spiritual communion

• Father’s personality only grasped in

1:6.8God is spirit—spirit per­son­al­ity; man is also a spirit—po­ten­tial spirit per­son­al­ity. Je­sus of Naz­a­reth at­tained the full re­al­iza­tion of this po­ten­tial of spirit per­son­al­ity in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence; there­fore his life of achiev­ing the Fa­ther’s will be­comes man’s most real and ideal rev­e­la­tion of the per­son­al­ity of God. Even though the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can be grasped only in ac­tual re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, in Je­sus’ earth life we are in­spired by the per­fect dem­on­stra­tion of such a re­al­iza­tion and rev­e­la­tion of the per­son­al­ity of God in a truly hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

• effect of spiritual communion › divine union attained by

1:7.2Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of wa­ter might find unity with the ocean. Man at­tains di­vine union by pro­gres­sive re­cip­ro­cal spir­i­tual com­mu­nion, by per­son­al­ity in­ter­course with the per­sonal God, by in­creas­ingly at­tain­ing the di­vine na­ture through whole­hearted and in­tel­li­gent con­for­mity to the di­vine will. Such a sub­lime re­la­tion­ship can ex­ist only be­tween per­son­al­i­ties.

• Father’s personality only grasped in

5:0.1If the fi­nite mind of man is un­able to com­pre­hend how so great and so ma­jes­tic a God as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther can de­scend from his eter­nal abode in in­fi­nite per­fec­tion to frat­er­nize with the in­di­vid­ual hu­man crea­ture, then must such a fi­nite in­tel­lect rest as­sur­ance of di­vine fel­low­ship upon the truth of the fact that an ac­tual frag­ment of the liv­ing God re­sides within the in­tel­lect of ev­ery nor­mal-minded and morally con­scious Uran­tia mor­tal. The in­dwelling Thought Ad­justers are a part of the eter­nal De­ity of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Man does not have to go far­ther than his own in­ner ex­pe­ri­ence of the soul’s con­tem­pla­tion of this spir­i­tual-re­al­ity pres­ence to find God and at­tempt com­mu­nion with him.

• ever-present possibility of immediate s.c.

5:1.3Al­though the ap­proach to the Par­a­dise pres­ence of the Fa­ther must await your at­tain­ment of the high­est fi­nite lev­els of spirit pro­gres­sion, you should re­joice in the rec­og­ni­tion of the ever-pres­ent pos­si­bil­ity of im­me­di­ate com­mu­nion with the be­stowal spirit of the Fa­ther so in­ti­mately as­so­ci­ated with your in­ner soul and your spir­i­tu­al­iz­ing self.

• ever-present possibility of immediate s.c.

5:1.8The Fa­ther de­sires all his crea­tures to be in per­sonal com­mu­nion with him. He has on Par­a­dise a place to re­ceive all those whose sur­vival sta­tus and spir­i­tual na­ture make pos­si­ble such at­tain­ment. There­fore set­tle in your phi­los­o­phy now and for­ever: To each of you and to all of us, God is ap­proach­able, the Fa­ther is at­tain­able, the way is open; the forces of di­vine love and the ways and means of di­vine ad­min­is­tra­tion are all in­ter­locked in an ef­fort to fa­cil­i­tate the ad­vance­ment of ev­ery wor­thy in­tel­li­gence of ev­ery uni­verse to the Par­a­dise pres­ence of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

• perversity, self-indulgence, intolerance separate us from

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.

• effect of spiritual communion › divine presence most fully discovered in

5:2.3The di­vine pres­ence can­not, how­ever, be dis­cov­ered any­where in na­ture or even in the lives of God-know­ing mor­tals so fully and so cer­tainly as in your at­tempted com­mu­nion with the in­dwelling Mys­tery Mon­i­tor, the Par­a­dise Thought Ad­juster. What a mis­take to dream of God far off in the skies when the spirit of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther lives within your own mind!

