True Values

True values

132:1.1 (1456.7)With the leader of the Stoics, Angamon, Jesus had an all-night conversation early in his stay in Rome. Later this man became a great friend of Paul and showed himself to be one of the pillars of the Christian church in Rome. Briefly summarized and rendered in modern terms, Jesus taught Angamon the following:

132:1.2 (1457.1)The measure of true values must be sought in the spiritual world and on the divine levels of eternal reality. By an ascending mortal, all lower, material standards must be recognized as transient, partial and inferior. The science man as such is limited to discovering the coherence of material facts. Technically speaking, he has no right to claim to be a materialist or an idealist, for by doing so he has already allowed himself the freedom to abandon the disposition of a true natural science man, since all such statements regarding one's own disposition are the deepest essence of philosophy.

132:1.3 (1457.2)Unless the moral understanding and spiritual level of mankind deepen proportionately, the unlimited progress of a purely materialistic culture may eventually become a threat to civilization. A purely materialistic science harbors within itself the potential seed of the destruction of all scientific endeavor, for this institution itself is an omen of the eventual collapse of a civilization that has abandoned its sense of moral values and rejected the spiritual goal it should achieve.

132:1.4 (1457.3)The materialistic science man and the extreme idealist are destined always to be at odds with each other. This is not true of those science men and idealists who share a common standard of high moral values and spiritual testing levels. In every age, science people and religious people must realize that they are on trial in the court of human need. They must avoid all mutual warfare and courageously strive to justify their survival by a stronger commitment to serving human progress. If the so-called science or religion of an age is false, it must purge its activities, or give way to the emergence of a material science or spiritual religion of a truer, more worthy order.

2. Good and evil

132:2.1 (1457.4)Mardus was the recognized leader of the Cynics in Rome, and he became a great friend of the writer from Damascus. Day after day he had conversations with Jesus, and night after night he listened to his exalted teaching. One of the most important conversations with Mardus was aimed at answering this sincere Cynic's question about right and wrong. Briefly, and in the language of the twentieth century, Jesus said:

132:2.2 (1457.5)Brother, good and evil are only words that symbolize relative levels of human understanding of the observable universe. If you are ethically lazy and indifferent to your fellow human beings, you can take the common social customs as your standards of good. If you are spiritually indolent and morally unwilling to progress, you may adopt as your standard of good the religious customs and traditions of your contemporaries. But the soul that survives time and appears in eternity must make a living, personal choice between good and evil as determined by the true values according to the spiritual standards set by the divine spirit that the Father sent into heaven to dwell in the heart of man. This indwelling spirit is the standard for personality survival.

132:2.3 (1457.6)Goodness, like truth, is always relative and is contrasted with evil without exception. It is the perception of these qualities of goodness and truth that enables the evolving soul of man to make those personal choice decisions that are essential for eternal survival.

132:2.4 (1458.1)The spiritually blind man, who logically follows the dictates of science, custom and in society and religious dogmatics, is in serious danger of sacrificing his moral freedom and losing his spiritual freedom. Such a soul is destined to become an intellectual parrot, a social automaton and a slave to religious authority.

132:2.5 (1458.2)Goodness always grows to new heights of increasing freedom from moral self-realization and spiritual personality acquisition-the discovery of and identification with the indwelling Richter. An experience is good when it enhances the appreciation of beauty, strengthens the moral will, expands the capacity to discern truth, strengthens the capacity to love and be of service to one's fellow man, elevates spiritual ideals, and unites the supreme human motives in time with the eternal plans of the indwelling Richter: all this leads directly to a greater desire to do the Father's will, advancing the divine passion to seek God and become more like him.

132:2.6 (1458.3)As you climb the universe steps of creature development, you will find increasing goodness and decreasing evil, in perfect accord with your capacity to experience goodness and discern truth. The capacity to err, or experience evil, will disappear only when the ascending human soul reaches final mind-levels.

132:2.7 (1458.4)Goodness is alive, relative, always evolving, is invariably a personal experience, and is eternally correlated with discerning truth and beauty. Goodness is found in the recognition of the positive truth-values of the spiritual level, which in human experience must be contrasted with their negative opposite-the shadows of potential evil.

132:2.8 (1458.5)Until you attain the levels of Paradise, goodness will always be more a seeking and pursuit than a possession, more a goal than the experience of having attained it. But even as you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you experience more and more satisfaction in acquiring goodness in part. The presence of good and evil in the world is in itself positive proof of the existence and reality of man's moral will, the personality, which thus identifies these values and is also able to choose between them.

132:2.9 (1458.6)By the time the ascending mortal reaches Paradise, his capacity to identify his self with true spirit-values has been so increased that it has culminated in the attainment of the perfect possession of the light of life. Such a perfected spirit-personality comes to such a whole, divine and spiritual union with the positive, supreme qualities of goodness, beauty and truth, that it is no longer possible for this righteous spirit to cast off even any negative shadow of potential evil when exposed to the piercing radiance of the divine light of the infinite Rulers of Paradise. In all such spirit-personalities, goodness is no longer partial, contrasting and comparative; it has become divinely complete and spiritually fulfilled: it approaches the purity and perfection of the Most High.

