Genuine spiritual practices come out of salvation [already being “alive in Christ”] — they are not the tools you use to attach spiritual life on to your normal everyday life. It is being in God’s love here-and-now and being filled-up with His overwhelming desire to share all that you have with everyone else that blossoms into joyous spiritual community — not your life-long effort to be active in the church in order to “earn” or “get” charity.
To put in plainer terms: Unless your heart and mind are given over to the passionate love and transcendent experience of God – then any outward behavior, expression of belief, or moral code of conduct doesn’t count one iota to making you either righteous or unrighteous.
Righteous actions describe things that people with justified, purified, and sanctified right-brain-hearts do – they aren’t the instructions you must follow to “possess” a changed heart.
- Prayer, fasting, donating money or time, attending church meetings, meditation, charkha cleansing, pilgrimages, temple participation, yoga, tantra, reciting the rosary, reading tarot cards, service projects, herbal correspondences, etc.
These may all contain truth and may be interesting and useful disciplines in their own right. But alone, they have nothing to do with an authentic response to the fundamental reality of the created universe: God’s unconditional, self-sacrificing, and utterly non-stingy love for you [personally and uniquely You].
The way to judge is plain:
Any spiritual devotion or technique can be genuine – but each can just as easily be someone’s vain attempt to gain some personal security by relating to God as some Sovereign in the Sky who returns stability in this life for certain services rendered [see, Making an Image out of God].
I remember the word of god
which saysby their works
ye shall know themfor if their works be good
then they are good alsofor behold
god has saida person
being evil
cannot do that which is goodfor if she offer a gift
or pray unto god
except she shall do it with real intent
it profiteth her nothing
for behold
it is not counted unto her for righteousnessfor behold
if a man
being evil
gives a gift
he does it grudgingly
wherefore
it is counted unto him
the same as if he had retained the gift
wherefore
he is counted evil before godand likewise
also
it is counted evil unto a person
if they shall pray
and not with real intent of heart
yea
and it profits them nothing
for god receives none suchwherefore
a person
being evil
cannot do that which is good
neither will they give a good giftfor behold
a bitter fountain cannot bring forth good water
neither can a good fountain bring forth bitter water
wherefore
a man
being a servant of the devil
cannot follow Christ
and if she follow Christ
she cannot be a servant of the devil
Moroni’s words do not indicate that you can use a person’s actions to judge whether they are righteous or not. Meaning, it’s not:
If you see what looks like good fruit, then it must be good tree
Rather, it’s that:
If this is a good tree, then its fruit will be good
Notice he said that if a person is evil — then nothing they do, no gift they offer, can be accounted “good” before God. Even if it would be a thing we might describe as a “good work” if we were asked. Also, he says that a good fountain cannot bring forth bitter water — no matter what you might think about the quality of the water by looking at it.
It is often the case, with the sin of hypocrisy, that the outward appearances do not match the inner-state of the heart. The inner-vessel is playing the part of a righteous one – but it cannot manifest the miraculous works of the Father [which are the real “good works”] because all it has are the works of men [which, outwardly, can appear quite charitable and good].
It’s not about being “good enough”:
Whether or not a person is morally virtuous, charitable, pleasant, or nice has nothing to do with salvation or righteousness before God. Morality and niceness are not really the domain of the gospel. Though there may be ethical implications of a person accepting, by covenant, the earth-shattering love of God – non-theistic humanists can be equally moral and congenial human beings.
I don’t mean to suggest that being a “good and moral” person isn’t important. I’m saying that the gospel is concerned with the source of [or motivation for] our behavior — the spirit that is giving form to our actions. Someone who has covenanted with the Maker of the Universe may very well do some of the same things that a non-theistic person would — but the informing principle behind why each is acting that way will be different.
The gospel is concerned with whether or not people learn to act by Power-Faith [using persuasion, patience, gentleness, meekness, etc. only] before they die — and whether a person’s mind and heart are being led by the spirit of the devil or by the spirit of the Lord [see Alma 34:34-35].
This is an entirely different domain than the collective pool of human ethics and social morality.
The state of the right-brain-heart is the sole determining factor between “good/sweet-ness” and “evil/bitter-ness”. As the Lord looks – hard hearts desire evil things [by definition], whether the “thing” they desire appears to us to be good or evil matters not. Conversely, broken/soft hearts will desire good things – things that may appear “evil” to someone observing them from a different historical/cultural viewpoint.
