Editor’s Note: Don’t miss this book, the editor’s favorite. Read earlier chapters here: Introduction; Chapter 1; Chapter 2, Part 1; Chapter 2, Part 2; Chapter 3, Part 1 .
Traveling the Path of Light from Spirit, to Man, to God
For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth … for in heaven created I them. (Moses 3:5)
In this section we will explore the organization of holy spirit into a spirit personage and then the way in which that spirit takes upon itself a body and, through a long journey of sanctifying body and mind, arrives at Godhood.
Holy spirit has great potential but must find kinetic expression through organization. “Now, this Spirit always existed; it always operated, but it is not understood, and cannot be comprehended
except through organisms. If you see a living blade of grass you see a manifestation of that Spirit which is called God. If you see an animal of any kind on the face of the earth having life, there is a manifestation of that Spirit.”24 Brigham Young explains that its godly “attributes can be made manifest only through an organized personage. All [its] attributes are couched in and are the results of organized existence.”25 Elder John A. Widtsoe emphasizes that when we see any living manifestation of holy spirit, we also see God’s will impressed upon this medium through which He works. “Without the medium God would be helpless to execute, while still retaining all his power to invent. Without God, the medium would remain changeless, inert, throughout all eternity, having no power of initiation within itself.”26
This scintillating spirit can be found in all degrees of purity, that is, from electricity, which is one of the more gross forms of spiritual matter, “up through all the gradations of the invisible fluids, till we arrive at a substance so holy, so pure, so endowed with intellectual attributes and sympathetic affections, that it may be said to be on a par … in its attributes with man.”27 When a given quantity of this purest form of holy spirit element is organized in the size and form of Man, with every organ developed, formed, endowed, precisely after the pattern of Man’s outward body, we have a “spiritual body,” “an individual intelligence, an agent endowed with life, with a degree of independence, or inherent will, with the powers of motion, of thought, and with the attributes of moral, intellectual, and sympathetic affections and emotions.”28
Man, then, was organized in the premortal world out of the holiest and purest form of holy spirit. Begotten of loving heavenly parents (see d&c 76:24), we grew up in a heavenly environment.
Love was the air we breathed. The organized spirit
was born and matured in the heavenly mansions, trained in the school of love in the family circle, and amid the most tender embraces of parental and fraternal affection. In this primeval probation, in its heavenly home, it lived and moved as a free and rational intelligence, acting upon its own agency, and, like all intelligence, independent in its own sphere. It was placed under certain laws and was responsible to its great Patriarchal Head.29
We passed a long period of development in the spirit world. But we knew that our premortal state was transitory because we could witness throughout the sidereal heavens worlds organized and peopled with fellow spirits who left the premortal world, took upon them bodies, died, were resurrected, and received their exaltation on the redeemed worlds they once dwelt on.30 Even though we were already highly developed beings, we learned that a body would give us power to advance and be exalted in the scale of intelligence, both in time and eternity.31 We therefore knew that the next step on the journey was for us to come to the material world.
And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. … Nevertheless, all things were before created; but spiritually were they created. (Moses 3:7)
Elder John A. Widtsoe explains one reason why Man had to come to a material dimension:
The universe is dual: spiritual and material, composed of “spirit-element” and “matter-element.” These two realms are closely interwoven, perhaps of the same ultimate source; yet they are distinct in their nature. Mastery of the universe means acquaintanceship with and control of both of these elemental divisions of the universe in which we live.32
In spite of the fact that the body would be made of a grosser material than the spirit, it “was necessary as an habitation for it that [the spirit] might be clothed with a body, perfect in its organization, beautiful in its structure, symmetrical in its proportions, and in every way fit for an eternal intelligent being; that through it, it might speak, act, enjoy, and develop its power, its intelligence and perpetuate its species. … They [the spirits] had the intelligence before, but now they saw a way through which to develop it.”33
The spirits knew that by the union of their spirit with a body of flesh they would be capable of continued increase, ultimate perfection, and eternal exaltation, “that the spirit, quick, subtle, refined, lively, animate, energetic, and eternal, might have a body through which to operate … [in order that the spirits not be left to] spend their force at random, or remain dormant, or useless, without those more tangible, material objects, through which to exercise their force. Thus, then, was the body formed as an agent for the spirit.”34
Man’s Body
In the eternal plan, the spirit is to rule the body as its tool of divine expression. But the body was also designed to be the instrument of Man’s fullest joy as it was sanctified, redeemed by the power of the Atonement, resurrected, and exalted in the eternal world; for “man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy; and when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy” (D&C 93:33–34).
