Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000
Posts: 4154
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Back to the topic??
From an earlier post of mine, I said: "All of these elements are important lessons to consider - anxiety, uncertainty, disappointment, and especially assurance.
Assurance is that solution to all anxiety and fear and disappointment. And despite Stephen's contention that assurance is less than or not quite rational....it is the most rational and dependable of all influences discussed here so far....assurance is a result of faith and truth realized. It is the antidote to all negative emotions and gives us the courage to boldly live and face all uncertainties and eliminate all doubts for the eternal adventures to come! Or so I see it."
So...if anxiety is worry/apprehension/angst/unease about our potential future outcomes and disappointment is the sadness/regret/sorrow/dismay for our actual realized outcomes....then how are these two related? Well, uncertainty in the future is something in common. The outcomes of our own choices cannot be managed or predicted with any certainty. And the outcomes of the choices of others is even more unpredictable. The impact of change in circumstances and situations makes the future even more uncertain.
Faith and assurance do not deliver certainty or predictability to our lives. No matter how experienced and wise we may become, still will we face uncertain outcomes and change and unpredictable/unexpected repercussions and twists and turns. I do think experiential wisdom provides some reduction in random chance or improves our insight by experience into better calculations of probability and likely outcomes or a better perspective of the spectrum of likely outcomes. But the Master was often surprised. The unexpected always remains a possible outcome in every situation and circumstance and by every choice we make. "God works in mysterious ways." This is no simplistic saying. I am reminded of the old Chinese farmer and his son and horse (see below).
‘A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!”. The farmer replied, ‘Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see’.
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
The value of disappointment can be found in the Buddhist parable above and is well described in the UB. Where faith and trust will come to eliminate anxiety and worry and fear (eventually), the eternal perspective and the appreciation for experiential wisdom overcomes our disappointments. This requires courage...as well as faith assurance. The common element to both anxiety and disappointment is, I think, self-centeredness and self-importance. The less of self there is in considering our choices and our outcomes, the less anxiety and disappointment will influence our person and our identity. How do we identify with reality and with others? Who and what is most important? In whom do we place our confidence and trust?
Keyword search for "disappointment" (before we next consider "failure"):
https://truthbook.com/search/UBParagrap ... &start=all
48:6.36 Even as mortals, so have these angels been father to many disappointments, and they will point out that sometimes your most disappointing disappointments have become your greatest blessings. Sometimes the planting of a seed necessitates its death, the death of your fondest hopes, before it can be reborn to bear the fruits of new life and new opportunity. And from them you will learn to suffer less through sorrow and disappointment, first, by making fewer personal plans concerning other personalities, and then, by accepting your lot when you have faithfully performed your duty.
48:6.37 You will learn that you increase your burdens and decrease the likelihood of success by taking yourself too seriously. Nothing can take precedence over the work of your status sphere—this world or the next. Very important is the work of preparation for the next higher sphere, but nothing equals the importance of the work of the world in which you are actually living. But though the work is important, the self is not. When you feel important, you lose energy to the wear and tear of ego dignity so that there is little energy left to do the work. Self-importance, not work-importance, exhausts immature creatures; it is the self element that exhausts, not the effort to achieve. You can do important work if you do not become self-important; you can do several things as easily as one if you leave yourself out. Variety is restful; monotony is what wears and exhausts. Day after day is alike—just life or the alternative of death.
100:6.6 One of the most amazing earmarks of religious living is that dynamic and sublime peace, that peace which passes all human understanding, that [color=#0000FF]cosmic poise which betokens the absence of all doubt and turmoil. [/color]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 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.
12:9.6 Mortal man has a spirit nucleus. The mind is a personal-energy system existing around a divine spirit nucleus and functioning in a material environment. Such a living relationship of personal mind and spirit constitutes the universe potential of eternal personality. Real trouble, lasting disappointment, serious defeat, or inescapable death can come only after self-concepts presume fully to displace the governing power of the central spirit nucleus, thereby disrupting the cosmic scheme of personality identity.
100:7.7 Of Jesus it was truly said, "He trusted God." As a man among men he most sublimely trusted the Father in heaven. He trusted his Father as a little child trusts his earthly parent. His faith was perfect but never presumptuous. No matter how cruel nature might appear to be or how indifferent to man's welfare on earth, Jesus never faltered in his faith. He was immune to disappointment and impervious to persecution. He was untouched by apparent failure.
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