1 result for (book:ss AND session:587 AND stemmed:characterist)
[... 4 paragraphs ...]
Such religious dramas focus, direct, and, hopefully, clarify aspects of inner reality that need to be physically represented. (Long pause, eyes closed.) These do not only appear within your own system. Many are also projected into other systems of reality. Religion per se, however, is always the external facade of inner reality. The primary spiritual existence alone gives meaning to the physical one. In the most real terms, religion should include all of the pursuits of man in his search for the nature of meaning and truth. Spirituality cannot be some isolated, specialized activity or characteristic.
[... 21 paragraphs ...]
To be effectively organized, however, inner and outer experience had to appear as separate, disconnected events. Historically the characteristics of God changed as man’s ego changed. These characteristics of the ego, however, were supported by strong inner changes.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
The original propulsion of inner characteristics outward into the formation of the ego could be compared with the birth of innumerable stars — an event of immeasurable consequences that originated on a subjective level and within inner reality.
[... 6 paragraphs ...]
(10:38.) So the concept of God began to change as the ego recognized its reliance upon inner reality, but the drama had to be worked out within the current framework. Mohammedanism was basically so violent precisely because Christianity was basically so gentle. Not that Christianity was not mixed with violence, or that Mohammedanism was devoid of love. But as the psyche went through its developments and battled with itself, denying some feelings and characteristics and stressing others, so the historic religious exterior dramas represented and followed these inner aspirations, struggles, and searches.
(Slower now): All of this material now given must be considered along with the fact that beneath these developments there are the eternal aspects and creative characteristics of a force that is both undeniable and intimate. All That Is, in other words, represents the reality from which all of us spring. (Pause, one of several.) All That Is, by its nature, transcends all dimensions of activity, consciousness, or reality, while being a part of each.
[... 20 paragraphs ...]