Through the history of Man on the earth, various philosophies and religions have regarded Man’s body as unworthy and unspiritual, to be rejected, to be vilified, to be renounced. But in the revelations we find that all the organs our body uses here have their spiritual counterparts and have taken their place in this world of form impressed with the image of a glorified, material
Heavenly Father and Mother.35 The true needs of the body are the needs of the spirit, which uses the body as an instrument for its development and its ministry. The body, therefore, is a precious treasure and treating it well, increasing in it the enlivening powers of holy spirit, magnifies the soul’s powers. The line between spirit and body is not always clear, composed as they are of varying forms of the same material, and so joy is often experienced through all parts of our whole being and vibrates along the entire continuum of material and spiritual.
A feeling of joyful wholeness can come from moments of feeling fully integrated, body and spirit. Many ancient disciplines teach how to develop greater spiritual perception through the integration of body and spirit.
Everything that we behold on earth has its unseen spirit body in the image of its physical form (see D&C 77:2), each creature reflecting in some way the beauty of its spiritual creation and purpose. Man’s happiness will be greater as he identifies with his own spiritual origins and nature, as well as others’ too. We can look through the physical to the spiritual beauty and purpose of each living thing and increase our own perception and joy by so doing. The enlightened person looks on Creation with love and with reverence for every creature that lives. He knows that his body is given him to increase his power to help others, that for this he was born, and that his life and happiness are inextricably entwined with others’, and that this is the message streaming from the secret springs.
Elder Charles W. Penrose summarizes briefly the stages in Man’s journey from his spiritual organization to his ultimate destiny:
The perfection of [holy spirit’s] manifestation is in the personality of a being called God. That is a person who has passed through all the gradations of being, and who contains within Himself the fulness, manifested and expressed, of this divine spirit.… If you see a man you behold its most perfect earthly manifestation. And if you see a glorified man, a man who has passed through the various grades of being, who has overcome all things, who has been raised from the dead, who has been quickened by this spirit in its fulness, there you see manifested, in its perfection, this eternal, beginningless, endless spirit of intelligence. Such a Being is our Father and our God, and we are following in His footsteps.… He is a perfect manifestation, expression and revelation of this eternal essence, this spirit of eternal, everlasting intelligence or light of truth.36
Man as spirit, as human being, or as God, will never outgrow his need for holy spirit.
The Heavenly Spirit Strives with Man in His Journey
Man arrives on earth with embryonic divinity. He is “a part of God,” “a spark of Deity struck from the fire of his eternal blaze,” as President Taylor writes.37 He has “every organ, attribute, sense, sympathy, affection that is possessed by God Himself,” says Elder Parley Pratt, but “these attributes are in embryo; and are to be gradually developed. They resemble a bud, a germ, which gradually develops into bloom, and then, by progress, produces the mature fruit, after its own kind.”38
But even with all this potential, Man has only a basic set of life-functions activated here. This set is designed to sustain physical life and to provide rational powers that we might “live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28), but these life-functions are not enough to exalt us in the eternal world. Elder Orson Pratt speaks of the greater workings of the Holy Ghost on Man:
“So far as the operations of the Holy Spirit upon the mind are manifest, it is evident that it does not dwell in unholy temples; that is, it does not dwell in them to sanctify, to purify, to teach the mind in such temples; but it merely dwells in them to carry on those processes, generally ascribed to the laws of nature.”39 Holy spirit provides basic life forces, but the Holy Ghost adds greater dimensions.
