spontaneity

9:3.8Par­a­dise is the pat­tern of in­fin­ity; the God of Ac­tion is the ac­ti­va­tor of that pat­tern. Par­a­dise is the ma­te­rial ful­crum of in­fin­ity; the agen­cies of the Third Source and Cen­ter are the levers of in­tel­li­gence which mo­ti­vate the ma­te­rial level and in­ject spon­tane­ity into the mech­a­nism of the phys­i­cal cre­ation.

195:6.15The fi­nite uni­verse of mat­ter would even­tu­ally be­come uni­form and de­ter­min­is­tic but for the com­bined pres­ence of mind and spirit. The in­flu­ence of the cos­mic mind con­stantly in­jects spon­tane­ity into even the ma­te­rial worlds.

27:4.3All Par­a­dise con­duct is wholly spon­ta­neous, in ev­ery sense nat­u­ral and free. But there still is a proper and per­fect way of do­ing things on the eter­nal Isle, and the di­rec­tors of con­duct are ever by the side of the “strangers within the gates” to in­struct them and so guide their steps as to put them at per­fect ease and at the same time to en­able the pil­grims to avoid that con­fu­sion and un­cer­tainty which would oth­er­wise be in­ev­i­ta­ble. Only by such an ar­range­ment could end­less con­fu­sion be avoided; and con­fu­sion never ap­pears on Par­a­dise.

92:7.5Prim­i­tive re­li­gion was largely a ma­te­rial-value con­scious­ness, but civ­i­liza­tion el­e­vates re­li­gious val­ues, for true re­li­gion is the de­vo­tion of the self to the ser­vice of mean­ing­ful and su­preme val­ues. As re­li­gion evolves, ethics be­comes the phi­los­o­phy of morals, and moral­ity be­comes the dis­ci­pline of self by the stan­dards of high­est mean­ings and su­preme val­ues—di­vine and spir­i­tual ide­als. And thus re­li­gion be­comes a spon­ta­neous and ex­qui­site de­vo­tion, the liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of the loy­alty of love.

100:4.1Re­li­gious liv­ing is de­voted liv­ing, and de­voted liv­ing is cre­ative liv­ing, orig­i­nal and spon­ta­neous. New re­li­gious in­sights arise out of con­flicts which ini­ti­ate the choos­ing of new and bet­ter re­ac­tion habits in the place of older and in­fe­rior re­ac­tion pat­terns. New mean­ings only emerge amid con­flict; and con­flict per­sists only in the face of re­fusal to es­pouse the higher val­ues con­noted in su­pe­rior mean­ings.

102:2.3It is dif­fi­cult to iden­tify and an­a­lyze the fac­tors of a re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, but it is not dif­fi­cult to ob­serve that such re­li­gious prac­ti­tion­ers live and carry on as if al­ready in the pres­ence of the Eter­nal. Be­liev­ers re­act to this tem­po­ral life as if im­mor­tal­ity al­ready were within their grasp. In the lives of such mor­tals there is a valid orig­i­nal­ity and a spon­tane­ity of ex­pres­sion that for­ever seg­re­gate them from those of their fel­lows who have im­bibed only the wis­dom of the world. Re­li­gion­ists seem to live in ef­fec­tive eman­ci­pa­tion from har­ry­ing haste and the painful stress of the vi­cis­si­tudes in­her­ent in the tem­po­ral cur­rents of time; they ex­hibit a sta­bi­liza­tion of per­son­al­ity and a tran­quil­lity of char­ac­ter not ex­plained by the laws of phys­i­ol­ogy, psy­chol­ogy, and so­ci­ol­ogy.

140:10.6This new re­li­gion of Je­sus was not with­out its prac­ti­cal im­pli­ca­tions, but what­ever of prac­ti­cal po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, or eco­nomic value there is to be found in his teach­ing is the nat­u­ral out­work­ing of this in­ner ex­pe­ri­ence of the soul as it man­i­fests the fruits of the spirit in the spon­ta­neous daily min­istry of gen­uine per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

196:0.5The­ol­ogy may fix, for­mu­late, de­fine, and dog­ma­tize faith, but in the hu­man life of Je­sus faith was per­sonal, liv­ing, orig­i­nal, spon­ta­neous, and purely spir­i­tual. This faith was not rev­er­ence for tra­di­tion nor a mere in­tel­lec­tual be­lief which he held as a sa­cred creed, but rather a sub­lime ex­pe­ri­ence and a pro­found con­vic­tion which se­curely held him. His faith was so real and all-en­com­pass­ing that it ab­so­lutely swept away any spir­i­tual doubts and ef­fec­tively de­stroyed ev­ery con­flict­ing de­sire. Noth­ing was able to tear him away from the spir­i­tual an­chor­age of this fer­vent, sub­lime, and un­daunted faith. Even in the face of ap­par­ent de­feat or in the throes of dis­ap­point­ment and threat­en­ing de­spair, he calmly stood in the di­vine pres­ence free from fear and fully con­scious of spir­i­tual in­vin­ci­bil­ity. Je­sus en­joyed the in­vig­o­rat­ing as­sur­ance of the pos­ses­sion of un­flinch­ing faith, and in each of life’s try­ing sit­u­a­tions he un­fail­ingly ex­hib­ited an un­ques­tion­ing loy­alty to the Fa­ther’s will. And this su­perb faith was un­daunted even by the cruel and crush­ing threat of an ig­no­min­ious death.

