motives

66:8.2It should be noted that both Lu­cifer and Cali­gas­tia had been pa­tiently in­structed and lov­ingly warned re­spect­ing their crit­i­cal ten­den­cies and the sub­tle de­vel­op­ment of their pride of self and its as­so­ci­ated ex­ag­ger­a­tion of the feel­ing of self-im­por­tance. But all of these at­tempts to help had been mis­con­strued as un­war­ranted crit­i­cism and as un­jus­ti­fied in­ter­fer­ence with per­sonal lib­er­ties. Both Cali­gas­tia and Lu­cifer judged their friendly ad­vis­ers as be­ing ac­tu­ated by the very rep­re­hen­si­ble mo­tives which were be­gin­ning to dom­i­nate their own dis­torted think­ing and mis­guided plan­ning. They judged their un­selfish ad­vis­ers by their own evolv­ing self­ish­ness.

75:4.5Eve had told Cano of this oft-re­peated warn­ing on the fate­ful oc­ca­sion of their se­cret meet­ing, but Cano, not know­ing the im­port or sig­nif­i­cance of such ad­mo­ni­tions, had as­sured her that men and women with good mo­tives and true in­ten­tions could do no evil; that she should surely not die but rather live anew in the per­son of their off­spring, who would grow up to bless and sta­bi­lize the world.

38:2.4An­gels are su­pe­rior to you in spir­i­tual sta­tus, but they are not your judges or ac­cusers. No mat­ter what your faults, “the an­gels, al­though greater in power and might, bring no ac­cu­sa­tion against you.” An­gels do not sit in judg­ment on man­kind, nei­ther should in­di­vid­ual mor­tals pre­judge their fel­low crea­tures.

133:1.2“Ga­nid, it is true, you do not un­der­stand. Mercy min­istry is al­ways the work of the in­di­vid­ual, but jus­tice pun­ish­ment is the func­tion of the so­cial, gov­ern­men­tal, or uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tive groups. As an in­di­vid­ual I am be­holden to show mercy; I must go to the res­cue of the as­saulted lad, and in all con­sis­tency I may em­ploy suf­fi­cient force to re­strain the ag­gres­sor. And that is just what I did. I achieved the de­liv­er­ance of the as­saulted lad; that was the end of mercy min­istry. Then I forcibly de­tained the ag­gres­sor a suf­fi­cient length of time to en­able the weaker party to the dis­pute to make his es­cape, af­ter which I with­drew from the af­fair. I did not pro­ceed to sit in judg­ment on the ag­gres­sor, thus to pass upon his mo­tive—to ad­ju­di­cate all that en­tered into his at­tack upon his fel­low—and then un­der­take to ex­e­cute the pun­ish­ment which my mind might dic­tate as just rec­om­pense for his wrong­do­ing. Ga­nid, mercy may be lav­ish, but jus­tice is pre­cise. Can­not you dis­cern that no two per­sons are likely to agree as to the pun­ish­ment which would sat­isfy the de­mands of jus­tice? One would im­pose forty lashes, an­other twenty, while still an­other would ad­vise soli­tary con­fine­ment as a just pun­ish­ment. Can you not see that on this world such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties had bet­ter rest upon the group or be ad­min­is­tered by cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the group? In the uni­verse, judg­ment is vested in those who fully know the an­tecedents of all wrong­do­ing as well as its mo­ti­va­tion. In civ­i­lized so­ci­ety and in an or­ga­nized uni­verse the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice pre­sup­poses the pass­ing of just sen­tence con­se­quent upon fair judg­ment, and such pre­rog­a­tives are vested in the ju­ridi­cal groups of the worlds and in the all-know­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors of the higher uni­verses of all cre­ation.”

