How to Study the Revelation

As the original post and introduction to this topic speaks very little about How to Study... in favor of the importance and value of religious growth and spiritual experience... let us consider the Revelation teachings on our philosophy of living and our daily life. The UB teaches that the faith experience leads mortals to adjustments in perspective and priorities based on the outcomes of our choices.

100:6.1 (1100.3) Evolutionary religions and revelatory religions may differ markedly in method, but in motive there is great similarity. Religion is not a specific function of life; rather is it a mode of living. True religion is a wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind. And the outstanding characteristics of all religions are: unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to supreme values. This religious devotion to supreme values is shown in the relation of the supposedly irreligious mother to her child and in the fervent loyalty of nonreligionists to an espoused cause.

Me here: I think it might be important to consider how the truth seeker and religionist in pursuit of understanding and wishing to express the transformative power of the religious experience does so or may do so in the normal day to day life we all live as we pass by. The UB is very clear that no one must abandon or forsake daily life, family life, material obligations, etc.

Religious living is not an escape from material life and its demands….rather, it is or becomes an effective method and WAY OF LIVING that life. Religious living is NOT austere, severe, quixotic, isolated, mystical, or any other “technique of reality avoidance”.

Religion, personal religion should be a “mode of living”….our WAY of life itself, our daily life…our life in home and at work and in community, and as citizen, child, sibling, parent, and grandparent, etc. All that this means is that we remain loyal to God and truth, beauty, and goodness to attach our branch to God’s vine and this guiding principal guides us at every intersection of relationship, circumstance, situation, and decision. And that we do so with the understanding that we seek meanings and values in these intersections and hope to express our ideals in our decisions, knowing we have much to experience and learn, developing patience with our shortcomings, failures, disappointments while striving to get it a little better next time, and with a growing confidence and trust in God’s purpose, power, and plan and this friendly universe where love rules. And as we children of time learn to live this way, our branch will grow the fruit of the vine, and we will be blessed for our loyalty and attachment to the Devine Vine of Love.

When I first read Paper 100 so long ago (and the following dozen+), I immediately recognized it as the most practical how-to-guide ever written!!! What are the connections and the motives and the priorities and the practical steps which may be implemented and employed. How could I DO what the Master taught in the 4th Revelation? How to interpret the parables and beatitudes and apply them to my daily life…and do so without extremisms and radicalization and displacement and isolation but with effect and meaning and transcendent results? Suddenly the pearl of great price seemed ‘affordable’ and attainable to me. It all seemed so practical suddenly and clearly.

My idealism became money in the bank and results came quickly and certainly by embracing this new philosophy of living which became a mode of living. To be sure, immaturity and error and disappointment and failure did not vanish….but confidence, patience, persistence, and trust became more constant companions through all of those….which completely and profoundly changes and defangs those other things, softening their sting and relieving the anxieties that they so often bring along in our daily life. In this way, and over time, uncertainty changes in its very nature…it truly becomes the reality of adventure, the source of adventure….for there can be no adventure or anticipation without uncertainty in what comes next and what will happen when it does!

In our daily life change is the only changeless thing it seems (and we will learn, God’s love is likewise changeless – another story and lesson….)…we cannot prevent change or resist change or avoid change….to be anxious and constantly fearful about change is, by definition insane, dysfunctional, and impractical…we must learn to face change and embrace the fact, function, and reality of change. The best method to embrace change is our attachment to the vine, for by that attachment to reality and the source of reality and the flow of truth, beauty, goodness, and love then does change reflect our personal growth, maturity, wisdom, power, skill, capability, functionality, and the ability to better serve our Lord and all our fellow children in this friendly universe.

And this leads us to the secret of the universe….the more of us who embrace this mode of being and living, the more of us who serve one another, and the more wise and powerful is that service, and this experiential growth in wisdom, love, and power will eventuate sometime, but incrementally right now and every moment of time in aggregation, in the future, a better future, a better and better and then more better future….the story of the Supreme in Paper 115.

And all we must do is be loyal…loyal to God and his Spirit/Fragment within…and the prize of the eternal adventure becomes ours – right now!