• lack of consciousness of s.c. does not disprove

5:2.4It is be­cause of this God frag­ment that in­dwells you that you can hope, as you pro­gress in har­mo­niz­ing with the Ad­juster’s spir­i­tual lead­ings, more fully to dis­cern the pres­ence and trans­form­ing power of those other spir­i­tual in­flu­ences that sur­round you and im­pinge upon you but do not func­tion as an in­te­gral part of you. The fact that you are not in­tel­lec­tu­ally con­scious of close and in­ti­mate con­tact with the in­dwelling Ad­juster does not in the least dis­prove such an ex­alted ex­pe­ri­ence. The proof of fra­ter­nity with the di­vine Ad­juster con­sists wholly in the na­ture and ex­tent of the fruits of the spirit which are yielded in the life ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual be­liever. “By their fruits you shall know them.”

5:2.5It is ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult for the mea­gerly spir­i­tu­al­ized, ma­te­rial mind of mor­tal man to ex­pe­ri­ence marked con­scious­ness of the spirit ac­tiv­i­ties of such di­vine en­ti­ties as the Par­a­dise Ad­justers. As the soul of joint mind and Ad­juster cre­ation be­comes in­creas­ingly ex­is­tent, there also evolves a new phase of soul con­scious­ness which is ca­pa­ble of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the pres­ence, and of rec­og­niz­ing the spirit lead­ings and other super­ma­te­rial ac­tiv­i­ties, of the Mys­tery Mon­i­tors.

• involves moral status, motivation, spiritual experience

5:2.6The en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence of Ad­juster com­mu­nion is one in­volv­ing moral sta­tus, men­tal mo­ti­va­tion, and spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. The self-re­al­iza­tion of such an achieve­ment is mainly, though not ex­clu­sively, lim­ited to the realms of soul con­scious­ness, but the proofs are forth­com­ing and abun­dant in the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the fruits of the spirit in the lives of all such in­ner-spirit con­tac­tors.

• effect of spiritual communion › presence of God determined by

13:4.4Phys­i­cal au­thor­ity, pres­ence, and func­tion are un­vary­ing in all the uni­verses, small or great. The dif­fer­ing fac­tor in spir­i­tual pres­ence, or re­ac­tion, is the fluc­tu­at­ing dif­fer­en­tial in its rec­og­ni­tion and re­cep­tion by will crea­tures. Whereas the spir­i­tual pres­ence of ab­so­lute and ex­is­ten­tial De­ity is in no man­ner what­ever in­flu­enced by at­ti­tudes of loy­alty or dis­loy­alty on the part of cre­ated be­ings, at the same time it is true that the func­tion­ing pres­ence of sub­ab­so­lute and ex­pe­ri­en­tial De­ity is def­i­nitely and di­rectly in­flu­enced by the de­ci­sions, choices, and will-at­ti­tudes of such fi­nite crea­ture be­ings—by the loy­alty and de­vo­tion of the in­di­vid­ual be­ing, planet, sys­tem, con­stel­la­tion, or uni­verse. But this spir­i­tual pres­ence of di­vin­ity is not whim­si­cal nor ar­bi­trary; its ex­pe­ri­en­tial vari­ance is in­her­ent in the free­will en­dow­ment of per­sonal crea­tures.

13:4.5The de­ter­miner of the dif­fer­en­tial of spir­i­tual pres­ence ex­ists in your own hearts and minds and con­sists in the man­ner of your own choos­ing, in the de­ci­sions of your minds, and in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of your own wills. This dif­fer­en­tial is in­her­ent in the free­will re­ac­tions of in­tel­li­gent per­sonal be­ings, be­ings whom the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has or­dained shall ex­er­cise this lib­erty of choos­ing. And the De­i­ties are ever true to the ebb and flow of their spir­its in meet­ing and sat­is­fy­ing the con­di­tions and de­mands of this dif­fer­en­tial of crea­ture choice, now be­stow­ing more of their pres­ence in re­sponse to a sin­cere de­sire for the same and again with­draw­ing them­selves from the scene as their crea­tures de­cide ad­versely in the ex­er­cise of their di­vinely be­stowed free­dom of choice. And thus does the spirit of di­vin­ity be­come humbly obe­di­ent to the choos­ing of the crea­tures of the realms.

