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Seeing eye to eye to bring Zion part two. In part one of this series, we talked about eyes. We talked about how God will reveal everything to you, meaning everything and you and uh we talked about what happens, what will happen as God increases the amount of light that's available in this world or that's released, I guess in this world, as we approach the end of things in this part, we're going to talk about the role of other people in your path to seeing eye to eye when the Lord brings Zion and what your role is in this process. Uh This is to me, an exciting set of topics. Um I mean, as excited as I can be in the middle of the night, being a morning person, but uh I'm anxious to get this released. So we're going to go through it. And it's kind of neat because the topics here in this presentation are very applicable to everyday life. This isn't some esoteric spiritual thing, although it applies to that. Um The, the ideas we talk about are explored more in the glory of God is intelligence, acquiring and disseminating light and truth and I've been sitting on these slides for a little while. I actually got an email yesterday that asked about one question that's answered in this. So I figured I'd better get on it and get it released. So, as usual, this, uh, talk is not a replacement for reading the book. I highly encourage you to get it and to read it. I think you'll find that, um, a lot of the ideas in the book are expressed in a very condensed way. And so we're going to pull out just a few of those and explore them a little bit here using pictures. Um But I think that these things are complimentary. So I encourage you to read the book if you haven't already. OK. So uh we'll start here what determines how much light you have. This is kind of a review I've talked about this a lot, uh obedience and effort. Those are the two things. There are a lot of scriptures that lay out this uh this principle. But the idea is that uh the amount of light that you obtain, there are many synonyms for light, but the amount of light you obtain depends exclusively on these two things. And uh in as much as you apply yourself in these ways, you'll obtain light that you will carry with you after this life. And that is a really big deal. It's central to the purpose of life and mortality. So as far as these things go, obedience, takes experience and effort, takes time. So you get to decide how much of this you're going to do, but you need time to do these things. Um So when you think about the, the way you can most effectively get the greatest amount of light and truth, you're limited in time, but you are not limited in experience if you can benefit from the experience of others. And this is the hack, right? This is the way to get way more light in truth than you otherwise would have. Um a very temporal analogy of this is you are are relatively limited in the number of people that you know and can learn from in life. But if you go to a library, you have instant access to people who may have been much more successful at figuring things out in life than you or the people in your limited circle. So by using the library or the internet or whatever you can uh rub shoulders with and learn from people who far exceed the amount of information that you could get in quality and quantity if you stayed within the people right around you. And it works the same way in this idea of light or knowledge that isn't just limited to temporal things, but all things. The mo the most efficient way of doing this is you find someone who has more light than you do and then you extract every bit of it So you squeeze the orange until there's no juice left and then you throw it away and go get another one. And in most cases, this will be your experience. This has been my experience. You'll meet someone, find out they know something that you don't or something better than, you know, and you will learn everything you can from them and you'll get really good at this so that you could do it very quickly. Uh In fact, you'll be so fast that uh they don't have a chance to learn something else. So you meet someone, you benefit from their entire life's work and then you have more than they do because you have not only acquired what they have to offer, you've built on top of it and you go on your way rejoicing because now you have more and uh you just keep repeating this, that doesn't mean that you don't learn things on your own. Um In fact, this is an important point. I should have made a slide about it. But the way you actually learn things is through using the light that's inside of you is somewhat of an oracle and you bounce all the ideas that you receive externally off of this light. I've got a slideshow coming that goes into detail about this is what I talked about in Centerville. But um you will develop that capability in this process of learning from others and then you can use that capability on your own as you observe the things around you and you query the light inside of you to see what God has to say about that, to see what your conscious has to say about that. And um yeah, that's, that's how you move forward with this. Uh Anyway, you'll get good enough at this that you will find yourself wishing that people had more light and truth because you'll be picking it up so quickly that you'll run out of sources, even using the library and the internet. So um I want to briefly mention that there are exceptional cases where you can meet someone that that not only has more light than you do, but also acquires more light at such a fast rate that you can't actually overtake them. So um there are many, well, not many, but there are several examples of this in the