The Urantia Book Fellowship Dave Holt

Carried Into the Arms of God

Dave — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 15:20:08 GMT

I left the past of my young adult life under a dark cloud, as I’ve told about in one of my poems, Straddling the High Beams of Anderson Bridge, a bridge in my hometown. “Got away by following my angels, just as I’d done since childhood, out of the trash-filled alleyways, where one forgotten flower bloomed.” I escaped “the moral chasm … drugs, drinking, and nights of cruelty,” and was carried into the arms of God, carried like the person in that well known poem Footprints in the Sand (attributed to three authors):

“I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, there was only one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"

The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, it was then that I carried you.”

Leaving my wasted youth at age 21, carried on a tide, swept up, swept along by California rock music, the 1960’s, hippie culture, I didn’t have language that angels, or God, or Jesus were carrying me until later when I had reborn insight.

Out of the clutches of evil, I was recently carried once again, was reminded of the refuge of God’s loving embrace, after a week of futile dialogue with family members who mocked and scorned the spiritual efforts we Urantia Book readers have learned are so valuable to our future careers in eternity.

The UB teaches important distinctions between evil and sin. "By nature, before the rebirth of the spirit, mortal man is subject to inherent evil tendencies, but such natural imperfections of behavior are neither sin nor iniquity. Mortal man is just beginning his long ascent to the perfection of the Father in Paradise. To be imperfect or partial in natural endowment is not sinful.” (The UB, 148:4.6)

My wife added to my slight knowledge about the experience of spiritual rebirth, being “born again” as Christians like to say it, and she then introduced me to The Urantia Book, The UB, where I learned more from Jesus’s discussions with his apostles about “the new life in the kingdom.”

He warned them about sharing spiritual wisdom with unbelievers. “When you enter the kingdom, you are reborn. You cannot teach the deep things of the spirit to those who have been born only of the flesh; first see that men are born of the spirit before you seek to instruct them in the advanced ways of the spirit.” (141:6.4)

I should have re-read that passage before teaching the noble truths of forgiveness to those who did not have ears to hear them.

We UB students often talk about the power of symbol and story, how a new symbol is needed (see The UB Paper 87:7.6 to learn more). Here is my personal, powerful motivating symbol. As a very young man, I’d been deeply impressed with the image of being carried in the arms of an angel when I read the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale (see 1844 illustration), a picture that has stayed with me all the rest of my life. The story is told in the words of “an angel of God, as he carried a child up to heaven.”

"In the Father's kingdom you are to become new creatures; old things are to pass away; behold I show you how all things are to become new. And by your love for one another you are to convince the world that you have passed from bondage to liberty, from death into life everlasting.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, The UB, 143:2.3)

“What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.”

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

(Songwriters: Elisha A. Hoffman / Cyril A. Mclellan / A. Showalter)

Un-Centering Our Selves, Becoming Cosmic Citizens

Dave — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:18:41 GMT

When our California poet, Robinson Jeffers, wrote Carmel Point (1951), his perspective was ecological. “We must uncenter our minds from ourselves; we must unhumanize our views a little.” I was influenced by his protest against the suburban development threatening his home town, a message that urged fellow human beings to live in greater harmony with the natural world. He envisioned,“This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses,” and expressed fear of what seemed sure to come. The “beautiful place” where he lived was Big Sur.

In our planet’s history, we started out earth-centered, then, after Galileo and Copernicus, solar-centered. We have a spiritual goal of becoming less self-centered, as mapped out in The Urantia Book (The UB). But perhaps the ultimate task before us is to become universe centered, cosmic citizens. In Ken Wilber’s 4 major stages of moral Growing Up that all humans go through: stage 1 is selfish—also called “egocentric,” also meaning self-centered or narcissistic; stage 2, care extended from self to an entire group, from a “me” to an “us”—family, clan, tribe, nation, members of a religious family or political party, a stage called “ethnocentric,” or group-centered; next major stage, stage 3, universal care—a stage also called “worldcentric,” global or all-humans-centered. Finally, stage 4, called integrated, producing a full and complete human being—what we also call “kosmocentric (from A Revolutionary Spirituality: Waking Up and Growing Up).

The scientist E. O. Wilson once commented, “just how far from the center has been hard to imagine …It would be becoming of us to speak modestly of our status in the cosmos.” (The Meaning of Human Existence)

Neither Jeffers’ “uncentering” nor Wilson’s comment on “our status” refers to the kind of selflessness Jesus taught. However Jeffer’s poem reminded me to heed the call to a deeper and broader citizenship that was begun by the ecology movement, one that may find its natural completion in cosmic citizenship.

“I come with a new message of self-forgetfulness and self-control. I show to you the way of life as revealed to me by my Father in heaven.” (143:2.2)

This self-forgetfulness, leaving the self out (48:6.26), allows one to know oneself as a Son of God, not, of course, what the unreligious poet, Jeffers, meant about unhumanizing ourselves, but his poem does help me grow closer to the true self I am becoming.

“The three apostles were shocked this afternoon when they realized that their Master's religion made no provision for spiritual self-examination. All religions before and after the times of Jesus, even Christianity, carefully provide for conscientious self-examination. But not so with the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus' philosophy of life is without religious introspection.” (140:8.27)

I always had trouble with this passage from The UB because I was so influenced by the famous adage, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” (Socrates). I was much too Greek in nature and orientation to understand Jesus’ perspective. When Jesus taught Nabon, a Greek Jew, Nabon did seem to meet him halfway in acknowledging that, “true faith is predicated on profound reflection, sincere self-criticism.” (132:3.5)

“Achievement is the child of imaginative adventure. But inherent in this capacity for achievement is the responsibility of ethics, the necessity for recognizing that the world and the universe are filled with a multitude of differing types of beings. All of this magnificent creation, including yourself, was not made just for you.” (28:6.18)

We can grow into this truth about not putting ourselves at the center of human community, even though our egos may fight back, resist the surrendering of our self-importance. Many have already learned to come unstuck on ourselves, have let our attachment to the self go, at least some of the time.

If we are brave in our self-exploration, we find out that what we’ve defined as the self doesn’t even seem to be enough, or match our spirit guide’s plan for “our career (44:8.4),” the Thought Adjuster’s vision of who we are to become.

Prayer and worship life reveal the possibility of a higher, better self, one way in which Jesus has been “exemplary” for mortals. He taught his followers, “Guard against the great danger of becoming self-centered in your prayers… pray more for the spiritual progress of your brethren,” (146:2.10) a technique I’ve been happy to learn, the shift from self to others in my own prayer life. I continue to be happy with the results.

Ancient Immigrants to the Americas: the Sangik and Andite Races

Dave — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 15:17:18 GMT

My friend at work, Anna Oliva, born, raised and educated in Mexico, spontaneously reacted when I mentioned Quetzalcoatl in conversation. “He had blue eyes,” were the very first words out of her mouth. Legends tell us that Quetzalcoatl was tall and light-skinned, with blonde hair and a beard, in contrast to the natives who were shorter, dark skinned and dark haired. I think the real human person at the heart of the ancient mythology must have been mixed race, or of a different race, perhaps known as Andite, if we read what The Urantia Book has to say. Quetzalcoatl may have been mixed blood of the orange race, or descended from the Andites of Peru, “traces of Andite blood reached Peru.” (79:5.9) Montezuma famously believed, even if only for a moment, that Cortes fulfilled the prophecy of Quetzalcoatl’s return. Interestingly, the Andites had returned. They came to Mexico as Spanish conquistadors.

Kukulcan (Mayan name) or Quetzalcoatl was “the priest-king of Tula” and may have been the father of agriculture in Central and South American. He may have been instrumental in the development and spread of maize. As the god of learning, of writing, and of books, Quetzalcóatl was particularly venerated in the calmecac which were religious colleges annexed to the temples, in which the future priests and the sons of the nobility were educated.

He emerged from a priest society in the spiritual culture of the Toltecs, became a teacher of his people, and introduced the sacrifice of butterflies and birds to take the place of human sacrifice. He is remembered by Aztec poets, one of whom wrote, "Truly with him it began, truly from him it flowed out, from Quetzalcoatl all art and knowledge."

The UB paints a more complex picture of the racial makeup in the prehistoric Americas. “These tribes [relatively pure-line remnants of the red race] were accompanied by three small groups of mixed ancestry, the largest of these being a combination of the orange and blue races. These three groups never fully fraternized with the red man and early journeyed southward to Mexico and Central America, where they were later joined by a small group of mixed yellows and reds. These peoples all intermarried and founded a new and amalgamated race, one which was much less warlike than the pure-line red men. Within five thousand years this amalgamated race broke up into three groups, establishing the civilizations respectively of Mexico, Central America, and South America.” (The UB, 64:7.5)

Only Peru is mentioned as the recipient of the Andite blood line. The UB records that sometime between 12,000 and 8,000 BC (a more specific date is not given), “One hundred and thirty-two of this race, embarking in a fleet of small boats from Japan, eventually reached South America and by intermarriage with the natives of the Andes established the ancestry of the later rulers of the Incas.” (78:5.7)

The Japanese origin of the journey throws me, because it discredits the first visualization that came to my mind of the famous Polynesian sailing canoes.

As Saskia Revouri speculates in her article, God’s Orchestra. “The Urantia Book tells us that the outstanding characteristic of the orange race was “their peculiar urge to build, to build anything and everything, even to the piling up of vast mounds of stone just to see which tribe could build the largest mound (64:6.10).” “Let’s pair up an orange woman with a blue/Andonite man—their descendants might produce vast, artistic mounds of stone. Now if we inject these people with a dose of violet blood, which would accelerate their creative imaginations, they could very well build … cities such as the Inca Macchu Picchu in Peru.”From Saskia’s article on http://www.squarecircles.com/articles/orchestra.htm

It’s possible that our most enduring legacy of the orange race is located here on the Central and South American continents. Somewhat rapidly, these descendants of the orange-red-Andite race accepted the person of Jesus promoted by the Catholic Church. There is much discussion of the reasons why this came to be. Was it because they were “broken-hearted” as Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman) says. Or was it a practical decision to make the children’s lives easier in a white-dominated culture as Black Elk says defending his conversion to Catholicism. Or did they also recognize, by means of Spirit of Truth or Thought Adjuster insights, the cosmically significant reality of the bestowal of Michael of Nebadon?

Respect the Personality of the Other

Dave — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 15:15:48 GMT

In the Instruction for Teachers and Believers (The Urantia Book, The UB, 159:3), Jesus’s very first teaching was, “Always respect the personality of man. Never should a righteous cause be promoted by force; spiritual victories can be won only by spiritual power.”

His wisdom led to a new insight into a family dispute I’ve been involved in for nearly two years, learning anew that people go through their process at their own pace. I may believe there is a higher way the other should discover or learn, but I can’t make someone grow as fast as I might wish they would.

Speaking on his tour of the Greek region, the Decapolis (see photo of Gerasa, a Decapolis city), Jesus continued, “This injunction against the employment of material influences refers to psychic force as well as to physical force. Overpowering arguments and mental superiority are not to be employed to coerce men and women into the kingdom. Man's mind is not to be crushed by the mere weight of logic or overawed by shrewd eloquence.” (The UB, 159:3.2)

What Jesus also meant here was we must respect the free will choices of others. I had been verbally punished by a family member, one whom I already knew had a mean streak and a cold cruel tendency, and the encounter hurt so much that we haven’t spoken since. What was it made her choose to act in this way? Such behavior is usually adopted to defend oneself from something or someone perceived as threatening, perhaps something even I might have done in my conceited and arrogant teenage years, but that wasn’t relevant. I’d never been told such a thing; it remained an imagined offense best put out of one’s mind. The other’s behavior might not even be an entirely well-informed free will choice if the behavior is being run by a “lower self,” without the help of a spirit guide, Thought Adjuster, or seraphim. Whatever is keeping them locked in that place of hurtful behavior must be overcome in their own time.

Here is, perhaps, another way of looking at it: “Be kind to people and don’t judge, for you do not know what demons they carry and what battles they are fighting.” Vashti Quiroz-Vega

Jesus’ admonition to respect the personality of the other brought a great infusion of compassion into my soul. Unable to impose our schedule for growth on another who must, by the lights of their own wisdom, take steps to grow when they are ready, I can pray they’ll find higher forms of behavior. They may choose help to understand where the violent emotion originates from, perhaps through therapy for the pain.

Our heavenly helpers treat us with the same respect; “under no circumstances do these divine Monitors ever take advantage of you or in any way arbitrarily influence you in your choices and decisions. The Adjusters respect your sovereignty of personality; they are always subservient to your will.” (110:2.1)

There is a universal law at work here. “How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality!” (54:1.9) We all have the right to our mistakes, the experiences of growth in values that might come from such an “educational episode” (160:4.15).

For me, I’m discovering new steps I can take in walking “the way of God.”

What Happens When We Die?

Dave — Mon, 28 May 2018 15:13:40 GMT

Our study group finished reading Papers 47, “The Seven Mansion Worlds,” and 48, “The Morontia Life,” several months ago. The Urantia Book (The UB) is the first big bestowal of new information on the topic of afterlife since the ancient writings of the Bible were first assembled.

A non-believer friend of mine commented in conversation, “a short life, with such a long time to be gone.” It was a reminder of how much the concept of afterlife had lost acceptance. It’s no wonder, when you consider how very little development there has been in our ideas of afterlife.

I opened a conversation with another non-believer friend with this: A good question to begin with, I think, is why might there be an afterlife? What are the logical reasons? Does it have some administrative purpose, such as: are people needed to run the universe?

“It is the design of the Creators to afford the creatures of time a graduated opportunity to master the details of the operation and administration of the grand universe.” (48:8.2)

As many readers of The UB know, the book does not accept the idea of reincarnation in another life on this planet. We will “reincarnate,” but in a new body, a morontia form, on other planets in the system that are more suitable for our progress.

All the participants in our study group agreed that rehabilitation of some kind will undoubtedly be required. “The human race was created just a little lower than the more simple types of the angelic orders. Therefore will your first assignment of the morontia life be as assistants to the seraphim in the immediate work awaiting at the time you attain personality consciousness subsequent to your liberation from the bonds of the flesh.” (113:7.3)

We had lots of discussion about what “the immediate work” is. Anger management? Continued forgiveness work? I’m certain about that one. Overcoming depression? Finding peace?

The poet Kabir clearly understood what to expect in the next life. “If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive, do you think ghosts will do it after? … The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten, that is all fantasy. What is found now is found then.” (To Be a Slave of Intensity, Kabir)

The UB confirms what Kabir intuited, “On mansion world number one (or another in case of advanced status) you will resume your intellectual training and spiritual development at the exact level whereon they were interrupted by death. Between the time of planetary death or translation and resurrection on the mansion world, mortal man gains absolutely nothing aside from experiencing the fact of survival. You begin over there right where you leave off down here.” (47:3.7)\

Many of us will go to the nursery worlds. Even those of us who’ve been parents may find we have not drunk the full cup of experience in this regard. Chappell and I, who only raised one girl, sometimes hear jokes about parents who didn't have to raise a boy!

We all hope to see beloved family members, as I hope to see Grandma, but The UB reminds us that some sleep until the next dispensation and some awaken after three days. I once wrote a poem about all the many questions I had for my grandmother so I hope she's not still sleeping when I open my eyes in morontia.

Our primitive planet has a unique beauty in the local universe that will probably live in our hearts. “On Jerusem [headquarters of Satania, our local system] you will miss the rugged mountain ranges of Urantia and other evolved worlds since there are neither earthquakes nor rainfalls.” (46:2.1)

Friends and students of The UB have posed these questions: What about living arrangements when we arrive? Dorm style? Do we still live with the people we are living with now? I think it depends on the important lessons we have ahead of us. Our current companions may not be the best resource for our advancement.

One person in our study group hoped to see their pet animals who died on Earth in “heaven,” but I think they will be disappointed. “The life bestowed upon plants and animals by the Life Carriers does not return to the Life Carriers upon the death of plant or animal. The departing life of such a living thing possesses neither identity nor personality; it does not individually survive death.” (36:6.5)

In an added commentary to teachings Jesus gave to his followers, The UB authors say, “In the next world you will be asked to give an account of the endowments and stewardships of this world. Whether inherent talents are few or many, a just and merciful reckoning must be faced. If endowments are used only in selfish pursuits and no thought is bestowed upon the higher duty of obtaining increased yield of the fruits of the spirit, as they are manifested in the ever-expanding service of men and the worship of God, such selfish stewards must accept the consequences of their deliberate choosing.” (176:3.8)

“… death is only the beginning of an endless career of adventure, an everlasting life of anticipation, an eternal voyage of discovery. (14:5.10)

“Curiosity—the spirit of investigation, the urge of discovery, the drive of exploration—is a part of the inborn and divine endowment of evolutionary space creatures. These natural impulses were not given you merely to be frustrated and repressed. True, these ambitious urges must frequently be restrained during your short life on earth, disappointment must be often experienced, but they are to be fully realized and gloriously gratified during the long ages to come. (14:5.11)

Besides the opportunities to continue learning, growing, experiencing, finding fulfillment, there is at least one thing I definitely look forward to on the morontia worlds: that we will no longer be living under the residual allegiance to the Lucifer doctrine. I will breathe a sigh of relief to find myself freed from this noisy, materialistic, cruel, and damaged world!

What is Spirit Anyway?

Dave — Mon, 07 May 2018 15:11:52 GMT

“The Spirit breathes where he will, and you hear his voice, but you do not know from where he comes and where he goes; thus is everyone who is born from The Spirit.” (The Aramaic Bible)

“The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going." (Jesus teaching Nicodemus, an elder of the Sanhedrin, in John 3:8, The Urantia Book, The UB, 142:6.5)

I remember these first metaphors of Spirit from Sunday School lessons, and I’d read the Rossetti poem, “Who has seen the wind?” when I was very young. Recently, I was asked the question, “What is spirit anyway?” by a young person obviously struggling for a comprehensible answer. Although I didn’t have a chance to provide one at the time, I owe it to my youthful seeker to try to do so here.

“The Spirit is the personification of the Father's love and the Son's mercy; in him are they eternally united for universal service. The Spirit is love applied to the creature creation, the combined love of the Father and the Son.” (8:4.2)

When psychology began to discover spirit behind mind, it crossed over into the borderlands of religion. Jung, Maslow, among others, in the 1950’s and 60’s, pioneered the study of the spiritual dimension of the human psyche. “Spirit is always intelligent, minded in some way.” (9:4.2)

“Spirit is divine purpose, and spirit mind is divine purpose in action.” (9:4.5)

“The Third Person of Deity is the source of mind …” (9:5.4) “Third Person of Deity is the intellectual center and the universal administrator of the mind realms;” (9:1.5)

Our younger friend’s question, “What is Spirit?” grew out of a conversation at a dinner party, where I introduced the idea that the kids I was tutoring had naturally occurring high ideals but weren’t being taught to develop a philosophy of life to support their ideals. Instead they were given the nihilism of “The Stranger” by Camus. This group at the party were science-minded; they had to have things empirically proven, demonstrated, and they were impatient with “invisible” spirit, or an “imaginary friend.” We soon were discussing psychology, which many people now discredit as a scientific discipline, so I wasn’t surprised to hear the young people in our conversation debunk its status as “a science.”

I wanted to answer the young man who posed the question: when you are talking to me, I do not see neural synapses linking words taken from memory banks, tissues of the brain, I see a person who loves, and a mind that dreams. I see the River of Delight, creative vision, the power of imagination flowing through our lives. The only proof I can offer is the effect this power has in restoring ourselves and others, same way that the mystery of dark energy’s existence can only be proven by understanding gravitation, the workings of which remain a mystery to scientists today.

Lately, I’ve grown more concerned about the lack of a philosophy of life when I read surveys that say there is a higher incidence of depression and suicide among millennials, aged 18-35. (Psychological Bulletin, APA, 12/28/17). A Scientific American article asks what will replace religion as the traditional source of meaning.

I try often to seek the guidance of the Spirit and hope that others do so. Lately in my experience, my trilogy of encouragements has been:

(1) have confidence in your value as a person and the worth of your achievements (believe in yourself is the secular counterpart);

(2) be reassured that all things work together for the good (although originally a Christian sentiment, motivational counselors advise you to expect the best and prepare for the failures; “the 10,000 things that you successfully found did not work,” give you a valuable perspective on yourself, a more accurate view of reality, and the ultimate achievement of your dream); finally,

(3) trust God or Spirit with your destiny, no matter how much opposition you experience on the outside (believe that with persistence, and the refusal to accept defeat, a good outcome for your life will prevail). All three of these views are taught as secular philosophies in the corporate world when we are grownups. They would be even more effective if partnered with the power of Spirit.

Coincidentally, not long after my conversation with the young skeptics professing their atheism, I met a retired Catholic priest at a local coffee shop. He discovered me reading Black Elk’s life story and then showed me the biography of a visionary he’d just purchased. We found we shared a common interest in Thomas Merton. In our conversation about various religious topics, he told me about his life’s mission: to reform Catholicism from the inside. I told him I thought of the Trinity as a family located in some way at the center of the universe, a Mother (Spirit), Father and Son, who work to keep the extended family together. It was an image of the Holy Trinity that he spontaneously approved.

I’ll give the last word to The Urantia Book (note The UB synonyms for Infinite Spirit are Third Source and Center and Conjoint Actor). “While you envisage the Father as an original creator and the Son as a spiritual administrator, you should think of the Third Source and Center as a universal co-ordinator, a minister of unlimited co-operation. The Conjoint Actor is the correlator of all actual reality; (s)he is the Deity repository of the Father's thought and the Son's word …” (9:1.3)

The Arrow of Time

Dave — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:10:06 GMT

The Arrow of Time:

In what direction does the arrow of time fly? To believers, for whom God is the archer, his divine Monitor within guides our hand to the target chosen for our most ideal life and career, the achievement of his will. When Darwin discovered the principle of evolution, he did not believe that it had a goal of progress; it was a matter of luck or chance that individuals possessed variations allowing them to survive and reproduce. The Urantia Book (The UB) reveals the concept of progressive development as a truth. “It is the presence of the seven adjutant mind-spirits on the primitive worlds that conditions the course of organic evolution; that explains why evolution is purposeful and not accidental.” (The UB, Pg. 401, 5:1)

Perhaps in such modern books as God and the Evolving Universe, in which the authors (Redfield, Murphy and Timbers) state that, “Christianity preserved and extended the Jewish belief in ‘the arrow of time,’ the promise that the world has direction and purpose,” we are seeing an end to the seemingly predominant, secularized, materialistic philosophy that followed Darwin’s discovery. His old explanation promoted the random nature, chaotic motion, the up and down cycles of planetary progress. In our modern philosophy, there even arose an anxiety about the pointlessness of the motion; the nihilism of no direction. Secular philosophers and their followers counter that religious thinkers had created a false optimism. The atmosphere of our current era confirms that Freud’s lesson was well learned: religion was a childish delusion and atheism is “grown-up” realism. Materialism views time’s leaps and slides, its steps forward and falls backwards, as clustering around an unchanging mean or median.

The Urantia Book challenges religious thinkers, “Can you not advance in your concept of God's dealing with man to that level where you recognize that the watchword of the universe is progress?” (4:1.2)

This idea is central to a branch of philosophy known as teleology, the study of purposes, goals, ends and functions. “Intrinsic or immanent teleology is concerned with cases of aiming or striving towards goals” (Routledge Encyclopedia); ups and downs occur but the median point on the graph gradually rises. For example, in race relations, European conquerors once enslaved and killed other indigenous races wherever they founded colonies. Gradually, we have ended many such practices, even though we still deal with residual racism and ideas of white supremacy. It has been pointed out that slavery has not really ended: “according to Gallup surveys of 167 countries, there are 45.8 million slaves worldwide. … [defined as] someone owned, someone working as a forced laborer or prostitute, someone in debt bondage or in a forced marriage,” and this should not be overlooked. (National Review, 6/4/2016) http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436205/slavery-still-exists

For certain, we’ve witnessed the default of universe plans for planetary progress, beginning with “Caligastia's adherence to the Lucifer rebellion,” (50:4.11) and there have been cultural retrogressions. It is no wonder many view Urantia’s history as random and chaotic with no enduring progress achieved. It is a story with roots from way before secularist mechanistic philosophy took hold. In the rebellion, Lucifer derided the idea of progressing spiritual advancement, and “advocated that ascenders should enjoy the liberty of individual self-determination. He challenged and condemned the entire plan of mortal ascension as sponsored by the Paradise Sons of God and supported by the Infinite Spirit … With derision he pointed out that the finaliters had encountered a destiny no more glorious than to be returned to humble spheres similar to those of their origin,” (53:3.6) a circular destiny, no progress achieved in the end.

Steve Mcintosh (author/philosopher) developed an integral philosophy that is teleological, a doctrine of design and purpose in the material world http://www.integralworld.net/mcintosh4.html.

“The primary values of beauty, truth and goodness can be expansively understood as the actual directions of evolution. And understanding where evolution is headed is, of course, a central inquiry for a philosophy that defines itself in evolutionary terms. … properly understood, these questions [about the directions of evolution’s unfolding] relate to every situation in which the need for improvement can be recognized.”

Mcintosh teaches that cultural evolution is driven by humanity's quest to improve its conditions, a quest driven by that which people consider valuable. He believes people by nature choose a teleological philosophy, a positive direction. Integral philosophy's understanding of the spiral of development demonstrates how each stage of consciousness constructs its worldview out of agreements about values that give us, “the actual directions of evolution.”

Jesus upstepped the trajectory of the Jewish arrow of wisdom, and he laid down more progressive concepts of God and his Universe. “The fact of Jesus' earthly life provides a fixed point for the anchor of time, while the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth provides for the everlasting expansion and endless growth of the religion which he lived and the gospel which he proclaimed. The spirit guides into all truth; he is the teacher of an expanding and always-growing religion of endless progress and divine unfolding.” (194:3.8)

Currently, Steve McIntosh carries on teaching this truth: “As it now becomes increasingly necessary for humanity to participate in guiding cultural evolution toward a more positive future, knowledge of evolution’s essential methods, techniques, and directions is of critical importance.”

The Urantia Book was placed here partly to confirm this central idea lost in the fog and fury of the Lucifer manifesto. Jesus’s refusal of the Lucifer proposals was “the real end of the Lucifer rebellion,” (53:8.4) and now, “Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny.” (99:1.1)

From the Supreme to the Three person’d God: Seven Levels of Total Deity

Dave — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 15:08:38 GMT

How do we put it together in our minds that the absolute, unchanging God can also be a growing, evolving God, manifesting in new ways? In conversations with my Catholic cousin, he had a great deal of trouble unifying these seemingly contradictory ideas of Deity, not to say I didn’t. We can do it if we begin to accept the fundamental idea that not only life continues to evolve but also God is evolving, to meet with the needs brought about by changes in the earth, the universe, and transformations initiated by human beings. That is why The Urantia Book (The UB) offers us its new vision, a revelation of a Supreme Being. “Action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of ... progressive kinship with ... the Supreme Being.” (pg. 1211; 110.6.17)

Talking about God as The Supreme is not new. Asian religions have used the term in their sacred writings. When I was a yoga student, it was the first term for God that I learned from the Hindu tradition. "How universal is the Supreme—he is on all sides! The limitless things of creation depend on his presence for life, and none are refused." Those of us who are students of history know about Robespierre’s establishment of a Cult of the Supreme Being to replace Roman Catholicism during the French Revolution.

The Supreme is perhaps the biggest upgrade to our language in The UB of the many that the authors attempted. It’s not just another name for God; it is classified as one of the Seven levels of Total Deity and, as The Supreme Being of the Sevenfold God, is the fourth step in our approach to the Paradise Trinity.

Philosophers, thinkers and theologians have often tried to harmonize a god of “Being,” with a god still “Becoming.” The UB refers to the Static, Potential, Associative aspects of Deity, “This incomprehensible aspect of Deity may be static, potential, and associative but is not experientially creative or evolutional as concerns the intelligent personalities now functioning in the master universe,” (0:11.14). It is what Tillich and others described as “the Absolute ground of Being.” The god who is becoming, whose creative nature is still expanding, unfolding, growing, and developing is Associative, Creative, Evolutional, and becoming a personality, God the Supreme.

In a class I attended years ago, workshop leader and teacher of The UB, David Glass, came up with the mnemonic device SPACE-SU (IT added to make it a word easy to memorize) to teach the Seven levels of Deity in the Foreword (The UB, 0:1.3, pg 2; Foreword.I.1-4) . I still regularly use it to help me remember them.

Static:“We may choose something like a star to stay our minds on and be staid.” (Robert Frost)

Potential: “The Tao … is like the eternal void; filled with infinite possibilities. It is hidden but

always present.I don’t know who gave birth to it.It is older than God.” (Tao Te Ching #4)

Associative: “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. (John 17: 21-26)

“The universe is triune … there is nothing that is not a unity of potentiality, actuality and connecting motion.” (Nicholas of Cusa, De Docta Ignorantia, circa 1450)

Creative: “Where there is creation there is progress. Where there is no creation, there is no

progress.” (Chandogya Upanishad 7.16-25, Trans. by Juan Mascaro)

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51)

Evolutional: “God is a verb.” (Buckminster Fuller)

Supreme: “Supreme reality … is in process of dynamic growth between the unqualified potentials of outer space and the unqualified actuals at the center of all things.” (UB, pg. 1264; 115. sec 4)

Ultimate:“time-space-transcending Deity.” (The UB, pg. 2)

In paper 94:3.3 (The UB) we read about the advances made in Hindu religion: "Had the philosophers of those days been able to make this next advance in deity conception, had they been able to conceive of the Brahman as associative and creative, as a personality approachable by created and evolving beings, then might such a teaching have become the most advanced portraiture of Deity on Urantia since it would have encompassed the first five levels of total deity function and might possibly have envisioned the remaining two."

The Supreme Being is also the fourth step in “our sevenfold approach to Deity,” (0:8.1) by which, “the finite attains the embrace of the infinite.” (0:8.11)

Jesus’ teaching about the approachability to God (through the Supreme) is one that survived in Christianity. “Come to me, all you that are weary, and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (James 4:8)

Michael Meade envisioned the reciprocal creation, our participation in the evolution of the Supreme through our own creative actions; he puts it this way, “The genius of human nature involves innate capacities for creation and invention that are important in the life of each individual and essential to the balance of the world. The true individual, by virtue of being himself or herself, enters a state of partnership with the ongoing acts of creation and thereby adds something to life that was not there before.” (Michael Meade, The Genius Myth, p. 14)

We as artists, musicians, writers, and others who seek to reveal the Supreme through our creative work, or as parents, community leaders, organizers work to effect such a revelation in our actions, we are discovering more new pathways for doing God’s will. It’s a path to mutual love of God and humanity in conjoined action, a path to Joy.

Part 2: Trust: Learning to Trust Our Fellow Human Beings

Dave — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:06:42 GMT

What a resurrection of the spirit I am feeling this Palm Sunday as sun breaks through the black clouds following a rain storm. Upon witnessing our young people lead a march for the restoration of health and sanity to our nation, I wanted to grab a palm frond and join the crowd. It’s hard not to feel that a new day dawns.

Listen to the speeches of our youth who cry out for change, a transformation in the national character. They may bring you to tears. “Jesus taught the appeal to the emotions as the technique of arresting and focusing the intellectual attention. He designated the mind thus aroused and quickened as the gateway to the soul, where there resides that spiritual nature of man which must recognize truth and respond to the spiritual appeal of the gospel in order to afford the permanent results of true character transformations.” (152:6.4)

I’ve often enjoyed the way Jesus presented his wisdom to the young Ganid. His words spoken to his young student seem to have a stronger appeal to me, perhaps because I experience Jesus’s one-on-one intimate ministry, whereas the group discourses are less personal. “There lives within every human mind a divine spirit, the gift of the Father in heaven. This good spirit ever strives to lead us to God, to help us to find God and to know God; but also within mortals there are many natural physical tendencies which the Creator put there to serve the well-being of the individual and the race. Now, oftentimes, men and women become confused in their efforts to understand themselves and to grapple with the manifold difficulties of making a living in a world so largely dominated by selfishness and sin.”

After this general description of the challenges people face in life, Jesus then went on to recount the amazing biography that he’d read in the faces of the “two public women” who had accosted them. “I perceive, Ganid, that neither of these women is willfully wicked. I can tell by their faces that they have experienced much sorrow; they have suffered much at the hands of an apparently cruel fate; they have not intentionally chosen this sort of life; they have, in discouragement bordering on despair, surrendered to the pressure of the hour and accepted this distasteful means of obtaining a livelihood as the best way out of a situation that to them appeared hopeless. Ganid, some people are really wicked at heart; they deliberately choose to do mean things, but, tell me, as you look into these now tear-stained faces, do you see anything bad or wicked?" (133:3.7)

There were, of course, times when Jesus did not share the good news of the way to higher realities with those they encountered, for example, when they met the “thoughtless pagan,” Ganid expressed surprise that he did not make conversation with the man as a lead up to a spiritual discussion, to which Jesus replied, "Ganid, the man was not hungry for truth. He was not dissatisfied with himself. He was not ready to ask for help, and the eyes of his mind were not open to receive light for the soul.” (132:7.2)

To learn more trust between our fellows, to believe that people can find it in themselves to do the right thing, “Make your appeals directly to the divine spirit that dwells within the minds of men. Do not appeal to fear, pity, or mere sentiment. In appealing to men, be fair; exercise self-control and exhibit due restraint; show proper respect for the personalities of your pupils.” (159:3.2)

Fred Rogers (NPR TV 1968-2001), Mr. Rogers, believed in and trusted the good in people. “When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch, that deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”

We all share knowledge that we get from “the news;” the world is a cruel place. Some of us who watch take on a hard shell as protection; we put on protective armor out of fear, not courage. Trust and love, holding on to faith and hope against the odds—these are the courageous acts. It does take courage to learn trust, but friendship with God gives us the courage.

The Spirit of Trust

Dave — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 15:05:22 GMT

The theme kept coming back to me like a song, insisting I pay attention to the refrain. Recently the famous author, Gail Sheehy, wrote in Newsweek about “the insurmountable trust deficit,” and how it was affecting “the fundamental bedrock” of our society. So I began noticing where the topic recurred, having just read in Yuval Harari’s interesting book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, that trust between strangers was a necessary element in establishing trade relations. This correlated with part of my theory about Onamonalonton’s civilization (The Urantia Book, The UB, 79:5.8), that he built it on a foundation of trust, achieved in part through the stone medicine wheels which served as sacred negotiating places, temples of trade as well as places to honor spiritual brotherhood.

Trust ringing like a bell, calling us to some task, resounded again in Jeff Wattles’ blog, Universalfamily.org, on March 8, 2018: “God has faith in us—that we can host the gift of his spirit presence and become like him by following the path of love. And we can have faith in others, too. This does not mean trusting a stranger with your purse or wallet. But it does mean a quality of basic, person-to-person trust that is worthy of who we truly are—brothers and sisters in the family of God.”

It is very difficult to hold onto a trusting attitude in our chaotic and troubled world where fear tends to dominate. Somehow we must resolve to do it, to have the courage and “good cheer” of Jesus. “Suspicion is the inherent reaction of primitive men; the survival struggles of the early ages do not naturally breed trust. Trust is a new human acquisition brought about by the ministry of these planetary seraphim [The Spirits of Trust] of the Adamic regime. It is their mission to inculcate trust into the minds of evolving men. The Gods are very trustful; the Universal Father is willing freely to trust himself—the Adjuster—to man's association.” (39:5.7)

And though we are beset by uncertainty on every side, “In the more advanced planetary ages these seraphim enhance man's appreciation of the truth that uncertainty is the secret of contented continuity. …They heighten man's taste for the sweetness of uncertainty, for the romance and charm of the indefinite and unknown future. (39:5.9)

The yogis, although not fully realizing that the High Self they speak of is a divine spark of the greater power, also teach, “Self-confidence cannot come without trust in the Self. By the Self, we mean the real part of you, the timeless, eternal, never-been-born-never-died cosmic Soul. If you cannot trust others, the mechanism within you to trust your Self is closed off, too. That doesn't even mention the lack of trust in a power even greater than your Higher Self. Doubt in others energetically manifests in your field as distrust in yourself. You cannot begin to live the life you deserve until Trust, with a capital T, becomes a part of your very nature.” (Ramdesh Kaur,yoga and meditation teacher)

In trust lies the hope for the institutions of our civilization. “The secret of a better civilization is bound up in the Master's teachings of the brotherhood of man, the good will of love and mutual trust.” (194:3.12)

In the history book I just finished reading, Sapiens, Harari concludes that there will be transformations in human consciousness, a point of view that many readers of The Urantia Book hold as divine truth. However, in Harari’s scientific vision of the future, it would come about through cyber mind and means, artificial intelligence installed somehow in the human body, a new kind of Frankenstien’s monster, a machine man. My belief is the transformation will be founded on a more ancient pattern, the eternal ground of God. We both could be right.

“Come let us build the ship of the future in an ancient pattern that journeys far. Come let us set sail for the always island through seas of leaving to the summer stars … Scattered we were when the long night was breaking but in the bright morning converse again.” (The Circle is Unbroken by The Incredible String Band)

Four Steps, The Kingdom Steps of Inner Righteousness

Dave — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 16:04:00 GMT

"It is in the consideration of the technique of receiving God's forgiveness that the attainment of the righteousness of the kingdom is revealed … the reception of the forgiveness of God by a kingdom believer involves a definite and actual experience and consists in &hhellip; four steps, the kingdom steps of inner righteousness:" UB (170:3.3)

There have been several revelations of what The Urantia Book calls the Seven Psychic Circles, some that happened before The UB’s publication, including a couple of poets we’ll consider. “The psychic circles are not exclusively intellectual, neither are they wholly morontial; they have to do with personality status, mind attainment, soul growth, and Adjuster attunement. The successful traversal of these levels demands the harmonious functioning of the entire personality, not merely of some one phase thereof.” (110:6.3, The UB)

For the Anishnabek (Ojibwe Indians) and other indigenous people’s groups, the medicine wheel, an ancient circle symbol, evokes their history, old trade relations (stone medicine wheels were areas set aside for negotiations), tribal memory, the covenant with Creator to protect the Earth, the loss of a peaceful empire. The journey around the wheel is one of spiritual healing, seeking cultural roots for the restoration of identity, learning the art of storytelling. This passing along of personal accounts of the journey to others is highly valued. Acknowledging pain and sharing it is part of a healing path to self-mastery for all peoples. This is one reason the medicine wheel is so compatible with twelve step programs. On an individual level, the wheel can be used to symbolize covenants or agreements we’ve made with ourselves. Have we been loyal to our decisions? How can we do better?

At the center of the 4 directions on the medicine wheel is the seventh direction “the fire within,” (up and down being the 5^th and 6^th directions). It represents the kingdom of heaven within you, the spirit guide, our Thought Adjuster.

You may be on the linear track, life in the fast lane; it’s one way to measure progress. However, if overemphasized, you could get caught up in the accumulation of possessions, or the choosing of outer goals that have little or no foundation on an inner life. This linear direction is highly respected in our society, but we criticize those we perceive to be going ‘round in circles.

Those living on the linear path are tempted to move away, not deal with “insignificant” challenges, and leave difficulties behind. Just like those oil and mining companies who don’t clean up the pollution and toxic waste left after they complete the extraction process. Rather than face such problems, we go down a “Lost Highway” both personally and as a society. Portia Nelson’s poem portrays the journey of the addictive personality as one of several traversals of the same recurring challenges/problems in our psychic landscape. The person in the poem is rescued from the destructive pattern by recognizing the higher orbits that can be traveled, such as no longer blaming others:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson: “There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk”

Chapter One

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in. I am lost . . . I am helpless.

It isn’t my fault . . .

It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I am in this same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it there.

I still fall . . . it’s a habit . . . but,

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

Chapter Four

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

Chapter Five

I walk down another street.

Although the medicine wheel symbol is often used for therapeutic purposes in twelve step programs, for healing, I’ll take it further and connect it to a cosmic future. There are overlapping aspects with Carl Jung’s wheel of personality types. Jung also presented his wheel, usually seen as a graph or map of psychological outlooks rather than an action plan, to help patients understand how one aspect of their personality dominates the rest of “the quadrants.” In his therapy he helped them develop the usually unconscious, repressed or sublimated part to achieve balance, “harmonious function” as The UB calls it. For example, for a person whose intuition into the invisible realities is highly developed, it is important to face the reality of physical facts (shown in the opposite quadrant) with intellectual honesty, grasp those realities that may even contradict what he or she has learned from the invisible spiritual realities, for true spiritual health.

The famous singer and actor, Paul Robeson, had everything: wealth, fame, artistic gift and integrity. At one point, he even owned a mansion in England with a staff of servants. But he hadn’t achieved equilibrium, balance, in his life. Was it because he hadn’t developed a philosophy of mind, “a philosophic technique for meeting disappointment” as The UB describes it (193:4.7), a rational, critical thinking approach? Blinded by his political and emotional passions (the feeling side) for Socialism and communism, he may have been unable to accept the factual reality of Stalin’s Reign of Terror in the 1930’s, and this may have led to his several suicide attempts.

Our healing here on Urantia is the first stepping stone we’ll take to an ascension career on the mansion worlds. “The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character, the prerequisite for mortal admission to the ever-expanding and increasingly spiritual realities of the morontia worlds.” (101:6.7)

The Medicine Wheel and Jung’s Wheel of Intelligences (also found in the Upanishads) are pre-Fifth Epochal Revelation attempts to grasp the reality of the Seven Psychic Circles (110:6).

In a passage about the assignment of guardian angels, we read, “You start out in your mind of mortal investment in the seventh circle and journey inward in the task of self-understanding, self-conquest, and self-mastery; and circle by circle you advance until (if natural death does not terminate your career and transfer your struggles to the mansion worlds) you reach the first or inner circle of relative contact and communion with the indwelling Adjuster.” (113:1.6)

“Every decision you make either impedes or facilitates the function of the Adjuster; likewise do these very decisions determine your advancement in the circles of human achievement. It is true that the supremacy of a decision, its crisis relationship, has a great deal to do with its circle-making influence; nevertheless, numbers of decisions, frequent repetitions, persistent repetitions, are also essential to the habit-forming certainty of such reactions.” (110:6.6)

We can visualize the seven circles as successive spirals of development imposed upon the original pattern, our starting point—the seventh circle, of our medicine wheel. We grow, progress, climb higher if you will, ascend, but it is upon the foundation of original experience symbolized by our human models of “the wheel.” We can look back and see where we’ve been; indeed, since growth is unconscious, we more easily recognize in retrospect that it took place.

The symbol of the wheel with higher orbits superimposed upon the first is a model of understanding more conducive to our personal growth than the linear track of achievement favored by the West (which is perhaps a feature of the Andite mind.) So in growth and progress we ascend to new orbital pathways. As Don Beck might say we approach, “the less recognized vertical aspects” of a problem (http://www.spiraldynamics.net/dr-don-beck.html) The poet Rainier Maria Rilke appeared to have been given a revelation of the Seven Psychic Circles when he had this amazing insight into the process which he then described in a poem.

“I live my life in growing orbits that move out over the things the world. Perhaps I can never complete the last but I give myself to it.

“I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for a thousand years and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song?” (Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian born in the Czech Republic)

Sometimes I have fallen back into old positions of servitude to those old masters “depression and defeat” (130:6.3) who are cruel and punishing and promote an old unprogressive reality. At such moments, I repledge myself, if I have the strength and resolve, to the task I had agreed to undertake, revisit the place on the medicine wheel, the seventh circle, where I started out. It may require therapeutic help to end our slavery. Once again, we should remember we don’t necessarily begin to learn “self-government for the benefit of all concerned,” until the mansion worlds and then we are happy to have the assistance of those fourth order seraphim (administrator seraphim) known as the Quickeners of Morality. (39: 4.10).

We can call upon even higher assistance, beyond and above using our minds and the help of seraphim or therapists, “it is entirely possible for the indwelling spirit to make direct contact with the decision-determining powers of the human personality so as to empower the fully consecrated will of the creature to perform amazing acts of loyal devotion,” (67:3.7)

“What you Are Becoming … What you Are Today”

Dave — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:02:30 GMT

I always encourage my piano students to practice, as I know all music teachers surely do, so that the kids will make progress with their natural gifts. I ask them to set aside some of the time they devote to video games (often hours) and spend it enjoying the beauty of piano music. This is the typical music teacher’s lament, of course. “If they could just apply themselves a little every day,” the pieces would be played more smoothly, and the moments of stopping to search for the right note would be few and far between.

All my students are gifted, although in different degree, with a bit of talent. I use this metaphor of piano practice to show how we can also progress with a little spiritual culture every day. By training the fingers to play scales, arpeggios, and cadence chord patterns, the gift of talent can emerge and express itself. But do they experience growth? “Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 100:3.7).

As the technical skills increase (making progress), I hope for an increase (spiritual growth) in soul expression and depths of emotion in their playing. Making progress strikes me as a more conscious process, growth being “unvaryingly unconscious," as The UB says (100:1.8). We can resolve to do a service project, impose self-discipline, meet the challenge, achieve progress. With a little faith in the spirit guide within (the gift of talent and creativity), some time spent in communion, our lives would go smoother and we’d make beautiful music.

Thomas Merton had an insight into the interplay of progress and growth, how the regular practice of prayer would lead to episodes of growth, gifts of God. “All through the life of faith one must resort constantly to prayer, because faith is not simply a gift which we receive once for all in our first act of belief. Every new development of faith, every new increment of supernatural light, even though we may earnestly work to acquire it, remains a pure gift of God,” (Life and Holiness, 1963).

Jesus also reassured his followers about the certain result of their efforts to grow and progress. “My children, if there exists a true and living connection between the child and the Father, the child is certain to progress continuously toward the Father's ideals. True, the child may at first make slow progress, but the progress is none the less sure. The important thing is not the rapidity of your progress but rather its certainty. Your actual achievement is not so important as the fact that the direction of your progress is Godward. What you are becoming day by day is of infinitely more importance than what you are today.” (147:5.7)

The UB has refined the interrelationship between growth and progress in this way: “growth is not mere progress. Progress is always meaningful, but it is relatively valueless without growth. The supreme value of human life consists in growth of values, progress in meanings, and realization of the cosmic interrelatedness of both of these experiences. And such an experience is the equivalent of God-consciousness.” (100:3.6, pg. 1097)

A Red Race Perspective on the War in Heaven

Dave — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 16:00:58 GMT

When someone in the village or the tribe had an important dream with strong medicine in it, the medicine doctor interpreted it as a guide for the people. The Urantia Book, published in 1955, which purports to restore lost knowledge and forgotten history, arrived in the night through a “sleeping subject,” with what a Native American person might call his dream visions, with an episode of Earth’s history referred to as the war in heaven in the Bible’s Book of Revelation (12:7). It is called the Planetary Rebellion in Paper 67 of The Urantia Book (The UB). The story, already known and recorded in other sources: Paradise Lost by John Milton; a 5^th or 6^th century poem by Eleazar Qualliri; Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, just to mention a few, has been forgotten by many, perhaps most people I meet.

The authors of The UB frame the legend in Paper 67.0 in this way: the “problems associated with human existence on Urantia are impossible of understanding without a knowledge of the occurrence and the consequences of the planetary rebellion.” For a planet so nearly completely unaware of even the paltry remaining knowledge of the rebellion, hearing this admonishment shocks us awake.

Ancient texts have named the “ruler of this world,” “one of Satan’s most venerable demons,” as Belial, the Prince of Darkness, (The Martyrdom of Isaiah, also appearing several times in the Bible). He is possibly the being named in The UB as Caligastia, prince of this world (I will refer to Belial as an alternate name of the Planetary Prince in the rest of this blog). For 300,000 years of the Prince’s rule that began 500,000 years ago, all seemed to be going well. We can hear the echoes in American Indian teachings, a memory of those they call, “the Star People,” or “the Star Nations.” In the Lakota tradition, the supernatural hero-being who gave them the Original Teachings is named Fallen Star. To the Anishinaabe, he is the Original man lowered to the Earth by Gichi Manidoo as if by a rope. This origin story perhaps confuses the Planetary Prince with the later appearing Adam.

Then about 200,000 years before the present, Caligastia (Belial) endorsed the Manifesto and the “Declaration of Liberty,” of his superior, Lucifer, the system ruler, and his assistant, Satan (53:3.1). Helpless Urantia, along with 36 other worlds in our system of Satania (53:7.1), was drawn into the rebellion. These evolutionary worlds were immediately cut off from the universe broadcasts of the system headquarters.

The UB tells us, “at the outbreak of the rebellion,” Dalamatia, the city of the prince and his staff of one hundred, “had a resident population of almost six thousand; this number includes the regular students” (66:7.20). The red race, along with the 6,000 citizens and visitors who usually numbered up to an additional 1,000, witnessed the visible outer effects of the war in heaven. Because it was not a battle fought with swords and chariots, not much could actually be seen outside of the council meetings. But it was felt, sometimes understood, and they grieved the defection of their “extraplanetary teachers” (66:4.2). That much they could clearly see. And it was not long before the remaining Dalamatians were defending their walls from invading “semi-savages.” Eventually, the students would have learned of the city’s loss of the tree of life which had sustained their teachers and they experienced the default of the Caligastia program of upliftment, the abrupt termination of lessons in animal husbandry, agriculture, crafts, pottery, religion, and more.

The groups being trained by the Prince’s staff of one hundred, divided into 10 councils, were Andonites, mostly primary Sangiks, the red, blue and yellow races, and some of the orange race who were present. (67:7.7) They had been recruited to receive instruction, had left their homes and families to dwell in Dalamatia. Very little is said about the response of these early humans to the outbreak of rebellion among their marvelous teachers. At the beginning of the conflict, loyalists led by the heroes, Van (of Belial’s or the Prince’s staff) and Amadon, his human assistant, moved out of the headquarters of the Prince to “an unwalled and poorly protected settlement a few miles east of Dalamatia,” taking with them the tree of life, (67:3.4) a tree they would preserve until the coming of Adam and Eve, the Material Son and Daughter assigned to uplift our planet.

The entire “college of revealed religion” followed Van and Amadon whereas only some members of the other nine councils stayed loyal, probably the result of the Lucifer Manifesto’s first war cry of the rebellion, “the Universal Father did not really exist. (53:3.2)” Those of the Prince’s staff immersed in earth’s religious traditions, and committed to the revelations of the universe’s creator and ruler undoubtedly found this a repugnant doctrine. Today we still deal with this heritage, the persistent teachings of atheism and assertion of the self first declared at the time of the rebellion against the rule of Michael the Creator and God the Father.

The UB’s concentration on the war between “superhuman personalities” (67:6.4) tends to eclipse the effect it had on the children of the Earth caught in the whirlwind. Four pages into The UB story, we read that the Caligastia (Belial) rebels found it “easy to win the support of the primitive-minded evolutionary mortals.” (67:4.6) The support was short lived. Before long, “the misled and mistaught tribes,” shouting their hair-raising war whoops, swept down on the Prince’s city and drove the remaining staff and their associates northward where they settled in the “land of Nod.” The primitive humans who invaded Dalamatia converted the Father's temple into a shrine dedicated to Nog, the false god of light and fire (67:5.5). We can imagine some idea of this evil apparition, by recalling to mind Tolkein’s vision of the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings.

