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The Reality of Religious Experience – Paper 103

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

AndréParticipant
Aug 13, 2018, 6:16 AM
Do you, or anyone else reading this, think it’s possible, by willpower alone, to affectively alter your nervous system reflexes

We knows willpower comes from personality bestowed.

Nervous biological/chemestry/material system can be altered by spirit over matter and/or willpower. At least some part of it as explain below.

Facts of science prove this.

One of the most complex systems in the body is the nervous system. (body’s electrical wiring).
- Automatic nervous system:
Not under direct voluntary control. It controls automatic processes such as breathing, digestion, and the beating of the heart.
- Somatic nervous system:
It allows you to perform complex movements and behaviors. Is subject to voluntary control and accessible to consciousness.

… by willpower alone … your ability to automatically associate ideas?

“ At first only the spirit of intuition could function in the instinctive and reflex behavior of the primordial animal life. With the differentiation of higher types, the spirit of understanding was able to endow such creatures with the gift of spontaneous association of ideas. 62:6.2

Willpower … personality could not be bestowed without Adjutans ministrie. Without this cousciousness from Third Source and Center we may be like a plant, a non-teachable mechanism, without mind, without a brain.. 65:6.10

André
BonitaParticipant
Aug 13, 2018, 11:46 AM

Gene wrote:

how about an example of affectively altering your nervous system reflexes: Siagon 1965, Buddhist monk douses himself with gasoline and lights self on fire in response to a situation that violated his sense of right and wrong. He didn’t move or cry out in pain or change his mind.

Isn’t that just a matter of controlling the emotions by putting yourself into a coma-like self-hypnotic trance? I don’t think that’s control over the lower adjutants as much as it is control over the higher adjutants. That guy just shut off worship and wisdom completely with self-hypnosis. I do think we know when we’re consciously engaging worship and wisdom, but not so much with the lower adjutants. I certainly don’t think there’s a way to be wholly conscious of an individual adjutant in such a way that you can control one at a time either.

I know that my first adjutant is functioning if I’m sitting at a red light in the middle lane and when the left hand green arrow comes on my foot reflexively begins to release the brake. My first adjutant has learned that green means go, but my second adjutant has to process the information because not all green lights mean go, then one or more of the other adjutants makes me put pressure back on the brake and pay attention. But that’s about the extent of it, the ability to witness the effects of the lower adjutants, but not the actual inner workings in such a way that I can consciously control their activity. The trance state of self-hypnosis is not really a fully conscious state. I do think that a trained hypnotist can make suggestions to the subconscious mind, but that does not constitute conscious self-willed control over the unconscious adjutant workings of the mind.

We can train our minds to respond to certain religious stimuli but only if we engage worship and wisdom, both of which we can become aware of interacting with, but even then, not fully conscious of how they work within the mind. When TUB mentions this in terms of developing a spiritual reflex, the author is talking about keeping the gateway open through worshipful and wise thinking, which is Godwardly directed reflective and meditative thought. It has nothing at all to do with the lower adjutants any more than they being merely the supportive substructure for the sixth and seventh. The lower adjutants will perform naturally to their utmost ability. Worship and wisdom will also function naturally, but unlike the lower five, they can be self-consciously chosen and worked with because they are the human level of adjutants built to engage personality with it’s precious power of choice. To be honest, I don’t think here is much value in thought without engaging worship and wisdom. Concentrating one’s thoughts on the lower adjutants is material level thinking, and in the grand scheme of things, not very serviceable.

111:1.5 . . . Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious.

102:3.1 Religion must continually labor under a paradoxical necessity: the necessity of making effective use of thought while at the same time discounting the spiritual serviceableness of all thinking.

Gene wrote:

As we grow and the Adjutants kick in and we receive Divine Adjuster the selfishness slowly can turn outside to brotherly love, service and even fatherly love.

The lower adjutants have nothing to do with Adjuster guidance except to prepare the mind for the superadjutant Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit is the baseline signal to the Adjuster that the mind is prepared to accept him. All of our unselfish altruistic urges come from the Adjuster, but we would not be aware of them at all without utilizing worship and wisdom in the search for such high urges. Using the gateway adjutants to connect to the inner spiritual vine is the only way the fruits of brotherly love and fatherly love can be produced. Spiritual fruit does not grow on material vines. Only social fruit is produced on material vines. The Holy Spirit is an essential part of the spiritual vine because she forms the thinking mechanism which supports it. It’s why they call it born of the spirit. A new mind is born.

103:5.5 Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight — genuine religious reflection.

103:2.10 Man tends to identify the urge to be self-serving with his ego — himself. In contrast he is inclined to identify the will to be altruistic with some influence outside himself — God. And indeed is such a judgment right, for all such nonself desires do actually have their origin in the leadings of the indwelling Thought Adjuster, and this Adjuster is a fragment of God. The impulse of the spirit Monitor is realized in human consciousness as the urge to be altruistic, fellow-creature minded. At least this is the early and fundamental experience of the child mind. When the growing child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided conscience can become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human unhappiness.

