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The Reality of Religious Experience – Paper 103

230 posts · 8 participants · started Aug 1, 2018, 10:07 PM

GeneParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 3:41 PM

Bonita wrote:

(557.7) 48:7.23 21. The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity.

Also consider this, clipped from paper 38, talking about angels:

“They appreciate and greatly enjoy your efforts in music, art, and real humor.”

from the two quotes I focus on the words: “mission” and “efforts”.

dosent this suggest that the focus is more on intention, effort, mission, ideas, creative thought process, etc as opposed to the resulting art work itself??

“Consider the artful demonstration of truth, beauty and goodness by the Master as he delivered the gospel”

the resulting artwork was left in our hearts and minds, not on canvas.

Again, effort, intention, mission.
BradlyParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 4:06 PM
To your point Gene, I think I recall text that says that art is not the result but the process of expression itself. I think others may appreciate or be inspired by someone else’s art….but the experience of creating is far more meaningful and offers more value than the experience of appreciation? I think it is tied again to the actual experience and the depth of experience and whether the experience is internal only or externalized by its expression. We know faith is mere belief until it changes and motivates behavior choices. Faith is an expression, not a feeling or not only a feeling…a feeling that compels an expression perhaps? Is are a feeling that also compels an expression and then that expression may compel a response in others?

As to the types of revelation…hmmmmm….I think there are but 3….self revelation; auto/personal revelation; epochal revelation. I think we will only accept revelation or insight or fact from another person based on a reasoned and logical belief (self revelation) or by some accepted authority. Now if we accept beliefs from any mortal source (not Divine/celestial/epochal or personal) and that we cannot accept or verify by reason….then is that truly revelation at all? Or are we simply giving belief to presumed authority which may be as ignorant as we are? People still believe in the big bang theory for example? Why? It’s not true or factual or proven. It’s not particularly reasonable or logical either (what caused the bang? A cause without a cause? An effect looking for a cause…even a fictional one.)

This is metaphysics…the invention of explanation for causes and/or effects without explanation to support a perspective of reality. The more metaphysical, the less real. The more real, the less metaphysical. But not a zero sum process either. For the more of objective reality we come to factually know and understand, the more of universe reality there is for additional cause and effect observations and speculations. So as old metaphysics is replaced by fact and knowledge, new applications for metaphysics come into play. I remain a little baffled by the term “true metaphysics” to come. Perhaps our speculations get far more inspired and logical and less fantastic and ridiculous?

"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."
BonitaParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 5:19 PM

Gene wrote:

dosent this suggest that the focus is more on intention, effort, mission, ideas, creative thought process, etc as opposed to the resulting art work itself??

Yes, I think this quote makes that same point:

101:9.4 Art is only religious when it becomes diffused with purpose which has been derived from high spiritual motivation.

Isn’t that what we call inspiration? I think they’re talking about the “art of the beautiful” included in the Thought Adjuster’s plea to his human partner at the end of paper 111, which I think is about the art of living a beautiful life. That does boil down into intention and desire.

And in regards to the Master’s artwork, he used his life as a living Word which continues to live within us now. It’s an ongoing work of art which does speak to the art of living a beautiful life. The Spirit of Truth is also the spirit of idealistic beauty. (155:6.11)

But here’s where I’m curious: If the Master’s beautiful life, the Word made flesh with the gift of living truth, was a revelation to the universe, what about TUB? What about those words which are not living? Somehow those words have to become alive and beautiful in order to qualify as a revelation, right? Or do they qualify as a revelation locked within a book, regardless if it is ever opened and read?
BradlyParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 6:07 PM
But the UB is opened and read….already and more readers all the time…perhaps a whole world as an audience eventually. There’s an old philosophy question about if a tree falls in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it make noise/sound? The same question would apply to a revelation that is unread I suppose. The answer to the first question is: Yes it does. I think also to the second.