132:2.10 (1458.7)The possibility of evil is necessary for moral choice, but not its actuality. A shadow is real only in a relative sense. Actual evil is not necessary as a personal experience. At the lower levels of spiritual development, potential evil works just as well as incitement to decisions in the field of moral progress. Evil becomes a reality in personal experience only when a moral consciousness makes evil its choice.

3. Truth and faith

132:3.1 (1459.1)Nabon, a Greek Jew, was the most remarkable leader of the most important mysteries in Rome, that of Mithras. Although this high priest of Mithraism had many conversations with the scribe from Damascus, he was most enduringly influenced by a discussion they had one evening about truth and faith. Nabon had thought he could convert Jesus and had even suggested to him that he return to Palestine as a Mithraic teacher. He did not realize at all that Jesus was preparing him to become one of the first converts to the gospel of the kingdom. The essence of Jesus' teaching, restated in modern terms, was as follows:

132:3.2 (1459.2)Truth cannot be defined in words, but only by living it. Truth is always more than knowledge. Knowledge relates to perceived things, but truth transcends such purely material levels in that it is compatible with wisdom and includes such imponderabilia as human experience, yes even spiritual, living realities. Knowledge has its origin in natural science; wisdom in true philosophy; truth in the religious experience of spiritual life. Knowledge has to do with facts; wisdom with relationships; truth with reality values.

132:3.3 (1459.3)Man tends to give fixed form to natural science, formalize philosophy and dogmatize truth, because he is mentally lazy when he has to adjust to the progressive struggles of life, while he is also terribly afraid of the unknown. The natural man only slowly initiates changes in his habits of thought and in his ways of life.

132:3.4 (1459.4)Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme joy of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material consciousness and the indwelling spirit. The eternal salvation of such a soul that recognizes truth and loves beauty is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness, which leads a mortal man to set himself but one goal, namely, to do the Father's will, to seek God and become like Him. There is never a conflict between true knowledge and truth. However, there may be conflict between knowledge and human beliefs, beliefs colored by prejudice, distorted by fear, and dominated by the strong fear of facing new facts of material discoveries or spiritual progress.

132:3.5 (1459.5)But truth can never become man's possession without his believing. This is the case because a man's thoughts, wisdom, ethics and ideals will never rise higher than his faith, his sublime hope. All such true faith is based on deep thought, sincere self-criticism, and an unwavering moral consciousness. Faith is the inspiration of the spiritualized creative imagination.

132:3.6 (1459.6)Faith works in such a way that it paves the way for the superhuman activities of the divine spark, the immortal germ that lives in man's consciousness and is the potential of his eternal survival. Plants and animals survive through time by means of the technology by which they pass on identical particles of themselves from one generation to the next. The soul (personality) of man survives mortal death through identity association with this indwelling spark of divinity, which is immortal and which works in order to perpetuate the human personality at a continued, higher level of progressive existence in the universe. The hidden seed of the human soul is an immortal spirit. The second generation of the soul is the first of a series of personality manifestations in spiritual and increasingly higher forms of existence, which end only when this divine entity reaches the origin of its existence, the personal source of all existence, God, the Universal Father.

132:3.7 (1459.7)Human life continues - survives - because it has a function in the universe, namely the task of seeking God. The faith-activated soul of man cannot stand still until it reaches this goal of its destiny; and once the soul reaches this divine goal, it knows no end because it has become like God - eternal.

132:3.8 (1460.1)Spiritual evolution is an experience of the increasing, voluntary choice of goodness accompanied by an equally progressive decrease in the possibility of evil. With the attainment of the final choice of goodness and of a perfect capacity to appreciate truth, there arises a perfection of beauty and holiness, whose righteousness makes it forever impossible for even the thought of potential evil to arise. Such a God-knowing soul casts no shadow of doubting evil when functioning at such a high mind-level of divine goodness.

132:3.9 (1460.2)The presence of the Paradise spirit in man's consciousness constitutes the revelatory and faith promise of an eternal existence of divine progress for every soul that seeks to attain identity with this immortal indwelling spirit-fragment of the Universal Father.

132:3.10 (1460.3)Progress in the universe is characterized by increasing freedom of personality as it is linked to the progressive attainment of ever higher levels of self-understanding and the voluntary self-restraint that results. The attainment of perfect spiritual self-control is equivalent to the attainment of complete universe-freedom and complete personal freedom. Faith lends strength to the soul of man and sustains it in the confusion of its fledgling orientation in such a vast universe, while prayer becomes the great unifier of the varied inspirations of the creative imagination and the faith promptings of a soul seeking to identify itself with the spirit-ideals of the indwelling divine presence with which it is associated.

132:3.11 (1460.4)Nabon was greatly impressed by these words, as he was by each of his conversations with Jesus. These truths continued to burn in his heart, and he was a great help to the preachers of the gospel of Jesus when they arrived later.