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.
Nigel NunnParticipant
Aug 13, 2018, 7:46 PM
Hi Bonita,

Your comments above make me wonder, are you mistaking behavioral pathways for Adjutant illumination? Are you confusing habitual responses for the gentle urgings of a level of consciousness of our Divine Minister?

Regarding the Adjutant mediating our first taste of Intuition, as I understand it, this has nothing to do with the sort of reflexive reaction you describe (green means go!)

For me, a better illustration of this particular circuit (Intuition) is the means by which a quarterback can KNOW the state of play from a single glance — so called “game awareness”. Of course, Knowledge and Understanding add to this picture their quick insight into potential repercussions, if that wide receiver happens successfully to receive

Does this help to clarify the difference between our interpretations?

What do you think?

Nigel
BonitaParticipant
Aug 14, 2018, 1:17 PM

Nigel Nunn wrote:

Your comments above make me wonder, are you mistaking behavioral pathways for Adjutant illumination? Are you confusing habitual responses for the gentle urgings of a level of consciousness of our Divine Minister?

What’s the difference Nigel? Are you saying that the amoeba’s ability to react to its environment for the purpose of self-preservation is not due to the gentle urgings of a level of consciousness of our Divine Minister? She is conscious of all life, even the non-teachable mechanical life to which the first adjutant provides overlapping contact ministry, along with the Physical Controllers. The first adjutant function is the very source of stimulus-response behavior. In humans that stimulus-response can be conditioned by habit, since human mind is teachable as well as non-teachable. The non-teachable, mechanical level of mind functions at the cellular level, which is overlapped by the first adjutant that directs a network of cells to react to a stimulus rather than a single cell. Because humans are not single-celled like the amoeba, the first adjutant can build more robust and complex stimulus-response behaviors, even without engaging the reasoning power of the higher adjutants. You give the first adjutant far too much intelligence. It’s function is very basic and primitive.

Nigel Nunn wrote:Regarding the Adjutant mediating our first taste of Intuition, as I understand it, this has nothing to do with the sort of reflexive reaction you describe (green means go!)

Well that’s precisely where you and I differ in our understandings of the adjutants. If the first adjutant is the only adjutant that makes contact with the lower orders of animal life and human mental life is contingent upon the ability of each of the adjutants’ progressively functioning throughout the animal kingdom, then the first adjutant in the human functions no differently than it functions in the primitive animal, which is to provide ” . . . primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts . . .” (36:5.6) This means that although Yehudi might be able to play the triangle in the human being, he only plays the maracas in primitive animals and the finger cymbals in higher animals. The first adjutant will never, ever become a violin player. The evolution of the first adjutant stays within the limits of its functional constraints, and the human being is it’s highest evolution of function, but still very basic ” . . . primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts.” The keywords in the description of the first adjutant is physical instincts, not intuition, which has different meanings on different levels.

The word intuition has a very limited meaning in regards to the first adjutant; it means quick perception in regards to physical instincts. Higher levels of intuition require a more complex level of reasoning and logic. The first adjutant is incapable of complex reasoning. That is the purview of the other adjutants which have their own type of intuition. The second adjutant’s intuition is the spontaneous association of ideas, or reasoning, unrelated to the intuition of the first adjutant. The third adjutant’s intuition is fidelity and constancy of thought, unrelated to the intuition of the first adjutant. The fourth adjutant’s intuition is curiosity and determination of thought, unrelated to the intuition of the first adjutant. The fifth adjutant’s intuition is social proclivity, the impulse to share thought, unrelated to the intuition of the first adjutant. The sixth adjutant’s intuition is supernatural awareness and religion seeking thought , unrelated to the intuition of the first adjutant. The seventh adjutant’s intuition is coordination and utilization of all experience for a purpose, also unrelated to the intuition of the first adjutant. The Holy Spirit’s intuition is called spiritual intuition, or spiritual insight, a gift, and completely unrelated to the intuition of the first adjutant.

Nigel Nunn wrote:

For me, a better illustration of this particular circuit (Intuition) is the means by which a quarterback can KNOW the state of play from a single glance — so called “game awareness”. Of course, Knowledge and Understanding add to this picture their quick insight into potential repercussions, if that wide receiver happens successfully to receive

You’re talking about the spirit wisdom there and its ability to, ” . . . to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned.” 936:5.12) The “game awareness” you describe cannot happen without the spirit of wisdom which coordinates and integrates every and all input from the other six adjutants. The first adjutant’s input would only involve primitive and conditioned physical instincts – the release of adrenaline, the shifting of blood flow to the brain, dilation of the pupil, decreased blinking, conditioned muscular responses to certain stimuli, habitual stimulus-response behaviors which allow the body to align itself for best performance without thinking, etc..