There’s nothing wrong with subjective ethics:
There’s this Western ethic of viewing reality as this binary, yes-or-no, true-or-false, etc. category for things — one that also holds that anything “true” must be universally scalable to be “right”. You see it come-up anytime you propose or suggest an idea — and some genius pops-up with some outlandish, fringe scenario where that idea might not work. Like if they can invent just a single case where an idea might not be good — then that just invalidates the whole thing for everyone, everywhere, all the time.
There isn’t “One-True Answer” for how all people ought to live — and the search for such an All-True, Correlatable, Scalable, and Marketable Answer is a fruitless endeavor and leads away from getting towards any answer worth having.
God is about love: real love — chesed, agape — that open-faced, fully-naked, no-stinginess at all, complete sharing of all things kinda love. God is love — which is why God is uncontrollable [or all-powerful], even anti-control. But there’s a fear of relative truth or subjective ethics because they’re uncomfortable — they aren’t well-defined edges and lines that we can check-off and box-in. But love requires the situational, the voluntary, and the accepting.
I find it funny that among the religious one will encounter the most hostility towards the subjective/situational — given the situational ethics of the scriptures: e.g., it’s wrong to kill [unless it’s not], it’s acceptable to take plural wives and concubines [unless it’s not], it’s required to circumcise the flesh [unless it’s not].
The reason all of the law and the prophets hang on the single concept of love is that without the context of love — being “true” or “right” is meaningless. The gospel is meant to apply to every human who’s ever lived – ever. Each generation, each culture has to bring the word to Life in their language, their world-view, and the conditions found among them, at that time and in that place. One gospel, expressed through diverse forms according to the doctrine of expediency.
“Religion” must be pragmatic and provisional — a culturally-appropriate symbol of Reality and the Powers [elohim, or Gods] of Life that you’ve personally dealt with and experienced. Because of this, the only standard for determining that a person is a “true” believer [a good tree, a good fountain, etc.] is the presence of the miraculous works of God, or the signs that follow them that believe: flowing-out, into the world, through them.
Judging someone’s religion by any other metric is not a righteous judgment – but is an unrighteous judgment based on the outward appearance and the works of men [see, John 7:24 and 1 Samuel 16:7].
Telling me you read the scriptures, participate in the rituals, are active in the church, etc. – tells me nothing about the experiences you’ve had with God. Those things are just the retelling or reenactment of someone else’s story. It is all pointless and vain unless it is pursuant to you having the same experience — seeing eye-to-eye with the seers who have laid down those stories before you.
Someone else’s story will not save you [no matter how “true” it actually was for them]. Reenacting events from their stories as a ritual will not generate Joy in you. Such things are meant to motivate you to get on the same pathway, to receive a similar connection with God yourself, and to see eye-to-eye with them.
I don’t want to hear anything about what system of stories a person believes in their brain are “true”. Whether those stories “happened” or not is completely irrelevant to me – because what matters is what “happens”, right now – in You. I don’t care if you believe the stories about Adam or Abraham or Moses or Lehi or Joseph Smith having real experiences with the Father – I care if you’ve had them.
There’s not much value in the religious-fundamentalist idea that This-One religion is “right” and the rest of Those-One religions are “wrong”. The human concept of “God” means something slightly different to each group that’s used it throughout history and across cultures. The idea of God formed in one generation could be completely meaningless to another. Saying “I believe in God,” has no objective meaning, outside the context of who said it.
That’s why our spiritual dynamic cannot be hand-me-down — but must be wholly personal. But “personal” does not mean “alone”. Humans are not one-man islands – for all our stories are intertwined and interconnected. So a community of like-minded believers may share the same story with you — and you may gather together and call yourselves a “church” or a “religion” or whatever —but each person must live out their own story and have their own miraculous experiences.
And it comes to pass…
I’ve read before that Art and Spirituality are [on a basic level] really the same activity. Both are an outward-expression of your inner-will, intended to produce definite and concrete results.
If used properly:
- a painting can be the formula that brings to pass what was painted
- a song can be the spell that brings about what was sung
And human religious activity is this same dynamic — it’s meant to be functional, meant to make something happen.
