spiritual insight

101:1.5While re­li­gion is not the prod­uct of the ra­tio­nal­is­tic spec­u­la­tions of a ma­te­rial cos­mol­ogy, it is, nonethe­less, the cre­ation of a wholly ra­tio­nal in­sight which orig­i­nates in man’s mind-ex­pe­ri­ence. Re­li­gion is born nei­ther of mys­tic med­i­ta­tions nor of iso­lated con­tem­pla­tions, al­beit it is ever more or less mys­te­ri­ous and al­ways in­de­fin­able and in­ex­pli­ca­ble in terms of purely in­tel­lec­tual rea­son and philo­sophic logic. The germs of true re­li­gion orig­i­nate in the do­main of man’s moral con­scious­ness, and they are re­vealed in the growth of man’s spir­i­tual in­sight, that fac­ulty of hu­man per­son­al­ity which ac­crues as a con­se­quence of the pres­ence of the God-re­veal­ing Thought Ad­juster in the God-hun­gry mor­tal mind.

5:1.4The mor­tals of the realms of time and space may dif­fer greatly in in­nate abil­i­ties and in­tel­lec­tual en­dow­ment, they may en­joy en­vi­ron­ments ex­cep­tion­ally fa­vor­able to so­cial ad­vance­ment and moral prog­ress, or they may suf­fer from the lack of al­most ev­ery hu­man aid to cul­ture and sup­posed ad­vance­ment in the arts of civ­i­liza­tion; but the pos­si­bil­i­ties for spir­i­tual prog­ress in the as­cen­sion ca­reer are equal to all; in­creas­ing lev­els of spir­i­tual in­sight and cos­mic mean­ings are at­tained quite in­de­pen­dently of all such so­ciomoral dif­fer­en­tials of the di­ver­si­fied ma­te­rial en­vi­ron­ments on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

102:3.12The pur­suit of knowl­edge con­sti­tutes sci­ence; the search for wis­dom is phi­los­o­phy; the love for God is re­li­gion; the hunger for truth is a rev­e­la­tion. But it is the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster that at­taches the feel­ing of re­al­ity to man’s spir­i­tual in­sight into the cos­mos.

196:3.10The hu­man mind does not cre­ate real val­ues; hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence does not yield uni­verse in­sight. Con­cern­ing in­sight, the rec­og­ni­tion of moral val­ues and the dis­cern­ment of spir­i­tual mean­ings, all that the hu­man mind can do is to dis­cover, rec­og­nize, in­ter­pret, and choose.

196:3.17Moral eval­u­a­tion with a re­li­gious mean­ing—spir­i­tual in­sight—con­notes the in­di­vid­ual’s choice be­tween good and evil, truth and er­ror, ma­te­rial and spir­i­tual, hu­man and di­vine, time and eter­nity. Hu­man sur­vival is in great mea­sure de­pen­dent on con­se­crat­ing the hu­man will to the choos­ing of those val­ues se­lected by this spirit-value sorter—the in­dwelling in­ter­preter and uni­fier. Per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence con­sists in two phases: dis­cov­ery in the hu­man mind and rev­e­la­tion by the in­dwelling di­vine spirit. Through over­so­phis­ti­ca­tion or as a re­sult of the ir­re­li­gious con­duct of pro­fessed re­li­gion­ists, a man, or even a gen­er­a­tion of men, may elect to sus­pend their ef­forts to dis­cover the God who in­dwells them; they may fail to pro­gress in and at­tain the di­vine rev­e­la­tion. But such at­ti­tudes of spir­i­tual non­pro­gres­sion can­not long per­sist be­cause of the pres­ence and in­flu­ence of the in­dwelling Thought Ad­justers.

118:10.19Prov­i­dence be­comes in­creas­ingly dis­cern­i­ble as men reach up­ward from the ma­te­rial to the spir­i­tual. The at­tain­ment of com­pleted spir­i­tual in­sight en­ables the as­cend­ing per­son­al­ity to de­tect har­mony in what was thereto­fore chaos. Even mor­ontia mota rep­re­sents a real ad­vance in this di­rec­tion.