• effect of spiritual communion › assurance of s.c. gradually develops

34:6.12And when such a life of spirit guid­ance is freely and in­tel­li­gently ac­cepted, there grad­u­ally de­vel­ops within the hu­man mind a pos­i­tive con­scious­ness of di­vine con­tact and as­sur­ance of spirit com­mu­nion; sooner or later “the Spirit bears wit­ness with your spirit (the Ad­juster) that you are a child of God.” Al­ready has your own Thought Ad­juster told you of your kin­ship to God so that the rec­ord tes­ti­fies that the Spirit bears wit­ness “with your spirit,” not to your spirit.

• no intermediaries

92:7.11Re­li­gious mean­ings pro­gress in self-con­scious­ness when the child trans­fers his ideas of om­nipo­tence from his par­ents to God. And the en­tire re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence of such a child is largely de­pen­dent on whether fear or love has dom­i­nated the par­ent-child re­la­tion­ship. Slaves have al­ways ex­pe­ri­enced great dif­fi­culty in trans­fer­ring their mas­ter-fear into con­cepts of God-love. Civ­i­liza­tion, sci­ence, and ad­vanced re­li­gions must de­liver man­kind from those fears born of the dread of nat­u­ral phe­nom­ena. And so should greater en­light­en­ment de­liver ed­u­cated mor­tals from all de­pen­dence on in­ter­me­di­aries in com­mu­nion with De­ity.

103:4.1The char­ac­ter­is­tic dif­fer­ence be­tween a so­cial oc­ca­sion and a re­li­gious gath­er­ing is that in con­trast with the sec­u­lar the re­li­gious is per­vaded by the at­mo­sphere of com­mu­nion. In this way hu­man as­so­ci­a­tion gen­er­ates a feel­ing of fel­low­ship with the di­vine, and this is the be­gin­ning of group wor­ship. Par­tak­ing of a com­mon meal was the ear­li­est type of so­cial com­mu­nion, and so did early re­li­gions pro­vide that some por­tion of the cer­e­mo­nial sac­ri­fice should be eaten by the wor­shipers. Even in Chris­tian­ity the Lord’s Sup­per re­tains this mode of com­mu­nion. The at­mo­sphere of the com­mu­nion pro­vides a re­fresh­ing and com­fort­ing pe­riod of truce in the con­flict of the self-seek­ing ego with the al­tru­is­tic urge of the in­dwelling spirit Mon­i­tor. And this is the pre­lude to true wor­ship—the prac­tice of the pres­ence of God which even­tu­ates in the emer­gence of the broth­er­hood of man.

103:4.2When prim­i­tive man felt that his com­mu­nion with God had been in­ter­rupted, he re­sorted to sac­ri­fice of some kind in an ef­fort to make atone­ment, to re­store friendly re­la­tion­ship. The hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness leads to the dis­cov­ery of truth, and truth aug­ments ide­als, and this cre­ates new prob­lems for the in­di­vid­ual re­li­gion­ists, for our ide­als tend to grow by ge­o­met­ri­cal pro­gres­sion, while our abil­ity to live up to them is en­hanced only by arith­meti­cal pro­gres­sion.

• interrupted s.c. produces sense of guilt

103:4.3The sense of guilt (not the con­scious­ness of sin) comes ei­ther from in­ter­rupted spir­i­tual com­mu­nion or from the low­er­ing of one’s moral ide­als. De­liv­er­ance from such a predica­ment can only come through the re­al­iza­tion that one’s high­est moral ide­als are not nec­es­sar­ily syn­ony­mous with the will of God. Man can­not hope to live up to his high­est ide­als, but he can be true to his pur­pose of find­ing God and be­com­ing more and more like him.

103:4.4Je­sus swept away all of the cer­e­mo­ni­als of sac­ri­fice and atone­ment. He de­stroyed the ba­sis of all this fic­ti­tious guilt and sense of iso­la­tion in the uni­verse by declar­ing that man is a child of God; the crea­ture-Cre­ator re­la­tion­ship was placed on a child-par­ent ba­sis. God be­comes a lov­ing Fa­ther to his mor­tal sons and daugh­ters. All cer­e­mo­ni­als not a le­git­i­mate part of such an in­ti­mate fam­ily re­la­tion­ship are for­ever ab­ro­gated.

