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The Real Nature Of Religion – Paper 101

141 posts · 8 participants · started Mar 2, 2018, 1:38 PM

  1. I agree facts are not particularly useful when not utilized in conjunction with a reality based perspective, a unification and harmonization of both the material world and the spiritual world, the integration of our very being and place of being…and this requires the evolutionary assurances of faith and the revelatory assurance of truth to bring meaning to facts/knowledge.

    Yeah, I think that most people think facts are truth.  That’s not so. Facts and the knowledge of facts do not add up to truth. Knowledge is factualized in the mind, truth is actualized in experience.  That’s why I don’t think TUB is just a collection of facts, and knowledge of the facts alone won’t reveal truth.  Truth is more than just coordinating, integrating and harmonizing the relationship between facts.  Truth is a relational experience in which facts become divinity attuned – given both cosmic and personal meaning.  Truth is always a revelation, and revelation is always an experience of the personality, which is a relational reality in itself.  The relationship of the personality to both the cosmos and Deity is what makes the experience of truth both personal and revelatory.  The presence of Deity is critical to the revelation of truth and personal religious experience.  The co-creative factor cannot be left out.  If it is, there’s no truth, only facts.

    180:5.3    Intelligence grows out of a material existence which is illuminated by the presence of the cosmic mind. Wisdom comprises the consciousness of knowledge elevated to new levels of meaning and activated by the presence of the universe endowment of the adjutant of wisdom. Truth is a spiritual reality value experienced only by spirit-endowed beings who function upon supermaterial levels of universe consciousness, and who, after the realization of truth, permit its spirit of activation to live and reign within their souls.

  2. As you also say, a continuum is described whereby one level leads and adds to another and increases the power and improves our clarity of perception as the strength of assurance grows and grows….assisting us in”….the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience — God-consciousness.”  Isn’t our growing “assurance” also this “consciousness”?  Delivered to us together by faith and truth?

    Have you reread 142:5 recently?  It’s Jesus’ discourse on assurance.  He says that consciousness of sonship is our assurance because what father, either human or divine, would leave his child anxious and concerned about his/her family standing.   At the end he mentions that his own Spirit of Truth is our assurance.

    It makes sense to me that accepting God as one’s Father is the same as sonship, which is the same as being born of the spirit, which is what assurance is all about. It’s about being part of the universal family of sons (big and little “s”).  We begin as faith-sons, then faith introduces us to Truth who brings us through the doorstep of eternity, because Truth is a person.

    (1141.5) 103:9.7 Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of TRUTH.

    The idea of truth can be entertained apart from personality, but experience with truth is not possible without at least two personalities: creature and Creator.  And experience with truth is our personality assurance.

    (31.3) 1:7.3 The concept of truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the concept of beauty may exist without personality, but the concept of divine goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a person can love and be loved. Even beauty and truth would be divorced from survival hope if they were not attributes of a personal God, a loving Father.

    I believe it is possible, with a flicker of faith, to unconsciously following the leading of one’s Thought Adjuster and still willingly attempt to do God’s will.  Nothing else is needed for survival, but I think more is needed for the actual feeling of assurance, that feeling of belonging to an actual co-creative relationship with eternity potential.  I would think there must to be a conscious element to it, specifically, an awareness of the presence of God.  (The Other-Than-Self who lives in your head. – your true alter ego.)

    (195.10) 16:9.4 Human self-consciousness implies the recognition of the reality of selves other than the conscious self and further implies that such awareness is mutual; that the self is known as it knows. This is shown in a purely human manner in man’s social life. But you cannot become so absolutely certain of a fellow being’s reality as you can of the reality of the presence of God that lives within you. The social consciousness is not inalienable like the God-consciousness; it is a cultural development and is dependent on knowledge, symbols, and the contributions of the constitutive endowments of man — science, morality, and religion. And these cosmic gifts, socialized, constitute civilization.

     

  3. Sorry for the lengthy post of text here but it includes the “Salvation from….” list already posted by Bonita and completes this current section of Paper 101.

    Before that, thanks again to Bonita for her tireless contributions on the topic…the subject of assurance is wonderful to contemplate and the concepts of ‘faith assurance’ and ‘truth assurance’ and the Spirit of Truth’s contributions to our personal assurance and the confirmations of truth assurance felt within are profoundly important to my understanding…as is the personalizations of the Father and Son as relationships and not just sources or voices of guidance and truth revelation.

    Do we have assurance of our destiny and the love with which we are embraced?  For this is the Divine Will, that we feel and know this belonging…which comes on the other side of the longing and yearning, also given to us by the Spirit within.  We hunger and thirst and are given the bread and waters of Life.  We are told the very hunger for truth is revelation as is the feast which follows!  The feast of the Divine Table is generously laid before us.  Truly God knocks on the door of our heart and mind…and if we open the door, in comes the light and the love to comfort us, assure us, and confirm us….as beloved children of God.

    170:2.20 (1861.2) Jesus taught that, by faith, the believer enters the kingdom now. In the various discourses he taught that two things are essential to faith-entrance into the kingdom:

    170:2.21 (1861.3) 1. Faith, sincerity. To come as a little child, to receive the bestowal of sonship as a gift; to submit to the doing of the Father’s will without questioning and in the full confidence and genuine trustfulness of the Father’s wisdom; to come into the kingdom free from prejudice and preconception; to be open-minded and teachable like an unspoiled child.

    170:2.22 (1861.4) 2. Truth hunger. The thirst for righteousness, a change of mind, the acquirement of the motive to be like God and to find God.

    Back to Paper 101:

    101:6.6 (1112.2) With man, the eventual fusion and resultant oneness with the indwelling Adjuster — the personality synthesis of man and the essence of God — constitute him, in potential, a living part of the Supreme and insure for such a onetime mortal being the eternal birthright of the endless pursuit of finality of universe service for and with the Supreme.

    101:6.7 (1112.3) Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth — universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.

    101:6.8 (1112.4) The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance of personal survival. The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for:

    101:6.9 (1112.5) 1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with God, who is spirit.
    101:6.10 (1112.6) 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.
    101:6.11 (1112.7) 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-revelation of the goodness of spirit values.
    101:6.12 (1113.1) 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self through the attainment of the spirit levels of the universe and through the eventual realization of the harmony of Havona and the perfection of Paradise.
    101:6.13 (1113.2) 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings.
    101:6.14 (1113.3) 6. Salvation from time, the achievement of an eternal life of unending progression in God-recognition and God-service.
    101:6.15 (1113.4) 7. Salvation from the finite, the perfected oneness with Deity in and through the Supreme by which the creature attempts the transcendental discovery of the Ultimate on the postfinaliter levels of the absonite.

    101:6.16 (1113.5) Such a sevenfold salvation is the equivalent of the completeness and perfection of the realization of the ultimate experience of the Universal Father. And all this, in potential, is contained within the reality of the faith of the human experience of religion. And it can be so contained since the faith of Jesus was nourished by, and was revelatory of, even realities beyond the ultimate; the faith of Jesus approached the status of a universe absolute in so far as such is possible of manifestation in the evolving cosmos of time and space.

