Becoming Perfect and Divine

Worship

Personality and Mind Personality (volition) is a level of deified reality. Personality extends from the mortal level of the higher mind activation of worship and wisdom up through the morontial (Mansion Worlds) and spiritual to the attainment of finality of personality status on Paradise. That range covers the ascending evolutionary path of mortal and kindred creature personalities, but there are numerous other orders of universe personalities, as well. Mind is the thinking, perceiving, and feeling mechanism of the human organism. Mind provides the total conscious and unconscious experience. Mind is the intelligence associated with the emotional life reaching upward through worship and wisdom to the spirit level.

Enlightened Worlds All the enlightened worlds recognize and worship the Universal Father, the eternal (without beginning or end) maker and infinite (without end) upholder of all creation. The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, and to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy.

Voluntary Worship The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of themselves recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him. While the Universal Father refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures, the affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father's will is man's only possible gift to God. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being. There is nothing that man can give to God except the choosing to abide by the Father's will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship that is so satisfying to the love dominated nature of the Creator Father.

Fellowship The concept of the personality of Deity facilitates fellowship. It favors intelligent worship. It promotes refreshing trustfulness. Interactions can be had between non-personal things, but not fellowship. The fellowship relation of father and son, as that between God and man, can be enjoyed only because both are persons. Only personalities can commune (have a relationship) with each other, although the personal communion with God may be greatly facilitated by the presence of an impersonal entity (the Thought Adjuster). The Thought Adjuster gains his personality upon fusion with his mortal counterpart.

Worshiping Emotional excitement is not a good spiritual stimulus. Excitement does not augment energy. Rather, excitement exhausts the powers of both mind and body. The secret of the energy to do great things is in spiritual communion, in worship. From the human standpoint worship is a combination of meditation and relaxation. Meditation makes the contact of mind with spirit. Relaxation determines the capacity for spiritual receptivity. This interchange of strength for weakness, courage for fear, the will of God for the mind of self, constitutes worship.

The Bridge It is unreasonable that mortals should not worship God because the handicaps of material creation make it impossible for them to see him. Between mortals and God there is a tremendous distance (physical space) to be traversed. There likewise exists a great gulf of spiritual differential that must be bridged. It is not a problem. The Father has already bridged the gulf. He has sent his spirit (the Thought Adjuster), to live within the mind of man to toil with him as he pursues his eternal universe career.

Nature Is Not God Nature, on Earth, is a restricted qualification of the laws of perfection in the evolutionary plans of the local universe. Nature is a manifestation of the unfinished, incomplete, and imperfect working out of the development, growth, and progress of a universe experiment in cosmic evolution. It is a travesty to worship nature simply because it is in a limited sense pervaded by God. Nature is not an object of worship.

True Worship Though the Paradise Deities (the Trinity) are as one from the universe point of view, in their spiritual relations with beings as inhabit Earth they are also three distinct and separate persons. There is a difference between the Trinity Godheads in matters of personal appeals, communion, and other intimate relations. In the highest sense, we worship the Universal Father and him only. We can and do worship the Father as he is manifested in his Creator Sons, but it is the Father, directly or indirectly, who is worshiped and adored.

Spiritual Communications Supplications of all kinds belong to the realm of the Eternal Son and the Son's spiritual organization. Prayers, all formal communications, everything except adoration and worship of the Universal Father, are matters that concern a local universe. They do not ordinarily proceed out of the realm of the jurisdiction of a Creator Son. But worship is encircuited and dispatched to the person of the Creator by the function of the Father's personality circuit. Registry of the homage of an Adjuster-indwelt creature is facilitated by the Thought Adjuster. The Adjusters utilize direct pre-personal channels of communication with God, as well as the spirit-gravity circuits of the Eternal Son.

Worship Is Pure Worship is for its own sake. It is unselfish adoration. Prayer embodies a self-interest. That is the great difference between worship and prayer. There is no element of personal interest in true worship. Worship of God is for what he is comprehend to be. Creatures render such devotion and engage in such thrilling worship as a natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father's matchless personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable attributes.

Overlap The moment the element of self-interest intrudes upon worship, devotion translates from worship to prayer and should be directed to the person of the Eternal Son or the Creator Son (Michael). However, in practical religious experience there is no reason prayer should not be addressed to God the Father as a part of true worship. When you deal with the practical affairs of your daily life, you are in the hands of the spirit personalities having origin in the Third Source and Center; you are co-operating with the agencies of the Conjoint Actor. 1 In summary, mortals worship God; pray to, and commune with, the Son; and work out the details of their earthly sojourn in connection with the intelligences of the Infinite Spirit (the Divine Minister and her angels, etal) operating on Earth and throughout this universe.   1 For more on the Conjoint Actor. Click to read: 1. Self-Distribution of the First Source and Center.