28:5.20The Dis­cern­ers of Spir­its carry on these in­tri­cate ser­vices by virtue of in­her­ent “spir­i­tual in­sight,” if I may use such words in an en­deavor to con­vey to the hu­man mind the thought that these re­flec­tive an­gels thus func­tion in­tu­itively, in­her­ently, and unerringly. When the Uni­ver­sal Cen­sors be­hold these pre­sen­ta­tions, they are face to face with the naked soul of the re­flected in­di­vid­ual; and this very cer­tainty and per­fec­tion of por­trai­ture in part ex­plains why the Cen­sors can al­ways func­tion so justly as righ­teous judges. The dis­cern­ers al­ways ac­com­pany the Cen­sors on any mis­sion away from Uversa, and they are just as ef­fec­tive out in the uni­verses as at their Uversa head­quar­ters.

12:8.4The be­stowal of spirit and the spir­i­tu­al­iza­tion of per­son­al­i­ties, the do­main of spir­i­tual grav­ity, is the realm of the Eter­nal Son. And this spirit grav­ity of the Son, ever draw­ing all spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties to him­self, is just as real and ab­so­lute as is the all-pow­er­ful ma­te­rial grasp of the Isle of Par­a­dise. But ma­te­rial-minded man is nat­u­rally more fa­mil­iar with the ma­te­rial man­i­fes­ta­tions of a phys­i­cal na­ture than with the equally real and mighty op­er­a­tions of a spir­i­tual na­ture which are dis­cerned only by the spir­i­tual in­sight of the soul.

112:2.11As mind pur­sues re­al­ity to its ul­ti­mate anal­y­sis, mat­ter van­ishes to the ma­te­rial senses but may still re­main real to mind. When spir­i­tual in­sight pur­sues that re­al­ity which re­mains af­ter the dis­ap­pear­ance of mat­ter and pur­sues it to an ul­ti­mate anal­y­sis, it van­ishes to mind, but the in­sight of spirit can still per­ceive cos­mic re­al­i­ties and su­preme val­ues of a spir­i­tual na­ture. Ac­cord­ingly does sci­ence give way to phi­los­o­phy, while phi­los­o­phy must sur­ren­der to the con­clu­sions in­her­ent in gen­uine spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Think­ing sur­ren­ders to wis­dom, and wis­dom is lost in en­light­ened and re­flec­tive wor­ship.

1:6.4The preper­sonal di­vine spirit which in­dwells the mor­tal mind car­ries, in its very pres­ence, the valid proof of its ac­tual ex­is­tence, but the con­cept of the di­vine per­son­al­ity can be grasped only by the spir­i­tual in­sight of gen­uine per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. Any per­son, hu­man or di­vine, may be known and com­pre­hended quite apart from the ex­ter­nal re­ac­tions or the ma­te­rial pres­ence of that per­son.

16:7.1In­tel­li­gence alone can­not ex­plain the moral na­ture. Moral­ity, virtue, is in­dige­nous to hu­man per­son­al­ity. Moral in­tu­ition, the re­al­iza­tion of duty, is a com­po­nent of hu­man mind en­dow­ment and is as­so­ci­ated with the other in­alien­ables of hu­man na­ture: sci­en­tific cu­rios­ity and spir­i­tual in­sight. Man’s men­tal­ity far tran­scends that of his an­i­mal cousins, but it is his moral and re­li­gious na­tures that es­pe­cially dis­tin­guish him from the an­i­mal world.