    101:6.17 (1113.6) Through the appropriation of the faith of Jesus, mortal man can foretaste in time the realities of eternity. Jesus made the discovery, in human experience, of the Final Father, and his brothers in the flesh of mortal life can follow him along this same experience of Father discovery. They can even attain, as they are, the same satisfaction in this experience with the Father as did Jesus as he was. New potentials were actualized in the universe of Nebadon consequent upon the terminal bestowal of Michael, and one of these was the new illumination of the path of eternity that leads to the Father of all, and which can be traversed even by the mortals of material flesh and blood in the initial life on the planets of space. Jesus was and is the new and living way whereby man can come into the divine inheritance which the Father has decreed shall be his for but the asking. In Jesus there is abundantly demonstrated both the beginnings and endings of the faith experience of humanity, even of divine humanity.

    "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."

  4. 101:6.7 (1112.3) Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them as to render them available for such association in the finite mind as will constitute them the actual human complement thus made ready for the action of the Truth Spirit of the Sons, the time-space manifestations of Paradise truth — universal truth. The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.

    Jesus taught these lessons too as he tarried here – this with Ganid; I find it so interesting that we are provided such a model student as well as a masterful teacher in the Papers for our consideration and illumination!

    133:7.7 (1479.7) Ideas are not simply a record of sensations; ideas are sensations plus the reflective interpretations of the personal self; and the self is more than the sum of one’s sensations. There begins to be something of an approach to unity in an evolving selfhood, and that unity is derived from the indwelling presence of a part of absolute unity which spiritually activates such a self-conscious animal-origin mind.

    133:7.8 (1479.8) No mere animal could possess a time self-consciousness. Animals possess a physiological co-ordination of associated sensation-recognition and memory thereof, but none experience a meaningful recognition of sensation or exhibit a purposeful association of these combined physical experiences such as is manifested in the conclusions of intelligent and reflective human interpretations. And this fact of self-conscious existence, associated with the reality of his subsequent spiritual experience, constitutes man a potential son of the universe and foreshadows his eventual attainment of the Supreme Unity of the universe.

    133:7.9 (1480.1) Neither is the human self merely the sum of the successive states of consciousness. Without the effective functioning of a consciousness sorter and associator there would not exist sufficient unity to warrant the designation of a selfhood. Such an ununified mind could hardly attain conscious levels of human status. If the associations of consciousness were just an accident, the minds of all men would then exhibit the uncontrolled and random associations of certain phases of mental madness. *

    133:7.10 (1480.2) A human mind, built up solely out of the consciousness of physical sensations, could never attain spiritual levels; this kind of material mind would be utterly lacking in a sense of moral values and would be without a guiding sense of spiritual dominance which is so essential to achieving harmonious personality unity in time, and which is inseparable from personality survival in eternity.

    133:7.11 (1480.3) The human mind early begins to manifest qualities which are supermaterial; the truly reflective human intellect is not altogether bound by the limits of time. That individuals so differ in their life performances indicates, not only the varying endowments of heredity and the different influences of the environment, but also the degree of unification with the indwelling spirit of the Father which has been achieved by the self, the measure of the identification of the one with the other.

    133:7.12 (1480.4) The human mind does not well stand the conflict of double allegiance. It is a severe strain on the soul to undergo the experience of an effort to serve both good and evil. The supremely happy and efficiently unified mind is the one wholly dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. Unresolved conflicts destroy unity and may terminate in mind disruption. But the survival character of a soul is not fostered by attempting to secure peace of mind at any price, by the surrender of noble aspirations, and by the compromise of spiritual ideals; rather is such peace attained by the stalwart assertion of the triumph of that which is true, and this victory is achieved in the overcoming of evil with the potent force of good.

    While related to so many areas of study, Paper 196 is truly a must read when considering The Real Nature of Religion and Religion In Human Experience….it is a summation of all these central/middle Papers on the religious life and the progressive transformation of self as it strives to identify with the Spirit within and begins to perceive the entirety of personal existence through the lens of universe and reality perspective!!

    196:3.17 (2095.1) Moral evaluation with a religious meaning — spiritual insight — connotes the individual’s choice between good and evil, truth and error, material and spiritual, human and divine, time and eternity. Human survival is in great measure dependent on consecrating the human will to the choosing of those values selected by this spirit-value sorter — the indwelling interpreter and unifier. Personal religious experience consists in two phases: discovery in the human mind and revelation by the indwelling divine spirit……

    196:3.20 (2095.4) Every time man makes a reflective moral choice, he immediately experiences a new divine invasion of his soul. Moral choosing constitutes religion as the motive of inner response to outer conditions. But such a real religion is not a purely subjective experience. It signifies the whole of the subjectivity of the individual engaged in a meaningful and intelligent response to total objectivity — the universe and its Maker.

    196:3.24 (2095.8) God is not the mere invention of man’s idealism; he is the very source of all such superanimal insights and values. God is not a hypothesis formulated to unify the human concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness; he is the personality of love from whom all of these universe manifestations are derived. The truth, beauty, and goodness of man’s world are unified by the increasing spirituality of the experience of mortals ascending toward Paradise realities. The unity of truth, beauty, and goodness can only be realized in the spiritual experience of the God-knowing personality.

    196:3.34 (2097.2) The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.

    196:3.35 (2097.3) And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. Only the spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Sons’ sons — mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God. *

    WE ARE FAMILY!!

    Above in 101:6.8 we read: “The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for:….Salvation from…..

    This is a description of what Spirit identification begins to shift our attention and material gravity dependence away from – the material self nature and that which we are to become identified with and by – the spirit self nature. We are dual natured beings and our religious experience and the real nature of religious experience is for that experiential adventure of identity transfer – to see the world around us and the universe itself through the lens of universe citizen and child of God perspective. To belong to the family of creation as happy children of the Spirit and the eternity adventure, rather than remain the lost and confused orphans of materialism and the temporalness of time.

    :-)

    "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."

  5. This is a description of what Spirit identification begins to shift our attention and material gravity dependence away from – the material self nature and that which we are to become identified with and by – the spirit self nature. We are dual natured beings and our religious experience and the real nature of religious experience is for that experiential adventure of identity transfer – to see the world around us and the universe itself through the lens of universe citizen and child of God perspective. To belong to the family of creation as happy children of the Spirit and the eternity adventure, rather than remain the lost and confused orphans of materialism and the temporalness of time.

    Maybe it’s the way I’m reading this, but it reads as though you’re saying that identity shift is supposed to be a straight line from one nature to another.  Isn’t it more like a circle? Our attention, rather than moving away from the material, is supposed to circle around and bring the gifts of our higher nature back into the material world.  If we shift our attention away from our material nature, we’d be living in the clouds, right?