Surrogates The Creator Sons who preside over the destinies of the local universes stand in the place of both the Universal Father and the Eternal Son of Paradise. These Universe Sons receive, in the name of the Father, the adoration of worship and give their ear to the pleas of their petitioning subjects throughout their respective creations. To the children of a local universe a Michael Son is God for all practical intents and purposes. He is the local universe personification of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Infinite Spirit maintains personal contact with the children of these realms through the Universe Spirits (the Divine Ministers), the administrative and creative associates of the Paradise Creator Sons.

Sincere Worship Sincere worship connotes the mobilization of all the powers of the human personality under the dominance of the evolving soul and subject to the divine direction of the associated Thought Adjuster. The mind of material limitations can never become highly conscious of the real significance of true worship. Man's realization of the reality of the worship experience is chiefly determined by the developmental status of his evolving immortal soul. The spiritual growth of the soul takes place wholly independently of the intellectual self-consciousness.

Worship Experience The worship experience consists in the sublime attempt of the betrothed Adjuster to communicate to the divine Father the inexpressible longings and the unutterable aspirations of the human soul (the conjoint creation of the God-seeking mortal mind and the God-revealing immortal Adjuster.) The mortal mind consents to worship; the immortal soul craves and initiates worship; the divine Adjuster presence conducts such worship in behalf of the mortal mind and the evolving immortal soul. True worship, in the last analysis, becomes an experience realized on four cosmic levels: the intellectual, the morontial,1 the spiritual, and the personal (the consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, and their unification in personality.) 1 "Morontia is a term designating a vast level intervening between the material and the spiritual. It may designate personal or impersonal realities, living or nonliving energies. The warp of morontia is spiritual; its woof is physical." (The Urantia Book, p. 9, §2)

Religious Teachings All religions teach the worship of Deity. The Buddhist religion promises salvation from suffering (unending peace). The Jewish religion promises salvation from difficulties, and prosperity predicated on righteousness. The Greek religion promised salvation from disharmony and ugliness, through the realization of beauty. Christianity promises salvation from sin (sanctity). Originally, Mohammedanism provided deliverance from the rigorous moral standards of Judaism and Christianity. The religion of Jesus is salvation from self, and deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.

Spiritual Value of Religion The Greek religion had a maxim, "Know yourself. " The Hebrews centered their teaching on, "Know your God." The Christians preach a gospel aimed at a "knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ." Jesus proclaimed the good news of "knowing God, and yourself as a son of God." These differing concepts of the purpose of religion determine the individual's attitude in various life situations and foreshadow the depth of worship and the nature of his personal habits of prayer. The spiritual status of any religion may be determined by the nature of its prayers.

Satisfactions of Worship The adoration of the abstract beautiful is not the worship of God. Neither is exaltation of nature nor the reverence of unity the worship of God. Mortal man secures three great satisfactions from religious experience, even during his temporal sojourn on earth: 1. Intellectually, he acquires the satisfactions of a more unified human consciousness. 2. Philosophically, he enjoys the substantiation of his ideals of moral values. 3. Spiritually, he thrives in the experience of divine companionship, in the spiritual satisfactions of true worship.

Transmission of Adoration As all gravity is circuited in the Isle of Paradise, as all mind is circuited in the Conjoint Actor and all spirit in the Eternal Son, so is all personality circuited in the personal presence of the Universal Father. The personality circuit unerringly transmits the worship of all personalities to the Original and Eternal Personality of the Father.

Damaging the Mind Too often, mortals damage their minds through insincerity, and sear them with unrighteousness. Mortals also subject their minds to animal fear and distort them with useless anxiety. Though the source of mind is divine, mind on Earth can hardly become the object of great admiration, much less adoration or worship. Contemplation of the immature and inactive human intellect should lead only to reactions of humility.