140:3.19“I warn you against false proph­ets who will come to you in sheep’s cloth­ing, while on the in­side they are as raven­ing wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes from thorns or figs from this­tles? Even so, ev­ery good tree brings forth good fruit, but the cor­rupt tree bears evil fruit. A good tree can­not yield evil fruit, nei­ther can a cor­rupt tree pro­duce good fruit. Ev­ery tree that does not bring forth good fruit is pres­ently hewn down and cast into the fire. In gain­ing an en­trance into the king­dom of heaven, it is the mo­tive that counts. My Fa­ther looks into the hearts of men and judges by their in­ner long­ings and their sin­cere in­ten­tions.

103:4.5God the Fa­ther deals with man his child on the ba­sis, not of ac­tual virtue or wor­thi­ness, but in rec­og­ni­tion of the child’s mo­ti­va­tion—the crea­ture pur­pose and in­tent. The re­la­tion­ship is one of par­ent-child as­so­ci­a­tion and is ac­tu­ated by di­vine love.

131:9.3“God is with us; there­fore we have no fear in our hearts. If there be found any virtue in me, it is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Heaven who abides with me. But this Heaven within me of­ten makes hard de­mands on my faith. If God is with me, I have de­ter­mined to have no doubt in my heart. Faith must be very near the truth of things, and I do not see how a man can live with­out this good faith. Good and evil do not be­fall men with­out cause. Heaven deals with man’s soul in ac­cor­dance with its pur­pose. When you find your­self in the wrong, do not hes­i­tate to con­fess your er­ror and be quick to make amends.

140:6.4Then said Si­mon Pe­ter: “Mas­ter, if you have a new com­mand­ment, we would hear it. Re­veal the new way to us.” Je­sus an­swered Pe­ter: “You have heard it said by those who teach the law: ‘You shall not kill; that whoso­ever kills shall be sub­ject to judg­ment.’ But I look be­yond the act to un­cover the mo­tive. I de­clare to you that ev­ery one who is an­gry with his brother is in dan­ger of con­dem­na­tion. He who nurses ha­tred in his heart and plans vengeance in his mind stands in dan­ger of judg­ment. You must judge your fel­lows by their deeds; the Fa­ther in heaven judges by the in­tent.

140:6.5“You have heard the teach­ers of the law say, ‘You shall not com­mit adul­tery.’ But I say to you that ev­ery man who looks upon a woman with in­tent to lust af­ter her has al­ready com­mit­ted adul­tery with her in his heart. You can only judge men by their acts, but my Fa­ther looks into the hearts of his chil­dren and in mercy ad­judges them in ac­cor­dance with their in­tents and real de­sires.”

140:10.5The one char­ac­ter­is­tic of Je­sus’ teach­ing was that the moral­ity of his phi­los­o­phy orig­i­nated in the per­sonal re­la­tion of the in­di­vid­ual to God—this very child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship. Je­sus placed em­pha­sis on the in­di­vid­ual, not on the race or na­tion. While eat­ing sup­per, Je­sus had the talk with Mat­thew in which he ex­plained that the moral­ity of any act is de­ter­mined by the in­di­vid­ual’s mo­tive. Je­sus’ moral­ity was al­ways pos­i­tive. The golden rule as re­stated by Je­sus de­mands ac­tive so­cial con­tact; the older neg­a­tive rule could be obeyed in iso­la­tion. Je­sus stripped moral­ity of all rules and cer­e­monies and el­e­vated it to ma­jes­tic lev­els of spir­i­tual think­ing and truly righ­teous liv­ing.