    Our higher nature is supposed to dominate our lower nature; but there’s no way we can completely abandon our lower nature until after we die. (And even then we bring some of its incompleteness with us.) To move in a straight line suggests relinquishing the material in favor of the morontia.  I don’t think that’s possible.  Revelation is evolutionary (92:4.1).  Personal revelation up-steps our evolutionary selves. But the progress of such up-stepping is not like a snake grows, by shedding its skin.  We keep our material “skin” as long as we live in a material world.  Growth and progress simply transforms it into something  more true, beautiful and good.

    I personally don’t see the evolution of dominance working in a straight line in my life.  Instead, I believe the morontia soul level of personal revelation, which is only a part, functions with personality to reorganize, coordinate and integrate the material level to fit the whole, making it more stable and perhaps moving it closer to individual light and life right here on earth.  The prayer does say: ” . . . thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”  Material life is an essential part of that whole.

    I don’t think it’s possible to abandon materialism without dying.  We’re supposed to circle around, bring what we find within our higher nature back to earth, actualize it within our material lives with our material selves in order to enrich the material which then provides opportunity for more growth.  It’s a circle.  One feeds the other and vice versa. I used to call this bringing love to life.  It’s about actualizing our spirit nature within the material world by using the material in more spiritual ways, (new meanings in old facts).  Our souls cannot function on the material level; they need the material body and the material mind to participate in this cyclic regeneration, the evolution of dominance.  Bringing love to life in the material world is what the quote below is referring to.  We discover living truth in our souls then actually live it out in the material world, just like Jesus did.

    194:3.1  The chief mission of this outpoured spirit of the Father and the Son is to teach men about the truths of the Father’s love and the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of divinity which men can comprehend more fully than all the other divine traits of character. The Spirit of Truth is concerned primarily with the revelation of the Father’s spirit nature and the Son’s moral character. 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.

     

  6. Agree with all of that!  Well said…..yes, as we transfer the seat of identity, we do not become less material and we should become more materially functional we are taught.  It is not a displacement of the one by the other so much as the transforming perspective, we become more spiritized but no less material but our philosophy and perspective do transition…we expand perspective and our lens becomes more wide angled…we see the material world differently over time by experience and wisdom gained through the spiritualization of perspective.

    112:2.20 (1229.7) The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical life on the continuing function of the material life vehicle, on the continued existence of the unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which, on Urantia, has been given the name life. But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the seat of the identity of the evolving personality from the transient life vehicle — the material body — to the more enduring and immortal nature of the morontia soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, spirit reality. This actual transfer from material association to morontia identification is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human creature.

    112:5.4 (1232.5) Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human personality. But this is a material and purely temporary manifestation, just as the human embryo is a transient parasitic stage of human life. Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.

    112:5.5 (1233.1) And it is this very power of choice, the universe insignia of freewill creaturehood, that constitutes man’s greatest opportunity and his supreme cosmic responsibility. Upon the integrity of the human volition depends the eternal destiny of the future finaliter; upon the sincerity of the mortal free will the divine Adjuster depends for eternal personality; upon the faithfulness of mortal choice the Universal Father depends for the realization of a new ascending son; upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution.

    "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."

  7. It is not a displacement of the one by the other so much as the transforming perspective, we become more spiritized but no less material but our philosophy and perspective do transition…we expand perspective and our lens becomes more wide angled…we see the material world differently over time by experience and wisdom gained through the spiritualization of perspective.

    Perspective is an interesting phenomenon – recalling the broadened picture of the snarling caveman – perspective changes everything.  But what is changed in that scenario are meanings and values.  The image of a fierce and filthy primitive man provides one set of meanings to the fact, but the broader perspective ,which includes the tiger and the woman and children. offers a whole new set of meanings along with values.  It’s so much richer in depth and spiritually effective if values are added.

    TUB tells us it is more than just widening our angle of perception.  We’re supposed to deepen our perception as well.  I think it’s about length, breadth and depth actually.  Length represents meanings, depth represents value, and breadth represents spiritual insight (112:1.10). I think it all adds up to the development of cosmic consciousness – which isn’t navel gazing – but awareness of,  participation with, and a living relationship to the Supreme. Depth of perception is also about mota, which is a emerging cosmic perspective of reality (48:6.28). Mota is an augmentation of perception which is like seeing with two eyes instead of one.

    (1434.3) 130:4.4 A one-eyed person can never hope to visualize depth of perspective. Neither can single-eyed material scientists nor single-eyed spiritual mystics and allegorists correctly visualize and adequately comprehend the true depths of universe reality. All true values of creature experience are concealed in depth of recognition.

    I suppose length also has to do with the perception and meaning of the time unit, but depth of perception is what particularly intrigues me because it determines the quality of worship and one’s religious experience.  Depth of perception increases appreciation of value, and appreciation of value involves intimacy with the nature of God, who lives within the depths of my head (sorry George).  Depth of perception seems to be related to one’s capacity for receptivity as well. And all this is associated with a deepening desire and motivation to become more Godlike by doing his will.

     

     

  8. Yes…it’s no compliment to be considered ‘shallow’.  It seems to describe those who are completely self absorbed or focused primarily on trivial pursuits and can’t seem to ‘see’ beyond the surface of any ideas or issues.  Depth of character and perception are notable traits…still waters run deep while shallow waters are always noisy!!

    I want to revisit the list of “Salvation from…” for further consideration of how the spiritization of mind affects us and changes our perspective:

    101:6.9 (1112.5) 1. Salvation from material fetters….
    101:6.10 (1112.6) 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage….
    101:6.11 (1112.7) 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness….
    101:6.12 (1113.1) 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self…..
    101:6.13 (1113.2) 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness…..
    101:6.14 (1113.3) 6. Salvation from time….
    101:6.15 (1113.4) 7. Salvation from the finite…..

    These describe the transfer of the seat of identity, the spiritization of mind, and the spiritualization of perspective and demonstrates that this growth and progress is an additive to our experience more than anything removed…a positive experience that is not based on elimination but on illumination!  Liberation from the fetters of materialism and intellectual bondage and blindness and incompleteness and the limitation of self-consciousness/importance and from time and the finite…..true liberty from these limitations of materialism delivers the spirit perspective which unites and integrates material realities with spiritual realities…wherein and whereby coordination and harmony deliver greater meanings to us and value is discovered for our embrace….a rich harvest of truth and wisdom comes from such ‘salvation’ and transference of the seat of our identity….spiritization!  This new perspective also releases us from many sources of suffering like anxiety, doubt, fear, and uncertainty!  We are not only saved from certain things and perspective but also delivered to a whole new paradigm and way of being and seeing!

    Such “salvation from” also describes the branch’s attachment to the vine and that flow of truth and love which delivers the fruit of the vine to the branch. As we identify with our Spirit Nature within and the realities of universe citizenship and sonship with Deity, then do we begin to live in Light and Life itself. The Master said that the ‘kingdom’ of heaven is here and now, not somewhere else and some other time. What did he mean by this teaching? Spirit identification and survival assurance delivers the kingdom right here and right now!!

