SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Headlines page 74

Just what value does one put on spiritual study?  And for what purpose?   Is it for distraction?  Is it for gain of one kind of another?  Is it because one feels one should? Is it due to habit, from family background?  It is from the realization that the carnal life, the struggle to gain and escape sensations of various kinds with all the struggle, is a meaningless purpose of living?  If one wants to see how one is doing spiritually, one may check up on how one sees.  That which is transformed by spiritual growth is how one sees..  If one sees possessions of great value, one has little or no spiritual growth.  If one sees having one’s way of great value, there is no spiritual growth.  If one sees disapproval of self, or what one has done as of value, there is no spiritual growth. One is still a child.  If one values living in the right neighborhood, be in the right social group as of value, one is still carnal.  If one sees some people as better than others, because of race, color or creed, that is still being carnal

However, if one sees that there is value in knowing self; knowing all one’s hidden motives, all one’s contradictions, one’s prejudices; in finding a state of being without conflict within and without;  sees a value in understanding others, then one is experiencing spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth is being a new person inside first, then outside.  As one sees differently one has a different attitude.  As one who has a different attitude behaves differently, not by will-power, but from what one sees and feels is of value.  One with a different a behavior, has a different state of being.

OPINIONS VS KNOWLEDGE

Science of Man Lesson 27

.  Paying attention is one of the greatest things one can do.  The reason for this is that man very easily is suggested into confusing opinion with knowledge.  Knowledge is something that one has gained by actual experimentation.  Opinion is something that a suggestion suggests is reasonable or logical.

So, let’s take some opinions that we might have:

Do we have an opinion that we know what we need?

Do we have some idea, some opinion, as to what being reborn is?

Do we have an opinion of what God is?

Do we have an opinion that we know what is good?

Do we each feel we know what is needed for all people?

Does man know that he needs a better state of health?

Now let’s be careful, let’s be slow, and let’s be as thorough as possible, because this list is very long.  And as we see that something is an opinion, and we have hereto for believed to be knowledge, we have become cleaner inside.  Because confusion is an adulteration; opinion is an adulteration of knowledge.  And when one has put it all in together, one has committed spiritual adultery.  One has mixed up opinions and knowledge.  One is not cleansed in that area.  So we will take the time to go through the opinions. We will listen to opinions from other people. We will read opinions in the newspapers and in the magazines and in various books. We will see opinions on television. We will hear opinions on radio.  We will see how many of those opinions, unknowingly, we have subscribed to.  By being aware of these opinions one is further cleansing the heart, one is growing in wisdom.  One is growing in knowledge, because the false knowledge is an inhibitor of growth of real knowledge.  And no opinion can be called knowledge.

SPIRITUAL BODY

Science of man – Lesson 28

……. it’s very difficult for man that is observing the physical form, to conceive that he can get along without it. He doesn’t realize that he can have the possibility of building a spiritual body.  That even though the physical body dies, he can pick it up again.  The Messiah demonstrated it.  That it is the real body, the spiritual body, the spiritual frame of reference that has realness that can exist forever.  And that it can do anything it likes with the physical body.  It can lay it down.  It can pick it up again. If something injures it or destroys it, it can be repaired it very quickly.  And it can be changed in shape and appearance and anything else, because the spiritual body is there. But without the spiritual body, we are very attached or identified with the physical body.  We do not see that that is X’s instrument.  And that without a spiritual body we are constantly giving false information to X from the self and that it operates on it and this does destroy it the physical body.

SPIRIT AS FRIEND

School Talk #51 Living the Spiritual Life

If you knew that you had a wonderful Spirit that went with you everywhere and could take care of about everything that you always wanted.  Not to give you the four dual basic urges, but could bring about higher states of consciousness, then you begin to act that way.  You would act like you had this Friend, this real Friend that goes with you everywhere and you wouldn’t experience boredom because you would have a Friend with you.  You would have a loving state with you at all times.  You wouldn’t know about boredom or “burn out.”

If I have a wonderful Friend I talk to him.  I talk to my Friend quite often here, yonder and elsewhere.  I talk a little bit, not incessantly.  You wouldn’t want to be a bore by talking all the time.  You would tell it about things.  You would tell your Friend.

So, you’d first begin to see that Spirit is the Friend.  When you begin to do this, there would begin to be experiencing or making real Spirit within yourself.

            So only by making it real to you does it have any meaning.  So one of our most useful exercises is to make Spirit real to me…Life, whatever Life is.  It’s a Spirit of some sort.  It’s to make it real to me.  It’s not so hard.  It’s not so difficult.  You can see it exists, can you not?  You see that it does exist and you see that as long as it inhabits a form that it gives that form all of its properties and actions and everything else you can think of.

It does seem to act upon the information that it receives.  Now if you’re giving it an entirely different bunch of information than you formerly did, you get a different attitude and feeling within yourself; you begin to have the loving attitude; you begin to have the tendency to serve Life rather than exploit it….There would be forgiving and understanding that Life was always doing the appropriate thing for the information it received from all the misconceptions that have been loaded onto the people as they went along their way while they’re trying to gain the four dual basic urges.

There would be reverence for Life.  We begin to see It as something very holy and complete and that It is a Friend.  I would like to be acquainted with that Friend.  I want to be really acquainted with it.  So there would be a certain amount of consideration of thinking, exploring, getting to know that Friend that lives in the very depths of this being which gives that being all of its properties—all of its attributes and everything else it’s doing.  It’s the One that takes a sandwich and makes living flesh and blood out of it in a little while.  It takes a glass of water and does all sorts of nice thing with it…

Some other great teacher down through the ages said he knocked on the door of Life and Life said, “Who’s there?”  And he said, “I am.”  And It said, “Go away.”  He went back three years later and knocked on the door and Life inside said, “Who’s there?”  He said, “I am.”  It said, Go away.”  The fifth year he same back and knocked on the door and Life said, “Who’s there?”  He said, “Only you.”  It said, “Come in, there’s no room for two in this house.”

So maybe that’s the way it is.  So let’s just see that possibly if you recognize that the so-called “self” is only a recording made up here, yonder and elsewhere, a lot of suggestions, a lot of this and a lot of the other thing, conditioning, and there’s nothing real about it and that when that is recognized that there isn’t anything real at all, you’re beginning to be inside the house and only I or the Soul or Spirit is all that really does exist, I suspect that’s where we’re headed…..(RRG)

A STORY:   A few years ago I read Helen Keller’s autobiography.  I realized that I took for granted the incredible gifts of hearing and seeing.  In spite of overwhelming handicaps, Miss Keller experienced a whole, happy life and radiated her inner Light to others.

With her courageous life in mind, I decided to spend just one day consciously aware of being able to see.  This was my experience:

I awakened and open my eyes to the sunlight pouring though the bedroom window.  I could see my way to the bath room, watch the coffee pour into my cup, and I watched a little Earthling called Donna apply make-up.  Driving to town I could see and avoid other cars and trees.  That evening my eyes touched the stars and I laughed at the Man in the moon.  I ended the day with a deep gratitude for the two magnificent cameras located just behind my eyes which perfectly recorded millions of pictures in flawless Technicolor.

This conscious gratitude seeped into other areas of my life, erasing all the darkness and gloominess lingering there.

There is magic all around me when I’m conscious enough to see it.

MIND TICS:

Be careful or I’ll include you in my plans.

If only I knew you loved me, I could face the uncertainty of whether I love you.

Please don’t lie to me, unless you’re absolutely sure I’ll never find out the truth.

I can forgive you for being wrong, but it’s much harder to forgive you for being right.