Rest and Worship Rest is of a sevenfold nature: There is the rest of sleep and of play in the lower life orders, discovery in the higher beings, and worship in the highest type of spirit personality. There is also the normal rest of energy intake, the recharging of beings with physical or with spiritual energy. Then there is the transit sleep, the unconscious slumber when enseraphimed,1 when in passage from one sphere to another. Entirely different from all of these is the deep sleep of metamorphosis, the transition rest from one stage of being to another, from one life to another, from one state of existence to another, the sleep that ever attends transition from actual universe status in contrast to evolution through various stages of any one status.   1 Click and scroll to: 39:2.8 "5. The Transporters."

Harmony Harmony and proper conduct is essential to progress by way of knowledge, through philosophy, to the spiritual heights of spontaneous worship. Next to the supreme satisfaction of worship is the exhilaration of philosophy. Never do ascenders climb so high or advance so far that there do not remain a thousand mysteries that demand the employment of philosophy in attempting solutions.

Privilege and Delight Worship is the highest privilege and the first duty of all created intelligences Worship is the conscious and joyous act of recognizing and acknowledging the truth and fact of the intimate and personal relationships of the Creators with their creatures. The quality of worship is determined by the depth of creature perception. As the knowledge of the infinite character of the Gods progresses, the act of worship becomes increasingly all-encompassing until it eventually attains the glory of the highest experiential delight and the most exquisite pleasure known to created beings.

Enhanced Cognition Humans on Earth possess five pyhsical senses:  hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste. On the Mansion worlds, the morontia senses progressively increase to seventy. The higher spiritual orders of reaction response vary in different types of beings from seventy to two hundred and ten. In the physical life on Earth, the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. Augumentation of the senses on Earth and beyond leads to greater cognition of worship.

Quintessence of Passion While the Isle of Paradise contains certain places of worship, it is more nearly one vast sanctuary of divine service. Worship is the first and dominant passion of all who climb to its blissful shores. The emotional eruptions of the beings who have learned enough of God to attain his presence are spontaneous. Circle by circle, during the inward journey through Havona to Paradise, worship is a growing passion until on Paradise it becomes necessary to direct and control its expression. Under the direction of conductors of worship, homage achieves the creature goal of supreme pleasure and attains the heights of the perfection of sublime self-expression and personal enjoyment. All ascendant beings would enjoy remaining forever in the attitude of worship if duty assignments did not periodically disperse these assemblages. But no ascendant being is ever required to enter upon the assignments of eternal service until he has attained full satisfaction in worship.

Learning to Worship Conductors of worship in Paradise teach the ascendant creatures how to worship so they may be enabled to gain the satisfaction of self-expression and at the same time be able to give attention to the essential activities of the Paradise regime. Without improvement in the technique of worship it would require hundreds of years for the average mortal who reaches Paradise to give full and satisfactory expression to his emotions of intelligent appreciation and ascendant gratitude. The conductors of worship open up new avenues of expression so that the children of the womb of space and the travail of time are enabled to gain the full satisfactions of worship in far less time.

The Art of Worship All the arts1 of all the beings of the entire universe that are capable of intensifying and exalting the abilities of self-expression and the conveyance of appreciation, are employed to their highest capacity in the worship of the Paradise Deities. Worship is the highest joy of Paradise existence; it is the play of Paradise. What play does for the jaded minds on Earth, worship will do for the perfected souls on Paradise. The mode of worship on Paradise is utterly beyond mortal comprehension, but the spirit of it you can begin to appreciate even on Earth, for the spirits of the Gods even now indwell you, hover about you, and inspire you to true worship.   1 Click for a sampling of various advanced arts practiced on the mansion worlds.

Measures of Joy Appointed times and places for worship on Paradise are not adequate to accommodate the ever-increasing overflow of the spiritual emotions of the growing intelligence and expanding divinity recognition of the brilliant beings of experiential ascension to the eternal Isle. Ever since the arrival of the first ascendent beings, the supernaphim have never been able fully to anticipate and accommodate the spirit of worship on Paradise. Always there is an excess of worshipfulness exceeding preparations. This is because personalities of inherent perfection (the supernaphim) can not fully appreciate the tremendous reactions of the spiritual emotions of beings who have slowly and laboriously made their way upward to Paradise glory from the depths of the spiritual darkness of the lower worlds of time and space. When the angels and mortals of time attain the presence of the Powers of Paradise, there occurs the expression of the accumulated emotions of the ages, a spectacle astounding to the angels of Paradise and capable of producing the supreme joy of divine satisfaction in the Paradise Deities.