With dismay, we view this picture of the world’s races: in disarray, set adrift in the cosmos, under the rule of a new dictator, Caligastia/Belial, “God of Urantia” (67:2.4) After the Rebellion of her high sons, midwayers, and angels, Urantia’s central locus of a world culture with its teachings of peace, good will, and cooperation among diverse peoples, had collapsed. Dalamatia was overrun by those who had not completely learned how to substitute ideals of peaceful co-existence for natural animal aggression. A new unrestrained freedom never before promulgated by the respected leaders of the Caligastia one hundred along with accompanying savage emotions were unleashed by the premature teachings of liberty, a rebellion fueled by the Lucifer doctrine of “self-assertion” and “personal liberty” (53:2.2; 53:3.6). The world’s capital was soon abandoned. Meanwhile, Van and his followers moved their headquarters an even greater distance from the scene of carnage, withdrawing to the highlands west of India (67:6.1).

With the loss of heroic superhuman direction, what were “the emissaries of uplift” (66:6.4), the student delegates of the red race to do? What message would they carry back to their tribes and families at home? Though we’ve never had any details of this prehistoric era, The UB tells us that some aspects of a regime of peaceful coexistence were achieved during the first 300,000 years. Within a one hundred mile perimeter of the city, beyond the forty-foot walls of Dalamatia, some farms had succeeded. There were mostly animal husbandry projects underway (66:7.11). We can be certain that with the eruption of rebellion, these communities could no longer confidently depend on former protections. Some may have held on for a while. Most fled to safety. One hundred and sixty two years after this great spiritual battle, the land on which Dalamatia stood sank beneath the sea.

Not surprisingly, after the fall of the Planetary Prince, and the resulting isolation of Urantia, warfare raged between the yellow and the red races. During the long period of warmer climate we call the Eemian Interglacial (130,000 to 110,000 years before the present), both Sangik groups pushed northeastward as the ice retreated. This is probably when the red Sangiks began to gather in their winter lodges, learning to weave their great storytelling skills, explaining and recording the tragic events, tales of the Prince and the wondrous city that was submerged by a tidal wave; stories that were told and retold then forgotten as eons passed.

Over the next 20,000 years during the Eemian, forests expanded, extending their reach into the lands above the Arctic Circle. The yellow Sangik peoples followed the red race into Siberia, as they battled each other in a competitive struggle for resources and territory. No one was studying to be a farmer any more. They chased each other across the tundra; nomadic hunting became the natural adaptation, a way to survive the rough and tough environment, the conflicts and raids by enemy tribes. When not hunting each other, they hunted wooly rhinoceros, reindeer, and wild horses.

Warfare with the yellow race and continued migrations eastward ultimately led to the forced departure of a group of Sangik peoples across the Bering Strait land bridge. They were headed into the unknown, the uninhabited Americas, a group mostly made up of the eleven tribes of the red race, “a little over seven thousand men, women and children (64:7.5).” But the brave pioneers included “three small groups of mixed ancestry, the largest of these being a combination of the orange and blue races.”

“One hundred thousand years ago the decimated tribes of the red race were fighting with their backs to the retreating ice of the last glacier, and when the land passage to the west, over the Bering isthmus, became passable, these tribes were not slow in forsaking the inhospitable shores of the Asiatic continent” (79:5.6).

Of the four colored races, remembered by American Indians today as red, yellow, black and white, it was prophesied they would, one day, come together again to live as a united people. The four are commemorated in the Pan-Indian teaching of the four-spoked medicine wheel, a widespread and universally recognized symbol among Native American peoples.

Mother Spirit, Mother Earth

Dave — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 15:59:29 GMT

Native American philosophy begins from the perspective of “Mother Earth” spirituality. This is not surprising once we find out in The Urantia Book that worship and wisdom are adjutant mind spirit bestowals of the Creative Daughter/Divine Minister, partner of the Creator (Son). She is the first bestower of mind. “Man's first supermind endowment is that of personality encircuitment in the Holy Spirit of the Universe Creative Spirit; and long before either the bestowals of the divine Sons or the universal bestowal of the Adjusters, this influence functions to enlarge man's viewpoint of ethics, religion, and spirituality.” (The UB, 103:0.1)

Natives in their rituals of “worship” and “wisdom” return naturally to their source, Mother Earth. “The Great Spirit is in all things: he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us.” (Big Thunder [Bedagi], Wabanaki Algonquin.)

The Navajo, in ceremony, when they’re about to blow tobacco smoke and incense to the six directions, sing a song of the corn and growth, like this one:

“Ha-o, my mother, ha-o, my mother,
Due west, blue corn ear, my mother,
Due eastward, blooming blue-bird flower,
Decorate our faces, bless us with flowers,
Thus being face-decorated,
Being blessed with flowers,
We shall be delighted, we shall be delighted.
Ha-o, my mother, ha-o, my mother.” (sung by Agnes Mary Shattuck Dill, 1913 – 2012, , Isleta Pueblo)

I was inspired by October’s women’s retreat in San Mateo that was sponsored by the Golden Gate Circle Urantia Society, to put behind me for a time the greedy machinations of the world, to reconnect with the mercy and compassion of the Creative Daughter of the Infinite Spirit, to re-explore relationship with the Creative Holy Spirit, Corn Mother, Divine Minister.

“There are many spiritual influences, and they are all as one. Even the work of the Thought Adjusters, though independent of all other influences, unvaryingly coincides with the spirit ministry of the combined influences of the Infinite Spirit and a local universe Mother Spirit.” (The UB, 8:5.4)

Mother Earth appears in many cultures. In Mexico she is Tonantzin, an Aztec earth goddess who appeared to a Nahuatl man, Juan Diego, as the Virgin Mary in December 1531. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to him on Tepeyac Hill, north of Mexico City, where there was a shrine dedicated to the female Aztec earth deity, Tonantzin. To this day, in Nahuatl-speaking communities, and in others as well, the Virgin continues to be called Tonantzin, “Our Sacred Mother” in the Nahuatl language. A new structure was built over the remains of the ancient Aztec shrine—a Catholic Church, The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

One night recently, my Korean student and I discussed Kwan Yin, or Guanyin, the Buddhist bodhisattva, another manifestation of the divine mother who came to China from India in the first century. An unusual kind of quiet seemed to pervade the room as if a scent of blossoms wafted in on the wind. Her spirit of kindness and compassion hovered around us and later lingered in the car on my drive home. Did the students feel it? Was it the presence of seraphim, or maybe it was a higher ideal that was highlighted in our minds?

We call her name, Kwan Yin, Chinese saint,

Bodhisattva who enters the room soundlessly,

as my student and I are caught up in an epiphany

in our pursuit of wisdom.

An unusual quiet that consoles, brings calmness,

strength, settles around us, scent of cherry blossoms

wafted on a sweet wind of spirit.

Her kindness, compassion embraces us,

a visiting seraphim hovering

and later lingering, even as I’m driving home

on the busy freeway where there is fear,

no happiness, her presence abides

like a faint perfume, bringing joy, reborn hope.

If you’re looking up Mother God references in The Urantia Book, Creative Daughter is mentioned 5 times, Divine Minister 39, Mother Spirit 79, mother earth 1 time (by Jesus to a rich man), earth mother once (in regards to the Chaldeans religion), Creative Spirit (local universe daughter of Infinite Spirit, known on Urantia as the Holy Spirit) 66 times.

"We are the unconquered aboriginal peoples of this land our mother; The creator has given us our mother, to enjoy, to manage and to protect; We the first inhabitants, have lived with our mother from time immemorial; Our Okanagan Governments have allowed us to share equally in the resources of our mother; We have never given up our rights to our mother, our mother's resources, our governments, our religion; We will survive and continue to govern our mother and her resources for the good of all for all time." - Okanagan Nation Declaration

Holiday Cheer, Wassail! Wassail!

Dave — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 15:57:58 GMT

What is it about the season? How Christmas inspires such expressions of good cheer? As we attend holiday gatherings, even with our knowledge of their roots in midwinter pagan celebrations of Yule and Saturnalia, they still work their magic. Our merriness and mirth make resentments melt away. In conversations around the feast table, creativity spontaneously blossoms and emerges.

“How can a creative imagination produce worthy children when the stage whereon it functions is already preoccupied by prejudice, hate, fears, resentments, revenge, and bigotries?” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 111:4.9)

This winter solstice is the time of year when all that, the prejudices, hate and fears, fades away. We may even wake up like Mr. Scrooge on Christmas morning, "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! (A Christmas Carol, Dickens)

Jesus also understood how his apostles who “had hardly become accustomed to living and working together,” (143:3.1) would benefit from diversion and reversion. While in Samaria, he took them up Mount Sartaba away from the difficult relations with John the Baptist’s disciples. Also “the contact with the gentiles and the Samaritans was a great trial to these Jews.”

“While attaining satisfactory socialization of the personality on intellectual and vocational levels, further perfect the ability to live in intimate contact with similar and slightly dissimilar beings with ever-lessening irritability and ever-diminishing resentment. The reversion directors contribute much to this latter attainment through their group-play activities.” (43:8.9)

Tensions that have accumulated over the passing year slip away. Once again we enjoy revived fellowship with old friends and companions. We understand difficulties and disagreements in a more sympathetic, accepting way. “If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.” (100:4.4)

We begin to enjoy our differences, learn to love each other more, as we lift our glasses, make toasts, and reminisce about the days of old, “those were the days, oh, yes, those were the days.”

“When partially exhausted by the efforts of attainment, and while awaiting the reception of new energy charges, there is agreeable pleasure in living over again the enactments of other days and ages.” (48:4.10)

Christmas is a time for nostalgic reflection. “The future signifies struggle and advancement; it bespeaks work, effort, and achievement; but the past savors of things already mastered and achieved; contemplation of the past permits of relaxation and such a carefree review as to provoke spirit mirth and a morontia state of mind verging on merriment.” (48:4.12)

Reversion and rest greatly changed the apostles’ state of mind while in Samaria. Starting down the mountain back to camp, “Their return from this holiday marked the beginning of a period of greatly improved relations with the followers of John. Many of the twelve really gave way to mirth when they noted the changed state of everybody's mind and observed the freedom from nervous irritability which had come to them as a result of their three days' vacation from the routine duties of life. There is always danger that monotony of human contact will greatly multiply perplexities and magnify difficulties.” (143:3.7)

“They never forgot the day going up the mountain. Throughout the entire trip hardly a word was said about their troubles. Upon reaching the top of the mountain, Jesus seated them about him while he said: "… You must realize that the best method of solving some entangled problems is to forsake them for a time. … Again, many times your problem is found to have shrunk in size and proportions while you have been resting your mind and body." (143:3.3) …

And so our holiday time offers a break from day-to-day routines and struggles, a celebration of the past, an opportunity to be with each other, and have fun. Here’s to a recharged spirit to face anew the trials of social brotherhood ahead!

Student Visitors

Dave — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 15:56:14 GMT

Do you read with anticipation in The Urantia Book about the “student visitors” like I do, imagining how you’ll look forward to your own opportunities to visit another world? Several mentions of these visitations intrigue me. Here’s a few:

“Morontia mortals are student visitors only within the confines of the local universe of their origin. … These personalities may be executing a universe assignment, or they may be enjoying a period of leisure—freedom from assignment. The privilege of intrauniverse travel and observation is a part of the career of all ascending beings. The human desire to travel and observe new peoples and worlds will be fully gratified during the long and eventful climb to Paradise through the local, super-, and central universes.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 30:3.12)

Let’s review how travel is arranged to these places for us.

“5. The Transporters.These are the transport seraphim who function in the local systems. In Satania, your system, they carry passengers back and forth from Jerusem and otherwise serve as interplanetary transporters. Seldom does a day pass in which a transport seraphim of Satania does not deposit some student visitor or some other traveler of spirit or semispirit nature on the shores of Urantia,” (39:4.15)

Shores? Surfing beach? Pacific coast maybe? Sometimes I think: no wonder my UFO-following friend sees so much going on in the sky!

These daily visits happen even though our planet is not only isolated from the broadcast circuits but also doesn’t have the ideal landing platform, a sea of glass (which makes its first appearance on second mansonia, 47:4.3). Here is how it’s described on Jerusem. And perhaps there’s “pearly gates” at the observatory entrance like we’ve heard about before:

“Transports arrive on the crystal field, the so-called sea of glass. Around this area are the receiving stations for the various orders of beings who traverse space by seraphic transport. Near the polar crystal receiving station for student visitors you may ascend the pearly observatory and view the immense relief map of the entire headquarters planet.” (46:2.9)

As we can readily see in the section about Transporters, our status as a quarantined planet presents no obstacle to the comings and goings of what I think of as anthropological observers. “You will have ample opportunity to visit within any realm you have experientially attained. Student visitors are allowed on all inhabited planets, even those in isolation.” (48:3.10)

Some visiting students even get an invitation to attend a meeting of the planetary government. “Each administrative day on Urantia begins with a consultative conference, which is attended by the governor general, the planetary chief of archangels, the Most High observer, the supervising supernaphim, the chief of resident Life Carriers, and invited guests from among the high Sons of the universe or from among certain of the student visitors who may chance to be sojourning on the planet.” (114:5.5)

I once told my study group about a extraterrestrial landing that I witnessed in West Marin. I was living in Valley Ford, an isolated area, mostly dairy farms, with beautiful clear starry skies when the fog isn’t rolling in. Upon returning from a club performance in Santa Rosa about 2 am, not inebriated, I saw a round white light descending straight down, quickly and steadily, not as fast as a falling star, and landing somewhere to the south. A ship of space—a transport! It could have been landing on Marin County’s highest peak, Mount Tamalpais, probably a pretty good choice for a transporter landing.

Religious Assurance and Cultural Confidence

Dave — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 20:23:37 GMT

As a musician, I observe with fascination and wonder how we can glean the feelings of an era from its music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) expressed the cultural triumphs of European civilization during the Enlightenment, the era between the 1620s, when the scientific and philosophic revolutions began, and 1815, when attempts to put down the resulting revolutionary movements were undertaken. Mozart lived to see the French Revolution, but he died just before the Reign of Terror instituted by Robespierre in 1793; thus he did not witness what many saw as the complete unraveling of the Age of Enlightenment.

Robespierre himself was felled by the guillotine a little over a year later, and the “Terror” was ended. However, the dissident passions did not diminish. What followed was an era of pitched battles, increasing revolutionary fervor. But those forces that sought to restore old traditional authorities, the ancien regime, triumphed. The monarchies were restored by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In France, the Catholic Church regained the status it lost to the “Cult of Reason” in the French Revolution, although Napoleon reinstated it in a reformed, less powerful form. American colonial civilization became the repository of hope that Enlightenment values might prevail.

I started out on this train of thought mulling over the times of my youth, the brash confidence in the rock and roll music of the 1970s, British acts such as “The Who,” “Pink Floyd,” and “The Rolling Stones.” These bands were, and still are, examples of an assertive youth movement (though old folks now) that represented the triumph of the counterculture and the working class. They were male, almost exclusively; only a few girls were allowed. The expression was coarse, vulgar, more violent than the music of the Age of Reason; they were defiant of God and manners, condemned Christianity (but accepted Eastern religions), and they offended conservatives who came to resent an era dominated by liberal thinking that had gone too far. I tried to be like my heroes, those working class, hard ass, smooth talking, rocker mockers.

The Enlightenment fight for the ideals still cherished in our time: the “natural” rights of mankind, religious tolerance, personal freedoms, a government based on consent of the governed, etc., continues to be fought. These were hard won from a resistant established aristocratic order. European confidence in this victory was perhaps misplaced as some historians have said. The expansion of rights and freedoms was un-supported, not matched by equivalent achievements in spiritual growth, faith, or righteousness—character development. The World Wars of the twentieth century, ushering in a host of evils, were the disappointing ultimate outcome of an Age of Enlightenment.

“Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 2:7.6) “Science, morality, religion … these cosmic gifts, socialized, constitute civilization.” (16:9.4) Our planet cries out for moral leadership, leaders with ideals.

The rock and roll generation’s confidence in their power to remake the world was also premature. That an achievement in the arts equivalent to that of the European Enlightenment might come out of the rock music of our day is doubtful, but only time will truly tell.

The UB cautions us to beware of confidence based on self-admiration and self-assertion, a doctrine introduced by our deposed System Sovereign, Lucifer (53:2.3). “Pentecost was designed to lessen the self-assertiveness of individuals, groups, nations, and races. It is this spirit of self-assertiveness which so increases in tension that it periodically breaks loose in destructive wars. Mankind can be unified only by the spiritual approach, and the Spirit of Truth is a world influence which is universal.” (The UB, 194:3.18)

“Only religious confidence—living faith—can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems,” such as those we witness in our own time. (111:6.8)

The historical panorama stretches back into the mists of time, cultural achievements followed by precipitous declines, and the crash “of all things earthly.” Now that we’ve entered an age of terror in our own day, a “terror” that might be avoided, we could rally to work together and achieve spiritual maturity. Our mission should include the encouragement of spiritual living in others, whether by the example of our service, or through our teachings.

Assurance is defined in our dictionaries as “confidence or certainty in one’s own abilities.” Unlike the naïve belief professed by some religionists that “God will take care of everything,” use his divine Superman cape-ability to save us from ourselves, we must grow in confidence in our faith, knowing our gifts when consecrated to the outworking of God’s will are certain to be used.

In The UB, Jesus teaches a definition of faith as becoming self-conscious of the assurance of the divine presence, or the self-consciousness of that assurance. “When my children once become self-conscious of the assurance of the divine presence, such a faith will expand the mind, ennoble the soul, reinforce the personality, augment the happiness, deepen the spirit perception, and enhance the power to love and be loved.” (159:3.12)

During such times of rising fear as our own, we can, we must, minister to our fellows on Earth, encourage each willing, receptive person we meet to seek a personal discovery of this empowering faith. “Religion, true religion, is the indispensable source of that higher energy which drives men to establish a superior civilization based on human brotherhood.” (79:4.9)

Practicing the Presence of God

Dave — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 20:22:18 GMT

“The determiner of the differential of spiritual presence exists in your own hearts and minds and consists in the manner of your own choosing, in the decisions of your minds, and in the determination of your own wills.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 13:4.5)

What is the presence of God? What does it feel like? Is it a plateau of tranquility? That’s what the hippie yogis of the 1970’s looked for, bringing peace and love to the planet through meditation. But if we matured in our spiritual search, we began seeking a partnership with God. Maybe together we could move these stuck wheels out of the mud.

I have often had only passing moments of contact, call them theophanies—God’s manifestations. Or I made ecstatic proclamations of prayers of gratitude that lit up the sky like a Roman candle, then quickly came back to earth, to my normal materialistic concerns, daily routines, and worries.

I’ve realized I didn’t rejoice often enough in recognizing, “the ever-present possibility of immediate communion with the bestowal spirit of the Father.” (The UB, 5:1.3)

Lately, feeling I could use some help in taking advantage of these “ever-present” possibilities, I picked up and re-read, “The Practice of the Presence of God,” (PoPG) by Brother Lawrence, a book I was given back in the 1970’s. A French soldier who took vows as a Carmelite monk after being wounded in the Thirty Years War (1640), he taught, “That we should establish ourselves in a sense of God’s Presence, by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries.” Very much like the Master in the UB, where we learn, “Jesus was in constant communion with this exalted Adjuster.” (136:2.5)

“There is no mode of life in the world more pleasing and full of delight than continual conversation with God … let us do it, motivated by love and because God wishes it.” (PoPG, 60)

This unbroken communication is quite a different mode from the momentary epiphanies or spontaneous outbursts of prayer that I had more commonly experienced. Perhaps many spiritual seekers, including UB readers like me, don’t fully grasp how ever-present and constant a friend we could have in God.

“When the mind is untrained from the beginning, it has acquired bad habits of wandering and dissipation which are difficult to overcome … if [your mind] sometimes wanders and withdraws itself from Him … do not let it upset you … the will must bring it back calmly …” (PoPG, 76)

A true knowledge of the nature of God can be had by allowing oneself to personally experience his presence, whether in meditation, prayer, on a long hike in the woods, or “frequent journeys to the hilltop,” as Jesus did. I encourage people who are searching for a real experience of the divine presence to simply begin at whatever point you can begin having a conversation. I don’t usually advise the inexperienced to look for it in a church because there’s usually a prepackaged version of God being sold to the parishioners. Although many from traditional faiths and religions have written beautifully about their experiences of the nature of God, inspired works which I too have consulted and benefited from, personal experience is the only reliable way.

“It is not necessary to be always in church to be with God, we can make a private chapel of our heart where we can retire from time to time to commune with Him, peacefully, humbly, lovingly; everyone is capable of these intimate conversations with God, some more, others less; He knows what we can do. Let us begin—perhaps He is only waiting for a single generous resolution from us.” (The Practice of the Presence of God, 65)

Rodan the philosopher spoke of the practical applications of a daily relationship with God the Father. He observed how Jesus showed that frequent communion was the greatest of all methods of problem solving, “In this habit of Jesus' going off so frequently by himself to commune with the Father in heaven is to be found the technique, not only of gathering strength and wisdom for the ordinary conflicts of living, but also of appropriating the energy for the solution of the higher problems of a moral and spiritual nature.” (160:1.10)

“We will find in Him all the virtues we ourselves lack.” (PoPG, 103)

Sometime after years of building a closer relationship with Spirit, we will likely discern results in our lives, the fruits of spiritual living. Then we can enjoy speculating and wondering what differences it made to center our wandering will on daily seeking the presence and friendship of God.

“This is the Way; Walk Therein”

Dave — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 19:20:40 GMT

Maybe it’s time to check the map; make sure we’re headed in the right direction. Going through fire, flood, our ideals being trampled, a lot of things to grieve over, I made up a little rhyme to get me through the hard days: “Father help me with my fear, lend me courage and good cheer.”

In the days before I had The Urantia Book (The UB), I found inspiration in the King James Version of the Bible, “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.”

I was impressed with this wise spiritual guidance when I discovered it in the Book of Isaiah. “Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30: 20-21)

Such a stirring promise! We could know, experience, and be comforted by God in the midst of our struggles. I also discovered it in Jeremiah 6:16, “This is what the Lord says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Later, I saw the same wisdom attributed to the Spirit of Truth when I read in The UB, “Do not be troubled with doubts of failure or by perplexing confusion, do not falter and question your status and standing, for in every dark hour, at every crossroad in the forward struggle, the Spirit of Truth will always speak, saying, "This is the way." (34:7.8)

I wondered how did Isaiah, whose era was 740 to 681 BC, know the Spirit of Truth’s encouraging words? The Spirit was bestowed at Pentecost after the Crucifixion 700 years later (30 AD)! He was making prophecy, telling an eternal truth.

Jesus quoted it when he spoke to John privately about the ancient story of Job: “Job was ever ready to admit that God is righteous, but he longed for some soul-satisfying revelation of the personal character of the Eternal. And that is our mission on earth. No more shall suffering mortals be denied the comfort of knowing the love of God and understanding the mercy of the Father in heaven. While the speech of God spoken from the whirlwind was a majestic concept for the day of its utterance, you have already learned that the Father does not thus reveal himself, but rather that he speaks within the human heart as a still, small voice, saying, 'This is the way; walk therein.'” (148:6.10)

The UB reminds us how all these ministries are co-ordinated. “Thought Adjusters appear to come and go quite independent of any and all other spiritual presences; they seem to function in accordance with universe laws quite apart from those which govern and control the performances of all other spirit influences. But regardless of such apparent independence, long-range observation unquestionably discloses that they function in the human mind in perfect synchrony and co-ordination with all other spirit ministries, including adjutant mind-spirits, Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth, and other influences.” (108:4.3)

Notice how Jesus clarifies the import and relevance of the saying, though known to us first as the prophet Isaiah’s verse, then famously attributed to the Spirit of Truth in another The UB passage, finally revealed as the voice of the Father speaking to us from within our hearts. We are guided, watched over, cared for, the Lord is my shepherd—if I was hoping for a miracle of grace and mercy, here it is!

A Well-Balanced Personality

Dave — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 19:18:59 GMT

“The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality,” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 195:10.17).

When I set out a few years ago to make a career change, and began tutoring middle and high school students (some adults), I chose this quote above as my guide for the voyage into the world of learning, my pole star.

There are some who just want the grade points, the numbers, to get an “A” no matter how they do it. But I’ve discovered some kids have strong ideals crying out to be nurtured. I strive to help them learn to co-ordinate their ideals with their “idea-decisions” about their practical goals, to transform their “ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals.” (101:6.7)

A. Campbell Garnett, source author of Paper 103, wrote, “The completely integrated self is an ideal.” (A Realisitic Philosophy of Religion, pg. 54)

Doc Sadler also wrote about this process in 1912 before The UB was published, “The powers of imagination take our ideas and fashion them into our ideals. This is the higher or creative imagination.” (William S. Sadler, M.D., The Physiology of Faith and Fear, urantiabooksources.com)

“I don’t have a creative side,” one boy told me, but I thought to myself, one day he may discover the source of the authentic self he is seeking and gradually finding, his divine spirit guide, and then he may not have occasion to say that again.

The UB is careful to say the goal is not to dispense altogether with the “personality values of the ego,” that part of us which might desire to get the highest Grade Point Average.

“Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.” (The UB,103:2.7)

A. Campbell Garnett, whose thoughtful writing contributed to the above paragraph, commented “Even when [the altruistic or social interests] have called for sacrifice and there has been hesitation, even when it has required a fight to overcome the original ego, it is usually felt as worthwhile, in later reflection, to have been true to the higher self. Gradually new ideals of unselfish devotion to causes of social value thus take firm hold.” (A Realisitic Philosophy of Religion, pg. 55)

What would you say are “the personality values of egoism?” Perhaps the ego provides the leadership, seeking the good for oneself as the individual sets out to make discoveries in life, eventually learning to seek the good for others.

This learning to balance ego needs with the needs of others is the path of character progression, a path I hope I’m able to guide these young students along, helping them nurture their natural altruism. “Even secular education could help in this great spiritual renaissance if it would pay more attention to the work of teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression.” (195:10.17)

I discover my kids’ enthusiasms as they become involved in ideas, guided into the obscure world of poetry for example, where they find the treasures that are hidden there, or following a curiosity about the teaching of the Dalai Lama, his religion of kindness. My Asian students are especially interested in his story, his exile from Tibet. In helping them recognize the value of kindness, I confirm it in myself, learning even more about how to “act justly … love mercy … walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8; The UB, 126:4.5),” teacher becoming student. As Jesus told Ganid, “The true teacher maintains his intellectual integrity by ever remaining a learner.” (130: 3. 7)

Ponder this observation of human psychology, “When the growing child fails of personality unification, the altruistic drive may become so overdeveloped as to work serious injury to the welfare of the self.” (103:2.10) Jesus pointed out that even a whole racial group can make such an error, “Consider the Greeks, who have a science without religion, while the Jews have a religion without science. And when men become thus misled into accepting a narrow and confused disintegration of truth, their only hope of salvation is to become truth-co-ordinated—converted.” (155:1.4)

“Although the average mortal of Urantia cannot hope to attain the high perfection of character which Jesus of Nazareth acquired while sojourning in the flesh, it is altogether possible for every mortal believer to develop a strong and unified personality along the perfected lines of the Jesus personality. The unique feature of the Master's personality was not so much its perfection as its symmetry, its exquisite and balanced unification.” (100:7.1)

The Apostolic Mission to India: Was it Thomas or Nathaniel?

Dave — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 19:16:55 GMT

In the Christian Bible, although Bartholomew is referenced on a list of the 12 disciples in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, he is otherwise mentioned very infrequently, and was often believed to be Nathaniel. In some histories, it was the apostle Bartholomew who undertook a mission to India. The book of John, which has no formal list of the twelve, mentions Nathaniel in John, chapter 21, where he is included in a partial list of the disciples. The Catholic Church has declared: “coupled with the fact that the other evangelists always associate Philip with Bartholomew makes it probable that Bartholomew is the same person as Nathaniel.” http://www.catholic-pages.com/saints/st_bartholomew.asp The confusion about the apostles Nathaniel and Bartholomew has hopefully been cleared up in The Urantia Book (The UB). In its only reference to Bartholomew, The UB points out that this was Nathaniel’s father’s name (The UB, 139:6.9).

John’s gospel tells us that Philip brought Nathaniel to Jesus, also confirmed in The UB, “Nathaniel, the sixth and last of the apostles to be chosen by the Master himself, was brought to Jesus by his friend Philip.” (139:6.1). When Jesus sent forth the apostles “two and two,” (138:1.1) they traveled together.

Perhaps the confusion over the two names led to the persistent uncertainty over who went to India, Nathaniel or Thomas. The UB makes this definitive statement about Nathaniel who, after the Jewish holiday of Pentecost departed for lands to the east, “beyond Mesopotamia,” after Jesus’ crucifixion in 30 AD.

“Nathaniel differed increasingly with Peter regarding preaching about Jesus in the place of proclaiming the former gospel of the kingdom. This disagreement became so acute by the middle of the following month [following the ascension of Jesus on May 18, AD 30] that Nathaniel withdrew, going to Philadelphia to visit Abner and Lazarus; and after tarrying there for more than a year, he went on into the lands beyond Mesopotamia preaching the gospel as he understood it.” (193:6.4) This chronology would date the beginning of Nathaniel’s journey to approximately June or July of 31 AD.

There are two ancient historical accounts about the mission of Saint “Bartholomew” in India, the earliest written by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (early 4th century), and another by Saint Jerome (late 4th century). Both refer to the reported visit of Pantaenus from the Church of Alexandria to India in the 2nd century. In The UB version of events, “Pantaenus taught Clement and then went on to follow Nathaniel in proclaiming Christ in India.” (195:3.10)

However, another mystery dogs our steps, the discovery of Matthew’s Gospel in India in the third century. Eusebius writes that, while in India, St. Pantaenus was shown a copy of it written in Hebrew. We no longer have a surviving copy of this text in Hebrew, http://crossexamined.org/wrote-gospel-matthew/). Pantaenus was told that St. Bartholomew brought it there when he came to preach to the Hindu nation. Could St. Matthew's Gospel have been completed by the time of Nathaniel’s departure date, 31 AD? Even the earliest date put forth by bible scholars places the writing of “the First Gospel” at AD 50, and most don’t even accept such an early date. How could Nathaniel have carried it to India? Did he have a copy of his fellow apostle’s and friend’s first draft? It doesn’t seem likely he returned for it at a later time.

The studies of Friar A.C. Perumalil SJ and Moraes hold that the Bombay region on the Konkan coast, a region which may have been known as the ancient city Kalyan, was where Saint Bartholomew conducted his missionary activities. Some believe this history became mixed with that of the Syrian Thomas Christians also known as the Nasrani.

I think The UB makes an attempt to alleviate the Thomas/Nathaniel confusion with this clarification: “Nathaniel's father (Bartholomew) died shortly after Pentecost, after which this apostle went into Mesopotamia and India proclaiming the glad tidings of the kingdom and baptizing believers. His brethren never knew what became of their onetime philosopher, poet, and humorist. But he also was a great man in the kingdom and did much to spread his Master's teachings, even though he did not participate in the organization of the subsequent Christian church. Nathaniel died in India.” (139:6.9)

What about the persistent tradition in India, and here in America, that the apostle Thomas preached in the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu? The St. Thomas or Syrian Christians (Nasrani), presently 7 million strong, believe he arrived by sea at Maliankara, or Muziris, on the Malabar Coast in 52 AD. His founding of the seven Christian churches in Kerala is celebrated in a modern ballad, “The Song of the Lord Thomas.” Some of the tradition had mostly been forgotten until the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500’s when his grave and the “remains of the murdered saint” were supposedly discovered by a Portuguese priest. Thomas died there in 72 A.D. However, the Catholic Church does not accept the date, nor does the church validate his supposed martyrdom.

The later arrival of Canai Thomas, a Nazarene, or Syrian Christian, in 450 A.D. was grafted onto the earlier Kerala Christian stories of St. Thomas. Many think this later evangelist is the one around whom the traditions have gathered. Scholars dismiss the stories of Jesus’ apostle preaching there as “Thomas romances,” but these historians have not been able to prove to the local people that the research doesn’t validate the stories.

https://controversialhistory.blogspot.com/2007/10/myth-of-saint-thomas-india-visit.html

Chapter one of the book by HC Perumalil and ER Hambye, “Christianity in India- a History in Ecumenical Perspective,” skirts the controversy by accepting and discussing both the work of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Thomas in India.

(http://www.nasrani.net/2010/01/05/christianity-in-india-a-history/#ixzz4lodqmdBs)

Christianity in this predominantly Hindu country has not been a resounding success, Hinduism being the religion adopted by 80% of the population. The total number of Christians in India according to the 2001 census was 24 million, or 2.34 percent of the population. The 2011 census showed a further, although insignificant, decline to 2.30 percent. We should note that the number of Hindus has also been declining since 1951. Hopefully, the expanded cosmology and gospel message of The Urantia Book, along with its more complete story of Jesus’ life, will do better.

Pacific Coast Tide Pool

Dave — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 19:14:47 GMT

I decided to respond to the Atlantic magazine’s recent survey. “Tell us: have you been part of a new religious movement,” https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/08/new-religious-movement/534513/. I was trying to finish a poem about a visit to tide pools on the Pacific Coast, when I accidentally revisited a phase of my life in my notebooks of 1977. I saw how far I had fallen. It was the same year I was introduced to The Urantia Book. Along with the friendships I made in sharing the teachings, The UB saved my life. Like Jonah who sought “God and his goodness,” I was offered new possibilities for the future. “The evil circumstances of life will spew [disheartened souls] out upon the dry land of fresh opportunities for renewed service and wiser living." (130:1.2)

Soon after Chappell introduced me to The UB, she took me to Salmon Creek beach on the Sonoma Coast to show me the friendly universe she’d told me about. I knew these beaches well. In my early days traveling through California, looking for a place to live and play music, my friends and I had camped there. We’d written songs to the constellations, sung Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” around the campfire on the, “windy beach far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow,” danced “beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea.”

Here I was again, where sea meets sky and earth, with my new love. The incoming tide reflected billowing clouds where kelp forest and sea grass were washed flat by wave, whoosh and swirl. When the surge of tidewater paused and subsided, such moments of calm offered pictures of clarity in the many hued tide pools, where, like descending angels, the stars had left the wide open blue of empty sky to reincarnate as ochraceous starfish.

My soul mingled with the purple sea urchins, and scuttled with the hermit crabs dragging their borrowed shells, wiser ones hiding under shelves of stone or in waving tentacles of green anemones. I too had a shell like crab, too much like it, full of terror, hiding, protecting myself from the hurt, the reality, of being in love. A friend’s voice was singing to me, “let the seas rush in, let the sea gulls fly;” and I prayed that earth’s glory would meet my struggle for words to speak what this stumbling heart was feeling. Let there be a place for my devotion; may I find righteous deeds to do.

The tide washing in and out symbolized my old view of an impersonal universe. It represented the alternating conditions of good and evil where Good only randomly triumphed before Evil overcame it.

“The will of God is divine truth, living love; therefore are the perfecting creations of the evolutionary universes characterized by goodness—nearness to divinity … “ (3:6.2)

The UB saved my life, rescued me from the old reality that was not serving me well. In my volunteer work at the Family of God Foundation, I benefited from its teachings and learned to pray to a personal god, my Father.

Perhaps terror shows its face in nature, poses dangers in pounding surf, rip tides, and raging water. Yet sky, sea, beach, stars, fish, kelp combine to show me their true and beautiful intention, a loving panorama of the cosmos. In my deep mind, new possibilities were born for the future where I believed I had run out of opportunities and had none left. My life was about to change for the better.

The Usefulness of Dreams

Dave — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:12:18 GMT

Though we are urged in The Urantia Book (The UB) to progress beyond the primitive human tendency to read significance into our dreams, some of us still love to discover a guiding message, perhaps supernatural or providential, in our night visions. The warning we get is that it is “extremely dangerous to postulate as to the Adjuster content” of our dreams, even though they “do work during sleep.” (The UB, 110:5.5) In spite of these disclaimers, there are many examples of how dreams served an important function in our religious evolution, bringing changes that we should all feel grateful for: there is, “The dream origin of the belief in a future existence … [that] began effectively to antidote the death fear;” (86:4.2) and the story of the prophet Zoroaster who, “as the result of a dream while in Ur, … settled upon a program of returning to his northern home to undertake the remodeling of the religion of his people.” (95:6.2)

The dreams that took place at the birth of Jesus may have been instigated by seraphim rather than an indwelling spirit monitor (Adjuster). “Joseph did not become reconciled to the idea that Mary was to become the mother of an extraordinary child until after he had experienced a very impressive dream.” (122:4.1) Also, Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, only believed Elizabeth’s account of Gabriel’s visit, “after he had an unusual dream.” (135:0.1) These dream messages kept peace in the family and guided the men, who were perhaps feeling left out of such important events, to come to terms with their fate.

The famous “wise men” of song and story were guided by a religious teacher of Mesopotamia who “had a dream in which he was informed that "the light of life" was about to appear on earth as a babe and among the Jews.” (122:8.6)

I have never been one to devote myself very much to dream interpretation, though I admit I’ve attempted it once in a while (see previous blog, http://www.urantiabook.org/dave-holt/dreams-celestial-messengers-and-the-light-of-life). So it was, that with my alternating mental backdrop of doubt and belief, on the night before Father’s Day (June 18^th this year), I experienced one of those, “disordered and garbled” dreams we are cautioned against interpreting or speculating on by an Archangel of Nebadon, the author of paper 44:4.7.

My night visitation started out with a frightening scene on a high freeway overpass where I watched a man who, in turn, was watching his burned car (fire out, smoldering). There wasn’t much I could do, yet my service motive was obviously operating in low gear (I don’t remember offering help) – not such a noble beginning to what became a visionary experience. Soon after this traumatic beginning, I drove to San Francisco from Oakland and came upon what I was told in my dream was the River Thames. Many seasons of watching British television have familiarized me with the broad, impressive features of the Thames. I knew clearly this was not London, England’s river. Rather this was something far grander, more Paradise-like than that. The brilliant greens of the riverbanks, the dazzling blues of the summer sky, the sparkling waters that flowed and danced over the rocks, the people enjoying the park-like setting, the horses grazing nearby, created a vision of great beauty that declared the glory of God. “This is a glorification of God” was the very thought in my mind as I woke up on Father’s Day morning.

I sat down and wrote a tribute to my father in honor of the day, filled with this spirit of honoring his love, glorifying God my divine Father and Bob, my earthly father, at the same time.

Now here’s the irony, and I know Dr. Jung, interpreter of dreams, would appreciate the synchronicity. My father was born in London, Ontario, not far from the Canadian River Thames flowing through that city. However, it was not even the smaller version of the Thames in my dream. I believed it was a stream flowing out of the high heavens.

This is part of my Father’s Day Facebook post about Dad’s youth that brought many reactions in honor of his memory, “The Great Depression was the pivotal event for my dad, years when he was forced, or maybe chose (to be less of a burden on the family), to wander through the cold Canadian provinces seeking work. These were his teenage years—a transient and homeless time for him, as with many. … Like many survivors of the Dirty Thirties, Dad sang through the hard times; songs sustained him … I imagined him sitting atop the rolling boxcars, singing to high heaven while riding the rails, and I bet he got the other men to join in. He had a way of doing that.” https://www.facebook.com/OjibwayDescendant/posts/10154510800741078?pnref=story

Many people praised my father’s “triumph when others would have crumbled;” “he was a brave and courageous man;” “wise beyond his years;” “amazing person … he brought himself up.”

Namaste, Dad. “The god within me honors the god within you,"

Retrofit the Fulcrum of Faith

Dave — Thu, 11 May 2017 19:10:20 GMT

I was on my way to Unity in San Leandro to do some music ministry, first time at this church, when I spilled my coffee all over the front seat. Fortunately the java deluge missed drenching my clothes so I didn’t have to drive home to change my shirt. When I asked my angels, “That’s the only bad thing that will happen today, right?” perhaps they were laughing. For sure, they were helping me to laugh about it.

Sunday’s theme at Unity was “power” so the singer had chosen songs to reflect it. What a relief to be talking about spiritual power for a change, rather than the power of money or politics. While I waited in the spring sun for someone to arrive and open up the church, I meditated on the theme, power that comes to assist the believer from the Spirit within.

“Faith is to religion what sails are to a ship; it is an addition of power, not an added burden of life.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 159:3.8) As Jesus taught, “my yoke is easy, my burden is light (Matthew 11:30).”

I sometimes wish I could help young people in our community who suffer from low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, even being unforgiven for their weaknesses. The culmination of such an inner darkness is depression, perhaps more commonly manic depression. We hope for the chance to tell them about the added power of faith.

I confess to a tendency to the belief, as an adult, that I’ve overcome phases of manic depression that I went through in my own young adult life. When honestly confronting myself, however, I realize there are still times I have to battle the demons back into their corner. One helpful attitude I have learned as a grown-up is to be unafraid to seek help from the indwelling spirit. But too many young people are afraid to look within. We must help them trust the process and pray for an opportunity when it feels right to offer it.

“The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.” (Ramakrishna)

“When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.” (100:2.7)

In my early years of reading The Urantia Book, I made a pledge to follow the instructions Jesus gave to Fortune, The Young Man Who Was Afraid. I learned to “set [my] mind at work to solve its problems; teach [my] intellect to work for [me]; refuse longer to be dominated by fear like an unthinking animal. Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond servant of depression and defeat.” (130:6.3) This requires progress in self-mastery as well as faith.

We can gain renewed confidence from prayer, being energized by “divinely creative” power (143:7.5) when we attain worshipful moments in our praying that add the power to transform. The UB compares our acts of faith to the action of a spiritual engine, a load-lifting lever. “In executing those decisions which deliver you from the fetters of fear, you literally supply the psychic fulcrum on which the Adjuster may subsequently apply a spiritual lever of uplifting and advancing illumination.” (108:5.8)

“… choosing to do the will of God joins spiritual faith to material decisions in personality action and thus supplies a divine and spiritual fulcrum for the more effective functioning of the human and material leverage of God-hunger.” (110:6.17)

Jesus taught his apostles that such a fulcrum could also be leveraged for social and economic solutions, “Religion is the exclusively spiritual experience of the evolving immortal soul of the God-knowing man, but moral power and spiritual energy are mighty forces which may be utilized in dealing with difficult social situations and in solving intricate economic problems.”(156:5.10)

This kind of faith is given a new term in the Urantia Book, a “power-presence,” as Jesus described it to Fortune, “Begin your deliverance from the evils of inaction by the power-presence of living faith.” (130:6.3)Such a faith as he taught is not passive, nor “a burden.” It is a powerful assault on what can seem like insurmountable problems, a spiritual force for solutions. Sometimes I can’t imagine how I would survive in this world without the added power of faith.

The rest of my Sunday worship at Unity went beautifully and as I’d suspected, nothing else bad happened beyond the coffee stain on my car seat. A Unity service will often quote from one of their founders, Charles Fillmore. About power he states, “Power is man's innate control over his thoughts [and] feelings. A quickening from on high must precede his realization of dominion. "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you" (Acts 1:8). God is All-Power, thus all things are possible with Him.”

Seeking the Heart of My Soul’s Joy

Dave — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 19:07:56 GMT

I wrote a short essay/story about a community of artists among whom I lived some decades ago, and posted it so the others who were still in touch could read and comment. My piece ended this way, “I was on a quest for beauty and truth in my life. We lived in a surfeit of beauty. Nature was profligate with her bounty of beauty in rural, undeveloped Sonoma County. But what of truth? Was this it? Were we discovering a life to match our dreams, a life closer to our more authentic selves?”

One friend commented on the post, “Who doesn’t want a life to match their dreams? My dream was to be in a community of creative people and the circumstances we all shared attracted people who had a lot to offer. There was a seamlessness between our inner and outer lives that I wanted to keep on feeling.”

During my time in this community, I was in a phase of recovery and rehabilitation; I regained the urge to grow as a person, to make progress in my life. I felt a revival of desire, a zest for life. We were all fortunate to have the support of love and respect from friends.

“Know yourself” was written on the forecourt of the Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi, in the 6^th century BC. It was inscribed there by the seven sages, the founders of Greek philosophy. Jesus extended this Greek watchword to include, “Knowing God and yourself as a son of God,” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 5:4.8) becoming the most real self one can be, close to that divine spark that carries our true purpose.

In further meditations about the most authentic self, I recalled, “When Thought Adjusters indwell human minds, they bring with them the model careers, the ideal lives, as determined and foreordained by themselves and the Personalized Adjusters of Divinington, which have been certified by the Personalized Adjuster of Urantia. Thus they begin work with a definite and predetermined plan for the intellectual and spiritual development of their human subjects, but it is not incumbent upon any human being to accept this plan.” (The UB, 110:2.1)

The Greek way leads to a knowing of one’s psychology, a psychoanalytic understanding of emotions, and the likely acquirement of a philosophy of life. However, it is a knowing that is more static than the dynamic knowledge of sonship, which by experiencing the love of the Father and learning to do his will, we place ourselves on a continuum of progress and growth, not simply an analysis of where we are. In sonship we feel encouragement and support of the purpose for which we were created.

“The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress.”(The UB, 100:4.3)

When I’m not in a place of close communion with the Father, I fall into an old pattern of measuring myself by external factors related to my writing career: how many publishing credits I’ve received, Facebook likes, invitations to read my work?

In the medical building one morning, I waited quite a while for the doctor to show up. I had time to look out the window at a wintry sky and meditate on being a son of God, learning to trust in his guiding presence. Barren trees awaited the budding out of spring. Plain, unadorned birds, possessing no particularly bright colors, flitted from branch to branch, expressing their joy and delight in just being birds, contented with the gift of their natural state, free from fear or anxiety. As I followed their flight, I too enjoyed my soul at rest in a renewed friendship with God, and was thankful for the blessing of old friends still in my life.

Ascension—Where To Now St. Peter?

Dave — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 20:04:54 GMT

We learn much more about the ascension plan for surviving souls in The Urantia Book, (The UB), than from previous sources. Almost from the very beginning, in Paper 2, we learn what is revealed as the evolutionary “plan of progressive mortal ascension.” (2:3.6) Greater detail about the work of ascending mortals on the "mansion worlds" is soon to come (30:4).

I myself, a historian by nature, enjoy the perusal of an overview of how the plan was disclosed or understood in traditional literatures. I’ll cover some of it in this blog hoping you’ll share my joy in such excursions.

In Genesis, "When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methu'selah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methu'selah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." (Genesis 5:21-24, my italics)

"By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; … Now before he was taken he was attested as having pleased God." (Hebrews 11:5)

Did Enoch transition to “heaven” after “God took him”? “As the term heaven has been used on Urantia, it has sometimes meant [the] seven mansion worlds.” (The UB, 15:7.5)

“Enoch, [was] the first of the mortals of Urantia to fuse with the Thought Adjuster during the mortal life in the flesh.” (45:4.13) In The UB, he is now one of “the Urantia advisory council, the four and twenty counselors … the designated agents” of Gabriel and Michael (45:4.1).

Consider also the Bible stories of Elijah. "Now when the LORD was about to take Eli'jah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Eli'jah and Eli'sha were on their way from Gilgal… And as they still went on and talked, behold a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them.And Eli'jah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Eli'sha saw it and he cried, ‘My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces." (2 Kings 2:1, 11-12)

Elijah is also included with the four and twenty counselors on Jerusem, described as “a translated soul of brilliant spiritual achievement during the post-Material Son age.” (45:4.15) In these Bible stories, ascenders do not usually return to Earth after being taken up to tell stories of their celestial adventures, except in the well-known case of St. Paul who reported to his followers on a experience of being caught up into the third heaven and then paradise (2 Corinthians:12).

In the “The Life of Adam and Eve,” or The Apocalypse of Moses, a first century Jewish, possibly Essene book, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth only Seth was able to witness the taking-up of Adam in a divine chariot at his funeral. In The UB account however, Adam and Eve died and were buried in the temple of the Second Garden (76:5.5).

In some cultures, and in many new age schools of thought, the ascending soul descends again to Earth to reincarnate, often to serve a higher purpose that he was entrusted with while “on high,” or more commonly to clear up a karmic debt. However, The UB doesn’t validate the return to a life on earth. Is it because the authors know there is so much more going on in the universe? Why go back to Urantia?

As The UB points out, Jesus attempted to refute these ancient ideas. “The older Jewish teachers, together with Plato, Philo, and many of the Essenes, tolerated the theory that men may reap in one incarnation what they have sown in a previous existence; thus in one life they were believed to be expiating the sins committed in preceding lives. The Master found it difficult to make men believe that their souls had not had previous existences.” (164:3.4)

Sometimes it is taught in Buddhism that a bodhisattva, in order to make known to humankind the heavenly mysteries, will return as an act of mercy to teach what they have seen and experienced. In a way, the “four and twenty counselors,” whose destiny it is “to follow the mortals of Urantia on through the universe scheme of progression and ascension,” (93:10.9) are performing the role of the bodhisattva. Their ascension careers are delayed while they serve Urantia’s planetary government. Like bodhisattvas, they are persons, former heroes of our history, “who are able to reach nirvana but delay doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings.”

American Indians also have stories of divine transport to the heavens, sometimes interpreted in new age thought as “astral travelling.” In this example, as in all Native American lore that I know of, the transported one returns to tell his story, charged with a divinely bestowed task. In Hatcinoñdoñ’s case, his duty was to establish peace between warring tribes.

“Hatcinoñdoñ, the greatest warrior among the Seneca, once led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side.

“When Hatcinoñdoñ ran into a canebrake to escape the Cherokee, he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. While he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: "We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you." They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: "This is where the man lives who sent for you." He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said "Come in," and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawëñni'o, the Thunder-god.

… “Then the Thunder said: "… I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home." Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, "Now my messengers will take you to your place.”

“The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him.” (James Mooney’s History, Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees)

In the Bible, the resurrection of the righteous dead and the attainment of immortality were first clearly taught in the book of Daniel (12:3), then greatly clarified by Jesus and the example of his own ascension. The UB offers a more exact definition of an ascending son than is traditionally given. Although a person may have survived and awakened on the initial mansion world, he or she is not yet considered an “ascending son,” or daughter.

“When you and your Adjusters are finally and forever fused, when you two are made one, even as in Christ Michael the Son of God and the Son of Man are one, then in fact have you become the ascending sons of God.” Until that point we are classified as “surviving mortals,” who are “planetary sons.” (40:7.2) Upon awakening from the status of sleeping survivors, we become Mansion World Students (30:4.14) in the third stage of mortal ascension.

To read further about your future career as an ascender, study the paper, “The Ascending Mortals,” (30:4.1) where you can learn more about the “seven stages of the ascending universe career.”

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dave — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 20:00:29 GMT

People have frequently asked us how we, Chappell and I, have done it. How have we stayed together over 39 years. It’s been difficult to give a short answer. Or we find ourselves speechless. On our 25^th anniversary, with the help of many friends, we put on a large party at Larry Geis’s house in Sebastopol to celebrate the enduring love in our relationship. For the ceremony part, we put together some true quotes about the great bestowal of love, the powerful circuit that upholds this planet, the Great Circle. Here, with some new additions, is a long answer:

“Love is a striving, a seeking for that which is higher and greater than oneself.” (Plato, in Needleman’s The Heart of Philosophy)

“When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

“More handsome men might promise
To verb your noun or noun your verb,

But wife, for you, every Wednesday night,
I’ll drag the garbage to the curb…” (From Sherman Alexie, Marriage Song)

“Love is the outworking of the divine and inner urge of life.” (Jesus, The Urantia Book, p. 1898; 174:1.5)

“Love is the ancestor of all spiritual goodness, the essence of the true and beautiful.”

(Jesus to John, The Urantia Book, p. 1950; 192:2.1)

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments; Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his highth be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come; love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon my proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”

(Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare)

From the Truth, Beauty and Goodness paper (Urantia Book, p. 646; 56:10.19)

“…truth, beauty, and goodness embrace the full revelation of divinity reality. As this love-comprehension of Deity finds spiritual expression in the lives of God-knowing mortals, there are yielded the fruits of divinity: intellectual peace, social progress, moral satisfaction, spiritual joy, and cosmic wisdom. Advanced mortals … have learned that love is the greatest thing in the universe--and they know that God is love.”

