effort

26:7.1Trin­ity guides are the tire­less min­is­ters of the fifth cir­cle of the Ha­vona train­ing of the ad­vanc­ing pil­grims of time and space. The spir­i­tual grad­u­ates are here des­ig­nated “can­di­dates for the De­ity ad­ven­ture” since it is on this cir­cle, un­der the di­rec­tion of the Trin­ity guides, that the pil­grims re­ceive ad­vanced in­struc­tion con­cern­ing the di­vine Trin­ity in prepa­ra­tion for the at­tempt to achieve the per­son­al­ity rec­og­ni­tion of the In­fi­nite Spirit. And here the as­cend­ing pil­grims dis­cover what true study and real men­tal ef­fort mean as they be­gin to dis­cern the na­ture of the still-more-tax­ing and far-more-ar­du­ous spir­i­tual ex­er­tion that will be re­quired to meet the de­mands of the high goal set for their achieve­ment on the worlds of this cir­cuit.

50:6.3Be­cause of your plan­e­tary mis­for­tunes, Uran­tians are pre­vented from un­der­stand­ing very much about the cul­ture of nor­mal worlds. But you should not en­vis­age the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds, even the most ideal, as spheres whereon life is a flow­ery bed of ease. The ini­tial life of the mor­tal races is al­ways at­tended by strug­gle. Ef­fort and de­ci­sion are an es­sen­tial part of the ac­quire­ment of sur­vival val­ues.

100:4.2Re­li­gious per­plex­i­ties are in­ev­i­ta­ble; there can be no growth with­out psy­chic con­flict and spir­i­tual ag­i­ta­tion. The or­ga­ni­za­tion of a philo­sophic stan­dard of liv­ing en­tails con­sid­er­able com­mo­tion in the philo­sophic realms of the mind. Loy­al­ties are not ex­er­cised in be­half of the great, the good, the true, and the no­ble with­out a strug­gle. Ef­fort is at­ten­dant upon clar­i­fi­ca­tion of spir­i­tual vi­sion and en­hance­ment of cos­mic in­sight. And the hu­man in­tel­lect protests against be­ing weaned from sub­sist­ing upon the non­spir­i­tual en­er­gies of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence. The sloth­ful an­i­mal mind rebels at the ef­fort re­quired to wres­tle with cos­mic prob­lem solv­ing.

34:7.2Evo­lu­tion­ary mor­tals in­hab­it­ing nor­mal worlds of spir­i­tual prog­ress do not ex­pe­ri­ence the acute con­flicts be­tween the spirit and the flesh which char­ac­ter­ize the pres­ent-day Uran­tia races. But even on the most ideal plan­ets, pre-Adamic man must put forth pos­i­tive ef­forts to as­cend from the purely an­i­mal­is­tic plane of ex­is­tence up through suc­ces­sive lev­els of in­creas­ingly in­tel­lec­tual mean­ings and higher spir­i­tual val­ues.

117:4.7Man­kind does not as­cend ef­fort­lessly in the uni­verse, nei­ther does the Su­preme evolve with­out pur­pose­ful and in­tel­li­gent ac­tion. Crea­tures do not at­tain per­fec­tion by mere pas­siv­ity, nor can the spirit of Su­prem­acy fac­tu­al­ize the power of the Al­mighty with­out un­ceas­ing ser­vice min­istry to the fi­nite cre­ation.

48:7.108. Ef­fort does not al­ways pro­duce joy, but there is no hap­pi­ness with­out in­tel­li­gent ef­fort.

115:7.2All this must be ac­cord­ing to the Fa­ther’s plan, which has pred­i­cated fi­nite prog­ress upon ef­fort, crea­ture achieve­ment upon per­se­ver­ance, and per­son­al­ity de­vel­op­ment upon faith. By thus or­dain­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence-evo­lu­tion of the Su­preme, the Fa­ther has made it pos­si­ble for fi­nite crea­tures to ex­ist in the uni­verses and, by ex­pe­ri­en­tial pro­gres­sion, some­time to at­tain the di­vin­ity of Su­prem­acy.

20:8.3The Teacher Sons com­pose the fac­ul­ties who ad­min­is­ter all ex­am­i­na­tions and con­duct all tests for the qual­i­fi­ca­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of all sub­or­di­nate phases of uni­verse ser­vice, from the du­ties of out­post sen­tinels to those of star stu­dents. They con­duct an age­long course of train­ing, rang­ing from the plan­e­tary courses up to the high Col­lege of Wis­dom lo­cated on Sal­ving­ton. Rec­og­ni­tion in­dica­tive of ef­fort and at­tain­ment is granted to all, as­cend­ing mor­tal or am­bi­tious cheru­bim, who com­plete these ad­ven­tures in wis­dom and truth.

50:7.3All through the Par­a­dise ca­reer, re­ward fol­lows ef­fort as the re­sult of causes. Such re­wards set off the in­di­vid­ual from the av­er­age, pro­vide a dif­fer­en­tial of crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence, and con­tribute to the ver­sa­til­ity of ul­ti­mate per­for­mances in the col­lec­tive body of the fi­nal­i­ters.

48:6.37You 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.