Tolerance

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Today we will examine the rudimentary first action of divine love, which is tolerance. Tolerance is the first outworking of divine love. Many things were given to your world with the hope of nurturing tolerance. For example, it was the hope of the life carriers and Creator Son and staff that the experimentation with the varied color races would promote tolerance. It was the object of this experiment. How so?

Well, when humans are so different visually, and different in terms of genetic characteristics, tolerance must be learned or there can be no evolution in the spirit. It was the great hope that some day the colored races would blend and create a world of tolerance and brotherhood. Due to the Adamic default, this failed to occur - or only partially occurred - but we still view it positively in terms of the lessons that you must be challenged with, which are all tolerance lessons.

The other design that is not unique to your experimental decimal planet is the family unit. The family unit is the birthplace in essence of the spiritual fruit of tolerance, for a parent cannot be intolerant - or should not be intolerant - of a child, nor a child intolerant of siblings or parents. In order to live together as a family, one must learn tolerance of other's differences, and as Jesus instructed when he was bestowed here, tolerance is really knowledge of others, and a very godly trait. Because to cherish another human means to tolerate them with an air of loving acceptance for wherever they are, for we realize that the human has the spark of divinity and the potential for eternal existence within, and is in fact a child of our Father. So to know a human is to be called upon to practice in life, tolerance.

Tolerance is also a fatherly trait. As our Father tolerates our different levels of immaturity, so should we be tolerant toward other mortals or non-material beings whom we either do not fully understand or are less mature than ourselves. In that aspect, tolerance is a more real act, because it is more - it is of survival value in that it reflects divine value. It is a higher value than indifference, annoyance, or hostility.

When Jesus taught tolerance - and please refer to page 1773 of the Urantia Book - He did not teach condoning evil doing, sin, immorality, more primitive base actions, etc. Jesus was not tolerant, and neither is God, of evil. What He did show us is that it is not up to us to judge others: “judge not lest ye be judged.” But that to create institutions for dealing with evil, or inappropriate criminal, antisocial, etc., behaviour - which is the legal system which is still evolving and impartial in terms of justice, but that is justice - is up to the group on the human level. Spiritual justice is up to the Ancients of Days as representatives of the Creator. So tolerance does not condone evil-doing, but neither is it judgmental in terms of the individual actions. Whether we deem it to be evil or not is not up to us.

However, Jesus always taught to be active in your passion to reflect divinity rather than to be caught up in fighting evil, for evil of its own accord will fall away and divinity will always endure, so we will put our energies into the good and let evil take care of itself. But we do not tolerate evil. We ignore it, or justly speak for God when we can, and to the best of our partial ability to understand and reflect divinity.

Tolerance is one of the fruits of the spirit which all of us should be actively working to manifest in our lives. Especially have modern men made the mistake and reaped the spoiled fruit of intolerance in religious matters. Christianity has been highly intolerant of other belief-faith systems, and as a result has not achieved the first step towards living a truly spiritual life which is the concept of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They, these religionists, have allowed intolerance to take precedence over the family concept of tolerance.

One learns tolerance in the family unit, and then as we grow in maturity and in God, and in faith, and as we exercise our spiritual muscles, the family widens to include the planet, and thus the brotherhood of man/ fatherhood of God concept becomes real. Tolerance is necessary for this concept to exist as more than words or a theoretical possibility potential for a future age.

It is important for you to grasp that you may live as an individual right now, tolerantly, and as if the rest of the world lives the same way. You can live now, globally, as one family, and based on spiritual Father concept, within yourself and in your individual lives. For tolerance - in practice - is always given to another individual. In Practice. One does not tolerate a group of people in your real day-to-day life; you tolerate individuals. So thus there is no rationalization or excuse for not practicing tolerance, for you have millions of opportunities as you pass by.

One of the more threatening aspects of the teachings of Michael, when he incarnated as Jesus, to the established religions - and especially to those of the Jewish faith - was His tolerance. The Jewish tradition was based on some mistaken beliefs of intolerance: revenge, grudges, a lack of sharing of faith concepts, are all aspect of intolerance. And Jesus mightily preached against these lowly-evolved principles, to include a respect and universality, an all-inclusive family of faith believers. This was extremely threatening to the established order and will continue to be so until man steps out of the darkness of divisiveness and into the healing and more real light of brotherhood, understanding and humility.