Brigham Young provides an example of the way in which Man can, through his awareness, cultivate these enhanced spiritual forces. He likens Man’s dependence on these to a tree’s dependence on unseen nutrients in the atmosphere and sunlight. Man’s consciousness of the existence of unseen spiritual nutrients in his environment gives him greater access to them.
Brigham says, “The Elders of Israel, though the great majority of them are moral men, and as clear of spot and blemish as men well can be, live beneath their privilege; they live continually without enjoying the power of God. I want to see men and women breathe the Holy Ghost in every breath of their lives, living constantly in the light of God’s countenance.”40 Basic life-forces, even morality, are not enough.
The fountain of Spirit can become for Man an eternal source of increase:
I have often told you from this stand, if you cleave to holy, godlike principles, you add more good to your organization, which is made independent in the first place, and the good spirit and influence which come from the Father of lights, and from Jesus Christ, and from the holy angels add good to it. And when you have been proved, and when you have labored and occupied sufficiently upon that, it will become in you what Brother Joseph Smith told Elder Taylor, if he would adhere to the Spirit of the Lord strictly, it should become in him … a fountain of revelation. That is true. After a while the Lord will say to such, “My son, you have been faithful, you have clung to good, and you love righteousness, and hate iniquity, from which you have turned away, now you shall have the blessing of the Holy Spirit to lead you, and be your constant companion, from this time henceforth and forever.” Then the Holy Spirit becomes your property, it is given to you for a profit, and an eternal blessing. It tends to addition, extension, and increase, to immortality and eternal lives.41
Brigham comments on Man’s powers of increase in the celestial kingdom:
It supposed by this people that we have all the ordinances in our possession … that can be administered in the flesh; but there are other ordinances and administrations that must be administered beyond this world. … We have not, neither can we receive here, the ordinance and keys of the resurrection. They will be given to those who have passed off this state of action and have received their bodies again, as many have already done and many more will. They will be ordained, by those who hold the keys of the resurrection, to go forth and resurrect the Saints, just as we receive the ordinance of baptism, then the keys of authority to baptize others for the remission of their sins. This is one of the ordinances we cannot receive here, and there are many more. … We have not the power in the flesh to create and bring forth or produce a spirit; but we have the power to produce a temporal body. The germ of this, God has placed within us. And when our spirits receive our bodies, and through our faithfulness we are worthy to be crowned, we will then receive authority to produce both spirit and body. But these keys we cannot receive in the flesh. Herein, brethren, you can perceive that we have not finished, and cannot finish our work, while we live here, no more than Jesus did while he was in the flesh. We cannot receive, while in the flesh, the keys to form and fashion kingdoms and to organize matter, for they are beyond our capacity and calling, beyond this world.
In the resurrection, men who have been faithful and diligent in all things in the flesh, have kept their first and second estate, and worthy to be crowned Gods, even the sons of God, will be ordained to organize matter.42
On the other hand, he says, “Every kingdom will be blotted out of existence, except the one whose ruling spirit is the Holy Ghost, and whose king is the Lord.”43 He suggests that those who cultivate evil principles will ultimately undergo some form of disorganization, they will be
decomposed, both soul and body, and return to their native element I do not say that they will be annihilated; but they will be disorganized, and will be as though they never had been, while we will live and retain our identity, and contend against those principles which tend to death or dissolution. I am after life. …If you wish to retain your present identity in the morn of the resurrection, you must so live that the principle of life will be within you as a well of water springing up unto eternal life.44
Spirit is a dynamic element, either seeking a higher degree of organization in Man, or slipping backwards to a lower degree—all in accordance with the way in which Man uses his mind.
The Holy Ghost’s work is particularly with Man’s mind. Joseph teaches that this Spirit “has no other effect than pure intelligence. It is … powerful in expanding the mind, enlightening the understanding, and storing the intellect with present knowledge.”45
Spiritual Frontier of the Mind
Man’s spiritual frontier consists of his mind and spirit. These are the instruments of his transformation. Joseph explains that even though the “mind of man is coequal with God himself,” 46 “all mind and spirit God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement.” That is, although Man’s intelligence cannot be created or made, it can be enlarged. We also note that the prophet equated mind and spirit. Heavenly Father’s children are, then, primarily mind, and, considering their divine origin, even creative mind—with infinite potential to create, not only worlds, but to participate in creating themselves as Gods. The prophet elaborates, “You have to learn how to make yourselves God[s], Kings, Priests, etc., by going from a small to great capacity. Till [you] are able to dwell in everlasting burning and everlasting power.”47 These achievements become possible only as Man gets control of his own mind and shapes it as an instrument through which God can extend power to him.