Nigel Nunn wrote:

Does this help to clarify the difference between our interpretations?

Oh, I think I understand your interpretation, I just don’t agree with all of it. I’m pretty sure you don’t fully understand my interpretation though or you wouldn’t give complex reasoning power to the first adjutant. The first adjutant never climbs the ranks, but evolves to it’s maximum function within its own level and its maximum function will always involve only the ” . . . primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts . . .” (36:5.6) “Game awareness” is a function of the spirit of wisdom, not the spirit of intuition, although the first adjutant does contribute to the formula a particular type of intuition which favors self-preservation, and the self-preservation instinct of the first adjutant is to keep the physical system alive and at peak performance so the other adjutants can function. Your idea of what the first adjutant does is rather glorified and grandiose in my opinion, way too cinematic. It’s just a simple adjutant with a simple but indispensable function of self-preservation, which is why it’s first.
Nigel NunnParticipant
Aug 14, 2018, 7:18 PM
Hi Bonita,

Thanks for the well-thought out answer! I’ll spend some time reflecting on what you wrote, and on my own interesting experience of these things

Nigel
GeneParticipant
Aug 16, 2018, 8:39 AM
Bonita wrote:

“I’m just curious. Do you, or anyone else reading this, think it’s possible, by willpower alone, to affectively alter your nervous system reflexes or your ability to automatically associate ideas”

thinking about another way to think about this:

lets ask – What would happen to us if any one of the Adjutants were to suddenly disengage?

thinking about Adjutant influence as maybe rhythmic pulsation that engage and stimulate life or livng matter. Our organs, heart or other organs respond to these pulsations of the lower mechanical Adjutants, the rhythmic pulsations of the higher Adjutants stimulate our brain. If the 7th Adjutant were to disengage, would our Adjuster leave us? Or if the lower mechanical Adjutant were to disengage it’s rhythmic pulsations would our heart stop beating? If appropriate Adjutants were to disengage their rhythmic pulsations we would not be able to put together a rational thought? Or let’s take a brain dead person where science can use devices to measure brain waves – are these the indirect rhythmic pulsations of the Adjutants?

in this scenario I would say it is not within our will power to alter reflexes or automatically associate ideas
BonitaParticipant
Aug 16, 2018, 10:45 AM
Hi Gene, I think you pretty much nailed it. The only thing I differ on is the brain waves. They’re caused by electrochemical activity within the cells. The fact that cells are alive indicates that there is some kind of mind ministry though. Where there is reproducing life, there is mind. Meaning, as long as there is potential for cellular reproduction, there is mind.

I think this is one thing that escapes most who study this material. The human body is made up of living, reproducing cells. All living and reproducing cells must be minded otherwise they die. The single cell ovum and sperm are alive and minded, presumably by the physical controllers. But it’s my contention that very quickly after conception the first adjutant begins to function, even without the brain or fully developed nervous system, not unlike the way it functions in the amoeba. As I sit here today typing, every cell in my body is minded, and I’m confident the ministry includes both the physical controllers and first adjutant at a bare minimum. Why am I confident? Think about the history of life and how the adjutants made contact one-by-one, each after the other.

Amoebas were the survivors of the first life implantation stage. They are single cell animals with evolutionary survival skills, exactly what the first adjutant does for a living. They were followed by the trilobites, multicellular, sexed pre-crustaceans with eyes and capable of crawling. The trilobites were simply sophisticated multicellular amoeba, still very basic and reactionary, which tells me it is unlikely the second adjutant made contact, yet they too survived. Millions and millions of years with only one adjutant functioning, yet life and evolution continued on to eventually include such things as mollusks and jellyfish, much as it is today. That one simple adjutant is the most basic and the most essential minister to animal life on this planet, including human life, right on down to the cellular level.

Then suddenly the cephalopods appeared and became dominant. Cephalopods have brains and are somewhat intelligent, which means the second adjutant, capable of associating ideas, was likely able to make first contact with the first adjutant. (Mind ministers to mind.) Of course the intelligence of the cephalopod is limited, but wikipedia gives an example of a cephalopod in a laboratory that climbed out of its aquarium, crawled across the floor into another aquarium to feed on crabs, and then crawled back to its own aquarium. That’s quite a significant ability requiring some actual thinking. So, when I crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and return to my pillow, it’s my squid brain I thank. Thank you adjutant number two.

Anyway, I spent some time yesterday researching the evolution of life on this planet and where I think each of the adjutants might have been able to first function. I’m still working on it, but it’s probably not appropriate for this topic. If I ever get it done, I’ll put it elsewhere.
GeneParticipant
Aug 16, 2018, 2:56 PM
Another thought – this one is partly for the imagination – if I were to build a spaceship capable of carrying me outside of our local universe, outside of the influence of our Mother Spirit, would my body shut down because I get disengaged from Adjutants?
BonitaParticipant
Aug 16, 2018, 3:50 PM

Gene wrote:

Another thought – this one is partly for the imagination – if I were to build a spaceship capable of carrying me outside of our local universe, outside of the influence of our Mother Spirit, would my body shut down because I get disengaged from Adjutants?