Nathaniel is an interesting example of a human who lives the tolerance ideal. It would be helpful to study Nathaniel and how he incorporated tolerance into his daily affairs. There can be no real divine love and spiritual brotherhood without first, tolerance. That is the first level of love.

You may even learn to apply tolerance upward and not just laterally amongst humans. Often, I am sure if you are honest, you will admit your impatience, irritability and lack of understanding of things divine: the mission, the teachers, your angels, etc. How often, children, have you found yourself feeling, thinking, why does this have to be this way? Why don't they show us more? This is intolerance. And you should practice your tolerance skills and muscles also upward with celestial, non-corporeal, morontial beings, for as imperfect and finite mortals you have a lack of understanding of divinely created or non-corporeal eternal, etc., even other ascendent creatures. And this is good for you to realize that your intolerance often keeps you from spiritual ministry and from seeing the gifts that are yours individually in terms of your own spiritual growth, because you are shut down by intolerance.

So I ask you to just be aware of your own thoughts in terms of your relationships with beings different from yourself, for this is the very root of tolerance: is that the wider the difference, the greater the need for tolerance.

Put aside grand plans for instant love of your fellows. Rather, realize that irritation and personality conflict, misunderstanding, frustration, disappointment, are built into the human as part and parcel of growth. But these need not be divisive if one possesses the oil of reconciliation which is tolerance. Tolerance, as so eloquently extended in the Urantia Book, is the earmark of a great soul.

Question: I have a notion about tolerance that I want to discuss or understand more. It seems to be a passive behavior, the absence of - I mean it's just allowance, isn't it? Or am I misunderstanding something? It seems that tolerance is the absence of fear. It seems more passive to me than active. Am I incorrect in that?

Answer: Partially incorrect. Tolerance is passive and active; passive in terms of what you have described, but active in a passionate commitment to knowing and understanding your fellows, especially those who cause intolerant reactions.

Question: I was also struggling with the meaning of tolerance in terms of acceptance and rejection. It seems to be that it's falling right about in the middle. It’s not rejecting, but its not accepting, either, that it's just kind of middle road between those two. Is that correct?

Answer: Not exactly. It has nothing to do with accepting or rejecting, for you should not make the very common error of judging. It is more like seeing the reality of your fellows clearly without your own emotions and intellectual reactions interfering. When one sees the reality that humans, most humans, are
houses for the divine spark of the Thought Adjuster, and when one see the soul of the human, even if it is extremely unformed, one cannot help but view the reality of their existence with much love, for one is respecting divinity in humans.

As for those humans who are so dead they have not an Adjuster, they are spiritually dead. You cannot
always tell, and they should just be disregarded or ignored. No effort should be made, for these people
are not real. So tolerance is seeing clearly beyond, the husk of human body, character, unevolved behavior, to the divine spark and eternal potential of the soul, which is what you - in actuality - are.

Question: You refer to page 1773 in the Urantia Book and in it Rodan is talking about feelings of tenderness and emotions of tolerance. And the emotions of tolerance, would that mean the divine love coming through as an expression would encompass tolerance?

Answer: Absolutely correct, and if you think of it, that tolerance is the beginning of expressing divine love, you will see it more accurately.

Question: I would like to think that hope springs eternal, but it seems, from a response to one of the questions, that I would be in the position of using my judgment, at times, to disregard certain behaviors in people. This means disregarding them at that time if I judged that they are not behaving in a real fashion. But I would like to think that hope springs eternal and I should ever remain tolerant.

Being human, I have been in the position from time to time where I thought that disregarding a person,
or at least that person's behavior, then, would be my only option available right then. But it seems that's
using my judgement, then. Maybe I'm splitting hairs. I don't think we should judge either. But that
certainly is using your discernment, or your free will, to choose to - I think I'm splitting hairs, maybe. Do
you understand where I am going?

Answer: I did not mean to suggest to disregard others, merely to disregard those who have no survival
potential which is probably - I cannot say if it would be easy or hard for each person. But there are those
who have no Thought Adjusters, and these ones should not be dealt with. You should not waste your energy, cast pearls before swine.

In terms of relativity of values, what we are discussing is higher values. If the best one can do with another's behaviour is to disregard it, then that should be your choice. But please remember that we are dealing with, not choices between what is good or bad in our own lives or spiritual path, but between what is good, what is better, and what is best. This is the path you are on. You have far left behind the simplistic ethics of good vs. bad. So, in terms of good, better, best, on our ascending path, if disregarding is the best you can do at the moment, it is not the best possible response. Tolerance is. That does not mean condoning evil behavior. So some judgment is involved, but not soul judgment. Judgment in terms of your own abilities to act divinely.