So, to me, all that matters is if a person experiences the miraculous works of God in their life or not. Their religion is “right” or “true” if it works – if it’s living and breathing, everyday in them. Conversely, their religion is “false” or “corrupt” if it produces no fruit through them, if it’s a dead recitation of by-gone stories inherited from others.
Being of this-or-that religion, practicing this-or-that model of worship, conforming to this-or-that belief system – none of that gives any indication about whether a person’s religion works or not. And therefore doesn’t matter. Whether it’s “true” or not should be judged by what it’s doing.
If it’s producing the result — if it’s manifesting the miraculous works — if it’s bringing to pass the vision — then it’s real and then it’s true.
If the painting is just sitting on the wall, being revered as “true” – but the vision that was painting is not coming to pass and it’s just collecting dust — then it’s empty, vain, and false.
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LDS Anarchy 
The Ocean of Love is the unique realm where ships sail with the Ying/Yang flag of Charity/Justice. This duality is either harmonious or degenerated and besides it is, internally and externally, intertwined and interconnected.
«… the informing principle behind why each is acting that way will be different.» Of course, the soul-garments must be identical to the body-garments because soul and body are a Ying/Yang to become an harmonious unity for it to be dynamically fruitful.
A “vain repetition” is anything that is said/done so often that it loses any meaning [the root of “vain” relates to “empty” or “without meaning/purpose”].
However, not all repetition is vain. We are commanded to pray vocally at least three times per day, to be filled with the spirit of prayer in our right-brain-heart continuously, we repeat the sacrament ordinance “often”, we perform the same temple ordinances for the dead again-and-again, etc.
A repetition is only vain when the right-brain-heart is not broken/softened and the person is unrighteous. The work they perform is “vain” because it cannot profit the pray-er anything — it is a fruitless/dead work, no matter how good it might appear while they are performing it.
To quote the message of the OP, this is because:
Unless one’s heart has been broken by the guilt of their own unrighteous and unworthy standing before God, then any prayer they offer is a vain repetition [even if they don’t multiply their words, or they use different words every time they pray].
Meaning, until the person is in a righteous state of being broken-hearted and crushed-in-spirit — the only prayer that is not vain is a prayer for a broken heart and a contrite spirit. This is because a person with a hard heart:
In the unrighteous, hard-hearted state — prayers originate from the person’s Self [in their left-brain-mind]. They speak out-loud to the sky, addressing that as “God”, and then proceed to ask for things they want or think they can get — and then tag on “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen” – thinking they’ll then receive accordingly because they asked for what they wanted “in Jesus’ name“.
I’ve begun to think that praying “in Jesus’ name” means to stop praying in the left-brain [as your Self] — and to start praying as Jesus. To say the words of Christ, to say what He would say. It involves identifying ourselves with [or as] Christ in mind and in heart. And that can only come once we’ve denied [or disowned] our Self, taken up our cross, and started doing the same works as Jesus. And this will only follow feeling sorrow for our sins, becoming broken-hearted, shedding tears, and crying to be filled-up with the love of God.
Any prayer that appears to offer some results outside the context of the event I just described is really an exhibit of the power of positive thinking and confirmation bias — meaning the inner-nature is not ever transformed, which is the only kind of change of mind that can eventually work its way down into material existence and affect our reality.
So long as “constantly praying” is used as a means to an end — it will not correspond with a change in the physical world. It will have image — but no reality. The complete denial of Self [the fear, trembling, sorrow, weeping, broken-heart etc.] brings a person to a point where they may begin to pray as an end in-and-of itself.
If the “spiritual change” has not yet taken place — then asking for a “physical change” is asking for action from something that can only be acted upon [the physical/the flesh/the elements]. The physical is a symptom of the spiritual — it’s informed [given its form] by the spiritual. When the spirit is changed — the physical will then conform to match the image of the spirit.
A continuation on what I was saying above:
The tare is sown in the same manner that any seed is sown — e.g., mortal children are conceived by the corruptible sperm of a man, being spiritually born again of God comes by the incorruptible seed of the word of God delivered by the Holy Spirit.
Meaning that sin is “conceived” in the heart in a manner comparable to how children are “conceived” by the corruptible seed of a man.