I was recently reading Paper 23 again – The Solitary Messengers – and came across this:

23:2.24 (260.4) 7. Revelators of Truth. The Solitary Messengers regard the assignment to reveal truth as the highest trust of their order. And they function ever and anon in this capacity, from the superuniverses to the individual planets of space. They are frequently attached to commissions which are sent to enlarge the revelation of truth to the worlds and systems.

Makes me wonder if the UB is perhaps not so unusual in form as I always thought. Text books as epochal revelation may not be so unusual depending on the circumstances of each evolutionary world.

23:3.1 (260.5) The Solitary Messengers are the highest type of perfect and confidential personality available in all realms for the quick transmission of important and urgent messages when it is inexpedient to utilize either the broadcast service or the reflectivity mechanism. They serve in an endless variety of assignments, helping out the spiritual and material beings of the realms, particularly where the element of time is involved. Of all orders assigned to the services of the superuniverse domains, they are the highest and most versatile personalized beings who can come so near to defying time and space.

23:3.8 (261.6) In the seven superuniverses, ordinarily—but not always—everything which tends to increase any creature’s liberation from the handicaps of time and space proportionately diminishes personality prerogatives. Solitary Messengers are an exception to this general law. They are in their activities all but unrestricted in the utilization of any and all of the limitless avenues of spiritual expression, divine service, personal ministry, and cosmic communication. If you could view these extraordinary beings in the light of my experience in universe administration, you would comprehend how difficult it would be to co-ordinate superuniverse affairs were it not for their versatile co-operation.

"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."
BonitaParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 7:20 PM

Bradly wrote:

As to the types of revelation…hmmmmm….I think there are but 3….self revelation; auto/personal revelation; epochal revelation.

I was reading the other day and came across another kind: racial. I’m not sure what they mean by that. Do you think they mean the entire human race (epochal), or each individual race?

101:3.17 We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience-religious faith; second, by revelation-personal and racial; and third, by the amazing exhibition of such extraordinary and unnatural reactions to his material environment as are illustrated by the foregoing recital of twelve spiritlike performances in the presence of the actual and trying situations of real human existence.And there are still others.

Bradly wrote:

I think we will only accept revelation or insight or fact from another person based on a reasoned and logical belief (self revelation) or by some accepted authority.

Interesting question. First I would have to ask, what is an “accepted authority”? Do you think some TUB readers accept the Revelation because it is written by celestials with authority they trust? I think there are some folks out there who can’t or won’t accept their authority and I can’t blame them for that. But there’s an even higher authority and the celestial authors tell us point blank that they’re relying on it to help us. Jesus did say, “The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations . . . “(159:4.7)

Bradly wrote: Now if we accept beliefs from any mortal source (not Divine/celestial/epochal or personal) and that we cannot accept or verify by reason….then is that truly revelation at all?

Another interesting question. Jesus had the ability to recognize truth regardless of its source (126:3.8), and if we are utilizing the mind of Jesus as we have been told, then we too should be able to do that. But I agree, if truth is always a revelation, and if revelation is always liberating, then revelation should also always be reasonable and logical because both reason and logic lead the way to truth (part of that gateway thing). Revelation can’t be liberating if it doesn’t work in real life and real life depends on reason and logic to a certain extent, at least here on terra firma. What makes it liberating is that it works, it can be lived out and applied in everyday circumstances with positive results. It’s stable and reliable, inconcussible even. If something isn’t working – it’s uh – broken, kaput, trash, right? The harder you have to work to fix it, the less likely it’s salvageable in the long run. I think you just have to walk away from that kinda thing.

101:6.7 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.

Bradly wrote:

People still believe in the big bang theory for example? Why? It’s not true or factual or proven. It’s not particularly reasonable or logical either (what caused the bang? A cause without a cause? An effect looking for a cause…even a fictional one.)

