that’s not enough. There are a lot of personalities around who bring you down, seriously down. There must be something about the person that results in the “uplift”. I think TUB describes that as spiritual fragrance which is caused by spiritual fruit. How can there be spiritual fruit without spirit? They don’t just naturally grow without some connection to a source of spirit.
So, how are spiritual fruit produced? Can they be produced by the sheer force of mortal will? No, of course not. (Although Lucifer would have you think so.) You can try all day and all night from now until eternity to produce spiritual fruit and all you’ll get is social fruit. Now, there are some who would tell you that social fruits are uplifting. I guess it depends on how you define “uplift”. Lift what up and lift it to where? This is where human psychobabbling, self-help gurus come in to claim their ability to “uplift”, but all they uplift is your emotions and their wallets. This is not the kind of “uplift” we’re really talking about. We’re talking about spiritual “uplift”, right?
Spiritual fruit can only be produced by being connected to the spiritual vine, and the spiritual vine is the Spirit of Truth. No spiritual connection, no spiritual “uplift”. Period. It’s a partnership where we allow the vital spirit juices to flow through us and bring fragrant spiritual fruit to actual life in the experiential world of time and space. To say we are the “uplift” is the same as saying that “we are the fruit”, which is poppycock. We are merely a branch on the vine. The fruit is God’s fruit, the “uplift” is God’s.
So Van/nod, maybe you can amend your statement to say “You are the branches of God’s uplifting vine.”??
182:1.22 I am the true vine; you are the branches.
194:3.1 The Creator Son, in the flesh, revealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, reveals the Creator Son to men. When man yields the “fruits of the spirit” in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the Master manifested in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on earth, he lived his life as one personality–Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the “new teacher,” the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer.
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.
102.7.4 True, many apparently religious traits can grow out of nonreligious roots. Man can, intellectually, deny God and yet be morally good, loyal, filial, honest, and even idealistic. Man may graft many purely humanistic branches onto his basic spiritual nature and thus apparently prove his contentions in behalf of a godless religion, but such an experience is devoid of survival values, God-knowingness and God-ascension. In such a mortal experience only social fruits are forthcoming, not spiritual. The graft determines the nature of the fruit, notwithstanding that the living sustenance is drawn from the roots of original divine endowment of both mind and spirit.
So Van/nod, maybe you can amend your statement to say “You are the branches of God’s uplifting vine.”??
No Bonita, the Uplift is you when after you thank God for allowing you to be imperfect, you stop worrying about the fine print in the rule book and get off the bench and decide that this is the day, with God’s uplifting help, you’re going to dedicate yourself to pitch a perfect game.
It’s been done before you know, but not without a sense of humor.
VanAmadon wrote: . . . with God’s uplifting help
AHA!!!!! You finally said it! “God’s uplifting”. Thank you. Now that’s more like it. Way to go!
Here’s another interesting thing about being a partner to God’s uplifting power, the process is unconscious. True selflessness, or self-forgetfulness, is the most uplifting because with the self is out of the way which allows the most of God’s light to shine. This happens when consciousness of your own worth is totally absorbed by your commitment and devotion to doing God’s will, something with more value to you than yourself. True goodness is unconscious, which was so gloriously exemplified by Jesus asking, “Why do you call me good?” It was because Jesus was so self-forgetful that the Father was able to reveal himself through him so perfectly. That is how you go about uplifting, by forgetting about yourself and allowing God to manifest himself to the world through you. And when you do, it’s unlikely that you’d even be aware of it.
196:09 And yet, despite this very deep consciousness of close relationship with divinity, this Galilean, God’s Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, “Why do you call me good?” When we stand confronted by such splendid self–forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms.
OK, that’s funny. Lol. Yes, God’s uplifting, and so are you.
196:09 And yet, despite this very deep consciousness of close relationship with divinity, this Galilean, God’s Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, “Why do you call me good?” When we stand confronted by such splendid self–forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms.