scriptures. For example, you have Elisha and Elijah . So Elisha was following Elijah around during his ministry learning everything he could from him. And um he didn't leave his side because he realized that Elijah had the capability to acquire light and truth at a rate that much exceeded Elisha's. Now, Elisha wasn't a dummy and we'll talk more about that in a second. Um He definitely was capable of receiving light and truth directly from God or on his own, so to speak. Uh He didn't quote unquote need another person, but he benefited immensely from Elijah and Elijah's capabilities. The same thing happened with Joshua and Moses. Uh There are other examples as well. And the analogy for this, you can think of it like a forest, right in a forest. You've got very large trees and they've been there for a long time and they have deep roots and they pull all the nutrients out from deep underground and then they spit them out through the leaves which fall to the ground and then make those nutrients readily available for the bushes and the younger trees that aren't as tall yet. And by doing this, they make a way for the younger trees to become older trees. So the question that I've heard is uh well, but if, if I'm not able to get the light directly from God, why should I expect to be able to get it from these other people? Well, um what these folks with this question are referring to is the, this rule, this law that God has and one place you'll find it is in Alma 12 where it says it is given unto many to know the mysteries of God, the mysteries of God. There isn't meant to be a mysterious term. It's just an umbrella term for everything you don't know. Um It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God. Nevertheless, they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of His word, which He Doth Grant unto the Children of men according to the heed and diligence, which they give unto him. And therefore he, that will harden his heart. The same receives the lesser portion of the word and he, that will not harden his heart to him is given the greater portion of the word until it is given unto Him to know the mysteries of God until He know them in full. This is one of the places that we pull out this effort and obedience rule. It's in here. But one of the points here is that, look, if my effort and obedience don't qualify me to receive knowledge directly, a particular packet of knowledge directly from God. Why should I expect that I might be able to get it through someone else? Well, the reason is because uh with God, there are these competing laws of justice and mercy and they are in tension with one another. And um essentially by virtue of having gone through the work to get the light, the other person has the capability of satisfying the law of justice or exonerating you from your lack of uh effort and obedience to an extent anyway, in order to impart to you the light and truth that they have received. So this is one meaning of the scriptural term condescension, um which literally means to descend from above. But it uh one application of this is when one person goes and does all the work to, to learn something and maybe it takes them 10 years of hardcore study, prayer and experience. Um and then they just turn around and give it away to someone who hasn't gone through all that trouble . And uh you know, again, there are temporal examples of this that, that uh are more familiar. So if I work really, really, really hard and I earn a lot of money, um I can choose to give that to someone who hasn't done any of that work and um that can help them, right? So the greatest example of this principle is obviously with the Lord Jesus Christ, uh whose personal sacrifice fulfilled the law of justice and gave us a way of obtaining forgiveness of our sins among many other things. But we all have a role in this as well. Um There are something over 7 billion people in the world. And so if you have the average quantity of truth, it means that, you know, something that half of the world does not, right? Um And it's not actually a and even distribution truth and knowledge are skewed, meaning that uh it, it follows the same distribution as, as wealth. It's concentrated in a few people. But uh the, the point still holds, which is that it doesn't matter who you are, you probably know something and therefore you have the duty to be like one of these trees and maybe you're a shorter tree um or maybe you're a taller tree but it doesn't really matter, you're your uh ability to help people that don't know the things that you know, um it's a crucial part of the way God spreads light and truth around. So uh one reference for this is from Maroni 732 where it's talking about the ministry of angels and this is what angels do as well. They come and minister to people that don't know what they know and they teach them the things that, that they know that these people don't know. And it says, and by so doing, the Lord God prepares the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ. The residue there means those that no less than the people who are teaching that the holy ghost may have place in their hearts according to the power thereof. And after this manner, bringeth to pass the father of the covenants which he hath made unto the Children of men. In other words, this is the way God works. So someone who says, well, I'm just going to sit around and try to get things directly from God. That's great. But think of what you're limiting yourself to. You're saying, I'm only going to mine out the light and truth that I myself can, can get to. It'd be like having a gold mine or a um precious stone mine and saying, I'm not going to use power tools because I'm just going to do this