Kinda like man-made global warming. Talk about metaphysics on steroids. You got everything in that messed up philosophy. Guilt, fear, punishment, self-righteousness, messiah complexes, floods, armageddon, god/goddess-appeasement, sacrifices, nature worship . . . it’s like the culmination of every metaphysical myth that ever was. Maybe when this pimple pops mankind might be finally rid of these menacing superstitions. We live in hope.
BonitaParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 8:42 PM

Bradly wrote:

But the UB is opened and read….already and more readers all the time…perhaps a whole world as an audience eventually. There’s an old philosophy question about if a tree falls in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it make noise/sound? The same question would apply to a revelation that is unread I suppose. The answer to the first question is: Yes it does. I think also to the second.

That’s not my point though. The unread text, or the text read without the aid of the Spirit of Truth may not qualify as revelation because it hasn’t become an actual part of human experience. I think revelation and truth work the same way. The written word may contain the seeds of revelation, but those seeds must produce something real if they are to qualify as actual revelation, I think. This quote says it better:

101:2.1 The fact of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of rational and average human beings. And this is the only sense in which religion can ever be regarded as scientific or even psychological. The proof that revelation is revelation is this same fact of human experience: the fact that revelation does synthesize the apparently divergent sciences of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe philosophy, a co-ordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and religion, thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds, and on spirit.

Then there’s this one:

101:2.8 Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience.

Do the words in TUB qualify as revelation without human experience? Perhaps they do in theory, but maybe not in reality. Doesn’t revelation follow the same rules as truth; that truth is only revealed in the soul of man where it is integrated, where all its interrelationships are recognized and identified with? I think TUB calls that emerging morontia reality. One thing we know, metaphysics doesn’t participate on this level, if it did, it would be called revelation, or true metaphysics.
BradlyParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 9:36 PM
101:3.17 We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience-religious faith; second, by revelation-personal and racial; and third, by the amazing exhibition of such extraordinary and unnatural reactions to his material environment as are illustrated by the foregoing recital of twelve spiritlike performances in the presence of the actual and trying situations of real human existence.And there are still others.

I think the author means epochal by the use of racial here – as in planetary to the human race, not as if to any race of humans as determined by color. We know of the God’s spirit within either by personal revelatory experience or because of the UB as epochal revelation or by one of the other two phenomena listed.

Bonita writes above: “Interesting question. First I would have to ask, what is an “accepted authority”? Do you think some TUB readers accept the Revelation because it is written by celestials with authority they trust? I think there are some folks out there who can’t or won’t accept their authority and I can’t blame them for that. But there’s an even higher authority and the celestial authors tell us point blank that they’re relying on it to help us. Jesus did say, “The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations . . . “(159:4.7)

I was thinking of the priesthood or authority of doctrine when I wrote that but the point is some people believe what they’re told without needing or requiring any logic or reason. Children believe everything their parents tell them until they begin to question and challenge everything instead (sometime after the Santa Claus cat is out of the bag!). I certainly did not personally accept the authority claimed by the UB’s authors without significant time and prayer and reason…finally did I conclude the only thing more unbelievable than the claims themselves was any other alternative! Which I think is what you mean about the “authority of truth”.

As to the value of metaphysics, let me say that the UB challenged mine in so many ways of confirmation and reasonable, logical context and connections…which proves to me that metaphysics is not always so fictional, it is just unverified and unsubstantiated. But if one truly applies logic and reason to the evidence at hand, then the inventions of that which provides our context might be imagined and inspired sufficiently to not be so surprising or so inaccurate after all. I found the UB to feel believable long before I accepted its claims…it all made too much sense as I read it the first time. It’s authorship claims notwithstanding, it’s believability overcame all suspicion and skepticism over time.

It made too much sense logically to be fiction, according to my own metaphysical constructs, beliefs, and preconceptions…so many of which were developed once I had rejected the metaphysics of authority handed to me by the process of superstition and evolutionary religion’s remnants of myth based reality memory from long, long ago. Not that many of us, I have come to discover, truly take the time and do the work of constructing our own metaphysical reality…far too many simply believe what they are told by someone with sufficient authority to merely adopt that version of reality.