“Love is the desire to do good to others.” (A Mighty Messenger, The UB, 56:10.21)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. (Mother to Son, Langston Hughes)

“You are destined to live a narrow and mean life if you learn to love only those who love you. Human love may indeed be reciprocal, but divine love is outgoing in all its satisfaction-seeking. The less of love in any creature's nature, the greater the love need, and the more does divine love seek to satisfy such need. Love is never self-seeking, and it cannot be self-bestowed. Divine love cannot be self-contained; it must be unselfishly bestowed.” (Jesus teaching at Tyre, The UB, 156:5.11)

Chappell and I together have lived with the challenges and ideals of love as a goal and we’ve helped each other to grow towards and with them.

Is the Universe Friendly?

Dave — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 19:57:11 GMT

We are told that Albert Einstein once said “I think the most important question facing humanity is: ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.” The oft-quoted remarks, never substantiated, supposedly made by the world’s most famous scientist to a reporter, raise another question: Why might a scientist come to such a conclusion?

Cosmologist, Michael Heller, gave us a clue. “The extremely precise fit of human existence into the structure of the universe is surprising at first, but after a while suggests various responses. The first thing that comes to mind is the principle of purposefulness. How did the initial conditions know how to fine-tune in order to make our existence possible? With such a high level of fine-tuning, the probability of a random occurrence seems negligible.” (New Scientist, 12 March, 2008)

Recognizing that the universe must have been made for a high purpose is part of the creative design that science is helping uncover. In philosophy, this is called teleology, explaining creation from the purpose it serves rather than from its causes.

I was introduced to The Urantia Book, The UB, by my wife shortly after Thanksgiving Day 1977, according to one of my journal entries. She’d told me she believed this was “a friendly universe.” Curiosity aroused, I wondered how’d she manage to have such an amazing thought? I had to know. And that’s what led to me accepting an invitation to visit her house. There she opened the big blue book to my wondering eyes!

Astounding as it is that we have been given such a universe, that it was even created this way, the revelation alone is not enough. Many believe otherwise, that it is founded on violent hatred, and daily experiences on planet Earth would certainly lead someone to that conclusion. The believers’ challenge is to reveal in our actions “the circuit of divine love” (5:6.12) that embraces all. Our planetary isolation makes the need more compelling. We must take this step in evolution though we falter and seem to fail. We must make creation’s inherent nature of friendliness manifest, and make the love of God real in our human experience on this lonely planet.

What if we could choose to live in full awareness of our inheritance as citizens of a friendly universe? If we could have such faith, why wouldn’t we choose it?

Have I experienced the universe as friendly? I often ask myself this question as I review the many times I’ve been rescued from disasters I created for myself. It was obvious that God and his angels were watching over me.

I often recall Jesus’ interpretation of the tale of Jonah and the whale that he offered to Gadiah in Joppa. “No matter into what great depths they may have fallen, when they seek the light with a whole heart, the spirit of the Lord God of heaven will deliver them from their captivity; the evil circumstances of life will spew them out upon the dry land of fresh opportunities for renewed service and wiser living." (130:1.2)

In The UB Jesus taught Fortune we can depend on the friendly support of physical reality itself; “You may be surrounded with small enemies and be retarded by many obstacles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the universe are on your side. The sun rises every morning to salute you just as it does the most powerful and prosperous man on earth.” (130:6.3, p. 1437)

In choosing to live by the “highest interpretation” of the golden rule, “spirit-led mortals … are filled to overflowing with the assurance of citizenship in a friendly universe.” (180:5.8)

Of course, faith in a friendly universe strengthens fellowship and inspires acts of true brotherhood. “The sincere religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and is aware of making contact with sources of superhuman power. He is thrilled and energized with the assurance of belonging to a superior and ennobled fellowship of the sons of God.” (100:6.3)

In a friendly universe we don’t succumb to pressures to conform, to follow accepted conventions and patterns of human behavior. We are “empowered” to offer our original expressions of the spirit. Jesus spoke about his universe as a gift of true freedom to all humankind. “I have come into the world to proclaim spiritual liberty to the end that mortals may be empowered to live individual lives of originality and freedom before God.” (141:5.1, pg. 1591)

Novels such as “1984,” which just recently rebounded into the current Top Ten book list, depict a harsh and cruel universe in which totalitarian regimes suppress originality and demand conformity. Our schools regularly offer young people these bleak and existential literary visions, while being confounded and baffled about how to teach them stories of love, service, and inspired purpose.

Other world religions have explored the truth of these ideas of empowerment and freedom. Before Jesus’s time, Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tze, was aware of the friendly universe. He taught his followers, “Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.” (Tao Te Ching, Verse 23).

So too the authors of the Hindu’s Bhagavad Gita (BG). They shared an awareness of cosmic support that, like Ganesha of the folk tales, would remove the stones in our pathway to the Supreme: “In all activities just depend upon me (the Supreme) and work always under my protection … If you become conscious of me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditional life by my Grace.” (BG, 18:57-58)

Indeed The UB goes into even greater detail about how our actions and decisions contribute to the growth of the Supreme, “the evolving God of time and space.” (0:2.15)

In Buddhism, one devotee taught, “Be on friendly terms with the universe. If you feel friendly toward the universe, the universe will feel friendly toward you.” (from a commentary on the Ratana Sutta, the Jewel Discourse) Hindu teachers understood that this friendliness will be reciprocated with love. “However men try to reach me I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end.” (BG 4.11)

Jesus revealed the true glory of the universe in his acts of love and devotion. “The Master has taught the apostles that they are the sons of God. He has called them brethren, and now, before he leaves, he calls them his friends.” (180:1.6)

Sources: Fuller rendition of the Einstein Q: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=797

Also see: wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Misattributed

Interview with Heller: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13454-qa-2008-templeton-prize-winner/

Healing the Wounds to One’s Self-Esteem

Dave — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 19:55:16 GMT

“Spiritual living mightily increases true self-respect.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 156:5.14)

I remember her walking in the high school hallways to her next classroom, one of our elderly teachers, too much rouge in her cheeks, wearing old-fashioned, wire frame eyeglasses before they became fashionable with hippies. Granny Greaves we nicknamed her. Like high school boys sometimes do, especially the alienated ones, we were studying well how to disrespect our elders. She was our guidance counselor.

One day in my ninth grade year, an appointment was made for me to see her. She had my IQ results which impressed her. While she spoke to me about being “a pupil of high potential,” I could see she wanted me to have confidence in my abilities, to empower the emerging self that was struggling to come out of its cocoon, put my willpower behind these gifts, think about making some decisions, taking a direction. But I didn’t want to look at them or even deal with it. My casual disregard unnerved her. Worse in her eyes was the tangle of emotions she must have seen that was concealing a damaged sense of self-worth. I was wounded, beginning to find ways to strike back.

I think she could have helped me but I refused help. “If you would obtain heavenly help, put away your pride,” (The UB, 131:7.3, Shinto) but the desire for spiritual help didn’t come until later in my life.

I see these traits in teenagers now, the rebellion and the resistance, some of whom I am tutoring. Mrs. Greaves wouldn’t have been able to tame my hurt feelings in one sitting, restore belief in myself and encourage some healthy pride. Perhaps all this was even beyond her skill set but oh, now I wish I’d let her start with the help. I’d have had something to build on.

Quite a long time ago, I finally put aside rebellion and started to study spiritual progress. “The sincere religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and is … thrilled and energized with the assurance of belonging to a superior and ennobled fellowship of the sons of God. The consciousness of self-worth has become augmented by the stimulus of the quest for the highest universe objectives—supreme goals.” (100:6.3)

“The self has surrendered to the intriguing drive of an all-encompassing motivation which imposes heightened self-discipline, lessens emotional conflict, and makes mortal life truly worth living. The morbid recognition of human limitations is changed to the natural consciousness of mortal shortcomings, associated with moral determination and spiritual aspiration to attain the highest universe and superuniverse goals. And this intense striving for the attainment of supermortal ideals is always characterized by increasing patience, forbearance, fortitude, and tolerance.” (100:6.4)

Because of this quote, I looked up the word morbid and read that it is “an unhealthy mental state, unwholesomely gloomy,” and it describes “a pessimist given to thoughts of death” as the Latin root mor-, mort, shows. When I came to God, hungry and thirsting for righteousness, one of the first things I desired the spirit to do with me was to heal this wounded self-esteem, replace morbidity with optimism.

Jesus taught his followers, “the loss of self-respect often ends in paralysis of the will. It is the purpose of this gospel to restore self-respect to those who have lost it and to restrain it in those who have it. Make not the mistake of only condemning the wrongs in the lives of your pupils; remember also to accord generous recognition for the most praiseworthy things in their lives. Forget not that I will stop at nothing to restore self-respect to those who have lost it, and who really desire to regain it.” (159:3.3)

Wounds are very close to our source of spiritual power. When we experience woundedness, we’ve become separated from our true inner selves, our spiritual natures, the Father fragments we’ve received (in UB terms), and we instinctively seek to undertake a journey of reunification. A mentor’s permission along with strength to go on the quest is often needed. This is why writers are often trained to use “the power of their wounds.” Leonard Cohen sang his Anthem, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Hemingway said something similar in A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Long before both of them, the poet Rumi in Childhood Friends wrote about, “the bandaged place, that’s where the light enters you.” Thank you, Jesus, for your light that healed me!

Dreams, Celestial Messengers, and the Light of Life

Dave — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 19:53:35 GMT

I think many of us believe we’re guided by our dreams at times. A few days before the death of my mother last year, I had what I called a healing dream, an affirmation of the journey of the soul to the next worlds. “My soul sings the song I received, as it flies down to the broad calm sea, dotted with white sails, boats on brave journeys, sailing to a glimpsed peace on the far horizon.”

In The Urantia Book (The UB), several dreams are accredited to the traditional Biblical Christmas story. A purpose of The UB is sometimes to sort, evaluate, and adjust accepted history, to present us a coherent picture of the nature of reality. Its version of the birth of Jesus makes several new adjustments to the received myth.

“At the noontide birth [August 21, 7 B.C.] of Jesus the seraphim of Urantia, assembled under their directors, did sing anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but these utterances of praise were not heard by human ears. No shepherds nor any other mortal creatures came to pay homage to the babe of Bethlehem until the day of the arrival of certain priests from Ur, who were sent down from Jerusalem by Zacharias [father of John the Baptist].” (122:8.5)

How did these priests, known as the Magi (Persian astrologers), come to learn of the advent of Jesus? What inspired their month-long caravan journey to Jerusalem? It was a contact with an unnamed spiritual teacher, “These priests from Mesopotamia had been told sometime before by a strange religious teacher of their country that he had had a dream in which he was informed that "the light of life" was about to appear on earth as a babe and among the Jews. And thither went these three teachers looking for this "light of life.” (122:8.6)

Such dreams, harbingers of Michael’s bestowal, occur several times in the narrative. Zacharias, the father of John, later to become “the Baptist,” learned about Jesus in a dream. “It was not until about six weeks before John’s birth that Zacharias, as the result of an impressive dream, became fully convinced that Elizabeth was to become the mother of a son of destiny, one who was to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.” (122:2.5)

Notice that he views the birth through the lens of Jewish tradition, “the long-expected Messiah,” (122:4.2) a role Jesus later disavowed. Dreams do not necessarily give accurate information.

In Joseph’s dream, we come upon a significant detail: he is told by a celestial messenger. “Joseph did not become reconciled to the idea that Mary was to become the mother of an extraordinary child until after he had experienced a very impressive dream. In this dream a brilliant celestial messenger appeared to him…” (122:4.1)

The “angel” Gabriel’s appearances to Elizabeth and Mary are described as supernatural. Why not the vivid dreams of Joseph and Zacharias? They seem so much more than dreams, more like divine visitations. The UB is normally cautionary about the “great danger in all these psychic speculations” (100:5.6) about dream life.

The term “supernatural event” is used to describe the contact of the seraphim through midwayers. "Certain wise men of earth knew of Michael’s impending arrival. Through the contacts of one world with another, these wise men of spiritual insight learned of the forthcoming bestowal of Michael on Urantia. And the seraphim did, through the midway creatures, make announcement to a group of Chaldean priests whose leader was Ardnon. These men of God visited the newborn child in the manger. The only supernatural event associated with the birth of Jesus was this announcement to Ardnon and his associates by the seraphim of former attachment to Adam and Eve in the first garden." (119:7.6)

Many have puzzled over this paragraph and its strong implication that there were more “wise men of earth” who learned of the Creator Son’s birth/bestowal, more than just the famous Persian star-followers.

Urantian author, Merritt Horn, once asked the question, “If the seraphim’s announcement to the priests was ‘the only supernatural event associated with the birth of Jesus,’ then to what does the phrase in the very same paragraph, ‘through the contacts of one world with another’ refer?”

Are contacts that don’t involve appearances by Gabriel or midwayers more normal in some way? By inference then, the dreams that Joseph, Zacharias, and “the strange religious teacher” had are a more natural means of communication, not considered supernatural per The UB.

Perhaps quite a few wise men experienced dream contacts. But only Ardnon and his fellows had direct seraphic contact, as if the seraphim had discovered men of action and, through direct confrontation, decided to more strongly encourage the “wise men” to make their pilgrimage.

Scientists have offered different versions of what the astronomical event, the Star of Bethlehem, probably was. One theory coincides with The UB’s date: the “great conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn between May and December of 7 B.C. http://www.space.com/14036-christmas-star-bethlehem-comet-planet-theories.html

It was three weeks after Jesus’ birth that, “they came bearing gifts,” to Mary (Matthew 2:1-12).

“These wise men saw no star to guide them to Bethlehem. The beautiful legend of the star of Bethlehem originated in this way: Jesus was born August 21 at noon, 7 B.C. On May 29, 7 B.C., there occurred an extraordinary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces.” (122:8.7)

May the light of the gospel, given by our great master-teacher, shine brightly as that star in our lives in the coming year.

Jesus Teaching in Solomon’s Porch

Dave — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:50:58 GMT

For his judgment hall, the wise King Solomon had constructed a large chamber 50 cubits long and 30 cubits wide attached to the original temple (a cubit is the length of a forearm, 20 to 21 inches). The enormous portico in front was built of cedar “of the forest of Lebanon,” (I Kings 7) and was known as “the porch of judgment,” then in Jesus's time as “Solomon’s porch.” The historian Josephus Flavius (War of the Jews, Book 5, Chapter 5) described it as an area of the original temple that survived the attack of the Babylonians in 586 B. C., four hundred years later, who left it standing because of its immense size and beauty.

Here the doctors of the law met to hear and answer questions. Jesus also taught in the outer court where non-Jews could gather and listen to his words. The Urantia Book (The UB) tells us Jesus spoke there several times. “Although his disciples had not expected Jesus to attend the feast, the vast majority of the pilgrims from afar who had heard of him entertained the hope that they might see him at Jerusalem. And they were not disappointed, for on several occasions he taught in Solomon’s Porch and elsewhere in the temple courts. These teachings were really the official or formal announcement of the divinity of Jesus to the Jewish people and to the whole world.” (The UB, 162:1.9)

One of the speeches that Jesus made there, recorded in John, Chapter 7, is greatly expanded in The UB account. In Paper 162, we can read not one, but three sermons, or discourses that he gave during this same Feast of the Tabernacles (Sukkot). They are the “Sermon on the Light of the World” (sec. 5); the “Discourse on the Water of Life” (sec. 6); and the “Discourse on Spiritual Freedom” (sec. 7):

"If my words abide in you and you are minded to do the will of my Father, then are you truly my disciples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. I know how you will answer me: We are the children of Abraham, and we are in bondage to none; how then shall we be made free? Even so, I do not speak of outward subjection to another’s rule; I refer to the liberties of the soul.” (162:7.2)

"I know that you are Abraham’s seed, yet your leaders seek to kill me because my word has not been allowed to have its transforming influence in their hearts. Their souls are sealed by prejudice and blinded by the pride of revenge.” (162:7.3)

“Now … at my side [a scribe] asks … Who do you claim to be that you dare to utter such blasphemies?' And I say to all such that, if I glorify myself, my glory is as nothing. But it is the Father who shall glorify me, even the same Father whom you call God. But you have failed to know this your God and my Father, and I have come to bring you together; to show you how to become truly the sons of God. Though you know not the Father, I truly know him.” (162:7.5)

In John 10:22, the Biblical record shows that he spoke again in Solomon’s porch at the Feast of Dedication. Some of what is written of this event in the Bible actually took place at the earlier Feast of the Tabernacles according to The UB.

Whereas at the Feast of the Tabernacles, Jesus proclaimed the gospel to pilgrims from all over the Roman Empire, his purpose this time was to speak to the Sanhedrin. Two of the apostles who accompanied him on this “secret” mission, Thomas and Nathaniel, raised anxious objections to his going into Jerusalem. He replied, "I would give these teachers in Israel another opportunity to see the light, before my hour comes." (164:0.2) Though the most striking event of this occasion, the healing of Josiah the blind beggar (a story that occupies most of Paper 164), had important consequences, the truly major address he gave was at the home of Nicodemus; “Here were gathered together some twenty-five Jewish leaders who believed Jesus' teaching. (164:2.1)

“When this little meeting broke up, all went away mystified by the Master’s personality, charmed by his gracious manner, and in love with the man.” (164:2.3)

Sources used: http://www.bible-history.com/backd2/solomons_porch.html

https://insolomonsporch.com/why-in-solomons-porch/

Truth, Beauty and Goodness: Standing on Holy Ground

Dave — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 19:49:09 GMT

Do you ever wonder why you know what beauty is even though you can’t define it? (The Daily Motivator, Ralph S. Marston Jr., 11/13/09)

The art critic, Robert Hughes, once said about the Spanish painter, Francisco de Goya’s work, “It tries to be true, not beautiful.” Goya was known for painting the extremes of human experience, “not the mild quotidian middle ground,” as writer John Updike described daily life in his New Yorker review (of the Goya show).

Beauty without truth content can be merely sentimental. The work of artist Thomas Kincaide, the romanticized lighthouses and cottages, is a good example of someone who’s criticized for this aesthetic flaw. Whatever critics might say, Kincaide’s financial success and enormous popularity have made it clear—not everyone rejects purely sentimental art.

On the other hand, if art is presented with too much truth and no goodness to balance it out, it can come off as harsh or unpleasant like some modern expressionism does, or “disturbing” and “pessimistic” as Goya is described. Truth without hope is one way of describing this type of art.

If we include a philosophy of goodness, a picture of the universe as “friendly” in spite of appearances to the contrary, such an insight leads us to offer hope along with our truth. The Urantia Book (The UB) equates “sublime hope,” a higher, spiritual and transcendent hope, with faith, as Jesus taught Nabon, a Greek and Jewish leader of the Mithraic mystery cult (now there’s an interfaith achievement for you!)

“But truth can never become man’s possession without the exercise of faith. This is true because man’s thoughts, wisdom, ethics, and ideals will never rise higher than his faith, his sublime hope.”(The UB, 132:3.5)

I find it a satisfying and more complete vision that, not only is there a law of conservation of energy on the scientific-physical plane, but also one of goodness on the spiritual-emotional plane as The UB confirms. “On the mansion worlds [the seraphic evangels] proclaim the great law of the conservation and dominance of goodness: No act of good is ever wholly lost; it may be long thwarted but never wholly annulled, and it is eternally potent in proportion to the divinity of its motivation.” (48:6.7)

Truth, beauty, and goodness provide a kind of working grid for an artist, poet, musician, writer, etc., seeking spiritual progress, striving for creative achievement, and as Integral philosopher Steven McIntosh said, these values can be understood as, “the actual directions of evolution.” We use these Perfect Forms or Ideas originally derived from Plato’s Republic (380 BC) as a guide to finding God, and/or as McIntosh further observed, for “guiding cultural evolution toward a more positive future.”(http://www.integralworld.net/mcintosh4.html) Those building a conscious philosophy of life may discover what is known as a teleological model, the purpose for their work.

One morning, as I was driving to a Urantia readers gathering, I thanked God for his presence in my life. The sun was coming up over the hills on a beautiful spring day. Recently, people had been hurling the familiar, old rebuff my way: we religionists and truth seekers were in the grip of an illusion. But that old Greek philosopher had revealed to me Truth, Beauty and Goodness (or Justice, all unified by Goodness) as the holy foundations of the earth. The Platonic triad was also a signpost on the road for “understanding where evolution is headed.” (McIntosh) Through Plato, I’d first experienced the insight that random evolution without purpose did not adequately explain the origin of the universe for me. This beautiful sunrise over the mountain vista I passed on the freeway was not a random, coincidental, accidental result of nature’s earth movements, not just another event in an endless sea of dark space, it gave expression to a divine purpose.

When in Alexandria, Jesus had a “heart to heart talk” with Ganid about Plato’s teachings, he wanted to teach some “qualified” enhancements to Plato that were needed for “a more trustworthy foundation.” Having more insight into the cosmos, Jesus added absolute personality, and a new concept, “the knowing of the Supreme.” In addition to the changeless “Absolutes,” that Plato introduced, Jesus further told his eager, though sleepy, apprentice about the importance of recognizing the Universal Father’s “Original Personality,” and the “creative bestowal of personality,” which “can coexist with unlimited change and at the same time retain its identity.” (130:4) Although Plato’s philosophy of the absolutes had not included personality, nor seen its capacity to synthesize Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, “Personality inherently reaches out to unify all constituent realities.” (56:4.2)

“Even truth, beauty, and goodness—man's intellectual approach to the universe of mind, matter, and spirit—must be combined into one unified concept of a divine and supremeideal.As mortal personality unifies the human experience with matter, mind, and spirit, so does this divine and supreme ideal become power-unified in Supremacy and then personalized as a God of fatherly love.” (56:10.15)

The disciplines of art, music, literature, and philosophy, serve as stepping stones for seekers to experience a revelation of truth, beauty and goodness. “The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature. Man finding God and God finding man.” (56:10.3, p. 646)

Creativity, a “function of the inner life,” (111:4.11) aids us in the achievement of closeness and communion with a seemingly distant God. These are the beginning baby steps to our eventual unification as mature spiritual beings with a personal God and the Supreme Being.

Blue Monday, Post Tuesday

Dave — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:47:26 GMT

I confess to being a naturally paranoid person, thus my reaction to last Tuesday’s election result has been to turn off the news, retreat from the outside world. I’m not recommending this behavior. I do it for fear of what too much exposure might do to my wellbeing. If I didn’t put my blinkers on while swimming the news-stream that’s rolling in, I’d likely have to get a straitjacket to tie me down, or a lifejacket (also suffering a severe case of mixed metaphors!) Anyway, not so my wife, Chappell, or my Facebook friends who are fiercely observing current events; there is plenty of leakage into my little world.

A lot of people I know are sick, fearful, despairing here on the left coast, where I’m now hearing the “coastal elites” live. Why is that said disparagingly? As I heard someone remark, “what’s wrong with being part of an elite; don’t we all strive for that kind of excellence?” My first post on Facebook was a kind of David Remnick (editor of The New Yorker) howl about the forces of authoritarianism, and I echoed his conclusion, “despair is no answer.” My second public “posting” was a poem “Observances” and I was grateful to David Kantor who made and shared a video of it to his list, happy to be appreciated.

I’d like to say a few words about the process behind that poem, an old one that I felt led back to revisit. I’d first attempted it in 2004 not long after the Iraq invasion and George Bush’s re-election. I found I had gone through a lot of roadblocks, stalls, uncertainties, before finally setting it aside, three unfinished versions, with no actually completed poem to show. This time, as I reworked it, I found no difficulty organizing the emotions expressed. The years had given me a matured perspective. I recognized that the poem spoke about the difficulties of the spiritual search, whereas perhaps 12 years before I’d only wanted the epiphanies, the joys, and thus, because of the struggles it reveals, couldn’t write it to my satisfaction.

“Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. (The Urantia Book, The UB, 100:4.2)”

Then Blue Monday morning, both Chappell and I woke up with new thoughts to counteract our fears. She wanted to make love a priority, including more hugs, kisses, and physical contact. My wake up call was I wanted to firmly resolve the true goal as the pursuit of happiness. In the same moment, we had both experienced these realizations separately.

Then within a couple of days, another great synchronicity, the quote that showed up from Hafiz of Persia (born 1326), “When all your desires are distilled, you will cast just two votes: to love more, and be happy,” the same leadings we had heard from the Spirit. Of further interest was his use of the word “votes.”

I have asked God to strengthen me in sharing the message the world needs to hear: the love of God rules this universe and our world and his sons are here with us to guide and steer.

"He who has seen me has seen the Father." To hear Jesus' teaching is not equivalent to knowing God, but to see Jesus is an experience which in itself is a revelation of the Father to the soul. The God of universes rules the far-flung creation, but it is the Father in heaven who sends forth his spirit to dwell within your minds.” (The UB, 169:4.12)

As we have been so led, let us embrace love and claim happiness.

Observances

From the muggings and thuggery,

life within the big picture,

I learned hard-earned humility.

Myself, I think of as forward trending,

gently bending. Body blows taught me

our perceptions cannot be depended on

as true … necessarily.

I’ve boxed with God’s shadow,

lived in his light, attempted retreat,

predisposed to contemplations,

punctilious clicking, one bead against another,

mulling over a myriad of truisms

recited like careful rosaries,

repeating things that earn

blessings and approval,

unsure of their right fit

for the moment I’m in.

I don’t know if my prayer ascends.

I shade burning eyes

from the flash of sky.

Try not to misread the horizon.

Found out I must in some measure

still trust. Must rely

on insights I personally own;

can’t take him at his divine word.

Time to act, use the passion

that lives in our bones;

rehearse the instincts.

Speak from authentic knowledge.

Put away the scattered yarrow stalks,

Chinese coins, the thrown dice. Move

through the open door before it closes,

turn the sticking wheel,

give it to your Spirit Guide,

a guardian, an ally, someone who can steer.

Put pedal to the metal. Drive on towards dawn.

Encouraging the Natural Idealism in our Young People

Dave — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 18:44:53 GMT

“When children have their ideals, do not dislodge them; let them grow.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 48:6.32)

One of the joys of teaching young adults, if you’re fortunate to have the opportunity, is the discovery of the ideals seeking to grow in their hearts. Sometimes I run into cynicism about education coming from teenagers who only want to get a high GPA, learn the rules on how to conform to a conventional work formula, get a degree that will earn them that good job, and then go out and make money. But I also find there are many young adults with ideals that go beyond the materialistic concerns.

As teachers, we can’t teach them what to value; we can only help them learn to be good evaluators of what they discover should most be valued. In their search for excellence, I want the kids I am tutoring to learn how to choose their highest values. Hopefully I can lead them to the “spirit-value sorter—the indwelling interpreter;” (196:3.17) the sorting, getting the order right, is important, to rewrite their stories of purpose if they discover they didn’t choose correctly at first. This kind of work is greatly helped by prayer, or the cultivation of an inner life, but in my secular role, I am limited there and can’t offer that kind of guidance.

“The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. Civilization can hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer world.” (111:4.3)

In my experience teaching history, I’ve seen that their inner lives, or their imaginations, resonate with the statements of our Western civilization’s ideals. They are inspired by the narratives of tolerance and human freedoms that culminated in our historic documents such as the Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence.

One of my students wanted to focus on lifting people out of poverty so he wrote an essay on the topic: why does poverty persist in such a wealthy nation as ours?

While discussing the Dalai Lama, another boy responded positively to a suggestion I offered about choosing a life direction of learning kindness and service to the poor.

Jesus taught, “In dealing with children, avoid all deception and refrain from suggesting suspicion. Wisely help them to choose their heroes and select their lifework.” (140:5.14)

In one young man’s writing, he envisioned a world where there was no more hatred. He was eagerly anticipating a trip planned for his class in spring when they will visit the United Nations in New York.

The UB urges us to help them nurture their natural altruism and enlightened unselfishness—love (180:5.10). “Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality. The mind of evolutionary man is ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish urges predicated on spiritual insight—genuine religious reflection.” (103:5.5)

No one is more caught up in this internal tug of war between emotions and unselfish urges than young people. At times, I wonder if many of them are beginning to feel the roots of civilization are threatened, and that our institutions are not working: “Today the nations of the world are directed by men who have a superabundance of ideas, but they are poverty-stricken in ideals. That is the explanation of poverty, divorce, war, and racial hatreds.” (111:4.10)

Because this stark political reality was so apparent to them, they supported Bernie Sanders in large numbers in our election primaries.

Putting the controversies of politics aside, there is the more important work of character growth. “Even secular education could help in this great spiritual renaissance if it would pay more attention to the work of teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression. The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality.” (195:10.17)

And finally The UB suggests what the supreme goal of education should be. “Give every developing child a chance to grow his own religious experience; do not force a ready-made adult experience upon him. Remember, year-by-year progress through an established educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual progress, much less spiritual growth. Enlargement of vocabulary does not signify development of character. Growth is not truly indicated by mere products but rather by progress. Real educational growth is indicated by enhancement of ideals, increased appreciation of values, new meanings of values, and augmented loyalty to supreme values.” (100:1.3)

Worship With Jazz at the John Coltrane Church

Dave — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 18:43:15 GMT

The eviction notice posted on the church door, February 24, 2016, announced that as of Tuesday, March 1st, the John Coltrane Church had sixty days to leave its home on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. This forced departure marked the shuttering of one of the few remaining jazz venues in the neighborhood once known as “Harlem of the West”.

San Francisco was and is changing, transforming more quickly than anyone can remember seeing before, old time businesses losing their longtime store locations. But the good news is: the Saint John Coltrane Church has a new address, 2097 Turk Street, in its home city.

The founders of the church, Franzo and Marina King, were celebrating their first wedding anniversary in 1965 when they saw the great saxophonist, who’d been “discovered” by Dizzie, Miles and others, playing at a now defunct jazz nightclub. It was when they first felt the transformative power of John Coltrane’s music. “We experienced the effectual transference of the Holy Ghost through sound,” Franzo King later wrote on the church’s website. They began their spiritual outreach in 1971, holding Sunday noon-time mass services on Fillmore Street in San Francisco, http://www.coltranechurch.org/, a ministry that’s going strong in 2016.

There’s a statement that has always intrigued many readers of The Urantia Book. “Some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 44:1.15)

John Will-I-Am Coltrane set out purposefully to do spiritual work -- his mission: to uplift people as an evangel with his music. In his 1965 album, Meditations, Coltrane wrote about the goal: “to inspire them to realize more and more of their capacities for living meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaning to life.” In October of that same year, Coltrane recorded Om (the sacred chanted sound in Hinduism that symbolizes the infinite), in which he described Om as the "first syllable, the primal word, the word of power". His recording included chants from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad-Gita.

Coltrane’s universalist view, his exploration of other religions, mixed well in the melting pot of spiritual traditions found in the San Francisco Bay Area of the 70s. This local cultural diversity evolved and became the foundation of a later interfaith movement. And perhaps this is why the idea of the John Coltrane Church was seeded here, and found a fruitful place to grow.

Coltrane’s spiritual journey began with an investigation into a “universal musical structure that transcended ethnic distinctions” in an effort to harness the mystical language of music itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coltrane

“Harmony, the music of the seven levels of melodious association, is the one universal code of spirit communication.” (44:1.11)

In Coltrane’s study of Indian music, he came to believe that certain sounds and scales could “produce specific emotional meanings.” The goal of a musician was to understand these forces, control them, elicit a worshipful response from the audience, and even heal his listeners.

“It is literally true, ‘melody has power a whole world to transform.’ Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona.” (44:1.15)

Coltrane said: "I would like to bring to people something like happiness. … If one of my friends is ill, I'd like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he’d be broke, I’d bring out a different song and immediately he’d receive all the money he needed."

Although in the Saint Coltrane Church services, people experience the same effect described in The UB from his melodies, I couldn’t help having doubts that he was the person described in The UB. I didn’t even think that George Harrison was such a musician, even though with the Beatles, he and the group changed the course of the entire planet in the 1960’s. Could it be that the Beatles fulfilled the prophecy made in Paper 44 of The Urantia Book?

An obvious difficulty with them fitting The UB description was that the quote refers to one male individual. The phenomena the Beatles brought in with their success and their cult of young believers were not often so celestial. So I harken back to earlier eras, to when the genius of Mozart and Bach flourished, admiring the greatness of their work. Yet The UB authors can still say this about Urantia’s music, “The best music of Urantia is just a fleeting echo of the magnificent strains heard by the celestial associates of your musicians.” (44:1.14). Makes me wonder what we’re in store for.

Coltrane’s musical art had more than a religious foundation. His “sound” was also shaped by the civil rights movement that swept America in the late 50s and 60s. In 1964, Coltrane played eight benefit concerts in support of Martin Luther King. On the Sunday morning of September 15, 1963, a dozen sticks of dynamite planted by white racists in the basement of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church exploded, killing four young black girls aged between 11 and 14. The Birmingham murders moved him to create one of his most poetic works, “Alabama,” and he patterned the saxophone lines on the resonant cadences of the speech Martin Luther King made at the funeral.

“Science lives by the mathematics of the mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity.” (195:7.20)

If you never have before, give a listen to the Black Classical music that helped liberate our country from bonds of segregation and prejudice. It’s the music of the civil rights movement, made for all people who have been held down, held back from reaching their potential. This music can be difficult to listen to. Not only does it present difficult challenges to the ear, there is pain in it. There are also pinnacles of accomplishment, sweetness, sacredness and joy. And it expresses the triumph of Barack Obama’s journey to the Presidency.

“I know that black is beautiful and white is beautiful. But the most beautiful color of all is black and white together. We hate each other because we fear each other. We fear each other because we don't know each other. We don’t know each other because we won’t sit down at the table together.” (Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, quoted in Partners to History, by Donzaleigh Abernathy)

Listening to the Good News in Poetry

Dave — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 18:41:45 GMT

Many in our readership are loving appreciators of good poetry. I enjoy how we share our favorite poems in social media posts and emails. Published author, Jeffrey Wattles, in his new book, Living in Truth, Beauty and Goodness, (universalfamily.org) includes insightful poems of beauty to support the quest for truth and goodness. Once, I even heard Carol Shindler deliver an inspired International Conference plenary speech based on a Rumi poem. So I think many of us can understand the meaning in one of William Carlos Williams well known poems, Asphodel that Greeny Flower, when he wrote: “Look at what passes for the new. You will not find it there but in despised poems. It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die every day for lack of what is found there.”*

In this love poem for his wife Flossie of 40 years, he wrote, “my heart rouses, thinking to bring you news of something that concerns you and concerns many men.”These excerpts I’ve quoted clearly show that the news we get from poetry is not the same as that reported in the daily media. He’s referring to something deeper, more nourishing, and life sustaining. In the reference to death, I detect an allusion to soul survival, even a hint about eternal life. If you “get the news,” you won’t actually die. You’ll do what we UB readers call, “graduate.” The poem ends, “Hear me out for I too am concerned and every man who wants to die at peace in his bed besides.”

The “news that … concerns many men” reminds those of us from Christian backgrounds of “the gospel” (Old English godspel) which both Christian and The Urantia Book (The UB) readers know to mean “the good news.” As Jesus taught his apostles, “Our teaching provides a religion wherein the believer is a son of God. That is the good news of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.” (Mark 16:15; The UB, 142:3.8) But William Carlos Williams, a family doctor familiar with issues of life and death, didn’t seem to have an affinity with Christianity. He did believe in the redemptive power of “the imagination,” and I think he’d find agreeable passages to support his belief in The UB, especially one about the “spiritized creative imagination,” where “faith acts to release the superhuman activities of the divine spark … that lives within the mind of man.” (132:3.5).

Our local Marin County poets who are going to explore all the possible meanings of “the news,” for their next publication, may see it differently however. Those who are non-religious will see that the message we are to get from poems brings mental health, emotional intelligence, perhaps soul health, whereas I see a life of purpose that will transcend death.

Are poets still delivering news that is spiritually nourishing, leading their listeners to know truth? Yes, sometimes they are; perhaps fewer poets today follow such a path.

In what areas of society can poets find that their art form is still relevant? Where can poets do the work that will help the planet thrive? I myself, a working poet, often ask what exactly is our work? Engineers and carpenters build workplaces, houses, bridges, and highways. But what do poets build? When I started writing, my goal was to build a different kind of shelter.

I searched for a way to define new thoughts, to reflect them accurately and clearly, so they could be understood, to share thoughts and ideas that might be inhabited comfortably by another, lived in, a philosophy of life perhaps, to guide one in the construction of a character, to make better decisions about the purpose we wish to serve, or were born to achieve.

As Jesus said “to the Greek contractor and builder … ‘My friend, as you build the material structures of men, grow a spiritual character in the similitude of the divine spirit within your soul. Do not let your achievement as a temporal builder outrun your attainment as a spiritual son of the kingdom of heaven. While you build the mansions of time for another, neglect not to secure your title to the mansions of eternity for yourself.’” (Jesus in Corinth, 133:4.6)

I have chosen to make the art of poetry a feature of my spiritual outreach, a vehicle to pass along spiritual lessons I’ve learned from my own experience. Others among you might find it a viable way to share experiences of God’s presence and the reality of the spirit. In my readings, I use my own work mainly, but there are so many authors whose work could be draw on to serve and minister to peoples’ soul growth and deeper understanding.

Here’s one about the future life (the morontia career, The UB, 48:5.8): The Time Before Death(by Kabir, translation by Robert Bly):

“Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!

Think ... and think ... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -- that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.

This next one is about an entity that accompanies us in life and the hereafter: “I Am Not I” (by Juan Ramon Jimenez)

“I am not I.

I am this one

walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,

and whom at other times I forget;

who remains calm and silent while I talk,

and forgives, gently, when I hate,

who walks where I am not,

who will remain standing when I die.”

There are so many more. Go out and listen to some of the news from poetry!

*Note: the original line breaks in Asphodel that Greeny Flower are discarded in these quotes.

The Nephilim and the Land of Nod

Dave — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 18:39:56 GMT

One of my students, a Catholic teenager, is struggling to understand how his faith (his term) can fit into the modern scientific/secular world. He has learned about the “out of Africa” theory of the origins of modern humans and tries to reconcile this evolutionary history with church teachings about Adam and Eve. What did I think about the Nephilim? he asked; “I don’t believe there were giants in the earth.” After recovering from my astonishment that he even knew the story from Genesis 6, I chose to direct his focus to the more pertinent meaning of the name, Nephilim (ne–fee–leem). The Hebrew word actually translates more accurately to “fallen ones,” the sons of the gods who took wives from the daughters of men and who bore children to them.

As we know, the history of the Planetary Prince and his staff at the Dalamatian colony has nearly disappeared. To avoid referencing The Urantia Book (The UB), I found myself also telling him about American Indian lore preserved by the elders which refers to “the Prince’s staff” as the Star People, or Star Nations. Tradition teaches that they descended from a hole in the sky located in the Pleiades and came to guide the early red race to wisdom and give them the tools of civilization.

My wife says her father, a Presbyterian minister and Navy chaplin, never spoke about the Nephilim. It’s no wonder he didn’t. Our parent’s preferred Bible, the King James Version (KJV), doesn’t use the term. It is from the KJV that we’ve inherited our misleading translation “giants in the earth,” which may more accurately refer to the Anakims, descendants of Anak, definitely the giants of tradition who already inhabited Canaan when Moses led his people to “the promised land.”

The UB retells this part of the story as we first heard it in Genesis 6:1-4. “The postrebellion era on Urantia witnessed many unusual happenings. A great civilization—the culture of Dalamatia—was going to pieces. "The Nephilim (Nodites) were on earth in those days, and when these sons of the gods went in to the daughters of men and they bore to them, their children were the 'mighty men of old,' the 'men of renown.'" While hardly "sons of the gods," the staff and their early descendants were so regarded by the evolutionary mortals of those distant days; even their stature came to be magnified by tradition,”(77:2.3)the giants my student took such interest in.

I often return again to read in Paper 67, “the occurrence and consequences of the planetary rebellion … did markedly modify the course of social evolution and of spiritual development. The entire superphysical history of the planet was profoundly influenced by this devastating calamity.” (67:0.1)

Among the significant corrections The UB makes to our history is the reordering of the chronology, which places the bestowal of the Material Son and Daughter (Adam and Eve) long after the rebellion, 200,000 years ago, when the children of the Prince’s staff, the “Nephilim” originated. The Old Testament (OT) record leads us to believe that the Nephilim, the founders of the Nodite Race, followed after Adam and Eve, and therefore are the children of “the first parents” just as our planet has believed we all are. Because of the misconception, that missing section of our history from the Lucifer Rebellion to the Garden of Eden story is about 162,152 years. The UB also places the building of the first Tower of Babel in this same Nodite period which precedes the Garden story by several millennia.

“The well-nigh universal folk tale of the gods who came down to earth and there with the daughters of men begot an ancient race of heroes … became further confused with the race mixtures of the later appearing Adamites in the second garden.” (77:2.3)

My student, raised with the Catholic catechism, was taught, “There are no persons in the world now, and there never have been any, who are not the descendants of Adam and Eve, because the whole human race had but one origin.” This information that races of human beings existed before Adam and Eve would provide him with the philosophy to correlate the science he is learning with the religious teachings of his church and understand the meaning between the facts of science and the values of his faith. The UB chronology makes it possible for human evolution to coexist with the concept of a divine perfect pair created to care for God’s garden where a river named the Euphrates flows.

Many of us have noticed the OT reference that tells us Adam and Eve’s son Cain went to the land of Nod and found himself a wife, a mystery that has confounded Bible scholars for ages. In The UB we are told her name. “Cain married Remona, his distant cousin, and their first son, Enoch, became the head of the Elamite Nodites.” (76:2.9) Thus they continued the long era of racial mixing, the children of Adam, the Adamites, with that race descended from the Planetary Prince, the Nodites.

According to Genesis, a city was built in this land of Nod and named after Cain’s son, Enoch. Though unconfirmed in The UB, the story is retold in the Sumerian version of the myth of the first city, possibly Eridu founded by Enki, lord of the Earth. “The Nodite ancestry … blended with the Adamites to found the Sumerian peoples of historic times.” (77:4.6) Scholars have correlated Enoch’s name with equivalent Mesopotamian city names, Uruk, Unuk (Sumerian Unug), Ereck (which also may have been the first city), attempts to restore the history of the pre-Sumerians (Nodites) without the help of The UB.

It could be that the biblical record is confusing the city of Ereck, or Enoch, with the more important early city of the Nodites, Dilmun, built to take the place of an even more ancient Nodite capital, Dalamatia, which was submerged beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. Dilmun is well known from the Sumerian tablets by historians of the Middle East. Unfortunately this history has not found its way into our general knowledge or the school curriculum. Sadly far as I know, none of it is taught in our schools leaving those like my Catholic student languishing in confusion.

Walking On the Beach with Jesus

Dave — Sun, 04 Sep 2016 18:37:41 GMT

I have a traditional spot on the Lake Erie beach where I visit my mother’s house near the sandy, south shore of Long Point, Ontario. I go walking there for worship and early morning meditations. This time, when I was there in August, I was reminded of the wonderful scene by the Sea of Galilee when the resurrected Jesus cooks fish and breaks bread for his apostles. Though he’d passed through suffering, humiliation, and death, the risen Jesus is filled with joy, friendliness, and good cheer.

“And then Jesus spoke, not as he had in Jerusalem, when he greeted them with "Peace be upon you," but in commonplace tones he addressed John Mark: "Well, John, I am glad to see you again and in carefree Galilee, where we can have a good visit. Stay with us, John, and have breakfast.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 192:1.4)

“John Mark brought seven good-sized fish, which the Master put on the fire, and when they were cooked, the lad served them to the ten. … Jesus bade John Mark sit down while he himself served the fish and the bread to the lad. And as they ate, Jesus visited with them and recounted their many experiences in Galilee and by this very lake.” (192:1.8) By the way, In The UB Jesus does not eat the food as is stated in one resurrection appearance recorded in the Bible.

I deliberately called this scene to my mind over the next few days of my visit to “the Point” and it cheered me mightily while I dealt with some difficult family issues surrounding inheritance, money, and real estate. Perhaps I was led to recall this picture so I would be strengthened.

I was again on the beach on the morning of Jesus’s birthday, singing songs of praise. “We are given tastes of the life and glory of the Master; today on this lake front where even the clouds seem to gather like angels singing songs of love, glorifying the Universal Father and the love of our guardian spirits.” (from my journal)

A theological question comes up when we contemplate this Galilee beach episode, one that is best preserved in the Bible’s Gospel of John, Chapter 21. Why do the apostles not recognize Jesus? The Gospel of Mark says “Jesus appeared in a different form,” (Mark, 16:12). Some Christians have an understanding of what Urantia Book students call the morontia body while others struggle with it, opting for what seems less complicated, Jesus is in his resurrected human body. The UB teaches that after three days following the crucifixion, “Sunday morning, April 9, A.D. 30, the resurrected morontia form and personality of Jesus of Nazareth came forth from the tomb.” (189:1.1)

On Catholic.com (http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/why-dont-the-apostles-recognize-jesus-after-the-resurrection) I found an answer that coordinates well with The UB, “Jesus’ Resurrection was the kind of resurrection that all of the saved will have at the end of time: He received and we will receive our glorified bodies.” (The term “glorified form,” is also used in The UB, 189:4.10).

This same Lake Erie beach where I sang an old Sunday School hymn on Jesus’s birthday, “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus,” is the setting of several poems I have written in previous years. One is called “Worlds beyond the Lake Wind.” It captured an insight I had into the future morontia career.

“The indescribable sweet air of morning

wafts across the lake in a wind

that shakes new leaves

of cottonwood groves

to a rattle and flutter of music,

makes me wonder—so hard to discern

where sweetness really comes from,

difficult to pick out

what makes up

the bouquet,

algae, riverbank, prairie grass, pine woods,

or to put it into words—I imagine

that it emanates, seems it must

flow from Him,

God Herself,

to sweep across treetops, waves, sand dunes,

aromatic essence of a distant universe

where harbors are prepared for us,

worlds possessing beauties

beyond those of this sphere.”

The Culture Wars: Our Life in the Trenches

Dave — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 18:34:58 GMT

When my famous poet friend’s wife died recently, he was devastated, overwhelmed by grief. We saw how much she’d meant to him, and had been his whole life. Though I wasn’t close to her, her death reached into my heart too, on a deep symbolic level. All kinds of irrational fears seemed to rise up from the open casket there in the church, and cluster around us like ghosts. I felt that the world we knew was also disappearing. Did we poets have any relevance? Were my friend’s dazzling abilities in literary scholarship of any value anymore? What was left for us? What were my emotions telling me is lost? I offered him our love and consolation. I said, you may not believe in a soul, my friend, but “you have a big heart.”

He and his wife, both poets, were strongly affiliated with the old San Francisco Beatnik community, the alternative vision created by the counterculture back in the 50s and 60s that continued on as the hippie movement of the late 60s/70s. Our vision, for indeed I shared it, was of a country more at home with its diversity, representing and protecting the rights of all of its citizens. We hoped for a true freedom of religion based on the constitutional separation of church and state, even the freedom to not have a religion. My hope in those long ago days was that non-Christian schools of thought, Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist, Muslim, could claim their proper place in this America of expanded freedoms. Experience had taught me that some in the counterculture wanted to put an end to religion just as the French Revolution had attempted in the 18^th Century, replacing it with a “Cult of Reason.” The culture wars have been marked by inter-generational, political, ideological, often hateful, and mostly hurtful spiritual conflict; I don’t wish them to continue but the divisions remain unresolved.

Because counterculture politics were left wing socialist, the Koch brothers early on mounted their opposition to groups such as ours; I don’t think many of us even knew who Charles and David Koch were back then. Influenced by Justice Lewis Powell’s pro-business memo of 1971, warning that “the American [free enterprise] economic system is under broad attack,” they devoted their fortunes to defeating the left wing liberal agenda. It is true that we hippies and beatniks wanted a redistribution of wealth, a fairer share of the economic pie for all. Even Jesus in The UB, “did frequently call attention to the injustice of the unequal distribution of wealth … He recognized the need for social justice and industrial fairness, but he offered no rules for their attainment.” (140:8.15)

A superior result would have been that the rich recognized the need. If there had only been more “compassionate conservatives,” to partner with wealthy liberals such as Ted Kennedy, to express empathy for the poor, act on behalf of the disenfranchised, the unempowered. But it didn’t happen. So through political means, we continually sought that government use legal powers to enforce compassion, the professed ideal of a “Christian” nation based on the teachings of Jesus who “unfailingly impressed upon his associates that they must "show forth love, compassion, and sympathy." (The UB, 137:7.13, Matthew 9:36) You can’t “legislate morality” they say, but shouldn’t all legislation have a moral purpose? Or, doesn’t it already?

In the 1980s, Chappell and I witnessed the death of this hope for social change. Not completely by coincidence we went to work for spiritual change instead, at the Family of God Foundation (FOG) led by Vern Grimsley. I had been immersed in a rock and roll milieu where there was no moral center. I was hungry for it. We were intimately acquainted with the flaws of the left-wing community, had witnessed the left’s embrace of the goals of self-gratification. “Self-maintenance builds society; unbridled self-gratification unfailingly destroys civilization (The UB, 68:2.11). The rise of secularism which displaced the Father’s kingdom in the world; “secularism has assumed a more militant attitude, assuming to take the place of the religion whose totalitarian bondage it onetime resisted. Twentieth-century secularism tends to affirm that man does not need God.” (195:8.5)

Glimmers of another sunrise of our political hopes did happen off and on, Carter, Obama, but they were followed by a lowering sky, sunset on our dreams.

So my wife and I, a California Democrat and a Canadian leftie, joined a group in which the majority were Reagan-era Republicans. We’d never imagined this to be our fate. Though we perceived the irony of the situation, we worked together willingly for a common purpose—a “spiritual renaissance,” based on the passage in The UB that Vern made famous. He fully embraced the slogan as his organization’s purpose, recruiting “these new teachers of Jesus’ religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men” (195:9.4).

To be honest, we were often uncomfortable with the politics and points of view of the group. Sometimes caught up in emotional discussions on our drive over to Berkeley for the weekly meetings, we’d ask ourselves, should we continue with this volunteer work, or depart gracefully? When Vern’s messages about WW III were announced in 1983, our skepticism grew. The opposition to him, even from old friends, increased. Within the year we left FOG, not with as much grace as hoped. Something, yes, another ideal had died there too. We did have this promise, “Jesus’ life is the everlasting comfort of all disappointed idealists (126:5.4).”

I am reliving this story in the new darkness of Donald Trump’s ascension in US politics, and the unresolved, festering, primordial, diabolic burn of the culture war. My friend’s wife’s death this year has come to represent yet another death of our ideals, after having been through several.

There is hope that we could be more like our master teacher and hold on to our faith. “Great things happened not only because people had faith in Jesus, but also because Jesus had so much faith in them (171:7.8),” a hard road, a steep hill to climb. Because of Jesus, that may be the calling, the best true choice open to us, faith in each other and ourselves. Problem is, we haven’t devoted much to that goal lately. We are way out of practice.

What is Effective Prayer?

Dave — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 18:32:20 GMT

Watching thousands of refugees literally wash up on the shores of Greece in their efforts to escape the ravages of war, of course we are moved to pray for them. And I feel I hear their prayers. They are overwhelming in their anguish. “It is a fact of human experience that most persons, if sufficiently hard pressed, will pray in some way to some source of help.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 91:6.4) I imagined that God’s ears were drowned with the prayers, too many whose needs weren’t being met for all of them to be answered. How could God care for everyone’s welfare?

