|
Religious experience--live loyally each day
The experience of dynamic religious living can transform the mediocre individual into a personality of idealistic power.
Religion ministers to the progress of all through fostering the progress of each--and the progress of each is augmented by the progress of all.
Children are permanently impressed only by the loyalties of their adult associates. Loyal persons are growing persons--and growth is an impressive and inspiring reality.
Live loyally each day--grow--and tomorrow will look after itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live each day loyally as a tadpole.
Religion is a personal experience that grows in proportion to the expanding quest for final values.
Religious growth is favored by sensitivity to divine values; sharing one's spiritual life with one's fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to presume on divine mercy, and living as in the presence of God.
Spiritual growth
Spiritual development depends on maintaining a living spiritual connection with true spiritual forces plus a consequential and continuous bearing of spiritual fruit--thereby yielding the ministry to our fellows of that which has been received from our spiritual benefactors.
Spiritual progress is predicated upon intellectual recognition of our spiritual poverty and self-consciousness of perfection hunger--our desire to know God and be like him, our whole hearted purpose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
Spiritual growth commences with an awakening to needs, followed by the discernment of meanings and the discovery of values.
The evidence for true spiritual development consists in a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the perfect ideals of divinity. This entire experience constitutes the true reality of religion.
Spirituality is the measure of our nearness to God and usefulness to our fellow beings. And it is directly proportional to the elimination of selfish qualities from our love.
Actual spiritual status is a function of deity attainment, attunement to the divine Spirit-Within.
The goal of human self-realization should be spiritual, not material. The only realities worth striving for are divine, spiritual and eternal.
Choose your goals carefully--for the immortal personality you are building must transcend space, vanquish time, and achieve our eternal destiny of divine perfection and service.
Meanings and values
Religion is not a technique for attaining a blissful peace of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service--the dedication of the self in the loyal service of loving God and serving mankind.
The supreme value of human life consists in the growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of their cosmic interrelatedness. Such experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness.
In the physical life, the senses tell us of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; spiritual experience reveals their true values.
If you love your fellows, you must have discovered their value. Jesus loved us so much because he placed such a high value upon each one of us.
If you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant--and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.
|
|