Sin

Aaron: Lucifer became fully convinced of his ideas after he refused to turn back from his distorted thinking when he was aware that he was sliding over the edge, and permitted himself to move past that point to where he sincerely was self-deluded.  

Evil, when it is contemplated consciously becomes sin, and sin if it is not forsaken becomes iniquity; and iniquity is virtually impossible to reverse. The recognition of evil as evil, as error, as misjudgment, is that point at which a person can return to the truth and enlarge their perspective, can admit that they have erred, and keep themselves from moving into deliberate embrace, which is sin. This explains why some of the lesser celestial beings involved in the Rebellion repented and were willing to admit their error, while the major perpetrators, Lucifer, Caligastia, Daligastia, and others on other planets persisted in their rejection of the truth and their refusal of mercy.  

The truth shall set you free: free from error, free from sin, free from delusion, free from guilt, free to love, free to expand the boundaries of your souls, free to see the enlarged landscape of the Father's love embracing multitudinous universes, with multitudinous free-will creatures embracing each other in joy.  

Sin and iniquity are painful and death-dealing. Both are able to be forgiven, for God's mercy is infinite. But in order for forgiveness to be effective it must be received, and this is the tragedy of the Lucifer Rebellion.  Its self-deceived high personalities refused to admit their errors, continued deliberately to choose them until their personality status was near vanishing, and they were unable to change. But those who choose to
halt their thinking along erroneous lines while they still had their sanity, and while they still knew right from wrong, turned and changed their minds and were offered not only mercy but rehabilitation and further universe service.  

Difficult as it may be in the midst of painful situations to refrain from judgment and condemnation, remember my dear friends that while you need to know truth it is not up to you to determine another's eternal destiny. You do not have to be the judge and the arbitrator of any one's life, including your own. Try to understand how Michael could forgive His murderers while He hung on the nails through His hands, his body supported crudely at the crotch and the pressure on the nails through His feet and yet looked upon these men and women and said 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.' It is God like to forgive and human to err.

Embrace your total human experience; look at all the dark crannies and corners of your life with the searchlight of truth. But do not become stuck in judgmental, conditional thoughts. None of us knows another person in the entirety of their experience so that we could be competent to judge. Only God, through His agencies, has that wisdom. I am not suggesting that grief be pushed under the rug, no. I am saying that over time, healing will come, even as in the Rebellion. Far more good has come from permitting its existence than in squelching it immediately.  

Daniel: Regarding the nature of the discussion this evening that Aaron put forth, I would like to ask of you to take a few moments and ponder your concepts of self-will and God's will, and how they relate in your
lives. So often self-will is put forth as God's will, and these terms are not so easily identifiable.  

I would welcome any questions or thoughts each of you may have regarding how you perceive these influences within you life, the struggles you may have to achieve the higher in place of the lower.  

Virginia: I think the biggest issue that is in the forefront of my thoughts are probably my tongue. I think of the verse in the Bible that says 'he who bridles his tongue is stronger he who might take a city.' So often my self-will says 'man, I'm going to get the last word in here.' And often I am muttering to myself, help me keep my mouth shut because I know that this is really the better road to take rather than always having to prove an issue or to show someone something they really don't want to know anyway. So, I think the biggest issue that I am working on and dealing with is simply to control my tongue. It doesn't necessarily say mean things, it just says things that are not necessary.

Daniel: This my friend is a deep insight on a soul level, to recognize that the careless or perhaps useless usage of language certainly does not fall within the realm of God's will for you. Of course, we struggle and do not always attain such levels, but you recognize your desire to become more willing to allow those realizations a place in your actions. 

When you differentiate between the words you may utilize with another, in how you may speak with another, if we set these aside and look more to the inner motivations that guide you, not simply in conversation but in life, do you find that the road of self-will is a valueless path whereas the divine will holds all value? How do you see the role of self-will and God's will in your life?"

Ken: My self-will at this point is dominant with respect to the Father's will, trying to understand Him, trying to make my will His will, trying to understand, to be honest and true, to overcome my fears that I may step out and speak the truth.

Daniel: A quick question which I would ask each of you for a simple yes or no answer regarding, would be do you find, or do you feel, that there is value in expressing self-will?

Group: Yes.

Daniel: Of course, this is probably an obvious question that I'm leading to ask you. By the expression of self-will as a person, what value do you see being gained from a person who has the ability to express their own needs and wants freely?