Most of us know within the recesses of a reasoning mind that God does not intervene directly when we pray for rescue or healing. The intervention takes place at the point where we ourselves choose new patterns, make decisions and arrangements, even unconsciously rehearse the answers needed in our minds.

“Prayer, unless in liaison with the will and actions of the personal spiritual forces and material supervisors of a realm, can have no direct effect upon one’s physical environment. While there is a very definite limit to the province of the petitions of prayer, such limits do not equally apply to the faith of those who pray.” (91:6.1)

We surely realize this when we instinctively ask friends and family to pray for someone’s welfare, also gladly reciprocating when we are asked. Experience with many seemingly unanswered prayers has taught us that they may “have no direct effect.” Here’s another stern reminder in The UB, “Prayer may not be employed to avoid the delays of time or to transcend the handicaps of space.” (146:2.9)

“How petty and selfish it really would be for a person to ask that the laws of the universe should be set aside for his sake.” (A Student’s Philosophy of Religion, William Kelly Wright, 276—a source for Paper 91).

“Expect nothing; ask for a miracle,” my wife advises (when she notices what I’m working on!)

Sections in The Urantia Book that focus more specifically on the question asked in my title are: 91:9, “Conditions of Effective Prayer”; Jesus’ teachings on the topic in 144:3.17, and in 146:2, where many more details are given in answer to Nathaniel’s confusion.

A factual, philosophic answer to consider: “Materialistic praying is destined to bring disappointment and disillusionment as advancing scientific discoveries demonstrate that man lives in a physical universe of law and order. The childhood of an individual or a race is characterized by primitive, selfish, and materialistic praying.”

But stay with it. As the quote continues, we’re also informed of the positive results. “And, to a certain extent, all such petitions are efficacious in that they unvaryingly lead to those efforts and exertions which are contributory to achieving the answers to such prayers. The real prayer of faith always contributes to the augmentation of the technique of living.” (91:4.4)

Later in the text, even stronger assurance is given, “Prayer, even as a purely human practice, a dialogue with one’s alter ego, constitutes a technique of the most efficient approach to the realization of those reserve powers of human nature which are stored and conserved in the unconscious realms of the human mind. Prayer is a sound psychologic practice, aside from its religious implications and its spiritual significance.” (91:6.4)

The Harvest of Materialism

In situations where the effectiveness of prayer has seemed hopeless to me, I’ve experienced an insightful perspective through the Buddhist concept of karma, the reaping of what’s been sown, that whatever we do has repercussions, “the repercussional synthesis of all time-space actions in the Deity presence of the Supreme.” (94:3.5) The karmic debt of the planet is so great that many innocents are trapped in its jaws. What is the debt owed? Comments in The UB illustrate well a situation our world has inherited following the obeisance we’ve paid to materialistic mechanism in our actions, or persistent refusals to act, over the ages. Not only individuals, but whole societies and nations. “You simply cannot establish the brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the fatherhood of God. … Secular social and political optimism is an illusion. Without God, neither freedom and liberty, nor property and wealth will lead to peace. … this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come.” (195:8.11-13)

Unfortunately, the contemporary talk about God, where the Caliphate and its enemies are concerned, comes through the distorting viewpoint of the media. A discourse centering around revenge and martyrdom seems to be all that we hear when we listen to the Middle East talking. We are left to contemplate a tragic void of spiritual insight, without a consideration of the ideals of brotherhood.

There is only a partial understanding or acceptance of God as father, a need for a greater insight into divine personality. If we could grasp God’s parenthood more fully, we would recognize the brotherhood in each other’s eyes. Let us seek out the voices of those who are striving towards these goals.

Now That We Know What Prayers Cannot Do … What Is it They Can Do?

I’ve been a little hard-headed philosophically here, hard on our hopes. But in spite of all the things prayer cannot do, we are also reminded about the power and effectiveness of faithful praying as Jesus taught in Gilboa:

“The earnest and longing repetition of any petition, when such a prayer is the sincere expression of a child of God and is uttered in faith, no matter how ill-advised or impossible of direct answer, never fails to expand the soul’s capacity for spiritual receptivity.” (144:4.2)

“Prayer does not move the divine heart to liberality of bestowal, but it does so often dig out larger and deeper channels wherein the divine bestowals may flow to the hearts and souls of those who thus remember to maintain unbroken communion with their Maker through sincere prayer and true worship.” (194:3.20)

Prayer is most effective in guiding and directing us, through worship and communion, to self-realize the kind of human we aspire to become, to attain our “divine destiny of perfection attainment.” (184:4.6) As a planet we could do it together. Jesus once advised Nathaniel to begin with spiritual problem-solving in preparing us to solve our material problems (148:5.4). “Genuine faith will remove mountains of material difficulty.” (144:2.6)

An Unusual Co-ordination of Spiritual Agencies--The Axial Age

Dave — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 18:29:50 GMT

The term Axial Age, well-known in philosophy and history, is an era given the more prosaic description, “the sixth century before Christ” in The Urantia Book, The UB, (98:2.2). Its “pivotal” significance was first described by German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher, Karl Jaspers, in 1951. He recognized that many philosophers and religious leaders flourished at the same time, one of revelations and new ideas about God, which he postulated was 800 to 200 B.C. Some recognize it as a first awakening of global consciousness in recorded history—an emphasis on the spiritual experience of the individual over that of the tribe, when questions about God “were of universal interest and the answers meant for people everywhere,” (Katharina Becker, Education Committee of The Urantia Book Fellowship).

Some historians find the idea unacceptable “because it implies a knowing directive force behind the unfolding of history.” http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Axial_Age Readers who come to The Urantia Book are drawn to such a concept. They yearn to learn about a universe managed and administered towards a divine purpose, not one evolving randomly in a chaos of cosmic darkness. Much greater detail about this vast universe organization is included in The UB’s revelatory information; the “knowing directive force” includes teacher sons of “the Creator Son and the Creative Spirit,” (35:1.1) most notably, “the onetime incarnated Machiventa Melchizedek … more recent[ly] designated as vicegerent Planetary Prince,” of our planet. (140:0.11)

If you received a good Bible education, you were introduced to Melchizedek, without his first name, as the “priest of the Most High God,” who went out to bless Abraham following his military victories in the land of Canaan (Genesis 14:14-18), “the only Son of this order to bestow himself upon the Urantia races … assuming the assignment of service as a mortal ascender, having sojourned on Urantia in the likeness of mortal flesh at Salem in the days of Abraham.” (45:4.16) In The UB he is the teacher of the new Salem gospel, one of “trust in God and salvation through faith … one God and one simple faith.” (94:1.6)

But not just one Melchizedek! Who are the rest of them, the Melchizedek Sons described in the Urantia Book? “The Melchizedeks are the first order of divine Sons to approach sufficiently near the lower creature life to be able to function directly in the ministry of mortal uplift, to serve the evolutionary races without the necessity of incarnation... not once throughout all the superuniverse of Orvonton have these Melchizedek Sons ever betrayed their trust.”(35:2.1-2) In other words, none participated in the Lucifer Rebellion. They are “the eldest son[s] in a large family” (35:2.3) that includes Vorondadeks, the Most Highs; and Lanonandeks, who serve as Planetary Princes. They “are the first to act in all emergencies of whatever nature on all worlds where will creatures dwell.” (35:4.4) Machiventa chose to incarnate as the teacher we first came to know as the mysterious “King of Salem.”

Long after the Salem incarnation, “through an unusual coordination of spiritual agencies,” (94:6.1) the origin of Asian religious movements (primarily) was brought about by Melchizedek, an “emergency Son of Nebadon (98:7.12)” who saw that “his mission as a forerunner of Michael might be in danger of failing (94:6.1).”

“The original Melchizedek gospel had been almost wholly absorbed in the beliefs in the Great Mother, the Sun, and other ancient cults.” (93:7.3)

“About six hundred years before the arrival of Michael, it seemed to Melchizedek, long since departed from the flesh, that the purity of his teaching on earth was being unduly jeopardized by general absorption into the older Urantia beliefs … And in the sixth century before Christ, through an unusual co-ordination of spiritual agencies, not all of which are understood even by the planetary supervisors, Urantia witnessed a most unusual presentation of manifold religious truth. Through the agency of several human teachers the Salem gospel was restated and revitalized.” (94:6.1)

This Melchizedek Post-Salem project was initiated to prepare our planet for the bestowal mission of the Creator Son, Michael, destined to give Urantia the gospel of Joshua Ben Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth.

The UB dates the Axial Age somewhat differently than Jaspers did (as have other students of the era): “The sixth century before Christ.Many men arose to proclaim truth in this, one of the greatest centuries of religious awakening ever witnessed on Urantia. Among these should be recorded Gautama, Confucius, Lao-tse, Zoroaster, and the Jainist teachers. The teachings of Gautama have become widespread in Asia, and he is revered as the Buddha by millions. Confucius was to Chinese morality what Plato was to Greek philosophy, and while there were religious repercussions to the teachings of both, strictly speaking, neither was a religious teacher; Lao-tse envisioned more of God in Tao than did Confucius in humanity or Plato in idealism. Zoroaster, while much affected by the prevalent concept of dual spiritism, the good and the bad, at the same time definitely exalted the idea of one eternal Deity and of the ultimate victory of light over darkness. (92:5.12)

British author, Karen Armstrong, (A Short History of Myth) commented that by the Eighth Century B.C., human beings were suffering from increased violence and felt they could no longer rely on the gods to come down to the world and aid them in their struggles. The early Epic of Gilgamesh is an example of a growing cynicism and despair (c. 2000 BC in Sumerian cuneiform). The various spiritual movements of the Axial Age arose to restore humanity’s faith in a divine influence.

It required a rejection of the old mythology, and an acceptance of the one God (a restoration of monotheism). As Armstrong also pointed out, “Love or compassion, the ability to feel with the other, to empathize with the other, is the common thread. People felt that by dethroning yourself from the center of your world and putting another there, you achieved transcendence [God].” This ethic, known to many asThe Golden Rule, emerged almost universally. Armstrong later devoted a whole book to the Axial Age, The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah (2006).

This Melchizedek initiative was not primarily a Western one except for its influence on Greek philosophy.

“This was the situation when, during the sixth century before Christ, the Orient and the Levant experienced a revival of spiritual consciousness and a new awakening to the recognition of monotheism. But the West did not share in this new development; neither Europe nor northern Africa extensively participated in this religious renaissance. The Greeks, however, did engage in a magnificent intellectual advancement. They had begun to master fear and no longer sought religion as an antidote therefor, but they did not perceive that true religion is the cure for soul hunger, spiritual disquiet, and moral despair. They sought for the solace of the soul in deep thinking—philosophy and metaphysics. They turned from the contemplation of self-preservation—salvation—to self-realization and self-understanding.” (98:2.2)

Both Karen Armstrong and the authors of The UB include the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, 650 - 570 B.C., in the pantheon, this coordinated campaign of religious “pressure from above.” (52:6.7) “Jeremiah's teaching was the crescendo of the rising wave of the internationalization of the God of Israel; finally and forever did this intrepid preacher proclaim that Yahweh was God of all nations, … And thus did the religion of the Hebrews share in that renaissance of monotheism throughout the world at about and following this time; at last the concept of Yahweh had ascended to a Deity level of planetary and even cosmic dignity.” (97:6.2)

Many of us recognize the similarity to our own age, called by some the Second Axial Age because of its global character (theologian, Ewert Cousins 1927-2009). Once again, revelations in modern times are being nurtured as a check to the loss of hope in Spirit reality and God’s rule over material reality. One of these, of course, is The Urantia Book, an epochal revelation. “There have been many events of religious revelation but only five of epochal significance.”(92:4.4)We learn in The UB that both the religious revival of the Axial Age and the Urantia Book in our time are Melchizedek projects.

For myself, the significance of the Axial Age is well expressed in this passage, “While your religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most important that you should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse mortals) to the end that you may prevent your religious life from becoming egocentric -- circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial.” (The UB, 103:1.3, pg. 1130) And thus we can blaze a trail for a budding international community of truth lovers and seekers after God.

Kindness is Making a Comeback

Dave — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 18:27:55 GMT

I remember Mose Allison, one of my favorite jazz pianists, singing, “Everybody’s cryin’ mercy when they don’t know the meaning of the word.” I’ve pondered this often since I chose the path of a spiritual truth-seeker. His song seemed to say we know it’s important but we don’t act on it, rarely tendering loving-kindness to each other. Nothing could be more true about our current political and social climate. I remember back in the nineties, a popular faddish bumper sticker urging us to “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” (Anne Herbert)

I first learned about God’s mercy in high school when taking a catechism class preliminary to joining the church; “his mercy endures forever,” (Psalm 136) but I didn’t really know what it meant until God’s son reached out to me personally with his proffered gift of grace. I had my first inkling while hitchhiking from Philadelphia to Toronto one spring. The meaning of the 23^rd Psalm was revealed to me as I wandered down the solitary highway; “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;” I repeated the words to myself and this sustained me on the journey. (Psalm 23, The Urantia Book, The UB, 131:2.7)

On a day of anxious prayer, on a hilltop when I felt lonely, unloved, full of despair, I experienced both the meaning and the value of mercy for my future, my life on earth to come. I was conscious of the gift, another chance to make some sense of my life, to realize some kind of purpose, and redeem myself in all eyes including my own. So comforted and strengthened was I that I recovered the will and energy within myself to make progress in my goals—goals that included improving and deepening my relationship with this great being who had reached out with mercy and love, Jesus, our Creator Son.

At the Harvard Divinity School Commencement this year, our friend, Angie Thurston, graduated with her Master of Divinity degree. The address by Kimberley C. Patton,professor of the comparative and historical study of religion, featured the major theme, “Kindness is so often dismissed as the anemic, saccharine twin of its more robust siblings in the terminology of world religions: compassion in Buddhism, mercy in Judaism and Islam, love in Christianity. Worse, kindness is often seen as a cowardly way to duck agonizing dilemmas that involve a surrender of power, privilege, or capital; of systematic violence against female, brown, child, or gay and transgender bodies; as a way to hack the gnarly challenge of injustice while racking up gold stars for being nice. But kindness is not niceness. It is, instead, a powerful and subversive thing. It is something that anyone can practice, even if she cannot bring herself to feel compassion, or mercy, or love.”

http://harvardmagazine.com/2016/05/commencement-divinity-school-multireligious-service

Her words echoed author George Saunders (New Yorker) commencement speech of 2014, which also struck a nerve, “went viral” as they say. “Certain virtues, like kindness … compassion, somehow got a downgrade to … optional virtues. Yeah, you can be kind after you’ve won.”

The Dalai Lama’s famous motto is, “Kindness is my religion.”

So what of kindness? Does it differ in some way from mercy?

Many times in sacred texts it is written that God shows both mercy and loving-kindness to his children. In fact, Bible scholars say the same Hebrew word was translated into both words in English; therefore there must be no real difference between mercy and kindness, at least in the original language (Dr. Reuben Torrey). In The UB, the inclusion of the evolving Supreme Being has greatly expanded our language about God in many ways. From the perspective of the Supreme, I’ve had the insight that mercy must proceed from the forever-ness of the Absolute. Although absolute and transcendent, the Eternal God is personal and loving at the same time. As the Sikhs have it, “The Supreme Lord God extended his mercy and confirmed his innate nature,” (Sikh Holy scriptures). From the God of the Trinity, mercy comes down to us as a fact. But kindness becomes actualized as a “living truth” in the loving acts of the present moment that we do for each other. Our actions contribute to the growth of the Supreme on this world. “Mortal man, being a creature, is not exactly like the Supreme Being, who is deity, but man’s evolution does in some ways resemble the growth of the Supreme. Man consciously grows from the material toward the spiritual by the strength, power, and persistency of his own decisions.” (117:3.6)

During his personal ministry in Rome, Jesus taught this message, picturing one (loving-kindness) as a fact, the other (mercy) as a truth, a living “continually moving” (130:4.15) truth. He spoke of, “the fact of the heavenly Father’s love and the truth of his mercy, coupled with the good news that man is a faith-son of this same God of love.” (132:4.2)

Jesus predicted we would be empowered to put mercy into loving action by the bestowal at Pentecost of “the Spirit of Truth … the personal gift from the Master to every mortal,” (194:3.5) “When power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, you will not hide your light here behind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all mankind.” (191:5.3)

No matter how the political strains of the day may trouble us, kindness is destined to renew its power, to come back into our midst again and again. Through the anger and dissension, loving-kindness will prevail.

Putting my Shoulder to the Medicine Wheel

Dave — Sat, 28 May 2016 18:25:31 GMT

Many of us first read Black Elk Speaks in a college course like I did in 1971 at Sonoma State University. “You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles … In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished." (Black Elk Speaks) http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Wisdom/BlackElk.html

It is nearly impossible to explore the canon of American Indian literature without coming across this famous Lakota leader’s bawaajigan--vision. Native American elders continue to use a sacred hoop concept, the medicine wheel, as a representation of Earth’s energy, incorporating the four directions. Many psychological counselors make it part of a therapy to support the development of a balanced life. Ojibwe teacher, Sun Bear, recommended its use for “self-understanding,” and wrote, “during our lifetimes we are constantly moving around the Wheel ... It’s important for a person to keep moving around the Wheel, to learn life’s lessons ... so they can constantly grow.”

The Urantia Book alludes to the historically spiritual significance of the wheel for Native Americans, “All ancient clans and tribes had their sacred stones … among the red men it was usually a circle of stones.” (The UB, 85:1.3) These sacred circles were once used for Vision Fasts (or quests), a ritual that fosters personal religious discovery wherein usually a young person seeks contact with spiritual realities. Using the stone circles as a place to commune with the Spirit has declined, the more they’ve become tourist destinations.

The symbol of the wheel in spirituality crosses cultural boundaries into many groups. Although, in general, Western culture likes a linear model of reality, where cause leads to effect and progress continues in a kind of arrow of time, the poet Rilke, born in Prague (Czech Republic), had a distinctly non-linear vision, described beautifully in one of his Love Poems to God.

“I live my life in growing orbits which move out over the things of the world. Perhaps I can never achieve the last, but that will be my attempt. I am circling around God, around the ancient tower and have been circling for a thousand years and I still do not know if I am a falcon, a storm or a great song. (Rilke, The Book of Hours, translated by Robert Bly)

Some Native American philosophers adopt Carl Jung’s wheel of intelligences (also wheel of personality) for use in conjunction with the Native American medicine wheel. Jung’s idea was there are four intelligences in each of us, ways of understanding the world: thinking, feeling, intuition, and the ability to grasp physical fact (fr. Robert Bly). He visualized these modes as a circle. Usually one “intelligence” was dominant in the north position, the south position being occupied by what he called the “inferior function,” one which the individual and our society as a whole often reject while the dominant mode is encouraged. Jung’s circle, startlingly similar to the American Indian medicine wheel, as the road to a healthy psyche, gives value to all the functions in balance. Jung believed we would develop more empathy and compassionate understanding of others if we cared more for our inferior function, incorporating it more fully into our self-development.

The UB also teaches that progress takes place more in terms of “circle-making” than in a linear mode, a straight line. “It is from these arrangements in the central universe [attaining the circuits of Havona] that the circles of progress in the human mind have been designated.” (14:5.4)

We learn some details about the Seven Psychic Circles in Paper 110:6. “Every decision you make either impedes or facilitates the function of the Adjuster; likewise do these very decisions determine your advancement in the circles of human achievement. It is true that the supremacy of a decision, its crisis relationship, has a great deal to do with its circle-making influence; nevertheless, numbers of decisions, frequent repetitions, persistent repetitions, are also essential to the habit-forming certainty of such reactions.” (110:6.6)

I would suggest that much wisdom could be gained by modifying our concept of linear progress toward a well-defined goal, or at least its dominance in our thinking. It tends to lead to a desire for materialistic accomplishments, to rushing ahead for the new without savoring the value of old achievements and the progress we’ve earned, and to a disregard for the development of a balanced personality. In The UB, we even learn about a group that helps us revisit the circles of accomplishment, the Reversion Directors. They help us to slow down and experience “agreeable pleasure in living over again the enactments of other days and ages. The early experiences of the race or the order are restful to reminisce.” (48:4.10)

I put my shoulder to the Medicine Wheel to get through those hard emotional patches, old griefs, memories of pain and failure, where I get stuck now and again. I circle “the ancient tower.” As the Indians have taught me, most eloquently in Black Elk’s vision, I seek to mend the sacred hoop, restore the flowering tree which stands at “the living center of the hoop.”

I hope the young people in my care, whom I am tutoring, find it in themselves to achieve what I hold as a goal for myself, “The supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality,” (195:10.17) different words for the same healthy psychology envisioned by American Indian counselors, spiritual advisors, and Jungian therapists.

Rodan the philosopher put it this way, “by actually subjecting the total personality to the consciousness of contacting with divinity; to grasp for possession of new and better methods of adjusting oneself to the ever-changing situations of living existence; to effect those vital reconstructions and readjustments of one’s personal attitudes which are so essential to enhanced insight into everything worthwhile and real; and to do all of this with an eye single to the glory of God.” (Rodan in The UB, 160:1.11)

How Do You Stay Spiritually Healthy?

Dave — Sun, 15 May 2016 18:23:37 GMT

You often see a checklist on how to maintain good health at your medical providers. Lately the more progressive health prescriptions even suggest relaxation through meditation.

Lists have always been popular ways to visualize and organize our future. Maybe it is the doctor in Deepak Chopra that makes him one of the great list makers, in physical, emotional, and spiritual areas alike. In his book, Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, (itself a list!) he recommends making a list of your desires as a step towards achieving your goals (page 79).

I know many of us have favorite quotes displayed where we’ll notice them while going through the day. Of course, another book or beautiful quote may not help us to maintain health and then grow spiritually if we don’t act on the inspiration. That’s why we like to post reminders to act.

Here is a top ten of my quotes out of a collection that I reread or repeat to myself to cultivate spiritual health (and build a well-developed character). I keep them in a recipe box, a little Punjabi one (Kashmir, it says on the bottom) that I found in a thrift store. Others I keep pinned up on our kitchen cupboard, or on the refrigerator, held by a magnet. So here’s a spiritual checklist you may enjoy:

Experience Joy: Do what gives you joy as a service!

“No matter what causes it, whenever a little bubble of joy appears in your invisible sea of consciousness, take hold of it and keep expanding it. Meditate on it and it will grow larger … keep puffing at the bubble of joy until it breaks its confining walls and becomes the sea of joy.” (Metaphysical Meditations by Paramahansa Yogananda)

2. See Possibilities:

“Remain open to an infinite number of unexpected possibilities which transcend your own imagination and capacity to plan.” (Thomas Merton)

("Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." ~ Thomas A. Edison)

3. Learn Trust:

“When Jesus turned to James, asking, ‘James, do you trust me?’ Of course James replied, "Yes, Master, I trust you with all my heart." Then said Jesus: "James, if you trust me more, you will be less impatient with your brethren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the brotherhood of believers. Learn to weigh the consequences of your sayings and your doings. Remember that the reaping is in accordance with the sowing. Pray for tranquility of spirit and cultivate patience. These graces, with living faith, shall sustain you when the hour comes to drink the cup of sacrifice.” (The Urantia Book, [The UB] 192:2.8.)

“Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.” —Tao Te Ching, Verse 23

4. Give Love:

“In this world hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and eternal.” (Dhammapada, Ch. 1) I once saw my daughter use this quotation in a speech she gave to her high school classmates. That was truly inspirational!

5. Claim Spiritual Power:

“With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures.”

(Some Protestant confidence from A. W. Tozer) http://www.awtozerclassics.com/page/page/4891818.htm

6. Have Courage:

Jesus said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! (Luke 12:22-24; expanded and repeated in The UB, 165:5.2)

7. Practice Compassion/Empathy/Mercy:

“If your compassion does not include yourself it is incomplete.” Jack Kornfield, page 28 of Buddha’s Little Instruction Book.

8. Seize the Service Opportunities That Come Your Way:

“Service -- purposeful service, not slavery -- is productive of the highest satisfaction and is expressive of the divinest dignity. (The UB 28:6.17, P. 316)

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” (Howard Thurman)

9. Focus Concentration: “Lord I believe. Help thou my unbelief.”

“Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start such a magnificent and intriguing adventure through space by means of the progression of time, he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions; next, mandate wisdom to labor unremittingly at its noble task of transforming self-possessed ideas into increasingly practical but nonetheless supernal ideals, even those concepts which are so reasonable as ideas and so logical as ideals that the Adjuster dares so to combine and spiritize them … The co-ordination of idea-decisions, logical ideals, and divine truth constitutes the possession of a righteous character …” (The UB, 101:6.7)

“A small amount of focused concentration can expand into the subconscious mind to implant joyfulness, love and forgiveness. Expansion is the only way out of depression. Unless you remain consciously aware of yourself, you will mechanically create your childhood circumstances over and over again in your workplace and in your home.”

(Guidance from Within, by Ernest F. Pecci, http://drpecci.com/)

10. 10. Grow Faith: “… become self-conscious of the assurance of the divine presence, such a faith will expand the mind, ennoble the soul, reinforce the personality, augment the happiness, deepen the spirit perception, and enhance the power to love and be loved.” (159:3.12)

Voyaging With Faith

Dave — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 18:21:40 GMT

“And if you are the sons of God, then have you been born of the spirit of God; and whosoever has been born of the spirit has in himself the power to overcome all doubt.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 142:5.3)

The essential story of my life experience has been a voyage of faith through rough water, sometimes sheltered in its cove, or cast out on its treacherous deep. When I was a teenager, I voyaged without faith. Then I found it in my twenties, went through another phase of shipwreck, losing it, and then yet another episode of denying its validity. Plagued by faith’s evil twin, doubt, until later I rediscovered its truth for me. I have had significant others minimize the importance of faith; this affected me when I was young. But I went through that insecurity and disappointment and found faith again.

“Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.” (The UB, 3:5.10)

My faith survived to finally have more of a life of its own, that “gift of God” Jesus spoke about, unrelated to the ups and downs that beset my existence. “Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift of God.” (143:2.7)

It is unreasonable--when the philosophical test of reason withers it, it blooms through the frost; the culture of cynicism kills it, yet it lives to rise again, to provide life and hope because, ultimately, we discover there is no more reasonable model for living on this earth. From the ashes, the phoenix of faith spreads out its great feathered wings and beckons to me, and once again I climb up on its back and fly towards heaven.

I have learned from Jesus to, “enable [my] spiritual nature to begin [my] deliverance from the evils of inaction by the power-presence of living faith.” (130:6.3)

As I’ve grown towards a “whole-souled belief, an implicit faith” (156:5.12) and fallen “whole heartedly in love with truth,” (157:2.2) I’ve passed through theories whose validity I always tested. I went beyond the models for reality that I experimented with, and I left the realm of ideas to discover something more.

Faith is where ideas and theories cease for me, and I touch something that I have put my whole heart and mind into, and yet it is something beyond thinking, a living faith, not merely thoughts about faith. I was far away from this point in my earlier years. I’m much closer to it now. I found faith in my meditations, moments of personal communion with the Father. I see it emerge in activities that are not so religious, such as some of my poetry that upholds the faith of simple people, country folk, farm workers, the “simple faith of a child,” defending it from the seemingly more sophisticated urban atheists who try to deride their faith. Let us help the children of God learn, keep, and grow their faith.

Dark Matter, Dark Islands, and Stellar Black Holes

Dave — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 18:19:48 GMT

One of my students wrote his science report on the gravitational-wave signal received from two merging black holes discovered in September 2015 (not reported until February 2016). To better help him, I set out to research and update my knowledge. New information about “black holes” continues to pour in every year. What are these ominous, invisible, quicksand-like things in our universe? We can’t turn to The Urantia Book (The UB) for an answer. It never uses the term. But is there an equivalent in The UB? The “dark islands of space,” (The UB, 15:6.11) perhaps?

NASA’s definition, “A black hole is a region in space where the pulling force of gravity is so strong that light is not able to escape. The strong gravity occurs because matter has been pressed into a tiny space. This compression can take place at the end of a star’s life. Some black holes are a result of dying stars.” http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-58.html

Dark gravity bodies, mentioned in The UB, appear to be separate entities outside of spacetime though perhaps a related force or energy. These “dark energy-charged spheres” (12:1.10), surround Havona, the central universe, “not a time creation; it is an eternal existence.” Black holes seem to be a local, in time phenomena.

The collapsing star, or supernova, model used to be the standard definition of the black hole when physicist John Wheeler first invented the term in 1967 (replacing “dark star”). I learned that the definition now includes 3 types, this most common one known as a “Stellar black hole,” the medium sized type.

My logical mind used to be bothered that the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy was a collapsed star. Not all supernovas end up as black holes by the way. Some become neutron stars, also a term not mentioned in The UB. Why would the center of the galaxy be the result of a supernova, an explosion? In the “friendly universe” model, it didn’t make sense to me, so I was relieved to learn our knowledge had progressed to include those not formed from dying stars. The other two types are: primordial, small ones from the time of the “big bang” origin of the universe, supposed to explain dark matter but no longer believed to do so; and the largest type, supermassive stellar black holes like the one at the center of our galaxy known as Sagittarius A.

Our Milky Way is described in The UB: “The vast Milky Way starry system represents the central nucleus of Orvonton, being largely beyond the borders of your local universe. This great aggregation of suns, dark islands of space [there they are again!], double stars, globular clusters, star clouds, spiral and other nebulae, together with myriads of individual planets, forms a watchlike, elongated-circular grouping of about one seventh of the inhabited evolutionary universes.” (15:3.1)

A supermassive black hole is now believed to exist at the center of most galaxies according to the current consensus in our science. Images of the one central to the Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A, were captured by the Chandra X-Ray observatory in 2013. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/chandra-finds-evidence-for-serial-black-hole-eruptions.html

Are they round or spherical? Scientists believe if we could see the “event horizon” it would be spherical. In The Urantia Book they are “balance wheels.” Dark islands of space are not the devouring black hole monsters we’ve grown up with; “this great concentration of mass enables these dark islands to function as powerful balance wheels, holding large neighboring systems in effective leash.” (15:6.11)

In February 2015, an answer to the question of whether black holes were related to dark matter was offered. "There seems to be a mysterious link between the amount of dark matter a galaxy holds and the size of its central black hole, even though the two operate on vastly different scales," says lead author Akos Bogdan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2015-07#sthash.NLleFry9.dpuf

A Truthbook, http://truthbook.com/, staff member published an attempted answer to the recurring question, “Are these “dark islands of space,” described as part of our Milky Way the same phenomenon as the black holes in our astrophysics?” Their response (in 2014) was, “I am not sure if all Urantia Book students accept that black holes and the dark islands of space are one and the same, but it seems to me that they likely are.”

We find one described in our system Satania, “not a uniform physical system” (32:2.10) such as our Milky Way galaxy is (which you may recall is the central nucleus of Orvonton). Here is a direct correlation of our black hole concept with the dark island of space, both described as central; “The astronomic center of Satania is an enormous dark island of space which, with its attendant spheres, is situated not far from the headquarters of the system government.” (41:2.2)

”One Supreme Power Center of the sixth order is stationed at the exact gravity focus of each local system. In the system of Satania the assigned power center occupies a dark island of space located at the astronomic center of the system. Many of these dark islands are vast dynamos which mobilize and directionize certain space-energies, and these natural circumstances are effectively utilized by the Satania Power Center, whose living mass functions as a liaison with the higher centers, directing the streams of more materialized power to the Master Physical Controllers on the evolutionary planets of space.” (41:1.5)

After centuries of observing material phenomena, the universe that scientists have studied is now understood to consist mostly of invisible force!

“Gravity is pulling inward on space-time — the "fabric" of the cosmos — it keeps expanding outward faster and faster. To account for this, astrophysicists have proposed an invisible agent that counteracts gravity by pushing space-time apart. Based on the observed rate of expansion, scientists know that the sum of all the dark energy must make up more than 70 percent of the total contents of the universe.” That is the present assumption (2011); no one knows how to confirm its existence. (www.livescience.com)

How exceedingly ironic that scientists who’ve always pooh-poohed the spiritual presences in the universe must now try to understand how 70 percent of the energy holding the universe together is invisible!

Partnership, Marriage, and Trust

Dave — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 18:16:14 GMT

“Intellectually, socially, and spiritually two moral creatures do not merely double their personal potentials of universe achievement by partnership technique; they more nearly quadruple their attainment and accomplishment possibilities.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 43:8.11).

Celebrating renewal and resurrection on this day, we remember Jesus’ constant admonition, “love one another, even as I have loved you.” I also recalled a quiet Easter Sunday last year when my wife Chappell and I decided to drop out of the world, leave our exhausting business dealings behind, and head up to Sonoma County. It's a place we often return to. We drive an hour and a half north to our beloved home of the heart where we met and were married over three decades ago. This time, we celebrated with a picnic at Benziger Winery in Glen Ellen, one of author Jack London’s old haunts. Though conspicuously absent from Easter Sunday worship in a church, our hearts were present to honor the day with talk about our spiritual experiences, the obstacles, difficulties, questions and hopes. She wanted to know the recent insights about having Jesus in my life that I’d been talking about. I’d recently shared how my understanding of personally accepting the experience of forgiveness had grown, along with my sense of its importance to my practice of the highest ethic, the Golden Rule [170:3.3-7] (pg. 1861).

Because of doubts that sometimes plagued me, she shared her certainty about the eternal life. Both of us grew up with the concept of heaven taught in Christianity which we found both inadequate and incredible (beyond the pearly gates is a life of ease playing harps). Forsaking its childlike immaturity, she’d gravitated to the philosophical logic and reason behind The UB depiction: further opportunities to work on your goals and ideas. It is the only afterlife vision that makes sense with all the gifts received in this first life, and yet so little time to develop them. This excerpt from Paper 103 expresses it well.

“The pursuit of the ideal—the striving to be Godlike—is a continuous effort before death and after. The life after death is no different in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life. Real religion does not foster moral indolence and spiritual laziness by encouraging the vain hope of having all the virtues of a noble character bestowed upon one as a result of passing through the portals of natural death,” (103:5.7) … but so hard to do all of it on one’s own.

We raised a glass and and toasted our life and partnership with a delightful Benziger Merlot.

“Adam and Eve exerted a lasting influence on all mankind; for the first time in the history of the world men and women were observed working side by side in the Garden. The Edenic ideal, the whole family as gardeners, was a new idea on Urantia.” (84:7.8)

“The union of husband and wife in the marriage-home relationship is a material function of the mortals of the evolutionary worlds. True, indeed, much spiritual progress may accrue consequent upon the sincere human efforts of husband and wife to progress, but this does not mean that marriage is necessarily sacred.” (83:8.2)

We learn in The UB that co-operation is a byword of the universe. On the cosmic level, “no Son could hope for final success without the incessant co-operation of the Divine Minister and her vast assemblage of spirit helpers, the daughters of God.” (33:3.4) But, we are reminded, “co-operation is not a natural trait of man.” (68:1.4)

To form more effective working groups and partnerships, and to achieve the challenging goals that lie ahead, perhaps our most difficult duty as “golden rulers” (71:4.16) is to learn to trust each other more. Jesus once said to Andrew, “If you trust me, trust your brethren more,” and later to James: "James, if you trust me more, you will be less impatient with your brethren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the brotherhood of believers. Learn to weigh the consequences of your sayings and your doings.” (The UB, 192:2.8.)

Among the vineyards, the Sonoma farms and ranches, and surrounded by the Mayacamas Mountains, we made another toast in honor of our Creator Son Michael, our brother Jesus. We felt a renewal of life’s purpose, a revival of faith in our mutual desire to continue to grow in wisdom and knowledge. Each of us able to fill in the gaps in each other’s experiences, we shared our doubts and fortified our faith on a beautiful day in the countryside.

Sci-Fi Stories and the Reality of a Progressive Universe

Dave — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 19:17:55 GMT

“I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here.”

― Arthur C. Clarke

Many have heard The Urantia Book (The UB) described as “the alien Bible.” Maybe you’ve encountered similarities in its content that resonate with science fiction literature, television and film. Our sci-fi media falls roughly into a couple of main categories (there are actually many more): (1) dystopian: about societies in cataclysmic decline (“Dying Earth” sci-fi), (2) utopian (advanced, progressive) describing ideal societies, and sometimes there is a kind of New Age wisdom literature (Perelandra by C. S. Lewis).

The UB is realistically optimistic about the future, but it also has its version of the dark side, the Lucifer Rebellion, and Caligastia’s interference with Adam and Eve. The Urantia Book account of Earth history provides much more detail about the “war in heaven,” that you may have first read about in the Bible’s Book of Revelation, 12:7-13. Yet The UB emphasizes a friendly universe, convincing to me because it answered a longing in my soul. As it says, “When such spirit-led mortals realize the true meaning of [the] golden rule, they are filled to overflowing with the assurance of citizenship in a friendly universe.” (180:5.8) And as Jesus taught the Athenian philosopher, “The real universe is friendly to every child of the eternal God.” (133:5.8)

Occasionally science fiction writers have imagined their aliens as citizens of a “friendly universe.” In Ray Bradbury’s, The Fire Balloons, he tells the story of church missionaries who visit a colony on Mars. One of them, Father Stone, discovers universal truth when he decides to contact the older Martian race and subsequently has a realization of a shared universal religion. “The way I see it is there’s a truth on every planet. All parts of the big truth. On a certain day they’ll all fit together like pieces of a jigsaw. This has been a shaking experience. I’ll never doubt again, Father Peregrine. For this Truth here is as true as Earth’s Truth, and they lie side by side. And we’ll go on to other worlds, adding the sum of the parts of the Truth until one day the whole Total will stand before us like the light of a new day.” (pg 134, Bradbury, found on http://www.epubsbook.com/2015/4010_56.html)

The UB’s reassertion and expansion of the gospel of Jesus was practically an afterthought per some of the apocryphal lore. We love the expanded story of Jesus. But there are other things going on in the book. The revelation of previously unknown, organizational information virtually constitutes what seems to be a prep course, intended to help our isolated planet take the initial steps towards re-integration with the universe.

Carl Sagan was the scientist who first popularized the idea (emphasizing its logic), that other earth-like, inhabited planets exist in the vast reaches of space. His Cosmos television series depicted just such a universe. In 1974, he worked with NASA on the first attempts to communicate with other civilizations using the Pioneer and Voyager space flights. Since then, astronomers using NASA’s Kepler satellite have found about 21 potentially habitable planets around stars beyond our solar system (http://www.space.com/18790-habitable-exoplanets-catalog-photos.html ). The science community still searches, to no avail so far, for a sign of life on the newly discovered spheres.

During the early decades of our discovering of The Urantia Book, many were watching Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek series of the 1960’s, in reruns well into the late 70’s. Our friend, Andrea Barnes, once said, “We could do outreach 24/7 for years and still not achieve the type of cultural shift that Rodenberry achieved with Star Trek.”

In 1980, we also watched Sagan’s Cosmos; then came back to a revived Star Trek: the Next Generation (1987-1994) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999). There are many other shows I could mention. I’ve seen a blogger claim The UB was Gene Rodenberry’s main inspiration in his creation of Star Trek, a claim often repeated, but I have never seen it verified, www.wikiwand.com/en/Talk:The_Urantia_Book/Archive_6.

In Star Trek, a preeminent guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets known as the Prime Directive, Starfleet’s General Order #1, states there can be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations. The show was based on the plausible possibility of a universe organized into a federation more advanced than we’ve imagined before. However, not every extraterrestrial alien race belonged to this alliance of over 150 planetary governments which included Vulcans and Andorians. There were outsiders, “sinister others,” like the Klingons and Romulans. Thus the scripts often featured stereotypical television scenarios of our “cowboy and Indian” unreality here on Earth, war in space, highly technological wars, spaceship battles with less evolved (un-federated) peoples in the universe. This pop culture depiction of “good guys versus bad guys” also became the basis of George Lucas’s Star Wars saga, now eight episodes and counting.

As Star Trek scholars have noted, every season had a few episodes that glossed over, overlooked, forgot, or simply ignored the Prime Directive (from Rubicun III scifi blog). The laws of TV popularity prevented the show from maintaining an ideal of a governed and managed universe, and society was too secularized to imagine a spiritual universe “paralleling the physical universe.” (8:4.1)

In The Urantia Book (The UB) we learn about the policy of noninfringement, somewhat equivalent to the Prime Directive of Star Trek based on the concept of free will. “The basic laws of Nebadon, [are] laws designed to afford the greatest possible co-ordination of a whole constellation consistent with the fixed policy of noninfringement of the moral free will of personal creatures.” (39:3.3) and “Man’s ability to choose good or evil is a universe reality. This liberty to choose for oneself is an endowment of the Supreme Rulers, and they will not permit any being or group of beings to deprive a single personality in the wide universe of this divinely bestowed liberty—not even to satisfy such misguided and ignorant beings in the enjoyment of this misnamed personal liberty.” (54:3.1)

Generations brought up on Star Trek found the more advanced cooperative organization of the universe presented in The UB, to be a more credible model, a truer vision. Taking Trekian logic to its max, The UB gives us a “revelation” of the real universe government, planets linked by interplanetary communication. This along with the sad fact of Urantia’s isolation from such a government; “when some planets (or even systems) have plunged far into spiritual darkness, they are in a certain sense quarantined, or partially isolated from intercourse with the larger units of creation. And all this, as it operates on Urantia, is a spiritually defensive reaction of the majority of the worlds to save themselves, as far as possible, from suffering the isolating consequences of the alienating acts of a headstrong, wicked, and rebellious minority.” (3:1.10)

In The UB, intercommunication is the norm for planets which have achieved “social brotherhood,” and are in “the spiritual circuits of their realm” (52:6.8, p. 598). “From Salvington, broadcasts are simultaneously directed to the constellation headquarters, the system headquarters, and to individual planets. All higher orders of celestial beings are able to utilize this service for communication with their fellows scattered throughout the universe. The universe broadcast is extended to all inhabited worlds regardless of their spiritual status. Planetary intercommunication is denied only those worlds under spiritual quarantine.” (33:6.5)

Not just Urantia, of course, but the thirty-seven other worlds that seceded (53:7.1). In this article, I assume the broadcasts have not been re-established, as some have claimed.

The movie that perhaps comes closest to The UB’s conception of a unified and orderly, friendly universe, “an organization for the mutual protection of all planets,” as alien visitor Klaatu described it, is The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, Childhood’s End (1953) also explored similar ideas. The spaceman, Klaatu, comes as an emissary from this peaceful federation of planets. It’s obviously a first visit; and it’s immediately apparent that Earth has been “quarantined” from this universe government, just as The UB describes. Klaatu arrives with Gort, the robot policeman, to warn Earth it will face destruction because of the “new threat” it poses, the use of nuclear energy to power spaceships, unless Earth renounces its violent ways. Klaatu describes his federation in a public speech to the people. “We live in peace without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war, free to pursue more profitable enterprises.” The movie portrayed a resolution to the Fermi Paradox known as the Cosmic Quarantine hypothesis proposed by cosmologist, Edward Harrison in 1981. The physicist Fermi formulated his well-known paradox, the apparent contradiction between the probability of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of contact or visible evidence, in 1950, just a year before the release of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

In the famous Star Trek episode, Errand of Mercy (1967), the Organians, a civilization of spiritually advanced beings, concede to make themselves visible to the visitors from Earth by taking on the appearance of a pastoral culture much like the Israel of Jesus’ time. “None of the physical beings of the central universe would be visible to Urantians.” (14:2.4)

Like Klaatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still, they use their power to disarm the warring factions. The Organians seemed to exist in a kind of alternate reality (a parallel universe?) that could not endure the disruption and compromise of their world by lower, less evolved planets. Starship Enterprise had transgressed the borders of the Cosmic Quarantine in some way.

http://markwatches.net/reviews/2014/08/mark-watches-star-trek-s01e26-errand-of-mercy/

The Fermi Paradox has had many hypothetical answers proposed besides Harrison’s Cosmic Quarantine. That the most evolved civilizations would prevent an upstart world from disrupting their stability, by treating Earth as a deadly virus for which they must establish immunity, follows the logic established by Carl Sagan, and our sci-fi dreamers. Now it’s being confirmed by our scientific discoveries. It’s beginning to make sense (for more on this topic, see the Zoo hypothesis and http://www.urantiabook.org/dave-holt/the-cosmic-quarantine). Such a planetary status is confirmed by revelations in The Urantia Book given to us in the faith that we are ready to know the more complete story.

Angels of the Races and Other Ministers to Race Relations

Dave — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 19:14:40 GMT

Have you ever paused to remark upon the work of the angels of the races in The Urantia Book? This corps of the master seraphim arrived with the first resident governor general when the Spirit of Truth was bestowed in A.D. 30. Bible readers may have heard of the “angels of the churches,” mentioned in the Book of Revelation, but the eleven other seraphim corps sent to participate in our “rather loosely organized and somewhat personally administered planetary government (The Urantia Book, The UB, 114:5.4)” are previously unrevealed in our history.

“The direct administrative cabinet of the governor general consists of twelve seraphim, the acting chiefs of the twelve groups of special angels functioning as the immediate superhuman directors of planetary progress and stability.” (114:5.6) The acting chief of the angels of the races is therefore a member of this cabinet.

With no previous record of these celestial beings, I was naturally surprised to learn of “The angels of the races, those who work for the conservation of the evolutionary races of time, regardless of their political entanglements and religious groupings. On Urantia there are remnants of nine human races which have commingled and combined into the people of modern times. These seraphim are closely associated with the ministry of the race commissioners, and the group now on Urantia is the original corps assigned to the planet soon after the day of Pentecost.” (114:6.9)

How do we imagine this ministry is continued when a race such as the orange appears to have been eliminated (64:6.13)? Or, in the case of the red race, described as “vanishing” (90:2.9)? If there are no visible cultural remnants of, for example, the green race, what are they able to conserve?

Jesus confirmed this seraphic group’s work in his talk with Nathaniel even before the planetary government was installed on Urantia after his ascension. “And many of the angels, while functioning in the government of the Father and the universes of the Sons, are assigned to the service of the human races.” (167:7.4; see also John 1:47-51))

We know that in our time, many scientists perceive race as a social construct rather than having a scientific basis, yet use of the term race persists with ordinary people who continue to manage differences in social relations, explore their ancestry in DNA tests, and express ethnic pride. In this blog however, I will not explore the controversial issues raised by The UB’s concepts of race.

In my community work with Native American communities, I related to poet Linda Hogan, a Chickasaw descendant of those who walked the Trail of Tears, and her view of the need to articulate our histories. It inspired her early poems, “the need to say what hadn’t been spoken, to tell an untold story of our lives. They are home speaking through me. Home is in blood, and I am still on the journey of calling myself home.” (Linda Hogan, from Red Clay) Her words certainly speak to the meaning of my journey. Perhaps the angels of the races are conserving the history of the red Sangiks through living representatives of the races.

Then there are the race commissioners who also work on “the worlds of time.” “The High Commissioners begin their service on the planets as race commissioners. In this capacity they interpret the viewpoints and portray the needs of the various human races. They are supremely devoted to the welfare of the mortal races whose spokesmen they are, ever seeking to obtain for them mercy, justice, and fair treatment in all relationships with other peoples;” (37:5.5)

Difficult work with sometimes heated arguments and legal conflicts occurs when one race seeks justice from another.

My mom and I had an ongoing dialogue about reconnecting with our Ojibwe heritage that went on for years before she passed away in 2015, and it became part of my poem Identity Disorder. Efforts to reintegrate my mother with her Canadian Indian past achieved little progress at first. Finally, a couple of years ago she told me, “It was just terrible how they tried to take away their heritage by putting them in those ‘boarding’ [residential] schools.” She’d finally understood something about the fate of Indian culture and its suppression. Later she surprised me again and sent a letter describing her heritage and history to my daughter. You could have knocked me over with an Eagle feather. I felt as if I had won a long campaign.

On the first morontia world, this ministry to the races is taken up by a group of seraphim, called the transition ministers. One part of this seraphic group are the racial interpreters.

“Racial Interpreters. All races of mortal beings are not alike. True, there is a planetary pattern running through the physical, mental, and spiritual natures and tendencies of the various races of a given world; but there are also distinct racial types, and very definite social tendencies characterize the offspring of these different basic types of human beings. On the worlds of time the seraphic racial interpreters further the efforts of the race commissioners to harmonize the varied viewpoints of the races.” (48:6.22)

“The race commissioners are very active on Urantia.” (114:4.2)

The desire to experience Native American spirituality motivated me just as it often has for idealistic youth seeking deeper truths about the cosmos. They turn to Native Americans for direction and seek out their spirituality, perhaps because, in the pure form of American Indian “religion,” there is no church and no priest as we knew growing up in Christianity. In places where the original culture is still alive and the traditions still practiced, prayers to the Creator are made to a wide open sky, in the church of Nature, often with the guidance of elders who know the ceremonies.

Perhaps the angels of the races conserve the spiritual contributions of the races. The American Indian institution of the Vision Quest that guided the people to find their spirit helper, or guardian spirit, is an ideal of what UB readers would call a personal religion vs. an authoritarian, priest-dominated one. “The fire within,” as one Ojibwe elder called it, or sometimes referred to as keeping “your fire lit” was typical of northern tribes’ spirituality.

My experience of Native culture is indirect and distant and sometimes I am filled with doubts, as I continue to dialogue with myself about motives, my sincerity. It might be said that I am called as a witness. I feel reinforced to continue my ministry by this knowledge of master seraphim who’ve undertaken similar tasks. We are actually even able to work with their guidance, “While unable to inject new and higher conceptions into human minds, they [the master seraphim] often act to intensify some higher ideal which has already appeared within a human intellect.” (114:6.19) I am comfortable in the role of witness to the atrocities of the past. I work to assist the present movements for cultural revival. That is why, like Linda Hogan, I believe it is important to not take the easy path of choosing to remain silent.

Working with Personal Revelations

Dave — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:13:00 GMT

During my beginning yogic practice, years before I was reading The Urantia Book, I had my earliest personal revelations. By this use of the term revelation, I am not talking about an appearance of angels, or the discovery of golden tablets in a cave (haven’t found any lately), but those naturally occurring revelations that come to the mind in a flash of recognition, often called philosophical insights. They are not made up of conscious thought alone; a “divine invasion” has taken place in there somewhere (196:3.20).

"Truth is always a revelation: autorevelation when it emerges as a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality." (The Urantia Book, The UB, 101:4.3, p. 1109).

Of the two types of revelation, personal or autorevelation and planetary or epochal revelation, personal revelations that result from our work with the Father Fragment, are “continuous” (101:2.12) and transformative. “The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind,” (101:1.4, p. 1105)

I view The Urantia Book as a teaching text that becomes sacred/revelatory when we personally experience our own revelations in reading it, experiences that quicken, animate, vitalize the words. These “visions” can, to give some examples, reveal the loving character of the Father, the nature of reality, your life purpose in accordance with God’s will. They differ from rote recitations read from a gold-encrusted Bible in church, in that they bear the stamp of our own living understanding.

Here is a philosophical look at the idea. “Revelation means an intelligible event which makes all other events intelligible. It is the discovery of rational pattern in the events of our lives.” (Theologian, H. R. Niebuhr, from The Meaning of Revelation.)