Reciprocal Satisfaction At times, all Paradise becomes engulfed in a dominating tide of spiritual and worshipful expression. Often the conductors of worship cannot control such phenomena until the appearance of the threefold fluctuation of the light of the Deity abode, signifying that the divine heart of the Gods has been fully and completely satisfied by the sincere worship of the residents of Paradise, the perfect citizens of glory and the ascendant creatures of time. What a fruition of the eternal plan and purpose of the Gods that the intelligent love of the creature child should give full satisfaction to the infinite love of the Creator Father.

Ascender Jubilees After the attainment of the supreme satisfaction of the fullness of worship, ascenders are qualified for admission to the Corps of the Finality. The ascendant career is nearly finished, and the seventh jubilee is celebrated. The first jubilee marked the mortal agreement with the Thought Adjuster when the purpose to survive was sealed; the second was the awakening in the mansion morontia life; the third was the fusion with the Thought Adjuster; the fourth the awakening in Havona; the fifth celebrated the finding of the Universal Father; and the sixth jubilee was the occasion of the Paradise awakening from the final transit slumber of time. The seventh jubilee marks entrance into the mortal finaliter corps and the beginning of the eternity service. The attainment of the seventh stage of spirit realization by a finaliter will probably signalize the celebration of the first of the jubilees of eternity. The endless service of the Paradise Trinity is about to begin. The finaliter is now face to face with the challenge of God the Ultimate.

Classification of Mortals The religious impulse, provided by the adjutant spirit of worship 1 is the first differential urge separating mind creatures into the two basic classes of mortal existence. The spirit of worship forever distinguishes the animal of its association from the soulless creatures of mind endowment. Worship is the badge of spiritual-ascension candidacy.   1 Click for more on the Seven Adjutant Spirits. Scroll to: 7. Evolutionary Mind Levels.

Evolution to Worship Prior to the appearance of capacity to learn from experience, living mind is the ministry domain of the Master Physical Controllers.1 Before acquiring the ability to recognize divinity and to worship Deity, creature mind is the exclusive domain of the adjutant spirits. With the appearance of the spiritual response of the creature intellect, such created minds become super minded, being instantly encircuited in the spirit cycles of the local universe Mother Spirit (the co-creator of this local universe). Human personal mind, has no survival qualities apart from spirit identification. Mind is a divinity bestowal, but it is not immortal when it functions without spirit insight, and when it is devoid of the ability to worship and crave survival.   1 Click for more on Master Physical Controllers.

Capacity for Worship On any level of existence, the concept of God cannot exceed the conceptual capacity of the beings who live on that level. Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love and then progress through ascending deity levels to the comprehension of the Supreme Being (the god of Time and Space).

History of Worship The Andonites 1 early developed a fear of the elements (thunder, lightning, rain, snow, hail, and ice). But hunger was the constant recurring urge of these early days of man, and since they largely subsisted on animals, the Andonites eventually evolved a form of animal worship. To Andon, the larger food animals were symbols of creative might and sustaining power. It became the custom to designate some of these larger animals as objects of worship. During the vogue of a particular animal, crude outlines of it would be drawn on the walls of their caves.     1 Click for more on the Andonites.

Sacrifice in Worship Very early the Andonic peoples formed the habit of refraining from eating the flesh of the animal of tribal veneration. To impress the minds of their youths, they evolved a ceremony of reverence that was carried out about the body of one of these venerated animals. Later, this primitive performance developed into the more elaborate sacrificial ceremonies of their descendants. This is the origin of sacrifices as a part of worship. The idea of sacrifice was elaborated by Moses in Hebrew ritual and was wrongly preserved, in principle, by the Apostle Paul as the doctrine of atonement for sin by the shedding of Christ's blood.

Superstitious Worship During the spiritually dark ages following the rebellion of Lucifer and the failure of Adam and Eve, the culture of superstitious mankind reached its lowest levels. The Neanderthals really had no religion beyond superstition. They were deathly afraid of clouds, more especially of mists and fogs, so a primitive religion of the fear of natural forces gradually developed. Animal worship declined as improvement in tools, with abundance of game, enabled these people to live with lessened anxiety about food. The sex rewards for successful hunters tended greatly to improve hunting skills. The religion of fear led to attempts to placate the invisible forces behind the natural elements and culminated in the sacrificing of humans to appease the invisible and unknown physical forces. The practice of human sacrifice was perpetuated by the more backward peoples of Earth down to the twentieth century.