Question: When we are being tolerant of people whose religious beliefs are very rigid and very judgmental
of others, what we are doing is recognizing their relationship to God as the good in them, is it not? And then what we have to do is work on our response to them, that it be loving and tolerant of them though they are intolerant of our beliefs?

Answer: That is correct. One of the great misunderstandings about the charisma and effect of the human
Jesus is that his love was so pure and sincere and all-encompassing that differences - intellectual, philosophical, theological differences - melted in the light of His perfection. No one can resist true, sincere, divine love from another. It feels so good and awakens the same response back, therefore argument becomes obsolete, because that is merely surface.

When we talk of commonalities amongst different religions or unity without uniformity - these concepts which are very catch phrases - what you really are doing is extending divine love to a fellow who is in
part divine. And the response - it awakens the higher mind pattern of love back, transcending the unreal
differences.

Question: Rayson, I think it would be nice to hear you talk a little about tolerating the sinner and not the sin. I think personally that's where the struggle comes in. I mean we can't be non-judgmental of actions that impinge on us or others. I know personally, I get tripped up on my intolerant behavior. When somebody does something that hurts somebody I find that I can't divorce that behavior pattern in them from who they are. So the judgement, or my discrimination, or my evaluation of that behavior pattern becomes an evaluation of the human. Maybe you could give us some tips on how we can actually achieve hating the sin and loving the sinner. To me that's my biggest struggle in this area.

Answer: We all have imperfections by design of the Creator. Some imperfections are genetic, some environmental, some exist - continue to exist - because of spiritual laziness or lack of motivation to change. Some flaws are more apparent to others. Some humans do not have enough - this is not necessarily good - intelligence to camouflage their flaws. But think this way, there are things in each of us, myself included, that we would prefer others not to see or be impacted by. Think of one particular trait within yourself, and then use that to empathize with the person who upsets you, for we all have these imperfections and will have them for many many years to come. On the mansion worlds and beyond they will become more apparent to others, but so will others grow in love and tolerance for our imperfections, so the effect will not be the same. Here it is unbalanced.

Some humans, through lack of effort or caring, or just immaturity, show and act upon their flaws compulsively and do not grow. But think of your own areas that need growth and then show gratitude that they do not impact others to such a degree, and tolerance will be easier in terms of separating the mortal's potential from their actions - loving the sinner and not the sin - although most people commit not sin but error.

Question: Rayson, could you speak of racial, cultural, ethnic intolerance? I believe there is something in the Urantia Book that this is a natural part of evolution? I may be wrong, I'm not sure. And now today's lesson impacts on the world as a whole. What you're teaching us - does it impact on healing the earth in some way?

Answer: Well, of course, the races were created here to teach tolerance globally, but the plan was thrown off-track by the Adamic default in which not enough of their blood lines were given and so racially or ethnically there is an imbalance of traits. Each of the colored races were given certain traits. And these are not traits that are judged to be good or bad, they simply are, and need to be part of the genetic pool of any world. The experiment was to split them along color lines and to observe the blend and the process of the blend. Some traits caused more problems than others, aggressiveness, for example, which was high amongst the orange and green sub-races. But even high spiritual traits - as amongst the red race - contributed to, unfortunately, their demise. Although some blending has occurred, everyone on Earth -
whatever color or ethnic national background - has not enough of the Adamic blood lines. So the process is more brutal and long-lasting than anticipated. In terms of tolerance, the ultimate out-workings of tolerance on a world level would be consciousness of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men regardless of differences. This will probably not be achieved here for much much time, but will be, of course, and is a prerequisite to Light and Life status. It has just been set back by the default. 

Question: You spoke in your lesson about us not trying to correct poor behavior in another person but show an example of the light of the Father so that those individuals can see the alternative. In our troubled cities, it appears to me that our modern culture - our media, our film, our television, our print - glorifies violence, shows it as romantic in some way. And it appears to me lately, that something needs to be done culturally about that - world wide - to educate the races that violence is not acceptable.

A lot of other things are no longer acceptable: slavery is no longer acceptable, blood sacrifice is no longer acceptable, but violence to one's fellows is no longer acceptable. Should we be taking a pro-active part in trying to change our culture?