I guess you’re assuming there is no longer a quarantine keeping you confined to Urantia and its surrounds, (however far out that goes I don’t know). But the bottom line is that the adjutants functioning on this planet are not in contact with other adjutant ministries in this local universe because Urantia is a decimal planet, so it’s possible your physical body would just fizzle out. I think the physical controllers are also local universe specific. Will have to look that up.

65:7.3 The seven adjutant spirits are more circuitlike than entitylike, and on ordinary worlds they are encircuited with other adjutant functionings throughout the local universe. On life-experiment planets, however, they are relatively isolated. And on Urantia, owing to the unique nature of the life patterns, the lower adjutants experienced far more difficulty in contacting with the evolutionary organisms than would have been the case in a more standardized type of life endowment.
GeneParticipant
Aug 17, 2018, 12:27 AM
“I guess you’re assuming there is no longer a quarantine keeping you confined to Urantia and its surrounds, (however far out that goes I don’t know.”

I don’t know either but I have thought about it and my guess is the quarantine extends far enough to get close to but not too close to our nearest neighboring sphere that is inhabited by intelligent beings.

well, astronauts got as far as the moon ok and I’ve been scoping out “the mars society” these people are doing the human survival studying for NASA who is definitely planning a manned mars mission and likely within a decade humans may test that limit.
BradlyParticipant
Aug 18, 2018, 12:58 PM
103:2.7 (1131.6) Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.

103:2.8 (1131.7) When a moral being chooses to be unselfish when confronted by the urge to be selfish, that is primitive religious experience. No animal can make such a choice; such a decision is both human and religious. It embraces the fact of God-consciousness and exhibits the impulse of social service, the basis of the brotherhood of man. When mind chooses a right moral judgment by an act of the free will, such a decision constitutes a religious experience.

103:2.9 (1131.8) But before a child has developed sufficiently to acquire moral capacity and therefore to be able to choose altruistic service, he has already developed a strong and well-unified egoistic nature. And it is this factual situation that gives rise to the theory of the struggle between the “higher” and the “lower” natures, between the “old man of sin” and the “new nature” of grace. Very early in life the normal child begins to learn that it is “more blessed to give than to receive.”

103:2.10 (1131.9) Man tends to identify the urge to be self-serving with his ego—himself. In contrast he is inclined to identify the will to be altruistic with some influence outside himself—God. And indeed is such a judgment right, for all such nonself desires do actually have their origin in the leadings of the indwelling Thought Adjuster, and this Adjuster is a fragment of God. The impulse of the spirit Monitor is realized in human consciousness as the urge to be altruistic, fellow-creature minded. At least this is the early and fundamental experience of the child mind. When the growing child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self. A misguided conscience can become responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human unhappiness.

So our religious experience…whether evolutionary and led by faith and the natural experience with the higher Adjutants or the more experienced and progressive revelationary truth relationship with TA…is about our response to the impulses and urges we have which are normal and systemic to our being. We have the free will to ignore or respond so we are not forced, tricked, coerced, or otherwise is our free will circumvented. However, we don’t have to go find, seek out, uncover, discover, or otherwise build a bridge or make a connection to FIND God or the Spirit or our natural Spirit nature.

The UB says our finding God only demonstrates God has already found us. Jesus said he stands at the door knocking…knock, knock, knock. We must only respond. We are told that even when we wander off seeking the greener grass afar and get lost, we may depend upon our shepherd to always seek us out and always to find us….no matter what rocky crag we find ourselves stuck upon. The Adjutants deliver urges and impulses to all life…from the single cell to complex organism to the highest animals and within us too. I really appreciate all the related Adjutant study here. It helps me understand that the mortal being is a layered and integrated functional totality of all life forms that exist or have ever existed on an evolutionary planet. It is not a progressive and evolutionary link but an integration and harmonization and aggregation of the totality of the life forming enterprise of the Life Carriers in partnership with the Adjutants.

We are the purposeful result of the science and art and craft of body building and mind building being blended into a responsive complex organism that is connected to the mind circuit like all life is but is also capable of connection to the spirit and personality circuits and with the ability to personally choose to respond to these spiritual forces and the Deity of their origin. It is an amazing feat of design, engineering, and execution at the material levels of universe reality. And it is in the mind of such evolutionary and material being wherein begins The Reality of Religious Experience.