Obviously, then, the Gods are committed to the development of Man’s mind which must be enlarged according to certain laws and principles in a relationship with Them: “The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. God has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences that they may be exalted with himself.”48 Joseph elaborates on this process—God’s part and Man’s part:
We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; and like the ancients arrives at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his Maker, and is caught up to dwell with Him. But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment. He must have been instructed in the government and laws of that kingdom by proper degrees.49
We see that to fulfill his destiny, Man must learn the laws of God and bring his mind into harmony with them; he must, Elder Widstoe says, be “permeated by the vibration of law” and come into possession of Truth through “the prehensile power of the soul.”50 Man is designed to reach for and grasp and fill himself deliberately with Truth and Light and thus to be quickened with the same energies as the Gods in their Heaven. For this purpose the energetic Word of God is provided, it having a quickening or vibratory effect on the human mind (see Alma 31:5) as it causes the mind to expand (see Alma 32:34); for the word of the Lord is truth, which is light, which is Spirit, “even the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (D&C 84:45).
Dr. Alvin K. Benson observes:
By proper attunement to the source of truth, the knowledge and understanding carried by light from Christ can be absorbed by our bodies through a phenomenon analogous to quantum mechanical resonance. This attunement is like the light-matter interactions producing resonance phenomena in radio, television, and spectroscopy. When attuned to spiritual resonant frequencies through obedience, we receive more and more light (truth) until we are perfected. (See D&C 50:24, 93:28, 88:49)51
Perhaps we have been tempted in the past to complain about the exacting nature of the commandments we have been given; but, on reflection, we see how privileged we are to have received with the Restoration of the Gospel the Law which preserves, perfects, and sanctifies the person who obeys it (see D&C 88:34). Embracing this Law as fully as we can prepares us to be quickened by the power of the celestial glory, actually causing the vibratory changes in our spiritual physics that resonate with that power. On the other hand, to the degree that a person chooses a law in place of the Lord’s, he must inherit a kingdom to which his lower vibration corresponds (see D&C 88:35). Thus we see how indispensable it is for the Seeker to keep searching into the Law and conforming himself to it.
The perfecting process takes Man from one dimension of perception to another, clearing and expanding his vision as he goes. It is apparent that certain dimensions become perceptible by us only as we reach their vibrational level through the conscious incorporation of Truth. The Savior deliberately magnified Light and Truth and Intelligence in Himself and consciously filled His own inner being until He was brimming with these and was able to comprehend all things (see D&C 93:24; also D&C 88:67). The Seeker will do as He did.
Truth: Man’s Sustenance
The Spirit of truth, Elder F. Enzio Busche declares, must become our “constant and infinite guide,” and thus we come to see the “real me,” or the spiritual child of God, created in innocence and beauty, but engaged in a battle against the misery making forces of darkness. He continues:
It is Jesus Christ who, through His light, is searching and finding each individual child of God who is yearning and fighting for righteousness and truth and who is crying for help. … Through the Light of Christ our minds are quickened with understanding (see D&C 88:11).
The issue is truth, my dear brothers and sisters, and the only way to find truth is through uncompromising self-education toward self-honesty to see the original “real me,” the child of God, in its innocence and potential in contrast to the influence from the other part of me, “the flesh,” with its selfish desires and foolishness.
52
Elder Busche touches upon the very issue that can provide relief to the Traveler in the Wilderness. Let him wipe away the film of unbelief and find refuge in the Truth of his own being.
When he is tired, and hungry, and thirsty for he knows not what, he could remember the healing power of Truth.