all by hand , I don't need the labor of other people. I don't need to benefit from the things other people have figured out. I'm just gonna go at this myself. Well, you're going to be very unproductive and that's unfortunate because if you take advantage of the people around you and the light that God has given them, then uh you will, you will basically be able to learn the fruit of multiple lifetimes in just a couple minutes sometimes. So if you start stacking these experiences, you'll find you're radically advanced compared to people who don't. So I, I think that this is such a strong point that I can make the strong statement that the only way to achieve Zion is to learn from others. If you leave what other people know on the table and you don't take advantage of that, you will not become the kind of person you need to be in one life. It's just not enough time. So there's a, there's a wrong way of doing this. And I have, you know, we all have to be very careful with this because if you make someone else, the mediator between you and God, by definition, you're in idolatry and there are some really serious uh consequences of this. So one is that whatever that person's weaknesses are or limitations now become yours. Um to avoid this, you have to realize that no matter how much truth someone has, they don't have it all. And you always have to have a critical mind and you always have to be filtering this stuff. And again, I regret not including a slide for this. But uh as I'll explain in another video , all of this has to pass through your spirit. If you bypass that process and just take it and assume that they're right, you don't test things. Um you're in idolatry and you're gonna have all the negative consequences that go with that. Um Instead you should make God the ultimate arbitrator of truth and test everything and realize things like, and these are laid out in the book. Uh If someone teaches you something that's true, it doesn't mean that anything else they're going to teach you is automatically true. If someone was right or wrong in the past, it doesn't guarantee that they will stay the same way in the future. So a complete numb skull could tell you something that's absolutely correct. Um And someone who's right all the time could botch it and be completely wrong on something. So, um these are things to remember. Um So truth is truth no matter where it comes from. So if you think you've found yourself a Moses, it, it doesn't mean that uh there won't be any truth from anywhere else. So that will help keep you from idolatry. Um For those that are sharing truth, you need to realize that just because you um know something more than someone else does. It doesn't make you those people less valuable or you more valuable. Uh It means, you know, more and, and that's valuable. But uh as a person, we all have equal value as people. Um and the, the objective should not be to subjugate people who don't have the truth that you have. The objective should be to give them a path to become like you are and hopefully better than you are. This is like, you know, all of us with kids, we want our kids to grow up and, and not only know the things that we do, but to be better than we are and know more than we do. And that's the objective. So if the attitude is, if I have truth on some topic, anyone else can too. Um And the objective is also always to make yourself redundant. And I've written about this on my blog. If you just go on there and search the word redundant, you'll see a bunch of posts about this. But um the, the, the successful state of this is that the truth bearer, the light bearer, the person that has more uh doesn't have more anymore and that the person who's obtained doesn't need them anymore. That's the end game for this. Um If you're worshiping a person, if you're assuming that everything they say is true, if you are hanging on their every word, um If you are allowing them to dictate all sorts of things for you those are all signs that you're in idolatry and that's a very bad thing. Um, ok. So, um, here's some bullet points that, uh, might keep you on track. Uh, if someone is threatened or upset when you seek truth from someone or somewhere else, odds are that you should walk away from that situation and that it's not good. Um, if I'll, I'll say that again, I guess because I think it's important if someone is threatened or upset when you seek truth from somewhere else or someone else, that's probably a bad situation and you should walk away. So if people's objective is truth, they shouldn't care where it comes from. And if you're searching for it in all places that you have access to, they should rejoice at that and they should also assume that they'll probably learn something from you because you're doing that and maybe you have access to sources they don't have access to . So that's a, that's a red flag. Um Another thing to remember is that the search for truth is an individual uh process. It can't be done as a group, any group that tries to do this, it fails miserably and there's a reason for that. Uh And we'll talk about this because you might be thinking, but Zion's a group. If, if Zion just hold your horses, we'll get there. You can't outsource your relationship with God. Next. If any entity compels you to worship God in a certain way, then chances are that you're in a bad place and you should move on. Um We all need to be free to worship God according to the dictate , dictates of our conscience and our, our um our conscience remember is the light that God gives us. So if someone's dictating to you, that you need to listen to them, no matter what the light inside of you tells you, that's really the wrong answer because you're going to limit