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.

• Michael’s only concern was to maintain unbroken

120:1.4“Through­out your Uran­tia be­stowal you need be con­cerned with but one thing, the un­bro­ken com­mu­nion be­tween you and your Par­a­dise Fa­ther; and it will be by the per­fec­tion of such a re­la­tion­ship that the world of your be­stowal, even all the uni­verse of your cre­ation, will be­hold a new and more un­der­stand­able rev­e­la­tion of your Fa­ther and my Fa­ther, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of all. Your con­cern, there­fore, has only to do with your per­sonal life on Uran­tia. I will be fully and ef­fi­ciently re­spon­si­ble for the se­cu­rity and un­bro­ken ad­min­is­tra­tion of your uni­verse from the mo­ment of your vol­un­tary re­lin­quish­ment of au­thor­ity un­til you re­turn to us as Uni­verse Sov­er­eign, con­firmed by Par­a­dise, and re­ceive back from my hands, not the vicegerent au­thor­ity which you now sur­ren­der to me, but, in­stead, the su­preme power over, and ju­ris­dic­tion of, your uni­verse.

• Jesus › held unbroken communion for 6 weeks on Mount Hermon

134:8.5Af­ter more than five weeks of un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with his Par­a­dise Fa­ther, Je­sus be­came ab­so­lutely as­sured of his na­ture and of the cer­tainty of his tri­umph over the ma­te­rial lev­els of time-space per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion. He fully be­lieved in, and did not hes­i­tate to as­sert, the as­cen­dancy of his di­vine na­ture over his hu­man na­ture.

• Jesus › prepared for crisis by

136:4.10The forty days in the moun­tain wilder­ness were not a pe­riod of great temp­ta­tion but rather the pe­riod of the Mas­ter’s great de­ci­sions. Dur­ing these days of lone com­mu­nion with him­self and his Fa­ther’s im­me­di­ate pres­ence—the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster (he no longer had a per­sonal se­raphic guard­ian)—he ar­rived, one by one, at the great de­ci­sions which were to con­trol his poli­cies and con­duct for the re­main­der of his earth ca­reer. Sub­se­quently the tra­di­tion of a great temp­ta­tion be­came at­tached to this pe­riod of iso­la­tion through con­fu­sion with the frag­men­tary nar­ra­tives of the Mount Her­mon strug­gles, and fur­ther be­cause it was the cus­tom to have all great proph­ets and hu­man lead­ers be­gin their pub­lic ca­reers by un­der­go­ing these sup­posed sea­sons of fast­ing and prayer. It had al­ways been Je­sus’ prac­tice, when fac­ing any new or se­ri­ous de­ci­sions, to with­draw for com­mu­nion with his own spirit that he might seek to know the will of God.

• Jesus › spent nights in

138:10.32. Pe­ter, James, and John were ap­pointed per­sonal com­pan­ions of Je­sus. They were to at­tend him day and night, to min­is­ter to his phys­i­cal and sundry needs, and to ac­com­pany him on those night vig­ils of prayer and mys­te­ri­ous com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

• Jesus › prepared for crisis by

152:5.5Je­sus then an­nounced that he wished to with­draw for a few days of rest with his apos­tles be­fore they made ready to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over, and he for­bade any of the dis­ci­ples or the mul­ti­tude to fol­low him. Ac­cord­ingly they went by boat to the re­gion of Gen­nesaret for two or three days of rest and sleep. Je­sus was prepar­ing for a great cri­sis of his life on earth, and he there­fore spent much time in com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

• step aside from rush of life and renew spirit by

156:5.12King­dom be­liev­ers should pos­sess an im­plicit faith, a whole-souled be­lief, in the cer­tain tri­umph of righ­teous­ness. King­dom builders must be un­doubt­ing of the truth of the gospel of eter­nal sal­va­tion. Be­liev­ers must in­creas­ingly learn how to step aside from the rush of life—es­cape the ha­rass­ments of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence—while they re­fresh the soul, in­spire the mind, and re­new the spirit by wor­ship­ful com­mu­nion.