    102:2.3 (1119.8) It is difficult to identify and analyze the factors of a religious experience, but it is not difficult to observe that such religious practitioners live and carry on as if already in the presence of the Eternal. Believers react to this temporal life as if immortality already were within their grasp. In the lives of such mortals there is a valid originality and a spontaneity of expression that forever segregate them from those of their fellows who have imbibed only the wisdom of the world. Religionists seem to live in effective emancipation from harrying haste and the painful stress of the vicissitudes inherent in the temporal currents of time; they exhibit a stabilization of personality and a tranquillity of character not explained by the laws of physiology, psychology, and sociology.

    Moving forward in Paper 101:

    7. A Personal Philosophy of Religion

    101:7.1 (1113.7) An idea is only a theoretical plan for action, while a positive decision is a validated plan of action. A stereotype is a plan of action accepted without validation. The materials out of which to build a personal philosophy of religion are derived from both the inner and the environmental experience of the individual. The social status, economic conditions, educational opportunities, moral trends, institutional influences, political developments, racial tendencies, and the religious teachings of one’s time and place all become factors in the formulation of a personal philosophy of religion. Even the inherent temperament and intellectual bent markedly determine the pattern of religious philosophy. Vocation, marriage, and kindred all influence the evolution of one’s personal standards of life.

    101:7.2 (1113.8) A philosophy of religion evolves out of a basic growth of ideas plus experimental living as both are modified by the tendency to imitate associates. The soundness of philosophic conclusions depends on keen, honest, and discriminating thinking in connection with sensitivity to meanings and accuracy of evaluation. Moral cowards never achieve high planes of philosophic thinking; it requires courage to invade new levels of experience and to attempt the exploration of unknown realms of intellectual living.

    101:7.3 (1114.1) Presently new systems of values come into existence; new formulations of principles and standards are achieved; habits and ideals are reshaped; some idea of a personal God is attained, followed by enlarging concepts of relationship thereto.

    "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."

  9. Bonita – your prior point about integrating the material and spiritual rather than attempting to be less material in our being, seeing, and doing is supported in 7.2 above!

    Maybe it’s the way I’m reading this, but it reads as though you’re saying that identity shift is supposed to be a straight line from one nature to another. Isn’t it more like a circle? Our attention, rather than moving away from the material, is supposed to circle around and bring the gifts of our higher nature back into the material world. If we shift our attention away from our material nature, we’d be living in the clouds, right?

    Our higher nature is supposed to dominate our lower nature; but there’s no way we can completely abandon our lower nature until after we die. (And even then we bring some of its incompleteness with us.) To move in a straight line suggests relinquishing the material in favor of the morontia. I don’t think that’s possible. Revelation is evolutionary (92:4.1). Personal revelation up-steps our evolutionary selves. But the progress of such up-stepping is not like a snake grows, by shedding its skin. We keep our material “skin” as long as we live in a material world. Growth and progress simply transforms it into something more true, beautiful and good.

    Thanks to you for your help in understanding the teachings and applying them to our own religious experience and study of the UB!

    Above we read: “The soundness of philosophic conclusions depends on keen, honest, and discriminating thinking in connection with sensitivity to meanings and accuracy of evaluation.”

    I like the way you think!

    How does the phrase “moral cowards” differ from being “prejudice” do you think?  And what of the phrase “…modified by the tendency to imitate associates.” – what does that describe I wonder?  The phrase seems neutral, neither a warning nor a recommendation….just a fact related to the human condition and development of a personal philosophy?

    I recall (perhaps in error) text which says or suggests that, eventually, as a world achieves light and life and a more uniform understanding of reality that all people tend toward a singular philosophy of living.  If I recall this correctly, that would indicate that a philosophy of living that is founded upon the unification and integration of material and spiritual realities has a perspective of that harmonized reality that is less individualized or unique….which differences today are primarily a result of the lack of agreement and enjoyment of true reality-perspective.

    Which is to say that while our religious and life experiences will always be unique, personalized, and individual….reality is not truly different for the each as it is not for the all either….reality is what it is….it is the same for each when the each of us truly sees that reality.  So if philosophy is that which bridges and unifies and integrates material and spiritual realities, then the philosophy of living would share many precepts and details of its content.

    Our philosophy of living is not the journey or the actual adventure of living, it is but the view/perspective/context/attitude for approaching the trail ahead I think.  The UB, to me at least, is like a map of the terrain of the spiritualizing adventure ahead – it is not the journey or the trail or the pilgrim or the pilgrim’s experience on the journey upon the trail illustrated by the map.  So if the map of reality is shared, perhaps the philosophy for the approach to the trail is also shared?  What do pilgrims upon the trail share in common?  Perhaps the actual terrain of reality, the map into that terrain of reality, and the philosophy of the faith child whose view is based on reality as delivered by faith, truth, and knowledge of that reality.  Those who approach or are within the mortal epochs of light and life do certainly share significant epochal revelation and education related to actual reality – certainty of facts and a knowledge of reality few of us on this world have enjoyed so far.

    There seems to be as many different philosophies for living as there are pilgrims today.  I don’t think this will continue as more and more of us enjoy a more factual reality-orientation.  When we see the same reality and that vision of reality is more factual, then our individual orientation relative to that reality will have more and more in common.  We will enjoy a more factual orientation only as we also begin to share a far more spiritized orientation as well….the material and the spiritual will become more integrated by the all as it becomes more so by the each.  And this, I think, will lead to a philosophy of living that becomes more shared and common than different.  The differences today arise primarily form the lack of or distortion of reality-perspective shared by the pilgrims of time today on Urantia.

    I’m probably not being clear here….I’ll see if I can find the related text.

    ;-)

    "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."

  10. How does the phrase “moral cowards” differ from being “prejudice” do you think? And what of the phrase “…modified by the tendency to imitate associates.” – what does that describe I wonder?

    Well, to make it as simple as possible, don’t you think prejudice has to do with thinking and moral cowardice has to do with acting?  Thinking does lead to action, so prejudice definitely can influence action.  But cowards don’t act, right?  They don’t make that leap of faith.  Presumably a coward’s failure to act is primarily due to fear, but there are other reasons too, such as laziness, indecision and indifference.  Whether or not any of those reasons are motivated by prejudice I suppose is a personal matter.  I think there are many different motivations behind the soul becoming frozen (failure to thrive).

    The quote about modern people being afraid of the religion of Jesus comes to mind (195:9.6).  They fear what it will do to them, that it might rock their little world.  Granted, some people’s egos are too big for Jesus’ religion, but egomaniacs wouldn’t fear it; they’d use it and abuse it and try to do everything they can to control it.  No, I think it’s honest people who fear it, people with honest doubts. Their cowardice stems from not knowing what will happen to them, so it’s better to hold onto what they do know rather than take a chance.  Hence, I believe that most people today would rather conform to an ideology than take the courageous step of evolving a religious philosophy of  their own based upon a inner relationship with God, or Jesus, the person – a person whom you can’t control, by the way.