And every choice we make which responds to the Spirit affirms that relationship and connection to Spirit which strengthens the connection. And by that connection we early learn that altruistic acts bring more satisfaction and happiness than do selfish ones. We are rewarded when we respond to the urges and impulses which are inherently innate and hard wired into our very being and system. This is why some of us spiritualize more naturally over time. Those who must experience jolting and drama and crisis and emotional crossroads conversions are those of us, perhaps, who allowed self importance and ego to take us too far away from the impulses and the rewards inherent in responding to the impulses? Those ones were determined to find happiness by another route or set of priorities and had to experience sufficient disappointment to finally have a “glory moment” of faith realization?

For I am learning that the reality is that our religious experience is completely personal and unique and there is no standardization or template that might be applied from one person to another. And that is why we are taught to not compare our religious experience to any other’s and to honor and respect all believers and the many paths which deliver them to God and to Paradise.

Thanks everyone!!

"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."
BradlyParticipant
Aug 19, 2018, 1:04 PM

Bonita wrote:

Bradly wrote:

It does seem to me that it is unfortunate that many of us mortals do not fully experience our own human potential by utilization of the Adjutants which certainly retards our ability to become spiritualized I think. When we consider the importance and value of harmonization of our being and the balance and integration of life’s potentials, the more imbalanced or disconnected or distracted from any of the Adjutants (the escalator to our souls!) only delivers obstacles to our growth.

I’m just curious. Do you, or anyone else reading this, think it’s possible, by willpower alone, to affectively alter your nervous system reflexes or your ability to automatically associate ideas? Is that something you believe you have control over? Do you think there’s a way to change your natural propensity for curiosity or to balance it with your natural self-preservation and social instincts? Do you think you can willfully stop, redirect, change the focus of, or bolster the performance of any one of the adjutants over another and what would be the purpose of doing so? Do you think you can specifically identify what each of the lower five adjutants are doing in your mind at any given time? Another question I have is there more value in balancing your adjutant mind, or finding a balance between your dual minds? And my final question that I’m curious to get an opinion on is whether we should concentrate on balancing our minds or balancing our personalities, and what’s the difference? What’s the difference between having a balanced mind and a coordinated or integrated mind in regards to the whole self?

12:6.1 The universe is nonstatic. Stability is not the result of inertia but rather the product of balanced energies, co-operative minds, co-ordinated morontias, spirit overcontrol, and personality unification. Stability is wholly and always proportional to divinity. 111:1.7 Evolutionary mind is only fully stable and dependable when manifesting itself upon the two extremes of cosmic intellectuality—the wholly mechanized and the entirely spiritualized. Between the intellectual extremes of pure mechanical control and true spirit nature there intervenes that enormous group of evolving and ascending minds whose stability and tranquillity are dependent upon personality choice and spirit identification. 118.8.11 An automatic universe reaction is stable and, in some form, continuing in the cosmos. A personality who knows God and desires to do his will, who has spirit insight, is divinely stable and eternally existent. Man’s great universe adventure consists in the transit of his mortal mind from the stability of mechanical statics to the divinity of spiritual dynamics, and he achieves this transformation by the force and constancy of his own personality decisions, in each of life’s situations declaring, “It is my will that your will be done.

I have been pondering your questions Bonita. I do think that “mind” has such capabilities, yes. To what extent and degree is a more personal and individual issue that goes beyond mere will. Will is but intent and effort I think. But I think mind can shape and transcend material limits when combined with the source of mind and by the will of God…not the will of mortal.

I think, by mind, I might understand the adjutants influence and function more and I might recognize inherent situational or circumstantial reactions which may be thusly sourced so that I can more consciously allow and thwart and magnify and diminish those based on a cognitive awareness. I can and have learned to manage fight and flight responses and anger reactions and urges to become enraged or punish others and protect myself. I have done this by applying either the higher adjutant functions or learned awareness of smallness and otherness by Spirit response. So yes, I think the impulses we receive can to some degree be managed by mind and utilized to create a more balanced and functional and survivable material life.

Mind can control material. Spirit can control mind. No?

And why should we control or manage or balance only our adjutant urges OR our dual nature? Why not both?

I’m keen to hear more about balancing personality…and all other aspects of our being and experience.

"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
Aug 19, 2018, 3:01 PM
Maybe my question wasn’t clear. I was asking if it’s possible to be conscious of each individual adjutant level of mind, not one’s overall mind. Nor did I mean the practice of cultivating spirit mind over material mind, which is what Jesus describes in the quote below. What I meant is, can you sit down right now and contemplate the activities of the first adjutant within your mind and then control it? Or the second, all by itself? Or the third, and so on. I don’t think that’s possible except by flights of imagination. Even Jesus said we cannot alter our minds by will power alone, which means we cannot change a single adjutant’s function no matter how hard we try. All we can do is allow the adjutants to do their thing naturally, and utilize the higher adjutants as the gateway to the highest mind possible, then fall in love with what we find there. All we can do is shift, or transfer, our focus. I say, if you’re focusing on your adjutants, you’re stuck in material quicksand.