“The reason of the heart...does not really know what is in the revelation, in the illuminating moment, except as it proceeds from revelation to experience and back again from experience to revelation. In this process the meaning of the revelation, its richness and power, grow progressively clearer.” (Niebuhr, Ibid)

But although philosophic logic and “experience” helps us testify to the validity, our grasp of the reality of the divine, revelation also compensates for the failures of philosophy. “Revelation is the only technique for atoning for this deficiency in the conceptual data which man so urgently needs in order to construct a logical philosophy of the universe and to arrive at a satisfying understanding of his sure and settled place in this universe.” (103:6.8; p. 1136)

“Religion is only an exalted humanism until it is made divine by the discovery of the reality of the presence of God in personal experience.” (195:10.1; p. 2084)

Using mind as “the gateway” to both, we combine revelation and rational thinking: “Revelation proves itself to be revelation of reality by its ability to guide us to many other truths.” (H.R. Niebuhr, Ibid)

As the philosopher Locke pointed out, rational thought checks the validity of the auto-revelations. “Enthusiasm, laying by reason, would set up revelation without it; whereby in effect it takes away both reason and revelation … revelation must be judged of by reason.” (John Locke, 1632-1704)

“Sometimes we regard revelation as though it had equipped us with truth in such measure that no further labor in historical and psychological searching is necessary. Fundamentalism in its thousand historic forms escapes in one way. Modernism escapes by applying to life the short and narrow ideas of some present moment...But true revelation is not the source of such irrationality and absurdity. We become fools because we refuse to use revelation as the foundation of a rational moral life.” (Niebuhr, Ibid)

We can experience the power of the personally-received revelations of others (1467; 132.7.6), as Jesus said to Ganid, “the revelations of God flash upon earth in the lives of the men who reveal God to their fellows.” Indeed, that is how many of the Earth’s evolutionary religions began.

Warriors in the Good Fight of Faith

Dave — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 19:11:34 GMT

Billy Miles, the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) track runner and Olympic Gold medal winner, strove to restore to his people their original Native American spirituality. In a message to the young men of his race, he declared, “A Warrior is challenged to assume responsibility, practice humility, and display the power of giving, and then center his or her life around a core of spirituality,” a stark contrast to the bloodthirsty, war-like image we usually associate with the word, warrior.

The most well-known American Indian prayer, shared by several tribes, asks, “O’ Great Spirit … I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy -- myself.”

In our politically correct era, the archetype of male as warrior is attacked, derided as irrelevant to modern society, feared as a sexual menace, and we forget its deeper reference to self-mastery. In her book, You Are Happy: Circe poems, Margaret Atwood, writing at the height of the sexual political battles, ventured the opinion, “male as warrior … female as temptress. These two icons were counterfeit images … a route to much of the sickness that plagues the human psyche.”

Though Jesus never used the term warrior, he sometimes taught perhaps more like Billy Miles than a modern, politically-correct male, “And they who shall thus take the kingdom in spiritual power and by the persistent assaults of living faith will come from the north and the south and from the east and the west.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 166:3.5)

“Even the apostles were unable fully to comprehend his teaching as to the necessity for using spiritual force for the purpose of breaking through all material resistance and for surmounting every earthly obstacle which might chance to stand in the way of grasping the all-important spiritual values of the new life in the spirit as the liberated sons of God.” (166:3.8)

Although Jesus is thought of as a man of peace, he tried to inspire his “vacillating and indefinite” apostles and evangelists to be warriors for the kingdom and seize it by “spiritual” force. “If you desire to enter the kingdom, why do you not take it by spiritual assault even as the heathen take a city they lay siege to?” (155:1.3, pg. 1726)

Sometimes, though my father’s no longer alive, I would hear his voice saying, “but it’s all nonsense isn’t it?” As I must have done when I was a young boy, I deferred to him without objection, and would nod without answering. When I later turned to a growing faith in the spirit guidance I needed, my first pathways into faith were mystic entreaties, peaceful seeking. The words “take it by assault,” couldn’t have been further from my mind.

Later when I reintegrated with my Ojibwe family, ancestors, and their history, I came to terms with their essential warrior culture. I saw the reality of the good fight of faith, was even uplifted by a truer understanding of the admonitions of Jesus. He elevated the brave spirit of a warrior to a level of courage even more sublime, “courage was the very heart of his teachings. ‘Fear not’ was his watchword … The teachings of Jesus constitute a religion of valor, courage, and heroism (140:8.20).” I’ve felt the urgency, the need to seize the kingdom without hesitation, as revealed to us by our True Chief, our Creator Son. Hopefully I can act on it with more dedication.

“The courage of the flesh is the lowest form of bravery. Mind bravery is a higher type of human courage, but the highest and supreme is uncompromising loyalty to the enlightened convictions of profound spiritual realities. And such courage constitutes the heroism of the God-knowing man.” (143:1.7)

I met a woman warrior the day my daughter started middle school. She was the vice-principal and she made an opening speech of welcome to the parents. I was expecting sweet reassurances, promises made that our girl would find protection here to grow safely to maturity. But this woman, a champion of the children, was also a realist who knew and understood the mean streets. She knew first-hand about the peer group influences, the pressures of popular culture that destabilize families. As her speech described each year of a child’s life, the words made vivid the challenges that come with each step. Like an orator, she began each paragraph with the statement “they are still at risk,” as their age changed. “They are thirteen (or fourteen, then fifteen) and they are still at risk,” repeated each time, like a mantra.

That is what our faith is like. At each step of the way we are still at risk of stumbling, succumbing to doubt and darkness. “There is but one struggle for those who enter the kingdom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubt—unbelief.” (159:3.8)

My Auspicious Meeting with Mr. Rudhyar

Dave — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 19:09:26 GMT

During the 70’s, a small sect of young people, given the name the counterculture, proclaimed our society to be in a crisis. I think of them as an example of what historian Arnold Toynbee called the “creative minorities,” on which “the fate of a society always depends.” (fr. A Study of History) Pope Benedict in speaking about a cure for Europe’s crisis in 2008 saw that the work of such a group, as described by Toynbee, was needed in Europe to “reintroduce the religious dimension.” Many features of the impending doom evident in the 70’s, the environmental crash, aggravated racial conflicts, the loss of confidence were prescient of our current times. But the societal meltdown of my youth looks quaint in comparison to the present mood of crisis, intensified as it is now.

“Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully and creatively in the present crisis of civilization.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 99:2.1)

We retreated from our corrupt social organizations to plant ourselves as seeds for a better way of life, the one that would emerge when establishment structures finally collapsed. As a spiritually hungry truth seeker in a period before I found The Urantia Book, I was trying out a lot of recipes, getting my wisdom from rock and roll lyrics, astrology charts, psychic readings, New Age books, along with stimulative soupçons about “The Supreme” from the Upanishads. Many, then and now, have regarded the counterculture as fanatical. I knew wise spiritual teachings were needed, and that I needed an experience of personal transformation before I could even begin to help society progress and transform.

Necessary information that we need to survive and grow is brought by messengers who come into our lives at crucial points I believe. Is it providence, or guardian seraphim orchestrating such messenger events to enhance our potentials and progress?

“Seraphim are mind stimulators; they continually seek to promote circle-making decisions in human mind. They do this, not as does the Adjuster, operating from within and through the soul, but rather from the outside inward, working through the social, ethical, and moral environment of human beings.” (113:4.1)

I was once surprised at a certain unlikely figure who appeared in my life bearing an important message. I was tempted to call it providential, “But what man calls providence is all too often the product of his own imagination, the fortuitous juxtaposition of the circumstances of chance. There is, however, a real and emerging providence in the finite realm of universe existence, a true and actualizing correlation of the energies of space, the motions of time, the thoughts of intellect, the ideals of character, the desires of spiritual natures, and the purposive volitional acts of evolving personalities.” (118:10.7) Nevertheless I succumbed to the human temptation of believing providence had intervened on my behalf, as it had been doing throughout that whole year. “Every phase of personality experience on every successive level of universe progression swarms with clues to the discovery of alluring personal realities.” (12:9.1)

So it was on a day in the latter part of the burned-out 70’s that I went to a lecture by the famous astrologer and philosopher, Dane Rudhyar, who was then about 81 or 82 years old. I found him puzzlingly bored with astrology at this late point in his career, a thought that leapt to mind perhaps because my own disinterest with astrology had begun. He apparently preferred to be consulted as a spiritual, Jungian, or transpersonal, psychologist, and these were the topics that inspired eloquence from him. Mr. Rudhyar’s words encouraged us to aspire to “the central Solar will and purpose of the individual.” When I did read The Urantia Book later, I found echoes of such a higher way, teachings like “The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality.” (195:10.17)

Rudhyar spoke about the “gateway to higher consciousness,” how we must find a way to enter into it. My quest for enlightenment had been solitary and contemplative, but he connected this search for wisdom to a spiritual mission, work in the world, service to a great cause. He was selling a small booklet he’d written called “Seed Man.” I was so smitten with it that I bought several copies to give away to friends and relatives. Rudhyar’s ideas played well to this audience who remained, like myself, possessed by a mission to save civilization from imminent disaster. Here is how his booklet begins http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/seed.shtml:

“I feel we are at the threshold of a new age and that we need now, more than anything else, a new approach to human relationships and to social organization. We need a planetary approach, we need a synthetic approach … if you are to have a global world, the individual has to be so well established in his own identity that he can afford to cooperate with other people all over the world, independent of their culture, their race, their traditions, and so on.

“It is very important therefore, that one should learn how to establish oneself in one's own identity. We need a new type of human being… based no longer so much on conflict, but on a full acceptance of the total human being, body, mind, soul, feelings, everything. An esthetic approach versus an ethical approach, so that you can see the relationship in which everything stands inside of the whole, so you can look at the whole and become identified with the "wholeness" of that whole, rather than with any particular part.”

What a marvelous calling!

“Man can even now foretaste this providence in its eternity meanings.” (118:10.18)

Jesus famously used the metaphor of the seed in his teachings. “This gospel of the kingdom is a living truth. I have told you it is … like the grain of mustard seed; and now I declare that it is like the seed of the living being, which, from generation to generation, while it remains the same living seed, unfailingly unfolds itself in new manifestations and grows acceptably in channels of new adaptation to the peculiar needs and conditions of each successive generation.” (178:1.15)

Soon after receiving inspired words from Dane Rudhyar, I had a synchronous encounter with another messenger who shared some wisdom that helped her, “The real universe is friendly to every child of the eternal God.” (133:5.8) “Where did you find that?” I wondered, and she invited me to have a look at The Urantia Book. One thing led to another, a dream, a vow, a faith, a love, and within a couple of years we were happily married.

The torch, the urgent cause of the preservation of civilization, passed to a small band of Urantia Book readers, another “creative minority.” Over the years afterwards I studied The UB, itself a seed of wisdom, a brilliant synthesis of ideas derived from many, even “more than two thousand … sources,” (121:8.13) perhaps also a Melchizedek move to conserve our history and wisdom, conveniently put into one handy anthology, calling us to plant ourselves as seeds for the future.

Claiming To Be a Son or Daughter of God Is Not An Ego Trip!

Dave — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 19:07:12 GMT

“By faith in the fatherhood of God you may enter the kingdom of heaven, thus becoming the sons of God.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 142:1.3)

It is perhaps curious to talk about “becoming” at the same time as we learn we are already there. “Our teaching provides a religion wherein the believer is a son of God. That is the good news of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.” (142:3.8) Aspiring to be, or to become, a son or daughter of God is not an ego trip. It is an everyday human experience, one that Jesus encouraged us to have and cultivate, to become “born of the spirit” (John 3:5). I was once afraid to claim sonship for myself. It sounded too grand, too egotistical.

I was surprised to see in The Urantia Book (The UB), a new picture of Jesus who did not desire to command our submission, adoration and hero-worship. Instead he encouraged us to become “spiritual heroes.”

“I admonish you to give up the practice of always quoting the prophets of old and praising the heroes of Israel, and instead aspire to become living prophets of the Most High and spiritual heroes of the coming kingdom. To honor the God-knowing leaders of the past may indeed be worthwhile, but why, in so doing, should you sacrifice the supreme experience of human existence: finding God for yourselves and knowing him in your own souls?” (The UB, 155:6.7)

To feel at home in my adult self and seek maturity, I've wanted to align myself with truth, beauty and goodness, to make decisions that enhance and favor God’s presence in my life. It is not a special skill. Anyone who wishes can learn to experience it in worship and communion. A normal person, even one not overtly spiritual in their behavior, can seek and succeed in developing, feeling the presence of the Father, and over time, daily experience the love of God.

“Urantia mortals are entitled to regard themselves as being the sons of God because: 1. You are sons of spiritual promise, faith sons; you have accepted the status of sonship. You believe in the reality of your sonship, and thus does your sonship with God become eternally real.” (40:6.4-5)

“Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love.” (56:6.3) Thus, we establish our relationship as sons and daughters within the circle of that love (I think it is important to try and get beyond the unfortunate sexist language here).

Jesus was not smitten with himself, his status as God’s son. “Christ Jesus, who, being of the nature of God, thought it not strange to be equal to god but … made himself to be of little import.” (128:1.6) “He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” This was remembered and recorded by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians, 2:8, King James Bible.

“Holiness is not extraordinary; it is in you; it is in everybody,” said Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “for all those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons [and daughters] of God.” (Romans 8:14), and Pope Francis was heard to say recently, “Do we want to be saints? The Lord awaits us with open arms.”

“Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.” John 14: 12-14.

Despite my thesis, “claiming to be a son or daughter of God is not an ego trip,” we should also acknowledge that many times in The Urantia Book movement, our brothers and sisters have fallen prey to a runaway ego phenomenon. We who’ve observed this have to remain vigilant, learn from their example, and be on guard against becoming over-awed, proud of our own attainments.

“In a religious genius, strong spiritual faith so many times leads directly to disastrous fanaticism, to exaggeration of the religious ego, but it was not so with Jesus. He was not unfavorably affected in his practical life by his extraordinary faith and spirit attainment because this spiritual exaltation was a wholly unconscious and spontaneous soul expression of his personal experience with God.” (196:0.6)

I remember in our early days with The UB (70’s-80’s) we were prone to speculate about who of us was a member of the reserve corps of destiny. It was thought that some of the early leaders, Christy, Vern, were members of this special group. Section 7 of Paper 114, The Reserve Corps of Destiny, has been one reason we’ve seen outbreaks of religious fanaticism among our fellows. But I don’t want to talk about being reservists so much in this blog. As far as the real work in front of us goes, it doesn’t matter. Certainly most of us won’t have any idea if we are a reservist or not; generally “the members of this unique group are wholly unconscious of their preparation.” (114:7.8) Nevertheless, I hope that I myself would gladly do anything to help serve our planetary administrators if I were so called.

“You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world,” said spiritual teacher, Marianne Williamson. Our responsibility is to keep it in proportion, “Jesus always preached temperance and taught consistency—proportionate adjustment of life problems.” (149:4.3)

Let us do this. At the same time, own our sonship and daughtership status. Claim it!

Celebrate This Ancient Winter Festival With a Grateful Heart

Dave — Sat, 19 Dec 2015 19:04:59 GMT

After our first storm this month, high sea winds blew the spent clouds eastward. It was a bright, sparkling day as I crossed over the top of Kirker Pass, at 968 feet elevation, and came upon a view of the Sierra Nevada range on the far horizon, clearly visible from a hundred miles away, snow covered peaks glorifying all creation. The edge of the next storm was held at bay by the sun in our valley all that day; then a black cloak of rain clouds, hung up and immovable at first over the East Bay hills, finally pushed in the next morning. In a grove of sycamores, whose yellow-brown leaves caught the sunlight so beautifully the day before, a huge flock of birds sang with wild abandon to each other; orchestrating their praise with the unheard songs of the angels, all joyously proclaiming glory.

“At the noontide birth of Jesus the seraphim of Urantia, assembled under their directors, did sing anthems of glory over the Bethlehem manger, but these utterances of praise were not heard by human ears.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 122:8.5)

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” Psalm 19:1

In so much discussion lately of our current politics, we perceive what to many of us looks like a power grab by the elite, the one percent seeking to consolidate their already nearly complete hold on the reins. Such bleak thoughts fill me with a terrible, abject loneliness, to see our planet so cut off from a universe where love rules. “The real universe is friendly to every child of the eternal God.” (The UB, 133:5.8)

“It is the purpose of this spirit to destroy the believer’s feeling of orphanhood. Jesus having been among men, all believers would experience a sense of loneliness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men's hearts.” (194:2.2)

I used to believe the Spirit of Truth ended our feelings of orphanhood on a personal level only, comforting us on a soul level but I had a new insight. This same Spirit of the Creator Son, this incredible gift of Michael, also annuls the feeling of planetary loneliness. I experience the truth of wisdom teachings that there are planetary supervisors watching over us, along with so many spiritual helpers, seeking every possible good for a suffering humanity, and this uplifts me, comforts me, gives me hope.

“When the worlds have become ripe for spiritualization, the bestowal Son arrives. These Sons always belong to the Magisterial or Avonal order except in that case, once in each local universe, when the Creator Son prepares for his terminal bestowal on some evolutionary world, as occurred when Michael of Nebadon appeared on Urantia to bestow himself upon your mortal races. Only one world in near ten million can enjoy such a gift; all other worlds are spiritually advanced by the bestowal of a Paradise Son of the Avonal order.” (52:5.2)

“Misfortune has not … been the sole lot of Urantia; this planet has also been the most fortunate in the local universe of Nebadon.” (76:5.7)

As we approach another celebration of “the annual festival of Mithras, December 25^th,” (98:5.4) I am truly thankful, remembering the gift Michael gave to the world at the end of his bestowal life as Joshua Ben Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth. “I will not leave you desolate (180:4.1).” “My spirit shall go before you and I will be with you always (193:1.2).”

Enjoying a Relationship with Our Seraphic Guardians

Dave — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 19:03:45 GMT

When we drive into San Francisco across the Bay Bridge, my wife and I begin to pray to the “parking angels” in the middle of the span. We ask them to be sure and save a parking space for us if possible. I used to think we were the only ones who did this. Such angels must have become popular and beloved for their usefulness in handling congested downtown situations because I’ve overheard other friends refer to their prayers to the parking angels. It’s uncanny how often these supplications (my wife prefers this term over prayers) seem to work! We make sure to offer our thanks afterwards.

The Urantia Book, (The UB) offers this definition: “In this paper the word "angel" is purposely limited to the designation of those seraphic and associated offspring of the Universe Mother Spirit who are so largely concerned with the operation of the plans of mortal survival.” (38:3.1)

We are taught that angels do encourage us to pray. “The impulse of worship largely originates in the spirit promptings of the higher mind adjutants, reinforced by the leadings of the Adjuster. But the urge to pray so often experienced by God-conscious mortals very often arises as the result of seraphic influence. The guarding seraphim is constantly manipulating the mortal environment for the purpose of augmenting the cosmic insight of the human ascender to the end that such a survival candidate may acquire enhanced realization of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster and thus be enabled to yield increased co-operation with the spiritual mission of the divine presence.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 113:4.4)

Okay … so in that very long last sentence of Paper 113 above, The UB strives to upstep our understanding, instructing us that we don’t properly pray to angels directly, although the seraphim do respond by guiding us into prayers to the indwelling divine presence. Their only manipulations of “the mortal environment” (the saving of parking spaces for instance) are made for our gain of more insight into the spirit guide’s presence. It seems those precious automobile billets we miraculously discover curbside are found by mere coincidence!

We know, if we think about it honestly, that we must admit there are many times the prayers for a parking space don’t work. It would be rather strange if they always did. That would be like having a magic lamp complete with genie to grant wishes. We do learn however that the angels “really know and truly understand you,” (9:0.3) and thus are truly sympathetic to our material needs. In my prayer life, I found that I’ve overlooked far too often the help of the seraphim. I try to remember to include them, especially when I need help on the earth plane, and I’m seeking a solution to a life problem (insights into the solution, of course!)

“Angels do not have material bodies, but they are definite and discrete beings; they are of spirit nature and origin. Though invisible to mortals, they perceive you as you are in the flesh without the aid of transformers or translators.” (38:2.1)

That’s an interesting statement when we read how physical controllers are needed to facilitate communication between Urantia mortals and universe beings.

“They intellectually understand the mode of mortal life, and they share all of man's non-sensuous emotions and sentiments. They appreciate and greatly enjoy your efforts in music, art, and real humor. They are fully cognizant of your moral struggles and spiritual difficulties. They love human beings, and only good can result from your efforts to understand and love them.” (Ibid)

Yes, we seek to know and love them. One morning, while on my way to join other volunteers working The Urantia Book booth at a “Body, Mind Expo,” in San Jose, I decided my guardian seraphim and I should hang out together on the drive down. It was a beautiful spring day to enjoy the scenery. We appreciated the oak-covered savannahs, the spring-green hills of Sunol Canyon, and our mutual affection. I could feel they were full of anticipation of the day ahead, feelings that were contagious. I got caught up in the excitement about the contacts we’d make with other truth seekers at the fair. The day turned out to be a delightful one of queries, conversations, friendly disagreements with Hindu Indians, physical therapists, psychic readers, and many stimulating meetings with new and different kinds of people.

We are going to be friends and companions with our guardian seraphim for a long time, perhaps not for eternity, but for “many an age.” It’s interesting to learn that, “your first assignment of the morontia life [will] be as assistants to the seraphim in the immediate work awaiting at the time you attain personality consciousness.” (113:7.3) What could that work be, one wonders?

“In the life of the flesh the intelligence of angels is not directly available to mortal men. They are not overlords or directors; they are simply guardians. The seraphim guard you; they do not seek directly to influence you; you must chart your own course, but these angels then act to make the best possible use of the course you have chosen. … They are the beings who are going to follow you for many an age, and they are thus receiving an introduction to their future work and personality association.” (113:5.4)

Incidentally, my wife disagrees with one part of my thesis. She says her requests for a parking space in San Francisco nearly always work.

Reading the Book of Nature

Dave — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 19:01:48 GMT

“We no longer read the Book of Nature,” Thomas Berry, The Great Work, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143389.The_Great_Work

I left the city and drove into the country. Just turned twenty-one, I had to get away from some major disappointments in my life, and was ready to start anew. I began looking to country people for the good and simple virtues that I deemed lost in the cacophony of wars, riots, and street demonstrations. My hope was that I’d find real wisdom in the practical lives of rural folk living close to the earth, far from the court intrigues of urban politics.

So I ended up in the beautiful hills of West Sonoma County, California, where I loved to go hiking. Sometimes my walks led to a pastoral retreat which became known in my mind alone as “Beethoven’s house,” a Germanic style cottage with a sloping peaked roof and an alpine kind of balcony, a house the composer Beethoven might have lived in. Emulating Schindler, his friend, I followed Ludwig out of the door as he went for his daily nature walk. Writing in a pocket sketchbook while he walked, he was inspired by the musical ideas he heard in bird songs, “Is that a yellow-hammer singing?” and murmuring brooks. Like the poets and more subjective Romantic philosophers of his time, Beethoven saw God visible in Nature, a god that earned his awe and worship, and brought us great symphonies from his pen.

I was introduced to Classical music by my father. Especially before we owned a TV he would often put on a record to listen to in the den. My sister and I imitated him, playing the 33 1/3 vinyl LPs he introduced us to, Rossini’s Overtures, Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman, Bizet's Carmen, and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, one that still plays in my head, remembering how we pulled clothes from a costume trunk to dress up and play out stories set to the music.

“Beauty sponsors art, music, and the meaningful rhythms of all human experience.” (The Urantia Book,The UB, 56:10.10)

Being a fisherman and hunter, a Canadian woodsman of sorts, Dad had also introduced me to a deep reverence for nature. No wonder that as a young man, I came to love the mountains and hills of Sonoma County where I communed with nature’s beauty. We’d come upon groves of oaks in the high valleys; great branches overhead like the vaulted ceilings of mankind’s cathedrals. I sat at the foot of her mountains and learned the fascinating geologic stories California could tell.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more … (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, by Beethoven’s contemporary, George Gordon [Lord Byron]).

“Nature discloses nothing which would preclude the universe from being looked upon as the handiwork of the God of religion. God cannot be found through nature alone, but man having otherwise found him, the study of nature becomes wholly consistent with a higher and more spiritual interpretation of the universe.” (The UB, 101:2.9, pg. 1106; John Baillie, source)

The spirit of Beethoven and I climbed the trails near our village that led up and up to views of forested ridges furrowing into each other, stretching far away to the horizon where we read the unfolded pages of the earth from forest slope to barren rock walls. To study the controversies of time and evolution became my discipline. How long had it taken the world to effect a majestic revelation such as these mountains?

This description in The UB which predates James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis (1972) http://www.jameslovelock.org/page34.html, reveals more details. “The grand universe is not only a material creation of physical grandeur, spirit sublimity, and intellectual magnitude, it is also a magnificent and responsive living organism. There is actual life pulsating throughout the mechanism of the vast creation of the vibrant cosmos. The physical reality of the universes is symbolic of the perceivable reality of the Almighty Supreme; and this material and living organism is penetrated by intelligence circuits, even as the human body is traversed by a network of neural sensation paths. This physical universe is permeated by energy lanes which effectively activate material creation, even as the human body is nourished and energized by the circulatory distribution of the assimilable energy products of nourishment.” (116:7.1)

My retreat to the woods happened during the counterculture era, the “hippie” movement. We were living out a reiteration of the Romantic era, a short period of barely 25 years depending on how you’re counting, from 1798 (Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s joint publication of “Lyrical Ballads” to 1824, Byron’s death). Like the Romantic poets and musicians who saw the divine presence in nature, we 60’s children rebelled against the same modern industrialism that was conquering England in their day, a triumph of rationalism over idealism, a valuation of mechanistic materialism over the handiwork of Mother Nature. It was the beginning of an age of alienation from the natural world. Our counterculture revolution was equally shortlived it seemed. But perhaps the work that remains of cleaning up our polluted earth will one day be carried to completion.

Jesus earned the admiration of his followers, especially Thomas’s, for his superbly balanced character. He was a “lover of nature but was free from all tendency to revere nature.” (139:8.7)

“The Master by precept and example taught the value of worshiping the Creator in the midst of the natural surroundings of creation. He preferred to commune with the heavenly Father amidst the trees and among the lowly creatures of the natural world. He rejoiced to contemplate the Father through the inspiring spectacle of the starry realms of the Creator Sons.” (167:6.5)

“Won’t Somebody Tell Me What is the Soul of a Man?”

Dave — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 17:04:07 GMT

“I saw a crowd stand talking, I just came up in time. They was teaching the lawyers and the doctors that a man ain’t nothing but his mind. Won’t somebody tell me, answer if you can. Oh, won’t somebody tell me, tell me what is the soul of a man?” (Blind Willie Johnson)

Glaucon, in the last book of Plato’s The Republic (608d), is taken aback by Socrates’ question, “Haven't you realized that our soul is immortal and never destroyed?”

There was an officer among the retinue of Simha who came to the Buddha and said: “It is said, O Lord, that the wandering ascetic, Gotama, denies the existence of the soul. Do they who say so speak the truth, or do they bear false witness against the Blessed One?”

And the Buddha said: "There is a way in which those who say so are speaking truly of me; on the other hand, there is a way in which those who say so do not speak truly of me. The Tathagata teaches that there is no self. He who says that the soul is his self and that the self is the thinker of our thoughts and the actor of our deeds, teaches a wrong doctrine which leads to confusion and darkness. On the other hand, the Tathagata teaches that there is mind. He who understands by soul mind, and says that mind exists, teaches the truth which leads to clearness and enlightenment. … I say to thee, thy mind is spiritual …” http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/btg/index.htm

The fact that Buddha taught the use of the mind to achieve enlightenment is one reason Jesus described Buddha to Ganid as having taken his followers right up to the door of spirit, “to the entrance to the haven of mortal salvation,” and then leaving them there (The Urantia Book, The UB, 132:7.4). This does not mean the truth seeker cannot open the door on his or her own. As Buddha reputedly taught at the end of his life, “be lamps unto yourselves.”

Neither Gautama nor Blind Willie Johnson were alone in finding it difficult to sort out the different endowments of soul, mind and spirit.

Influenced by the rise of atheism in our day, many no longer believe in the existence of a soul. Some are even unclear about the mind, still believing that the mind resides in the tissues of the brain. The midwayers call the “evolving soul,” the mid-mind, an echo of Buddha’s teaching.

“The midway creatures have long denominated this evolving soul of man the mid-mind in contradistinction to the lower or material mind and the higher or cosmic mind. This mid-mind is really a morontia phenomenon since it exists in the realm between the material and the spiritual. The potential of such a morontia evolution is inherent in the two universal urges of mind: the impulse of the finite mind of the creature to know God and attain the divinity of the Creator, and the impulse of the infinite mind of the Creator to know man and attain the experience of the creature.” (The UB, 111:2.8)

The UB seeks to clarify the distinction between mind and soul. The two components are given different care, seraphim being teachers of the mind in 113:4.2 “… the seraphim is the teacher of man’s evolving nature—in this life the mortal mind, in the next the morontia soul.”

The adjuster is a soul teacher, trying to lead the soul. “Says the Lord: 'I dwell within their own souls as a lamp of wisdom.” (131:4.3, Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. 10)

“Provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing.” (5:6.8)

“… the gradual and certain building up in the material and mortal mind of a spiritual and potentially immortal counterpart of character and identity … constitutes one of the most perplexing mysteries of the universes—the evolution of an immortal soul within the mind of a mortal and material creature.” (13:1.22)

“Moral self-consciousness is true human self-realization and constitutes the foundation of the human soul, and the soul is that part of man which represents the potential survival value of human experience … The soul of man cannot exist apart from moral thinking and spiritual activity. A stagnant soul is a dying soul. But the soul of man is distinct from the divine spirit which dwells within the mind.” (133:6.5)

More Thoughts About the Inner Life

Dave — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 16:02:25 GMT

I have advocated the conscious practice of an inner life for many years. How’s that workin’ for you? asks the dude in the street. Well … what can I say? I even ask myself, “What do I get from it?” It doesn’t sound like a pleasant undertaking; more like undergoing psychoanalysis. However, some kind of self-examination should be expected to happen in the spiritual life, I believe.

In pursuing my noble cause in the midst of this planet’s violence and hate-filled conflicts, I am doing all I can to keep the path open to seeking the enlightenment I’ve sought all my life. My updated project lately is to attain a more permanent stage of samadhi, as it’s known in the East, instead of experiencing so many fluctuations, elations and depressions, ups and downs, advances and retreats. I am sad to see how the path to enlightenment has been discredited, come under fire, and become obstructed for the younger generations. They, along with much of the rest of the world, have been swindled out of their spiritual treasure. That gold is worth the effort to recover.

Chappell and I like to sing Stevie’s song, “He’s the only free psychiatrist that’s known throughout the land and you can talk it over with him, he’s always around. When you feel your life’s too hard, just go have a talk with God.” (Stevie Wonder)

During the 70s, when I was a yoga practitioner, I tried to have quiet moments of contemplation after I went through my routine of postures. But I found it hard to keep my brain quiet. I had so many questions. Is there a Supreme Being? Lord, are you there? Is there a soul and a world beyond?

What did I discover? I experienced the presence of an overwhelming mystery. As a fellow meditator once wrote, my “words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup ... they slip away across the universe.” (Across the Universe, John Lennon; note: author Thomas Berry once commented, with a dark humor about the decline of Christianity in Europe, that the traditional faith had been replaced by the wisdom of John Lennon lyrics.)

God was elusive, hard to define. I had matured enough that I’d gotten past thinking of Him as an old man with a beard seated on a throne in the sky, but I was swimming in a pool where I wondered if it was a reflection of my own face. John sang, “pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind.” (Ibid)

I think I was knocking at the door, but not opening it very wide, just peeking in. Now I understand the inner life as an on-going process, a life-long project, with ups and downs in communication. Sometimes after we’ve gotten started, been seriously disappointed, we slam the door on it. Then we come back again, turning the knob as quiet as we can so as not to disturb.

Is there pain in the inner life? Yes. I encountered a lot of places inside where I needed healing. Initially, I was reluctant to invite God into this process because of fears that he’d think me unworthy of his time, doubts that I could actually communicate with the Great Mystery (Ojibwe/Lakota) called God. In spite of all that, I was in too much pain, so I made a lot of starts at fixing the hurt. Slow going at first; I couldn’t tell if I’d accomplished real contact, or achieved any result. Now, looking back, my advice to someone based on my experience would be, don’t be so certain you can consciously know what’s really going on.

“The human individual undergoes this growth; he does not do it.... The individual undergoes this growth as sunshine, air and earth undergo transformation into a scarlet poppy. [Humans] can do more than the poppy. A man can seek out the conditions that are required for this growth …” (Regina Westcott-Weiman with Henry Weiman, and The UB, 100:3.7)

My Unity church pastor sets aside time in their services for guided meditations. These experiences brought me to the realization that inviting the love of God into my heart to heal really worked. The church guides its congregation every week into having an inner life.

After I began reading The Urantia Book in 1978, I shouted “huzzah” to find a book that harmonized science with religion and philosophy, but eventually its encouragement to share the inner life with God is what impressed me the most (The UB, 111:5.1). I began building on old attempts from my yoga days, more convinced that results could be achieved. My effort became more concentrated. Things began to happen spontaneously. I embarked on a more definite direction in the pursuit of goals, finished my education, got a better-paying job, went for a master’s degree. My wife and I started a family.

I discovered the validity of those ideas of growth and progress that are constantly reiterated in The UB. I finally shed the old scientific bias, a “truth” I once held, that we live in a random universe. Yes, in retrospect I learned to have more faith in progress, accepted it was inherent to the universe. As The UB teaches, “Can you not advance in your concept of God’s dealing with man to that level where you recognize that the watchword of the universe is progress?” (4:1.2)

The unconscious discoveries in the early years of my inner life project led to so many achievements. How do I currently describe what I gain from practicing it? The answer has evolved over the years: clarity, taking responsibility for what I chose to do in life, for my own decisions. I don’t put the results of my “career” in that box of what others did to me. No more blame games. I wonder why I ever put my trust in the effectiveness of those.

Truly I find that changing your behaviors, the outer life manifestations of an inner life search, continues to be the most difficult part. Such outer life work, service, must accompany and complete what we’ve learned through our spiritual insights. Here is where we need the most patience and compassion with ourselves. Do acts of self-forgiveness. Allow the inner life to work its way up to the surface, manifest in our lives where actions and decisions are made, where we show forth the fruits of our labors. I think we’ll continually be surprised by what happens.

Solving Spiritual Problems: Guidance From The Urantia Book

Dave — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 16:00:09 GMT

It is common these days to think we must solve our material problems first, supposedly the more practical approach. Then, when we have the spare time, we can put our spiritual lives in order, take up a search for spiritual values, find God. Jesus in The Urantia Book (The UB) reversed this order of priorities. In a private conference with Nathaniel, instead of our modern term psychological problems, he called them spiritual problems. “Nathaniel, it is our mission to help men solve their spiritual problems and in this way to quicken their minds so that they may be the better prepared and inspired to go about solving their manifold material problems.” (The UB, 148:5.4) He set out to train his followers to share the inner life in communion with the Father, to have a healthy psychology; “he was concerned only with the principles of man’s inner and personal spiritual life.” (140:8.9) He was helping them build a foundation for personal spiritual experience, true religion the first priority. True religion requires good psychology.

One of the great inspirations of the Pope’s address to the U.S. Congress was his choice of “four individuals, and four dreams,” from among the “great Americans” who “were able by hard work and self-sacrifice … to build a better future.” One was Thomas Merton. For him, the contemplative life was fundamental, the most real, what the UB prefers to call “the inner life.” (111:4) As Pope Francis said, Merton was “a man of prayer who … opened new horizons for souls.” This Cistercian monk taught “the capacity for dialogue and openness to God.” http://time.com/4048176/pope-francis-us-visit-congress-transcript/

Before Jesus began his public ministry, he ministered to many individuals during the tour of the Mediterranean world with Ganid and Gonod. To Fortune, the young man he met in the hills of Crete, he gave a lesson in self-mastery. “Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond servant of depression and defeat.” (130:6.3) Jesus pointed out to him that “your potential of real achievement is the spirit that lives within you.”

Apostolic Therapy—Part of the Training

He gave the apostles equivalent teachings. In Caesarae-Philippi, “They learned that … True religion is designed to lessen the strain of existence; it releases faith and courage for daily living and unselfish serving. Faith promotes spiritual vitality and righteous fruitfulness.” (155:3.7) His training included the acquiring of psychological strength, where possible. They still continued to suffer various emotional maladies such as Thomas with his recurring depressions.

All the apostles experienced many fears and anxieties during the harrowing flight through Northern Galilee from Sidon to Phoenicia, pursued by the Sanhedrin who had authorization from Herod to arrest Jesus. The Master was not gentle with them on this occasion but boldly critiqued their childish reactions to the rage of “the heathen.” They were “guilty of too much chronic yearning … regretting the past, whining over the present.” It was a moment of tough love. (155:1.3)

Following an unproductive two week period at Chorazin, “a baptism of adversity,” the apostles were taking stock of their souls; “they were well-nigh depressed.” He taught the apostles another goal of the work, to achieve transformation of their emotions through prayer to the Father. “The Master said … all of you should pray the Father to transform your emotions of mind and body into the higher loyalties of mind and the more satisfying experiences of the spirit." (155:5.15)

Sometimes spiritual problem solving is as simple as taking a vacation. “Jesus seated them about him while he said: "My brethren, you must all learn the value of rest and the efficacy of relaxation. You must realize that the best method of solving some entangled problems is to forsake them for a time. Then when you go back fresh from your rest or worship, you are able to attack your troubles with a clearer head and a steadier hand, not to mention a more resolute heart. Again, many times your problem is found to have shrunk in size and proportions while you have been resting your mind and body." (143:3.3)

“If Jesus were on earth today, living his life in the flesh, he would be a great disappointment to the majority of good men and women for the simple reason that he would not take sides in present-day political, social, or economic disputes. He would remain grandly aloof while teaching you how to perfect your inner spiritual life so as to render you many-fold more competent to attack the solution of your purely human problems.” (140:8.17)

I think Jesus well understood the courage and strength required to leave the religions of authority, to seek the joy found in personal religious experiences. The UB comments, “Prayer induces the human ego to look both ways for help: for material aid to the subconscious reservoir of mortal experience, for inspiration and guidance to the superconscious borders of the contact of the material with the spiritual, with the Mystery Monitor.” (91:3.5)

I’ve discussed before how being perfect is to become “whole-hearted.” The motivation, when one responds to the religious impulse, is also called all-encompassing. One becomes apostolic, able to serve, “The self has surrendered to the intriguing drive of an all-encompassing motivation which imposes heightened self-discipline, lessens emotional conflict, and makes mortal life truly worth living. The morbid recognition of human limitations is changed to the natural consciousness of mortal shortcomings, associated with moral determination and spiritual aspiration to attain the highest universe and superuniverse goals.” (100:6.4)

Do We Have the Capacity for “New Horizons,” Further Spiritual Growth?

“Worshipful problem solving,” is one of the “habits which favor spiritual growth.” (100:1.8)

There are many sub-sets to the idea of doing the will of God. I have thought that praying to increase our capacity for spiritual experience is a sub-set of the larger doing of the will of God. “The experience of God has no limits save those of the creature's comprehension capacity, and this very experience [of God] is itself capacity enlarging,” (117:6.9)

Jesus taught that “prayer is a factor in the enlargement of one’s capacity to receive the presence of the divine spirit,” (146:2.14) and further “taught his followers that, when they had made their prayers to the Father, they should remain for a time in silent receptivity to afford the indwelling spirit the better opportunity to speak to the listening soul.” (146:2.17)

We wrestle with guilt that pulls us down, lowers our self-esteem to the point where we don’t feel we deserve God’s mercy. But we do. If the sparrows deserve it, even more so do we. (150:4.3) Jesus’s astonishing revelation to the world was that we were already forgiven and did not require his or anyone’s sacrifice. The rocks in our road, the stones in our pathway are removed upon our acceptance of this gift of mercy. But many of us may have unhealed emotional scars from childhood, a persistence of childish traits as a result, negative, even violent ones, such as jealousies, resentment, vengefulness, injured pride, the urge to retaliate when experiencing a perceived injustice. All can be cured by loving that part of us as the Father would, the part still in pain from old hurts. We love ourselves compassionately by inviting God’s love to come into our hearts and heal by means of prayer and worshipful communion. It can then flow through us out into the world, becoming an act of service to all.

What other obstacles might there be to experiencing the presence of God? When prayer doesn't work, the person dealing with mental illnesses in any form feels like a failure or blames him or herself for not having enough faith. Sometimes for me it’s just plain forgetfulness, forgetting to pray for guidance, which easily happens if I’m in a period of low self-esteem, embarrassment, unable to face others, not feeling fed by friendships, or the support of community. When I do remember to make a short prayer to my spirit guide to help with “the morbid recognition” of my limitations, things go better and I can overcome the regressive tendencies of the lower self, the “animal nature,” as it’s referred to in The UB (34:6.9).

Jesus told the crowd at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, “If you could all be healed of your physical afflictions, you would indeed marvel, but it is even greater that you should be cleansed of all spiritual disease and find yourselves healed of all moral infirmities.” (147:3.3)

My rural family members had a country maxim, “God helps those who help themselves,” so I’ve smiled to myself when I read one of the men at the pool of Bethesda, “afflicted by the infirmities of his mind … [who] had waited all these years for somebody to help him … was such a victim of the feeling of his own helplessness that he had never once entertained the idea of helping himself which proved to be the one thing he had to do in order to effect recovery—take up his bed and walk.” (147:3.5) Jesus words, the gospel, awakened his will and courage just as it had done with Fortune, the young man in the hills of Crete.

“Personal, spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. Religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True religion unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements.” (196:3.1)

This blog represents a first attempt, a somewhat brief and expeditious overview of the spiritual guidance that is available in The Urantia Book. For example, I have not included Rodan’s philosophical advice found in Paper 160. My summary may not represent the best “how-to” get guidance from our spiritual helpers but hopefully points you in a right direction.

The Soul’s “Embryonic Journey*”

Dave — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 15:57:50 GMT

A lot of talk about previous incarnations has gone around the New Age religious communities in California, talk that demonstrates how quickly we’re attracted to the belief we are “old souls,” our bodies, new vehicles for souls that existed before. Wordsworth bestowed a poetic dignity on the idea, “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, the soul that rises with us, our life’s star, hath elsewhere had its setting, and cometh from afar, (Ode: Intimations of Immortality).”

Many who believe they’ve experienced memories of previous existences spend hard-earned dollars on past life regressions, a method recently minted for the purpose of exploring the details of the experiences, and getting in touch with our true, more authentic selves.

What are the risks, the down sides of this belief? On one hand a past life identity could give a person a false sense of self-importance, if you believed you’d been an Egyptian Pharaoh named Ramses, for example. On the other hand, it could fulfill a strong need for a sense of meaning and significance that day-to-day existence lacks. Is it merely illusory? Rationally considered, people may be suffering delusions, but I’ve seen truly beautiful creative inspirations come out of such ideas, for example, Chaka Khan’s composition (with Rufus), The Egyptian Song, is about her reincarnation fantasy and it is deeply moving music.

The Urantia Book (The UB) seeks to clarify that what “arrives” to indwell our minds is the divine spark, the Spirit of the Father, also known as the Thought Adjuster, the Mystery Monitor. “The soul of man is distinct from the divine spirit which dwells within the mind.” (The UB, 133:6.5)

Though naturally a skeptic, I did not completely discount the idea of past lives. I’d had my own experience of unusual memories, vivid sensations, inexplicable mysteries that might have been plausibly explained by past life memories. A vivid and strong impression of myself as a horseman living in desert-like country under a winter sky near the Caspian Sea was part of what inspired me to learn more about the ancient culture of people from the steppes, known as the Aryans in our history. I bought records of classical Persian music, studied the region’s archeology, learned the history of the horse cultures of five thousand years ago, and presented a topical study of their “Journey to India,” to our UB study group.

My “past life” interest took a more scientific turn. I joined National Geographic’s Genographic project to map the human genome. Upon receipt of payment, I was sent the test kit, two cheek swabs from which samples of my DNA would be obtained. The results came back confirming that I carried genetic markers of a heritage from the Middle Eastern regions, the Fertile Crescent, of about 60,000 years ago. Was it merely an ironic coincidence, or had I discovered something in my past life meditations that had an authentic genetic basis?

The idea of previous incarnations may be a way we choose to connect with our ancient ancestry whether it’s literally in our blood, or a part of what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. Jung put forward a technique of “active imagination,” in his therapy practice. It was a way for patients to invite the unconscious into the everyday mind and thus explore more depths in their experience.

A valid criticism of the New Age concept of past lives and reincarnation is that it is overly deterministic. The old souls come with agendas. People see their lives as consequences of previous lives of uncompleted or “bad” karma, a perspective that tends to leave no room for the expression of their own free will choices. Many believe their duty in this life is to work out the “karma” of past lives. To me, such karmic tasks displace their own dreams. In becoming a passive receptacle for “old souls,” we overlook our own contributions to growth in the spirit.

The UB points out how old the idea is. “There was, throughout all these regions, a lingering belief in reincarnation. The older Jewish teachers, together with Plato, Philo, and many of the Essenes, tolerated the theory that men may reap in one incarnation what they have sown in a previous existence; thus in one life they were believed to be expiating the sins committed in preceding lives. The Master found it difficult to make men believe that their souls had not had previous existences.” (164:3.4)

Our study group once moderated classes in religion and philosophy for the Unity Church based on The UB. New Age ideas came up frequently. Inevitably we were embroiled in disagreements. To help, I suggested it would not serve us to take an absolute position on the issue, at least not on reincarnation from a previous Earth life. One detail from The UB was worthy of mention, “Supreme Adjusters, [are] those Monitors that have served in the adventure of time on the evolutionary worlds, but whose human partners for some reason declined eternal survival … A supreme Adjuster, though no more divine than a virgin Monitor, has had more experience, can do things in the human mind which a less experienced Adjuster could not do.” (107:2.4)

Honestly, my hope was to get to the deeper motivations behind the turn to beliefs in reincarnation. People drawn to the notion are in search of ego strength, an increased sense of personal worth and self-esteem, a feeling of belonging. Ideally, it could lead to a discovery for themselves, within themselves, of that which they hold to be of higher value, their spiritual connection.

Modern movements come and go and inevitably New Age thought diminished in popularity. I came to accept that the topic of past lives was a preoccupation of the once-dominant counterculture, a subject more fashionable than legitimate as a field of investigation and inquiry. As I’d done with the genome project, I sought more scientific explanations of the question that still remained: how do we sometimes discover an innate wisdom that seems to surpass what it is possible to learn in such small lives limited to narrow periods of time?

Race memory may be part of a commonly accessed mind such as Jung tried to describe with his concept of the collective unconscious. The Theosophical movement contributed a similar idea, calling it the akashic record. Philosopher of science, Ervin Laszlo, called it the akashic field. Collective human memory may be genetically encoded in the same way that happens during the process of evolution in migrating birds and animals. They have an innate, “instinctive” sense of the best direction to take to reach their winter feeding grounds.

Our local fringe spiritual movements have concentrated on mind memory as the repository of past life experiences. Mind is our necessary pathway to access the developing soul, “Mind is the human soil from which the spirit Monitor must evolve the morontia soul with the co-operation of the indwelt personality” (111:1.1), and we should not lose sight of the long tradition of soul as our connection to God, rather than to our past human history. More intriguing than past lives is the future that awaits us. In The Urantia Book, the soul becomes the vehicle to take us on a heroic journey into our future. “During the mortal life in the flesh the soul is of embryonic estate; it is born (resurrected) in the morontia life and experiences growth through the successive morontia worlds.” (66:4.9)

*Thanks to Jorma Kaukonen (of Jefferson Airplane) for his beautiful composition, “Embryonic Journey,” recorded on Surrealistic Pillow, 1967.

For David Kantor’s study group on this topic, see: http://urantia-book.org/archive/studyaid/reincarn.htm

Ganid and “Joshua the Teacher”

Dave — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 15:55:17 GMT

The school year is back in full swing. I am tutoring several students a week in History, English, Grammar, even Religion (with my Catholic school student). Many times I reflect on how much “the kids” have taught me over the past year. “The true teacher maintains his intellectual integrity by ever remaining a learner." (The Urantia Book, The UB, 130:3.7)

Their natural interest in human rights, the “narrative of human tolerance,” and the ideals of fairness upon which our Western civilization was founded inspires me. I wonder if they too feel the threats to it, if they question whether our institutions are working well, protecting the human rights that have been achieved. For example, this current hot topic, “If men would maintain their freedom, they must, after having chosen their charter of liberty, provide for its wise, intelligent, and fearless interpretation to the end that there may be prevented … Failure of social and economic fairness.” (The UB, 70:12.6-16)

This teaching experience has been so fascinating and rewarding that quite naturally I wanted to reread The Urantia Book, Papers 130 to 133, about “the mission of Joshua the teacher,” where we enjoy the privilege of observing up close his service as a tutor from a box seat courtesy of the midwayers. In his 28^th year (A.D. 22), on a visit to Jerusalem, Jesus was hired on as both tutor and interpreter for Ganid, the son of Gonod, an Indian merchant. It was a journey that would last almost two years.

Here are just some of the lessons about ideas, ideals, and higher ways of thinking and behaving that Jesus set out to reinforce in his 17 year old protege as they sojourned at Rome and other cities of the Mediterranean. In this personal ministry, Jesus tried out many ideas he would later use in the public ministry that he would begin upon his return to Israel.

Show sympathetic understanding, initiate conversations, “To become acquainted with one’s brothers and sisters, to know their problems and to learn to love them, is the supreme experience of living." (130:2.6)

Lead a life of friendly and loving service: He taught Ganid his technique of making friends. “Become interested in your fellows; learn how to love them and watch for the opportunity to do something for them which you are sure they want done," (130:7.2) so refreshing in our time when dog-eat-dog competitiveness is becoming the norm in the business world.

Guide seekers into doing the will of God, into making “wholehearted” decisions, spiritual choices. In answering Ganid’s question about whether a dog had a soul, Jesus said, “Human wills which are fully occupied with passing only upon temporal decisions having to do with the material problems of animal existence are doomed to perish in time. Those who make wholehearted moral decisions and unqualified spiritual choices are thus progressively identified with the indwelling and divine spirit, and thereby are they increasingly transformed into the values of eternal survival—unending progression of divine service." (130:2.9)

Live the truth and thus lead others to living a spiritual life. “You, my son, will be like this lighthouse [in Alexandria] when you return to India, … you will become like the light of life to those who sit about you in darkness, showing all who so desire the way to reach the harbor of salvation in safety.” (130:3.2) Ganid squeezed his hand in acknowledgement, saying, “I will.”

“All those who know the way of truth and enjoy the assurance of knowing God should esteem it a privilege, not a duty, to offer guidance to their fellows in their efforts to find the satisfactions of living.” (132:6.1)

I’m often not consciously aware of such opportunities in my own work except that I’m always ready to give my students an education in religious history they haven’t received anywhere else.

Later in Rome, Jesus reinforced this message when Ganid was surprised that they passed a “thoughtless pagan” without making conversation as he frequently did. Jesus explained that the man was “not hungry for truth.” “If we know God, our real business on earth is so to live as to permit the Father to reveal himself in our lives, and thus will all God-seeking persons see the Father and ask for our help in finding out more about the God who in this manner finds expression in our lives.” (132:7.2)

Guide others to the safety and security of a life with God: “Did we not supremely enjoy this ministry of restoring the child to his mother? So do those who lead men to God experience the supreme satisfaction of human service.” And from that day forward, for the remainder of his natural life, Ganid was continually on the lookout for lost children whom he might restore to their homes.” (132:6.1)

Discern the universal truth in the many paths taken in all religious teachings and revelations: As “they discussed again and again all the religions of the world,” Jesus tried “to point out to this young mind the truth in each” (130:3.4). Ganid was inspired to make “a collection of the teachings of the world’s religions about God and his relations with mortal man.” At his father’s expense, Ganid employed several translators to make an “abstract of the religious doctrines of the world.” (131:0.1)

I can’t help wondering if “Ganid’s manuscript … prepared at Alexandria and Rome, and … preserved in India for hundreds of years after his death,” (131:0.2) will one day be discovered. [Note: Matthew Block’s source research identifies Robert Ernest Hume’s Treasure-House of the Living Religions as the parallel to “Ganid’s manuscript.”]