Answer: Culturally, one can do nothing about an entire culture. All one can do is to transform yourself into the spiritual individual that will transform this planet. That sounds simplistic and frustrating I am sure, for I recognize the sincere pain behind your question, however that is the truth. The truth is that when Melchizedek taught against sacrifice, it did not stop. Education is something superfluous, an illusion. You cannot educate people out of violence, this is something that mankind must grow out of. And while your mass media reflect more instantly, such has always been the ways of man, child, that he is fascinated with the gory negative details of living and does not recognize the higher values which co-exist with the baser animal instincts. Mankind will outgrow violence. You will not outgrow violence today. All you can do are two things: live the life of the spiritual agondonter, shine that light on all you come into contact with and dream the dream of a better world, for it is in our dreams for our children and grandchildren that real evolutionary change occurs.

Sometimes whole generations are lost in terms of certain values. We look upon this process from a longer perspective time wise, and from a higher perspective in a certain way than you who are amongst the trenches. Dreams are important for they are the goalposts or archetypes of the future. So when you speak of education - you will not take a hardened violent person and talk to them about love and effect a change. No you will not. And if you think you will, you will be sorely disappointed. What will effect a change in this person? Sincere love, maybe. Divine love, to awaken their consciousness of their own divinity.

Even then, the behavior may remain the same. The time lags. But you can change the dreams of future
generations through education. And this should be your hope and your goal.

First of all, tolerance is the capacity to move beyond your ego-mind, ego-self. To move beyond the ego-self, you are moving beyond that boundary and limit which is at once familiar and comfortable in an attempt to access something as profound and uniquely different than yourself, your thinking, your feeling, your beliefs. As a reference we look to the divine spirit which lives within who has the capacity to forgive you your humanness and through indwelling also tolerates your yet to be evolved spiritual mind. This is the model. As you attenuate towards spirit consciousness and spirit identity, always is there a teacher and guide and a personal companion model resident within your soul, your mind.

The obvious aspect of tolerance is the ability of individuals to tolerate each other. There also the not so obvious aspects of tolerance. First, those aspects of self, of your own evolving personality and history which need to be approached in a manner of tolerance with reference for a capacity to accept yourself at any given moment. The ability to completely acknowledge and to be able to move forward from this acknowlegement. This gives a sense of completion. Many times in life, you are confronted with situations which you feel and sense to yourself, how many times do I have to repeat living this situation out, over and over. It seems like you have just dealt with this situation, and are faced with it again. You are frustrated, maybe even angry, something in your life has put you on a patterned path of repetition, finally you confront this head on and a glimpse of awareness opens inside your mind to allow you to see more clearly that you have been avoiding this situation, you have been dealing with it in a wrong way. 

The aspect of forgiving is closely associated with this aspect of acknowleging. It is alright that you have made mistakes. It is allright that you have had to learn important lessons in life. It is allright that you are not something else at this moment. It is allright that you are angry or frustrated or whatever you need to acknowlege at that prticular moment. By acknowleging this you own it, own up, you are clear about what you are dealing with. There is a sense of tolerance in accepting yourself wherever you may be along your path. A number of persons at times defeat themselves by setting goals which are too far-fetched, set up with expectations, then becoming upset when these goals have not been met.

In evolving spiritual consciousness and mind you must have the capacity to know who you are to be able to move forward. Knowing who you are is your ability to access spirit. Spirit has an uncanny ability to show you the bare facts and raw truth about self. Spirit is not obsessed with accoutrements, frills and embellishment. Spirit is more concerned with the ability to view yourself naked, bare, and to see yourself exactly as you are in an effort to offer suggestions and hints to move forward, deal with what needs to be corrected, to make better decisions and to provide opportunities to seek help and understanding to deal with any aspects of your life.

Living in the world as an individual amongst a large group of people, it becomes necessary to be able to practice who you are in a way in which you can accept and tolerate who everyone else is and where they may be. This does not necessasrily imply that you have to indulge others behavior. Having the ability to accept others and not react to situations which affront you is the ability to grasp within yourself a strong sense and responsibility to your spiritual inclination.