“…Loyal persons are growing persons, and growth is an impressive and inspiring reality. 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.”

The Tadpole Way!!!

I got to thinking about the parable of the talents. As I said, being quite the student of the Jesusonian Gospel and 4th Epochal Revelation as it is recorded in the KJV in my youth, I found the UB so helpful….not only in its detail and expansion of the story and teachings of Jesus but also in the teachings about the inner light and life and spirit and mind ministries and networks that truly wire us each and all spiritually and most definitively in our dual natures. Our spiritual life is not unnatural but just the opposite, it is completely natural and even more powerful than the material nature….for those who listen, respond, and seek this reality.

I think the parable of the talents teaches us that the “return” ON our talents (as opposed to the return OF our talent to its bestower) is simply a function of our pursuit of the spirit led life. It does not require great intellect or cleverness or risk taking….it only requires loyalty and confidence – that is the vehicle of investment of our talent(s), be they many or few, large or small.

102:3.3 (1121.5) Material feelings, human emotions, lead directly to material actions, selfish acts. Religious insights, spiritual motivations, lead directly to religious actions, unselfish acts of social service and altruistic benevolence.

Me here: When our “mode of living” is determined by and defined by our religious life, insights, and motivations within, then do we automatically and directly begin to bear the fruits of the Spirit which always… “lead directly to religious actions, unselfish acts of social service and altruistic benevolence”….at home, work, community, and world!!

The parable is NOT about what to do or when or to whom or how much or how often….the parable of the talents is about a religious philosophy of living and our mode of daily living….day by day as we pass by. Reading this Paper dissolved all the mystery as what I was to do and how I was to invest my talent(s). And it absolved me from any concern as to the amount of ‘return’ I might deliver by my earnest and sincere efforts, no matter how meager or how grand. What a relief!!! I am not measured by how many souls I ‘save’ or how many good deeds I perform or the great and glorious outcomes of my service or even the wisdom I employ or success I might achieve. My return is in the hands of God….only the act and the sincerity are mine – the outcomes are God’s. I lost so much confusion and doubt and anxiety by this simple understanding….finally!

Such recognition was immediately rewarded by this truth and its personal realization over time:

100:6.5 (1100.7) But true religion is a living love, a life of service. The religionist’s detachment from much that is purely temporal and trivial never leads to social isolation, and it should not destroy the sense of humor. Genuine religion takes nothing away from human existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and courage. It may even engender the spirit of the crusader, which is more than dangerous if not controlled by spiritual insight and loyal devotion to the commonplace social obligations of human loyalties.

100:6.6 (1101.1) One of the most amazing earmarks of religious living is that dynamic and sublime peace, that peace which passes all human understanding, that cosmic poise which betokens the absence of all doubt and turmoil. Such levels of spiritual stability are immune to disappointment. Such religionists are like the Apostle Paul, who said: “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else shall be able to separate us from the love of God.”

100:6.7 (1101.2) There is a sense of security, associated with the realization of triumphing glory, resident in the consciousness of the religionist who has grasped the reality of the Supreme, and who pursues the goal of the Ultimate.

Glory Be!

100:6.7 (1101.2) There is a sense of security, associated with the realization of triumphing glory, resident in the consciousness of the religionist who has grasped the reality of the Supreme, and who pursues the goal of the Ultimate.

100:6.8 (1101.3) Even evolutionary religion is all of this in loyalty and grandeur because it is a genuine experience. But revelatory religion is excellent as well as genuine. The new loyalties of enlarged spiritual vision create new levels of love and devotion, of service and fellowship; and all this enhanced social outlook produces an enlarged consciousness of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

100:6.9 (1101.4) The characteristic difference between evolved and revealed religion is a new quality of divine wisdom which is added to purely experiential human wisdom. But it is experience in and with the human religions that develops the capacity for subsequent reception of increased bestowals of divine wisdom and cosmic insight.