Controlled Evolution Just as the spirit adjutants manipulate mind potentials, so the Life Carriers exercise considerable discretionary control over the environmental aspects of evolutionary processes right up to the time of the appearance of human will (the ability to know God and the power of choosing to worship him). It is the integrated functioning of three groups: the life carriers, the physical controllers, and the spirit adjutants that condition the course of organic evolution on the inhabited worlds. That is why evolution is always purposeful and never accidental.

Spiritual Transitions The seven spirit adjutants function exclusively in the evolution of experiencing mind up to the level of the sixth phase, the spirit of worship. At this level there occurs that inevitable overlapping of ministry--the phenomenon of the higher reaching down to coordinate with the lower in anticipation of subsequent attainment of advanced levels of development. Still more spirit ministry accompanies the action of the seventh and last adjutant, the spirit of wisdom. Throughout the ministry of the spirit world the individual never experiences abrupt transitions of spirit cooperation. The changes are always gradual and reciprocal.

Misdirected Worship The nations of Earth have entered upon the gigantic struggle between nationalistic militarism and industrialism. In many ways this conflict is analogous to the age-long struggle between the herder-hunter and the farmer. If industrialism is to triumph over militarism, it must avoid the dangers that attack it. The perils to Earth's budding industry are: 1. The strong drift toward materialism (spiritual blindness). 2. The worship of wealth-power (value distortion). 3. The vices of luxury (cultural immaturity). 4. The increasing dangers of indolence (service insensitivity). 5. The growth of undesirable racial softness (biologic deterioration). 6. The threat of standardized industrial slavery (personality stagnation). Labor is ennobling, but drudgery is numbing.

Repercussions of Prayer In ancestor worship, such as practiced by the yellow race, prayer leads to the cultivation of ancestral ideals. Alternately, prayer directed towards Deity worship, transcends all other such practices since it leads to the cultivation of divine ideals. As the concept of one's alter ego (the Thought Adjuster) for prayer becomes supreme and divine, man's ideals are elevated from mere human to heavenly and divine levels. The result of such praying is the enhancement of human character and the profound unification of human personality. Unfortunately, prayer is the technique that eventually leads to the institutionalizing of religion. Because of this, prayer becomes associated with numerous secondary agencies, some helpful, others harmful, such as priests, holy books, worship rituals, and ceremonials.

Maturing of Mankind Religion has progressed from nature worship up through ghost worship to fetishism during the savage childhood of the races. With the dawning of civilization the human race has espoused more mystic and symbolic beliefs. Now, with approaching maturity, mankind is ripening for the appreciation of real religion, a beginning of the revelation of truth itself.

Erosion of Dogma Religion is the most rigid and unyielding of all human institutions, but slowly it adjusts to changing society. Eventually, evolutionary religion does reflect the changing mores and revealed religion. Grudgingly, religion (worship) does follow in the wake of wisdom (knowledge directed by experiential reason and illuminated by divine revelation).

Fear of the Dead Religion has always been largely a matter of rites, rituals, observances, ceremonies, and dogmas. In addition, religion normally becomes tainted with the chosen-people delusion. The cardinal religious ideas of incantation, inspiration, revelation, propitiation, repentance, atonement, intercession, sacrifice, prayer, confession, worship, survival after death, sacrament, ritual, ransom, salvation, redemption, covenant, uncleanness, purification, prophecy, and original sin all have their roots in ghost fear.

Andite Worship In the ceremonial practices of the Andites,1 the father functioned as a priest and the mother as a priestess. The family hearth was utilized as an altar.   1 Click for more on the Andites, the direct descendents of Adam and Eve.

Progressive Religious Experience The great urge of ascenders during the morontia phase of revealed religion on the mansion worlds is the attainment of spirit perfection. There also is present the higher urge of worship, associated with an impelling call to increased ethical service. Morontia insight entails an ever-expanding consciousness of the Sevenfold,1 the Supreme, and even the Ultimate.   1 See God The Sevenfold.

Faith and Belief Belief attains the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the way of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith. That is mere belief. Certainty or conviction are not faith either. A state of mind achieves faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them. Such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these attributes personified and infinitely more.

Worship Illuminates Prayer is indeed a part of religious experience, but it has been wrongly emphasized by modern religions, much to the neglect of the more essential communion of worship. The reflective powers of the mind are deepened and broadened by worship. Prayer may enrich the life, but worship illuminates destiny.

Philosophy and Science The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science have added greatly to the death rate of false gods. Even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily blur the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition that have long obscured the living God of eternal love. The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion fragments life and to distorts religion. This is why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none.

