self-assertion

53:4.2Self-as­ser­tion was the bat­tle cry of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. One of his chief ar­gu­ments was that, if self-gov­ern­ment was good and right for the Mel­chiz­e­deks and other groups, it was equally good for all or­ders of in­tel­li­gence. He was bold and per­sis­tent in the ad­vo­cacy of the “equal­ity of mind” and “the broth­er­hood of in­tel­li­gence.” He main­tained that all gov­ern­ment should be lim­ited to the lo­cal plan­ets and their vol­un­tary con­fed­er­a­tion into the lo­cal sys­tems. All other super­vi­sion he dis­al­lowed. He prom­ised the Plan­e­tary Princes that they should rule the worlds as su­preme ex­ec­u­tives. He de­nounced the lo­ca­tion of leg­isla­tive ac­tiv­i­ties on the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters and the con­duct of ju­di­cial af­fairs on the uni­verse cap­i­tal. He con­tended that all these func­tions of gov­ern­ment should be con­cen­trated on the sys­tem cap­i­tals and pro­ceeded to set up his own leg­isla­tive as­sem­bly and or­ga­nized his own tri­bu­nals un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of Sa­tan. And he di­rected that the princes on the apos­tate worlds do the same.

194:3.18Pen­te­cost was de­signed to lessen the self-as­sertive­ness of in­di­vid­u­als, groups, na­tions, and races. It is this spirit of self-as­sertive­ness which so in­creases in ten­sion that it pe­ri­od­i­cally breaks loose in de­struc­tive wars. Man­kind can be uni­fied only by the spir­i­tual ap­proach, and the Spirit of Truth is a world in­flu­ence which is uni­ver­sal.

5:1.10The Fa­ther is not in spir­i­tual hid­ing, but so many of his crea­tures have hid­den them­selves away in the mists of their own will­ful de­ci­sions and for the time be­ing have sep­a­rated them­selves from the com­mu­nion of his spirit and the spirit of his Son by the choos­ing of their own per­verse ways and by the in­dul­gence of the self-as­sertive­ness of their in­tol­er­ant minds and un­spir­i­tual na­tures.

53:6.5“Hav­ing been au­to­mat­i­cally thrown out of the con­stel­la­tion cir­cuits by the se­ces­sion of Lu­cifer, we were de­pen­dent on the loy­alty of our in­tel­li­gence corps, who for­warded calls for help to Eden­tia from the near-by sys­tem of Rantu­lia; and we found that the king­dom of or­der, the in­tel­lect of loy­alty, and the spirit of truth were in­her­ently tri­umphant over re­bel­lion, self-as­ser­tion, and so-called per­sonal lib­erty; we were able to carry on un­til the ar­rival of the new Sys­tem Sov­er­eign, the wor­thy suc­ces­sor of Lu­cifer. And im­me­di­ately there­after I was as­signed to the corps of the Mel­chiz­e­dek re­ceiver­ship of Uran­tia, as­sum­ing ju­ris­dic­tion over the loyal se­raphic or­ders on the world of the traitorous Cali­gas­tia, who had pro­claimed his sphere a mem­ber of the newly pro­jected sys­tem of ‘lib­er­ated worlds and eman­ci­pated per­son­al­i­ties’ pro­posed in the in­fa­mous Dec­la­ra­tion of Lib­erty is­sued by Lu­cifer in his call to the ‘lib­erty-lov­ing, free-think­ing, and for­ward-look­ing in­tel­li­gences of the mis­ruled and mal­ad­min­is­tered worlds of Sa­ta­nia.’”

48:7.86. To en­joy priv­i­lege with­out abuse, to have lib­erty with­out li­cense, to pos­sess power and stead­fastly refuse to use it for self-ag­gran­dize­ment—these are the marks of high civ­i­liza­tion.

54:1.6True lib­erty is the as­so­ciate of gen­uine self-re­spect; false lib­erty is the con­sort of self-ad­mi­ra­tion. True lib­erty is the fruit of self-con­trol; false lib­erty, the as­sump­tion of self-as­ser­tion. Self-con­trol leads to al­tru­is­tic ser­vice; self-ad­mi­ra­tion tends to­wards the ex­ploita­tion of oth­ers for the self­ish ag­gran­dize­ment of such a mis­taken in­di­vid­ual as is will­ing to sac­ri­fice righ­teous at­tain­ment for the sake of pos­sess­ing un­just power over his fel­low be­ings.

54:1.7Even wis­dom is di­vine and safe only when it is cos­mic in scope and spir­i­tual in mo­ti­va­tion.

54:1.8There is no er­ror greater than that species of self-de­cep­tion which leads in­tel­li­gent be­ings to crave the ex­er­cise of power over other be­ings for the pur­pose of de­priv­ing these per­sons of their nat­u­ral lib­er­ties. The golden rule of hu­man fair­ness cries out against all such fraud, un­fair­ness, self­ish­ness, and un­righ­teous­ness. Only true and gen­uine lib­erty is com­pat­i­ble with the reign of love and the min­istry of mercy.

136:6.9In this de­ci­sion Je­sus of Naz­a­reth por­trayed to an on­look­ing uni­verse the folly and sin of pros­ti­tut­ing di­vine tal­ents and God-given abil­i­ties for per­sonal ag­gran­dize­ment or for purely self­ish gain and glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. That was the sin of Lu­cifer and Cali­gas­tia.