My students sometimes experience conflict about what direction to take in their “earth careers.” They are about to choose between a materialistic profession or making the idealistic choice to serve humanity. We see how old this primal conflict is, once again, a father urging his son to get a good-paying job. Ganid’s father comments one evening, "I propose to make a scholar or a businessman of my son, and now you start out to make a philosopher or philanthropist of him." And Jesus smilingly replied: "Perhaps we will make him all four; then can he enjoy a fourfold satisfaction in life as his ear for the recognition of human melody will be able to recognize four tones instead of one." (132:6.3)

Above all, be of good cheer! “You are born into the world, but no amount of anxiety and no manifestation of impatience will help you to grow up. You must, in all such matters, wait upon time. Time alone will ripen the green fruit upon the tree. Season follows season and sundown follows sunrise only with the passing of time. I am now on the way to Rome with you and your father, and that is sufficient for today. My tomorrow is wholly in the hands of my Father in heaven.” (130:5.3)

Finding a Space for Quiet Contemplation

Dave — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 15:53:29 GMT

Our household was troubled recently by the news of two suicides among the youth of our city. One was a co-worker and close friend. Another sad outcome at the same time was the shooting death resulting from a married couple’s quarrel in the very same city neighborhood. These waters were further roiled by a Facebook posting I saw that same week from a young person asserting the old claim, “God is dead.” Again and again, we push away the very source of the peace we might find for troubled minds and souls, a healing love that could start as a ripple in our small pond before its orbit grew into a wave that traveled out to the world.

“The world is filled with hungry souls who famish in the very presence of the bread of life; men die searching for the very God who lives within them.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 159:3.8)

Krishnamurti taught us to seek to end violence in our own hearts before condemning violence in the world, “Let us come back to the central issue - is it possible to eradicate violence in ourselves?” (Freedom From the Known, Ch. 6)

If we did have an ideal of non-violence and a belief in non-violent solutions to our problems, it is fading away under the greater noise of gunfire.

“Is there a difference between individual anger, with violent action on the part of the individual, and the organized hatred of a society which breeds and builds up an army to destroy another society? … We know what violence is without expressing in words, in phrases, in action. As a human being in whom the animal is still very strong, in spite of centuries of so-called civilization, where shall I begin? Shall I begin at the periphery, which is society, or at the center, which is myself?”

(J. Krishnamurti, http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-quote/20141026.php?t=Violence)

“Happiness and joy take origin in the inner life.” (The UB, 111:4.7)

Too often, the world does not love and that is what wears us down. Is that why there are so many shootings? Those with little or no active spiritual life, and who have few moral persons as acceptable role models, are vulnerable to violence. People hunger for spiritual realities, are “famished” partly because our civilization may be losing its vision of what is real and authentic. The socially approved goal of material acquisition does not inspire one. It provides only transient happiness. So people become desperate. Often they want to strike back. Some turn to suicide as a solution, sometimes taking others with them in a kind of retaliatory act.

As I’ve mentioned before, I see that my students, not yet mature young adults, respond to ideals preserved in our democratic history and freedoms. They express them freely, hopefully, seemingly fearlessly, yet they too are torn this way and that by differing, conflicting messages the society broadcasts far and wide. What to do? Do they succumb to the pressure of families and peer groups pushing them into materialist goals, good jobs with high salaries? Or do they follow a flickering instinct, a “still small voice” advocating service to a good cause that would fulfill their desire for a meaningful life?

Ideals are born in the inner life, The UB tells us (111:4.10). “Meanings are nonexistent in a wholly sensory or material world. Meanings and values are only perceived in the inner or supermaterial spheres of human experience.” (111:4.2)

More than ever, people need to establish a routine of visiting a quiet space for contemplation, where one can hear the voice of the spirit, and seek an understanding of what is communicated between a striving soul and its higher power. We need a method of discovering what is meaningful and important, of selecting wisely from the information pouring into our minds in an ever-increasing torrent. We need a truth and meanings and values filter. The lack of being in touch with spiritual reality is undoubtedly a reason why governments, businesses, and financial systems seem to veer out of control, close to a cliff.

“Mental prayer is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” Teresa of Avila (The Interior Castle, 1577)

The Urantia Book offers responses to the many questions Krishnamurti raised about what to do with violence in his times on Earth, 1929-1986. They are similar to answers he himself shared. “Since this inner life of man is truly creative, there rests upon each person the responsibility of choosing as to whether this creativity shall be spontaneous and wholly haphazard or controlled, directed, and constructive. How can a creative imagination produce worthy children when the stage whereon it functions is already preoccupied by prejudice, hate, fears, resentments, revenge, and bigotries? (111:4.9)

In our information overloaded society, let us look for ways to connect young people to a feeling of reverence for spirit reality, a renewed one with nature, even a practice of communion with the spirit guide within, their own personal experience of a shared “inner life” with God (111:4). We can do it together by taking nature walks, hiking a trail, visiting a beach, singing an uplifting song when sitting down to a shared meal. We can delight in the accomplishments of the past with a visit to a museum. Take one of these many paths to healing. Or blaze a new trail.

“Future generations shall know also the radiance of our joy, the buoyance of our good will, and the inspiration of our good humor. We proclaim a message of good news which is infectious in its transforming power. Our religion is throbbing with new life and new meanings. Those who accept this teaching are filled with joy and in their hearts are constrained to rejoice evermore. Increasing happiness is always the experience of all who are certain about God.” (159:3.10)

Maybe God is Like a Jigsaw Puzzle

Dave — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:51:37 GMT

“He who sees the many, the diverse and not the one, the unified, wanders on from death to death.” (Katha Upanishad, Part 4.)

Maybe God is like a jigsaw puzzle and someone knocked over the puzzle table during a quarrel, scattering the pieces into far corners of the room, bits of insight, revelation, and philosophic understanding cast far and wide. Some were dropped in Iran or India, others strayed into China or Persia, or became lodged in the mud of the Mississippi Bible Belt. I’d like to see it put back into a whole coherent picture again.

So many gurus, new age visionaries, revelations, and spiritual groups have proliferated in California, like the famed salad bars that were once everywhere. Someone even invented the term “salad bar spirituality,” to describe those who take what they want and leave the rest. I was being introduced to a lot of new thinking -- Gurdjieff, A Course in Miracles, Seth Speaks (Jane Roberts), the Perfect Master AKA Guru Maharaji, The Urantia Book, (The UB), The Essene Gospel of Peace, and other lesser knowns. There were odd churches all over the place, unlike any I’d grown up with, all promulgating their message, some adding themselves to the list of older revelations made by Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Joseph Smith, just to name a few.

I’ve found it advisable to add a testing system with operating instructions to the Truth Seeker Guidebook, one to verify claims made by all these competing truths and revelations. If facts, logic and spiritual intuition aren’t used to check our experiences, we may fall into a swoon of enchantment over an idea that turns out to be someone’s mistaken fantasy.

“Never … can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.” (103:6.5)

“Science is man’s attempted study of his physical environment … religion is man’s experience with the cosmos of spirit values; philosophy has been developed by man's mind effort to organize and correlate the findings of these widely separated concepts into something like a reasonable and unified attitude toward the cosmos.” (103:6.9)

Of course, one can play it safe and avoid all unconventional religious movements. Certainly many did, but that was not to be my modus operandi. I was seriously looking for truth, willing to check out everything. Thus I became seriously entangled in a cult once, yet managed to get out of it with my sanity and life intact, and most of my money.

I didn’t decide I needed to write the story of my spiritual journey until there was an unusual meeting in the 1990s. Truth seekers who’d traveled to California from Lithuania and Estonia were staying with friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. They came by to meet us because one of the women was a singer and we were musicians. I was skeptical about how they were proceeding with their spiritual search. Too much mysticism, crystals, star charts, and magic rocks for my liking. That’s what I told my wife but she pointed out how wrong it was for a comfortable Protestant American like me to judge their experience harshly from a place of supposed superiority. The Truth Seeker Guidebook would instruct us to never do that.

Regarding the mystery-cult leaders of Rome, “this was his [Jesus] method of instruction: Never once did he attack their errors or even mention the flaws in their teachings.” (130:0.4)

Shortly after the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, dormant nationalisms were rekindled. Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia (1991). The Eastern European region was in the midst of the death and chaos of the Bosnian Civil War, a time when every tombstone in the Bosnian graveyard had the year 1993 etched on it, as someone said once.

There were religious repercussions to the restructuring of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). People living in the Soviets under Communist rule had received no religious training or spiritual instruction for several generations. After the collapse of the USSR, the number of those identifying as Orthodox Christian more than doubled. However, Eastern Europeans were still hungry for knowledge and truth from any source whatever. They investigated everything just as I had done. Part of my wife’s wise advice was to recall that the same profligate sampling characterized our spiritual searches just a couple of decades before.

The Russian and Eastern European situation inspired me to put my own spiritual journey into words, thus I created a chronicle of my wanderings. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a physical event, easier to see, but we had a wall that came down too, the invisible wall of protection built by Western cultural traditions. The effects were not so recognizable to everyone at first. After I disassociated myself from the traditional church of my youth, I began exploring spiritual reality without the benefit of experienced religious authorities.

Most of the time finding my own spiritual center was a slow process, a gradual gleaning of insights with a few personal revelations thrown in, whatever might jump-start a stalled car. Eventually, I did experience a “suddenly” as described in the UB’s evolutionary history, an all-at-once kind of revelatory experience. It was followed by my introduction to The Urantia Book two years later by the woman I later married.

If someone were to sew a patchwork quilt of my journey, there would be patches representing the Christian, the yogi, the philosopher, the Buddhist and mystic. Rejecting nothing that might have value, I pause even to examine what has been discarded, for something may still be found there in the windblown, forlorn, heretical, unwanted scraps...

Visiting the Magna Carta on its 800th Anniversary

Dave — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 15:48:39 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, while in Los Angeles, Chappell and I went to the Huntington Museum’s current exhibit, Magna Carta, Law and Legend, 1215-2015. The Huntington (1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino) is displaying the 13^th century draft in its possession, along with several other foundational books and ancient charters. Inspired by my students, and their interest in the human rights and freedoms advocated in Enlightenment philosophy, we went to see what inspired “the founding fathers” of the American nation to write the Declaration of Independence. The kids are sensitive to the forces that conspire to undermine civilization, the oligarchs, the jihadists, and other thieves. The question we must answer again, as we are called to protect our heritage: Who is civilization for?

Around 1250 B.C.E., Mycenae, Tiryns and other sites in Greece were simply abandoned after an invasion of “northern strangers,” as a tablet from Pylos called them, perhaps also because of attacks from the Sea Peoples, a coalition of groups that included the Philistines. http://www.historywiz.com/mycenaeanfall.htm The population of Greece declined by about 75 percent and the refugees resettled as far away as Cyprus.

Mycenaean kingdoms were highly centralized, with elaborate bureaucracies of scribes and groups of arts and craftsmen, but the cities and the workshops disappeared. Small, poor, agricultural villages took their place. Crete suffered a similar major decline in population as people abandoned coastal areas because of attacks from the sea. Easily defensible positions were found in the hills and new settlements built. Without palace bureaucracies to maintain it, the knowledge of writing was lost. A “Dark Age” descended over the entire Aegean region for about the next 1,000 years.

Centuries later, a new civilization was founded upon the accomplishments of the Greeks. “All the art and genius of these [Greeks] is a direct legacy of the posterity of Adamson, the first son of Adam and Eve, and his extraordinary second wife,” [Ratta] (The Urantia Book, The UB, 80:7.5).

“The Romans bodily took over Greek culture, putting representative government in the place of government by lot. And presently this change favored Christianity in that Rome brought into the whole Western world a new tolerance for strange languages, peoples, and even religions.” (The UB, 195:2.1)

Magna Carta and Constitutionalism

Brittania was a province of the Roman Empire until the year 410, “And these Romans were a great people. They could govern the Occident because they did govern themselves. Such unparalleled honesty, devotion, and stalwart self-control was ideal soil for the reception and growth of Christianity.” (The UB, 195:2.4) After Rome’s departure, and further invasions of Germanic and Viking tribes, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England was born, a polyglot nation, the birthplace of our democratic principles and government.

The movement to establish human rights and freedoms, to enshrine them in law, fascinates the young people I am tutoring. They have a natural curiosity about Rousseau (The Social Contract), John Locke (Two Treatises of Government … a copy of which was in the exhibit), and the Magna Carta. This English “Great Charter” was the first step in establishing constitutionalism, a set of norms whereby the principles of government, the limits of authority and the rule of law are defined in a document. In the eight centuries since its first appearance, the Magna Carta’s example has been followed around the world.

“As a peace treaty intended to ward off civil war, the original Magna Carta was a short-term failure, revoked later that summer,” said Mary Robertson, co-curator of the Huntington Library exhibit. “But it was remembered, revised, and reissued the following year and given permanent authoritative form in 1225 by King John’s son, King Henry III … three of its key principles—that no one is above the law, that justice may not be sold, denied, or delayed, and that no man may be imprisoned or his property confiscated without due process of law—have continued to resonate down the centuries.” http://huntington.org/WebAssets/Templates/exhibitiondetail.aspx?id=17272

Spiritual Idealism, The Driving Power of Civilization

“The driving power of even the most material aspects of a cultural civilization is resident in the least material of society’s achievements. Intelligence may control the mechanism of civilization, wisdom may direct it, but spiritual idealism is the energy which really uplifts and advances human culture from one level of attainment to another.” (The UB, 81:6.27)

The current warnings and fears about civilization’s ability to endure are similar to alarms we raised as young hippies in the 70’s. Back then, much as now, we saw the same environmental destruction, inequalities between the races, inequities afflicting men and women (hence the community), and excessive materialism. Our answer to these problems was a quest for a spiritual quality of life. But the hippies gave up, silenced their protests at the end of that decade and went back to work with the system as it was being run.

In our time, we stand on the shoulders of many thinkers from previous decades. In his book, The Source of Human Good, philosopher Henry Nelson Wieman, also a well-known source author of several of “The Urantia Book” papers, along with his spouse Regina Westcott-Wieman, made a summary statement in his conclusion. Its validity will one day be recognized:

"There is a creative power in history which is able to conquer and to save, but it is not any power of man, even though it works through man. In all times, both good and ill, man must live under its control if history is to be fruitful."

This “creative power” is found within, “The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative.” (111:4.3) Per the UB creativity comes from consciousness of partnership with God, becoming “a willing partner with the Adjuster.” (110:2.2) “When man goes in partnership with God, great things may, and do, happen.” (132:7.9)

“Without the presence of moral insight the advance of science becomes the menace of humanity. Morally untempered, it promises only universal destruction to that fragile plant which we call human life and civilization. It is needless to point out that, though facts might remain after such devastation, science itself would be destroyed, if not forever, at least until the birth of a new race whose moral achievement should walk hand in hand with their scientific progress.” (Ralph Flewelling, Creative Personality, 221)

Here is how Albert Schweitzer, German physician and theologian, expressed it. “One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history. The question is, shall we make world history or only suffer it passively? Will our thinking again become ethical-religious? Shall we again win ideals that will have power over reality? This is the question before us today.” (Religion in Modern Civilization, Christian Century, 21 November, 1934)

“The ‘real movement’ of history, it turns out, is fueled not by matter but by spirit, by the will to freedom.” (Gertrude Himmelfarb, U.S. historian, in On Looking Into the Abyss)

Our society since the day of these philosophers has become more secular and materialistic, so much so that many despair our civilization has discarded the idea of, the importance of, a spiritual foundation. History shows that this is a mistake if we want to preserve it and endure. It would be inspiring to see a real in-depth study made of spiritual idealism as a foundation of character, our best leadership, and thus our civilization’s future.

“The New and Mighty Charter for Human Freedom”

Civilization has often had institutional religion as its driving force. In our era when institutional religions are failing to command the loyalty of citizens, even contributing to war, we need a true system of ethics, a personal philosophy of religion based on the idealism of its citizens, and a credo asserting the value of the individual.

“This Roman citizen [the Apostle Paul] proclaimed to these Greeks his version of the new religion which had taken origin in the Jewish land of Galilee. They had a common goal—both aimed at the emergence of the individual. … The Greek, at social and political emergence; Jesus, at moral and spiritual emergence. The Greek taught intellectual liberalism leading to political freedom; Jesus taught spiritual liberalism leading to religious liberty. These two ideas put together constituted a new and mighty charter for human freedom; they presaged man's social, political, and spiritual liberty. (195:1.1)

The Magna Carta exhibit runs until October 12^th at the Huntington Library’s West Hall.

The Book of Revelation, John’s Visions of Jerusem & Salvington

Dave — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:45:54 GMT

“Ordinary dreams are not the methods employed by the personalities of the spiritual world when they seek to communicate with material beings.” (86:5.11)

John Zebedee’s “presentation” must have been more than a dream. The Urantia Book (The UB) refers to John’s experiences as “presentations,” an interesting term for what happened, one that suggests he was transported by some means to view what they wanted “to present” to him. Not surprisingly, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (KJV), the final book of the Bible, is the most otherworldly and mysterious book in the Christian canon. It gets a good review in The Urantia Book (The UB). The statements it makes awakened my curiosity to learn more about Revelation, take it more seriously, study the text more closely, and rediscover the marvel it is. The Revelation of St. John was one of the major remaining sources of the history of the Lucifer rebellion before the publication of The UB. See Paper 53:7 for “History of the Rebellion.”

“The problems associated with human existence on Urantia are impossible of understanding without a knowledge of certain great epochs of the past, notably the occurrence and consequences of the planetary rebellion.” (67:0.1)

Christians debate authorship of the book. Some believe Paul was the author. Scholar Elaine Pagels describes him in her book as an “exiled Jewish mystic.” http://www.npr.org/books/titles/148126089/revelations-visions-prophecy-and-politics-in-the-book-of-revelation The UB confirms the fact, disputed here on Urantia, that the exiled mystic on the Isle of Patmos was Jesus’ disciple John Zebedee, John the Revelator as he’s known in the traditional American gospel song.

“When in temporary exile on Patmos, John wrote the Book of Revelation, which you now have in greatly abridged and distorted form. This Book of Revelation contains the surviving fragments of a great revelation, large portions of which were lost, other portions of which were removed, subsequent to John's writing. It is preserved in only fragmentary and adulterated form.” (The UB, 139:4.14) Doesn’t this make you wish we could somehow find and restore the whole text?

Here are just a few of the revelations that The UB adds concerning John’s great work. “The Book of Life” which appears in five verses of Revelation: 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12; 20:15 is revealed in The UB, not as a book, but as a previously unknown angelic group, “The Custodians of Knowledge.” “The superaphic custodians of knowledge are the higher "living epistles" known and read by all who dwell on Paradise. They are the divine records of truth, the living books of real knowledge. You have heard about records in the "book of life." The custodians of knowledge are just such living books.” (The UB, 27:5)

The Seven Spirits Before the Throne of Revelation 4:5 are described in The UB as, “The seven adjutant mind-spirits … the creation of the Divine Minister of a local universe. These mind-spirits are similar in character but diverse in power, and all partake alike of the nature of the Universe Spirit … These are the ‘seven spirits of God,’ ‘like lamps burning before the throne,’ which the prophet saw in the symbols of vision. But he did not see the seats of the four and twenty sentinels about these seven adjutant mind-spirits. This record represents the confusion of two presentations, one pertaining to the universe headquarters and the other to the system capital. The seats of the four and twenty elders are on Jerusem, the headquarters of your local system of inhabited worlds.” (34:4.9 – 13) Note here the last two sentences which make the reference to what John experienced as “presentations.”

The Four and Twenty Elders of Revelation 4:1-6 have fascinated us through the ages. Perhaps one reason is that they took up their present positions “surrounding the throne,” subsequent to first having lived prestigious lives on Earth. Read a fuller discussion in The UB, all of Paper 45, section 4, (also in two of my previous blogs on this site about "The Four and Twenty Counselors").

Resurrection is discussed in Revelation 7:13, “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.” (Revelation 7:13)

The UB expands on the meaning of the white robes traditionally associated with spiritual luminosity. They replace the “coarse vestiges” of our material bodies. “The shadow of the mortal nature grows less and less as these [morontia] worlds are ascended one by one. You are becoming more and more adorable as you leave behind the coarse vestiges of planetary animal origin. "Coming up through great tribulation" serves to make glorified mortals very kind and understanding, very sympathetic and tolerant.” (47:8.7)

We learn more about the Four Beasts of Revelation 4:7-8 (The UB, 34:4.12-13, same as above). “But it was of Salvington that John wrote: "And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices"—the universe broadcasts to the local systems. He also envisaged the directional control creatures of the local universe, the living compasses of the headquarters world. This directional control in Nebadon is maintained by the four control creatures of Salvington, who operate over the universe currents and are ably assisted by the first functioning mind-spirit, the adjutant of intuition, the spirit of ‘quick understanding.’ But the description of these four creatures—called beasts—has been sadly marred; they are of unparalleled beauty and exquisite form.” (The UB, 34:4.12-13)

Then there’s the Sea of Glass, the Mark of the Beast: “John the Revelator saw a vision of the arrival of a class of advancing mortals from the seventh mansion world to their first heaven, the glories of Jerusem. He recorded: "And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who had gained the victory over the beast that was originally in them and over the image that persisted through the mansion worlds and finally over the last mark and trace, standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, and singing the song of deliverance from mortal fear and death." (Perfected space communication is to be had on all these worlds; and your anywhere reception of such communications is made possible by carrying the "harp of God," a morontia contrivance compensating for the inability to directly adjust the immature morontia sensory mechanism to the reception of space communications.)” (The UB, 47:10.2)

The best known source for the history of the War in Heaven is Revelation 12:1-17 (and reiterated in The UB 53:5, and 53:7), a famous poem that some have forgotten:
^“3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. ⁴ And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.”

The UB confirms the history behind the marvelous poetic image of the dragon’s tail. “Of the supreme order of seraphim, not an angel was lost … But the terrible breakdown came in the fourth group, the administrator angels, those seraphim who are normally assigned to the duties of the system capitals. Manotia [presently associate chief of seraphim on Urantia] saved almost two thirds of them, but slightly over one third followed their chief into the rebel ranks. One third of all the Jerusem cherubim attached to the administrator angels were lost with their disloyal seraphim.” (UB 53:7.6)

“In symbol John saw this when he wrote of the great red dragon, saying: "And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them down in darkness." (UB 53:7.7)

Many see Revelation as a prophecy of “the end times” of the world but many will, upon deeper reading, see quite different meanings. One of the stirring climactic moments in John’s prophecy is the coming of “the holy city, New Jerusalem” in Revelation 21:1-8. ¹ And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. ⁴ And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. ⁵ And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

As The UB describes it, this real event takes place upon the departure of the Teacher Sons when they complete their mission. “It was of the conclusion of the terminal mission of the Teacher Sons (at least that would be the chronology on a normal world) that John wrote: ‘I saw a new heaven and a new earth and the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a princess adorned for the prince.’” (The UB, 52:7.11-16)

More details about “the tabernacle of God,” in John’s vision (Revelation 21:1-3) are given in The UB paper 55:1, The Morontia Temple. “The presence of a morontia temple at the capital of an inhabited world is the certificate of the admission of such a sphere to the settled ages of light and life. Before the Teacher Sons leave a world at the conclusion of their terminal mission, they inaugurate this final epoch of evolutionary attainment; they preside on that day when the "holy temple comes down upon earth." This event, signalizing the dawn of the era of light and life, is always honored by the personal presence of the Paradise bestowal Son of that planet, who comes to witness this great day.” (55:1.1) Let us try not to forget these events are a long way off.

The final great climax of the poem-prophecy is the promise made in Revelation 22:1-2 (UB 73:6) and 22:14, the restoration of the Tree of Life to Urantia. “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life … Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

Stranded Under Full Moon: Thoughts About Entering the Kingdom, Staying in It

Dave — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 15:41:05 GMT

One cold winter night my car wouldn’t start. I was only about an hour from the warmth and security of my own bed. While the temperature plunged, I waited for a tow-truck after being told it was a busy night on the roadways and it would be “at least” a couple of hours. I propped the hood up to signal my location to the truck driver, and climbed back into the unheated car.

I used several strategies to stay warm, played guitar until my fingers got too cold, sang most of the songs I knew, recited passages I’d memorized, until I ran out of ideas with which to entertain myself. A full moon rose over the dark hills. Under its bleak light, all my day to day reality constructs seemed to fall away, and I ended up having a heart to heart talk with myself, reviewing my spiritual life and future. Circumstances had apparently forced me to cast a cold eye on reality. What did I really think of having my next life on a morontia planet? Was it too far-fetched? Was I in truth actually haunted by doubt about the ideas of the afterlife I’d learned in The Urantia Book (The UB)?

“Your Adjuster memory remains fully intact as you ascend the morontia life. Those mental associations that were purely animalistic and wholly material naturally perished with the physical brain, but everything in your mental life which was worth while, and which had survival value, was counterparted by the Adjuster and is retained as a part of personal memory all the way through the ascendant career. You will be conscious of all your worth-while experiences as you advance from one mansion world to another and from one section of the universe to another—even to Paradise.” (The UB, 47:4.5)

In the humble beginnings of my Urantia life, shaped by secular ideas held by my family, I became a scientific thinker who depended on rational explanations of life experiences. After several of those, experiences of loss, disappointment, heartache, then revelations and transformations where I watched my tower of reason collapse, something new emerged. I experienced the reality of the spirit and set out on the path of the truth seeker, looking for more information about the new goals I envisioned. Of course I found The Urantia Book during this period.

Maybe I’ve reached the age where one begins to wonder about one’s death. Will my faith still be strong at that point? Will I be full of fear, or go joyfully into my morontia transit?

“There is but one struggle for those who enter the kingdom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubt—unbelief.” (The UB, 159:3.8)

In the cold darkness of my broken down automobile, stuck in the boredom of waiting for rescue by tow truck, I was not about to be rescued from this close self-examination, this heart to heart confrontation. I discovered I’d actually accepted the information about the morontia worlds long ago, at least intellectually. It made sense to me, even fit my old criteria of a rational explanation (that’s a separate blog!) But the real situation, as I now saw it, was the half-heartedness of my belief. I was “altogether too vacillating and indefinite … guilty of too much chronic yearning,” about seizing the kingdom, (as Jesus said in 155:1.3). I was begrudging in my acceptance of the challenge to grow and progress, even reluctant and resentful, perhaps even crabby about all the spiritual work that lay ahead.

I know what you might be thinking so I’ll hasten to confess that my reaction to the information about our ascendant career was a result of my spiritual immaturity. It also had to do with cowardice. It was no wonder that lately I often found myself repeating the passage (one I’d memorized) about “courage [as] … the very heart of [Jesus’] teachings.” (140:8.2) I think my spirit guide was nudging me out of a self-satisfied rut.

“The theme of Jesus' instructions during the sojourn at Sidon was spiritual progression. He told them they could not stand still; they must go forward in righteousness or retrogress into evil and sin. He admonished them to "forget those things which are in the past while you push forward to embrace the greater realities of the kingdom." He besought them not to be content with their childhood in the gospel but to strive for the attainment of the full stature of divine sonship in the communion of the spirit and in the fellowship of believers.” (156:2.6)

“But honest doubts and sincere questionings are not sin; such attitudes merely spell delay in the progressive journey toward perfection attainment. Childlike trust secures man's entrance into the kingdom of heavenly ascent, but progress is wholly dependent on the vigorous exercise of the robust and confident faith of the full-grown man.” (102:1.1)

“There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.” (The Interpretation of Religion, by John Baillie)

Not long after my “dark night of the soul,” stranded in the car for those long cold hours, I found I’d had a change of heart. I heard myself saying to study group one night, “It’s fun to do God’s will. You are becoming more real, more truly yourself and that’s more rewarding,” certainly more so than the life I’d chosen to live in the past.

Did Jesus Make a Morontia Appearance in the Americas?

Dave — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 15:38:53 GMT

It has come up a few times lately, a notion that Jesus may have made a morontia appearance to a group of Native Peoples in the Americas. This idea is reminiscent of the The Book of Mormon’s description of Jesus’ visit, healing the sick, teaching the gospel, and even calling twelve disciples to organize His Church in the Americas (Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 11:18; 3 Nephi 12:1-2).

I was, at first, very skeptical when I encountered such a seemingly romantic fancy among The Urantia Book (The UB) readers. I felt that if such a significant appearance had been made, it would certainly have been included with the list of “nineteen separate morontia appearances” described in Papers 190 to 193. But serious students were proposing the possibility, so I had some second thoughts. I recalled and reconsidered the peculiar myth of Quetzalcoatl, the white, blue-eyed, bearded god who brought corn (maize) to the peoples of Central and South America, among other gifts. The explanation I had previously developed, based on a Urantia Book perspective, was that he was descended from the group of “one hundred and thirty two” sea-faring Andites who landed in South America eons ago (78:5.7). Could Quetzalcoatl (Kukulcan) be a racial memory of Jesus’ visit in his morontia form?

Determined to figure this out, I read The UB Papers 190-193 again to make certain. I found the appearances were so specifically numbered and sequentially described, with a detailed account of where each one occurred, often including many names of the believers, and with an approximate number of who was present, right up to the final ascension on Mt. Olivet (193:5.1).

Incidentally, the experience of re-reading these sections of The Urantia Book is very rewarding, at times highly emotional, always uplifting. These passages include some of the most memorable teachings of Jesus, among which his psychological counseling and wise guidance of the bewildered, occasionally overwrought, and depressed apostles demonstrated the tremendous insight into human character, and the love that the Master (Michael) possesses for his followers.

I found that in most of the 19 appearances Jesus appeared at locations where he’d taught before, or to groups where he was already well-known and loved as a teacher, people likely to continue on ministering the gospel after he was gone. For example, he met with “Rodan and some eighty other believers, in Alexandria” (191:6.1); Nalda and “about seventy-five Samaritan believers” accustomed to meeting by the well at Sychar where Jesus had first taught her of his mission (193:1.1); and in the tenth appearance at Philadelphia “he showed himself to Abner and Lazarus and some one hundred and fifty of their associates.” (191:4.1) The famous meeting with the two brothers, also recorded in the Bible, is the oddest of the lot because it seems so random, walking the road, talking with men with whom he was not previously associated, although one was “a partial believer.” (190:5.1)

After I made this study, I could see no “wiggle room,” no ambiguity in the text, that might allow for morontia appearances not already catalogued. I concluded that the idea of Jesus presenting himself to Native Americans, despite its tremendous appeal, a myth we would like to believe in, was not credible in terms of The UB’s account. In addition, there’s the question of who he would have selected to visit? The visit with the two brothers shows his choice wasn’t always so methodical, however one of the brothers had found saving truth, listening to Jesus preach.

I have an unfinished research project into a religious revival I believe may have taken place in the Americas at the time of Pentecost. Native populations were swept up in a tremendous spiritual movement that reached from Hopewell, Ohio, “Mound Cultures” to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, where whole cities were constructed for a religious purpose and pilgrimage of a yet to be determined kind. Not so far-fetched when we remember that the Spirit of Truth was a “gift of the spirit [that] did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities.” (194:3.6)

The Gift of Free Will, an Indigenous Discovery

Dave — Tue, 19 May 2015 15:36:29 GMT

Deepak Chopra pointed out in his recent book, The Future of God, that the scientific belief system affirms, “our lives are deterministic. Free will plays no part,” an idea promoted by the new militant atheists. It will be difficult for modern science to accept The Urantia Book (The UB) premise that free will was bestowed by God as part of the gift of personality, “The attribute of choice-liberty is also bestowed by the Universal Father, and such persons are likewise embraced in the great circuit of divine love, the personality circuit of the Universal Father.” (5:6.12) The philosopher, Richard Tarnas, summarizes the materialistic and scientific mindset this way: “consciousness became … a secretion of the brain, a function of electrochemical circuitry serving biological imperatives (Passion of the Western Mind p. 332).”

In Native American culture, the innate gift of free will bestowed by the Creator is remembered in the oral histories. For me, this disproved the European/Western conceit that the Greeks began the discussion on ideas of free will. Certainly they discovered Free Will as an escape route from the determinism that characterized their mythology, a freedom from the authoritarian rule of The Fates, just as American Indian philosophers had done in long ago times.

“It was our intention to produce an early manifestation of will in the evolutionary life of Urantia, and we succeeded. Ordinarily, will does not emerge until the colored races have long been in existence, usually first appearing among the superior types of the red man. Your world is the only planet in Satania where the human type of will has appeared in a precolored race,” (65:4.11) meaning it had appeared in Andon and Fonta. What is that “human type of will” in The UB’s terms? “the ability to know God and the power of choosing to worship him.” (65:0.6)

Why did God bestow the gift of free will on mortals? By navigating the realities of good and evil in our world, we have opportunities to learn to choose the good for ourselves. God does not coerce us to be good, and he obviously didn’t create us already good. When we have made the wise choice in favor of truth; learned to maintain hopeful optimism to meet crushing disappointments; chosen humility instead of egoistical pride; learned to love God rather than fear him/her, these are our accomplishments, evidence of our progress in mastering our selves.

“The moral will creatures of the evolutionary worlds are always bothered with the unthinking question as to why the all-wise Creators permit evil and sin. They fail to comprehend that both are inevitable if the creature is to be truly free.” (54:3.1)

Here is how the Eastern Woodlands Indian tribes tell the story. Beyond the dome we call the sky is another world where Skywoman (Gizhiigokwe) originated. Skywoman’s daughter was born not long after her descent to earth (that’s another story), and following upon the creation of Turtle Island. Skywoman and her young daughter settled comfortably on the new land. Her baby grew up strong. Years went by until Skywoman’s daughter was also observed to be carrying a child. Different stories have been told about who the father was. Whether it was North Wind, or Coyote as they say here in California, we knew that Skywoman’s daughter’s children would be part Spirit from the Sky-world above the earth. If North Wind really was the father, we might not see the child knowing that wind is spirit, therefore the people believed that she was part earth origin.

Skywoman’s daughter didn’t have just one baby as expected. She gave birth to twins, Evil Minded twin and Good Minded twin, children who were also composed of both spirit and earth natures. We remember them by the names Good Mind and Evil Mind. Inevitably as they grew up, there were battles between them. Although the forces of creation and destruction are ever in opposition, eventually through battle Good Mind won control over this world. By the force of his good will he was able to keep Evil Mind imprisoned in a cave. There were no chains or bars on the cave. Good Mind’s will was stronger than any steel. It was Good Mind who created the new race of mankind, the second race of two-leggeds.

Good Mind spoke to his people and cautioned them that although he wished them only the best in their lives, there would always be an eternal struggle, and that people would always be of two minds—good and evil. His grandmother Skywoman stepped forward and reminded them she was Creator’s daughter, and she taught the people that it was the Creator’s desire and intention that Good Mind triumph over Evil Mind.

The people were constantly aware of Evil Mind. As they went about their daily activities, they could hear his wailings of pain and frustration that issued from the cave. Remember there were no chains or bars on the cave. He was kept there only by the force of Good Mind’s will and goodness.

Good Mind was such a good person that he would not agree to kill Evil Mind even though many people of his creation entreated him to do so. They walked away shaking their heads in disbelief at his stubbornness, allowing such a situation to continue. The presence of Evil Mind continued to haunt the people. He stirred up feelings of hate, jealousy and revenge among them. Good Mind had told them of the struggle they must endure. Sadly not all people were able to win the struggle against Evil Mind.

Some especially worried about their vulnerable children. Long ago, an old Grandfather was very concerned about his grandson, who came to him boiling over with anger. A friend had done him a great injustice. Grandfather sat down with his grandson, “Let me tell you a story,” he said. His story is well remembered as “The Wolves Within.” His way of telling it is the way most learn about the Good Mind/Bad Mind origin story.

“I too at times have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. You will find there is an endless supply of injustice in our world, but not so great an amount of love. But hate only wears you down, and does not harm or hurt your enemy. Hatred harms only yourself, like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times.”

He went on. “It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense where no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.”

“But the other wolf? Ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing can set him off into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing.”

“Sometimes it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.”

The boy looked into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?”

The Grandfather smiled and quietly replied, “The one I feed.”

The Loaves and Fishes, a Parable of Spiritual Abundance

Dave — Wed, 06 May 2015 15:33:44 GMT

“My children, do you not perceive the law of the spirit which decrees that to him who has shall be given so that he shall have an abundance.” (The Urantia Book, 151:1.4)

“Today, while [the Son of Man’s] absence prevents such material manifestations [like the loaves and fishes], you should refrain from placing any sort of limitation on the possible exhibition of his spiritual power. Though the Master is absent as a material being, he is present as a spiritual influence in the hearts of men.” (The UB, 152:1.5)

Quite a few years back, prosperity theology preachers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology began teaching that financial blessings were the will of God for faithful Christians. Though not a new idea, with origins in the New Thought movement of the 1800’s, it took hold and helped create a religious revival. There is much confusion between material wealth and spiritual abundance, many believing that good spiritual behavior, faith, will be rewarded materially. Some of the teachings of Jesus have been stirred into the confusing mix, most famously his “Consider the lilies of the field,” speech: “Your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:32-33, The UB, 165:5.3)

Jesus was not teaching a quest for prestige, wealth, and power that would set a person apart, elevated to a position higher and more powerful than others. He ministered and taught, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee (John 17:21).” The abundance comes from achieving this unity of will and purpose with God.

In January, when our Unity Church of Walnut Creek pastor, Rev. David McArthur, urged us to create a prosperous year, he said, “The Infinite Presence we are connected with wants to pour abundance into our lives. It is the only power; it’s not God and materiality, it’s how we connect with Spirit.”

In The Urantia Book, Jesus says, “Let your supreme delight be in the character of God, and he shall surely give you the sincere desires of your heart.’ "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act." "For the Lord hears the cry of the needy, and he will regard the prayer of the destitute.” (146:2.9)

Reverend David retold the story of the loaves and fishes (given in all four gospels) not as a miracle, but as a rational parable, a scientific step by step approach, on how to focus attitudes and emotions to achieve something greater than prosperity—abundance.

The UB makes the revealing statement, “And this is the first and only nature miracle which Jesus performed as a result of his conscious preplanning (152:2.10).”

By performing this miracle so publicly, did Jesus intend to teach us an important lesson about spiritual power, its potential for multiplying opportunities and blessings?

“For a moment Jesus stood in silence. There was a faraway look in his eyes. The apostles said nothing. Jesus turned suddenly to Andrew and said, "Bring me the loaves and fishes." And when Andrew had brought the basket to Jesus, the Master said: "Direct the people to sit down on the grass in companies of one hundred and appoint a leader over each group while you bring all of the evangelists here with us.” (152:2.8)

“Jesus took up the loaves in his hands, and after he had given thanks, he broke the bread and gave to his apostles, who passed it on to their associates, who in turn carried it to the multitude. Jesus in like manner broke and distributed the fishes. And this multitude did eat and were filled. And when they had finished eating, Jesus said to the disciples: "Gather up the broken pieces that remain over so that nothing will be lost." And when they had finished gathering up the fragments, they had twelve basketfuls. They who ate of this extraordinary feast numbered about five thousand men, women, and children.” (152:2.9)

“It is true that his disciples were disposed to call many things miracles which were not, but this was a genuine supernatural ministration. In this case, so we were taught, Michael multiplied food elements as he always does except for the elimination of the time factor and the visible life channel.” (152:2.10)

Our pastor offered insights into this miracle of Jesus, viewing it as a psychology, a visualization, a set of instructions on how to manifest in the physical realm the true (consecrated) desires of our heart. These archetypal patterns in “The Feeding of the Five Thousand” were described in his sermon like a procedure manual for partnering with the consciousness behind the cosmos. I’ll quote here from more of Reverend David’s sermon, the steps we can take to “create” abundance:

http://podcasts.unityofwalnutcreek.com/january-11-2015-steps-of-prosperity/

1. Awareness: Jesus said, “Bring them (the 5 loaves and 2 fishes) to me.” Be aware of what is provided not what is not there. What is wanted is already present in the spiritual realm.

2. Serenity: “He directed the people to sit down on the grass.” Make the people in your head, your critics, sit down. You can’t get rid of them, but it brings you into balance within.

The UB adds an interesting detail about this moment, “And when Andrew had brought the basket to Jesus, the Master said: "Direct the people to sit down on the grass in companies of one hundred and appoint a leader over each group while you bring all of the evangelists here with us," (152:2.8) similar to Luke 9:14, “groups of about 50 each.”

3. Acceptance: Reverend David pointed out, that by “Taking the five loaves, two fishes…” Jesus was accepting what is there. “It is the way it is. Acceptance is a beautiful thing. You know you’re not in a mode of acceptance if you’re complaining.”

4. Love: “…and looking up to heaven (Mark 6:41) …” Raise your awareness to a greater level. Thoughts don’t do it. It takes feeling, a different consciousness. God works through feeling. There is amazing power here … everything is love.

This is depicted slightly differently in The UB than in the gospel account. In Paper 152, Jesus’s experience of spiritual power and grace is an internal one of communion with God. Rather than looking up to heaven, “he had a faraway look in his eyes.”

5. Gratitude: “he gave thanks…” I am grateful! The new creation is happening in our spiritual world and flowing into this [material world] by way of our hearts.

6. Release all limits: “…broke the loaves” Break the old patterns. Pure spiritual love flows through our hearts and heals us. The hurt we carry is healed by that love. It removes those limiting ideas.

7. Active giving: “then he gave them to the disciples…” Send it on. In the physical world if you want more of something you take more. The spiritual world looks opposite to the physical world; if you want more you give more.

8. Openness: “and the disciples gave them to the people.” It is given to that part of us that is busy with the outer. We become open to both giving and receiving. It invites us into open receptivity. It fills us and satisfies the “yeah, but” people in our head. We experience the love, the divine power.

Recall how in step 4 (love), “we enter into this with and through … feelings of love and gratitude, [we] move to the places within us where we carry pain and we heal. I am grateful! … And there was more than enough!”

“And when they had finished gathering up the fragments, they had twelve basketfuls.” (The UB, 152:2.9)

The Unity sermon didn’t include the episode that happened next, demonstrating how the people were moved by the miracle to place him on Israel’s throne. “[The five thousand] were determined to give up their pilgrimage to the Passover, and then and there proclaim the Galilean Teacher Israel’s King. If He were the Messiah, such was His rightful title. Why then did He so strenuously and effectually resist it?” (Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah)

The disappointed crowd deserted Jesus when he refused the crown (John 6:15), stating once again that his kingdom was not of this world. “In less than one month's time the enthusiastic and open followers of Jesus, who numbered more than fifty thousand in Galilee alone, shrank to less than five hundred. Jesus desired to give his apostles such an experience with the fickleness of popular acclaim that they would not be tempted to rely on such manifestations of transient religious hysteria after he should leave them alone in the work of the kingdom, but he was only partially successful in this effort.” (152:6.2, John 6:66)

“Only yesterday did I feed you with bread for your bodies; today I offer you the bread of life for your hungry souls. Will you now take the bread of the spirit as you then so willingly ate the bread of this world?" (153:2.9)

Jesus had long before taught his apostles this truth “about man’s communion with God.” "I have come forth from the Father; if, therefore, you are ever in doubt as to what you would ask of the Father, ask in my name, and I will present your petition in accordance with your real needs and desires and in accordance with my Father's will. … Avoid praying much for yourself; pray more for the spiritual progress of your brethren. Avoid materialistic praying; pray in the spirit and for the abundance of the gifts of the spirit.” (146:2.10)

Savagery and Civilization: a New Chapter

Dave — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:32:13 GMT

As a tutor in English, I currently help teach one of my high school students the William Golding novel, Lord of the Flies, (first published in 1954) http://www.william-golding.co.uk/library/lord-of-the-flies.aspx. I hadn’t read the book since it was a required text when I was in high school a few decades ago. On this re-reading, I gained much more insight and benefit from Golding’s story and its archetypal theme. Golding went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983 for his novels.

At first I thought, what a great yarn, but could it actually happen? Could British boys raised in the public schools revert to a state of bloodthirsty savagery? Could young men raised like me, in homes where both parents stayed together in a solid marriage, and who received a grounding in Christian Sunday school education, lose their civilized mores so readily, ending up ruled by their fears?

Goldman actually reveals very little about the backgrounds of these British schoolboys. Jack, who briefly succeeds in taking over the role of chief by exploiting a rule of fear and the primeval solidarity of the pig hunt, may have come from a violent, perhaps even a criminal background, or a broken home. Setting my own biases aside, I looked more closely at their situation, one fraught with frightened but repressed emotions. They were totally isolated from any civilizing influence. My empathy grew. I began to understand how it could happen to any “civilized” young person.

Think about our own times, I reminded myself. As I considered the savagery exhibited by terrorist groups at large in Africa and the Middle East, the novel took on new significance and prescience. British boys and some women (http://abcnews.go.com/International/young-women-join-isis/story?id=29112401) now travel to Syria, Iraq and Yemen to join these terrorist groups. These young people become culturally isolated, often live in wild harsh desert landscapes, and find a group identity by focusing each other’s aroused passions on dogmatic ideologies which many Muslims say do not represent Islam. They chant slogans not so different from what the boys in Lord of the Flies used in their primitive dance, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (Chapter 9)

What I find disturbing in all the terrorist activity, and the promotion of angry fundamentalist ideologies, is how the events kindle a rage against religion among people in general. Are we so sure we want to vilify, even discard, the civilizing influences of religion because of the abuses some ignorant people have made in its name? Each of us who believe in the potential goodness of our Western civilization should work to change the focus. Here’s an article from the Huffington Post that encourages us to take our attention away from the new savagery that seeks to dominate the conversation. “Yes, religion can still be a force for good in the world.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/100-religious-groups-doing-good_n_5460739.html

If not religion, we can promote a reinvigorated dedication to spiritual living that will restore hope and true progress to our civilization. Many Urantia Book readers have heard about philosopher Henry Nelson Wieman, and his wife, Regina Westcott-Wieman, authors of the book The Normative Psychology of Religion. It is now recognized that the book is a “source work,” a source of material used in Papers 99, 100, and 101, http://www.squarecircles.com/urantiabooksourcestudies/index.htm. In another book of his, The Source of Human Good, http://www.amazon.com/Source-Human-Good-Henry-Wieman/dp/1556351267, Wieman explores a theme that I hope many will see the significance of:

Albert Schweitzer, German physician and theologian, described it this way, “One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history. The question is, shall we make world history or only suffer it passively? Will our thinking again become ethical-religious? Shall we again win ideals that will have power over reality? This is the question before us today.” from "Religion in Modern Civilization," (Christian Century, 21 November 1934)

These progressive thinkers foresaw a more important role for gathering inner spiritual resources rather than depending on institutionalized religions. Perhaps they were even dimly aware that, “Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherhood.” (The UB, 196:2.6) Those inspired by a personal experience of their own spiritual insights will become the new leaders of a revived civilization.

Treasures of New Expression: the Language of The Urantia Book

Dave — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:30:06 GMT

“Today, there is a great need for further linguistic development to facilitate the expression of evolving thought.” (81:6.16; p. 908)

Many readers of The Urantia Book (The UB) are familiar with the low opinion its authors frequently express about our language, its lack of capacity to express cosmic concepts. This judgment begins in the Foreword, “It is exceedingly difficult to present enlarged concepts and advanced truth, in our endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception, when we are restricted to the use of a circumscribed language of the realm. But our mandate admonishes us to make every effort to convey our meanings by using the word symbols of the English tongue.” (0:0.2)

In speaking about the Celestial Artisans, they write “But I almost despair of being able to convey to the material mind the nature of the work of the celestial artisans. I am under the necessity of constantly perverting thought and distorting language in an effort to unfold to the mortal mind the reality of these morontia transactions and near-spirit phenomena. Your comprehension is incapable of grasping, and your language is inadequate for conveying, the meaning, value, and relationship of these semispirit activities.” (44:0.13; p. 499)

Over the years, I have discerned a secondary purpose of The UB: how it seeks to gently steer us into a more carefully nuanced and discriminated definition of words, such as Supreme, faith-trust, and concepts of time, life after death. The Heaven we learned about in Christianity becomes the morontia life, a word the authors had to invent to designate, “a vast level intervening between the material and the spiritual” (0:5.12), a realm our established ideas could not adequately describe.

In essence, the book itself sets out to further our linguistic development. After memorizing quotes to help me pass the hours at the gym, I’ve come to believe that The UB sentences are deliberately structured to make them easier to recall and commit to memory.

Notice how this sentence is written: “The great achievement of mortal life is the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within your mind.” (110:3.4)

There are internal rhymes “achievement,” with “attainment”; partial or half rhymes which we poets call slant rhymes such as, “consecration” with “eternal aims,” “divine” and “mind.” Alliteration is a very common device in The UB, “waits and works within.” Also try to feel the cadence, the rhythmic movement and sound of the sentence. It’s powerful, the dominant movement being Shakespearian. Iambic pentameters, but other types of meter are also used.

The same features, alliteration and internal rhymes, occur again in this next example, “great value … cardinal virtue … courage … very heart.” The Master’s emphasis on courage is backed up with a direct quote from Jesus:

“He placed great value upon sincerity—a pure heart. Fidelity was a cardinal virtue in his estimate of character, while courage was the very heart of his teachings. "Fear not" was his watchword, and patient endurance his ideal of strength of character.” (140:8.20)

How about this one: “Why do you not encourage the heavenly helper to cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life as you gaze in perplexity at the problems of the passing hour?” (111:7.3)

Look at how “cheer” rhymes with “clear,” then slant rhymes with “eternal,” the alliteration again with “heavenly helper” and “perplexity … problems … passing hour.”

And then, of course, the poetry itself, a literary form that The UB shows no hesitation in admiring. “Poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values.” (195:7.15, pg. 2079)

“These spirit beings constitute the living ladder whereby mortal man climbs from chaos to glory.” (9:8.25)

“Gravity is the omnipotent strand on which are strung the gleaming stars, blazing suns, and whirling spheres which constitute the universal physical adornment of the eternal God, who is all things, fills all things, and in whom all things consist.” (11:8.1)

“Men do not find the Supreme suddenly and spectacularly as an earthquake tears chasms into the rocks, but they find him slowly and patiently as a river quietly wears away the soil beneath.” (117.6; p. 1291)

“If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.” (100:4.6)

Interestingly, a human source for this last quote has not been found. Truly one of cosmic origin.

Between Arrest Warrant and the Mount of Transfiguration – a New Direction in Jesus’ Career Path

Dave — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 15:27:58 GMT

The Melchizedek Sons assisted with planetary preparation for Michael's bestowal and Jesus did everything to fit his work within the parameters of the Melchizedek plan. I asked our study group in Walnut Creek to follow this episode in the Master’s career from the issuing of a warrant for his arrest to the transfiguration event on Mt. Hermon. My inspiration for the study were insights David Kantor shared with me and I have used to create this blog.