A Personal Deity Religious experience implies God.  A God of personal experience must be a personal Deity. One cannot pray to a chemical formula, supplicate a mathematical equation, worship a hypothesis, confide in a postulate, commune with a process, serve an abstraction, or hold loving fellowship with a law.

Religious Experience Man's truly religious reactions are sponsored by the ministry of the spiritual mind adjutant of worship and are censored by the adjutant of wisdom (removes harmful parts). Man's first super mind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit (the Divine Minister). Long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, the influence of the Creative Spirit functions to enlarge man's viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality. As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. Thought Adjusters are the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity (the Universal Father).

Spiritual Communion The difference between a social occasion and a religious gathering is that the religious gathering is pervaded by an atmosphere of communion. In this way human association generates a feeling of fellowship with the divine. This is the beginning of group worship. Partaking of a common meal was the earliest type of social communion. The atmosphere of communion provides a refreshing and comforting period of truce in the conflict of the self-seeking ego with the altruistic urge of the indwelling spirit Thought Adjuster.

Yearning for God It is the Thought Adjuster who creates within man the unquenchable yearning and incessant longing to be like God, to attain Paradise, and there to worship the infinite source before that actual person of Deity. The Adjuster actually links the mortal son with his Paradise Father and constantly draws him nearer to the Father.

Solitary Messenger's Tribute 1 "Now to you, superiors far above me, I come as one placed in temporary authority over the experimental planetary series; and I come to express admiration and profound respect for this magnificent group of celestial ministers, the Mystery Monitors [Thought Adjusters], who have volunteered to serve on this irregular sphere. No matter how trying the crises, you never falter. Not on the records of Nebadon nor before the commissions of Orvonton 2 has there ever been offered an indictment of a divine Adjuster. You have been true to your trusts; you have been divinely faithful. You have helped to adjust the mistakes and to compensate for the shortcomings of all who labor on this confused planet. You are marvelous beings, guardians of the good in the souls of this backward realm. I pay you respect even while you are apparently under my jurisdiction as volunteer ministers. I bow before you in humble recognition of your exquisite unselfishness, your understanding ministry, and your impartial devotion. You deserve the name of the Godlike servers of the mortal inhabitants of this strife-torn, grief-stricken, and disease-afflicted world. I honor you! I all but worship you!"   1 Click for more on Solitary Messengers. 2 Read more on Nebadon, the local universe, and Orvonton, the seventh super universe.

Conjoint Action Mortals should not view cooperation with their Thought Adjuster as a conscious process. It is not. One's motives, decisions, faithful determinations and supreme desires, constitute real and effective cooperation. One can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by: 1. Choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness, and then coordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and love. 2. Loving God and desiring to be like him through genuine recognition of the divine fatherhood and loving worship of the heavenly Parent. 3. Loving man and sincerely desiring to serve him through wholehearted recognition of the brotherhood of man coupled with an intelligent and wise affection for all fellow mortals. 4. Joyful acceptance of cosmic citizenship (honest recognition of one's progressive obligations to the Supreme Being, awareness of the interdependence of evolutionary man and evolving Deity in the Super Universes). This is the birth of cosmic morality and the dawning realization of universal duty.

Affirmation The choosing to do the Father's will is the spiritual finding of the spirit Father by mortal man, even though an age must pass before the creature son may actually stand in the factual presence of God on Paradise. This choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature will ("Not my will but yours be done") as it consists in the creature's positive affirmation: "It is my will that your will be done." If this choice is made, sooner or later the God-choosing mortal son will find inner union (fusion) with the indwelling God fragment (the Thought Adjuster).

Consumption As mind pursues reality to its ultimate analysis, matter vanishes to the material senses but may remain real to mind. When spiritual insight pursues that reality that remains after the disappearance of matter, it vanishes to mind, but the insight of spirit can still perceive cosmic realities and supreme values of a spiritual nature. Accordingly, science gives way to philosophy, while philosophy surrenders to the conclusions inherent in genuine spiritual experience. Thinking surrenders to wisdom, and wisdom is lost in enlightened and reflective worship.

Finality 1 The human self observes the material world through science.  Philosophy is the observation of this observation of the material world.    Religion (true spiritual experience) is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the energy materials of time and space.    Building a philosophy of the universe exclusively on materialism ignores the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. The observer cannot be the thing observed. Evaluation demands transcendence of the thing that is evaluated.   In Time, thinking leads to wisdom and wisdom leads to worship.    In eternity, worship leads to wisdom, and wisdom eventuates (ultimately results) in the finality of thought.   1 The conclusive, or decisive act.