The model for this is indwelling spirit, who rather conscious or knowingly, patiently sits, lives quietly within your mind, unconditionally accepting and loving you. Neither judging, pushing or aggravating you. Yet has the ability to meet you wherever you are, at that moment when you can access spirit. Never will you hear the spirit say to you that I cannot offer help to you, you have been bad, what you did yesterday was not very good. Never will spirit abandon any dream, desire, hope or any aspect of help you may need. This is not spirit's function. Spirit cannot be bent, moved or changed to your conditions. It is you who bends, moves, changes and transforms to the conditions of spirit. Sometimes it is quite difficult to tolerate change and all aspects which accompany dramatic change — change in thought, change in practice, change in intention, desire, as well as just everyday physical changes, small yet necessary changes. 

What is it that has the ability to ground you in centeredness. All of this can change around you, yet you are unmoved, you can standforth in a stance of acceptance and tolerance, love. The ability to see the striving spiritual aspect of a given situation. The striving spiritual aspect of a situation is such like when you experience doubt and confusion and problems, because spirit is attempting to motivate you to change, to get your attention. Things are not working to your satisfaction, and spirit is interferring in your life. You are certainly interferring in your own lives. The ability grasp the intention of spirit as your own good intention and worth to move into a new territory within yourself where your will and work is synchronized with spirit's ability to show you what you must move into next and what you are to do to bring yourself to where spirit is attempting to bring you.

Spirit acknowleges everything that you do. Spirit is the only entity who has the ability to access your intention in time, as you become more spirit conscious, you will have the ability to access intention. 

Why is tolerance such a human issue. Let us look at where you come from. Does a hawk tolerate a mouse? Does the lion tolerate the gazelle? Do the large fish tolerate the small fish? You can see that in a basic and human-animal sense, intolerance is an aspect of fear. Animal mind is so strong that it wants to regulate thought patterns and justify this as social order. In contrast to this, spirit is attempting to identify you as an individual a unique son and daughter. You must live two lives. You must live the life of a citizen, and you must live the life of a son and daughter of spirit. Look at these aspects of tolerance. 

You constantly have to compormise your ego ideals and standards, to allow others the ability and opportunity to experience themselves without your interferrence. This is a core issue in human behavior. It is one of the first fruits of the spirit which appears on the spiritual vine of endurance and transformation. It is a very simple, yet utterly profound ability to constantly access spirit in the face of so much challenging differences. 

When confronted with a situation you cannot deal with modestly at first, stop and look at what you are having an issue with. Look at how you can best deal with this situation for everyone involved. Look at what you are having a challenge to tolerate and sense what it is that you fear in this situation. You will find that this ability to look clearly at a situation will show you how you used to deal with this, and allow spirit to "show you" a better way. You begin to sense that you are changing, you are not identifying with the type of behavior and patterns which were the former you, you are now moving into a spiritual motivated sense of purpose and being. Acknowlege this. Allow spirit mind a chance to acknowlege you by showing you its ability to interact and interface a situation for you. Tolerate spirit's ability to show you a better way. 

There is no need for a spiritually motivated mind to tolerate the indulgence of the ego-mind, its behavior patterns, its judgements, its narrow sense of self, its ability to cut you off from your true identity of self. This mind of your ego identity is just your generic default mind attempting to gain recognition through you, using you to extend its short life. Its power and connection to your will presents a struggle and contrast to the power and control which spirit mind is moving you into.

The more you gain control of your spiritual mind by allowing spirit to access your will, you reach a threshold where you gain the ability to dominate your lower and former identity. 

It is like you are perforating this dense and compact bubble around your ego-self, your animal-mind, this small mind which cannot actually be consumed. It has to be acknowleged so that its boundary begins to soften, its shape begins to change, its pattern begins to take a new shape and begins to become formed to the larger spiritual mind, this greater mind with its spiritual depth perception. 

You can make decisions now which will impact and change your future, bring your future to you in a more functional and integrated way. You have two minds. Spirit mind which is a hundred percent tolerant and forgiving, nurturing and holding your mind, your developing mind with the intention that this mind will begin to sense a need to break and pop out of the small egg shell shaped mind into the greater spirit mind, and access a larger potential of beingness. 

Spirit does not give you anything for nothing. The Father is not going to give you the keys to the kingdom if you are not going to use them to open and access your own capacity to be of love and service to another. Spirit is willing to guide, to hold your hand, to assist you in every capacity. All that is needed is your activation, your ability to decide to move in the guided direction. Then spirit has something to work with. Spirit always provides decision an opportunity.