    Now if you ask some folks, they’ll tell you they do have a religious philosophy of living, but if you press them on the subject, you discover it’s really not a philosophy at all, but rather an ideology.  I think a lot of folks confuse the two.  And that reminds me of the quote about the four phases of evolution of religious philosophy – how  great minds can stagnate in the cultural bondage of an ideology (101:7.4).  Social media is probably one of the biggest curses when it comes to this.

    TUB tells us we human animals love to imitate each other  . . . so . . .  if all your friends believe it’s morally superior to drive an electric car, if they all wax prophetic about it and post wonderful pictures of puppies and unicorns in their back seats,  you’re gonna want one too.  You’re gonna want to imitate what everyone says is morally correct, rather than exercise the moral courage to declare that what car you buy has nothing at all to do with morality.   True morality has that spiritual fragrance which attracts people to real value, rather than what society says has value.  (Quotes about all of that are in 100:3).  TUB also tells us that true morality is a personal, free-will matter which can only be disseminated through contact between morally fragrant people and those less morally responsive (moral cowards), who are desiring, on some level, to do God’s will – those who will eventually imitate the morally fragrant.

     

    195:9.6 Primitive man lived a life of superstitious bondage to religious fear. Modern, civilized men dread the thought of falling under the dominance of strong religious convictions. Thinking man has always feared to be held by a religion. When a strong and moving religion threatens to dominate him, he invariably tries to rationalize, traditionalize, and institutionalize it, thereby hoping to gain control of it. By such procedure, even a revealed religion becomes man-made and man-dominated. Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them — and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.

    101.7.4  The great difference between a religious and a nonreligious philosophy of living consists in the nature and level of recognized values and in the object of loyalties. There are four phases in the evolution of religious philosophy: Such an experience may become merely conformative, resigned to submission to tradition and authority. Or it may be satisfied with slight attainments, just enough to stabilize the daily living, and therefore becomes early arrested on such an adventitious level. Such mortals believe in letting well enough alone. A third group progress to the level of logical intellectuality but there stagnate in consequence of cultural slavery. It is indeed pitiful to behold giant intellects held so securely within the cruel grasp of cultural bondage. It is equally pathetic to observe those who trade their cultural bondage for the materialistic fetters of a science, falsely so called. The fourth level of philosophy attains freedom from all conventional and traditional handicaps and dares to think, act, and live honestly, loyally, fearlessly, and truthfully.

    16:7.9 Morality can never be advanced by law or by force. It is a personal and freewill matter and must be disseminated by the contagion of the contact of morally fragrant persons with those who are less morally responsive, but who are also in some measure desirous of doing the Father’s will.

     

  11. Well, to make it as simple as possible, don’t you think prejudice has to do with thinking and moral cowardice has to do with acting? Thinking does lead to action, so prejudice definitely can influence action. But cowards don’t act, right? They don’t make that leap of faith. Presumably a coward’s failure to act is primarily due to fear, but there are other reasons too, such as laziness, indecision and indifference. Whether or not any of those reasons are motivated by prejudice I suppose is a personal matter. I think there are many different motivations behind the soul becoming frozen (failure to thrive).

    Or perhaps moral cowards may act but primarily by peer pressure or social conformity?  We fear to stand out and we fear being shunned so we’ll go along with the mob.  Mob behavior is inexplicable….many members of a mob will go along with things they would not do without the mob.  Thinking seems to sink to the lowest common denominator….clarity of thought, insight, discernment, and personal reflection flee so many in the mob that might otherwise be far more rational.  An embarrassing level of social imitation perhaps?

    I think this is illustrative of the teaching that evolutionary society and religion is a social/religious cultural brake or ballast to evolutionary progress while those leaders who dare to strive for right despite the social costs do manage to influence and appeal to others sufficiently to create new movement(s) for the imitation of others – the hero thing plays here too – to slowly bring evolutionary progress and change to the peer/social norms over time.  Personally, many of us may admire behavior we won’t exhibit due to social norms and peer pressures to not stand out and that admiration eventually expresses itself as such norms slowly change.

    But we study the personal experience now rather than the social and to become “frozen” in our spiritualization in one of the first 3 categories listed in 101:7.4 (the next quote in our sequential study) is not unusual to be sure!  Which reminds me of:

    110:7.6 (1213.1) But with the vast majority of Urantians the Adjuster must patiently await the arrival of death deliverance; must await the liberation of the emerging soul from the well-nigh complete domination of the energy patterns and chemical forces inherent in your material order of existence. The chief difficulty you experience in contacting with your Adjusters consists in this very inherent material nature. So few mortals are real thinkers; you do not spiritually develop and discipline your minds to the point of favorable liaison with the divine Adjusters. The ear of the human mind is almost deaf to the spiritual pleas which the Adjuster translates from the manifold messages of the universal broadcasts of love proceeding from the Father of mercies. The Adjuster finds it almost impossible to register these inspiring spirit leadings in an animal mind so completely dominated by the chemical and electrical forces inherent in your physical natures.

    Interesting to note the first phrase above related to the survivor rates topic –  the quote does NOT say “the vast majority of Urantians” who survive but simply the vast majority OF mortals from this world…hmmmm………….Anyway…..

    My family tribe was always taught to think for ourselves and stand up for what’s right and do the right thing no matter how unpopular or difficult….but I can tell you this is not easy and I certainly have failed to meet such ideals countless times.

    Remember Peter denying Jesus 3 times?  Same issue I suppose?  The need to fit in and not face ridicule or danger for one’s beliefs.  Another issue of illumination by the courageous example of Jesus to stand up and be righteous no matter the cost – socially or personally.

    Clear thinking and insight requires courage to deliver the fruit.  So yes Bonita….I agree….cowardice means to not act or to act cowardly in conformity and often with what one even knows to be wrong or far less than what is right!!

    143:1.7 (1608.4) “Today, the unbelievers may taunt you with preaching a gospel of nonresistance and with living lives of nonviolence, but you are the first volunteers of a long line of sincere believers in the gospel of this kingdom who will astonish all mankind by their heroic devotion to these teachings. No armies of the world have ever displayed more courage and bravery than will be portrayed by you and your loyal successors who shall go forth to all the world proclaiming the good news — the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. The courage of the flesh is the lowest form of bravery. Mind bravery is a higher type of human courage, but the highest and supreme is uncompromising loyalty to the enlightened convictions of profound spiritual realities. And such courage constitutes the heroism of the God-knowing man. And you are all God-knowing men; you are in very truth the personal associates of the Son of Man.”

    The source of courage – the adjutants:

    36:5.8 (402.5) 3. The spirit of courage — the fidelity endowment — in personal beings, the basis of character acquirement and the intellectual root of moral stamina and spiritual bravery. When enlightened by facts and inspired by truth, this becomes the secret of the urge of evolutionary ascension by the channels of intelligent and conscientious self-direction.