Jesus said:

156:5.5 But let me warn you against the folly of undertaking to surmount temptation by the effort of supplanting one desire by another and supposedly superior desire through the mere force of the human will. If you would be truly triumphant over the temptations of the lesser and lower nature, you must come to that place of spiritual advantage where you have really and truly developed an actual interest in, and love for, those higher and more idealistic forms of conduct which your mind is desirous of substituting for these lower and less idealistic habits of behavior that you recognize as temptation. You will in this way be delivered through spiritual transformation rather than be increasingly overburdened with the deceptive suppression of mortal desires. The old and the inferior will be forgotten in the love for the new and the superior. Beauty is always triumphant over ugliness in the hearts of all who are illuminated by the love of truth. There is mighty power in the expulsive energy of a new and sincere spiritual affection. And again I say to you, be not overcome by evil but rather overcome evil with good.
BonitaParticipant
Aug 19, 2018, 3:35 PM

Bradly wrote:

And why should we control or manage or balance only our adjutant urges OR our dual nature? Why not both? I’m keen to hear more about balancing personality…and all other aspects of our being and experience.

This brings to mind several questions: What’s better, a balanced mind or a balanced personality? Are they different, and if so, how? How does one balance one’s own mind? Can a person tell if they’re mentally unbalanced, or does someone have to point that out? And what makes a mind unbalanced, is it a misalignment of the adjutants, or a failure to balance between the two minds? If it’s all about balancing the adjutants, how is that done if we have no direct control over them? If we could control the adjutants, is yoga the best way to do it and why?

There’s tons in TUB about balancing the personality, Jesus being the best example. A balanced personality is a unified personality, one with a character approaching divinity attunement. Character is a function of mind, but we have two of those. There is plenty written about balancing between our two minds, but I can’t find much about balancing the adjutant mind alone. All they tell us, as far as I know, is to keep the body clean and the mind pure while striving for spirit – a triune stability. There is also plenty on how to activate the higher adjutant gateway, specifically those faith attitudes and habits of religious thinking come to mind.

(1209.4) 110:6.4 When the development of the intellectual nature proceeds faster than that of the spiritual, such a situation renders communication with the Thought Adjuster both difficult and dangerous. Likewise, overspiritual development tends to produce a fanatical and perverted interpretation of the spirit leadings of the divine indweller. Lack of spiritual capacity makes it very difficult to transmit to such a material intellect the spiritual truths resident in the higher superconsciousness. It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function — when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development — that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary progression one by one, from the seventh to the first.

Stability is the goal of the universe. It’s the goal of our Master Michael. Balance works toward stability and stability is always proportional to divinity.

12:6.1 The universe is nonstatic. Stability is not the result of inertia but rather the product of balanced energies, co-operative minds, co-ordinated morontias, spirit overcontrol, and personality unification. Stability is wholly and always proportional to divinity.
GeneParticipant
Aug 19, 2018, 4:22 PM
Why do you suppose that the natural and unquestioning submission to the survival of the fittest that our animal cousins do may very well be superior to our human reliance on the science of modern medicine? Does the latter produce stronger more resilient human beings? Are we ignoring the influence of lower Adjutants when we rely so much on medicine? Does the former demonstrate unquestioned submission to the lower Adjutants?

what about the idea of “fight or flight” is it courageous to flee even if uncertain of the odds against you?
BonitaParticipant
Aug 19, 2018, 8:25 PM

Gene wrote:

Why do you suppose that the natural and unquestioning submission to the survival of the fittest that our animal cousins do may very well be superior to our human reliance on the science of modern medicine?

The influence of modern medicine on evolution is human-driven. The adjutant influence on evolution is God-driven. Which one do you trust?
GeneParticipant
Aug 19, 2018, 9:14 PM

Bonita wrote:

Gene wrote:

Why do you suppose that the natural and unquestioning submission to the survival of the fittest that our animal cousins do may very well be superior to our human reliance on the science of modern medicine?

The influence of modern medicine on evolution is human-driven. The adjutant influence on evolution is God-driven. Which one do you trust?

the most feared, ignored and avoided: God driven. But if I practiced what I appear to be preaching by stating this, I’d have graduated about 40 years ago. I’m ok with that in hindsight.

Back to our neurons and Adjutants:

what do you suppose was really happening (on the neuron/Adjutant or otherwise mind or physical levels) when people that were healed when seeking, finding, or otherwise encountering Jesus? He informed most of them that it was their own faith that healed them. Faith is obviously involved with highest Adjutant/s. Could a sixth Adjutant sudden spiritual awakening be translated to healing, what was desired most of all, as opposed to worship or fanaticism?

Just thinking.
BonitaParticipant
Aug 19, 2018, 10:09 PM

Gene wrote:

what do you suppose was really happening (on the neuron/Adjutant or otherwise mind or physical levels) when people that were healed when seeking, finding, or otherwise encountering Jesus?