Me here: As students of the Papers we know that revelatory revelation comes in two forms – personal and epochal – to the each and to the all (but not to the one for another or others). And we know that personal revelation has been empowered and personalized the past 2000 years by the Son’s Spirit – the Spirit of Truth. Those whose religious experience is guided by the creeds and doctrines of evolutionary/institutional religion are also influenced by personal revelation and the work of the God Fragment/TA and the Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit. Our personal religious experience is multi-faceted and unique to our own mind, soul, and being….we each must traverse the 7 psychic circles in our own way and time.

One of the effects of this experience, we are told above, is an enlarged spiritual vision and an enhanced social outlook resulting in an enlarged consciousness of our parent/child relationship, a personal relationship based in love, with God and also an enlarged concept or consciousness of the brotherhood of all humanity. Anyone who claims to be religious and yet does not have such an expanded concept and consciousness may not be having a “genuine” religious experience at all. This insight and realization will and must change one’s perspective of the world in which we live and the people who live on this world…both.

If our religious experience does not change us and transform our attitude and views and our motives and priorities, then we must wonder how genuine is our experience and how sincere is our religion.

Notice there is a new “quality” of divine wisdom with revelation – both personal and epochal but perhaps especially so for epochal? Epochal revelation is given to reduce confusions and eliminate errors of evolutionary religion…and also personal revelation as limited and distorted by human experience and material mindedness.

Also it should be noted above that only experience in and with Religion In Human Experience that develops additional capacity for “subsequent reception of increased bestowals of divine wisdom and cosmic insight”. I recall we are told that a pint cannot hold a quart! But evidently a pint container can grow into a quart with time and experience and the growth of wisdom….especially when we can receive, discern, and utilize divine wisdom as it is received. This is a lesson on the progressive nature of Religion In Human Experience. There should be growth…growth of the fruits of the spirit, growth in the size of the branch, and more fruit…the pint growing into the quart and then the gallon, etc.

The Revelation is a textbook of factual knowledge of the universal realities related to our origin and destiny and our relationship with Deity as well as our evolutionary history. But it is also a map and guidebook for personal religious experience and spiritual progress, filled with practical knowledge about how to attach our branch to the vine and grow the fruits of the Spirit. It is the same for us all. And yet each tadpole's journey is a unique and personalized experience without duplicate in all the universes of time.

Or so I understand the teachings... we study here together.

Bradly

Thanks to Jim for such an important topic to study! I wonder if it should rather be titled: "How to Live the Revelation"...?

More in support of Jim's presentation on the value derived by our spiritualization and the discovery of God.

The Revelation teaches us much about experience and experiential wisdom. Every experience and expression of truth, beauty, and goodness (love) adds to our personal spiritization and growth. And also contributes to the existential realities of Deity, perfection, the absolute, and eternity.

The perfect benefits from the perfecting of the imperfect. An amazing fact and truth. Experience only occurs, can only occur, within the unrealized potential of reality. The experience and expression of truth, beauty, and goodness by freewill choices is the realization but also the actualization of potential into new and greater realities.... which also creates new and greater potentials too!

The discovery of God and experience of spiritization is the very quest of the experiential and evolutionary beings in time. It is the very purpose for evolutionary creation, the process of perfecting by freewill choices by experiential beings. We are told that this process of progress and results of evolutionary progress includes the all, the entirety of the each. Every world, system, and local universe, and super universe, and the grand universe itself is progressively perfecting by evolutionary and experiential progress.

Spiritual progress is very personal but its aggregate results are universal. Seven trillion worlds act as the birthing spheres for evolutionary and experiential mortals like us. Each world and each person born on each world and all celestials created to serve in these universes of time are the source of potential and the expression of potential...effects and causes of more effects.

Deity is the first and great cause...but the effects of this primal and original cause are a cascading and rippling creation of new and ever growing potentials for personal realization (experience) and reality actualization. The realization and actualization of potential creates new and greater potentials for further realization and actualization.

The experience and expressions of personal religion and spiritual progress are the effects of causes but also become the causes of more effects. This is the circuitry of personality and mind and spirit and love combined with freewill choices and experiential evolution in time. Within the eternal perfection of existential realities has been created this experiential engine of time which creates new realities and potentials by which the perfect and eternal gains and profits therefrom and thereby...a partnership between Creator and creation.

What an adventure!! I think Jim is urging us all to join in the adventure of discovery, expression, and experience of universe reality!!! The Tadpole Way !