Pat: Funny you should ask me that! I have trouble doing that. I have difficulty expressing my thoughts and my views, and I know that there is much value in expressing yourself, and growth. And I'm trying to learn to do that. I guess that's my will and not the Father's will, that I'm dealing with.

Daniel: I would take a moment before moving on to mention some key points about the expression of self-will. The ego gains its most dominant status through repression, for here it finds a need to run counter to the repressive influences by building an overinflated view of itself. And here the ego plays masterfully in
disguising its efforts for it is not always the loudest voice or the most boisterous personality who seems to be ego-filled. Quite often does the ego manipulate its way into dominance through creating reinforcements, anything to protect the self. If one cannot see a means to boost its image then the ego may manifest more in building sanctuaries where the personality cannot manifest due to the over-protective environment of the ego that has fallen into fail-safe protective measures. Self-will is any decision made by the self, regardless of negative or positive influence. Therefore, self-will in and of itself is not a negative thing. The self can choose the higher or the lower, and therefore, by learning to express one's self, you become more able to understand the various influences, learning where the protective boundaries may have been a little too tight, where the perceived dangers may not have been so threatening after all, where the animal instincts and the divine will clash, offering numerous opportunities to make choices, to align one's self with the higher will of God. And so therefore through expression of the self you become more able to function healthily to make choices, either higher or lower. The place of stagnation where the lack of choices are is almost more dangerous than to have the opportunity to make incorrect, negative choices. 

Gwen:  I think for me I'm having trouble discerning self-will. I'm struggling with it for the most part I think its because I have an ego that needs to be in control of everybody around me as far as how they see me, and how they act, and if they're happy, you know, and so for me, I guess I'm struggling with what I feel is self-will for myself, and I can, a few times, see this light at the end of the tunnel on occasion when I leave everyone else out of the picture and just see a clear self. And I guess right now I feel that in order to feel God's will I need to address this struggle with my own self-will, and I feel that may be in itself be God's will. 

Daniel: Let me reinforce your conclusion.  This is indeed so.

Gwen: I guess I need to just clarify it for myself by saying it again. Self-will for me is when I'm walking down the street on my own two feet, and the cracks in the sidewalk or the hazards that are in the way, don't affect
me walking down the street in the sense that ... I'm trying to explain this, but I'm getting too abstract .... that I'm unaffected by other people's thoughts and can have my own thoughts, I guess is what I'm trying to say, I mean, everyday I tick and I feel myself ticking based on my boss and what she thinks of me, and my co-workers and what they think of me, and my dog and what he thinks of me, and on occasion all those clouds just clear away and I honestly feeling that I'm doing something, just me walking down the street and not having all these things affect me. And so I think that that's the self-will I'm struggling for.

Daniel: It is a difficult endeavor to break through the hold that ego has on the will. Let me define this as ego not being negative, but protective. Honest self-will is much as you describe this capability to focus upon the
self and your own needs. The ego tends to endeavor to protect you by giving you these perspectives on what everything else requires of you.  

Therefore, you may manipulate and try to please the various influences. Rather in a more healthy view to be able to break through the clouds, as you say, and recognize just yourself and your own needs offers the opportunity to become more in relationship, to not only yourself personally, but also with the Spirit indwelling you. It offers you an opportunity to in more clarity have God's will present and more conscious in your life. For you may choose more effectively based on those inclinations rather than the bombardment of the various influences.  

And so, as you recognize these glimpses of selfhood, realize these are healthy manifestations, trying to bring you into a more definitive state of selfhood. Recognizing yourself as distinct from the wishes and machinations of your environment. In short, the progression is healthy to find this state you speak of more consistently.

Barbara: When you first asked your initial question which was self-will and God's will and how do you know the difference or how do you differentiate between them, the first thought that came to me was I needed to understand self will better. And it's been discussed, but my first thought was that there are ego needs and then there are, for lack of another term, non-ego self needs. And I certainly want to align those, the non-ego self needs and will closer to God's will, and my question that came to my mind when I first thought about this was how do I know that they're becoming somewhat more aligned more frequently? And the
answer than came to me was that I have to look at intention. And if I look at my behavior and my needs, and my wants and my wishes, if I can identify them as ego needs, I don't come down hard on it but I recognize that there is something in my environment, there's something in a situation, there's something in my fears, there's something that is triggering ego defenses. And I need to understand those.  