101:3.2Faith-in­sight, or spir­i­tual in­tu­ition, is the en­dow­ment of the cos­mic mind in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Thought Ad­juster, which is the Fa­ther’s gift to man. Spir­i­tual rea­son, soul in­tel­li­gence, is the en­dow­ment of the Holy Spirit, the Cre­ative Spirit’s gift to man. Spir­i­tual phi­los­o­phy, the wis­dom of spirit re­al­i­ties, is the en­dow­ment of the Spirit of Truth, the com­bined gift of the be­stowal Sons to the chil­dren of men. And the co-or­di­na­tion and in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of these spirit en­dow­ments con­sti­tute man a spirit per­son­al­ity in po­ten­tial des­tiny.

103:5.5Hu­man hap­pi­ness is achieved only when the ego de­sire of the self and the al­tru­is­tic urge of the higher self (di­vine spirit) are co-or­di­nated and rec­on­ciled by the uni­fied will of the in­te­grat­ing and super­vis­ing per­son­al­ity. The mind of evo­lu­tion­ary man is ever con­fronted with the in­tri­cate prob­lem of ref­er­ee­ing the con­test be­tween the nat­u­ral ex­pan­sion of emo­tional im­pulses and the moral growth of un­selfish urges pred­i­cated on spir­i­tual in­sight—gen­uine re­li­gious re­flec­tion.

101:4.2Man­kind should un­der­stand that we who par­tic­i­pate in the rev­e­la­tion of truth are very rig­or­ously lim­ited by the in­struc­tions of our su­pe­ri­ors. We are not at lib­erty to an­tic­i­pate the sci­en­tific dis­cov­er­ies of a thou­sand years. Rev­e­la­tors must act in ac­cor­dance with the in­struc­tions which form a part of the rev­e­la­tion man­date. We see no way of over­com­ing this dif­fi­culty, ei­ther now or at any fu­ture time. We full well know that, while the his­toric facts and re­li­gious truths of this se­ries of rev­e­la­tory pre­sen­ta­tions will stand on the rec­ords of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our state­ments re­gard­ing the phys­i­cal sci­ences will stand in need of re­vi­sion in con­se­quence of ad­di­tional sci­en­tific de­vel­op­ments and new dis­cov­er­ies. These new de­vel­op­ments we even now fore­see, but we are for­bid­den to in­clude such hu­manly undis­cov­ered facts in the rev­e­la­tory rec­ords. Let it be made clear that rev­e­la­tions are not nec­es­sar­ily in­spired. The cos­mol­ogy of these rev­e­la­tions is not in­spired. It is lim­ited by our per­mis­sion for the co-or­di­na­tion and sort­ing of pres­ent-day knowl­edge. While di­vine or spir­i­tual in­sight is a gift, hu­man wis­dom must evolve.

101:1.3The di­vine spirit makes con­tact with mor­tal man, not by feel­ings or emo­tions, but in the realm of the high­est and most spir­i­tu­al­ized think­ing. It is your thoughts, not your feel­ings, that lead you God­ward. The di­vine na­ture may be per­ceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that re­ally dis­cerns God, hears the in­dwelling Ad­juster, is the pure mind. “With­out ho­li­ness no man may see the Lord.” All such in­ner and spir­i­tual com­mu­nion is termed spir­i­tual in­sight. Such re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ences re­sult from the im­press made upon the mind of man by the com­bined op­er­a­tions of the Ad­juster and the Spirit of Truth as they func­tion amid and upon the ideas, ide­als, in­sights, and spirit striv­ings of the evolv­ing sons of God.

102:3.3Ma­te­rial feel­ings, hu­man emo­tions, lead di­rectly to ma­te­rial ac­tions, self­ish acts. Re­li­gious in­sights, spir­i­tual mo­ti­va­tions, lead di­rectly to re­li­gious ac­tions, un­selfish acts of so­cial ser­vice and al­tru­is­tic benev­o­lence.