Environmental Manipulation The impulse of worship originates mainly in the spirit promptings of the higher mind adjutants (Worship and Wisdom) reinforced by the leadings of the Thought Adjuster. The urge to pray experienced by God-conscious mortals often arises as the result of seraphic (guardian angel) influence. The guarding angels are constantly manipulating the mortal environment to augment the cosmic insight of the human ascender so that a survival candidate may acquire enhanced realization of the presence of the indwelling Thought Adjuster to increase cooperation with the spiritual mission of that divine presence.

Subnormal Mortals Earth mortals who do not exercise normal will power; who do not make average decisions; who cannot comprehend God and therefore lack capacity for the intelligent worship of Deity have a corps of seraphim, with one battalion of cherubim, assigned to minister to them and to witness that justice and mercy are extended to them in the life struggles of the sphere.

The Diversity of Unity It is man's distance from infinity that requires the concept of infinity to be expressed as one word. While infinity is UNITY, it is also DIVERSITY without end or limit. Infinity, as observed by finite intelligences, is the maximum paradox of creature philosophy and finite metaphysics. Though man's spiritual nature reaches up in the worship experience to the Father who is infinite, man's intellectual comprehension capacity is exhausted by the maximum conception of the Supreme Being. Beyond the Supreme, concepts are increasingly names. Less and less are they true designations of reality. More and more they become the creature's projection of finite understanding toward the super finite.

Personality Detachment The great circuits of energy, mind, and spirit are never the permanent possessions of ascending personality. The ministries of energy, mind, and spirit will always remain a part of Supremacy. During the mortal experience, the human intellect resides in the rhythmic pulsations of the adjutant mind-spirits. The effects of mortal decisions remain within the arena produced by encircuitment within the ministry of these mind-spirits. Upon mortal death the human self is divorced from the adjutant circuit. While the mind-spirit adjutants never seem to transmit experience from one personality to another, the adjutants of worship and wisdom can and do transmit the impersonal repercussions of decision-actions to God the Supreme.

Accumulation of Capital What man retains as a personality possession after surviving the Earth experience are the character consequences of having used the mind and spirit circuits of the grand universe in his Paradise ascent. When man decides something, and consummates that decision in action, man experiences. The meanings and the values of this experience are forever a part of his eternal character on all levels, from the finite to finality. Cosmically moral and divinely spiritual character represents the creature's capital accumulation of personal decisions that have been illuminated by sincere worship, glorified by intelligent love, and consummated in brotherly service.

Evolutionary Brake The slowness of evolution of human cultural progress operates to retard dangerous velocities of progress. Time itself cushions and distributes any lethal results of premature escape from the barriers to human action into the next stage of evolution. When culture advances too quickly, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, a civilization contains within itself the seeds of retrogression. If not buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, human societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment. A "dark age" will restore the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.

From Hinduism "God is the sure refuge of every good man when in need; the Immortal One cares for all mankind. God's salvation is strong and his kindness is gracious. He is a loving protector, a blessed defender. Says the Lord: I dwell within their own souls as a lamp of wisdom. I am the splendor of the splendid and the goodness of the good. Where two or three gather together, there am I also.' The creature cannot escape the presence of the Creator. The Lord even counts the ceaseless winking of every mortal's eyes; and we worship this divine Being as our inseparable companion. He is all-prevailing, bountiful, omnipresent, and infinitely kind. The Lord is our ruler, shelter, and supreme controller, and his primeval spirit dwells within the mortal soul. The Eternal Witness to vice and virtue dwells within man's heart. Let us long meditate on the adorable and divine Vivifier; let his spirit fully direct our thoughts. From this unreal world lead us to the real! From darkness lead us to the light! From death guide us to immortality!"

From Shinto "Says the Lord: 'You are all recipients of my divine power; all men enjoy my ministry of mercy. I derive great pleasure in the multiplication of righteous men throughout the land. In both the beauties of nature and the virtues of men does the Prince of Heaven seek to reveal himself and to show forth his righteous nature. Since the olden people did not know my name, I manifested myself by being born into the world as a visible existence and endured such abasement even that man should not forget my name. I am the maker of heaven and earth; the sun and the moon and all the stars obey my will. I am the ruler of all creatures on land and in the four seas. Although I am great and supreme, still I have regard for the prayer of the poorest man. If any creature will worship me, I will hear his prayer and grant the desire of his heart.' "