that light. You won't be able to do the things you need to do. OK? So the test of on this, I, I said I would come back to this and here we are think back to Elisha and Elijah or to Joshua and Moses. So um the question is what, what happens if the person that you are seeking light through disappears? This is you don't have to wait till this happens. Obviously, that could be like a lifetime of mistakes building up if you're on the wrong path. But in your mind, do a thought experiment and say what would happen if so and so disappeared. What you're looking for is the, is the answer I would pick up right where they left off and keep going. I would immediately be able to do the things they did and I would go from there, I'd stand on the shoulders of giants. If that's not your answer, you should have serious misgivings about your situation. So if you think about Joshua, the, uh, Joshua was one was the only person who was able to go with Moses into the Holy of Holies in the temple whenever he wanted. I mean, it wasn't that flippant. Right. But when Moses went, Joshua could go too. And that is a really big deal. The second Moses, uh, left the, the picture Joshua picked up right where Moses left off and, and he did the same sorts of things that Moses did from day one and he continued doing that for the rest of his life. What about Elisha? Well, as soon as Elijah leaves, what does Elisha do? He picks up the mantle and he smacks the river and you know, he does the same stuff that, that Elijah did from day one and he ends up doing some really mighty miracles that, that arguably exceeded anything Elijah did. Um But certainly were the at least the same level of miracle. So that's important. Um And if not, if that's not the answer, you're probably in an idolatrous situation and you need to re evaluate things. Ok, enough about that. So, um one final point I want to make is about this. Uh oh Jeez, I've had some conversations with folks. I don't want to get into it, but there's a lot of false tradition from certain religious backgrounds that, you know, people think that someone who really has light, what they're gonna do is walk around saying you have to listen to me, I have authority, bow to me whatever. Um That's really not the way that the Lord works. So if you go through the scriptures and you look at how God does things, it's a great blueprint for how we should do things too, or look at how his servants do things . And if you want to be one of his servants, you should do things the same way. Right? So there are tools that are listed and this like by virtue of my authority, bow to me. That's not one of them, right? Uh We, we get reasons. So there's, there's kindness, there's persuasion, there's patience, there's long suffering, there's rational argument, which is one that I don't know why people don't have this on the menu. It's a really big deal. Then there's experience in reality and that, that one's fun. So that's like John 717 where Jesus says that if you, if anyone does, if anyone does the will uh of my father, they'll know it. So if, if you test what I'm teaching, you'll know it's from God. Um If you try it, you'll see the results and you'll know that this is a good thing. And uh that's great. I mean, that's, that's science right there. So uh then there are scriptures. So if you can't point to a scripture that backs up your point, then maybe you shouldn't be trying to make it. Um anyway, and so on, these are tools that that should be the hallmark of the sharing of truth. Um One question I like to ask is uh when I'm sharing something with someone, I ask, what reason do they have to believe me? And again , uh I'm presenting these from a spiritual perspective, these tips, but they apply to everything. So, you know, if I'm teaching a class, I ask myself, what reason do these people have to believe me? And uh in the, in the case of spiritual stuff, I, I say like here's some scriptures and here's some rational arguments that support my argument. Uh If it's, if it's not a spiritual setting, then I, obviously, I'm not gonna use scriptures. Uh But I'll still have rational arguments. I'll still have examples. I'll still have cause and effect. Um A great argument is I tried it and this is what happened to me. This is a funny thing. I, I've got some material that I'm brewing uh about the things we think we have versus the things we actually have. And uh it's shocking to me how often folks try to push stuff on people when they don't actually do it themselves or they try to talk about cause and effect when they don't have the effect. That's bizarre to me. But it happens anyway, a really strong argument is to say, look, I tried this, this is what happened. Now, you try it and see what happens. That's the scientific method. So anyone that's open minded should take the bait on that one. So another question that, that you can ask yourself is how will this benefit them? Boy, this is really good advice in life. Uh So many occupations are based on convincing people to do things that don't really help them. And uh that's not a great way to live. But if you're, if you're careful enough to have um an occupation where you actually get to help people, which I think is the ideal. Um This can really be life changing to approach situations like this. You're never bamboozling someone, you're never manipulating somebody, you're just honestly trying to help them. And uh that's very much subject to all the many details of specific situations, but very vanilla example of this would be, you know, if you repent of your sins, there's great joy waiting for you here and hereafter. So you should do it. That's, you know, this kind of thing, but you can apply it to anything if you don't stay up all