ignorance

• provides opportunity for faith

3:5.94. Is faith—the su­preme as­ser­tion of hu­man thought—de­sir­able? Then must the mind of man find it­self in that trou­ble­some predica­ment where it ever knows less than it can be­lieve.

• sometimes essential to success

13:1.6This sphere also holds the se­crets of the na­ture, pur­pose, and ac­tiv­i­ties of all other forms of Fa­ther frag­ments, of the Grav­ity Mes­sen­gers, and of hosts of other be­ings un­re­vealed to you. It is highly prob­a­ble that those truths per­tain­ing to Di­vin­ing­ton which are with­held from me, if re­vealed, would merely con­fuse and hand­i­cap me in my pres­ent work, and still again, per­haps they are be­yond the con­cep­tual ca­pac­ity of my or­der of be­ing.

• sometimes essential to success

39:5.9In the more ad­vanced plan­e­tary ages these ser­a­phim en­hance man’s ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the truth that un­cer­tainty is the se­cret of con­tented con­ti­nu­ity. They help the mor­tal philoso­phers to re­al­ize that, when ig­no­rance is es­sen­tial to suc­cess, it would be a colos­sal blun­der for the crea­ture to know the fu­ture. They heighten man’s taste for the sweet­ness of un­cer­tainty, for the ro­mance and charm of the in­def­i­nite and un­known fu­ture.

• breeds suspicion

52:6.42. In­tel­lec­tual cross-fer­til­iza­tion. Broth­er­hood is im­pos­si­ble on a world whose in­hab­i­tants are so prim­i­tive that they fail to rec­og­nize the folly of un­mit­i­gated self­ish­ness. There must oc­cur an ex­change of na­tional and racial lit­er­a­ture. Each race must be­come fa­mil­iar with the thought of all races; each na­tion must know the feel­ings of all na­tions. Ig­no­rance breeds sus­pi­cion, and sus­pi­cion is in­com­pat­i­ble with the es­sen­tial at­ti­tude of sym­pa­thy and love.

• insures downfall of highest type of government

71:3.1The po­lit­i­cal or ad­min­is­tra­tive form of a gov­ern­ment is of lit­tle con­se­quence pro­vided it af­fords the es­sen­tials of civil prog­ress—lib­erty, se­cu­rity, ed­u­ca­tion, and so­cial co-or­di­na­tion. It is not what a state is but what it does that de­ter­mines the course of so­cial evo­lu­tion. And af­ter all, no state can tran­scend the moral val­ues of its cit­i­zenry as ex­em­pli­fied in their cho­sen lead­ers. Ig­no­rance and self­ish­ness will in­sure the down­fall of even the high­est type of gov­ern­ment.

• chief inhibitor of growth

100:1.2Some per­sons are too busy to grow and are there­fore in grave dan­ger of spir­i­tual fix­a­tion. Pro­vi­sion must be made for growth of mean­ings at dif­fer­ing ages, in suc­ces­sive cul­tures, and in the pass­ing stages of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion. The chief in­hibitors of growth are prej­u­dice and ig­no­rance.

• alone, i. can never prevent survival

110:3.5Con­fu­sion, be­ing puz­zled, even some­times dis­cour­aged and dis­tracted, does not nec­es­sar­ily sig­nify re­sis­tance to the lead­ings of the in­dwelling Ad­juster. Such at­ti­tudes may some­times con­note lack of ac­tive co-op­er­a­tion with the di­vine Mon­i­tor and may, there­fore, some­what de­lay spir­i­tual prog­ress, but such in­tel­lec­tual emo­tional dif­fi­cul­ties do not in the least in­ter­fere with the cer­tain sur­vival of the God-know­ing soul. Ig­no­rance alone can never pre­vent sur­vival; nei­ther can con­fu­sional doubts nor fear­ful un­cer­tainty. Only con­scious re­sis­tance to the Ad­juster’s lead­ing can pre­vent the sur­vival of the evolv­ing im­mor­tal soul.

• i. of divine law is misery and disaster

131:8.6“They who know the laws of the Eter­nal are wise. Ig­no­rance of the di­vine law is mis­ery and dis­as­ter. They who know the laws of God are lib­eral minded. If you know the Eter­nal, even though your body per­ish, your soul shall sur­vive in spirit ser­vice. You are truly wise when you rec­og­nize your in­signif­i­cance. If you abide in the light of the Eter­nal, you shall en­joy the en­light­en­ment of the Su­preme. Those who ded­i­cate their per­sons to the ser­vice of the Su­preme are joy­ous in this pur­suit of the Eter­nal. When man dies, the spirit be­gins to wing its long flight on the great home jour­ney.”

• sometimes essential to success

138:7.1Je­sus had planned for a quiet mis­sion­ary cam­paign of five months’ per­sonal work. He did not tell the apos­tles how long this was to last; they worked from week to week. And early on this first day of the week, just as he was about to an­nounce this to his twelve apos­tles, Si­mon Pe­ter, James Zeb­e­dee, and Ju­das Is­car­iot came to have pri­vate con­verse with him. Tak­ing Je­sus aside, Pe­ter made bold to say: “Mas­ter, we come at the be­hest of our as­so­ciates to in­quire whether the time is not now ripe to en­ter into the king­dom. And will you pro­claim the king­dom at Ca­per­naum, or are we to move on to Je­ru­sa­lem? And when shall we learn, each of us, the po­si­tions we are to oc­cupy with you in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom—” and Pe­ter would have gone on ask­ing fur­ther ques­tions, but Je­sus raised an ad­mon­i­tory hand and stopped him. And beck­on­ing the other apos­tles stand­ing near by to join them, Je­sus said: “My lit­tle chil­dren, how long shall I bear with you! Have I not made it plain to you that my king­dom is not of this world? I have told you many times that I have not come to sit on David’s throne, and now how is it that you are in­quir­ing which place each of you will oc­cupy in the Fa­ther’s king­dom? Can you not per­ceive that I have called you as am­bas­sadors of a spir­i­tual king­dom? Do you not un­der­stand that soon, very soon, you are to rep­re­sent me in the world and in the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom, even as I now rep­re­sent my Fa­ther who is in heaven? Can it be that I have cho­sen you and in­structed you as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, and yet you do not com­pre­hend the na­ture and sig­nif­i­cance of this com­ing king­dom of di­vine pre-em­i­nence in the hearts of men? My friends, hear me once more. Ban­ish from your minds this idea that my king­dom is a rule of power or a reign of glory. In­deed, all power in heaven and on earth will pres­ently be given into my hands, but it is not the Fa­ther’s will that we use this di­vine en­dow­ment to glo­rify our­selves dur­ing this age. In an­other age you shall in­deed sit with me in power and glory, but it be­hooves us now to sub­mit to the will of the Fa­ther and to go forth in hum­ble obe­di­ence to ex­e­cute his bid­ding on earth.”

• be patient with

178:1.14You are not to be pas­sive mys­tics or col­or­less as­cetics; you should not be­come dream­ers and drifters, supinely trust­ing in a fic­ti­tious Prov­i­dence to pro­vide even the ne­ces­si­ties of life. You are in­deed to be gen­tle in your deal­ings with erring mor­tals, pa­tient in your in­ter­course with ig­no­rant men, and for­bear­ing un­der provo­ca­tion; but you are also to be valiant in de­fense of righ­teous­ness, mighty in the pro­mul­ga­tion of truth, and ag­gres­sive in the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom, even to the ends of the earth.