Jesus said he felt living energy had gone forth from him. Life seems to be the cure and somehow true faith is the trigger. Even the realtors don’t know how it happens Mind ministers to mind and physical controllers minister to life. Perhaps it involves the physical controllers. This is all speculation on my part.

149:1.3 It was never revealed to us just what occurred in these cases of spontaneous or unconscious healing. The Master never explained to his apostles how these healings were effected, other than that on several occasions he merely said, “I perceive that power has gone forth from me.” On one occasion he remarked when touched by an ailing child, “I perceive that life has gone forth from me.”

152:0.2 . . . Jesus suddenly stopped, exclaiming, “Someone touched me.” And when those who were near him denied that they had touched him, Peter spoke up: “Master, you can see that this crowd presses you, threatening to crush us, and yet you say ‘someone has touched me.’ What do you mean?” Then Jesus said: “I asked who touched me, for I perceived that living energy had gone forth from me.”
BonitaParticipant
Aug 20, 2018, 12:08 PM

Gene wrote:

Are we ignoring the influence of lower Adjutants when we rely so much on medicine?

Don’t forget that the adjutants are mind ministers, not physical ministers. When they say mind over matter, they don’t mean that the mind can fully control matter, it means mind has more power over us than matter has. TUB explains that mind can only cure physical problems caused by mental problems. Not all physical diseases are caused by underlying mental problems, but many physical diseases create mental anxiety in their sufferers which gives rise to mental problems in addition to the physical problems. Mind has a direct affect on mind but only an indirect affect on matter. So we definitely need the science of medicine to help us battle illnesses which have purely physical causes – like bacteria, genetic mutations, gunshot wounds.

91:6.1 Prayer, unless in liaison with the will and actions of the personal spiritual forces and material supervisors of a realm, can have no direct effect upon one’s physical environment. While there is a very definite limit to the province of the petitions of prayer, such limits do not equally apply to the faith of those who pray.

91:6.2 Prayer is not a technique for curing real and organic diseases, but it has contributed enormously to the enjoyment of abundant health and to the cure of numerous mental, emotional, and nervous ailments. And even in actual bacterial disease, prayer has many times added to the efficacy of other remedial procedures. Prayer has turned many an irritable and complaining invalid into a paragon of patience and made him an inspiration to all other human sufferers.

We are often urged to pray externally by our angels, then that urge is interpreted by the sixth mind minister who initiates prayer. The seventh adjutant integrates and organizes all relevant experience and thoughts related to the prayer and offers it to the Holy Spirit whose down grasp responds appropriately according to true need and desire. I have found myself, when suffering from some physical problem, that prayer turns my mind away from the physical to the spiritual and thereby lessens the pain and discomfort of it.

Plus, for me prayer is not only an act of faith, it is a form of communion, or fellowship. It’s always good to have someone intimate, someone who knows and loves you deeply, to share your suffering with. It takes away the mental aspects of suffering by removing the fear of isolation, the fear of having to suffer alone. Plus, by sharing in prayer, I have often gained much insight in how best to cure or improve my physical problem. That’s what they mean by mind over matter and allowing the adjutants to do their work. The adjutants are the up escalator which delivers me to the soul where I can commune with the Comforter, person to person, where there is peace and real viable solutions which can be acted out. It has never failed me.

184:4.6 . . . Jesus is now revealing to the worlds the final triumph over all fears of creature personality isolation. The Son of Man has finally achieved the realization of identity as the Son of God. Jesus does not hesitate to assert that he and the Father are one; and on the basis of the fact and truth of that supreme and supernal experience, he admonishes every kingdom believer to become one with him even as he and his Father are one. The living experience in the religion of Jesus thus becomes the sure and certain technique whereby the spiritually isolated and cosmically lonely mortals of earth are enabled to escape personality isolation, with all its consequences of fear and associated feelings of helplessness. In the fraternal realities of the kingdom of heaven the faith sons of God find final deliverance from the isolation of the self, both personal and planetary. The God-knowing believer increasingly experiences the ecstasy and grandeur of spiritual socialization on a universe scale — citizenship on high in association with the eternal realization of the divine destiny of perfection attainment.

91.2.7 Prayer contributes greatly to the development of the religious sentiment of an evolving human mind. It is a mighty influence working to prevent isolation of personality.

91.3.5 Aside from all that is superself in the experience of praying, it should be remembered that ethical prayer is a splendid way to elevate one’s ego and reinforce the self for better living and higher attainment. Prayer induces the human ego to look both ways for help: for material aid to the subconscious reservoir of mortal experience, for inspiration and guidance to the superconscious borders of the contact of the material with the spiritual, with the Mystery Monitor.