So if I look at my behavior and say, and can honestly say, that my intention is to win, or the intention is to hurt someone, or the intention is to be praised, or the intention is to garner something from another person, then I can identify that as an ego need. And if I look at the intention and determine that it's not one of those things, and therefore, by default, it's in another category, it's to help another person or to give love to another person or to be supportive or to make a decision that will benefit me in the long run, those kind of things. Then I see those as self will that's becoming or more closely aligned with what I think is God's will. But I really don't know until I analyze the intention. Because I think that I'm behaving in a way that's compatible with God's will, or making decision, but I don't always know until I look at it, and look at intention.  And I don't come down on ego.  

I hear so much negative discussion about ego, and maybe I'm being naive, but for me ego is also God given, it's God given to protect the human organism from real dangers and from imaginary dangers. But I think it's important to be able to recognize when ego is out in front and driving behavior, and that occurs for me when I'm not secure in myself. When I'm secure in myself ego can take a rest; it doesn't have to be there all the time. So sometimes I don't know what God's will is. But I try to look at the intentions now of
my behavior. Those are my comments and my thoughts based on your questions and based on the discussion."

Daniel: Yes, ego is a definite part of the cosmic plan of evolution. In this sense it is God given. Ego is not a negative factor seen from spiritual view in and of itself. Ego is self, the protective mechanism for self. When the negative aspects are placed and commented upon regarding ego, generally it is about the manifestations that are unhealthy, rather than exclaiming the entire ego to be a negative part of the human being.  

Intentions are key in all things. It is a way for one to understand where the will is acting from, by seeing the need, whether it be to hurt, to bring joy, to bring understanding, anger, to any situation. By seeing these
motivations, one can more easily recognize the source of will that is guiding the actions.  

Some actions are not so easily recognizable, for there are many opportunities where humans do things that would appear to be kindness and gracious and loving that are based more in self will and ego need than in
God's will. An example would be the need to please another, not so easily capable of discerning that this is where the need arises. But for the most part the capability to discern motivations and intentions aids immeasurable in bringing self-consciousness to the individual.  

By having self-consciousness the individual has brought a sense of selfhood to themselves, thereby offering the opportunity for the divine will to manifest itself, again much as I communicated with Gwen. Bringing
consciousness to the self offers the opportunity for the self to make choices based on the higher good, not only of itself but of all. And in long-term evolution this recognition of self becomes more and more
undiscernible from a healthy perspective, selfless.  

It is difficult for a being to be selfless until it first knows itself. For many actions appearing selfless, do not necessarily have a base in selflessness, more so the integrated individual has the capability to lose consciousness of itself because it already understands itself. And losing the self-consciousness is then due to a healthy regard for the capabilities of oneself, such that ther is not an ego need that needs to be fulfilled.  

All of these aspects are healthy in your perspectives tonight. Each of you have added great insight to the pot.  

Isaac:  Well since this has moved from person to person and you've asked several questions, my thoughts have also traveled over a road here, similar to Barbara's, I think. I'm also keeping in mind the earlier comment of Aaron, the part that I can remember, where self will appears to have been a deliberate choice of evil and a deliberate continued choice of evil. So I guess I would have to say that it seems clear that self will is of great importance to God, because He has ordained that each of us have free will to choose good or evil. It in itself then has to have the highest value, self will. That is the ability to make choices, and the fact that there is a choice between going in a direction of error and then choosing to continue in error when you know it's error, that is contrasted then with the opposite choice. That is, to choose the truth, and to choose to do the right thing, and to continue to do the right thing. And I feel that when self makes a choice to choose the truth and do the right thing, that is synonymous with doing God's will. So, I think I'll have to agree that self will is a wonderful endowment, that God's decided to make a universe where people could really choose to go against Him, shows His incredible trust and grandeur of character that he would share that ability, which is free will choice, of His own, which He has innately as deity, with His creatures...and I'm grateful that I can choose to do wrong, for it implies that we do have free will. I'm not happy when I choose to do wrong, and I've done some of that in my life. I'm much happier when I choose to do what I understand to be the right and truthful thing.

Daniel: Your insights are greatly appreciated, my friend, for they do underline the neutrality of self will and the influences of good and evil, negative and positive, right and wrong. The self, in itself, is not negative. The choices one makes regarding self identify with higher or lower, correct or incorrect choices. It stands to reason that the higher choices would, of course, be in alignment with God. And therefore, the healthy recognition of self brings the initial capabilities to become a willing participant in the journey toward higher human development.

Let me say before I close that simple insight from the Urantia Revelation that states that doing the will of God is really nothing more or less than the individual creature's willingness to share their inner life with God. In this perspective, particular choices are not necessarily as important as the desire to be a part in life with God, which brings the opportunity for higher enlightenment.