• effect of spiritual communion › relieves tension, augments resources of personality

160:1.10But the great­est of all meth­ods of prob­lem solv­ing I have learned from Je­sus, your Mas­ter. I re­fer to that which he so con­sis­tently prac­tices, and which he has so faith­fully taught you, the iso­la­tion of wor­ship­ful med­i­ta­tion. In this habit of Je­sus’ go­ing off so fre­quently by him­self to com­mune with the Fa­ther in heaven is to be found the tech­nique, not only of gath­er­ing strength and wis­dom for the or­di­nary con­flicts of liv­ing, but also of ap­pro­pri­at­ing the en­ergy for the so­lu­tion of the higher prob­lems of a moral and spir­i­tual na­ture. But even cor­rect meth­ods of solv­ing prob­lems will not com­pen­sate for in­her­ent de­fects of per­son­al­ity or atone for the ab­sence of the hunger and thirst for true righ­teous­ness.

• effect of spiritual communion › subjects whole personality to contact with divinity

160:1.11I am deeply im­pressed with the cus­tom of Je­sus in go­ing apart by him­self to en­gage in these sea­sons of soli­tary sur­vey of the prob­lems of liv­ing; to seek for new stores of wis­dom and en­ergy for meet­ing the man­i­fold de­mands of so­cial ser­vice; to quicken and deepen the su­preme pur­pose of liv­ing by ac­tu­ally sub­ject­ing the to­tal per­son­al­ity to the con­scious­ness of con­tact­ing with di­vin­ity; to grasp for pos­ses­sion of new and bet­ter meth­ods of ad­just­ing one­self to the ever-chang­ing sit­u­a­tions of liv­ing ex­is­tence; to ef­fect those vi­tal re­con­struc­tions and read­just­ments of one’s per­sonal at­ti­tudes which are so es­sen­tial to en­hanced in­sight into ev­ery­thing worth while and real; and to do all of this with an eye sin­gle to the glory of God—to breathe in sin­cer­ity your Mas­ter’s fa­vorite prayer, “Not my will, but yours, be done.”

160:1.12This wor­ship­ful prac­tice of your Mas­ter brings that re­lax­ation which re­news the mind; that il­lu­mi­na­tion which in­spires the soul; that cour­age which en­ables one bravely to face one’s prob­lems; that self-un­der­stand­ing which oblit­er­ates de­bil­i­tat­ing fear; and that con­scious­ness of union with di­vin­ity which equips man with the as­sur­ance that en­ables him to dare to be God­like. The re­lax­ation of wor­ship, or spir­i­tual com­mu­nion as prac­ticed by the Mas­ter, re­lieves ten­sion, re­moves con­flicts, and might­ily aug­ments the to­tal re­sources of the per­son­al­ity. And all this phi­los­o­phy, plus the gospel of the king­dom, con­sti­tutes the new re­li­gion as I un­der­stand it.

• effect of spiritual communion › source of energy

160:3.1The ef­fort to­ward ma­tu­rity ne­ces­si­tates work, and work re­quires en­ergy. Whence the power to ac­com­plish all this? The phys­i­cal things can be taken for granted, but the Mas­ter has well said, “Man can­not live by bread alone.” Granted the pos­ses­sion of a nor­mal body and rea­son­ably good health, we must next look for those lures which will act as a stim­u­lus to call forth man’s slum­ber­ing spir­i­tual forces. Je­sus has taught us that God lives in man; then how can we in­duce man to re­lease these soul-bound pow­ers of di­vin­ity and in­fin­ity? How shall we in­duce men to let go of God that he may spring forth to the re­fresh­ment of our own souls while in tran­sit out­ward and then to serve the pur­pose of en­light­en­ing, up­lift­ing, and bless­ing count­less other souls? How best can I awaken these la­tent pow­ers for good which lie dor­mant in your souls? One thing I am sure of: Emo­tional ex­cite­ment is not the ideal spir­i­tual stim­u­lus. Ex­cite­ment does not aug­ment en­ergy; it rather ex­hausts the pow­ers of both mind and body. Whence then comes the en­ergy to do these great things? Look to your Mas­ter. Even now he is out in the hills tak­ing in power while we are here giv­ing out en­ergy. The se­cret of all this prob­lem is wrapped up in spir­i­tual com­mu­nion, in wor­ship. From the hu­man stand­point it is a ques­tion of com­bined med­i­ta­tion and re­lax­ation. Med­i­ta­tion makes the con­tact of mind with spirit; re­lax­ation de­ter­mines the ca­pac­ity for spir­i­tual re­cep­tiv­ity. And this in­ter­change of strength for weak­ness, cour­age for fear, the will of God for the mind of self, con­sti­tutes wor­ship. At least, that is the way the philoso­pher views it.