night and wake up at the crack of dawn making videos all night. Uh You won't be tired the next day or sound like there's a frog in your throat. OK. So we're gonna pivot here to this part. I'm pretty excited about uh about merging truth. That's a phrase I I kind of coined for this idea. Um Here we go. I have to apologize up front because we have some drawings here and I am pushing my little slide program to its limits and in some cases, it looks awful, but I hope it gets the point across. OK. So what the heck is this? Well, this is a representation of the truth that you have. OK. So um everything emanates from the point, the center point here and uh each of these spokes is a facet of truth. And then um the, the length of the spoke is how much truth you have on that topic. Does that make sense? So the angles and everything they don't really matter. But this is just a way of, of representing the truth that you have. So, um in reality, there'd be an infinite number of these lines, but I'm not about to try to draw that, that this was hard enough. So this is just representation, right? So truth is infinite. Um I mentioned a number of lines but also in length. So none of these lines would ever terminate. You can keep extending them forever . You just keep learning forever and ever truth doesn't end. OK. So I've taken that same picture here and I've just drawn a hole around this by connecting the end points of each of the lines. And then I'm going to take the middle part away and add another one. So what we have here is this larger shape , that's your truth and then the chalky shape, that's someone else's truth. And if you're trying to listen to this you really, you really need to watch it on this one. You need to watch it. Oh, boy. Ok. So the chalky part part is, uh, someone else's truth, right? So, what you see here is that, uh, if , if, what you're doing now is you're stacking these two things and then tracing the exterior edge for most of the shape you're gonna be on your truth. And then there are two spots here where you're gonna be on the other person's truth. So here's my question, who has more truth? That's you can't answer that because you don't have the parameters to answer it. Is this a volume question or what I mean? Who says which one's more important? So it just, it depends and what does it depend on what part of this shape you're in, right? So for most of the shape, the answer will be, you have more truth. And then for some of the shape, the answer is the other person does. So everywhere where you have exclusivity. So the the one truth is sticking out further than the other, that's an opportunity for the other person to learn. If that makes sense. The goal is to see eye to eye. Here's a picture of what that means with this example. So in several places in the Scriptures in Isaiah and 35 and some other places it says they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion. So for the uninitiated Zion is a place composed of people who keep all of God's commandments. And it's uh in a way it's heaven on earth and it's a thing that will come uh in the future, in the relatively near future. So, um one of the properties of Zion is that people see eye to eye there. And if you don't know what that means, you should watch the first video. But um this is how it happens. People share the truth that they have with one another. And the end result is that that magical, they all keep all of God's commandments, they all have the same awareness of what those are. And uh that's a shared experience. OK. So, um we're gonna talk about how to get there, right? And first let's talk about how to not get there. Um This phrase , agree to disagree has come into vogue recently and it's an absolutely awful idea. Um In Zion, there is no agree to disagree. There are no sacred cows, there are no things where we're just going to pretend that we don't see differently on them. Um There's no such thing as a neutral position for every pair of some, one of those, some things is better and one of those some is worse. Now, the situation might be complicated but attaining the tools to tease those things apart and make it an objective evaluation is very important. Um One barrier to seeing eye to eye is the false tradition that we hold . So here's a picture of that and this is just kind of a zoom in of an arbitrary one of these truth shapes these truth graphs. And the dotted line here is what you think you have. And then the solid line could be either what you actually have or what someone else actually has. But the point here is that the operation we were performing before was which, which for any part of the truth graph, which person has the truth, that's greater. Right? That becomes muddied when we're working off of what we think we have versus what we actually have. And this is why I'll be doing a video on that topic here shortly . Um, traditions aren't reality, they're actually a deviation from reality and that's why we call them traditions and not just experience. Right. So you could have a tradition that if you go to college you'll get a great job. But then if you major in something silly, you won't get a great job and therefore that doesn't match your experience, but you could hold on to the tradition of going to college no matter what. Um, and, and that's, you can have traditions about all sorts of things but it's the religious ones that get us in the most trouble. Um, I've talked about this in a couple of places but, um, there are, yeah, in, at least two books I've addressed this but there are several kinds of, of truth. Right. Um, there's, there's truth that doesn't intersect with stuff you already know. And there's truth that does and that second type of truth, I call