STUDY GROUP - Is there Life after Death? Part 3 [Principles of Soul Growth]
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- Principles of Soul Growth
In this, the third episode in our series about life after death, we pick up on the idea of the soul from the last episode and look more closely at what we can do to foster the growth of this dimension of ourselves. Jesus once counseled a young lad to not only feed the body, but to also learn how to “feed the soul,” while knowing that God is always with us and goes before us. (130:8.3)
Jesus makes clear in one of his post-resurrection appearances that the fact of his rising from the dead is intended to help us realize that we can also survive mortal death, depending on whether or not we have been “previously born of the spirit of truth-seeking and God-finding.” (193:2.2) Our appreciation of goodness and truth empowers us to make the kinds of choices and decisions that are essential to eternal survival. (132:2.3)
We learn that this attainment of survival status is achieved by forming a personal “alliance” with our “immortal spirit endowment.” (133:6.6) This is what grows our soul, and having done this, there is nothing that can prevent our survival and ascension in the universe. Even now, we can receive the assurance of eternal life, which is “personal and progressive, not merely mechanical or even passively perfect.” (75:8.7) -CT
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Thank you Chuck and Derek for your studies and presentations. Much Appreciated.
Thanks guys, excellent discussion, explanations. 🙏💛
always great to listen and learn off you guys, thank you
Thank you for what you do 💖🙏😇
As always gentlemen, excellent work. Thank you for 110:3.5, personally very timely!
Good to know! Thanks so much for your comment 🙏 -Chuck
Awesome job guys!
Hey, thanks Richard! 🙏 -Chuck
What a glorious universe
So true! -Chuck
These studies are too short!
WE CRAVE MORE!
So good to know! Really appreciate your comment. -Chuck
while I don’t want this to sound too critical I think more preparation and consideration could go into the break down of meaning of the passages you chose and perhaps if applicable some real life examples of how you’ve felt these passages reflected in your lives or others.
I mention this because at the end of the last video chuck said that they would be discussing how to grow a relationship with god, but the repeating of and narrow dive into these passages where the focus seems to be more on rewording what each one is saying, and as I’ve seen it, leaves it almost exactly as how it’s already been written out.
Some examples of how your relationships with god have grown in addition to the text I think would make for much more interesting and relatable content. Though if that’s not the intent of this study group and the two of you see it more as a breaking down on the text so the new or average reader can understand it better then that’s totally understandable.
Again I’m not trying to be too critical of the hard work you two have been doing because it has been beneficial and I’ve enjoyed your videos so far, I think a little more depth could be added to these discussions. Perhaps a script that can be referenced so you can refer back to the more nuanced examples and meanings between the text and the average person’s daily life that could be discussed in regards to the subject of the video?
If this critique seems too far off from the vision of these study group videos feel free to delete it and again thank you for the hard work
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback. Personal stories that illustrate daily life relevance are always very helpful. That kind of content has come up naturally in some of our other videos, but it's good to be reminded. I also appreciate your interest in going deeper into the meaning of the text. We try to keep these under 20 min and want them to be interesting and appealing to any level of familiarity with the book. I'll keep your suggestions in mind. 🙏-Chuck
@@truememes the 20 minute restriction is perhaps what’s keeping a deeper reflection of the text meaning and connection with other passages in the book as well as personal narratives from becoming part of the discussion. I wouldn’t stress about the amount of time these videos need to be more than the quality of conversation being had in them.
What has been particularly helpful if when you have added your own personal understanding to the discussion, for example you said that the next phase of existence is going to be “fun and full of love” which is something I had never considered and it made me really happy to hear! It’s tidbits like that that really add to deepening the perspective instead of repeating what’s already there.
In regards to growing a relationship with god I was hoping to hear more than what seemed to be the message of not consciously resisting your adjuster. It cut what I was hoping would be a deep and personal conversation pretty short.
On a side note I do want to ask where the idea for your username came from?
I came up with it back in the early days of “memetic engineering.” (See online if you’re not familiar with these ideas that emerged in the late 1990s.) It seemed at the time that this powerful means of manipulating beliefs and perceptions was being used mostly for nefarious purposes. It occurred to me that these principles could also be used in support of purposes that are true and good, hence the notion of “true memes.”
@@truememes Interesting idea, thanks for explaining. 20 minutes is a sensible goal but i wouldn't be strict about it. If inspiration takes you guys on a wild turn down a new road of thought, go for it! :) My biggest regret is that I can't be in the room with you guys. Would be a hoot to be able to study and read with you guys. :) God bless and thanks for all you do! ♥
What does UB say about reincarnation?
I would say that the UB teaches post-incarnation, rather than reincarnation. In other words, we do have the opportunity for continuing life in a new body (a new “incarnation”), but this takes place on a higher world where we continue our development, without loss of memory of our experiences during this life.