“Melchizedek taught that at some future time another Son of God would come in the flesh as he had come, but that he would be born of a woman; and that is why numerous later teachers held that Jesus was a priest, or minister, “forever after the order of Melchizedek.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 93:3.7)

“And thus did Melchizedek prepare the way and set the monotheistic stage of world tendency for the bestowal of an actual Paradise Son of the one God, whom he so vividly portrayed as the Father of all, and whom he represented to Abraham as a God who would accept man on the simple terms of personal faith. And Michael, when he appeared on earth, confirmed all that Melchizedek had taught concerning the Paradise Father.” (93:3.8, p.1017)

The plan to represent “a God who would accept man on the simple terms of personal faith,” began to come apart with the Sanhedrin’s closure of the synagogues to Jesus and his followers, and the issuing of a warrant for Jesus' arrest. “May 22 was an eventful day in the life of Jesus. On this Sunday morning, before daybreak, one of David's messengers arrived in great haste from Tiberias, bringing the word that Herod had authorized, or was about to authorize, the arrest of Jesus by the officers of the Sanhedrin.” (154:5.1)

It became very clear that the Jews were going to reject the teachings of the Son. “… in losing sight of Melchizedek, they also lost sight of the teaching of this emergency Son regarding the spiritual mission of the promised bestowal Son; lost sight of the nature of this mission so fully and completely that very few of their progeny were able or willing to recognize and receive Michael when he appeared on earth and in the flesh as Machiventa had foretold.” (93:9. p.1024)

The times demanded a crisis decision. What did Jesus do? First, he sought to survive and continue the gospel teaching. He fled Galilee, telling the apostles he was not interested in risking death and martyrdom by directly taking on the religious and political authority of Jerusalem. “Jesus made it clear to the twenty-four that he had not fled from Galilee because he lacked courage to confront his enemies. They comprehended that he was not yet ready for an open clash with established religion, and that he did not seek to become a martyr.” (156:2.5)

He decided to take his message to the Gentiles beginning in Phoenicia and this expedition was very successful, “many were baptized.” (156:4.1) But on the way back Jesus is summoned to Mt. Hermon, a sudden change apparently, and yet just one among many precipitous developments, only six days after the confession of Peter that Jesus was “the Son of God.” He traveled with the apostles up to Caesarea Philippi and stayed a couple of days, “Jesus and the apostles remained another day at the home of Celsus, waiting for messengers to arrive from David Zebedee with funds.” (157:6.1)

“Jesus had been summoned to go up on the mountain, apart by himself, for the transaction of important matters having to do with the progress of his bestowal in the flesh as this experience was related to the universe of his own creation. It is significant that this extraordinary event was timed to occur while Jesus and the apostles were in the lands of the gentiles, and that it actually transpired on a mountain of the gentiles.” (158:1.2)

Jesus selected Peter, James, and John to go with him to Mt. Hermon to the meeting to which he had been summoned, “and where he had appointed to inaugurate his fourth phase of earth ministry as the Son of God.” (157:7.5)

“Lay in provisions and prepare yourselves for a journey to yonder mountain, where the spirit bids me go to be endowed for the finish of my work on earth. And I would take my brethren along that they may also be strengthened for the trying times of going with me through this experience." (157:7.5)

What went on at this meeting with Jesus, Father Melchizedek and Gabriel that took several hours? “A fleeting glimpse of a celestial pageant… the acceptance of the fullness of the bestowal of the incarnated life of Michael on Urantia by the Eternal Mother-Son of Paradise … The testimony of the satisfaction of the Infinite Spirit as to the fullness of the Urantia bestowal in the likeness of mortal flesh.” (158:3.2-3)

By going to the Gentiles with the bestowal program, Jesus undertook his own innovation to the original Melchizedek plan. Yet he was not doing anything very different from what the Salem missionaries decided when they took their message to the whole known world. “Melchizedek continued for some years to instruct his students and to train the Salem missionaries, who penetrated to all the surrounding tribes, especially to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. And as the decades passed, these teachers journeyed farther and farther from Salem, carrying with them Machiventa’s gospel of belief and faith in God.” (93:7.1)

“But the task was so great and the tribes were so backward that the results were vague and indefinite. From one generation to another the Salem gospel found lodgment here and there, but except in Palestine, never was the idea of one God able to claim the continued allegiance of a whole tribe or race. (93:7.3)

Note Jesus' conversation with Peter, James and John on the way down the mountain. Like Peter, the apostles must have “shuddered at the thought of the Master’s dying,” (158:2.2) "but don't worry,” he told them, “I'll rise from the dead after three days." Just a few weeks earlier he’d told them he had no interest in being a martyr. As David Kantor commented: “This is the first time I can find that he's telling them he's going to be killed. So what happened at that meeting? It seems that it was agreed that Jesus should play out the bestowal as planned in the context of Hebrew religion and let things run their natural course.”

The Jews had accepted the monotheistic concept. Indeed they were the only people who were not polytheists. By going to the Gentiles Jesus was placing his message more fully into Gentile/pagan culture. The Urantia Book notes that the repercussions were that his teaching, in the form it took as Christianity, “conquered—absorbed and exalted—the whole stream of Hebrew theology and Greek philosophy. And then, when this Christian religion became comatose for more than a thousand years as a result of an overdose of mysteries and paganism, it resurrected itself and virtually reconquered the whole Western world. Christianity contains enough of Jesus' teachings to immortalize it.”(195:10.18)

The “resurrection” of Jesus’ teachings was undoubtedly helped by the presence of the Spirit of Truth on our world after Pentecost.

Jesus could easily have gone to Damascus or Alexandria, even India, and begun a new career. He could have returned to his position as Creator Sovereign of Nebadon after Mt. Hermon. But he stayed in Palestine and forced the issue with the Jewish religious authorities. This is what he understood to be the Father's will, fulfilling the bestowal as planned. “Jesus sought to know his Father's will and decided to pursue the mortal bestowal to its natural end.” (158:3.5) It was not the Father's will that he be crucified, but rather that the situation be allowed to run its natural course. Was it also the way it was originally planned by the Melchizedeks?

“He did not emerge from the tomb as a spirit nor as Michael of Nebadon; he did not appear in the form of the Creator Sovereign … He now lives as Jesus of morontia, and as he begins this morontia life, the material body of his flesh lies there undisturbed in the tomb. The soldiers are still on guard, and the seal of the governor about the rocks has not yet been broken.” (189:1.8 to 13) Have a Joyous Easter!

Pre-Columbian Polynesians, Pyramid Builders, Hunter-Gatherers and More

Dave — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 16:25:38 GMT

I’d like to provide just a glimpse into my ongoing research as I seek to understand civilization in the Americas. Many of you may know that some American Indians disagree with, even take offense at, the Bering Strait migration theory. You may also know it is supported by The Urantia Book, (The UB), “About eighty-five thousand years ago the comparatively pure remnants of the red race went en masse across to North America, and shortly thereafter the Bering land isthmus sank, thus isolating them (64:6.5).”

What we must address, if we dismiss the Bering land bridge story as these native descendants do, is the question, “Do we believe a modern human type arose and evolved separately in North America?” Because if so, we have no evidence of primate fossils in the Americas from which a modern human type could have evolved. Thus we are forced to resort to “special creation” as an explanation. Some traditional Native American tribal lore does suggest they were specially created, “We have always been here.” (Celsa Apapas, Cupeño, among others)

Standing Rock Sioux historian, Vine Deloria, Jr., 1933 – 2005, (Red Earth, White Lies, 1995) recognized the problem of their origins, “American Indians having had to wait until Neanderthal evolved into Cro Magnon;” but he thought science “should drop the pretense of having absolute authority with regard to human origins.” Ironically, Cro-Magnon, known now as Anatomically Modern Humans, AMH, are classified as blue race Sangiks in The UB (80:3). The Cro-Magnons are brother and sister to the red Sangiks.

Though I don’t share Deloria’s objection to human origins theory, there are other reasons that migration across the Bering Strait doesn’t tell the whole story of indigenous Americans. Persistent evidence of a separate colonization by sea keeps showing up. Kumara, the sweet potato native to Peru, was growing in Mangaia in the Pacific islands (Cook) about 1,000 AD, long before Europeans sailed into those waters. The tuberous sweet potato could not survive a sea voyage and still be able to grow and reproduce. It had to have been imported from South America.

In 2007, chicken bones were found in an archaeological dig in Chile, dated 1,300 BP (before present). Chickens, not native to the Americas, are flightless birds incapable of crossing an ocean. Dr Lisa Matisso-Smith, of the University of Auckland NZ, an expert in Pacific migration patterns, examined the bones and matched them to an identical DNA sequence found in bones near a village in the Ha’apai chain of Tonga, and Fatumafutu, at the entrance to Pago Pago Harbour in American Samoa — 10,000 km from Chile. http://io9.com/5787034/how-many-groups-reached-the-americas-before-christopher-columbus

The Bering Strait land bridge migration is the most well-known and talked about theory, yet we often overlook what a mixed racial group it was, not only red Sangik tribes.

“These [relatively pure-line remnants of the red race] tribes were accompanied by three small groups of mixed ancestry, the largest of these being a combination of the orange and blue races. These three groups never fully fraternized with the red man and early journeyed southward to Mexico and Central America, where they were later joined by a small group of mixed yellows and reds. These peoples all intermarried and founded a new and amalgamated race, one which was much less warlike than the pure-line red men. Within five thousand years this amalgamated race broke up into three groups, establishing the civilizations respectively of Mexico, Central America, and South America.” (The UB, 64:7.5)

This information is unknown outside of The UB. However we are encountering confusion when trying to interpret scientific discoveries in the DNA evidence, the haplogroup X genetic marker for example, a story beyond the scope of this short article.

There are large differences between the “three civilizations” of the Mesoamericans, South Americans, and the perhaps “purer red race” civilization of the North led by Onamonalonton. The southern cultures practiced much more horticulture using irrigation methods focused on large crop production, “the three sisters” squash, beans, and maize (corn); whereas the northern groups maintained a more classic hunter-gatherer culture. In the south, a powerful priesthood often ruled the people, whereas the northern tribes claimed to have no priests, among other cultural differences I could enumerate.

“In Mexico, Central America, and in the mountains of South America the later and more enduring civilizations were founded by a race predominantly red but containing a considerable admixture of the yellow, orange, and blue.” (The UB, 79:5.8)

The mound-building cultures, the pyramids of Teotehuican, and the Mayan temples of these southern groups all show characteristic traces of an orange race heritage.

“The orange man. The outstanding characteristic of this race was their peculiar urge to build, to build anything and everything, even to the piling up of vast mounds of stone just to see which tribe could build the largest mound.” (64:6.10)

The UB presents an even more complicated scenario, revealing a third racial infusion into the Americas, a small group of Andites who came by sea across the Pacific. “One hundred and thirty-two of this [Andite] race, embarking in a fleet of small boats from Japan, eventually reached South America and by intermarriage with the natives of the Andes established the ancestry of the later rulers of the Incas.” (78:5.7)

“The South American offshoot did receive a faint touch of the blood of Adam.” (64:7.5)

http://barry-brailsford-indigenous-knowledge.blogspot.com/2012/02/did-polynesian-voyagers-reach-south.html

The seagoing Polynesians made the voyage using sewn plank canoes equipped with sails. They were experts at navigating by the stars and signs of nearby landmarks, rather than by compass or astrolabe. Although Thor Heyerdahl’s famous expedition (1947) sought to prove that Peruvians crossed by sea to the Pacific Islands, it is more likely to be the reverse, based on the evidence we have of each group’s oceanic skills.

Balboa the Spanish conquistador entered Panama seeking land and treasure when he met the cacique (chief) Camaco in battle, and also married his daughter to seal an alliance against other tribes. Camaco told him about the sea-going native peoples, “When you are passing over these mountains (pointing with his finger towarde the south mountains) … you shall see another sea, where they sayle with shippes as bigge as yours, using both sayles and ores as you doe, although the men be naked as we are.” (Peter Martyr, writing about Vasco Nunez de Balboa’s encounter with Camaco)

This information inspired the Spanish explorer to lead his men on a 24 day trek in 1513 crossing hostile native territories, high mountains, and jungle to find the “South Sea” we call the Pacific Ocean. Upon reaching the Pacific, he claimed the title of its discoverer. To the astonishment of the Indians who accompanied the expedition, he took possession of the Mar del Sur for the King and Queen of Spain.

Sepphoris, Jesus’ Cosmopolitan Neighborhood

Dave — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 16:23:27 GMT

The picture of Jesus’ life that most of us from Christian Sunday schools inherited was one of Jesus growing up in a gentle pastoral society of shepherds, “the meek” inheritors of the earth. Twentieth century archaeology proved it to be a culturally biased and incorrect portrait. A Greco-Roman city, Sepphoris, discovered just a few miles north of Nazareth, was only partially excavated in 1931 by Leroy Waterman of the University of Michigan. This first dig closed after one season, after uncovering the Greco-Roman theater, known from the literature, just a decade before final reception of The Urantia Book in 1942(?).

Sepphoris, from Tzippori, the Hebrew word for bird, was called “The Forgotten City,” in Archaeologist/Professor Richard Batey’s book (1992). Neither the Old nor the New Testaments refer to it. However, it is mentioned 22 times in The Urantia Book (The UB). Many of us know The UB authors’ comments on their disclosures of lost history, “… new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records.” (101:4.2)

The facts of the archaeological site of Sepphoris were already known even though the general public had heard nothing about them in 1955 when The UB was published. Although not actually disclosing new information, The Urantia Book certainly revealed the city’s importance in the history of Jesus’ life long before our scientists made their discoveries publicly known.

We knew of the city from the rabbinic literature, and from the history, Wars of the Jews by Josephus, who described it as “the ornament of all Galilee.” Herod Antipas rebuilt it in 4 B.C. after its destruction in a rebellion crushed by the Romans. Reza Aslan describes it in his recent book, Zealot, (2013) “Rich, cosmopolitan, deeply influenced by Greek culture, and surrounded by a panoply of races and religions, the Jews of Sepphoris were the product of the Herodian social revolution - the nouveaux riches who rose to prominence after Herod's massacre of the old priestly aristocracy.”

Batey of Rhodes College, and James Strange of The University of South Florida led a second, more thorough expedition in1983. Eventually other institutions joined the dig. New building foundations and many beautiful mosaics were brought to light. The UB published its information long before Strange and Batey gathered their data for publication in 1992.

“The ruins of the palace, colonnades, forum, theater, and villas at Sepphoris show that the Galilean culture affecting Jesus was far more sophisticated and urban than was previously thought possible." (Jesus & the Forgotten City, Richard A. Batey, 1992)

Just four or five miles from Nazareth, we were now presented with physical evidence of a flowering of Jewish culture influenced by Greco-Roman culture (the Mediterranean world was ruled by the Greeks and then the Romans.) The city was under construction during Jesus lifetime, “but its connection to Jesus and Joseph of Nazareth was never known.” Batey goes on to tell us, “Both Jesus and his father were “builders” (the Greek word tekton in Mark 6:3 is more accurately translated as craftsman).”

Scholars who are non-readers of the UB speculate on Jesus’ involvement with the city and have produced good research from close readings of biblical texts, supplemented by midrash records. They now believe that Joseph, his father, and Jesus were both probably employed at Herod’s Sepphoris restoration project.

“The latter part of this year, when carpenter work was slack about Nazareth, Jesus left James in charge of the repair shop and Joseph [his brother] at the home bench while he went over to Sepphoris to work with a smith. He worked six months with metals and acquired considerable skill at the anvil.” (The UB, 128:2.3)

As a young man in his twenty-second year, before he began his ministry, Jesus found the moral standards of the city “far below those of even the caravan city of Nazareth,” which was also corrupted by the Greco-Roman influence. ”But most of all was his sense of propriety outraged by the sight of the frivolous courtesans parading about within this precinct of the temple, just such painted women as he had so recently seen when on a visit to Sepphoris.” (125:1.2)

“After six months sojourn at Sepphoris, Jesus was not averse to find an excuse for returning to Nazareth,” (128:2.6). Biblical scholars speculate that Jesus did not seek out this sort of environment during his ministry, and The UB confirms it. “Jesus talked over many things of importance to the coming kingdom with his newly chosen associates … He also advised them to avoid the cities of Sepphoris and Tiberias in their future work.” (137:5.1)

Some believe Jesus only spoke Aramaic and Hebrew but the discovery of Sepphoris makes it far less credible. “Though the New Testament Gospels do not tell us whether Jesus spoke Greek or not, they do describe situations in which it’s likely that Greek was used. In Matthew 8:5-13, for example, Jesus entered into dialogue with a Roman centurion. The centurion almost certainly spoke in Greek.” (Mark D. Roberts) http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts

As we learn from The UB, Jesus' family was presented with, "a complete copy of the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures," (The UB, 123:0.3) when he was a baby, and it became one of their treasured possessions. Jesus spoke to the Greeks in Jerusalem, (174:5). He had the apostles minister to “well-nigh exclusive gatherings of gentiles—Greeks, Romans, and Syrians,” (143:1.1.) at the Greek city of Archelais. So at home was he with these cultured and cosmopolitan groups that he was able to train his associates to be effective ministers who would eventually win over the unbelieving gentiles.

Is a Religious Revival Coming in Communist China?

Dave — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:21:06 GMT

China began gradually coming out of a period of atheistic communism with the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. A Tibetan monk described how it used to be, “Mama and papa told me in secret that this is a sacred lake. But they said, "Don't ever talk about it openly,” because we couldn’t talk about gods. They do not exist in the Communist Party’s eyes; they are superstitions. If anyone talked about a god they would be beaten, so we wouldn’t dare to say it.” (Tashi Sange, Tibetan Buddhist monk, PBS interview)

The country began a slow return to its religious traditions. The first World Buddhist Forum in 2006 was launched by Xi Jinping, then party secretary of a province (Zhejiang) and a rising star in the Communist Party of China. The Buddhist Forum was convened again in 2009 and 2012 at Beijing. http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/12/03/chinese-takeaway-modhi-s-buddhism

Now President of the People’s Republic, Xi Jinping has called for building both a "material and spiritual civilization," (September 29, 2013). He believes, “China is losing its moral compass,” and he wants the ruling Communist Party “to be more tolerant of traditional faiths in the hope they will fill a vacuum created by the country’s runaway economic growth and rush to get rich, sources said.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/29/us-china-politics-vacuum-idUSBRE98S0GS20130929

“[Buddhist] philosophy also held that the Buddha (divine) nature resided in all men; that man, through his own endeavors, could attain to the realization of this inner divinity. And this teaching is one of the clearest presentations of the truth of the indwelling Adjusters ever to be made by a Urantian religion.” (The UB, 94:11.5)

The sense of impending crisis, whether the country can sustain healthy growth and avert destruction, is drawing people back to religion as good medicine. Governmental officials are looking to all three traditional faiths, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, to help build “an ecological civilization,” a goal that was written into the Chinese constitution in 2012.

“Buddhism is a living, growing religion today because it succeeds in conserving many of the highest moral values of its adherents. It promotes calmness and self-control, augments serenity and happiness, and does much to prevent sorrow and mourning. Those who believe this philosophy live better lives than many who do not.” (94:9.6)

According to legend, Buddhism was first established in China by Han Emperor Ming (58-75 AD). The Han Dynasty was deeply Confucian so the new teachings didn’t flourish until the dynasty’s fall in 220. Buddhism continued to thrive when Northern and Southern China reunited in 589. It was one of the traditions held in common. With the rise of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), Buddhism spread even more quickly and reached its peak as an important part of Chinese culture, arts and philosophy.

“Buddhism stretches from Ceylon and Burma through Tibet and China to Japan. It has shown an adaptability to the mores of many peoples that has been equaled only by Christianity.” (The UB, 92:6.16)

The Communist Party does not seem as keen to encourage Christianity as it does Buddhism. Only a small percentage of the Chinese population has embraced the Christian faith. “Many non-European peoples very naturally look upon Christianity as a strange revelation of a strange God and for strangers.” (92:6.18) Christians in China face government persecutions, especially in the coastal city of Wenzou with its hundreds of churches. Besides crackdowns on the “house churches,” government officials who profess faith in the “strange God” are sent to take remedial courses to relearn the Communist “party line.’

Yet some believe Christianity too is growing. Accurate poll figures are difficult to verify, but those provided by Indiana’s Purdue University say that the Christian church in China has grown by an average of 10% a year since 1980. More people may believe in the existence of Shangdi/Yesu, the “Christian God” of Jesus’ teachings than before.

Gerda Wielander of the University of Westminster, in her book “Christian Values in Communist China”, observes that many Chinese are attracted to Christianity because it offers a complete moral system with a transcendental source, now that belief in Marxism is declining. The same hunger for a more spiritual morality seeks to be satisfied by the return to Buddhism or Daoism.

“At the time of this writing, much of Asia rests its hope in Buddhism. Will this noble faith, that has so valiantly carried on through the dark ages of the past, once again receive the truth of expanded cosmic realities even as the disciples of the great teacher in India once listened to his proclamation of new truth? Will this ancient faith respond once more to the invigorating stimulus of the presentation of new concepts of God and the Absolute for which it has so long searched?” (The UB, 94:12.6)

(This article originally appeared on examiner.com but has been modified)

Venite Adoremus—Oh Come Let Us Adore Him—A Christmas Message

Dave — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 16:19:19 GMT

The love of Jesus was simple for us. Children like me, raised with Bible teachings, had no trouble accepting songs that told us “Jesus loves me, this I know,” (we did know!) or singing together enthusiastically, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam to shine for him each day, in every way try to please him at home, at school or play.” Besides the fact that my generation was often raised with church and Sunday school, our undistorted receptivity to this love of the Son of God was undoubtedly a result of the presence of the bestowed Spirit of Truth.

Jesus often commented on the natural spiritual awareness of children. “See that you despise not one of these little ones,” Jesus said, “for their angels do always behold the faces of the heavenly hosts." (The UB, 158:8.1, Matthew 18:10)

This week when I was driving to my lessons, tutoring young people in Piano, English and History, I began to sing the great Christmas hymn, Adeste Fidelis, O Come All Ye Faithful, “Glory to God, glory in the highest. O Come let us adore him.”

While the constant rains of December continued to drum along on the windshield, I was thinking about Jesus, our Creator Son, and the Universal Father. Storm clouds driving in on a strong wind; reservoirs replenished; no one complaining; those ancient words marching into my consciousness like a Roman legion. All revealed deeper meanings to me this season.

It was an old memory returning. The Canadian community where I grew up was old world enough that we still sang a couple of the Latin verses of Adeste Fideles along with those translated into English whenever we gathered for a carol sing.

“Adeste fideles læti triumphantes,     O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant!
Venite, venite in Bethlehem.              O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Natum videte                                      Come and behold him
Regem angelorum:                              Born the King of Angels:
Venite adoremus (3×)                         O come, let us adore Him, (3×)
Dominum.”                                         Christ the Lord.

The original four verses of Latin are in the version we know published around 1751, sometimes attributed to sources from the previous century. They were “written” by an English Catholic, John Wade, who was exiled and living in France to escape religious persecution.

A more mature kind of love is expressed in this hymn than the simpler love we knew as children, “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing,” one I would have barely comprehended then, if at all. We sing, “Oh, Come let us adore him,” but I wonder as an adult immersed in secular modernism and skepticism, how is it we can adore that which is not even visible? Perhaps as we grow older, our angels do not always behold the heavenly hosts as when we were little.

“The indwelling Adjusters are one of God's separate but unified modes of contact with the creatures of his all but infinite creation. Thus does he who is invisible to mortal man manifest his presence.” (The UB, 32:4.7)

O Come All Ye Faithful reminds believers that we adore Jesus and his associated divine parents because they represent the perfect ideals we strive for: Truth, Beauty and Goodness, that which we love and attain by faith, no longer questioning the source, the center point of stability and true reality that we yearn for to anchor us on this troubled world.

“We do not worship the Father because of anything we may derive from such veneration;” (what we can get out of it), “we render such devotion and engage in such worship as a natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father's matchless personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable attributes.” (The UB, 5:3.3)

“The Eternal Son is the personal source of the adorable attributes of mercy and service which so abundantly characterize all orders of the descending Sons of God as they function throughout creation. All the divine nature, if not all the infinity of attributes, the Eternal Son unfailingly transmits to the Paradise Sons who go out from the eternal Isle to reveal his divine character to the universe of universes.” (The UB, 7:6.2)

“On both friends and foes [Jesus] exercised a strong and peculiarly fascinating influence. Multitudes would follow him for weeks, just to hear his gracious words and behold his simple life. Devoted men and women loved Jesus with a well-nigh superhuman affection. And the better they knew him the more they loved him. And all this is still true; even today and in all future ages, the more man comes to know this God-man, the more he will love and follow after him.” (The UB, 149:2.14)

“And there can be no peace in the heart or progress in the mind unless you fall wholeheartedly in love with truth, the ideals of eternal realities.” (157:2.2) And he was the incarnation of this very truth, the light of the world brought to our humble planet.

“Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given!
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!

Oh Come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

Venite Adoremus, Dominum.”

Social Justice and the Gospel of Love

Dave — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 16:17:01 GMT

Social justice has become an issue that further divides the country between extreme poles of right and left. It is characterized by some like The Heritage Foundation http://www.heritage.org/events/2012/10/takeover as a “quest of the left.” The Catholic Church and other religious leaders, even conservatives, defend it as a movement rooted in scripture.

American youth dealing with city life in the streets feel an urgency to be agents for change, and a drive to join causes that advocate for social justice. They are the same group whose religious affiliations are on the decline according to recent PEW Research Center surveys. Are their motivations spiritually related? Or is the social justice movement only a secular crusade?

Some of the scriptural references are well known:

"Speak out for those who have no voice, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:8-9)

"Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." (Isaiah 1:17), a quote that Jesus included in the first sermon in the Synagogue (The UB, 126:4.4).

"Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another." (Zechariah 7:9-10)

In The UB we are advised, “Being sensitive and responsive to human need creates genuine and lasting happiness, while such kindly attitudes safeguard the soul from the destructive influences of anger, hate, and suspicion,” (The UB, 140:5.16) in its commentary on the significance of the beatitude, “Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

“The Master … did say that his followers should make feasts for the poor and the unfortunate. Jesus had a firm sense of justice, but it was always tempered with mercy.” (The UB, 140:8.12)

Can the fight for social justice find its legs without a strong spiritual foundation? Is religion, personal and institutional, necessary to ensure the success of the quest? Our young agents for social change should also be guided to be agents for enlightenment. “Some callings are not holy and others secular. All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit led.” (155:6.11)

In my idealistic dreams, I visualize a new movement partnering with the cause for social justice, one that would establish “the Master’s program,” friendship with God, a campaign to reinvigorate the importance of cultivating an inner life as well as a life of activism for just causes. Such a campaign would begin with:

Step 1: Recognition of the significance of inner life experiences; a willingness to explore them at least during moments of retreat and quiet time, to turn away from the materialistic enticements of the outside world.

Step 2: A consecration of loyalty to decisions, making mind your ally and God your friend.

Step 3: And especially when engaged in non-violent civil disobedience, learning to manage one’s emotional life, especially the mastering of the emotions anger and hate, progressing in self-mastery rather than remaining a victim of one’s emotions.

The conflict between spiritual purposes and the goals of social justice is not new. It has beginnings in ancient Judaism. “The doctrine of immortality also took form at Babylon. The Jews had thought that the idea of the future life detracted from the emphasis of their gospel of social justice.” (The UB, 97:9.28)

The UB text used concepts from Henry and Regina Weiman’s Normative Psychology of Religion, (per Matthew Block’s research, http://www.squarecircles.com/urantiabooksourcestudies/pdf/paper099workinprogress.pdf), in presenting The UB’s Paper 99, section 1 (Religion and Social Reconstruction). Much of this passage by the Weimans can be found there:

“The complexity of society is now so great that the pressure of social need can no longer reach the agencies of control and change as readily as in the past. Great masses of people can be cramped, oppressed, impoverished, without being able to bring their case to such a social hearing as will result in that modification of institutions which will relieve the suffering.... In the past these pressures could be relieved by specific reforms, without thought of reconstructing the social order, because the people who were pinched by a misfitting institution had avenues for making their wants known and the required changes were not so radical as those required today. Consequently relief could be found by reform. Now it must be found, more often, in reconstruction (214-15).”

The group Sojourners has a motto “faith in action for social justice.” Their president, Jim Wallis, wrote recently to promote his friend and former staff member, Adam Taylor and his book, Mobilizing Hope. First a student of Wallis’s at Harvard’s Kennedy School; he then joined Sojourners (http://sojo.net/biography/adam-taylor), and also served a year working in the White House. Of the book, Wallis wrote, “a manifesto for his generation … This important book is a theology for social justice, full of biblical references, reflections, and metaphors that point to God’s intentions and future for the world. This is not an argument rooted in political ideology, but a vision for social justice rooted firmly in the scriptures … it offers a spirituality for young activists, with the mature understanding that if you want to be a person of justice and action, and last for very long, you must also become a person of prayer and contemplation.”

“Jesus worked, lived, and traded in the world as he found it. He was not an economic reformer, although he did frequently call attention to the injustice of the unequal distribution of wealth. But he did not offer any suggestions by way of remedy. He made it plain to the three that, while his apostles were not to hold property, he was not preaching against wealth and property, merely its unequal and unfair distribution. He recognized the need for social justice and industrial fairness, but he offered no rules for their attainment.” (The UB, 140:8.15)

In the end, it is up to us to find the wise solutions to these problems in association with our spirit guidance.

Walking on Iron Horse Trail, Reading Robert Bly’s Anthology “News of the Universe,” inspired by Kenneth Rexroth

Dave — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 15:15:32 GMT

Down through the walnut orchards to the creek bank

to walk by new meanders and muddy channels

from two days of rain, breathing in

the algae-like smell, wet muck, soaked grass,

spicy nutmeg scents from weeds and eucalyptus.

In a flash of reborn faith, immediately hooked

into the amazing embrace, gravity pull of the cosmos,

touching on all vast and hopeful earth-bound flickers,

I find my orbit closing in on the reality of truth,

seeking acts of service needed to create beauty,

lessons in honesty, loving, growing goodness,

helping the world take a step out of darkness

into the light.

Before this realization of life energy, of Absolute being

underneath all manifestation, I saw only

random motion, fruitfulness and decay,

sweet stench of decaying grass,

earth biology creating variety, no underlying unity.

Without this world of greed and cruelty,

this deception, dishonesty, exploitation

surrounding us every day I would not have seen

God’s plan standing out so clear in the blue

autumn sky tinged with faint clouds,

kestrels in the poplar trees, shorn of leaves,

red autumn colors, weeds in the creek,

yellow leaves against the dull straw husk

of oat grass, dead gray of wintering plants.

On this old railroad bed, human aspiration

rising anew.

Jesus said: "Nevertheless, I declare to you, except a man be born of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. But you should not marvel that I said you must be born from above. When the wind blows, you hear the rustle of the leaves, but you do not see the wind—whence it comes or whither it goes—and so it is with everyone born of the spirit. With the eyes of the flesh you can behold the manifestations of the spirit, but you cannot actually discern the spirit." (142:6.5)

Doing the Work of the World

Dave — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:12:48 GMT

I did not feel I had the gift of evangelizing The Urantia Book, or the inclination, but it was a skill I gradually learned. An image I carried in my head, the fire-breathing religionist in his pulpit converting people to the gospel by emotional force and an appeal to fear, made me uncomfortable. When we worked with The Family of God Foundation (FOG) in the 1970’s and 80’s we followed the dictum, “spread the teachings, not the book,” also commended approvingly in the Foundation Trustees Report of 1990 as The Principle of Slow Growth: “Slow growth means the slow, deliberate, person-to-person spread of the teachings of The Urantia Book, without undue fanfare or public attention to The Urantia Book as a book.” http://urantia-book.org/archive/history/doc214.htm. As our friend Paula Thompson pointed out, “Slow growth takes full effort!”

As FOG members, we had followed the slow growth principle for years. We usually didn’t try to enlist new readers of The UB, not publicly, though we promoted the Vern Grimsley radio broadcasts paraphrasing ideas from the book http://truthbook.com/urantia/audio/vern-bennom-grimsley-speeches-and-broadcasts. For a long time since the FOG days, I’ve made it my goal to help others discover their own authentic religious experience. We all tried other methods of ministering without making direct reference to The UB. At times it appeared as wise advice to recommend praying to Jesus for help, but we encountered resistance to such an appeal because it evoked the “old” Christianity, which it certainly resembled. I was more drawn to the description of the Master’s ministry in “As Jesus Passed By (171:7, pg. 1874).”

“Most of the really important things which Jesus said or did seemed to happen casually, "as he passed by." There was so little of the professional, the well-planned, or the premeditated in the Master's earthly ministry. He dispensed health and scattered happiness naturally and gracefully as he journeyed through life. It was literally true, ‘He went about doing good.’” (171:7.9, pg. 1875)

The UB passage ends with this call, “And it behooves the Master's followers in all ages to learn to minister as "they pass by"—to do unselfish good as they go about their daily duties.” Naturally the learning curve is steep. We may not always succeed, but it is a righteous and noble method of ministry to aspire to!

There is opportunity in every profession to do the work of the kingdom. If a person feels they are incapable of being an on-fire evangelist and preacher for the Urantia Book (The UB), Jesus said "Never forget that, when you are a faith son of God, all upright work of the realm is sacred. Nothing which a son of God does can be common. Do your work, therefore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and better worlds where you shall likewise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you." (192:2.13, pg. 2049)

Professor Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) discovered her unique lifework with the National Council of Women of Kenya. "We are called to assist the earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own -- indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty, and wonder." For her work with the Green Belt Movement, planting over 51 million trees in Kenya, http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/, she won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

“But cultural society is no great and beneficent club of inherited privilege into which all men are born with free membership and entire equality. Rather is it an exalted and ever-advancing guild of earth workers, admitting to its ranks only the nobility of those toilers who strive to make the world a better place in which their children and their children's children may live and advance in subsequent ages.” (81:5.3, pg. 906)

Jesus taught a group of his apostles and disciples to “Never forget there is only one adventure which is more satisfying and thrilling than the attempt to discover the will of the living God, and that is the supreme experience of honestly trying to do that divine will. And fail not to remember that the will of God can be done in any earthly occupation. Some callings are not holy and others secular. All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, subordinated to truth, ennobled by love, dominated by mercy, and restrained by fairness—justice.” (155:6.11, pg. 1732)

“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Using our gifts of story-telling, poetry, and music came naturally to us, my music partner Chappell and I. We saw the use of these gifts as a way of “doing God’s will,” and we embraced this “consecration of our will.” (111:5.5, pg. 1221) Attempts to use story-telling seemed to work best the less the stories referred to an obvious, established spiritual direction, instead giving permission to the listener to follow their own personal religious path. We saw this approach confirmed in the apostles’ discussion about the Parable of the Sower (151:1, pg. 1688). It’s not easy work and we are still on the path, “honestly trying” to achieve excellence, but it is fulfilling and purposeful. And because we seek the spirit’s leadings above and before anything else, it is a sacred path.

Love Part III: The Authority of the Heart

Dave — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 15:11:19 GMT

The Indian poet Kabir once said, “Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false.”

Carl Sagan articulated a scientific principle that I followed as I studied works claiming to be prophecy or revelation, such as The Urantia Book (The UB). To Sagan, the virtue of the scientific approach was that it was, “a self-correcting enterprise. To be accepted, all new ideas must survive rigorous standards of evidence,” including being, “consistent with the facts.” (Cosmos, p. 91) Albert Einstein added a more expansive view. He too respected the facts but looked to religion to establish “the goals and values.” Einstein felt, “the most important function of … science was to awaken the cosmic religious feeling (fr. Religion and Science).” Concerning this partnership between science and religion (and philosophy), the philosopher John Locke suggested, “Revelation must be judged of by reason.” Even the Apostle Paul urged us to “Test everything; hold on to what is good (Thessalonians, 5:21).”

Jesus applied a practical test that went further; he sought to discover values in action, embracing a concept of fruitfulness that he would return to in later teachings—“by their fruits you shall know them [the false prophets],” (Matthew 7:16). “As the years passed, this young carpenter [Jesus] of Nazareth increasingly measured every institution of society and every usage of religion by the unvarying test: What does it do for the human soul? does it bring God to man? does it bring man to God?” (126:2.5)

Be glad our book is challenged by thoughtful people. It is not The UB’s authority as a revelation that is so important as our own conviction of truth based on personal experience. My hope in the revelation revives when I hear truths gleaned from The UB revealed in our spontaneous conversations, when the authority of the believer springs from the heart to triumph over the authority of a quote from the book.

Because of my well-honed faith in the scientific approach to truth, I tried to test The UB in the Sagan way. When brave enough to question the mythology handed down by our UB forebears, I constantly correlated the information in the book with what was known in human traditions sometimes with surprising results. In the 1990’s when allegations about borrowings made to the text began, I painstakingly faced them head on, to examine where they might have occurred, to seek an explanation of what looked like plagiarisms. I liked Meredith Sprunger’s response to Martin Gardner: http://www.urantiabook.org/archive/mjs_archive/mjs_purpose_of_revelation.htm. Some readers hold on to the belief we received a sacrosanct, perfect text, though statements in The UB contradict the idea. “A new revelation is always contaminated by the older evolutionary beliefs, “(93:7.4, Pg. 1022), or as Jesus confided to Nathaniel in a private conversation, “Nothing which human nature has touched can be regarded as infallible.” (159.4.8, Pg. 1768) In “the religion papers” we find, “Revelation is validated only by human experience.” (101.2.8; p. 1106)

I hear readers freely use the term “revelation,” but shouldn’t we pause to wonder if we detect the ghost of a fundamentalist desire to proclaim an inerrant scripture lurking? Inerrancy, infallibility, was the first one of the Five Fundamentals agreed on at the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1910 which became the foundation of the fundamentalist churches. “To become fetishes, words had to be considered inspired, and the invocation of supposed divinely inspired writings led directly to the establishment of the authority of the church.” (88:2.10)

The church I used to attend, The Episcopal Church, arrived at what might be called an enlightened view of the Bible; they generally do not conform to the fundamentalist position on inerrancy of their text. However, the viewpoint regarding sacred texts often depends on the leadership of the individual parish.

Here is how Father Carl Hansen of Carmel, California (rector 1987-2005), spoke to his Episcopalian congregation about this issue, “The Bible is the truth, not because it contains no human errors, but because the one who is truth speaks to us through the imperfections of our humanity. …When the Bible is treated as God’s inerrant word, it becomes an excuse for Christians to say that we have the truth and no one else does…it becomes a weapon to use against others, to deny their dignity as children of God and to suggest that God will torture them eternally unless they become one of us…it becomes our god, an idol, and we substitute it for a relationship with the living Lord.” (from his column, Friends in Faith)

To insist on the inerrancy of The UB would repeat the error made by the religion “about Jesus” (195:10.15) that preceded us.

Do you find errors, contradictions, discrepancies in the Fifth Epochal revelation, The UB, alongside the eternal truths? We must use our rational minds and apply the hammer to the diamond. See if it bears the hits and truth comes up shining. For those with faith in the indwelling divine spirit, usually described as the Thought Adjuster in The UB, we look to our spiritual helper to be our radar, to resonate with support when we read a passage that holds meaning. “Does the UB speak to my heart?” And if it speaks from one of the human sources included in the book, the truth in the insight is still undiminished.

The fact that The UB is imperfect doesn’t mean it isn’t what it says it is, the Fifth Epochal Revelation (92:4.9). That the community survived challenges to the book’s authenticity gave me hope that we were following Jesus’ guidance to true religion, a religion of the spirit. “The old religion was motivated by fear-consciousness; the new gospel of the kingdom is dominated by truth-conviction, the spirit of eternal and universal truth. And no amount of piety or creedal loyalty can compensate for the absence in the life experience of kingdom believers of that spontaneous, generous, and sincere friendliness which characterizes the spirit-born sons of the living God.” (180:5.12)

The revelation must live in us, or we cannot make a revelation to others. The UB’s most relevant message to the world today is the call to support the faith of a true believer versus the authority of an institution and/or the infallibility of a text. The individual who builds on personal religious experience, follows the authority of the heart, allows others the freedom to undertake the same adventure. Jesus referred to the heart when he gave his apostles “the teaching that true religion was man’s heartfelt loyalty to his highest and truest convictions.” (155.3.5)

Seeking God is the greatest human endeavor. Jesus advised the apostles of “the perils of intellectual discovery…struggle, conflict,” fraught with, “mental uncertainties” and foretold an “uncertain and troublous future.” (155:5.10) Mistakes are made along the way, yet it is important to be on the journey.

Jesus used the heart metaphor again when he said to his apostles, (157:2.2, p. 1745) “There can be no peace in the heart or progress in the mind unless you fall wholeheartedly in love with truth.” As another author added later, (195, 5, 14, p. 2076) “Love is the true guide to real insight.”

Love, Part II: Becoming a Focus of Dynamic and Divine Affection

Dave — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 15:08:52 GMT

Readers of The Urantia Book returning from IC’14, the International Conference in Amherst, MA, talked about the theme of “spiritual fragrance” that kept emerging in conversations. Ironically, the phrase only occurs once in The UB, in a description of Jerusem as “spiritually fragrant,” but there are a few similar quotes, one of which I’ll include later in this post.

In a recent blog (August 4^th), I explored the topic of love as a duty, the “greatest commandment” to be obeyed. There are other facets to that shining diamond. There is Joy in love. Some great pieces of music evoke a presence of tenderness that comes into a room and touches your heart, opening it to the good, to God. Mozart’s music opened a window into my spiritual emotions, sang out from the window ledge in a voice that expressed my inexpressible feelings of worship and reverence. I’ve felt this from other composers as well, Dvorak and Rutter being others. One morning my meditation found good companionship in the Kyrie of Mozart’s C minor Mass playing on the radio (http://www.kdfc.com/). It captured a feeling of the Father’s presence, a source of love and tenderness that sweetened the vaults of space.

The C minor Mass, a tapestry of music weaving together many meanings, taps into deep ancestral memory and profound emotions for me. The greatness of God is also in it, a greatness that does not overwhelm, dominate or crush one’s feelings or aspirations. Though we might find such loving tenderness from the First Source and Center overwhelming!

In this music Mozart understood in full, perhaps by means of a revelation to his soul, the comforting care of a Creator for his children, a refuge from the confusion and cacophony of a strife-torn world. “Religion is a revelation to man's soul dealing with spiritual realities which the mind alone could never discover or fully fathom,” (146:3.1), as Jesus said to the Greek philosopher at Ramah. So too can music go beyond thought to make a revelation to the soul.

Pope Francis is hearing the same music I’ve been hearing. In his seasonal message last December he emphasized the tenderness of God, “If the father and mother spoke to them normally, the child would still understand; but they want to take up the manner of speaking of the child. They come close, they become children. And so it is with the Lord.” … the father and the mother also say ridiculous things to the child: ‘Ah, my love, my toy . . .’ and all these things. … This is the language of the Lord, the language of the love of a father, of a mother. The word of the Lord? Yes, we understand what He tells us. But we also see how He says it. And we must do what the Lord does, do what He says and do it as He says it: with love, with tenderness …” (http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2013/12/12/pope_francis_be_silent,_so_we_can_hear_the_tenderness_of_god/en1-755064)

Above the din, the noise of warfare, voices come forward to meet our yearning for the triumph of love. I recently read Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder’s new book “Distances,” a collection of their correspondence. Wendell tells his friend, poet Gary Snyder, that he regrets how far he took adolescent rebellion in his youth. I think Berry’s late understanding in life of the hurt such an estrangement can cause recalled my own experiences of regret, pain I allowed, love I failed to give my family members. My love fell short of what I aspire to now in my spiritual or religious life, measured by my experiences of God’s love.

When the curtains of sorrow are drawn back on a new morning, the sweet and tender affection of the Creator of our universe is revealed. I praise the greatness of the Divine whose love we sometimes stumble over where it lays in the road, where we neglected it, abandoned on the path as we rushed away in haste. Now inspired by God’s love, “the greatest thing in the universe” (56:10.20) we are led to name it God the Father. May people find his love behind the curtains they’ve closed on the world for self-protection, behind the memory of their own fathers who may have let them down.

“Try my heart, Lord … for your loving-kindness is before my eyes,” (Psa. 26:2-3). Long before Jesus made a “new revelation” of the divine nature, the ancient Psalmist discerned the goodness of Jehovah, or the Most High (whatever name they knew God by at the time). Jesus quoted from the ancient scriptures, Psalm 92: “It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to the name of the Most High, to acknowledge his loving-kindness every morning and his faithfulness every night, for God has made me glad through his work.” (also The UB, 146:2.15)

As we approach Jesus’ upcoming birthday, let us remember this loving-kindness in action as he lived and taught a life of service. “There was something gracious and inspiring about the personality of Jesus which invariably attracted young people. He always made them feel at ease in his presence. Perhaps his great secret in getting along with them consisted in the twofold fact that he was always interested in what they were doing, while he seldom offered them advice unless they asked for it.” (129:1.9)

We sometimes find the most elevated and beautiful definitions in The UB. Here for example, the word graciousness is defined: “graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul,” (171:7.1) a description of Jesus in the world. Not a love that was commanded (as described in my last post on love), but one that flowed out of him quite naturally. Perhaps by dutifully following the commandment to love every day, we too will arrive at a more natural state of joyful loving and relaxed giving.

“Jesus spread good cheer everywhere he went. He was full of grace and truth. His associates never ceased to wonder at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. You can cultivate gracefulness, but graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul.” (171:7.1)

Many of these quotes were recently shared in an email conversation with readers who reported the recurring theme of spiritual fragrance at IC’14, a conversation that inspired this blog. “Genuine religion renders the religionist socially fragrant and creates insights into human fellowship.” (99:4.1)

“My religion is kindness,” said Dalai Lama and such a love has the power to save the planet.

“Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man.” (100:4.6)

The Cosmic Quarantine

Dave — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 15:06:53 GMT

Enrico Fermi was having lunch with Edward Teller, Herbert York, and another famous scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was 1950. The newspapers and broadcast media were full of UFO reports at the time. The men were sharing their views about extra-terrestrial civilizations, when Fermi suddenly exclaimed, “Where are they?” He scribbled out a series of calculations on a napkin (well … maybe) to show that Earth should have already been visited.

Since that moment, the Fermi Paradox has been defined as the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations. (Professor Drygalski at http://antarcticaedu.com/bio2027.htm)

Scientist Steven Soter of New York University examined this question in an essay for Astrobiology magazine in 2005. “Where are all those alien civilizations? Why haven’t we seen them? … Many answers have since been proposed, including (1) ours is the first and only civilization to arise in the Milky Way,” also known as “the First Come First Serve” hypothesis. A second hypothesis is the extra-terrestrials are here among us (also in The Urantia Book, The UB), and (3) they have already been here and we are their descendants.

Fermi’s famous outburst in the Los Alamos lunchroom, “Where are they?” inspired the title of Stephen Webb’s 2002 book “Where is Everybody?” Webb considers fifty proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox, but leaves out the explanation perhaps most interesting to readers of The UB, what Steven Soter calls “the Cosmic Quarantine Hypothesis.”

http://www.astrobio.net/topic/deep-space/alien-life/seti-and-the-cosmic-quarantine-hypothesis/

In The UB we read, “With this broadcast of the fact of rebellion in Satania the system was isolated, quarantined, from her sister systems. There was "war in heaven," the headquarters of Satania, and it spread to every planet in the local system.” (67:3.1) The war in heaven, best known from the Bible’s Book of Revelation 12:7-13, was also described in vivid detail by British poet John Milton in “Paradise Lost” (Ch. 6).

Soter’s article mentions cosmologist Edward Harrison’s conclusions (1981), “Any civilization [of] such an aggressive nature would be unstable in combination with the immense technological powers required for interstellar travel. Such a civilization would self-destruct long before it could reach for the stars. … The most evolved civilizations in the galaxy [Harrison] suggested, would notice any upstart world that showed signs of launching a campaign of galactic conquest, and they would nip it in the bud.”

This is quite like the story told in the 1951 film, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” a sci-fi tale about the mission of Klaatu and Gort, his “police” robot. Klaatu warns a gathering of world leaders that if they cannot persuade governments to end war and adopt a path of peace, “We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. … Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration.”

As Soter went on to say in his article, “Advanced intelligence might regard any prospect of the exponential diffusion throughout the Milky Way of self-replicating colonies very much as we regard the outbreak of a deadly viral epidemic. They would have good reason and the ability to suppress it as a measure of galactic hygiene.”

Of course, Hollywood’s threat of “obliteration” in Klattu’s script is really our own Earth-bound cowboy and Indian fantasy projected as a pop-fiction battle between planets. It is a solution that would never be considered by the “universe government” as we understand it in The UB.

Preventing aggressive missions of planetary conquest and colonization is also not like the reason The UB gives for the “cosmic quarantine,” but Soter’s thesis at least speaks metaphorically about the consequences of Lucifer’s rebellion and his attempted overthrow of the universe rulers that we live with every day. In truth, we can choose to be free of the rule of the Lucifer manifesto.

“Concerning God's presence in a planet, system, constellation, or a universe, the degree of such presence in any creational unit is a measure of the degree of the evolving presence of the Supreme Being: It is determined by the en masse recognition of God and loyalty to him on the part of the vast universe organization, running down to the systems and planets themselves. Therefore it is sometimes with the hope of conserving and safeguarding these phases of God's precious presence that, when some planets (or even systems) have plunged far into spiritual darkness, they are in a certain sense quarantined, or partially isolated from intercourse with the larger units of creation. And all this, as it operates on Urantia, is a spiritually defensive reaction of the majority of the worlds to save themselves, as far as possible, from suffering the isolating consequences of the alienating acts of a headstrong, wicked, and rebellious minority.” (3:1.10)

Students of The UB learn, “The universe broadcast is extended to all inhabited worlds regardless of their spiritual status. Planetary intercommunication is denied only those worlds under spiritual quarantine.” (33:6.5, pg. 371) Some say the affairs of the Lucifer rebellion have been adjudicated, resulting in considerable debate about whether the universe broadcasts have been re-opened.

There is an intriguing instruction Jesus gave to his apostles during questions that followed his discourse on prayer and worship: “As prayer may be likened to recharging the spiritual batteries of the soul, so worship may be compared to the act of tuning in the soul to catch the universe broadcasts of the infinite spirit of the Universal Father.” (144:4.8)

In one sense then, in spite of the “spiritual quarantine,” and the termination of literal interstellar communication, we have never been isolated from the universe broadcasts emanating from the Isle of Paradise.

Love, Part I: The Commandment to Love

Dave — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 15:03:38 GMT

Abegunde Julius Taiwo, a Urantia Book (The UB) student and leader in Nigeria, once posed a good question on Facebook (used by permission): “Is loving God an emotion, a feeling, or a decision?” He followed it with his insights into the Bible and The Urantia Book texts.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (UB 174:4.2, Luke 10:27; Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:27) He was reaffirming teachings already found in Judaism, skillfully combining “Old Testament” teachings from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 with Leviticus 19:18.

But can love be commanded? How can we make ourselves love someone? It requires work; it is something we “achieve” as this The UB passage tells us:

“You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality.” (100:4.6)

As Abegunde went on to share with us in his Facebook post, “Since love is commanded, then it must be within our power, in Christ, to love. Love, therefore, is a decision we make. Yes, love will often be accompanied by feelings, but emotion is not the basis of love. In any given situation, we can choose to love, regardless of how we feel.”

Psychologist and philosopher, Erich Fromm agreed, “Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.” (from 1956 book, The Art of Loving)

“Some days there won’t be a song in your heart, sing anyway.” (Emory Austin)

The story of Mother Theresa’s “dark night of the soul” became well known from letters published after her death. In the depth of her ministry to the poor of India she lost her faith, her emotional connection to God. Yet she continued. As was written, she “persisted in radiating invincible faith and love while suffering inwardly from the loss of spiritual consolation (Carol Zaleski in First Things, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/05/the-dark-night-of-mother-teresa).” She maintained loyalty to the commandment to love without the experiences of ecstasy and feeling, a determination to go on that ensured the love in her original vision was given to the world.