From Jesus "Though human beings differ in many ways, the one from another, before God and in the spiritual world all mortals stand on an equal footing. There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God: those who desire to do his will and those who do not. As the universe looks upon an inhabited world, it likewise discerns two great classes: those who know God and those who do not. Those who cannot know God are reckoned among the animals of any given realm. Mankind can appropriately be divided into many classes in accordance with differing qualifications, as man may be viewed physically, mentally, socially, vocationally, or morally, but as these different classes of mortals appear before the judgment bar of God, they stand on an equal footing. God is truly no respecter of persons. Although you cannot escape the recognition of differential human abilities and endowments in matters intellectual, social, and moral, you should make no such distinctions in the spiritual brotherhood of men when assembled for worship in the presence of God."

Strong Character Strong character is not derived from not doing wrong but from actually doing right. Unselfishness is the badge of human greatness. The highest levels of self-realization are attained by worship and service. The happy and effective person is motivated, not by fear of wrongdoing, but by love of right doing.

No Exclusions The Father in heaven never fails to accept the sincere worship of his children on earth, regardless of how crude their concept of Deity may be or by what name they symbolize his divine nature. At all times and during all ages the true worship of any human being (as concerns individual spiritual progress) is recognized by the indwelling spirit as homage rendered to the Father in heaven.

Art Jesus said: "Because Moses onetime sought to combat idolatry and the worship of false gods, why should all men frown upon the reproduction of grace and beauty? In an age when my Father was not well understood, Moses was justified in his attempts to withstand idolatry. In the coming age the Father will be revealed in the life of the Son [Jesus/Michael]. Henceforth, intelligent men may enjoy the treasures of art without confusing such material appreciation of beauty with the worship and service of the Father in Paradise, the God of all things and all beings."

Worship Defined Worship is the technique of looking to the One for the inspiration of service to the many. Worship is the yardstick which measures the extent of the soul's detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure attachment to the spiritual realities of all creation. Prayer is self-reminding (sublime thinking); worship is self-forgetting (super thinking). Worship is effortless attention, true and ideal soul rest, a form of restful spiritual exertion. Worship is the act of a part identifying itself with the Whole; the finite with the Infinite; the son with the Father; time in the act of striking step with eternity. Worship is the act of the son's personal communion with the divine Father, the assumption of refreshing, creative, fraternal, and romantic attitudes by the human soul-spirit.

Jesus on Prayer Jesus taught that effective prayer must be: 1. Unselfish--not alone for oneself. 2. Believing--according to faith. 3. Sincere--honest of heart. 4. Intelligent--according to light. 5. Trustful--in submission to the Father's all-wise will. Jesus prayed very little for himself, although he engaged in much worship of the nature of understanding communion with his Paradise Father.

Path of Prayer Prayer will lead mortals up to the communion of true worship. The soul's spiritual capacity for receptivity determines the quantity of heavenly blessings that can be personally appropriated and consciously realized as an answer to prayer. Jesus rarely said prayers as spoken words. Practically all of Jesus' praying was done in the spirit and in the heart, silently.

Jesus Taught True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator. Organized religion is man's attempt to socialize the worship of individual religionists. The prayer of mortals is the breath of the soul and should lead individuals to be persistent in the attempt to ascertain the Father's will. Persistence in prayer is not to win favor with God but to enlarge the soul's capacity for spirit receptivity. Jesus taught his followers that, when they had made their prayers to the Father, they should remain for a time in silent receptivity to afford the indwelling spirit the better opportunity to speak to the listening soul. The spirit of the Father speaks best to man when the human mind is in an attitude of true worship. Worship makes one increasingly like the being who is worshiped. Worship is a transforming experience whereby the finite gradually approaches and ultimately attains the presence of the Infinite.

Measuring Spirit Control While humans cannot observe the divine spirit at work in their minds, there is a practical method of discovering the degree to which they have yielded the control of their soul powers to the teaching and guidance of the Thought Adjuster. This measurement is the degree of their love for their fellow men.

Summation Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity. This profound experience of the reality of the divine indwelling Thought Adjuster forever transcends the crude materialistic techniques of the physical sciences. Mortals cannot put spiritual joy under a microscope; cannot weigh love on a scale; cannot measure moral values; or estimate the quality of spiritual worship. True religious worship is not some futile monologue of self-deception. Worship is a personal communion with that which is divinely real, with that which is the very source of reality. Man aspires by worship to be better. Eventually, he attains the best.