166:1.4When the Mas­ter had thus spo­ken, they cast their eyes upon the ta­ble and re­mained silent. And since no one spoke, Je­sus con­tin­ued: “Many of you Phar­isees are here with me as friends, some are even my dis­ci­ples, but the ma­jor­ity of the Phar­isees are per­sis­tent in their re­fusal to see the light and ac­knowl­edge the truth, even when the work of the gospel is brought be­fore them in great power. How care­fully you cleanse the out­side of the cups and the plat­ters while the spir­i­tual-food ves­sels are filthy and pol­luted! You make sure to pre­sent a pi­ous and holy ap­pear­ance to the peo­ple, but your in­ner souls are filled with self-righ­teous­ness, cov­etous­ness, ex­tor­tion, and all man­ner of spir­i­tual wicked­ness. Your lead­ers even dare to plot and plan the mur­der of the Son of Man. Do not you fool­ish men un­der­stand that the God of heaven looks at the in­ner mo­tives of the soul as well as on your outer pre­tenses and your pi­ous pro­fes­sions? Think not that the giv­ing of alms and the pay­ing of tithes will cleanse you from un­righ­teous­ness and en­able you to stand clean in the pres­ence of the Judge of all men. Woe upon you Phar­isees who have per­sisted in re­ject­ing the light of life! You are metic­u­lous in tithing and os­ten­ta­tious in alms­giv­ing, but you know­ingly spurn the vis­i­ta­tion of God and re­ject the rev­e­la­tion of his love. Though it is all right for you to give at­ten­tion to these mi­nor du­ties, you should not have left these weight­ier re­quire­ments un­done. Woe upon all who shun jus­tice, spurn mercy, and re­ject truth! Woe upon all those who de­spise the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther while they seek the chief seats in the syn­a­gogue and crave flat­ter­ing salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places!”

7:3.7It is the mo­ti­vat­ing thought, the spir­i­tual con­tent, that val­i­dates the mor­tal sup­pli­ca­tion. Words are val­ue­less.

146:2.87. The cry of the righ­teous is the faith act of the child of God which opens the door of the Fa­ther’s store­house of good­ness, truth, and mercy, and these good gifts have long been in wait­ing for the son’s ap­proach and per­sonal ap­pro­pri­a­tion. Prayer does not change the di­vine at­ti­tude to­ward man, but it does change man’s at­ti­tude to­ward the change­less Fa­ther. The mo­tive of the prayer gives it right of way to the di­vine ear, not the so­cial, eco­nomic, or out­ward re­li­gious sta­tus of the one who prays.

187:2.4Be­fore Je­sus was put on his cross, the two brig­ands had al­ready been placed on their crosses, all the while curs­ing and spit­ting upon their ex­e­cu­tion­ers. Je­sus’ only words, as they nailed him to the cross­beam, were, “Fa­ther, for­give them, for they know not what they do.” He could not have so mer­ci­fully and lov­ingly in­ter­ceded for his ex­e­cu­tion­ers if such thoughts of af­fec­tion­ate de­vo­tion had not been the main­spring of all his life of un­selfish ser­vice. The ideas, mo­tives, and long­ings of a life­time are openly re­vealed in a cri­sis.

70:10.3Prim­i­tive man as­signed all phe­nom­ena to a per­son. In case of death the sav­age asked, not what killed him, but who? Ac­ci­den­tal mur­der was not there­fore rec­og­nized, and in the pun­ish­ment of crime the mo­tive of the crim­i­nal was wholly dis­re­garded; judg­ment was ren­dered in ac­cor­dance with the in­jury done.

28:5.197. The Dis­cerner of Spir­its. A spe­cial li­ai­son ex­ists be­tween the coun­selors and ad­vis­ers of the sec­ond Ha­vona cir­cle and these re­flec­tive an­gels. They are the only se­con­a­phim at­tached to the Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors but are prob­a­bly the most uniquely spe­cial­ized of all their fel­lows. Re­gard­less of the source or chan­nel of in­for­ma­tion, no mat­ter how mea­ger the ev­i­dence at hand, when it is sub­jected to their re­flec­tive scrutiny, these dis­cern­ers will forth­with in­form us as to the true mo­tive, the ac­tual pur­pose, and the real na­ture of its ori­gin. I mar­vel at the su­perb func­tion­ing of these an­gels, who so unerringly re­flect the ac­tual moral and spir­i­tual char­ac­ter of any in­di­vid­ual con­cerned in a fo­cal ex­po­sure.