The beginning of that construct, is my forever belief on how vast is God’s creation and how BIG is God compared to the church’s earth centric beliefs and how many beings there MUST be in the universe and how organized. Next is the integration of creationism and evolution – of course both MUST be true! Then there is karma and perfecting over the eternity to come in TIME, slowly and experientially. As created by one from outside of time and space, from infinity and the never beginning….all of which is so much more reasonable than everything coming from nothing without cause or reason (imagine science OF ALL SOURCES claiming something from nothing without cause….effect but no cause….hahhahahahah, ridiculous!!) And then there is the personal nature of God and God’s relationship as parent to creation based on love.

My universe paradigm included all of that generally before the UB found me. Still did I doubt it initially regarding its claims for itself. But those claims too now only makes good logical sense for who else might have composed such an inspiring compilation of truth and integrated facts?

Remember that self revelation includes reason and logic and insight and inspiration. The mind may discover a great deal about reality merely by observing and thinking!

"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."
BonitaParticipant
Feb 4, 2019, 10:35 PM

Bradly wrote:

(imagine science OF ALL SOURCES claiming something from nothing without cause….effect but no cause….hahhahahahah, ridiculous!!)

Well, that’s because they refuse to take personality into account, particularly the personality of the Uncaused Cause. Personality is the one thing we have that has been released from the fetters of antecedent causation.

111:4.8 You cannot completely control the external world — environment. It is the creativity of the inner world that is most subject to your direction because there your personality is so largely liberated from the fetters of the laws of antecedent causation. There is associated with personality a limited sovereignty of will.
BradlyParticipant
Feb 10, 2019, 1:34 PM
103:9.11 (1142.2) Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.

Paper 103 – The Reality of Religious Experience – has introduced and integrated many different elements of personal religion to present to us effects, or results, and not just causes or the beginnings of such experience. Faith is an act. Faith becomes a series or stream of acts which should, over time and sincere repetition, lead to experiential wisdom…a result of our discernment of and relationship with God. The attachment of the branch to the vine by faith results in that nurturing and productive relationship with the vine and the flow of nutrients that delivers the fruit of that vine of love.

Being attached to the vine will deliver feelings and high emotions of trust and satisfaction, assurance and contentment, hope and happiness, joy and sublime peace…this is the natural result of the response of mind to the urges and yearns, the hunger and thirst that the adjutants and the Adjuster deliver to our minds. The response is faith. Faith is the act based on knowing and believing…the more we act upon our believing and knowing, the more faith grows within….the more certain we become of God and our relationship to God. It works. This relationship. It has demonstrable and experiencable results. Changes to how we think and what we think about and what we see around us changes. Our perception of reality changes. Our perspective changes. Our expectations change. Results change. Reality becomes more objective to our lens of view. We gain maturity, certainty, confidence, poise, and patience. Faith and truth are transformative and not at all passive.

Religious Experience becomes far more than a mystical or warm and fuzzy feeling…it becomes terra firma, foundational and dependable. We change who we are by changing how we choose what we choose and why we choose what we choose because of our experience with faith. Religious Experience is what happens to us and the decisions we make because of our growing faith and the truth realized and the truth assurance gained as the TA succeeds in its ministry to our mind which opens to the faith experience of the adjutants like a flower to the sun for the pollination of truth…think of faith as the flower and truth as the pollen provided by the Adjuster and the fruits which come thereby are filled with the seed we sow as we walk by.

"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."
Nigel NunnParticipant
Feb 11, 2019, 6:32 AM
Bradly – what a perfect culmination to this study!

All these pregnant personal potentials bring us back to the question: how to share such intimately personal discoveries?

To what degree is it possible to share the experience of such pollination with someone who may be no less keen to believe, yet whose faith is just warming up for such experiential reach?

This is what I had in mind regarding the phenomenon of metaphysics, which unfolds in the mind of the non-experiencer, the one yet to be pollinated. In such cases, their minds “unfailingly postulate conclusions and invent origins” (115:1.1, 1260.2). In other words, for them, during their pre-experiential reach, the phenomenon of metaphysics serves to fill gaps until bridged by experience.

