past

79:8.8The great weak­ness of an­ces­tor ven­er­a­tion is that it pro­motes a back­ward-look­ing phi­los­o­phy. How­ever wise it may be to glean wis­dom from the past, it is folly to re­gard the past as the ex­clu­sive source of truth. Truth is rel­a­tive and ex­pand­ing; it lives al­ways in the pres­ent, achiev­ing new ex­pres­sion in each gen­er­a­tion of men—even in each hu­man life.

188:5.3Je­sus, by the power of his per­sonal love for men, could break the hold of sin and evil. He thereby set men free to choose bet­ter ways of liv­ing. Je­sus por­trayed a de­liv­er­ance from the past which in it­self prom­ised a tri­umph for the fu­ture. For­give­ness thus pro­vided sal­va­tion. The beauty of di­vine love, once fully ad­mit­ted to the hu­man heart, for­ever de­stroys the charm of sin and the power of evil.

154:6.8Mary and Je­sus’ broth­ers thought that Je­sus did not un­der­stand them, that he had lost in­ter­est in them, lit­tle re­al­iz­ing that it was they who failed to un­der­stand Je­sus. Je­sus fully un­der­stood how dif­fi­cult it is for men to break with their past. He knew how hu­man be­ings are swayed by the preacher’s elo­quence, and how the con­science re­sponds to emo­tional ap­peal as the mind does to logic and rea­son, but he also knew how far more dif­fi­cult it is to per­suade men to dis­own the past.

156:2.6The theme of Je­sus’ in­struc­tions dur­ing the so­journ at Sidon was spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion. He told them they could not stand still; they must go for­ward in righ­teous­ness or ret­rogress into evil and sin. He ad­mon­ished them to “for­get those things which are in the past while you push for­ward to em­brace the greater re­al­i­ties of the king­dom.” He be­sought them not to be con­tent with their child­hood in the gospel but to strive for the at­tain­ment of the full stature of di­vine son­ship in the com­mu­nion of the spirit and in the fel­low­ship of be­liev­ers.

48:4.10When par­tially ex­hausted by the ef­forts of at­tain­ment, and while await­ing the re­cep­tion of new en­ergy charges, there is agree­able plea­sure in liv­ing over again the en­act­ments of other days and ages. The early ex­pe­ri­ences of the race or the or­der are rest­ful to rem­i­nisce. And that is ex­actly why these artists are called re­ver­sion di­rec­tors—they as­sist in re­vert­ing the mem­ory to a for­mer state of de­vel­op­ment or to a less ex­pe­ri­enced sta­tus of be­ing.

48:4.11All be­ings en­joy this sort of re­ver­sion ex­cept those who are in­her­ent Cre­ators, hence au­to­matic self-re­ju­ve­na­tors, and cer­tain highly spe­cial­ized types of crea­tures, such as the power cen­ters and the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers, who are al­ways and eter­nally thor­oughly busi­nesslike in all their re­ac­tions. These pe­ri­odic re­leases from the ten­sion of func­tional duty are a reg­u­lar part of life on all worlds through­out the uni­verse of uni­verses but not on the Isle of Par­a­dise. Be­ings in­dige­nous to the cen­tral abode are in­ca­pable of de­ple­tion and are not, there­fore, sub­ject to re-en­er­giz­ing. And with such be­ings of eter­nal Par­a­dise per­fec­tion there can be no such re­ver­sion to evo­lu­tion­ary ex­pe­ri­ences.

48:4.12Most of us have come up through lower stages of ex­is­tence or through pro­gres­sive lev­els of our or­ders, and it is re­fresh­ing and in a mea­sure amus­ing to look back upon cer­tain episodes of our early ex­pe­ri­ence. There is a rest­ful­ness in the con­tem­pla­tion of that which is old to one’s or­der, and which lingers as a mem­ory pos­ses­sion of the mind. The fu­ture sig­ni­fies strug­gle and ad­vance­ment; it be­speaks work, ef­fort, and achieve­ment; but the past sa­vors of things al­ready mas­tered and achieved; con­tem­pla­tion of the past per­mits of re­lax­ation and such a care­free re­view as to pro­voke spirit mirth and a mor­ontia state of mind verg­ing on mer­ri­ment.

48:4.13Even mor­tal hu­mor be­comes most hearty when it de­picts episodes af­fect­ing those just a lit­tle be­neath one’s pres­ent de­vel­op­men­tal state, or when it por­trays one’s sup­posed su­pe­ri­ors falling vic­tim to the ex­pe­ri­ences which are com­monly as­so­ci­ated with sup­posed in­fe­ri­ors. You of Uran­tia have al­lowed much that is at once vul­gar and un­kind to be­come con­fused with your hu­mor, but on the whole, you are to be con­grat­u­lated on a com­par­a­tively keen sense of hu­mor. Some of your races have a rich vein of it and are greatly helped in their earthly ca­reers thereby. Ap­par­ently you re­ceived much in the way of hu­mor from your Adamic in­her­i­tance, much more than was se­cured of ei­ther mu­sic or art.

48:4.14All Sa­ta­nia, dur­ing times of play, those times when its in­hab­i­tants re­fresh­ingly res­ur­rect the mem­o­ries of a lower stage of ex­is­tence, is ed­i­fied by the pleas­ant hu­mor of a corps of re­ver­sion di­rec­tors from Uran­tia. The sense of ce­les­tial hu­mor we have with us al­ways, even when en­gaged in the most dif­fi­cult of as­sign­ments. It helps to avoid an overde­vel­op­ment of the no­tion of one’s self-im­por­tance. But we do not give rein to it freely, as you might say, “have fun,” ex­cept when we are in re­cess from the se­ri­ous as­sign­ments of our re­spec­tive or­ders.