(2088.4) 196:0.9 The Master’s entire life was consistently conditioned by this living faith, this sublime religious experience. This spiritual attitude wholly dominated his thinking and feeling, his believing and praying, his teaching and preaching. This personal faith of a son in the certainty and security of the guidance and protection of the heavenly Father imparted to his unique life a profound endowment of spiritual reality. And yet, despite this very deep consciousness of close relationship with divinity, this Galilean, God’s Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, “Why do you call me good?” When we stand confronted by such splendid self-forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms.
(2088.5) 196:0.10 Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic service of doing the divine will. Jesus always and consistently interpreted religion wholly in terms of the Father’s will. When you study the career of the Master, as concerns prayer or any other feature of the religious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Jesus never prayed as a religious duty. To him prayer was a sincere expression of spiritual attitude, a declaration of soul loyalty, a recital of personal devotion, an expression of thanksgiving, an avoidance of emotional tension, a prevention of conflict, an exaltation of intellection, an ennoblement of desire, a vindication of moral decision, an enrichment of thought, an invigoration of higher inclinations, a consecration of impulse, a clarification of viewpoint, a declaration of faith, a transcendental surrender of will, a sublime assertion of confidence, a revelation of courage, the proclamation of discovery, a confession of supreme devotion, the validation of consecration, a technique for the adjustment of difficulties, and the mighty mobilization of the combined soul powers to withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father’s will and ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. 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.
(2089.1) 196:0.11 In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the divine spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child, but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound confidence in the universe — just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus’ wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child’s trust in the security of its earthly surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father’s overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear.
(2089.2) 196:0.12 The faith of Jesus attained the purity of a child’s trust. His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of dependence on the divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the joy and the assurance of absolute personal security. There was no hesitating pretense in his religious experience. In this giant intellect of the full-grown man the faith of the child reigned supreme in all matters relating to the religious consciousness. It is not strange that he once said, “Except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom.” Notwithstanding that Jesus’ faith was childlike, it was in no sense childish.
(2089.3) 196:0.13 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, “Follow me.”
YOU ARE THE UPLIFT! All those who want to play ball that is, instead of sitting the bench with the Major League Rule Book in their face. It looks real funny to be in the dugout with the team uniform on, reading the fine print of the rules of the game like a lawyer, over and over again, instead of playing in the game of the ages. Try not to cut off your nose to spite your face Bonita while obsessing on the percieved poppycock of others. Weren’t you thanking God for not being perfect?
“Be you perfect, even as I am perfect”
VA – I wonder still who you describe here and accuse by this endless parade of not so subtle insinuations. Who is sitting on the bench? What rules do you mean? Who is not playing the “game of the ages”? Who is not doing What?
VanAmadon wrote: “So what you are saying is what I see some others say a lot on these forums, that we, you and the rest of us don’t really need to do much. We just need to be what we are and everything else is taken care of. It’s God’s world and he will do the lifting. It really doesn’t matter if, where or when we do anything, because we’ll all get there some day. That’s fine.”
So…..specifically who has said any of this? Can you copy and paste such a quote from any other student? From any forum? Do you really intend to accuse Bonita of these things? How about me? Who? I’m on 3 Forums and have been nearly 5 years and have researched many other, prior years of posts on multiple topics….of the hundreds of posters/students I have read, I cannot find even one who holds such a position. But you say “others” say “a lot” that we don’t need to do much, just be what we are (as though no growth is a proclaimed feature of the UB or something according to “others” – what others?)
What I see is a personal uncertainty and anxiety on your part and a belief that “others” who do not share your uncertainties and anxieties are not doing anything with our faith and spirit progress…..as measured and determined BY YOU. I have nothing to offer in the way of telling or expecting what others should or should not do VA….that’s all yours. But here and at TB, we discuss the contents of a very large volume of facts and truths presented to our world…you call it The Major League Rule Book. An odd statement. On TB, you started a topic entitled: The DANGERS of the URANTIA BOOK!! So, the UB is a dangerous rule book to you? And those of us who study it don’t do anything….just read all the fine print….and sit on the bench? Really???