Or until they receive the sort of “revelation” that, in cultures as confused as ours, triggers all sorts of further metaphysical repercussions!!

with thanks — Nigel
BradlyParticipant
Feb 11, 2019, 11:17 PM
Nigel…thank you too for your generous willingness to share your own perspective and light in this discovery of The Reality of Religious Experience! As to sharing this pollination of our faith by the truth experience that should compel us all to enthusiastically share “such intimately personal discoveries”, I know how clumsy and difficult that can be for me and how I can so often, and in error, lack graciousness and effectiveness in such efforts!

103:8.2 (1140.2) The confusion about the experience of the certainty of God arises out of the dissimilar interpretations and relations of that experience by separate individuals and by different races of men. The experiencing of God may be wholly valid, but the discourse about God, being intellectual and philosophical, is divergent and oftentimes confusingly fallacious.

Jesus had such a knack for finding the common understanding and shared perspectives of such divergent and confusing issues that language seems lacking in its capabilities to communicate such experiences. He seemed able to do so no matter the wisdom or its lack in the other seeker or how weak the flicker or strong the flame of the believers around him. Indeed, could he present to a crowd filled with every spectrum point of comprehension and appreciation in ways to brighten the illumination of all within.

Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it! He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?

I think we should consider how to become effective evangels of truth, beauty, and goodness. Not to become preachers or teachers or those intent to “save” others or humanity from anything. But how to share our own inner light and experience and relationship in ways which becoming “confusingly fallacious”. How can we add fuel to the fire to kindle the existing light within others that we might serve others kindly and lovingly and graciously? How do we achieve that without attempting to remove things and correct beliefs and replace the metaphysics of others with our own? For it is a fact that even armed with the knowledge contained in this epochal revelation about reality which replaces our own metaphysical constructions and inventions, until someone else has also accepted the authority and the facts provided in the UB, then even those facts are but our personal metaphysics of belief when compared to any other’s!

In other words, we may not take any great assumption of superior knowledge with us to our efforts to evangelize truth, beauty, and goodness to others. Think of the knowledge the Son of God had to deliver and share with others that contradicted the fictions and fallacies of this world. Yet he championed reality and truth without such knowledge as a tool or a weapon of conviction or conversion! He gently fanned the flames of faith and added kindling to the fires of truth within everyone he met. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately and there are two key words and strategies I’d like to consider here related to how best to share our inner light and life with others in the most effective and loving way possible.

They are “inspire” and “assure” or inspiration and assurance. It is my opinion that the words of the Master and those within the Revelation have these elements in common and that this pattern of reality-presentation and truth-sharing is tactically effective in removing barriers of inherent disagreement over the description and understanding of reality and the religious experience. We are taught that although The Reality of Religious Experience is personal and unique to the each of us, it is also common among the all of us. It is not unique or personal to have a religious experience or to have faith or to give birth to soul or to host the God Fragment within or to deal with realities from the dual nature perspective and to enjoy the urges, yearns, hungers, and thirsts of righteousness and the rewards and fruits of the spirit by the attachment of the branch to the vine. These are not unique to any of us except in their experience!

So I wonder if the most successful evangels find ways to inspire others and assure others of God’s love and our familial relationship in this friendly universe while assuaging fears and reducing anxieties by sharing our faith and inner peace and poise and confidence in the fact of love and the results of love?

While we near the end of Paper 103, I hope we have only begun to explore its contents and meanings……

"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."
BonitaParticipant
Feb 12, 2019, 1:15 PM

Bradly wrote:

Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it! He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?

Shouldn’t it just naturally flow? If you have to think about how to do be honest and sincere, then there’s something wrong, no?
BonitaParticipant
Feb 12, 2019, 1:32 PM

Bradly wrote:

I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately and there are two key words and strategies I’d like to consider here related to how best to share our inner light and life with others in the most effective and loving way possible. They are “inspire” and “assure” or inspiration and assurance.