    36:5.9 (402.6) 4. The spirit of knowledge — the curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide and faithful associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the urge to direct the endowments of courage into useful and progressive paths of growth.

    155:3.7 (1727.7) 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.

    The Real Nature Of Religion is the courage delivered by faith and the assurance of faith and truth realization to be guided by the Spirit within in all matters and to fear no social or personal costs in that loyalty.

    ;-)

    "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."

  12. 101:7.4 (1114.2) The great difference between a religious and a nonreligious philosophy of living consists in the nature and level of recognized values and in the object of loyalties. There are four phases in the evolution of religious philosophy: Such an experience may become merely conformative, resigned to submission to tradition and authority. Or it may be satisfied with slight attainments, just enough to stabilize the daily living, and therefore becomes early arrested on such an adventitious level. Such mortals believe in letting well enough alone. A third group progress to the level of logical intellectuality but there stagnate in consequence of cultural slavery. It is indeed pitiful to behold giant intellects held so securely within the cruel grasp of cultural bondage. It is equally pathetic to observe those who trade their cultural bondage for the materialistic fetters of a science, falsely so called. The fourth level of philosophy attains freedom from all conventional and traditional handicaps and dares to think, act, and live honestly, loyally, fearlessly, and truthfully.

    101:7.5 (1114.3) The acid test for any religious philosophy consists in whether or not it distinguishes between the realities of the material and the spiritual worlds while at the same moment recognizing their unification in intellectual striving and in social serving. A sound religious philosophy does not confound the things of God with the things of Caesar. Neither does it recognize the aesthetic cult of pure wonder as a substitute for religion.

    101:7.6 (1114.4) Philosophy transforms that primitive religion which was largely a fairy tale of conscience into a living experience in the ascending values of cosmic reality.

    8. Faith and Belief

    101:8.1 (1114.5) Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

     

    Me here:  It seems to me that the issues of cowardice, courage, and social imitation are related by this declaration about faith – faith becomes our motive and source of courage or it is more a belief system than a transformative and spirit led reason for living and way of living which true religion is and must be.  One’s belief does not mold perspective or motive or choices….faith does.

    When Jesus tells us that we have no need to fear uncertainties or even calamities or death or any other material suffering, he is teaching us that absolute faith in our care and destiny is fully assured by that faith and by the reality upon which such faith and truth assurances rest.  It is not that bad things will not happen or that faith children are promised ease and leisure by such faith and truth – no, it is only that no matter how badly material things might go or become, there is a greater reality!!  A reality with spiritual bedrock realities and certainties that overcomes all material uncertainties and temporal difficulties.

    Spirit realities are the greater reality!  And as our faith and truth assurance grows to embrace those greater realities and to dominate, mold, and shape our motives and decisions and actions with confidence….THEN does courage come and deliver us from all fear and the errors of immaturity and the uncertainty inherent in free will adventure!

    The Real Nature Of Religion is sustaining and growing ASSURANCE and COURAGE to act with faith in our well being and care and destiny….and this is the example of The Master as described in the final paper of the Revelation – The Faith of Jesus (196).

     

    Let’s consider again the list of “Salvation from…” for further consideration of how the spiritization of mind and the faith assurance and truth assurance of spiritualization affects us and changes our perspective:

    101:6.9 (1112.5) 1. Salvation from material fetters….
    101:6.10 (1112.6) 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage….
    101:6.11 (1112.7) 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness….
    101:6.12 (1113.1) 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self…..
    101:6.13 (1113.2) 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness…..
    101:6.14 (1113.3) 6. Salvation from time….
    101:6.15 (1113.4) 7. Salvation from the finite…..

    Me here:  I think confidence and courage replaces fears and anxieties by such salvation and assurance of salvation!

    :-)

    "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."

  13. I think this is illustrative of the teaching that evolutionary society and religion is a social/religious cultural brake or ballast to evolutionary progress while those leaders who dare to strive for right despite the social costs do manage to influence and appeal to others sufficiently to create new movement(s) for the imitation of others – the hero thing plays here too – to slowly bring evolutionary progress and change to the peer/social norms over time.  Personally, many of us may admire behavior we won’t exhibit due to social norms and peer pressures to not stand out and that admiration eventually expresses itself as such norms slowly change.

    This reminds me of the quote below where the fraternal competitive spirit is used to inspire behavior.  I think it’s a step above imitation because it involves the motivation to become even better.  That would be the more progressive attitude – much better than the complacency of mere imitation.

    (312.5) 28:5.18 The Divine Counselors, to whom this order is attached, utilize them to reflect from one world to another the benefits to be derived from spiritual service. And by using the performances of the best to inspire and encourage the mediocre, these seconaphim contribute immensely to the quality of devoted service in the superuniverses. Effective use is made of the fraternal competitive spirit by circulating to any one world information about what the others, particularly the best, are doing. A refreshing and wholesome rivalry is promoted even among the seraphic hosts.

    And this segues directly into the concept of salvation which requires more than the complacency of mere imitation. Salvation is more inspired than that because it opens the door to co-creativity. Survival is choosing to co-create one’s own destiny.  Co-creation uncorks the bottle, so to speak, and saves us from all the limitations mentioned in the list.  Recall that personality is not subject to the fetters of antecedent causation because it is relatively co-creative (112:05).  Co-creativity is a personality partnership also known as sonship. Accepting sonship is a choice to co-create – creature personality with Creator pre-personality.  It’s a beautiful thing which makes the entire grand universe potentially available.  And the religion of Jesus is the Way.

     

  14. 8. Faith and Belief

    101:8.1 (1114.5) Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

    101:8.2 (1114.6) Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.

    101:8.3 (1114.7) Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.

    101:8.4 (1115.1) Faith does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace.

     

    Me here:  I find the above text addresses many important elements regarding religion and faith.  In prior discussion and posts of text, it is well established that faith comes to children and primitives and does so despite inaccurate and false beliefs or lack of knowledge or intelligence.  Faith trumps knowledge and belief in spiritual progress.  But in this knowing is imbedded an inherent inference – some who have faith become radicalized and prejudiced and narrow minded and bigoted and disloyal to the shared ideals of the golden rule and the universal brother/sisterhood of humanity.  Faith can “falsify its trust” and become a traitor to the religionist and create religious zealots with far more zeal than love and understanding of universe realities.

    So…faith can be misplaced and result in significant error and evil.  It depends upon the ideals and loyalties it fosters within the believer.