So often, our suffering and bewilderment have to do with having left the path of the Truth in some way or other and then having come to doubt its power. We have in some way forgotten that our aim is not only to experience positive emotions, nor just to feel good by whatever means, but it is to be true to the Truth of our being. Sometimes the solution is as simple as coming into resonance with that Truth; then that yielding can restore our luster.
Man must feed on Truth; only then is he capable of union with God. Untruth in all its possible shades puts him out of harmony with divine forces. Thus the Holy Spirit leads the Seeker to be “a mind that feeds upon infinity,” intent to hear the Voice carried on silent light into the abyss of his soul.53 Thus Man’s music increasingly resonates with the harmony of the spheres.
And feeding on such Truth, the Spirit may awaken him, “in a dream or vision, or by the spirit of prophecy … to a partial vision, or to a dim and half defined recollection of the intelligence of the past,” says Elder Parley P. Pratt. “[Man] sees in part, and he knows in part; but never while tabernacled in mortal flesh will he fully awaken to the intelligence of his former estate. It surpasses his comprehension, is unspeakable and even unlawful to be uttered.”54 One day our former glories will be unveiled again; meanwhile, just the knowledge that we are full of unutterable wonders can light our way—yes, can cause us to question our current perceptions of reality and expand toward greater ones.
Meanwhile, the Lord has placed Man in a darkened world, but Man can awaken to the awareness that both he and the Wilderness in which he finds himself are permeated with living Light.
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24. Penrose, jd 26:23.
25.JD 10:193.
26. Joseph Smith as Scientist (Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 1990), 47–48.
27. Parley P. Pratt, jd 1:8.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., 1:57.
30. See “Origin, Object, and Destiny of Women.”
31. Parley P. Pratt, jd 1:7–9.
32. Evidences and Reconciliations (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1965), 72.
33. John Taylor, The Government of God (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book
Company, 1992), 78–79.
34. Ibid.
35. “This organized spirit we call a body, because, although composed of
the spiritual elements, it possesses every organ after the pattern, and in
the likeness or similitude of the outward or fleshly tabernacle it is destined
eventually to inhabit. Its organs of thought, speech, sight, hearing, tasting,
smelling, feeling, etc., all exist in their order as in the physical body; the
one being the exact similitude of the other. This individual, spiritual body,
was begotten by the Heavenly Father, in his own likeness and image, and
by the laws of procreation” (Key to the Science of Theology, 56).
36. JD 26:24–25.
37. John Taylor, Government of God, 80.
38. Key to the Science of Theology, 101. Included here are Elder Pratt’s well known
words on the effect of the Holy Ghost on Man’s faculties: “The gift
of the Holy Ghost adapts itself to all these organs or attributes. It quickens
all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the
natural passions and affections; and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom,
to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates and matures all the
fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings, and affections of our
nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness and
charity. It develops beauty of person, form and features. It tends to health,
vigor, animation and social feeling. It invigorates all the faculties of the
physical and intellectual man. It strengthens, and gives tone to the nerves.
In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the
eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being. … Such is the gift of
the Holy Ghost, and such are its operations, when received through the
lawful channel—the divine, eternal priesthood” (100, 102).
39. Orson Pratt, Writings, 52.
40. JD 9:288.
41. JD 2:135.
42. JD 15:137.
43. JD 2:124.
44. Ibid., JD 7:56–57. Elder John A. Widtsoe comments, “President
Brigham Young has suggested that the ultimate punishment of the sons
of perdition may be that they, having their spiritual bodies disorganized,
must start over again—must begin anew the long journey of existence, repeating
the steps that they took in the eternities before the Great Council
was held. That would be punishment, indeed!” (Evidences and Reconciliation,
213).
45. TPJS, 149.
46. WJS, 341. “Co-equal” is taken to mean “co-existent” or “co-eternal.”
47. Ibid., 341.
48. Ibid., 346.
49. HC 2:8.
50. Joseph Smith as Scientist, 155.
51. Benson, 164.
52. “Truth Is the Issue,” Ensign, November 1993, 24.
53. Reference to William Wordsworth, “The Prelude” (1850) 14.70–75.
54. Key to the Science of Theology, 58.