Don’t forget the word graciousness.

171:7.1-2 Jesus spread good cheer everywhere he went. He was full of grace and truth. His associates never ceased to wonder at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. You can cultivate gracefulness, but graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul. Goodness always compels respect, but when it is devoid of grace, it often repels affection. Goodness is universally attractive only when it is gracious. Goodness is effective only when it is attractive.
BradlyParticipant
Feb 12, 2019, 2:56 PM

Bonita wrote:

Bradly wrote:

Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it! He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?

Shouldn’t it just naturally flow? If you have to think about how to do be honest and sincere, then there’s something wrong, no?

Perhaps. It was a natural and unconscious behavior for Jesus. But honesty and sincerity are not wisdom and graciousness either. Both require experience and skill prior to becoming a natural expression of a wise and gracious evangel of light and truth.

The discourse about God and the religious experience is too often based on the difference between beliefs and believers. Amusingly, those differences are as faulty and fictional on either side as the other…we embrace prejudices over metaphysical inventions for fallacious presentations, discourse, and defense of fictions.

One day there will be one philosophy and a more factually correct and shared reality perspective with less metaphysical confusions to generate such disparities of experience.

But for now, and for me, it requires intention to focus on assurance and inspiration rather than agreement and beliefs. I do hope to be warm, generous, kind, friendly, and sincere with others and presume their own inner light within. This is becoming more and more reflexive it is true but I cannot claim any great graciousness to be sure!

"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."
BonitaParticipant
Feb 12, 2019, 3:06 PM

Bradly wrote:

But honesty and sincerity are not wisdom and graciousness either. Both require experience and skill prior to becoming a natural expression of a wise and gracious evangel of light and truth.

I disagree completely. Little children are honest, sincere and sometimes gracious without any wisdom, experience or special skills.
BonitaParticipant
Feb 12, 2019, 8:41 PM

Bradly wrote:

Jesus had such a knack for finding the common understanding and shared perspectives of such divergent and confusing issues that language seems lacking in its capabilities to communicate such experiences. He seemed able to do so no matter the wisdom or its lack in the other seeker or how weak the flicker or strong the flame of the believers around him. Indeed, could he present to a crowd filled with every spectrum point of comprehension and appreciation in ways to brighten the illumination of all within.

That’s because Jesus loved people. He really loved even the unlovely. How did Jesus come to love people? He spent his entire life learning about them – listening, asking questions and getting to know people. Human things/beings must be known in order to be loved. (102:1.1) Loving the spirit who lives in each person is not the same as loving the human person who is housing that spirit. Jesus gave this as one of his final instructions: “I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men.” (191:5.3)

Jesus also taught that the most frequent cause of others rejecting your evangelism is your own failure to live the righteous life (155:1.5). Why is that? Because love is contagious. If you truly love someone it awakens the love response in that person like a magnet. That’s how Jesus was able to enlighten the mind, heart and soul. Don’t forget that appealing to the emotions focuses the attention and the intellect, and the mind so aroused is the gateway to the soul.

188:5.2 Jesus loves men so much that his love awakens the response of love in the human heart. Love is truly contagious and eternally creative.

152:6.4 Jesus taught the appeal to the emotions as the technique of arresting and focusing the intellectual attention. He designated the mind thus aroused and quickened as the gateway to the soul, where there resides that spiritual nature of man which must recognize truth and respond to the spiritual appeal of the gospel in order to afford the permanent results of true character transformations.

That’s the difference between graciousness and gracefulness. Gracefulness is a learned conscious behavior which is not always genuine. It can be an affectation. Graciousness, on the other hand, is an unconscious gift arising from the love relationship between creature and Creator. It is a natural fruit of the spirit which provides that fragrance which is so attractive and alluring in its ability to win the hearts of others. That’s why Jesus said this:

181:2.5 “You will learn to love your brethren more when you first learn to love their Father in heaven more, and after you have become truly more interested in their welfare in time and in eternity.”
BonitaParticipant
Feb 13, 2019, 1:25 PM

Bradly wrote:

Rodan claimed we are not having much of a religious experience if we are not eager to share it!