• not promoted by massive ornateness, ostentatious art

167:6.6When it is not pos­si­ble to wor­ship God in the taber­na­cles of na­ture, men should do their best to pro­vide houses of beauty, sanc­tu­ar­ies of ap­peal­ing sim­plic­ity and artis­tic em­bel­lish­ment, so that the high­est of hu­man emo­tions may be aroused in as­so­ci­a­tion with the in­tel­lec­tual ap­proach to spir­i­tual com­mu­nion with God. Truth, beauty, and ho­li­ness are pow­er­ful and ef­fec­tive aids to true wor­ship. But spirit com­mu­nion is not pro­moted by mere mas­sive or­nate­ness and over­much em­bel­lish­ment with man’s elab­o­rate and os­ten­ta­tious art. Beauty is most re­li­gious when it is most sim­ple and na­ture­like. How un­for­tu­nate that lit­tle chil­dren should have their first in­tro­duc­tion to con­cepts of pub­lic wor­ship in cold and bar­ren rooms so de­void of the beauty ap­peal and so empty of all sug­ges­tion of good cheer and in­spir­ing ho­li­ness! The child should be in­tro­duced to wor­ship in na­ture’s out­doors and later ac­com­pany his par­ents to pub­lic houses of re­li­gious as­sem­bly which are at least as ma­te­ri­ally at­trac­tive and ar­tis­ti­cally beau­ti­ful as the home in which he is daily domi­ciled.

179:5.1As they brought Je­sus the third cup of wine, the “cup of bless­ing,” he arose from the couch and, tak­ing the cup in his hands, blessed it, say­ing: “Take this cup, all of you, and drink of it. This shall be the cup of my re­mem­brance. This is the cup of the bless­ing of a new dis­pen­sa­tion of grace and truth. This shall be to you the em­blem of the be­stowal and min­istry of the di­vine Spirit of Truth. And I will not again drink this cup with you un­til I drink in new form with you in the Fa­ther’s eter­nal king­dom.”

179:5.2The apos­tles all sensed that some­thing out of the or­di­nary was tran­spir­ing as they drank of this cup of bless­ing in pro­found rev­er­ence and per­fect si­lence. The old Pass­over com­mem­o­rated the emer­gence of their fa­thers from a state of racial slav­ery into in­di­vid­ual free­dom; now the Mas­ter was in­sti­tut­ing a new re­mem­brance sup­per as a sym­bol of the new dis­pen­sa­tion wherein the en­slaved in­di­vid­ual emerges from the bond­age of cer­e­mo­ni­al­ism and self­ish­ness into the spir­i­tual joy of the broth­er­hood and fel­low­ship of the lib­er­ated faith sons of the liv­ing God.

179:5.3When they had fin­ished drink­ing this new cup of re­mem­brance, the Mas­ter took up the bread and, af­ter giv­ing thanks, broke it in pieces and, di­rect­ing them to pass it around, said: “Take this bread of re­mem­brance and eat it. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Fa­ther and the Son in one gift. The word of the Fa­ther, as re­vealed in the Son, is in­deed the bread of life.” When they had par­taken of the bread of re­mem­brance, the sym­bol of the liv­ing word of truth in­car­nated in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, they all sat down.