    I often wonder though if such misguided faith eventually results in greater growth and spiritual progress once knowledge is introduced, either in this life or the mansion worlds, than for those who become indifferent to the spirit or mindless and faithless secularists or materialists or mechanists?   From the murderous John Brown and those who kill in the name of gods like him, from the beginning of time, if faith based on wrong beliefs and a lack of Godly ideals and disengaged from universe realities…does it still deliver circle progress and grow soul?

    zeal
    [zēl]

    NOUN
    great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.

    synonyms: passion · zealousness · committedness · ardor · love · fervor · fire · avidity · fondness · devotion · devotedness · enthusiasm · eagerness · keenness · appetite · taste · relish · gusto · vigor · energy · verve · zest · fervency · ardency

    So what does…”The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace.”…mean?  Again, I think, we are being taught the value of clear meanings by the factual presentation of the knowledge of universe realities by epochal revelation.  Clearly, personal revelation is not a reliable method (or any kind of method at all) for the delivery of universe facts or knowledge.  Our Adjutant circuit connection and TA  and Spirit of Truth are not delivery mechanisms/systems of facts but of those factors of faith and truth….yearning, hunger, thirst, curiosity, spirit insight, the adventurous spirit, ambition, achievement, and related elements of the assurance of and relationship with God.

    There is that which is related to the power of mind and the religious experience that can take the mind ‘off the rails’ and ‘into the ditch and weeds’ of being.  Religion can be deviated from its intent I think….and it is not so mysterious how.  False beliefs are not the cause I do not think for I believe the agents and agencies of faith and truth can overcome ignorance and  inaccuracies.  The cause is ignorance multiplied and amplified by mind poisons….anxiety, fear, anger, greed, hate, lust, doubt, insecurity, disappointment, etc.

    Faith can become distorted and twisted by ingesting a diet of poison…..but does it remain effective and deliver its adherents to the ascension adventure still?   I suspect so………..Evil is but temporal….and sin requires knowledge of one’s error and iniquity its knowing embrace….are religious zealots and radicals driven by fear and hate merely engaged in evil I wonder?  Does such error contain or exhibit faith?

    Not if its “living faith” according to the quote above.  Ahhhhh….living faith.  Indicates dead or decaying or not-living and not-growing faith.  Still it is described as faith…..confusing issue for me….

    There certainly are religious nuts whose beliefs motivate their acts and shapes their mode of living with certainty and conviction!  We are taught above that certainty and conviction are not faith anymore than  belief is….and yet…”Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals.”

    Very confusing…

    "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."

  15. Faith-trust exists only as a part of personal religious experience. It’s a relationship.  When a person abuses this relationship with Deity, faith becomes impaired and untrustworthy.  In reality it is no longer true faith but a species of disloyalty (traitor) and dishonesty (betrayal of integrity).

    There is no such thing as faith without a personal relationship with Deity.  Faith is a gift from Deity.  You can’t have faith without Deity, the giver of the gift.  If it’s not this personal relationship with Deity that motivates people, then it’s not faith . . . it’s something else  . . .  and what you call it doesn’t matter much, does it?  Boil it down and it’s evil: aka, immaturity; mistake; error; incompleteness; imperfection; etc., etc..

  16. 101:8.1 (1114.5) Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

    The last two sentences of the above quote indicate that faith is an attribute of personal religious experience, in other words, a quality characteristic of the relationship which is centered only on God himself.  Faith takes on the nature of that relationship between two persons.  It does not matter that the Adjuster is a pre-person because he is altogether personal and personable.

    101:8.2 (1114.6) Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.

    Here again, we’re told that faith is part of a living personal religious experience.  In fact, the quote says it MUST be personal.  Faith is God-knowing, not intellectually, but spiritually, person-to-person.  The only way to know God personally is to find him and feel his presence within the soul, then share that inner life with him in a relationship (which actually is the soul).

    Yes, it is possible to intellectually know OF God, and even ABOUT God, but to actually know him personally requires a relationship with him.  As Jesus said, we are to increasingly feel the presence of God in our souls.  When we know God in our souls there is a natural inner urge to increasingly strive to be more like him, to imitate his divine nature by doing his will.

    Trying to be more like an idea OF God, or an idea ABOUT God, is false because it is not derived directly from a relationship with God himself, but with an intellectual idea of what he might be like rather than an actual experience of what he IS like.  Yes, that idea may end up being grafted onto the true vine in some way, but it does not yield spiritual fruit, only social fruit.  [Caps not meant to yell.]

    There are many false grafts which appear to be evidence of faith, but are not. This is what they mean by falsehood being the outcome of a betrayal of faith-trust in the one’s personal relationship with God, and instead placing value on something that intellectually appears to be from God, but isn’t. Then there are those who hold so dearly to these ideas and claim moral superiority, that even they begin to believe their own falsehood is undeniably true such that everyone should accept it.  That’s where it gets real dicey.  Even Lucifer fell for that.

    (1124.7) 102:6.5 Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience.

    (1221.2) 111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God — with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible. Sharing is Godlike — divine. God shares all with the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, while they, in turn, share all things with the divine Sons and spirit Daughters of the universes.

    (1732.5) 155:6.12 It is not so important that you should know about the fact of God as that you should increasingly grow in the ability to feel the presence of God.

    (1126.4) 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.

     

     

     

  17. Our Adjutant circuit connection and TA  and Spirit of Truth are not delivery mechanisms/systems of facts but of those factors of faith and truth….yearning, hunger, thirst, curiosity, spirit insight, the adventurous spirit, ambition, achievement, and related elements of the assurance of and relationship with God.

    I think I understand what you’re saying here but aren’t the facts the facts?  What I mean is, the facts of reality are always present awaiting discovery, recognition and interpretation. Facts don’t have to be delivered, as you say, but discovered, and the adjutants most certainly do participate in this fact finding process as part of the cosmic mind.  The adjutants are our intelligence ministry; the first being the spirit of “quick understanding”.  Understanding what?  I say it’s understanding facts.  Don’t forget that values are concealed within facts, which means that recognition of the reality of facts is the starting point. This is the role of the cosmic mind reality recognition ministry, of which the adjutants are a part.  And isn’t all of this also a part of personal revelation?  I think it has to be and I also think it is reliable provided these . . .  “three basic factors in reflective thinking may be [are] unified and co-ordinated in personality development . . . ” (16:6.10).

    195:7.4  Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena of the universes of time and space. But it requires the eye of faith in a spirit-born mortal to detect and discern these spiritual values.

    111:6.6 Science is the source of facts, and mind cannot operate without facts. They are the building blocks in the construction of wisdom which are cemented together by life experience. Man can find the love of God without facts, and man can discover the laws of God without love, but man can never begin to appreciate the infinite symmetry, the supernal harmony, the exquisite repleteness of the all-inclusive nature of the First Source and Center until he has found divine law and divine love and has experientially unified these in his own evolving cosmic philosophy.

  18. Thanks Bonita….should have explained myself better!  There are those who have claimed that the Spirit within (Adjutants, TA, and Spirit of Truth) delivers facts to the mortal mind,  a suggestion that this is not a function of epochal revelation….that material and cosmological facts are delivered by personal revelation.  Some have even suggested there is no need for epochal revelation or that its contents is not factual if it is not complete, absolute, and infallible.  I don’t believe this is true.  The spirit within is a revealer to be sure, but regarding facts I think is more of a sorter, integrator, interpreter, confirmer, evaluator, associater, and adjuster…of both truth and fact.