7:3.3 The spirit-gravity circuit is the basic channel for transmitting the genuine prayers of the believing human heart from the level of human consciousness to the actual consciousness of Deity. That which represents true spiritual value in your petitions will be seized by the universal circuit of spirit gravity and will pass immediately and simultaneously to all divine personalities concerned. Each will occupy himself with that which belongs to his personal province. Therefore, in your practical religious experience, it is immaterial whether, in addressing your supplications, you visualize the Creator Son of your local universe or the Eternal Son at the center of all things.
GeneParticipant
Aug 20, 2018, 2:40 PM

Bonita wrote:

Gene wrote:

Are we ignoring the influence of lower Adjutants when we rely so much on medicine?

Don’t forget that the adjutants are mind ministers, not physical ministers. When they say mind over matter, they don’t mean that the mind can fully control matter, it means mind has more power over us than matter has. TUB explains that mind can only cure physical problems caused by mental problems. Not all physical diseases are caused by underlying mental problems, but many physical diseases create mental anxiety in their sufferers which gives rise to mental problems in addition to the physical problems. Mind has a direct affect on mind but only an indirect affect on matter. So we definitely need the science of medicine to help us battle illnesses which have purely physical causes – like bacteria, genetic mutations, gunshot wounds.

91:6.1 Prayer, unless in liaison with the will and actions of the personal spiritual forces and material supervisors of a realm, can have no direct effect upon one’s physical environment. While there is a very definite limit to the province of the petitions of prayer, such limits do not equally apply to the faith of those who pray. 91:6.2 Prayer is not a technique for curing real and organic diseases, but it has contributed enormously to the enjoyment of abundant health and to the cure of numerous mental, emotional, and nervous ailments. And even in actual bacterial disease, prayer has many times added to the efficacy of other remedial procedures. Prayer has turned many an irritable and complaining invalid into a paragon of patience and made him an inspiration to all other human sufferers.

We are often urged to pray externally by our angels, then that urge is interpreted by the sixth mind minister who initiates prayer. The seventh adjutant integrates and organizes all relevant experience and thoughts related to the prayer and offers it to the Holy Spirit whose down grasp responds appropriately according to true need and desire. I have found myself, when suffering from some physical problem, that prayer turns my mind away from the physical to the spiritual and thereby lessens the pain and discomfort of it. Plus, for me prayer is not only an act of faith, it is a form of communion, or fellowship. It’s always good to have someone intimate, someone who knows and loves you deeply, to share your suffering with. It takes away the mental aspects of suffering by removing the fear of isolation, the fear of having to suffer alone. Plus, by sharing in prayer, I have often gained much insight in how best to cure or improve my physical problem. That’s what they mean by mind over matter and allowing the adjutants to do their work. The adjutants are the up escalator which delivers me to the soul where I can commune with the Comforter, person to person, where there is peace and real viable solutions which can be acted out. It has never failed me.

184:4.6 . . . Jesus is now revealing to the worlds the final triumph over all fears of creature personality isolation. The Son of Man has finally achieved the realization of identity as the Son of God. Jesus does not hesitate to assert that he and the Father are one; and on the basis of the fact and truth of that supreme and supernal experience, he admonishes every kingdom believer to become one with him even as he and his Father are one. The living experience in the religion of Jesus thus becomes the sure and certain technique whereby the spiritually isolated and cosmically lonely mortals of earth are enabled to escape personality isolation, with all its consequences of fear and associated feelings of helplessness. In the fraternal realities of the kingdom of heaven the faith sons of God find final deliverance from the isolation of the self, both personal and planetary. The God-knowing believer increasingly experiences the ecstasy and grandeur of spiritual socialization on a universe scale — citizenship on high in association with the eternal realization of the divine destiny of perfection attainment. 91.2.7 Prayer contributes greatly to the development of the religious sentiment of an evolving human mind. It is a mighty influence working to prevent isolation of personality. 91.3.5 Aside from all that is superself in the experience of praying, it should be remembered that ethical prayer is a splendid way to elevate one’s ego and reinforce the self for better living and higher attainment. Prayer induces the human ego to look both ways for help: for material aid to the subconscious reservoir of mortal experience, for inspiration and guidance to the superconscious borders of the contact of the material with the spiritual, with the Mystery Monitor. 7:3.3 The spirit-gravity circuit is the basic channel for transmitting the genuine prayers of the believing human heart from the level of human consciousness to the actual consciousness of Deity. That which represents true spiritual value in your petitions will be seized by the universal circuit of spirit gravity and will pass immediately and simultaneously to all divine personalities concerned. Each will occupy himself with that which belongs to his personal province. Therefore, in your practical religious experience, it is immaterial whether, in addressing your supplications, you visualize the Creator Son of your local universe or the Eternal Son at the center of all things.

thx for taking the time to put together such an informative response.

that last part about the spirit gravity circuit: there is a mechanism that gives us feedback or let’s us know that our prayers have real spiritual value. Otherwise we would always be praying for the wrong thing.

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