196:0.6In a re­li­gious ge­nius, strong spir­i­tual faith so many times leads di­rectly to dis­as­trous fa­nati­cism, to ex­ag­ger­a­tion of the re­li­gious ego, but it was not so with Je­sus. He was not un­fa­vor­ably af­fected in his prac­ti­cal life by his ex­traor­di­nary faith and spirit at­tain­ment be­cause this spir­i­tual ex­al­ta­tion was a wholly un­con­scious and spon­ta­neous soul ex­pres­sion of his per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence with God.

111:4.9Since this in­ner life of man is truly cre­ative, there rests upon each per­son the re­spon­si­bil­ity of choos­ing as to whether this cre­ativ­ity shall be spon­ta­neous and wholly hap­haz­ard or con­trolled, di­rected, and con­struc­tive. How can a cre­ative imag­i­na­tion pro­duce wor­thy chil­dren when the stage whereon it func­tions is al­ready pre­oc­cu­pied by prej­u­dice, hate, fears, re­sent­ments, re­venge, and big­otries?

5:6.9The be­stowal of crea­ture per­son­al­ity con­fers rel­a­tive lib­er­a­tion from slav­ish re­sponse to an­te­ced­ent cau­sa­tion, and the per­son­al­i­ties of all such moral be­ings, evo­lu­tion­ary or oth­er­wise, are cen­tered in the per­son­al­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. They are ever drawn to­wards his Par­a­dise pres­ence by that kin­ship of be­ing which con­sti­tutes the vast and uni­ver­sal fam­ily cir­cle and fra­ter­nal cir­cuit of the eter­nal God. There is a kin­ship of di­vine spon­tane­ity in all per­son­al­ity.

40:6.74. Of his di­vine free-will­ness, the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has given you your crea­ture per­son­al­i­ties. You have been en­dowed with a mea­sure of that di­vine spon­tane­ity of free­will ac­tion which God shares with all who may be­come his sons.

42:11.7Since mind co-or­di­nates the uni­verse, fix­ity of mech­a­nisms is nonex­is­tent. The phe­nom­e­non of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion as­so­ci­ated with cos­mic self-main­te­nance is uni­ver­sal. The evo­lu­tion­ary ca­pac­ity of the uni­verse is in­ex­haustible in the in­fin­ity of spon­tane­ity. Prog­ress to­wards har­mo­nious unity, a grow­ing ex­pe­ri­en­tial syn­the­sis super­im­posed on an ever-in­creas­ing com­plex­ity of re­la­tion­ships, could be ef­fected only by a pur­po­sive and dom­i­nant mind.

140:8.113. So­cial at­ti­tude. The Jew­ish rab­bis had long de­bated the ques­tion: Who is my neigh­bor? Je­sus came pre­sent­ing the idea of ac­tive and spon­ta­neous kind­ness, a love of one’s fel­low men so gen­uine that it ex­panded the neigh­bor­hood to in­clude the whole world, thereby mak­ing all men one’s neigh­bors. But with all this, Je­sus was in­ter­ested only in the in­di­vid­ual, not the mass. Je­sus was not a so­ci­ol­o­gist, but he did la­bor to break down all forms of self­ish iso­la­tion. He taught pure sym­pa­thy, com­pas­sion. Mi­chael of Neb­a­don is a mercy-dom­i­nated Son; com­pas­sion is his very na­ture.

68:4.4Prior to the lib­er­at­ing and lib­er­al­iz­ing in­struc­tion of the Dala­ma­tia teach­ers, an­cient man was held a help­less vic­tim of the rit­ual of the mores; the prim­i­tive sav­age was hedged about by an end­less cer­e­mo­nial. Ev­ery­thing he did from the time of awak­en­ing in the morn­ing to the mo­ment he fell asleep in his cave at night had to be done just so—in ac­cor­dance with the folk­ways of the tribe. He was a slave to the tyranny of us­age; his life con­tained noth­ing free, spon­ta­neous, or orig­i­nal. There was no nat­u­ral prog­ress to­ward a higher men­tal, moral, or so­cial ex­is­tence.

91:8.5Prayer may be a spon­ta­neous ex­pres­sion of God-con­scious­ness or a mean­ing­less recita­tion of the­o­logic for­mu­las. It may be the ec­static praise of a God-know­ing soul or the slav­ish obei­sance of a fear-rid­den mor­tal. It is some­times the pa­thetic ex­pres­sion of spir­i­tual crav­ing and some­times the bla­tant shout­ing of pi­ous phrases. Prayer may be joy­ous praise or a hum­ble plea for for­give­ness.