48:4.15When we are tempted to mag­nify our self-im­por­tance, if we stop to con­tem­plate the in­fin­ity of the great­ness and grandeur of our Mak­ers, our own self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion be­comes sub­limely ridicu­lous, even verg­ing on the hu­mor­ous. One of the func­tions of hu­mor is to help all of us take our­selves less se­ri­ously. Hu­mor is the di­vine an­ti­dote for ex­al­ta­tion of ego.

48:4.16The need for the re­lax­ation and di­ver­sion of hu­mor is great­est in those or­ders of as­cen­dant be­ings who are sub­jected to sus­tained stress in their up­ward strug­gles. The two ex­tremes of life have lit­tle need for hu­mor­ous di­ver­sions. Prim­i­tive men have no ca­pac­ity there­for, and be­ings of Par­a­dise per­fec­tion have no need thereof. The hosts of Ha­vona are nat­u­rally a joy­ous and ex­hil­a­rat­ing as­sem­blage of su­premely happy per­son­al­i­ties. On Par­a­dise the qual­ity of wor­ship ob­vi­ates the ne­ces­sity for re­ver­sion ac­tiv­i­ties. But among those who start their ca­reers far be­low the goal of Par­a­dise per­fec­tion, there is a large place for the min­istry of the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors.

48:4.17The higher the mor­tal species, the greater the stress and the greater the ca­pac­ity for hu­mor as well as the ne­ces­sity for it. In the spirit world the op­po­site is true: The higher we as­cend, the less the need for the di­ver­sions of re­ver­sion ex­pe­ri­ences. But pro­ceed­ing down the scale of spirit life from Par­a­dise to the se­raphic hosts, there is an in­creas­ing need for the mis­sion of mirth and the min­istry of mer­ri­ment. Those be­ings who most need the re­fresh­ment of pe­ri­odic re­ver­sion to the in­tel­lec­tual sta­tus of pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ences are the higher types of the hu­man species, the mor­ontians, an­gels, and the Ma­te­rial Sons, to­gether with all sim­i­lar types of per­son­al­ity.

48:4.18Hu­mor should func­tion as an au­to­matic safety valve to pre­vent the build­ing up of ex­ces­sive pres­sures due to the mo­not­ony of sus­tained and se­ri­ous self-con­tem­pla­tion in as­so­ci­a­tion with the in­tense strug­gle for de­vel­op­men­tal prog­ress and no­ble achieve­ment. Hu­mor also func­tions to lessen the shock of the un­ex­pected im­pact of fact or of truth, rigid un­yield­ing fact and flex­i­ble ever-liv­ing truth. The mor­tal per­son­al­ity, never sure as to which will next be en­coun­tered, through hu­mor swiftly grasps—sees the point and achieves in­sight—the un­ex­pected na­ture of the sit­u­a­tion be it fact or be it truth.

48:4.19While the hu­mor of Uran­tia is ex­ceed­ingly crude and most inartis­tic, it does serve a valu­able pur­pose both as a health in­sur­ance and as a lib­er­a­tor of emo­tional pres­sure, thus pre­vent­ing in­ju­ri­ous ner­vous ten­sion and over­se­ri­ous self-con­tem­pla­tion. Hu­mor and play—re­lax­ation—are never re­ac­tions of pro­gres­sive ex­er­tion; al­ways are they the echoes of a back­ward glance, a rem­i­nis­cence of the past. Even on Uran­tia and as you now are, you al­ways find it re­ju­ve­nat­ing when for a short time you can sus­pend the ex­er­tions of the newer and higher in­tel­lec­tual ef­forts and re­vert to the more sim­ple en­gage­ments of your an­ces­tors.

48:4.20The prin­ci­ples of Uran­tian play life are phil­o­soph­i­cally sound and con­tinue to ap­ply on up through your as­cend­ing life, through the cir­cuits of Ha­vona to the eter­nal shores of Par­a­dise. As as­cen­dant be­ings you are in pos­ses­sion of per­sonal mem­o­ries of all for­mer and lower ex­is­tences, and with­out such iden­tity mem­o­ries of the past there would be no ba­sis for the hu­mor of the pres­ent, ei­ther mor­tal laugh­ter or mor­ontia mirth. It is this re­call­ing of past ex­pe­ri­ences that pro­vides the ba­sis for pres­ent di­ver­sion and amuse­ment. And so you will en­joy the ce­les­tial equiv­a­lents of your earthly hu­mor all the way up through your long mor­ontia, and then in­creas­ingly spir­i­tual, ca­reers. And that part of God (the Ad­juster) which be­comes an eter­nal part of the per­son­al­ity of an as­cen­dant mor­tal con­tributes the over­tones of di­vin­ity to the joy­ous ex­pres­sions, even spir­i­tual laugh­ter, of the as­cend­ing crea­tures of time and space.

79:6.9The Chi­nese of 15,000 B.C. were ag­gres­sive mil­i­tarists; they had not been weak­ened by an over­rev­er­ence for the past, and num­ber­ing less than twelve mil­lion, they formed a com­pact body speak­ing a com­mon lan­guage. Dur­ing this age they built up a real na­tion, much more united and ho­mo­ge­neous than their po­lit­i­cal unions of his­toric times.