    Does the Spirit within deliver material/scientific insights as well as spiritual/religious truths and insights?  I think so yes.  I think all forms of inspiration and insight comes from the ministry of some level of spirit delivered mind ministry.  But insight and inspiration are more like connections and relationships of facts…not really facts in and of themselves…I think.

    So, I think facts are either discovered by observation or by the gift of epochal revelation – including the Prince’s staff, the Garden, and subsequent revelations by Teacher and Magisterial Sons.

    However, your last two posts have me questioning any prior certainty I might have had on the issue.  The relationship with God within and God’s existence are facts as is our assurance of those realities!  One’s religious experience is a fact…and not one of observation or of epochal revelation.  So, what is the source of facts?  111:6.6 says science is the source.  And I think it is the Spirit which helps us determine the meaning, relationship, and value of facts.  195:7.4 says values are concealed within the facts of phenomena.  I remain somewhat confused on the topic.

    But I am grateful for your patient and persistent light to help illuminate the truth and help me gain understanding.

     

    :good:

    "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."

  19. But I am grateful for your patient and persistent light to help illuminate the truth and help me gain understanding.

    Wait!  I’m not an illuminator of truth.  Holy Cow!  Please don’t put that onus on me.  All I meant by my last post was to dig deeper into the meaning you’re giving to some word symbols, because I think I have a slightly different set of meanings, but I’m not sure. Actually, we probably all have slightly different sets of meanings and I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  Isn’t that how personal revelation works?

    Anyway, I don’t think the spirit, of any sort, delivers facts to the mortal mind.  There is no Spirit of Fact.  The facts don’t really need delivering; what they need is discovering, real elbow grease.  The responsibility is totally on the individual mind/personality to do the work of discovery (earned knowledge), while the adjutants provide the urges for that discovery.  And in a loose sense, this is personal revelation because personal revelation involves wisdom.  The adjutant of wisdom is an overlapping mind ministry which touches both the adjutants below and the Holy Spirit above.  Wisdom is that middle reality reflex of cosmic mind which constantly struggles to achieve superadjutant insight.

    So, I think it is quite possible that personal revelation is capable of producing the natural evolution of dominance of the individual personality, with or without epochal revelation, which is a gift for the planet as a whole. Don’t forget that the Holy Spirit functioned to enlarge  human viewpoints of ethics, religion and spirituality long, long before any of the epochal revelations arrived on this planet (103:01). The two higher adjutants and the Holy Spirit are capable of participating in personal revelation, which is why I had a cow when Nigel called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Fact.  Facts are level one.  Wisdom is level two.  Spiritual insight is level three.  The meanings and values discovered in all three must be integrated and unified by personality in order to advance along the psychic/cosmic circles of self-realization (aka personal revelation).  The Holy Spirit is the supermind endowment necessary for this accomplishment.  And how lucky are we that now we also have the Spirit of Truth and Thought Adjusters!!  It’s pretty powerful stuff.

    I do understand the problem of some folks thinking they have brand new revelations the world, and everyone in it, absolutely need to hear.  This goes back to the post on falsified trust in the faith relationship.  Recall the quote mentions conferring assumed knowledge on its devotees.  This is one of those grafted situations where facts are either discovered and misinterpreted, or fabricated from the imagination.  We know that faith is, ” . . .  the inspiration of the spiritized creative imagination.” (132:3.5) But the important word is spiritized.  Drawing upon a grafted non-spiritized creative imagination is both a betrayal of intellectual integrity and a traitor to the soul’s trust, where the relationship with spirit and its inspiration actually exists.

    Such revelations are not legitimately inspired, although it is easy to be fooled.  Being wise as a serpent requires a person to recognize the fact that things are not always what they appear to be.  Grafted falsehoods may appear to be genuine, but the fruit tells us otherwise.  Even so, some social fruit can be very enticing and convincing.  The ability to reliably detect the difference comes from experience with all three levels of reality with increasing acuity for recognition of the reality reflex, which comes from a relationship with the most Real himself.  And that there gives you tremendous assurance – that confidence in the ability to recognize reality and chose it.

    So, what is the source of facts?

    Doesn’t it say that God is the first truth and the last fact?

    (1125.1) 102:6.6 Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability which faith can transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the first truth and the last fact; therefore does all truth take origin in him, while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth one may know God, but to understand — to explain — God, one must explore the fact of the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and universal fact.

     

     

     

  20. Hahahahaha….onus indeed!  Apologies.  But I find what I call triangulation – or the sharing of personal perspective and meanings by two or more people to be illuminating.  Deeper and wider perspectives and definitions brings clarity to our sharing!  The different lens offers new dimensions of view and new forms of contrast and context.  Thanks for your contributions…which sometime are just a need for me to think deeper and consider my own expressions and explanations which also lead to better understanding.  Where two or more are gathered…..

    Speaking of discerning and concepts and the need for the Spirit ministry of assurance – both faith assurance and truth assurance – our personal assurance of survival and love – refer again to the post above about “Salvation from”:

    10. Religion as Man’s Liberator

    101:10.1 (1116.2) Intelligent man knows that he is a child of nature, a part of the material universe; he likewise discerns no survival of individual personality in the motions and tensions of the mathematical level of the energy universe. Nor can man ever discern spiritual reality through the examination of physical causes and effects.

    101:10.2 (1116.3) A human being is also aware that he is a part of the ideational cosmos, but though concept may endure beyond a mortal life span, there is nothing inherent in concept which indicates the personal survival of the conceiving personality. Nor will the exhaustion of the possibilities of logic and reason ever reveal to the logician or to the reasoner the eternal truth of the survival of personality.

    101:10.3 (1116.4) The material level of law provides for causality continuity, the unending response of effect to antecedent action; the mind level suggests the perpetuation of ideational continuity, the unceasing flow of conceptual potentiality from pre-existent conceptions. But neither of these levels of the universe discloses to the inquiring mortal an avenue of escape from partiality of status and from the intolerable suspense of being a transient reality in the universe, a temporal personality doomed to be extinguished upon the exhaustion of the limited life energies.

    101:10.4 (1116.5) It is only through the morontial avenue leading to spiritual insight that man can ever break the fetters inherent in his mortal status in the universe. Energy and mind do lead back to Paradise and Deity, but neither the energy endowment nor the mind endowment of man proceeds directly from such Paradise Deity. Only in the spiritual sense is man a child of God. And this is true because it is only in the spiritual sense that man is at present endowed and indwelt by the Paradise Father. Mankind can never discover divinity except through the avenue of religious experience and by the exercise of true faith. The faith acceptance of the truth of God enables man to escape from the circumscribed confines of material limitations and affords him a rational hope of achieving safe conduct from the material realm, whereon is death, to the spiritual realm, wherein is life eternal.

    "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."

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