There are aspects of this teaching that are similar in some ways to the idea of reincarnation, like the continuing development of the soul over multiple lifetimes, but the big difference is that these lifetimes take place on an ascending series of worlds, and nothing is lost from one life to next. One life on this world is sufficient to launch our universe career. I like this idea because it opens up the possibility of exploring what we see in the night sky.
Regarding “past lives,” the UB does teach that our indwelling spirit has had previous experiences, but these were in association with others where the relationship didn’t continue. The UB teaches that our own unique and personal realization of selfhood, in partnership with our indwelling divine spirit, begins with this life.
-Chuck
@@truememes Thank you for your reply. Straight forward search did not give me much, that is why I asked. I would appreciate if you can provide references of related quotes in UB that speak about that so that I can deeper research and understand the matter. There are certain phenomena like recollection of past lives under hypnosis for example or spirit possessions that I want to be able to fit into the picture. Correct theory explains everything. UB answered all the questions I had. I'm sure there is an explanation for these too and would appreciate if you could help me with that. Regards
@@nelmaniourova6059 The UB paints a broad picture of a truly vast and grand universe where incredible things do happen.
However the UB says in several places that --our-- spiritual careers begin here - we are born from dust, though with precious potential, and we are entirely original and unique personalities. It describes a majestic universe ascension system whereby us lowly evolutionary creatures of time and space, who were essentially created from --nothing--, can progress ever upwards to the very heart of paradise though nothing more than our free will choices and the resulting growth of our spirits. And we who have risen the highest, having started from the lowest, are looked upon with profound respect by all of the other orders of beings out there who started their own existences higher on the ladder so to speak.
This beautiful idea would mean that every new born baby has this infinite potential within it, all by itself, to become its own beautiful and unique spiritual being, and to start it's own majestic journey to discover love, and ultimately God. I can't see why a hypothetical returning spirit would come back and deprive a baby of that potential. And I do believe the spark of life starts here, it is not dependent upon some warehouse of awaiting spirits biding time until a baby is born so it can inhabit it like some kind of Soft Drink poured into a Cola bottle... No, such a "personality feedback loop" to my mind seems like a flawed way to organize a universe of ever learning and improving beings, beings who hunger to grow and become ever Godlike, rather than being destined to repeat past errors or be forced to forget the hard earned lessons we've managed to learn.
Now look, heck, our Creator Son Michal was somehow packaged up and placed into the body of a new born infant boy! So technically it happened once on this planet. And though not the same into human bodies, other people like the Melchizedeks were somehow --materialized--. The human body thing for Michael was a very exotic and rare case reserved for baby Jesus, and I'll point out that with Jesus, the human baby was allowed to grow up as a completely normal child until he was in his early teens if I remember right. Only then did his true dual nature start to emerge. And it was --fully-- revealed to him, the human part of young Jesus needed a bit of time to grapple with this incredible situation (if memory serves), but after he had accepted his dual nature, he remembered everything from his past life that he had permitted himself to remember before his journey through the life of a Urantian boy began. And there was a highly specific purpose to this entire event - to earn Michael's title as our Sovereign Creator Sun, and earn it he did! Lastly, the human side of Jesus never perished, it somehow --merged-- into our Creator Son, his experiences on this world forever becoming a part of him, never to be forgotten.
Of note: there were no dreams or ambiguity or fuzziness with Jesus. After he had reconciled his dual nature, Jesus knew exactly who he was, and exactly the mission he had given himself. So it differs considerably from the elusive faded memories some Urantians claim, which could equally be figments of ones imagination. I'm not claiming anyone of lying, I'm only considering possibilities; at the end of the day the veracity of someone's claims about past lives is between them and God in my opinion. Personally I'm disinclined to believe them, but I don't matter. Even it its true though, it's frankly unimportant to me. My road to God has been set clearly before me, and I'm most assuredly taking that journey! Nobody in this world or any other can alter my course, which makes me fairly ambivalent about a lot of the wild claims out there. :)
If you want something more specific, there is a passage in the UB: 94:2.3 (1029.1).
Oh and spirit possessions are another topic. They happened in rare cases before Jesus's time, but if I recall, one of his departing actions was to put an end to that. This text I'm writing is already waaaay too long! But if memory serves, there's no specific section in the book on the phenomena, though it drops bits of info at different places along the path of explaining other more important topics. The thing with spirit possession is related to the repercussions of the failed Lucifer rebellion and our lingering status as a quarantined world. I always had the feeling it was downplayed by the authors. But again, my memory tells me that those who were doing such evil assaults on human free will were all finally rounded up and taken off planet at the order of our Creator Son, Christ Michael, Jesus Christ. Perhaps another reader can fill in details if needed. :) All i remember is that in some key ways, our Creator Son essentially ended the rebellion.
@eeydabez2169 Thank you for your very detailed reply and a reference provided. You are right. It does not really matter in the end. It does not change anything. Reincarnation or not, once someone has found Him, it's all fairly simple. Love is the answer. 🙏