179:5.4In in­sti­tut­ing this re­mem­brance sup­per, the Mas­ter, as was al­ways his habit, re­sorted to para­bles and sym­bols. He em­ployed sym­bols be­cause he wanted to teach cer­tain great spir­i­tual truths in such a man­ner as to make it dif­fi­cult for his suc­ces­sors to at­tach pre­cise in­ter­pre­ta­tions and def­i­nite mean­ings to his words. In this way he sought to pre­vent suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions from crys­tal­liz­ing his teach­ing and bind­ing down his spir­i­tual mean­ings by the dead chains of tra­di­tion and dogma. In the es­tab­lish­ment of the only cer­e­mony or sacra­ment as­so­ci­ated with his whole life mis­sion, Je­sus took great pains to sug­gest his mean­ings rather than to com­mit him­self to pre­cise def­i­ni­tions. He did not wish to de­stroy the in­di­vid­ual’s con­cept of di­vine com­mu­nion by es­tab­lish­ing a pre­cise form; nei­ther did he de­sire to limit the be­liever’s spir­i­tual imag­i­na­tion by for­mally cramp­ing it. He rather sought to set man’s re­born soul free upon the joy­ous wings of a new and liv­ing spir­i­tual lib­erty.

179:5.5Not­with­stand­ing the Mas­ter’s ef­fort thus to es­tab­lish this new sacra­ment of the re­mem­brance, those who fol­lowed af­ter him in the in­ter­ven­ing cen­turies saw to it that his ex­press de­sire was ef­fec­tively thwarted in that his sim­ple spir­i­tual sym­bol­ism of that last night in the flesh has been re­duced to pre­cise in­ter­pre­ta­tions and sub­jected to the al­most math­e­mat­i­cal pre­ci­sion of a set for­mula. Of all Je­sus’ teach­ings none have be­come more tra­di­tion-stan­dard­ized.

179:5.6This sup­per of re­mem­brance, when it is par­taken of by those who are Son-be­liev­ing and God-know­ing, does not need to have as­so­ci­ated with its sym­bol­ism any of man’s puerile mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions re­gard­ing the mean­ing of the di­vine pres­ence, for upon all such oc­ca­sions the Mas­ter is re­ally pres­ent. The re­mem­brance sup­per is the be­liever’s sym­bolic ren­dezvous with Mi­chael. When you be­come thus spirit-con­scious, the Son is ac­tu­ally pres­ent, and his spirit frat­er­nizes with the in­dwelling frag­ment of his Fa­ther.

179:5.7Af­ter they had en­gaged in med­i­ta­tion for a few mo­ments, Je­sus con­tin­ued speak­ing: “When you do these things, re­call the life I have lived on earth among you and re­joice that I am to con­tinue to live on earth with you and to serve through you. As in­di­vid­u­als, con­tend not among your­selves as to who shall be great­est. Be you all as breth­ren. And when the king­dom grows to em­brace large groups of be­liev­ers, like­wise should you re­frain from con­tend­ing for great­ness or seek­ing prefer­ment be­tween such groups.”

179:5.8And this mighty oc­ca­sion took place in the up­per cham­ber of a friend. There was noth­ing of sa­cred form or of cer­e­mo­nial con­se­cra­tion about ei­ther the sup­per or the build­ing. The re­mem­brance sup­per was es­tab­lished with­out ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal sanc­tion.

179:5.9When Je­sus had thus es­tab­lished the sup­per of the re­mem­brance, he said to the eleven: “And as of­ten as you do this, do it in re­mem­brance of me. And when you do re­mem­ber me, first look back upon my life in the flesh, re­call that I was once with you, and then, by faith, dis­cern that you shall all some­time sup with me in the Fa­ther’s eter­nal king­dom. This is the new Pass­over which I leave with you, even the mem­ory of my be­stowal life, the word of eter­nal truth; and of my love for you, the out­pour­ing of my Spirit of Truth upon all flesh.”

179:5.10And they ended this cel­e­bra­tion of the old but blood­less Pass­over in con­nec­tion with the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the new sup­per of the re­mem­brance, by singing, all to­gether, the one hun­dred and eigh­teenth Psalm.