That’s because it’s impossible to keep the effects of a true religious experience inside yourself. The quote below says you can never do it, it’s just not possible. If a religious experience is true, it is a love experience within the Father’s personality circuit, both creature and Creator communing. Yes, you can keep to yourself the intellectual understanding of the meanings and values revealed by such an experience, but the outgrowth of a true religious experience is a natural, unstoppable universe phenomenon. It’s called the great circuit of love, a circuit of fragrant, love-saturated fruit.

117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.

Bradly wrote:He did not really advise us how best to achieve this urge…but perhaps we might discuss how best “to share the experience of such pollination”?

That’s because it’s not an urge, it’s a natural, unconscious outgrowth of love. The only thing you can do to foster such a thing is prayer and worship – a simple faith-trust in sonship which opens the heart to love and therefore creates the desire to love in return – the great circuit. (2:5.8) To be an honest and sincere evangel is simply to live the religious life as an ambassador of the kingdom, and to never forget that it is not our kingdom. The great circuits of mind, spirit and even love are not ours to keep. They are all gifts we are given to participate in. The best way to participate is to share the personality with other personalities, both human and divine – to actively love divine personalities and to learn to love human personalities so the great circuit of love from the Father’s personality circuit can flow abundantly. We’re told, even if we learn to understand and love just one other person each day or week, we are socializing and spiritualizing our personality. (100:4.6)

160:5.3 If something has become a religion in your experience, it is self-evident that you already have become an active evangel of that religion since you deem the supreme concept of your religion as being worthy of the worship of all mankind, all universe intelligences. If you are not a positive and missionary evangel of your religion, you are self-deceived in that what you call a religion is only a traditional belief or a mere system of intellectual philosophy.

It says in the above quote exactly what I’ve been saying. If something is a religion to you, then you are already an active evangel. It’s a natural consequence, not an urge. The supreme concept you deem worthy of worship can only be a personality if your religion is true, and that person is Love. Rodan is talking about the great circuit of love. If you have to figure this out and devise a way to become an active evangel, then your religion is false. You’re wasting time or talents.

Related quotes:

100:4.6 You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality.

174:1.5 Love is the outworking of the divine and inner urge of life. It is founded on understanding, nurtured by unselfish service, and perfected in wisdom.

2:5.8 The experience of loving is very much a direct response to the experience of being loved.

140:10.6 This new religion of Jesus was not without its practical implications, but whatever of practical political, social, or economic value there is to be found in his teaching is the natural outworking of this inner experience of the soul as it manifests the fruits of the spirit in the spontaneous daily ministry of genuine personal religious experience.
BonitaParticipant
Feb 14, 2019, 3:43 PM

Bradly wrote:

I think we should consider how to become effective evangels of truth, beauty, and goodness. Not to become preachers or teachers or those intent to “save” others or humanity from anything. But how to share our own inner light and experience and relationship in ways which becoming “confusingly fallacious”. How can we add fuel to the fire to kindle the existing light within others that we might serve others kindly and lovingly and graciously? How do we achieve that without attempting to remove things and correct beliefs and replace the metaphysics of others with our own?

Well, doesn’t it matter a whole lot if you’re sharing facts or if you’re sharing truth? People can reject facts all they want and it’s okay. But, to reject truth is self-destructive. It’s not facts that drives out, or crowds out all error, it’s truth:

141:6:2 . . . Lead men into the kingdom, and the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error.

132:0.4 And this was his method of instruction: Never once did he attack their errors or even mention the flaws in their teachings. In each case he would select the truth in what they taught and then proceed so to embellish and illuminate this truth in their minds that in a very short time this enhancement of the truth effectively crowded out the associated error.