6:6.4The Eter­nal Son is wholly spir­i­tual; man is very nearly en­tirely ma­te­rial; there­fore much per­tain­ing to the spirit per­son­al­ity of the Eter­nal Son, to his seven spir­i­tual spheres en­cir­cling Par­a­dise and to the na­ture of the im­per­sonal cre­ations of the Par­a­dise Son, will have to await your at­tain­ment of spirit sta­tus fol­low­ing your com­ple­tion of the mor­ontia as­cen­sion of the lo­cal uni­verse of Neb­a­don. And then, as you pass through the super­uni­verse and on to Ha­vona, many of these spirit-con­cealed mys­ter­ies will clar­ify as you be­gin to be en­dowed with the “mind of the spirit”—spir­i­tual in­sight.

27:7.1Wor­ship is the high­est priv­i­lege and the first duty of all cre­ated in­tel­li­gences. Wor­ship is the con­scious and joy­ous act of rec­og­niz­ing and ac­knowl­edg­ing the truth and fact of the in­ti­mate and per­sonal re­la­tion­ships of the Cre­ators with their crea­tures. The qual­ity of wor­ship is de­ter­mined by the depth of crea­ture per­cep­tion; and as the knowl­edge of the in­fi­nite char­ac­ter of the Gods pro­gresses, the act of wor­ship be­comes in­creas­ingly all-en­com­pass­ing un­til it even­tu­ally at­tains the glory of the high­est ex­pe­ri­en­tial de­light and the most ex­qui­site plea­sure known to cre­ated be­ings.

140:5.13To see God—by faith—means to ac­quire true spir­i­tual in­sight. And spir­i­tual in­sight en­hances Ad­juster guid­ance, and these in the end aug­ment God-con­scious­ness. And when you know the Fa­ther, you are con­firmed in the as­sur­ance of di­vine son­ship, and you can in­creas­ingly love each of your broth­ers in the flesh, not only as a brother—with broth­erly love—but also as a fa­ther—with fa­therly af­fec­tion.

99:4.2So­cial lead­er­ship is trans­formed by spir­i­tual in­sight; re­li­gion pre­vents all col­lec­tive move­ments from los­ing sight of their true ob­jec­tives. To­gether with chil­dren, re­li­gion is the great uni­fier of fam­ily life, pro­vided it is a liv­ing and grow­ing faith. Fam­ily life can­not be had with­out chil­dren; it can be lived with­out re­li­gion, but such a hand­i­cap enor­mously mul­ti­plies the dif­fi­cul­ties of this in­ti­mate hu­man as­so­ci­a­tion. Dur­ing the early decades of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, fam­ily life, next to per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, suf­fers most from the deca­dence con­se­quent upon the tran­si­tion from old re­li­gious loy­al­ties to the emerg­ing new mean­ings and val­ues.

9:4.2The ab­so­lute mind is the mind of the Third Per­son; it is in­sep­a­ra­ble from the per­son­al­ity of God the Spirit. Mind, in func­tion­ing be­ings, is not sep­a­rated from en­ergy or spirit, or both. Mind is not in­her­ent in en­ergy; en­ergy is re­cep­tive and re­spon­sive to mind; mind can be super­im­posed upon en­ergy, but con­scious­ness is not in­her­ent in the purely ma­te­rial level. Mind does not have to be added to pure spirit, for spirit is in­nately con­scious and iden­ti­fy­ing. Spirit is al­ways in­tel­li­gent, minded in some way. It may be this mind or that mind, it may be pre­mind or super­mind, even spirit mind, but it does the equiv­a­lent of think­ing and know­ing. The in­sight of spirit tran­scends, super­venes, and the­o­ret­i­cally an­te­dates the con­scious­ness of mind.

196:3.29Re­li­gious in­sight pos­sesses the power of turn­ing de­feat into higher de­sires and new de­ter­mi­na­tions. Love is the high­est mo­ti­va­tion which man may uti­lize in his uni­verse as­cent. But love, di­vested of truth, beauty, and good­ness, is only a sen­ti­ment, a philo­sophic dis­tor­tion, a psy­chic il­lu­sion, a spir­i­tual de­cep­tion. Love must al­ways be re­de­fined on suc­ces­sive lev­els of mor­ontia and spirit pro­gres­sion.