28:6.19The real na­ture of any ser­vice, be it ren­dered by man or an­gel, is fully re­vealed in the faces of these sec­o­raphic ser­vice in­di­ca­tors, the Sanc­ti­ties of Ser­vice. The full anal­y­sis of the true and of the hid­den mo­tives is clearly shown. These an­gels are in­deed the mind read­ers, heart searchers, and soul re­veal­ers of the uni­verse. Mor­tals may em­ploy words to con­ceal their thoughts, but these high se­con­a­phim lay bare the deep mo­tives of the hu­man heart and of the an­gelic mind.

100:4.4In phys­i­cal life the senses tell of the ex­is­tence of things; mind dis­cov­ers the re­al­ity of mean­ings; but the spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence re­veals to the in­di­vid­ual the true val­ues of life. These high lev­els of hu­man liv­ing are at­tained in the su­preme love of God and in the un­selfish love of man. If you love your fel­low men, you must have dis­cov­ered their val­ues. Je­sus loved men so much be­cause he placed such a high value upon them. You can best dis­cover val­ues in your as­so­ciates by dis­cov­er­ing their mo­ti­va­tion. If some­one ir­ri­tates you, causes feel­ings of re­sent­ment, you should sym­pa­thet­i­cally seek to dis­cern his view­point, his rea­sons for such ob­jec­tion­able con­duct. If once you un­der­stand your neigh­bor, you will be­come tol­er­ant, and this tol­er­ance will grow into friend­ship and ripen into love.

100:4.5In the mind’s eye con­jure up a pic­ture of one of your prim­i­tive an­ces­tors of cave-dwell­ing times—a short, mis­shapen, filthy, snarling hulk of a man stand­ing, legs spread, club up­raised, breath­ing hate and an­i­mos­ity as he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a pic­ture hardly de­picts the di­vine dig­nity of man. But al­low us to en­large the pic­ture. In front of this an­i­mated hu­man crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Be­hind him, a woman and two chil­dren. Im­me­di­ately you rec­og­nize that such a pic­ture stands for the be­gin­nings of much that is fine and no­ble in the hu­man race, but the man is the same in both pic­tures. Only, in the sec­ond sketch you are fa­vored with a widened hori­zon. You therein dis­cern the mo­ti­va­tion of this evolv­ing mor­tal. His at­ti­tude be­comes praise­wor­thy be­cause you un­der­stand him. If you could only fathom the mo­tives of your as­so­ciates, how much bet­ter you would un­der­stand them. If you could only know your fel­lows, you would even­tu­ally fall in love with them.

28:5.9If con­fu­sion arises re­gard­ing the har­mo­niza­tion of these two ver­sions of wis­dom, im­me­di­ate ap­peal is made to the Di­vine Coun­selors, who forth­with rule as to the proper com­bi­na­tion of pro­ce­dures. If there is any doubt as to the au­then­tic­ity of some­thing com­ing in from realms where re­bel­lion has been rife, ap­peal is made to the Cen­sors, who, with their Dis­cern­ers of Spir­its, are able to rule im­me­di­ately as to “what man­ner of spirit” ac­tu­ated the ad­viser. So are the wis­dom of the ages and the in­tel­lect of the mo­ment ever pres­ent with the An­cients of Days, like an open book be­fore their benef­i­cent gaze.

99:4.5Af­ter all, it is what one be­lieves rather than what one knows that de­ter­mines con­duct and dom­i­nates per­sonal per­for­mances. Purely fac­tual knowl­edge ex­erts very lit­tle in­flu­ence upon the av­er­age man un­less it be­comes emo­tion­ally ac­ti­vated. But the ac­ti­va­tion of re­li­gion is super­emo­tional, uni­fy­ing the en­tire hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence on tran­scen­dent lev­els through con­tact with, and re­lease of, spir­i­tual en­er­gies in the mor­tal life.