91:8.10Gen­uine prayer adds to spir­i­tual growth, mod­i­fies at­ti­tudes, and yields that sat­is­fac­tion which comes from com­mu­nion with di­vin­ity. It is a spon­ta­neous out­burst of God-con­scious­ness.

144:2.2“Prayer is en­tirely a per­sonal and spon­ta­neous ex­pres­sion of the at­ti­tude of the soul to­ward the spirit; prayer should be the com­mu­nion of son­ship and the ex­pres­sion of fel­low­ship. Prayer, when in­dited by the spirit, leads to co-op­er­a­tive spir­i­tual prog­ress. The ideal prayer is a form of spir­i­tual com­mu­nion which leads to in­tel­li­gent wor­ship. True pray­ing is the sin­cere at­ti­tude of reach­ing heav­en­ward for the at­tain­ment of your ide­als.

180:5.12And all this clearly in­di­cates the dif­fer­ence be­tween the old re­li­gion and the new. The old re­li­gion taught self-sac­ri­fice; the new re­li­gion teaches only self-for­get­ful­ness, en­hanced self-re­al­iza­tion in con­joined so­cial ser­vice and uni­verse com­pre­hen­sion. The old re­li­gion was mo­ti­vated by fear-con­scious­ness; the new gospel of the king­dom is dom­i­nated by truth-con­vic­tion, the spirit of eter­nal and uni­ver­sal truth. And no amount of piety or creedal loy­alty can com­pen­sate for the ab­sence in the life ex­pe­ri­ence of king­dom be­liev­ers of that spon­ta­neous, gen­er­ous, and sin­cere friend­li­ness which char­ac­ter­izes the spirit-born sons of the liv­ing God. Nei­ther tra­di­tion nor a cer­e­mo­nial sys­tem of for­mal wor­ship can atone for the lack of gen­uine com­pas­sion for one’s fel­lows.

5:3.3Wor­ship is for its own sake; prayer em­bod­ies a self- or crea­ture-in­ter­est el­e­ment; that is the great dif­fer­ence be­tween wor­ship and prayer. There is ab­so­lutely no self-re­quest or other el­e­ment of per­sonal in­ter­est in true wor­ship; we sim­ply wor­ship God for what we com­pre­hend him to be. Wor­ship asks noth­ing and ex­pects noth­ing for the wor­shiper. We do not wor­ship the Fa­ther be­cause of any­thing we may de­rive from such ven­er­a­tion; we ren­der such de­vo­tion and en­gage in such wor­ship as a nat­u­ral and spon­ta­neous re­ac­tion to the rec­og­ni­tion of the Fa­ther’s match­less per­son­al­ity and be­cause of his lov­able na­ture and adorable at­tri­butes.

27:4.2Har­mony is the keynote of the cen­tral uni­verse, and de­tectable or­der pre­vails on Par­a­dise. Proper con­duct is es­sen­tial to prog­ress by way of knowl­edge, through phi­los­o­phy, to the spir­i­tual heights of spon­ta­neous wor­ship. There is a di­vine tech­nique in the ap­proach to Di­vin­ity; and the ac­quire­ment of this tech­nique must await the pil­grims’ ar­rival on Par­a­dise. The spirit of it has been im­parted on the cir­cles of Ha­vona, but the fi­nal touches of the train­ing of the pil­grims of time can be ap­plied only af­ter they ac­tu­ally at­tain the Isle of Light.

27:7.2While the Isle of Par­a­dise con­tains cer­tain places of wor­ship, it is more nearly one vast sanc­tu­ary of di­vine ser­vice. Wor­ship is the first and dom­i­nant pas­sion of all who climb to its bliss­ful shores—the spon­ta­neous ebul­li­tion of the be­ings who have learned enough of God to at­tain his pres­ence. Cir­cle by cir­cle, dur­ing the in­ward jour­ney through Ha­vona, wor­ship is a grow­ing pas­sion un­til on Par­a­dise it be­comes nec­es­sary to di­rect and oth­er­wise con­trol its ex­pres­sion.

47:7.5A real birth of cos­mic con­scious­ness takes place on man­so­nia num­ber five. You are be­com­ing uni­verse minded. This is in­deed a time of ex­pand­ing hori­zons. It is be­gin­ning to dawn upon the en­larg­ing minds of the as­cend­ing mor­tals that some stu­pen­dous and mag­nif­i­cent, some su­per­nal and di­vine, des­tiny awaits all who com­plete the pro­gres­sive Par­a­dise as­cen­sion, which has been so la­bo­ri­ously but so joy­fully and aus­pi­ciously be­gun. At about this point the av­er­age mor­tal as­cender be­gins to man­i­fest bona fide ex­pe­ri­en­tial en­thu­si­asm for the Ha­vona as­cent. Study is be­com­ing vol­un­tary, un­selfish ser­vice nat­u­ral, and wor­ship spon­ta­neous. A real mor­ontia char­ac­ter is bud­ding; a real mor­ontia crea­ture is evolv­ing.