• truth exists only on level of

180:5.2Di­vine truth is a spirit-dis­cerned and liv­ing re­al­ity. Truth ex­ists only on high spir­i­tual lev­els of the re­al­iza­tion of di­vin­ity and the con­scious­ness of com­mu­nion with God. You can know the truth, and you can live the truth; you can ex­pe­ri­ence the growth of truth in the soul and en­joy the lib­erty of its en­light­en­ment in the mind, but you can­not im­prison truth in for­mu­las, codes, creeds, or in­tel­lec­tual pat­terns of hu­man con­duct. When you un­der­take the hu­man for­mu­la­tion of di­vine truth, it speed­ily dies. The post-mortem sal­vage of im­pris­oned truth, even at best, can even­tu­ate only in the re­al­iza­tion of a pe­cu­liar form of in­tel­lec­tu­al­ized glo­ri­fied wis­dom. Static truth is dead truth, and only dead truth can be held as a the­ory. Liv­ing truth is dy­namic and can en­joy only an ex­pe­ri­en­tial ex­is­tence in the hu­man mind.

• maintained through prayer and worship

194:3.20Prayer did not bring the spirit on the day of Pen­te­cost, but it did have much to do with de­ter­min­ing the ca­pac­ity of re­cep­tiv­ity which char­ac­ter­ized the in­di­vid­ual be­liev­ers. Prayer does not move the di­vine heart to lib­er­al­ity of be­stowal, but it does so of­ten dig out larger and deeper chan­nels wherein the di­vine be­stowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus re­mem­ber to main­tain un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with their Maker through sin­cere prayer and true wor­ship.

• modern man thinks he is too busy for

195:6.7The mech­a­nis­tic nat­u­ral­ism of some sup­pos­edly ed­u­cated men and the thought­less sec­u­lar­ism of the man in the street are both ex­clu­sively con­cerned with things; they are bar­ren of all real val­ues, sanc­tions, and sat­is­fac­tions of a spir­i­tual na­ture, as well as be­ing de­void of faith, hope, and eter­nal as­sur­ances. One of the great trou­bles with mod­ern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spir­i­tual med­i­ta­tion and re­li­gious de­vo­tion.

• maintained through prayer and worship

196:0.10Je­sus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the great­est of all of­fer­ings: the con­se­cra­tion and ded­i­ca­tion of his own will to the ma­jes­tic ser­vice of do­ing the di­vine will. Je­sus al­ways and con­sis­tently in­ter­preted re­li­gion wholly in terms of the Fa­ther’s will. When you study the ca­reer of the Mas­ter, as con­cerns prayer or any other fea­ture of the re­li­gious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Je­sus never prayed as a re­li­gious duty. To him prayer was a sin­cere ex­pres­sion of spir­i­tual at­ti­tude, a dec­la­ra­tion of soul loy­alty, a recital of per­sonal de­vo­tion, an ex­pres­sion of thanks­giv­ing, an avoid­ance of emo­tional ten­sion, a pre­ven­tion of con­flict, an ex­al­ta­tion of in­tel­lec­tion, an en­no­ble­ment of de­sire, a vin­di­ca­tion of moral de­ci­sion, an en­rich­ment of thought, an in­vig­o­ra­tion of higher in­cli­na­tions, a con­se­cra­tion of im­pulse, a clar­i­fi­ca­tion of view­point, a dec­la­ra­tion of faith, a tran­scen­den­tal sur­ren­der of will, a sub­lime as­ser­tion of con­fi­dence, a rev­e­la­tion of cour­age, the procla­ma­tion of dis­cov­ery, a con­fes­sion of su­preme de­vo­tion, the val­i­da­tion of con­se­cra­tion, a tech­nique for the ad­just­ment of dif­fi­cul­ties, and the mighty mo­bi­liza­tion of the com­bined soul pow­ers to with­stand all hu­man ten­den­cies to­ward self­ish­ness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayer­ful con­se­cra­tion to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will and ended his life tri­umphantly with just such a prayer. The se­cret of his un­par­al­leled re­li­gious life was this con­scious­ness of the pres­ence of God; and he at­tained it by in­tel­li­gent prayer and sin­cere wor­ship—un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with God—and not by lead­ings, voices, vi­sions, or ex­traor­di­nary re­li­gious prac­tices.