You ask how to become an effective evangel of truth, beauty and goodness? Aren’t we told that goodness is unconscious? How can you create truth, beauty and goodness by a sheer act of will? You can’t. You become an evangel by being an active worshiper, by always living in the presence of God, by being a living example of sonship. People with any truth sensitivity at all do marvel at that sort of thing when they recognize it. And, the more spiritual personality is always dominant over the lesser spiritual personality in any contest concerning reality; it’s a universe law:

2:3.5 In any universe contest between actual levels of reality, the personality of the higher level will ultimately triumph over the personality of the lower level. This inevitable outcome of universe controversy is inherent in the fact that divinity of quality equals the degree of reality or actuality of any will creature. Undiluted evil, complete error, willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically suicidal. Such attitudes of cosmic unreality can survive in the universe only because of transient mercy-tolerance pending the action of the justice-determining and fairness-finding mechanisms of the universe tribunals of righteous adjudication.

So the bottom line, if you desire to be an effective evangel, is to be more real. You become more real by being more sincere, honest and truth-loving.

39:4.14 The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity.

People with any truth-sensitivity at all do recognize sincerity when they see it. The biggest problem I’ve had on forums is the inability to translate sincerity into words. People tend to be suspicious, even Nigel accuses me of producing straw men when I’m actually being very sincere. Sometimes people don’t believe me even when I write over and over again that I’m being sincere. It’s a conundrum. That’s why I think being an effective evangel on internet forums is not really possible, or at least it’s absurdly difficult. I think there are better, more effective ways to live the love you feel in your heart, experience in your soul, and know to be true in your mind.

Bradly wrote:For it is a fact that even armed with the knowledge contained in this epochal revelation about reality which replaces our own metaphysical constructions and inventions, until someone else has also accepted the authority and the facts provided in the UB, then even those facts are but our personal metaphysics of belief when compared to any other’s!

Again, it’s not about the facts; it’s about truth. But even so, here on the forums we study the facts and it is up to each individual to discover, recognize and interpret truth for themselves, within their individual souls, the only place where this transformation can take place. That sort of work does not happen on a keyboard, and you can’t force people to open the gateway to their souls and do soul work no matter what you say. There are plenty of people who are only interested in intellectual work, and that’s fine, but it has nothing to do with revelation. Revelation happens in the soul and nowhere else, and truth is always a revelation.

Facts are not a revelation, but the meaning of facts can be when soul work is done. How one inspires people to look toward their souls for interpretation of meanings is an artform I think. Earlier I asked if words can be an artform capable of accomplishing such a thing. I imagine they can be at times, at least the TUB authors think so, but I don’t think the artist has any control over the effect on the reader. Either the words inspire or they don’t inspire the reader to seek spiritual meanings, or truth, on their own. But above all, the artist should not assume that even spiritual meanings are identical in nature. Like personality, I think they are rather unique, because truth is a relationship. So, being an evangel is rather simple, being an effective evangel is not entirely under your personal control. All you can do is strive for more righteousness – become more real.

I say, produce your art, live your experience with truth, forget about authority because it’s not your kingdom, place less emphasis on facts and more on loving, living truth, and it will eventually crowd out all error. If you’re sincere and honest about the things you say and do, if you strive to always live in the presence of God (do his will), then it doesn’t really matter much what others think or say about any of it. The whole world could come tumbling down on you and it wouldn’t matter, right? You’d still be an evangel, your loving acts would be your gift, but the consequences of those actions would be God’s. It is his kingdom. Be your best and let God do his own work. He knows better than any of us what really works, and he lives in everyone’s head.
AndréParticipant
Feb 19, 2019, 5:33 AM
Thank you Bonita cristal clear explanation and well popularized.
BonitaParticipant
Feb 19, 2019, 12:35 PM
Thank you André. I was wondering if there was anyone left on this forum to read it. Certainly no one is interested in discussing the topic, that’s for sure – a chronic problem here. It seems most folks prefer the other forum to study the exact same material. Odd isn’t it?

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