0:7.5 (10.10) The Father, Son, and Spirit are existential—existential in actuality (though all potentials are supposedly experiential). The Supreme and the Ultimate are wholly experiential. The Deity Absolute is experiential in actualization but existential in potentiality. The essence of Deity is eternal, but only the three original persons of Deity are unqualifiedly eternal. All other Deity personalities have an origin, but they are eternal in destiny.

0:7.6 (10.11) Having achieved existential Deity expression of himself in the Son and the Spirit, the Father is now achieving experiential expression on hitherto impersonal and unrevealed deity levels as God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute; but these experiential Deities are not now fully existent; they are in process of actualization.

3:5.15 (52.1) Throughout the universe, every unit is regarded as a part of the whole. Survival of the part is dependent on co-operation with the plan and purpose of the whole, the wholehearted desire and perfect willingness to do the Father’s divine will. The only evolutionary world without error (the possibility of unwise judgment) would be a world without free intelligence. In the Havona universe there are a billion perfect worlds with their perfect inhabitants, but evolving man must be fallible if he is to be free. Free and inexperienced intelligence cannot possibly at first be uniformly wise. The possibility of mistaken judgment (evil) becomes sin only when the human will consciously endorses and knowingly embraces a deliberate immoral judgment.

3:5.16 (52.2) The full appreciation of truth, beauty, and goodness is inherent in the perfection of the divine universe. The inhabitants of the Havona worlds do not require the potential of relative value levels as a choice stimulus; such perfect beings are able to identify and choose the good in the absence of all contrastive and thought-compelling moral situations. But all such perfect beings are, in moral nature and spiritual status, what they are by virtue of the fact of existence. They have experientially earned advancement only within their inherent status. Mortal man earns even his status as an ascension candidate by his own faith and hope. Everything divine which the human mind grasps and the human soul acquires is an experiential attainment; it is a reality of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession in contrast to the inherent goodness and righteousness of the inerrant personalities of Havona.

3:5.17 (52.3) The creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not courageous in the human sense. They are innately kind and considerate, but hardly altruistic in the human way. They are expectant of a pleasant future, but not hopeful in the exquisite manner of the trusting mortal of the uncertain evolutionary spheres. They have faith in the stability of the universe, but they are utter strangers to that saving faith whereby mortal man climbs from the status of an animal up to the portals of Paradise. They love the truth, but they know nothing of its soul-saving qualities. They are idealists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ignorant of the ecstasy of becoming such by exhilarating choice. They are loyal, but they have never experienced the thrill of wholehearted and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of temptation to default. They are unselfish, but they never gained such levels of experience by the magnificent conquest of a belligerent self. They enjoy pleasure, but they do not comprehend the sweetness of the pleasure escape from the pain potential.

19:2.4 (216.2) Wisdom is twofold in origin, being derived from the perfection of divine insight inherent in perfect beings and from the personal experience acquired by evolutionary creatures. The Perfectors of Wisdom are the divine wisdom of the Paradise perfection of Deity insight. Their administrative associates on Uversa, the Mighty Messengers, Those without Name and Number, and Those High in Authority, when acting together, are the universe wisdom of experience. A divine being can have perfection of divine knowledge. An evolutionary mortal can sometime attain perfection of ascendant knowledge, but neither of these beings alone exhausts the potentials of all possible wisdom. Accordingly, whenever in the conduct of the superuniverse it is desired to achieve the maximum of administrative wisdom, these perfectors of the wisdom of divine insight are always associated with those ascendant personalities who have come up to the high responsibilities of superuniverse authority through the experiential tribulations of evolutionary progression.

19:2.5 (216.3) The Perfectors of Wisdom will always require this complement of experiential wisdom for the completion of their administrative sagacity. But it has been postulated that a high and hitherto unattained level of wisdom may possibly be achieved by the Paradise finaliters after they are sometime inducted into the seventh stage of spirit existence. If this inference is correct, then would such perfected beings of evolutionary ascent undoubtedly become the most effective universe administrators ever to be known in all creation. I believe that such is the high destiny of finaliters.

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