Memory is KEY

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Zachary
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Memory is KEY

Post by Zachary »

Memory is key to existence.

Before getting into memory I must mention the obvious. As a human we are all born, and we all die. The difference between being young and being old are very different. You would think as time goes by your automatically better prepared for anything that comes your way. This mostly proves true, but not always. As we age as individuals, we don't necessarily grow. As we age, more opportunities to grow become available, but it's up to us to acknowledge these opportunities and utilize them. A lifetime spent ignoring these opportunities of growth is unhealthy. I'm sure you can picture an older person with anger and sour ideas still in their minds after all the years and trials this person has experienced. I'm also sure you can picture a young child who is constantly expressing more love than his/her parents. The bottom line is age doesn't matter as much as the opportunities do. You age automatically, but you grow at your own pace. To me age and time are just tools to compliment the reality we live in. An evolutionary planet.

The arguably more powerful tool that compliments evolution is memory. Without memory you are nothing... Can you imagine if you forgot how to walk one day? What about if you suddenly forgot how to drive or how to speak?? These ideas are very unlikely, however, I use them to remind you how powerful memory is. It keeps you moving forward, rather than going backwards or staying neutral. Memory is key in transitioning yourself further. They say you must learn to crawl before you walk and you must learn to walk before you run. If you failed to remember how to walk, then trying to run must seem impossible. Using our memory we can transition ourselves past the limits we put on ourselves. If you have a great memory then you can recall your past and actually use the past effectively towards the future. If you tend to not have a great memory then it seems easy to be in a neutral or even backwards state of progression. As far as I'm concerned memory is our identity. If your memory is forgotten, so is your identity and what makes you, you.
"Why try to use the wrong tool for the job when you have just the perfect tool. If only you would pick it up and learn to use it." -TA
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Re: Memory is KEY

Post by overmind »

I will have to disagree a little since personality is not memory dependent. For lower animals which do not possess individuality the way we do, memories do serve as the main factor for identity. But for humans, we become unique individuals after conception. Without memory, we would simply lack awareness of the past and find it hard to imagine the future. We would be absorbed in the present, and our perspective of the present environment would still be unique. Memory is necessary for growth, but it is not necessary for existence since we exist before we can even create memories.
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Re: Memory is KEY

Post by Sandy »

Hi Zachary and Arthur,

I was thinking about both your posts and wondered what the Urantia book had to say about memory. In the first offering in my concordex there lists a passage in the Urantia Book that many of us weep as we read....

On page 1969D Paper 182 IN GETHSEMANE
The experience of parting with the apostles was a great strain on the human heart of Jesus; this sorrow of love bore down on him and made it more difficult to face such a death as he well knew awaited him. He realized how weak and how ignorant his apostles were, and he dreaded to leave them. He well knew that the time of his departure had come, but his human heart longed to find out whether there might not possibly be some legitimate avenue of escape from this terrible plight of suffering and sorrow. And when it had thus sought escape, and failed, it was willing to drink the cup. The divine mind of Michael knew he had done his best for the twelve apostles; but the human heart of Jesus wished that more might have been done for them before they should be left alone in the world. Jesus’ heart was being crushed; he truly loved his brethren. He was isolated from his family in the flesh; one of his chosen associates was betraying him. His father Joseph’s people had rejected him and thereby sealed their doom as a people with a special mission on earth. His soul was tortured by baffled love and rejected mercy. It was just one of those awful human moments when everything seems to bear down with crushing cruelty and terrible agony.

(1969.5) 182:3.10 Jesus’ humanity was not insensible to this situation of private loneliness, public shame, and the appearance of the failure of his cause. All these sentiments bore down on him with indescribable heaviness. In this great sorrow his mind went back to the days of his childhood in Nazareth and to his early work in Galilee. At the time of this great trial there came up in his mind many of those pleasant scenes of his earthly ministry. And it was from these old memories of Nazareth, Capernaum, Mount Hermon, and of the sunrise and sunset on the shimmering Sea of Galilee, that he soothed himself as he made his human heart strong and ready to encounter the traitor who should so soon betray him.
It seems in Jesus example above that memory can be used as a tool to help us get past the heaviness that Life presents us and to move forward.

on page 1779C Paper 160 RODAN OF ALEXANDRIA
"Train your memory to hold in sacred trust the strength-giving and worth-while episodes of life, which you can recall at will for your pleasure and edification. Thus build up for yourself and in yourself reserve galleries of beauty, goodness, and artistic grandeur. But the noblest of all memories are the treasured recollections of the great moments of a superb friendship. And all of these memory treasures radiate their most precious and exalting influences under the releasing touch of spiritual worship."
I love that quote and it gives me great comfort when I look towards the future beyond mortal existence.