You tell me to lighten up? I feel very light, buoyant, joyful, eager, and happy in my life as tadpole!! No worries! It is you who is obsessed VA – obsessed with being perfect (now and/or in this lifetime) and anxious about what others are or are not doing…I have no such anxieties, thank you. I don’t believe in earthly perfection but in experiential perfecting over time, as presented in the UB, but which will not be complete upon my fusion or upon my eventual finaliter status.
Could you present the “rules” you mention above? Christianity offers rules…of all flavors….things that must be done and things that must not be done. Didn’t Jesus come to refute and disprove the “rules” of religion imposed upon the faithful and to show the way of the spirit led life in its stead?
142:1.1 (1596.3) Throughout this month Jesus or one of the apostles taught daily in the temple. When the Passover crowds were too great to find entrance to the temple teaching, the apostles conducted many teaching groups outside the sacred precincts. The burden of their message was:
142:1.2 (1596.4) 1. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
142:1.3 (1596.5) 2. By faith in the fatherhood of God you may enter the kingdom of heaven, thus becoming the sons of God.
142:1.4 (1596.6) 3. Love is the rule of living within the kingdom — supreme devotion to God while loving your neighbor as yourself.
142:1.5 (1596.7) 4. Obedience to the will of the Father, yielding the fruits of the spirit in one’s personal life, is the law of the kingdom.
It is my sincere hope and prayer that you and all others find peace of mind and the joy of being in God’s friendly universe and that all might come to believe and become confident in the reality that our world is ruled by the Most Highs who are most capable of leading our world to Light and Life on this Shrine of Nebadon. No worries. Be happy. Look for the best all around us. Reach out to serve and help whenever and wherever we might. Experience the bounty of the fruits of the spirit as a living branch of the living vine. It’s all good. Or it will be so if not so yet as love and time will heal all wounds. Best wishes.
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
I don’t believe in earthly perfection . . .
That’s a shame Brad, but it’s your prerogative. I don’t believe Enoch shared your point of view.
“Enoch, the first of the mortals of Urantia to fuse with the Thought Adjuster during the mortal life in the flesh.”
Which book did he read Brad? Perhaps it was best for him that he didn’t have a book that said (according to you) that it was alright to wait to live on another world to be personally perfect. That might have been dangerous to the fulfillment of his purpose.
Well….according to the UB, Enoch was not, and is not yet, “perfect”. Fusion is not perfection, it is but the birth and very beginning of eternal life, when we first receive name and number in the roll book. And of course, my fusion is a jubilee I look forward to and have full confidence in experiencing.
So, here too, you will make accusations and claims and when confronted with them, refuse to respond to challenge or question?
Who is idle? Indifferent? On the sidelines? Etc., etc. It is you who make these claims. Your disappointment in others is quite apparent. And most unfortunate.
Apparently you think fusion is perfection. And you are disappointed in those who are not perfect? And if we are not yet perfect, we are not trying to be? Confusing.
Is there text and quotes from the UB (the Dangerous Rule Book as you call it) you might offer which teaches that fusion means perfection? Or that we are perfect prior to Paradise? Or that finaliters are perfect?
I wrote quite a bit about the differences, as I understand them in the UB, between survival, circle progress, fusion, and finality. Perfecting continues in time by experience and our endless decisions in time. It is my claim that even Mighty Messengers are not perfect. I don’t think Michael is perfect either. Who in time and space is perfect?
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
Why are you splitting hairs Brad? You know what is meant by my using the term “perfect ” don’t you?
(147:6.6) Jesus’ antagonism to the Jewish traditions and slavish ceremonials was always positive. It consisted in what he did and in what he affirmed. The Master spent little time in negative denunciations.
I’m certain Enoch’s parents (Cain and Remona) didn’t tell him “No way son, you’ll never do it.” It’s more likely that he achieved what he did because he was told he could.
Fused personalities are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, that’s for sure. I wonder why anyone would think they have the ability, or the right, to tell others what they must do and not do in order to fuse. What business is it of theirs? It’s rather strange. I can’t say I’ve seen anything like it outside of a church. I’ve heard many pulpit pounding preachers telling people what they should think and not think, what they should do and not do and I consider them all airbags. I find it disheartening that fellow TUB readers would engage in such nonsense.