Again, God does not sow the tare into the hearts [the female organ that all humans, regardless of gender, have] of people. Temptation isn’t external — it says that it comes by “their own lust“.
Once the right-brain-heart yields [is made open] to sin — the conception of sin in the heart is the same as the result we’d expect when the female sexual organ yields to a man’s seed [conception of human life].
Sin is the child conceived in the right-brain-heart by what’s been sown in lust. The sin grows [gestates] until it encompass the entire brain [both heart and mind]. And sin becomes the light by which people begin to see.
Thus the scriptures say they are blind — because they are without the true light of the gospel informing the perspective of their brains.
The works of the flesh then manifest outwardly, when the mind is informed by the sin-child conceived there [instead of being informed by the offspring of the Spirit, when there is conception from the seed She deposits when She is yielded to].
That sin-child [when fully-matured] will come to give birth to its offspring, which is death or damnation of the person in whom sin had been “gestating”.
This explains why God responds to sin in terms that various prophets have described using the language of a husband finding out that his wife has been sleeping around with other men.
If we have covenanted with God, then to allow other powers [whether you want to call that doctrines/ideas/”gods”/etc.] to inform our minds — meaning we look to them, open-up to them, and allow them to conceive the ideas in our hearts from which our minds use to create — other than the word of God transmitted by the Holy Spirit, then that is analogous to the physical commission of marital adultery among a husband and wife.
We’re allowing another personage [the devil and sin] to occupy the sacred space [heart] that we’ve covenanted to offer-up to God to fill-up with His Holy Spirit.
And nothing that comes from a mind in that state can be considered “good” by God — because the inspiration to do those things is coming from a source that we have not covenanted to be joined to.
«… in Jesus name …» The name of Jesus is the same as JHVH, It is unpronounceable. What this mean? It does not mean that to pronounce it by human language is impossible. It means that it must be pronounced by the human soul, or heart. When this happens the human being may express it through tongues, to do something by holy inspiration, to become mystically boosted, etc.
Does somebody of you gives some support to this said by me? I believe that It might be a fruitful conversation.
May somebody of you give support to this thought of mine? I believe that It might be a fruitful conversation.
All humanity once heard what they perceived to be a heavenly voice — an audible sound from the sky — which spoke the name of God.
The source of this “voice” was the electromagnetic oscillations produced by the interaction between Earth and a proximate planetary body. The Earth’s hallow outer sphere acted as a great transducer or speaker — converting the electromagnetic waves into audible sound.
EEAAOOAAEE
The EE’s are high pitched, as high a pitch as you can make [you should feel the vibration up in your nasal cavity]. The OO is low pitched, as low a pitch as you can make [you should feel the vibration down in your chest]. And the AA’s are a tone in the middle.
You have just pronounced the sacred name of the Supreme Being — YHVH, or EE-Yow-Way-EE — as the ancients heard it and subsequently articulated it in countless sacred ceremonies and holy proceedings in antiquity.
All planets speak the name of God when they get close enough to each other:
Disruptive planets prophesy by their plasma discharges and cast out good planets (considering them to be devils) and do many wonderful works of plasma and planetary configuring, all the while speaking the name of the Supreme Being.
This sound [the name of God, or EEAAOOAAEE] was heard repeatedly and in various forms: at times it would have been at very low volume — almost a whisper. On other occasions it would have been an ear-splitting, reverberating blast that would have been felt as much as heard — penetrating to the very fiber of one’s being.
Ancient planetary interactions also produced: trumpet-like sounds, drum-like sounds, bell-like sounds, choral singing-like sounds — which is why these instruments and various chants, mantras, choral arrangements found their way into ancient temple liturgy — as an attempt to replicate the heavenly noises — during the “Golden Age” when the planets stood in closer proximity to one another.
Excuse my mistakes, I am an old latin man trying to meet you as I can. Thanks for you to stand me.
I do not believe in the Sky, I believe in Heaven. I do not believe in sounds, I believe in the Word. I do not believe in dust, I believe in the Spirit. I am blind but I see. I am deaf but I hear. I am poor but I am rich. I do not believe in either Icons or Poetry, I believe in me, alive and glorious, with who Loves me forever lasting.