On Page 550A Paper 48 THE MORONTIA LIFE
"The principles of Urantian play life are philosophically sound and continue to apply on up through your ascending life, through the circuits of Havona to the eternal shores of Paradise. As ascendant beings you are in possession of personal memories of all former and lower existences, and without such identity memories of the past there would be no basis for the humor of the present, either mortal laughter or morontia mirth. It is this recalling of past experiences that provides the basis for present diversion and amusement. And so you will enjoy the celestial equivalents of your earthly humor all the way up through your long morontia, and then increasingly spiritual, careers. And that part of God (the Adjuster) which becomes an eternal part of the personality of an ascendant mortal contributes the overtones of divinity to the joyous expressions, even spiritual laughter, of the ascending creatures of time and space."
On page 1235C Paper 112 PERSONALITY SURVIVAL
"And when you thus awaken on the mansion worlds of Jerusem, you will be so changed, the spiritual transformation will be so great that, were it not for your Thought Adjuster and the destiny guardian, who so fully connect up your new life in the new worlds with your old life in the first world, you would at first have difficulty in connecting the new morontia consciousness with the reviving memory of your previous identity. Notwithstanding the continuity of personal selfhood, much of the mortal life would at first seem to be a vague and hazy dream. But time will clarify many mortal associations.

(1235.4) 112:5.22 "The Thought Adjuster will recall and rehearse for you only those memories and experiences which are a part of, and essential to, your universe career. If the Adjuster has been a partner in the evolution of aught in the human mind, then will these worth-while experiences survive in the eternal consciousness of the Adjuster. But much of your past life and its memories, having neither spiritual meaning nor morontia value, will perish with the material brain; much of material experience will pass away as onetime scaffolding which, having bridged you over to the morontia level, no longer serves a purpose in the universe. But personality and the relationships between personalities are never scaffolding; mortal memory of personality relationships has cosmic value and will persist. On the mansion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will remember, and be remembered by, your onetime associates in the short but intriguing life on Urantia."
On page 1235A Paper 112 PERSONALIYT SURVIVAL
"3. When these prerequisites of repersonalization have been assembled, the seraphic custodian of the potentialities of the slumbering immortal soul, with the assistance of numerous cosmic personalities, bestows this morontia entity upon and in the awaiting morontia mind-body form while committing this evolutionary child of the Supreme to eternal association with the waiting Adjuster. And this completes the repersonalization, reassembly of memory, insight, and consciousness — identity."
I haven't analysed these paper quotes as thoroughly as I should because I am not feeling good today, but it does seem that memory while not exactly impacting our God given Personality, it does have some importance to each of us, as far as identity, who we are as we ascend through the worlds of time.

Love to all of you, my dear friends...
Sandy
“We measure and evaluate your Spiritual Progress on the Wall of Eternity." – Guardian of Destiny, Alverana.
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Re: Memory is KEY

Post by overmind »

This is how I would put it. A loss of memory does not impact identity, it impacts how we identify ourselves. It changes how we understand ourselves, but does not alter who we are overall. The effects would be temporary anyway since we can get memories back. Even if that was not the case, God sees us as the same individuals.
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Re: Memory is KEY

Post by Zachary »

I now see what you mean Arthur. thanks for the insight... It changes how we see ourselves but not who we are. Simply we will always be the same person in the eyes of God.

Thanks for the U-book quotes Sandy, I'm not very good at finding great quotes related to the subject of my post, lol. I never find the good ones like you! even when your not feeling good you still make more sense than me, lol. hope you feel better :colors:
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Re: Memory is KEY

Post by Sandy »

I am feeling much better, Zachary. Thanks for asking. :D I must admit I have a Urantia book concordex which helps me locate offerings on a particular subject. At one point I did know fairly easily where these things were found or at least had a general idea, but oh my, these days I need all the help I can get. :shock:
xx Sandy
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Re: Memory is KEY

Post by 11light11 »

Zachary,

I loved what you said so much, I had to quote you in overmind's post about Love & its opposites! ;) This line here:
I'm also sure you can picture a young child who is constantly expressing more love than his/her parents.
Just brilliant!

Thank you for sharing these thoughts, they gave me a lot to think about.

With love,
Michele :kiss:
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Re: Memory is KEY

Post by vivrider »

Very interesting post, and it answers some questions I have had recently. Sandy, what is a Urantia book concordex?

Love, Vivian
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