it replacement truth. And people have a really hard time with this. So, if you already believe something and then someone comes around and says, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that's worked for you so far but here's something better that's really hard for people uh Compared to, oh, you've never even thought about this. And here's an idea and I use this analogy that it's easier to plant a tree in an open plot than it would be to cut down trees and rip out roots and plant a tree in its place. They're, they're vastly different experiences if you, if you've never dug up an established tree. Uh boy, you haven't lived, it's awful. Um OK. So what limits you in your acquisition of truth and your ability to um evaluate and accept truth from other people? So squashing these truth graphs together because remember it's not actually just about a pair of people, you'll be doing this with many people if you want to learn as much as you can in this life. The main most important idea is, is humility. And uh one way of thinking about this, measuring this is how willing are you to be wrong. So, um I believe that everything I know is incorrect or incomplete and I sincerely believe that which means if someone comes up and says, hey, here's a different perspective . My starting assumption is that they know more about it than I do. And uh this is easy to say, but in practice, it seems like very few people believe this. Um And that doesn't mean you hold on to that presumption forever, right? And you can figure out in 60 seconds that maybe they're, they're not as far along as you, or maybe it takes 60 days, you never know. Um Another question to measure your humility is to honestly ask yourself if you have a limit to what you're willing to let go of or if you have a limit to the topics you're willing to learn about. There's absolutely nothing in my life that I'm not willing to let go of. And again, I find that that's a radical and rare position. I'm not saying these things to brag. I don't really care what people think about me, but I'm saying it to, to help if someone's wondering like, well, who is my neighbor? Like where can I draw the line at what you're saying? And I'm saying there is no line um ideally and, and that's what true humility is. Um And then how quickly can you change? This is also an aspect of humility if you say well, yeah, I, I OK, I, I see intellectually, I believe what you're saying, but now I'm gonna take 10 years to implement it because I don't really believe it. Well, that's a limited in humility. Uh Another dimension to measure uh that will determine how far you can get with. This is how much you hunger and thirst. And that phrasing is taken from the sermon on the mount when Jesus is talking about hungry and thirsting after righteousness . And this is what he's talking about. Righteousness is the property of God. Uh I don't mean he has only one property. I mean the word righteousness. That is the definition is all of his properties. And um to, to want to know more about him, to hunger and thirst after righteousness is to um to seek to zealously seek after more light and truth because all of it emanates from him and they're one and the same. So uh how do you break down and measure how much you hunger and thirst? Well, question number one. How much effort do you put into the search and question number two, how much do you desire it ? And you can look at weird things that you do that normal people don't do to try to quantify this. Like if you're up past midnight when you've woken up at 3 a.m. that day to record some silly video about squashing truth graphs on top of each other. Um That could be an effort or desire measurement. OK . Uh sophistication. So this one is um I guess the way I would describe this. Uh Well, OK. So the bullets say childlike thinking has limits. There's a nice verse where Paul is talking about this. When he was a child, he thought as a child and when he became a man, he thought as a man, um we should be childlike in many ways, but one way we should not be childlike is in simplicity of thinking. So the more you know about the gospel, the more it simplifies, but it also gets more complicated at the same time, which seems like an oxymoron. But you know exactly what I'm talking about if you're there. So , um it turns out that the more we oversimplify things and the more we stick to simplification, the less God can teach us because simplification is one way we can set up constraints on what he can teach us. There are other ways like if we have sacred cows or we uh insist on thinking in terms of one sort of dogmatic framework, all of these things, they're like, they're like uh building a little box and trying to stick some massive experience like a sunset or um you know, a mountain range or something into this tiny little box. The only way you can do it is to radically shrink it down and chop it and turn this living breathing thing into a little flat dead snapshot. Um And that, that doesn't, that doesn't go well with the concept of um ever increasing in your awareness of an infinite truth or an infinite amount of truth. Um Part of this is developing your reasoning capacity. Um There's a nice phrase in the scriptures that goes by reason of use and it's talking about discerning between good and evil milk and meat type um discernment. And uh that's a definite part that we need, we need to develop the ability to reason and think and think critically and uh for whatever reason, that's, that's not popular thing. So these properties, if, if you grow in them, uh they will help you acquire more light and truth. And that's what it's all about. And it's all very necessary to come to the point where we see eye to eye in Zion.