Canary Islands, Gran Canaria, 15Sep12, 09:57. Running on Linux Mint, Free for Freedom. I love USA and J Christopher Stevens. I am fed up of any kind of fundamentalists.
God save Christians, God save America, God save all of you!
I was recently pondering over the order of the first principles of the gospel, how sometimes they are listed in the scriptures as “first faith, then repentance,” and other times they are listed as “first repentance, then faith.” Other times they are written as “repent, come unto Christ and exercise faith in Him,” etc.
I have not, as yet, done a study of this and looked up all these sayings in the scriptures, so don’t take this as gospel. It’s just something that popped into my head from memory. As I thought it over, it seemed to me that the actual order is the following:
Faith–>Repentance–>Faith–>Come unto Christ–>Faith–>Miracles
Although there is that book, Faith Precedes the Miracle, it appeared to me that faith preceded everything. It precedes repentance, it precedes coming to Christ and it precedes forgiveness by fire and the Holy Ghost.
Repentance is basically a turning away from sin. If sin is found at the left, we repent by turning 180 degrees in the opposite direction, even to the right, abandoning and forsaking it. Our former, sinful lives were ones in which we faced our sins and partook of them, as if at a banquet. Just as we face the food we eat, so we face and partake of our sins. So, repentance causes one to abandon the table of sin and to look and walk away.
To do that, faith is required, meaning that we exercise faith in Christ in order to repent, yielding to the enticings of the Holy Ghost, which tells all men that they must repent. This is a (scary) moment of great change, but once that is done, is the evil man no longer evil? Nope, he is still evil.
The next part seems to be the exercise of faith to come to Christ. In this case, now we face Christ, and go to His banquet table, where an offering is required, even that of our whole souls. In other words, we now give up the “us” that we have known all our lives and humble ourselves before Jesus, yielding to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, which now works to change us into Christs. This is the second part of conversion, or the power of the Holy Ghost getting us ready to convert us into a new, Christ creature (a creature patterned after Christ), by working upon our hearts.
This is the “thy will be done, not my will” moment, where we turn over our whole lives to God, our thoughts, our words, our actions, our feelings. This is when we desire the Christ nature with all our hearts, desiring to abandon ourselves (not just our sins) in order to become like the Savior. It is the moment of submission, where we give in and passively allow God to make us into whatever He would have us be. (And He would have us be Christ.) This is the moment and desire of being, not just doing. Although we now have desires to obey all the words of God, the motivation is not to follow God, but to be like God, for His words reveal the Christ to us, meaning that they tell us what Christ would do in our set of circumstances, or the conditions among the men of our time and place. We are now very different than what we were when we started, yet are we now no longer evil? Nope. We’re still evil because we still carry our sins upon us, nevertheless, we are now in a condition in which they can be remitted.
The final part is to exercise faith in Christ yet again, this time to obtain the miraculous remission of our sins. When the miracle happens, we are cleansed by fire and the Holy Ghost, becoming purified, sanctified and justified. We now have the Christ nature and are free from sin.
So, we are to exercise faith in Christ to repent of our sins, abandoning and forsaking them. And then we are to exercise faith in Christ to “come unto Christ,” which is the abandoning of all we are up to that point and the handing of it over to God as an offering so that He may toss it out the window and start with something infinitely better, even Christ.
Lastly, we are to exercise faith in Christ to actually become like Him, a holy, sanctified being, even a saint, which faith manifests itself in a power display though the ministration of angels and the voice of God speaking from the heaven. It is at this point, with our sins remitted and the angel before us or the voice of God in our ears, that we cease being evil men. It is at this point, and only at this point, that we can finally do “good works,” even the works that Christ did, which are the miracles that He did. We are now patterned after Christ and in this sanctified, purified and justified state we are to continue exercising faith and endure in this state to the end of our lives, continuing to bring forth “good works.”
At each point in this process, the Holy Ghost entices the man, first She entices him to repent, then She entices him to give up his ego to God and to humble himself before Him, enticing him to come to Jesus. Finally, She entices him to exercise faith in Christ and seek the remission of his sins by fire and the Holy Ghost. As long as the man is yielding to these enticings, he will progress rapidly from a sinner to a saint.