Anyway, what’s wrong with a book? We’re told that the revelations of the written word is one of the reasons to believe in God:
101:2.4 There are two basic reasons for believing in a God who fosters human survival:
101:2.5 1. Human experience, personal assurance, the somehow registered hope and trust initiated by the indwelling Thought Adjuster.
101:2.6 2. The revelation of truth, whether by direct personal ministry of the Spirit of Truth, by the world bestowal of divine Sons, or through the revelations of the written word.
We assume that “perfect” or “perfection” is based on our dictionaries definition but the UB also defines a verity of meanings which when understood can have many meanings?
(3.4) 0:1.17 Divinity is creature comprehensible as truth, beauty, and goodness; correlated in personality as love, mercy, and ministry; disclosed on impersonal levels as justice, power, and sovereignty.
(3.5) 0:1.18 Divinity may be perfect — complete — as on existential and creator levels of Paradise perfection; it may be imperfect, as on experiential and creature levels of time-space evolution; or it may be relative, neither perfect nor imperfect, as on certain Havona levels of existential-experiential relationships.
(3.6) 0:1.19 When we attempt to conceive of perfection in all phases and forms of relativity, we encounter
seven conceivable types:(3.7) 0:1.20 1. Absolute perfection in all aspects.
(3.8) 0:1.21 2. Absolute perfection in some phases and relative perfection in all other aspects.
(3.9) 0:1.22 3. Absolute, relative, and imperfect aspects in varied association.
(3.10) 0:1.23 4. Absolute perfection in some respects, imperfection in all others.
(3.11) 0:1.24 5. Absolute perfection in no direction, relative perfection in all manifestations. *
(3.12) 0:1.25 6. Absolute perfection in no phase, relative in some, imperfect in others.
(3.13) 0:1.26 7. Absolute perfection in no attribute, imperfection in all.
Being that many persons thought Jesus to be divine as part of His dual nature, and as having been fused with Father, could easily be considered as having been perfected, since the Father is perfect as the I AM.
I sure hope the moderators are paying attention to the character assassination going on here.
I sure hope the moderators are paying attention to the character assassination going on here.
Yes I agree. How dare some one insinuate that somebody else is like Lucifer. What a pity.
Isn’t that what Lucifer did?
VanAmadon wrote: Yes I agree. How dare some one insinuate that somebody else is like Lucifer. What a pity.
No one here has said that. What I said is that the assertion that humans are the source of spiritual uplift is the same kind of misleading message Lucifer gave. That is not an insinuation that you are, or even like Lucifer.
POPPYCOCK ALERT: Jesus did not fuse. His Adjuster was personalized.
Bradly wrote: I don’t think Michael is perfect either.
Actually, he is:
1:5.6 These Paradise Sons of the order of Michael are perfect personalities, even the pattern for all local universe personality from that of the Bright and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature of progressing animal evolution.
2:1.7 And all this necessitates such arrangements for contact and communication with his manifold creatures as have been ordained, first, in the personalities of the Paradise Sons of God, who, although perfect in divinity, also often partake of the nature of the very flesh and blood of the planetary races, becoming one of you and one with you; thus, as it were, God becomes man, as occurred in the bestowal of Michael, who was called interchangeably the Son of God and the Son of Man.
21:1.2 Each Creator Son is the only-begotten and only-begettable offspring of the perfect union of the original concepts of the two infinite and eternal and perfect minds of the ever-existent Creators of the universe of universes. There never can be another such Son because each Creator Son is the unqualified, finished, and final expression and embodiment of all of every phase of every feature of every possibility of every divine reality that could, throughout all eternity, ever be found in, expressed by, or evolved from, those divine creative potentials which united to bring this Michael Son into existence. Each Creator Son is the absolute of the united deity concepts which constitute his divine origin.
Thanks for the correction Bonita!
I mistakenly thought that the transitional experiences between Creator Son and Master Son by the 7 bestowals were still a perfecting experience. But the Creator Sons originate in the Central Universe and not in time and space either. My bad.
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
