Episode:Religion in Depth—Reality of Experience (Part 4)

From Symmetry of Soul


God the Father deals with man his child on the basis, not of actual virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child’s motivation. The relationship is one of parent-child association and is actuated by divine love. Jesus swept away all of the ceremonials of sacrifice and atonement.

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Keywords: Urantia, Religion, Communion, Ideals, Altruism

Summary by Kermit (abridged)

103:4.

We learned that man's primitive guilt of separation from God leads to atonement practice and sacrificial practices. The key word is man's guilt is a feeling. The immature child of God doesn't know that separation from God is not possible. Especially post-Pentecost today, we all have Thought Adjusters, so that Thought Adjuster is firmly ensconced in our mind and we need not fret about separation from God. So, can we allow the hunger for truth and righteousness to give full expression and allow us to be grown to the discovery of the recognition of truth? And in that recognition, we recognize that communion with God is immutable.

The problems through the ages of these feelings of separation have caused all manner of misconceptions about communion and about our relationship with God. Remember: feelings are not where the conscious divine communion occurs. We have to go above feelings to go down from above. We need to trust God's connection with, whether we're sensibly aware of it or not.

Truth augments ideals, we are told. These ideals are what activate and animate the religious connection. And so we go up into a philosophic realm: the relationship to the whole. Truth has to do with the whole. Ideals are a part within the whole, and the whole ever augments these ideals. So we need to be grown to have a greater relation to the whole. Progress is in relation to parts, growth is in relation to the whole. We discussed much of the physics of these transactions.

As the mind becomes spiritualized, the progression we make is geometric. This quickly outpaces the liner, arithmetic progress of the material mind. That which we can envision is always much greater than that which we can actually be. The difficulty in recognizing these unequal rates of increase is exacerbated by the unity consciousness bias that many have, and this requires the exercise of personality—the top-down imposition of symmetry on the mind to integrate our unity and our individuality aspects of being. So our failure to do so is gong to result in guilt and much despair over perceived imperfections. Remember that the animation of spirit on the geometric unity side is far greater and more potent than the progress on the individuality side. Of course, this is the crux about Jesus' teaching about the mustard seed being so potent—that faith on the unity side.

They go on to tell us to remember the highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. We cannot live up to our highest ideals in an evolutionary domain. When we try to assess our own status and our own progress, we have to ask ourselves, "Am I perfecting?" Not "Am I perfect?" The fact of us is imperfect, but in truth are we perfecting?

They contrast guilt with the consciousness of sin, two very separate issues. Sin is the conscious disloyalty to Deity. This is a philosophic aspect, it isn't a religious consciousness. What most people today think of as sin is really transgression of taboos and mores. The 5th ER is attempting to help us clear the deck of long-assumed issues of great important and relevance. But they are really external issues. The real issues are in the inner life. We shouldn't confuse those two aspects of our lives. Authentic satisfaction is found in the inner life.

Even with the personal presence of the Master, the apostles were not able to discern between the material and the spiritual. Our authors are trying to get us to do that.

Jesus swept away all ceremonials and sacrifices. This is tantamount to basically the saying, "You are not ever separate from God. God has you in his grasp." Taking salvation for granted... can we do that? Can we really free ourselves up? God is our spiritual father. We are not attempting to change institutions here; we are attempting to address persons and individuals inner lives, where we are sovereign. The old religious model also says you are imperfect and that you need periodic and continual rehabilitation (the business model of the church). The 5th ER emphasizes we are not isolated. Remember the facts of grace. Fear not.

Communion has to do with the whole. Communion is synchronization with the whole. This is a philosophic fact, just as deliberate disloyalty to Deity is a philosophic concept. Remember in the beginning of the foreword, [0:1] the revelators' top-down presentation begins with Deity, and only then proceeds to explanation about God.

The good news is God deals with us, not on the basis of our worthiness, but on our motives. Creature purpose and intent. We are judged on our own freewill purpose, not how wisely we translate those motives into intentions.

103:5

Here they remind us of the role of the Thought Adjuster in bringing recognition of altruism to a focus in our mind. The social duty and moral obligation is derived from fear, but genuine altruism comes from a direct impulse from the THought Adjuster. We discussed some of the physics of all this, the top-down versus bottom-up approaches that make all the difference in our lives.

We also discussed an urge versus an impulse. When seen from the top-down, the spiritual impulses of the upper domain of mind need to be translated into actual urges, where the rubber meets the road, if our service is going to in any way be manifested in the outer life. Our authors expand the definition of neighbor in the idea-ideal mode. The ideal must be grasped and brought down into the form of an idea. Material pragmatism must be invoked to actually to have an effect in the outer life, in the external world. Wisdom is required to translate these ideals into ideas.

The Thought Adjust brings the rightness of loving your enemies into focus for recognition. Part of the emergency today is that the permission to despise and to excoriate your enemies is apparently becoming a social usage. Very disturbing.

Secular humans ascribe the altruistic urge to the herd instinct, the 5th of the seven adjutant mind-spirits. But genuine altruism is derived from the Thought Adjuster.

The conflicts between the self and the other-than-self involve a unified personality to reconcile. Failure to resolve these gives origin to guilt and no end of misery on a personal basis.

The reconciliation of the conflict between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and moral growth is derived from spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection. These conflicts can be fully reconciled in eternity, not in time. Remember: we are perfecting, we are not perfect. Striving to be Godlike is continuous. It does not end with death. It is part of our entire Paradise ascent. Don't ever think that you're going to arrive at some Godlike place anytime soon. Even the Melchizedeks and other celestials are part of this evolutionary domain, moving towards perfections.