Unfortunately, because all of this is the process of changing the man from head to toe, as if from a caterpillar to a butterfly, man’s natural response is to resist–for even slight changes are scary to man, and the gospel does not require mere slight change, but a 100% overhaul of all things that make up the man, which is a truly frightening prospect to most people, hence the Lord’s charge to “fear not.” Only those who learn to trust the Lord and fear not, putting up no resistance, whatsoever, are the ones who are accounted as “good.”
It seems to me that anywhere along this progression, the process could be hijacked, either by not fully repenting of every sin, meaning not abandoning and forsaking them all, or by not coming to Christ, meaning that the individual still desires to retain some aspect of his or her ego and is not willing to allow the Lord to change all aspects of his or her person and being. Such attitudes are sinful, for the desire to remain in one’s sins is still present. (As Alma taught, you can be saved from your sins, but not in your sins.) Only the person who repents and comes to Christ, through his faith in Christ, can finally exercise power faith and see the process through to completion, receiving the gifts and manifestations that the gospel promises “to all the faithful.”
I suppose I could go on, but I think the above suffices to show what was in my mind.
This is the order of the principles of the gospel drawn in my soul by His Word: faith gracefully given by the Word of God -nowadays the Son of Man-, then aceptance, gratitude, regret and contrition, repent, hope, awareness, penance and, finally, prayer, praise and practice of Their Love (Charity/Justice).
Shalom aleijem. Amen!
regret & contrition = threnody & pain
repent = repentance = feeling & will
hope = trust & step
awareness = mind & knowledge
penance = work & silence
prayer = soul & body
praise = joy & boost
practice of Their Love = fruits & gifts
As you said it is a process, a butterfly being drawing in our souls by the Trinity for we become dwelling of Them.
Shalom aleijem. Amen!
The Door to Heaven is opened by the key named gratitude.
” Prayer, fasting, donating money or time, attending church meetings, meditation, charkha cleansing, pilgrimages, temple participation, yoga, tantra, reciting the rosary, reading tarot cards, service projects, herbal correspondences, etc.
These may all contain truth and may be interesting and useful disciplines in their own right. But alone, they have nothing to do with an authentic response to the fundamental reality of the created universe: God’s unconditional, self-sacrificing, and utterly non-stingy love for you [personally and uniquely You].”
It is this principal that has made it clear to me that we are not ever to seek to convert others…only speak with others who are converted and converting as we are.
and….
“I’ve read before that Art and Spirituality are [on a basic level] really the same activity. Both are an outward-expression of your inner-will, intended to produce definite and concrete results.
If used properly:
a painting can be the formula that brings to pass what was painted
a song can be the spell that brings about what was sung
And human religious activity is this same dynamic — it’s meant to be functional, meant to make something happen.”
Two words – Super Sigils
As we here at the blog and others in our circles become more aware of this then more GOOD things will happen. I encourage anyone reading this to look back and see how true this is in your own life. If it is too subconcsious and you are too blocked off from your subconscious to identify these patterns then that is one thing. But the principal is a true one. And sometimes our art is slow acting…but there is strength in numbers and amplification in the Holy Spirit.
This is why it is vital for us to avoid the creativity killing machines of church and state. And invite all of our brothers and sisters to write their own adventure…SPIRITUALLY and LITERALLY…LITERALLY and SPIRITUALLY.
Do you realize that all of us understand very well what Love is? The essence of Love is Intelligence and our Love from Faith is not that from Baal (desire and concupiscence) but our Love is a Person. Love is a Person who builds or draws us as persons of love. Read what God is going to do with the people of Baal who is forcing to our people to move aside Jesus Christ (1 Re 18:40).
We are not perfect, the Lady says that we, her children, are not evil but weak. The prayer of the Lady of all Nations is closely linked to the omnipotence of the Trinity for these last days before the returning of our King. You may not read the prayer every day, you may simply meditate every day on the words and thoughts of the Prayer that our Mother has carried from the Divine Tabernacle to this Global World.
[…] Justin already knows the score. As he wrote in his latest post at LDS Anarchy: There’s this Western ethic of viewing reality as this binary, yes-or-no, true-or-false, etc. […]
[…] problem is we get more interested in the outwardly-observable behaviors of the flesh — when the only things that really matter are state of the spirit or the heart. The religious complain about sins of the flesh, but sins of the flesh are not the kind of thing […]