“Though it may be good at times to think specifically of the kindness and excellence of God … it must be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting. And you must step above it stoutly but deftly, with a devout and delightful stirring of love, and struggle to pierce that darkness above you; and beat on that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love, and do not give up, whatever happens.” (The Cloud of Unknowing, anonymous work of the 14^th century)

Next, Part II, will explore: what is the Truth about love?

Decisions While Driving: Getting Directions from the Divine

Dave — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 15:00:51 GMT

I am almost always reluctant to talk about receiving divine guidance, especially when it appears to have come in a dream. It’s such a personal subject, and best kept that way. But I’ll avoid indulging in magic talk as I share something that happened a while ago. Any mystical tendency I have to view dreams as signs or prophecies I attribute either to my Celtic ancestry or my American Indian blood. Messages that come in dreams fascinate many cultures. The Urantia Book (The UB) makes the nature of dream guidance sound very straightforward in this passage:

“During the slumber season the Adjuster attempts to achieve only that which the will of the indwelt personality has previously fully approved by the decisions and choosings which were made during times of fully wakeful consciousness, and which have thereby become lodged in the realms of the supermind, the liaison domain of human and divine interrelationship.” (110:5.3)

In the recent dream I refer to, I encountered an old friend from my past. In real life, I hadn’t seen Bob in decades. And there he was sitting next to me in the car as we waited at a stop light. He was being my navigator. How appropriate! Bob was the first friend I met in Northern California after I’d traveled there many miles driving from Canada via a short stopover in the Los Angeles area. He was living in an old church converted to a house in the Redwood forest north of San Francisco with his wife who was pregnant and his best friend. Bob was my first guide, met in a foreign country at the end of a long journey.

In the dream, he turned to ask me, “Where do we go next?”

“How about home?” I replied. The light changed and the waves of traffic parted in front of us like the Red Sea, dividing to allow us an easy move forward onto the freeway onramp.

“Mind is your ship, the Adjuster is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the ascending soul into the morontia harbors of eternal survival.” (111:1.9)

I woke up wondering if Bob, my navigator on this journey, represented my relationship with God. Was it possible that my Adjuster had attempted contact to confirm our partnership in “the will and the way of God,” (118:7.8) all done through the person of Bob the hippie from the California redwoods?

In the dream it seemed I made a decision to go home with God, or as The UB would put it, confirmed a decision I’d already made while fully conscious. This is a tool of communication that your spirit guide can or might use but we must be careful not to overstep ourselves. In another paragraph of the same Paper 111, the writer cautions, “A human being would do better to err in rejecting an Adjuster's expression through believing it to be a purely human experience than to blunder into exalting a reaction of the mortal mind to the sphere of divine dignity.” (110:5.5)

In the weeks that followed, more decisions were made following upon the event of the dream that reinforced the guidance as I saw it, a process I find The UB describes clearly:

“The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. Men use them—advance in spirit status—by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions.” (39:4.14)

Speaking more sincerely now, I recognize that there are many other ways we are given help and direction. In moments of cosmic loneliness when I find I’ve wandered too far off course, and I get depressed to find myself so alienated, I have been able to recognize the need to be re-aligned with Truth, Beauty, and Goodness “the qualities of divinity” in oneself. I made another decision in favor of God to align myself firmly with those ideals.

Any confirmation or guidance we receive in our spiritual life should be helping us to take some faltering plan that we’ve made, perhaps only half-heartedly, more seriously and whole-heartedly. In my case, the “guidance” or the nudge I received solidified my intentions to carry out God’s plan for my life.

“You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by … choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness and then co-ordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and love.” (110:3.6-7)

This is a very appealing road map for the soul, a map I now keep in the glove box, ready to pull out and consult whenever I need some helpful guidance on my travels.

Heroism and the Ascendant Adventure

Dave — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:58:16 GMT

You’ve heard it asked, “What is the meaning of life?” A clichéd question you might say, sometimes asked flippantly, but still a good question. Perhaps more to the point: do we use a philosophy of living to find meaning, determine our purpose, and the goals of our existence? Almost all of us do, although possibly unconsciously. We may not be able to verbally articulate our philosophy, or maybe we haven’t closely examined it. Our inner life, the personal revelations, can be used as a guide. Adding philosophy to the mix helps determine what part of a revelation we can reasonably rely on, something wise within to save us from going off on a tangent.

You are probably reading this blog about The Urantia Book (The UB) because you are curious; the same curiosity made you a spiritual seeker. You may have read that The UB calls the steps on the path to enlightenment, the ascension plan. “Mortal man earns even his status as an ascension candidate by his own faith and hope.” (3:5.16)

Those who pursue such a course realize that the very idea of a place to ascend to is a gift in itself—dependent on the eyes of faith being opened, and spiritual insights honed to recognize the gift. “Religion is founded on the recognition of values and is validated by the faith of personal religious experience (The UB, 103:1.5).”

Once you accept the gifts of faith and a new direction, what next? To choose to operate in a higher realm than the place you’re in now, to reach for a new level of spiritual maturity? We are given the freedom to make such a free-will decision, whether to reject or accept the ascendant adventure. “Your mission should you choose to accept it is …”

Once a person is on the path, they’re going to cut themselves loose from anything they’ve heard about God before, and go meet him on their own terms, to explore the relationship, to refrain from entering into it in conventional ways defined by their tradition. Established religions want to provide safe havens, a refuge. Some seekers are able to stay in their church communities and handle the annoying questions that will come from the congregation while they explore a personal religion.

Spirituality outside the church is likely to have a new basis in the scientific principle of “experiment and verification.” In the kind of personal or improvised religion I am advocating here, we experiment with a spiritual idea then verify it by seeing if it bears fruit in our lives, if it serves as a better explanation of our experience. Even St. Paul had an insight into this which he shared with the early church. “Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21)

When I left the church of my youth, I followed the Jesus principle I’d learned there and still found valuable, as if Jesus himself knew about the personal spiritual quest. “Ask and it will be given you. Knock and the door shall be opened (Matthew 7:7-8).” For me, the door opened onto a secret garden that had always been there. My experience confirmed Jesus was right.

“To honor the God-knowing leaders of the past may indeed be worthwhile, but why, in so doing, should you sacrifice the supreme experience of human existence: finding God for yourselves and knowing him in your own souls?” (The UB, 155:6.7)

What does finding God “for yourself” mean?

It will be different for each one of us. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So is with every one that is born of the spirit.” (John 3:8) My path to God will be far different from yours however a unifying vision, an ideal of human brotherhood, is there at the end of our converging roads.

My cousin, who went to college to become a Catholic priest in his youth, ran away from the Abbey and later started his own successful business. He liked to call his experimental phase “trying out spiritual tricycles.” I rode on one or two for quite a while before I climbed onto a two-wheeler. I took some spills learning how to maneuver it.

I have blundered my way into dead ends, dark corners, and tight spots, choosing to believe in things I later found out were foolish, delusional, or simply misconceived. But let us not underestimate the value of the mistakes. To become a hero on your own journey, like the mythologist, Joseph Campbell, taught us to do, you must dare to impose meaning on the chaos, both in the life events that surround you, and upon the inner turmoil that confuses you from within.

Why is this kind of life, the spiritual adventure, like the hero’s journey Campbell wrote about? Because you have to be willing to wrestle with the big questions, be ready to discover something different than what you hoped to find, and be ready for answers that weren’t expected. False assurances that you won’t be afraid are just that--false. We must treat it as inevitable that there will be times we experience fear, loneliness, sometimes despair. Jesus forewarned the apostles of “the perils of intellectual discovery… effort, struggle, conflict,” fraught with, “mental uncertainties” and foretold an “uncertain and troublous future of proclaiming the new truths.” (155:5.10-13)

Maureen Murdock, a student of Joseph Campbell’s, wrote about the differences for “the heroine’s journey.” Though facing similar dangers, the protective and nurturing female hero may be more motivated to preserve the safety of others and support their success rather than have her own glory. The heroic woman must stop acting and doing at times, so she can reclaim, heal, and discover her true self underneath the heroic accomplishments (The Heroine’s Journey, by Murdock). Men can also learn much from the heroine’s example.

One of the obstacles to making the choice to grow, heal, or improve is the fear of failure. When it’s an adventure in failure -- faith reassures the seeker that he or she is safe. God is there to catch you. Some of the consolations of the spiritual adventure are opportunities to grow closer to God, to learn how to trust, to form a deeper friendship with God, to experience the love of a Creator/Father. It does take courage, but your relationship with God gives you the courage. We must remind ourselves to rely on that source.

“Do not be troubled with doubts of failure or by perplexing confusion, do not falter and question your status and standing, for in every dark hour, at every crossroad in the forward struggle, the Spirit of Truth will always speak, saying, "This is the way." (34:7.8)

With the high premium put on material "success" in our society, men often find these feelings of failure the most paralyzing things to face. Combined with the male tendency to not discuss personal problems, a man may not make the hard choices to heal or grow. He may fear he isn’t keeping up with the Joneses in the chase for material achievement. I can speak about this issue because I was raised by men such as my father and grandfather who stayed inside their heads, or built fortresses around themselves in other ways. In my own therapy, I once had a profound experience of shedding armor that protected my stomach. In my psychic landscape, it was my mid-portion, my stomach that was protected as if I was being forced to eat food I couldn’t digest.

A suit of armor is useful much of the time; so is a fortress. But either becomes an obstacle to growth and progress if it keeps the outside world from bringing in new information needed for the inner world to thrive and grow. Men especially need to learn when openness and vulnerability are strengths.

I wasn’t a naturally courageous man. I had to learn to overcome fears. I got a good lesson once when I was going into a public speaking situation representing my employer. I was very nervous, afraid my speech wouldn’t go over, or I wouldn’t speak authentically and convincingly. When I drove to the location, I passed a beautiful redwood tree illuminated by morning sunlight. As it caught my eye, I found myself meditating on my soul being like that tree, standing tall in its natural environment with the sun shining on its wide spreading branches, unconcerned about proving whether its existence had validity or not. The tree knew its value. At the meeting, I was able to confidently present myself to the room. The speech was a success and I went on to make many more speeches representing my company in the community.

Partnering to Evolve the Supreme: Revelation as a Reciprocal Process

Dave — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 14:55:43 GMT

“Jesus said: The will of God is the way of God, partnership with the choice of God in the face of any potential alternative.” (The UB, 130:2.7)

A unique feature of The Urantia Book (The UB) is the unusual emphasis on our partnership with God and other associated spiritual energies, angels, midwayers, etc., in the universe. We who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s remember what we learned from our religious training (when we got any) about God’s relationship with his people and how different it was then. God (or Jesus) was given the position of unquestioned authority. To act with wisdom, we waited for God’s will to be declared to us, to hear the call as if it was a proclamation from the throne. The Christian Church has grown much in its understanding of “the call” since I was young and often teaches it more wisely now.

The UB, declaring itself to be an epochal revelation, “Revelation as an epochal phenomenon is periodic; as a personal human experience it is continuous,” (101:2.12) makes a thorough disclosure of the evolving Supreme, and how our decisions contribute to the growth of God the Supreme; “upon the steadfastness and wisdom of decision-actions the Supreme Being depends for the actuality of experiential evolution,” (112:5.5) experiential as in emerging, not perfected or complete.

“And so, as we strive for self-expression, the Supreme is striving in us, and with us, for deity expression.” (117:4.6)

In The UB there are repeated references to reciprocated actions, mutual interdependence.

“All mortals who are indwelt by Thought Adjusters are potential worshipers; they have been "lighted by the true light," and they possess capacity for seeking reciprocal contact with divinity.” (52:1.7)

The important idea about the reciprocal nature of the relationship is that our contribution to the partnership with God is equally important. Reciprocal means equivalent, complementary, balanced.

“Do you not comprehend that God dwells within you, that he has become what you are that he may make you what he is!” (148:6.10)

The episode of Peter’s confession in The UB (157:3), Mark 8:29, or Luke 9:20, changed the course of Jesus ministry. Here we see the power of a personal revelation in his confession. “You are…the Son of the living God,” was “a revelation of the Spirit of my Father to your inmost souls,” Jesus responded (157.3.3-7 and 4.1-5; pg. 1745). It was only after his human apostles experienced this revelation that Jesus changed the course of his ministry and openly announced his divinity.

Why didn’t Jesus make it a part of his “epochal revelation” and declare it without waiting for their insight? Because it would have abrogated the partner relationship of God and man.

Revelation as a reciprocal process from this new point of view found in The UB is also a way of assisting in the evolution of the Supreme, a key fact The UB wants us to understand, to experience the significance of this relationship.

“You can consciously augment Adjuster harmony by: … honest recognition of your progressive obligations to the Supreme Being, awareness of the interdependence of evolutionary man and evolving Deity. This is the birth of cosmic morality and the dawning realization of universal duty.” (110:3.6-10)

“One of the most intriguing questions in finite philosophy is this: Does the Supreme Being actualize in response to the evolution of the grand universe, or does this finite cosmos progressively evolve in response to the gradual actualization of the Supreme? Or is it possible that they are mutually interdependent for their development? that they are evolutionary reciprocals, each initiating the growth of the other? Of this we are certain: Creatures and universes, high and low, are evolving within the Supreme, and as they evolve, there is appearing the unified summation of the entire finite activity of this universe age. And this is the appearance of the Supreme Being, to all personalities the evolution of the almighty power of God the Supreme.” (117:2.9)

“All experiential creations are interdependent in their realization of destiny. Only existential reality is self-contained and self-existent. Havona and the seven superuniverses require each other to achieve the maximum of finite attainment;” (117:6.20)

If God is revealed in the UB to be more of a partner with the indwelt human being, less of an authority figure, do we still obey his commandments by subsuming our own desires to his will? I’d like to hear what you think on this question.

“Ever bear in mind--God and men need each other. They are mutually necessary to the full and final attainment of eternal personality experience in the divine destiny of universe finality.”

(195:10.3)

The River of Delight

Dave — Thu, 22 May 2014 14:53:54 GMT

One morning while driving my daughter to school, we saw a coyote in the riverbed exploring and hunting. We were on one of the last bits of rustic roadside in our town, following our usual route alongside Pine Creek. The day, which had threatened the prospect of yet another dull task, that of sitting in a school classroom, suddenly got brighter. Her eyes lit up with excitement to see a wild animal in the middle of town, and I was seeing the world anew through a child’s eyes. Joy came barefoot to splash in the water, rediscovering the river of delight, seeing beauty and truth in nature, recovering the natural state of wonder.

I first heard about the River of Delight from a musician, Lou Gottlieb, who had retired from the folk group, the Limeliters, and moved to Sonoma County. He became the spiritual leader of a commune at Morning Star Ranch on the Pacific coast. One evening in the early 70's, Lou came to one of my rock band rehearsals with the idea of teaching us meditation chants he’d composed. “Love Divine, thou art mine, I am thine, Love Divine.” I was struck by the beauty of one song in particular and it stayed with me for years afterwards:

   "Only Thou, O River of Delight, Only Thou, through endless day and night, Only Thou, assuager of all sorrow, Only Thou, oh giver of tomorrow."

   This chant seemed very Hindu or Buddhist to me. Later on I did some research to learn if the concept had any parallel in Christian sources. I discovered there was actually a reference to the River of Delights, its plural form, in the Bible (NIV), Psalm 36: 7-8. "O Lord … How priceless is your unfailing love! … you give them drink from your river of delights." Jesus in his times preached about the “river(s) of living water,” in the temple (John 7:38).
   The King James version, perhaps most familiar from baby boomer childhoods, translates Psalm 36 as the “river of pleasures,” an unfortunate word choice for Christians who think that pleasure equates to sin. The delight I am speaking about here is not carnal. Though it is a delight of both the senses and the mind, it is a more mystical experience of spiritual pleasure.

This symbol, river of delight, uses a natural image to communicate a sensual energy, the flowing of the unseen spirit of joyfulness into our day-to-day life. It represents an innate harmony between matter and spirit, also metaphorical of the Supreme Being. "The Supreme is the beauty of physical harmony, the truth of intellectual meaning, and the goodness of spiritual value. He is the sweetness of true success and the joy of everlasting achievement." (The Urantia Book [The UB], 117:1.1, p. 1278)

The River of Delight flows into the Sea of Joy

Wordsworth’s famous sighting of daffodils blowing in the wind beside the lake, described in his poem, I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud, evoked a delight that stayed with him for years afterwards. The memory rewarded him with pleasure though he “but little thought what wealth the show … had brought” at the time he first saw them. Afterwards, when “recollected in tranquility,” he discovered the deeper meaning of true wealth, learning how such beauty and harmony were at the foundation of his well being.

One might say the River of Delight transports us to a realization of God the Supreme. It facilitates our journey to Paradise: "If mortal man proceeds upon the Paradise adventure, he is following the motions of time, which flow as currents within the stream of eternity," (117:4.11)

This broad and flowing metaphorical river is capable of carrying much freight, many cosmic meanings, truths and spirit realities. But the laughing waters particularly speak to one’s soul about the "inherent joy in free will existence (28:5.16)." In The UB this is a function of specialized beings called by the name The Joy of Existence. “In a more general manner and in collaboration with the reversion directors, they function as joy clearinghouses, seeking to upstep the pleasure reactions of the realms while trying to improve the humor taste, to develop a superhumor among mortals and angels. They endeavor to demonstrate that there is inherent joy in freewill existence, independent of all extraneous influences.”

As we explore the River of Delight, we eventually come upon new and higher joys of worship. Through the ministry of agents of the Infinite Spirit, the Primary Supernaphim (Conductors of Worship), "the act of worship becomes increasingly all-encompassing until it eventually attains the glory of the highest experiential delight and the most exquisite pleasure known to created beings." (27:7.1)

The Satisfactions Found in Knowledge, the Delights of Learning

This is one landing place along the River of Delight that I have come to know very well because of my love for knowledge and learning. A branch of the Primary Supernaphim, the Masters of Philosophy, also teach the intellectual manifestations of "Delight." "Next to the supreme satisfaction of worship is the exhilaration of philosophy." (27:6.1, pg. 302)

“The master philosophers of Paradise delight to lead the minds of its inhabitants, both native and ascendant, in the exhilarating pursuit of attempting to solve universe problems. These superaphic masters of philosophy are the "wise men of heaven," the beings of wisdom who make use of the truth of knowledge and the facts of experience in their efforts to master the unknown. With them knowledge attains to truth and experience ascends to wisdom.” (27:6.2)

Each person of the Paradise Trinity has a separate project designed to help bring us to the Father, Son and Spirit. "The bestowal Sons reveal new ways for man to find ... the everlasting highways of progression which lead through the presence of the Supreme to the person of the Paradise Father." (116:4.10, pg. 1285) Thus as our Creator Son Michael in the person of Jesus said to the Mithraic leader in Rome, “Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit.” (132:3.4, pg. 1459)

Along the river highways of delight we travel to our destiny, if we so choose to take the journey.

Are You Cultivating Your Spirit Garden?

Dave — Wed, 14 May 2014 14:51:38 GMT

“The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God.” (Meister Eckhart)

We cannot cause spiritual growth, an expansion of meanings, an exaltation of value. But we are able to embrace an ideal that reflects true values, or as Eknath Easvaran puts it, “mold yourself in the image of the loftiest spiritual ideal (Conquest of Mind).” The Urantia Book (The UB) tells us. "Man cannot cause growth but he can supply favorable conditions." (100:3.7, p. 1097) We can definitely make plans such that growth will happen. We can be about the tasks of “organizing the soul for dynamic service,” (100:3.1) and mobilizing our faith.

We can lay out plans for growth like we plot garden rows;

with practice, becoming expert, we recognize the frailty

of certain plants, how basil is subject to killing frost,

if you’re impatient and put it in early,

cyclamen who seem to love winter, can wilt

in a freezing cold. Or late spring lettuce

scorched by blasts of sun, is withered by a

dessicating Diablo wind off the hills.

We rake compost, dig fertilizer into the soil.

It hurts our muscles; backs feel the strain.

We can stop to decide where each vegetable

and flower will have its most agreeable place,

by analyzing the hours of sunlight,

whether soil is acid or alkaline.

While you rest from the back pain, draw up a schedule

for activities of nurturing, watering, weed digging.

We won’t get to the point of reward

with ripe tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers otherwise.

Because this ground is dense with weeds,

we have to work at it many days, uprooting and hoeing,

Every day I water in the hot season, pinch off dead leaves

and prune branches, just like we try to remember to do

when striving to enhance our own reach for maturity using techniques

of meditation, prayer for the Spirit’s guidance as to the best way.

After weeks of preparation, harvest time arrives.

Help me to sharpen it, to feel the keenness of the blade

that harvests these many blessings.

Then the day when the fresh fruits of our labors go in the salad,

everyone in the house savoring homegrown flavors

makes oohs and ahs of pleasure.

Remember how the Psalmist sang to us:

“Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” (Psalm 105)

What better way to understand such continual striving

than by making a garden.

“This gospel of the kingdom is a living truth. I have told you it is like the leaven in the dough, like the grain of mustard seed; and now I declare that it is like the seed of the living being, which, from generation to generation, while it remains the same living seed, unfailingly unfolds itself in new manifestations and grows acceptably in channels of new adaptation to the peculiar needs and conditions of each successive generation. The revelation I have made to you is a living revelation, and I desire that it shall bear appropriate fruits in each individual and in each generation in accordance with the laws of spiritual growth, increase, and adaptative development. From generation to generation this gospel must show increasing vitality and exhibit greater depth of spiritual power. It must not be permitted to become merely a sacred memory, a mere tradition about me and the times in which we now live.” (The UB 178:1.15)

“When there exists this living connection between divinity and humanity, if humanity should thoughtlessly and ignorantly pray for selfish ease and vainglorious accomplishments, there could be only one divine answer: more and increased bearing of the fruits of the spirit on the stems of the living branches. When the branch of the vine is alive, there can be only one answer to all its petitions: increased grape bearing. In fact, the branch exists only for, and can do nothing except, fruit bearing, yielding grapes. So does the true believer exist only for the purpose of bearing the fruits of the spirit: to love man as he himself has been loved by God—that we should love one another, even as Jesus has loved us.” (The UB 180:2.5)

The Women Workers of Jesus’ Ministry

Dave — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 14:49:10 GMT

The papyrus first discovered in Egypt in 2012 that came to be known as “the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” made the news again this week. The controversial Coptic text written by an early Christian and not a modern forger has been dated as being from between the 6^th and 9^th centuries. Karen King, a Harvard Divinity School historian and the original presenter of the papyrus, said she welcomed the debate over the text's ambiguities. For all we know, she said, the sentence fragment continued after the point where it’s missing with Jesus revealing his wife was in fact the church, or perhaps, as King suggested humorously, a la Shelley Berman, Jesus said, "My wife? Are you kidding? I don't have a wife!" What does The Urantia Book (The UB) reveal about the wife of Jesus? First there was never a wife of Jesus according to The UB and nearly all Christian scholars are in accord with that idea.

The story of Rebecca, daughter of a wealthy Nazareth merchant, and how she falls in love with Jesus is told in 127:5 (pg. 1403). She “made bold” to declare herself to Jesus. “He sincerely thanked Rebecca for her expressed admiration, adding, "it shall cheer and comfort me all the days of my life." He explained that he was not free to enter into relations with any woman other than those of simple brotherly regard and pure friendship. He made it clear that his first and paramount duty was the rearing of his father's family, that he could not consider marriage until that was accomplished; and then he added: "If I am a son of destiny, I must not assume obligations of lifelong duration until such a time as my destiny shall be made manifest." (127:5.5)

The UB shows Jesus took bold steps in his day by recruiting women as gospel teachers and evangelists. In the Bible, some such as Joanna “the wife of Cuza,” are described as financial contributors.

“Jesus requested David to summon his parents back to their home and to dispatch messengers calling to Bethsaida ten devout women who had served in the administration of the former encampment and the tented infirmary. These women had all listened to the instruction given the young evangelists, but it had never occurred to either themselves or their teachers that Jesus would dare to commission women to teach the gospel of the kingdom and minister to the sick. These ten women selected and commissioned by Jesus were: Susanna, the daughter of the former chazan of the Nazareth synagogue; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod Antipas; Elizabeth, the daughter of a wealthy Jew of Tiberias and Sepphoris; Martha, the elder sister of Andrew and Peter; Rachel, the sister-in-law of Jude, the Master's brother in the flesh; Nasanta, the daughter of Elman, the Syrian physician; Milcha, a cousin of the Apostle Thomas; Ruth, the eldest daughter of Matthew Levi; Celta, the daughter of a Roman centurion; and Agaman, a widow of Damascus. Subsequently, Jesus added two other women to this group—Mary Magdalene and Rebecca, the daughter of Joseph of Arimathea.” (150:1.1, pg. 1678)

“Mary Magdalene became the most effective teacher of the gospel among this group of twelve women evangelists.” (150:2.3, pg. 1680)

The other men, including apostles and rabbis, were shocked by the Master’s moves to liberate the women. Here are some other notable women described in The UB.

“Philip's wife, who was an efficient member of the women’s corps, became actively associated with her husband in his evangelistic work after their flight from the Jerusalem persecutions. His wife was a fearless woman. She stood at the foot of Philip's cross encouraging him to proclaim the glad tidings even to his murderers, and when his strength failed, she began the recital of the story of salvation by faith in Jesus and was silenced only when the irate Jews rushed upon her and stoned her to death. Their eldest daughter, Leah, continued their work, later on becoming the renowned prophetess of Hierapolis.” (139:5.11, pg. 1557)

“One of Herod's official family, Chuza, whose wife belonged to the women’s ministering corps, had informed him that Jesus did not propose to meddle with the affairs of earthly rule; that he was only concerned with the establishment of the spiritual brotherhood of his believers, which brotherhood he called the kingdom of heaven.” (154:0.2, pg. 1717) Her name is also given in the list of the ten devout women above and in Luke 8:1: Joanna, “the wife of the manager of Herod’s household.”

“Perpetua, Simon Peter's wife, became a member of this new division of the women’s corps and was intrusted with the leadership of the enlarged women’s work under Abner. After Pentecost she remained with her illustrious husband, accompanying him on all of his missionary tours; and on the day Peter was crucified in Rome, she was fed to the wild beasts in the arena. This new women’s corps also had as members the wives of Philip and Matthew and the mother of James and John. (163:7.3, pg. 1808)

In the Christian Bible, the women who labored in support of Jesus’ mission finally show up in the same spirit of devotion at the foot of the cross (Luke 23:49-56). After witnessing the horrific event, they then return to their homes to prepare “spices and ointments” for his anointing.

Bible students know that Mary Magdalene was the first witness to Jesus rising on the third day. The UB beautifully portrays her courageous and tender role in the Easter Sunday resurrection of the Master, (189:4, Discovery of the Empty Tomb). “In viewing the prominent part which Mary Magdalene took in proclaiming the Master's resurrection, it should be recorded that Mary was the chief spokesman for the women’s corps, as was Peter for the apostles. Mary was not chief of the women workers, but she was their chief teacher and public spokesman. (190:0.5, pg. 2029)

Let us remember and honor these inspiring women this Easter season.

Does Noah Show Up in The Urantia Book?

Dave — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 14:45:48 GMT

The topic of Noah and the Ark never vanishes from the public view for very long, though the Ark itself seems to have disappeared. Now Russell Crowe’s latest movie Noah is currently making a big splash (it’s hard to resist these puns!). A couple of years ago, archaeologist Robert Ballard, was in the news for his latest project, an exploration of the Black Sea. "We went in there to look for the flood," Ballard said. "Not just a slow moving, advancing rise of sea level, but a really big flood that then stayed ... The land that went under stayed under." But concerning this project, he hasn’t been heard from since the news report of 2012.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/evidence-noahs-flood-ark-real-robert-ballard-archeologist-titanic_n_2273143.html

In the 1990s, geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman had presented evidence that showed a flood may have occurred in the Middle East region about 7,500 years ago. The theory, reported in the Guardian at the time, was that a rising Mediterranean Sea pushed a channel through what is now the Bosphorus, submerging the original shoreline of the Black Sea in a deluge flowing at about 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls, and extending out for 100,000 square miles. Following up on this evidence, Robert Ballard’s involvement, using his underwater robotic technology, began in 2000.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2000/sep/14/internationalnews.archaeology

The Urantia Book (The UB) gives an account of this geological event in paper 78:7, The Floods in Mesopotamia, dating this “period of unprecedented floods” to 5,000 B.C., a close correlation to Ryan and Pitman’s date of 7,500 years ago.

The UB is also careful to point out the scientific facts in 78:7.4 (pg. 875). “The traditions of a time when water covered the whole of the earth's surface are universal. Many races harbor the story of a world-wide flood some time during past ages. The Biblical story of Noah, the ark, and the flood is an invention of the Hebrew priesthood during the Babylonian captivity. There has never been a universal flood since life was established on Urantia. The only time the surface of the earth was completely covered by water was during those Archeozoic ages before the land had begun to appear.”

From my knowledge of Woodlands American Indian lore, I can attest to the fact that the tribes of the Eastern woodlands shared a creation story that began with a universal flood covering the surface of the earth, a story that definitely predated the influence of Christianity.

Here is what The UB says about Noah. “But Noah really lived; he was a wine maker of Aram, a river settlement near Erech. He kept a written record of the days of the river's rise from year to year. He brought much ridicule upon himself by going up and down the river valley advocating that all houses be built of wood, boat fashion, and that the family animals be put on board each night as the flood season approached. He would go to the neighboring river settlements every year and warn them that in so many days the floods would come. Finally a year came in which the annual floods were greatly augmented by unusually heavy rainfall so that the sudden rise of the waters wiped out the entire village; only Noah and his immediate family were saved in their houseboat.” (78:7.5, pg. 875)

We find a reference in the UB that confirms why the search is in the Black Sea/Mt. Ararat region (Turkey), not the ancient site of Babylon in Mesopotamia, present day Iraq (site of ancient Babylonian city, Erech).

“Mount Ararat was the sacred mountain of northern Mesopotamia, and since much of your tradition of these ancient times was acquired in connection with the Babylonian story of the flood, it is not surprising that Mount Ararat and its region were woven into the later Jewish story of Noah and the universal flood.” (77:4.12, pg. 860)

The Supreme, Aspects of the Divine in Which God is Mother

Dave — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:43:50 GMT

“As God is your divine Father, so is the Supreme your divine Mother in whom you are nurtured throughout your lives as universe creatures.” (117:6.2, pg. 1288)

Wendell Berry once said, “The creation is not in any sense independent of the Creator, the result of a primal creative act long over and done with, but is the continuous, constant participation of all creatures in the being of God.” He added, “Nature (and here we capitalize her name) is the impartial mother of all creatures, unpredictable, never entirely revealed, not my mother or your mother, but nonetheless our mother.” (2012 Jefferson Lecture)

Those who live a life close to the earth such as farmer-poet Wendell Berry, or the more traditional American Indian cultures, instinctively understand the nurturing idea of God as a Mother, an Earth Mother.

Maria L. Von Franz, the Jungian analyst, perceived the coming into being of a fourth element of Deity. “In the manifestations of the unconscious found in our modern Christian culture … Dr. Jung often observed that there is an unconscious tendency at work to round off our trinitarian formula of the Godhead with a fourth element which tends to be feminine …” (Man and His Symbols). She saw this development in terms of new symbols of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ghost, a renewed accord with the earth, perhaps dimly aware of God the Mother as an aspect of the Holy Spirit.

In The UB cosmology what is known as the Holy Spirit on Urantia is revealed as the Divine Minister on Satania, and “this personalized presence of the Infinite Spirit,” is “the Creative Mother Spirit of the local universe” (34:1.4, pg. 375). She is the bestower of our initial mind circuit known as the adjutant mind spirits (103:0.1; 34:5), the partner of the Creator Son, and, I believe, she is the Mother Goddess of our evolutionary religions.

We encountered the mother goddess in previous epochs of our religious evolution, long before that stage where we could grow in our consciousness of the Supreme’s ministry. The Mother Spirit was the main archetypal influence on human psychology through her gift of the mind circuit, before there was a broad awareness of the endowment of the indwelling spirit of the Father, known to us as the Thought Adjuster, and the arrival of the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Truth, “the mind of Christ.” Thus we see a cultural development taking place wherein the early mother goddess cult, once ascendant, is often overthrown by a male warrior or Father God cult.

Jesus observed a remnant of mother goddess worship on his trip around the ancient world: “On leaving Athens, the travelers went by way of Troas to Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia. They made many trips out to the famous temple of Artemis of the Ephesians, about two miles from the city. Artemis was the most famous goddess of all Asia Minor and a perpetuation of the still earlier mother goddess of ancient Anatolian times.” (133:6.1, pg. 1477)

The Melchizedek teachers encountered it. “Never did the Salem teachers fully overcome the popularity of Ishtar, the mother of gods and the spirit of sex fertility.” (95:1.5, pg. 1042)

The Earth Mother religions of the American Indian were also trampled and mostly supplanted by the warrior religions of the European descendants of the Andites. Among my ancestors, the Ojibway, whose creator goddess was Giizhi-go-kwe, Skywoman, there was a widespread conversion to Christianity in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Perhaps, in a sense, Jung’s theory of the fourth element of Deity prophesied the increase in consciousness of the Supreme Being, a present goal of our evolution revealed in The UB. It is a development about which The UB makes more concrete statements than have been encountered before in religious teachings.

“During the past dispensations of partial understanding, your priests and prophets failed clearly to differentiate between … the Supreme Being, and the Universal Father,” (among other universe authorities). (4:5.2, pg. 60)

Jung was more concerned with symbols and metaphors of what was developing in human consciousness, than with a real literal presence of a personal god. Universal Father is a powerful symbol in his psychology. He didn’t recognize a loving God who is real and approachable. Though psychology in general asserts that all we can know is the “psyche,” leaving us trapped within a world that exists only in our minds, Mother God, as the Supreme, emerges to nurture the realization of the reality of God, the literal, earthy presence of the divine existing beyond the borders of our perceptions. The UB reasserts the truth that we can know spiritual reality in itself, that Jung’s symbols are literal, representing concrete realities to our minds.

Scientists like Jonas Salk and Ervin Laszlo (founder of the Club of Budapest in 1993) began in the late 20^th century to express the idea of humankind taking control of its evolution. The science magazine, Omni, predicted “Humanity will become deeply and creatively engaged in the process of evolution. First, we will understand the nature of our minds, and second the evolutionary purpose they serve.” As Carl Sagan observed, “We are a way for the cosmos, to know itself.”

Our partnership with the Supreme consists in the great task of achieving spirit dominance over matter-energy. “With God the Supreme … one must do something as well as be something.” (115:0, pg. 1260) In our experience with the Supreme, we are being invited to attend the great marriage of the masculine and feminine on cosmic levels of reality.

“There is no adventure ... more enthralling than to enjoy the exhiliration of becoming the material life partner with spiritual energy and divine truth,” Jesus told Anaxand, (130:2.4, pg. 1430) and what he was describing is in essence the experience of God the Supreme.

“Experiential growth implies creature-Creator partnership—God and man in association,”

(The Almighty Supreme; 116:0.3, pg. 1268) partnering in the service of our brothers and sisters and in the care and preservation of our planet.

Dark Matter, Parallel Universes, and the Cosmos

Dave — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 15:41:41 GMT

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s new series, Cosmos, A Spacetime Odyssey, will premier this Sunday night, March 9^th on Fox network, and again the following night on the National Geographic Channel, http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/10/the-new-cosmos-a-spacetime-odyssey/.

&nnbsp; Tyson would probably find much of what The Urantia Book (The UB) says about the physical universe to be unbelievably ridiculous. He tends to speak out sometimes overly simplistically about science, like a remark he made on Bill Maher’s show, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it," or about religions, “Any time scientists disagree, it’s because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I’m right or you’re right or we’re both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.” Such comments go “viral” on the internet and Facebook, offending some religionists, delighting some atheists. Recognizing that many scientists are religious, Tyson is usually respectful of that fact.

In his interview with Bill Moyers on PBS, he said, “96 percent of what's driving this universe [is] in the form of dark matter and dark energy … You can make all manner of measurements and not know what's causing it. We measure this thing we're calling dark matter.”

The terms dark matter and dark energy don’t appear in The UB. In paper 15:6.11 (pg. 173) we read about “The Dark Islands of Space. These are the dead suns and other large aggregations of matter devoid of light and heat. The dark islands are sometimes enormous in mass and exert a powerful influence in universe equilibrium and energy manipulation. The density of some of these large masses is well-nigh unbelievable. And this great concentration of mass enables these dark islands to function as powerful balance wheels, holding large neighboring systems in effective leash. They hold the gravity balance of power in many constellations; many physical systems which would otherwise speedily dive to destruction in near-by suns are held securely in the gravity grasp of these guardian dark islands. It is because of this function that we can locate them accurately. We have measured the gravity pull of the luminous bodies, and we can therefore calculate the exact size and location of the dark islands of space which so effectively function to hold a given system steady in its course.”

DeGrasse Tyson talked about our measurements of both dark matter and dark energy: “We measure this phenomenon dark energy that's forcing the universe to accelerate. When you add up what we know with those two things about which we don't know what's driving it, we only know 4 percent of what's driving the universe.”

Here is a speculation he made while talking to Bill Moyers. “One of the more intriguing accounts I've heard is if you have multiple universes, it turns out gravity can spill out of one universe and be felt by another. And if we have another universe adjacent to ours, it could be that these sites where we see extra gravity is ordinary gravity in a parallel universe. And here we are, looking at it mysteriously like, "What is this?" It's like the blind man touching the elephant. … Maybe the elephant is ordinary gravity in another universe and we're feeling it and we're making stuff up just to account for it.”

“The universal circuits of Paradise do actually pervade the realms of the seven superuniverses. These presence circuits are: the personality gravity of the Universal Father, the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son, the mind gravity of the Conjoint Actor, and the material gravity of the eternal Isle.” (The UB, 15:9.1, pg. 176)

The UB gives us a picture of seven universes which exist in a “parallel” sense perhaps different from what Tyson means. Although sometimes science writers of all kinds have speculated that a parallel universe exists in another time dimension, deGrasse Tyson’s use of the word adjacent indicates that he must mean a physical location.

The UB describes the elliptical motion and direction of the “parallel universes,” in some detail, for example, “We have long since discovered that the seven superuniverses traverse a great ellipse, a gigantic and elongated circle,” (15:1.2, pg. 165) and “Your local universe of Nebadon belongs to Orvonton, the seventh superuniverse, which swings on between superuniverses one and six, having not long since (as we reckon time) turned the southeastern bend of the superuniverse space level.” (15:1.5)

Another phenomenon described in The UB probably also has something to do with our perplexing observations: “… The dark gravity bodies encircling Havona … and their drawing power discloses both forms of physical gravity, linear and absolute,” (11:8.7) but this exceeds my capacity to understand the physical cosmos. Perhaps some of the physicists and scientists reading this article can share what they know with us.

When Faith is Tested

Dave — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 15:39:50 GMT

Grappling with the mysteries of faith-trust these days, trying to keep a hold on it, at times I fall into doubt. I think about how many people need God’s help, and wonder how can he possibly look out for everyone who prays for help? It calls to mind an old passage in Matthew 6:32-33 about the “lilies of the field,” one also found in Jesus’ teaching in The Urantia Book. The UB retells the story we probably first heard from the Bible in more detail:

"Consider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is cut down and cast into the fire, how much more shall he clothe you, the ambassadors of the heavenly kingdom. O you of little faith! When you wholeheartedly devote yourselves to the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom, you should not be of doubtful minds concerning the support of yourselves or the families you have forsaken. If you give your lives truly to the gospel, you shall live by the gospel. If you are only believing disciples, you must earn your own bread and contribute to the sustenance of all who teach and preach and heal.” (The UB, 165:5.3, pg. 1823)

Notice his distinction between disciples and gospel ambassadors. "Yes, Andrew, I will speak to you about these matters of wealth and self-support, but my words to you, the apostles, must be somewhat different from those spoken to the disciples and the multitude.” (165:5.2)

The lesson, preserved in the Gospel of Matthew for disciples and apostles alike to hear, continues: “Devote yourselves to your work, believing that both the Father and I know that you have need of all these things. Let me assure you, once and for all, that, if you dedicate your lives to the work of the kingdom, all your real needs shall be supplied. Seek the greater thing, and the lesser will be found therein; ask for the heavenly, and the earthly shall be included.” (165:5.3)

We find more background to this message in The UB. A feature of Jesus’ bestowal mission was that we learn to develop a trust that is unshakeable. As he prepared for life on Urantia, his brother Immanuel told him, “And when you shall have finished this bestowal experience, you will know in very truth the full meaning and the rich significance of that faith-trust which you so unvaryingly require all your creatures to master as a part of their intimate relationship with you as their local universe Creator and Father.” (120:1.3, pg. 1326)

What does the UB mean by hyphenating faith-trust? I’m not completely sure but I have a theory that faith refers to spiritual matters, “the evidence of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1) whereas trust pertains to the life we live in the material world, having a confident expectation that an agreement, a covenant will be fulfilled. Faith is a gift, whereas trust, we learn.

There were two young women musicians I once knew up in the country, friends as well as musical partners, but they were like oil on water. Though they made beautiful music together, they were at completely opposite ends of the spiritual spectrum; one an atheist and a believer in socialism, the other an ardent fundamentalist Christian. Whenever some difficulty in life arose, the Christian woman would tell her partner not to worry, “God will take care of it.” The atheist was offended by this way of thinking, living as if faith in God would rescue you even from your own human foibles. She saw it as irresponsible—that no matter what difficulty her friend fell into, even as a result of her own carelessness, God would reach down and pull her out of the mire. I once listened as they argued about it. In church, we would refer to this attitude as presuming on God’s mercy. It was this presumption of the fundamentalist woman that offended her non-believing friend.

“Jesus' earthly life was devoted to one great purpose—doing the Father's will, living the human life religiously and by faith. The faith of Jesus was trusting, like that of a child, but it was wholly free from presumption. He made robust and manly decisions, courageously faced manifold disappointments, resolutely surmounted extraordinary difficulties, and unflinchingly confronted the stern requirements of duty. It required a strong will and an unfailing confidence to believe what Jesus believed and as he believed.” (196:0.14, pg. 2090)

It is so easy these days to feel “at a loss,” as a friend described his emotions when observing how far away the “spiritual renaissance” seemed to be in our present world crisis. I really think the only thing we can rely on is faith. “Keep your eyes on the prize,” and “your hands on the gospel plow.” We can only do whatever works to restore flagging courage and lost strength, the same way Jesus did in his last hours. He recited Psalms to himself as he suffered on the cross, shoring up his dwindling resources. “During this hour of approaching death the human mind of Jesus resorted to the repetition of many passages in the Hebrew scriptures, particularly the Psalms.” (187:5.2, pg. 2010)

I have to do something like this almost every day. When joy and hope begin to slip away, I use my strategies, like singing those gospel songs I quoted above, or re-reading inspirational quotes. In my case, another thing that also works well is to plunge myself into a writing project even though I do not feel up to it at all. In an hour or so, I have regained energy and enthusiasm.

In following the Father’s command to “Be you perfect,” I once decided I couldn’t perfect my character, but I could perfect my faith. As I continually pursue and deepen my spiritual habits, I’ve felt my soul also beginning to help me have faith, confirm my faith, keep the faith, perfect my faith attitude; “the immortal soul craves and initiates worship,” (5:3.8, pg. 66) and helps us hold on to courage.

Jesus taught us, “My Father will ever respond to the faintest flicker of faith.” (155:6.17, pg. 1733)

“Your secret of the mastery of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works by love. Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8; The UB 143:2.7, pg. 1610)

Goofin’ at the Refectory: a Memoir of My Interfaith Beginnings

Dave — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 15:37:13 GMT

“Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living.” My school friend Mark and I were talking while walking the tree-lined, leaf-strewn path that took us to the University College Refectory. Of all the crazy notions, me telling him what Socrates said. Mark was a classics scholar who lived in the same dorm as I did at University of Toronto. He had probably read Socrates’ remark in the original Greek by Aristotle, and was wondering if I was trying to impress him, telling him what this Greek guy said. Maybe I was. It was typical of things boys did then. But this thought picked up from class had lodged in my brain. I was finding out philosophy was attractive to me—a way to impose order on the rabble of emotions.

Mark just gave a kind of dismissive snort in reply as if the notion was irrelevant to his life. “You know Socrates never actually wrote anything down, don’t you?”

Although I watched as he also tried out the role of rock and roll organist in a local band on the weekends, he seemed to have very early on decided his direction in life. Learning and teaching the Greek and Roman classics was probably the one thing he felt he could do well, and ultimately, he did become a tenured Classics professor. I think examining his life was not something he needed or cared to do at the time. And anyway, if I felt my life was unexamined, what did I hope to find out by examining it?

Mark wouldn’t stay at the Refectory for very long. This student hangout at U. of T. was a refuge for those avoiding responsibility, seeking relief from the strain and boredom of their classes. He would say hello to friends and be off to his next class. He didn’t goof off that much, only if he could get his schoolwork done at the same time, which he was usually quite capable of doing. He could work well with distractions in the room. It astonished us at the dorm one night when he revealed he was high on acid while taking notes and studying Greek history.

The Refectory like other college coffee houses of the old days was full of talk as well as clouds of cigarette smoke, the room all astir with the excitement of change, changes in society, our personal lives, our shifting identities. Beneath the haze of tobacco fumes, the scent of patchouli. Sometimes people made change sound like something you could take down off the shelf if you just paid the right price—or took the right drug. Find a guru, wear a fashionable outfit—Presto, Chango. You could be transformed, have a new liberated lifestyle.

The talk about psychology, birthed in our now godless scientific age, figured in our discussions in a big way, post-Freudian pioneers blazing new pathways to integration of the self, opened up for the immigrant fugitives of the church who lagged behind.

It may seem we frittered away valuable time that should have been applied to learning Chaucer, Milton, J. K. Galbraith and Herodotus, but we were actually making new discoveries of useful, more relevant paths to pursue. Some were actually skipping class of course.

So maybe you think I’ve been found out, caught rationalizing this deviant behavior, portraying the college goof-offs as higher minded than they really were. Some grasped at the opportunity to test ideas for real change that was in those discussions. We looked outside church and school to find ways to grow and self-realize, concepts that fought to emerge above the fatalistic din in my head that said, “No change is possible.”

Maybe our collective disappointment with blood families and relations was why we began to refer to the group of friends as “the family.” Later on some of us even founded a commune and tried living together.

One couple, Michael and Sue, had discovered the Vedanta teachings of Vivekananda (Hinduism) and were planning a trip to India. Sue and I got to talking in the Refectory one day and I learned more about it. It was a day I shared my enthusiasm for Carl Jung who I was reading for the first time. “Jung says, Christ is a symbol of the self, an archetype representing the whole person, not just centered on the ego. I think that’s what I’m aspiring to be—a whole person.”

“That’s what you can obtain through yoga teachings and meditation, a knowledge of the consciousness behind the Universe—Satchitananda, Dave, Bliss! Consciousness existed behind the Universe before the Earth was even created.”

“I think Jung says something like that also.” I believed in Jung’s ideas about the symbol-producing aspects of the unconscious, myths to reintegrate us into a healthier life, but it was an intellectual path. Sue and her boyfriend were taking action, studying the path, but also planning to have a teacher, a guru they called it. “Where will you go in India?” I asked her.

“We’ll join the Sri Auribindo ashram, an educational center he started a long time ago. We’ll learn to overcome all this Western materialism and junk we were raised with.”

Western society seemed to have decided against the reality of God and gone along with Nietzsche’s declaration, “God is dead,” so the orphaned children turned to other sources where something like God might be found again. A power drawing us forward to some indefinite goal also led me to Asian religions, at first specifically Hinduism from India, probably because of Beatle George Harrison, his fan-followers, and Sue and Michael of course, who’d left for India. We expected them to come back. But they never returned.

When my hometown friend Chris, an architecture student, undertook his search for truth, he settled on the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. My college dorm friend, Mark, was led by his love of blues singer Robert Johnson to make a pilgrimage to the unholy crossroads of the Blues, where music from the South Side of Chicago intersected with country blues of the Black American South. Another friend, Peter, went north during summer break to work on a road crew under the hot sun. He came back ennobled by labor, extolling the virtues of the working class and the life.

Each of us followed his muse, his grail, and shared their inspiration with the others. We enjoyed each other’s discoveries. It was a time before choices solidified, before we went our separate ways. Not long after however, the family broke up; most of them moved away. Chris was killed in a freak accident on a construction job in Labrador, crushed by a pile of heavy pipe that came loose. He’d only completed his second year at University. I still see and talk with Mark and some others now and again.

The examined life can help you choose a direction that brings more pleasure, wisdom, spiritual guidance, even wealth, maybe leading you to find a role in which you serve the community. Unfortunately, dear Socrates, I did not take my next step on the path based on any logical examination of my life. It was a whirlwind of emotions and crazy, out of control circumstances that ordained my future, and blew me down an unknown road.

Walking in the Rain, Singing Songs on the Way …

Dave — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 18:26:49 GMT

A miracle happened in California this week. It began to rain. It continued off and on for several days. In fact rain is still falling as I write this. We didn’t care that some days there was only drizzle, or the moisture-laden clouds stalled at the Berkeley Hills, leaving just the smell of rain in the air. The aromas of a renewed, rehydrated earth caused much rejoicing. Folks in the northeast, drowned in precipitation in all its forms, including frozen icy ones, probably think we’re daft. But for Californians who watched reservoirs drop to the bottom, and saw the rise of old drowned ghost towns lost for years, and redwood tree stumps suddenly emerging like apparitions from an ancient past, we experienced a real fear of running out of water.

Do you ever sing while you walk in the park in the rain? I’m like Gene Kelly, “Singing in the Rain,” except I’m not as good a dancer. On a walk between the raindrops this week, nourished spiritually while Urantia received heaven’s blessing, the words of a song that I’ve known for decades (actually much older, written in 1912) came back to me. It was “In the Garden,” and for the first time, the meaning of the words truly came alive for me. The lyric described the experience I was having here in 2014, over a century since it was written. I too had a very strong sense that he “walks with me, and he talks with me, and tells me I am his own.”

An Introduction to the Evolving Supreme

Dave — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 18:24:05 GMT

The Urantia Book (The UB) portrays the Supreme Being as, “the actualizing Deity of the evolving universes of time and space (113:3.6, pg. 1244).” This aspect of the 5^th epochal revelation, the depiction of a God still evolving, was unusual in religion when I first came across The UB in 1978, and a concept that drew me into a deeper study of the book. Here religion had finally met science and formed an alliance in a world created by God, but a greater god who used, “the creative technique known as evolution,” (20:0.5, pg. 223). “Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth.” (100:3.7, pg. 1097)

The Supreme is also described as the Oversoul of Creation (117:5, pg. 1285), a term that we first encounter in the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God.” (The Over-Soul)

In the Foreword, we find The UB’s initial more expanded definition, “God the Supreme – [is] ... personally experiencing the achievement of Deity unity as the … God of the evolutionary creatures of time and space.” (0:2.15; #4, pg. 4) We are also introduced in the Foreword to the seven levels on which Total Deity functions (as a unity), culminating in the Supreme and Ultimate levels.

The Supreme Being has been experienced and named by religious teachers in the past (for example by the authors of the Upanishads), but before The UB, the term Supreme Being was virtually a synonym for God. The UB is the first sacred text to clearly delineate it as a separate discernible reality from the Universal Father and has reserved the term Supreme for this specific sixth level of Total Deity.

Much more new information about the Supreme Being is revealed in The Urantia Book. I can suggest here a few questions that the concept of the Supreme answers for us.

Is Creation finished? Science has confirmed via pictures from space (first from the Hubble and later by more advanced telescopes) that stars are still being born, that creation is not completed.

Is God contentedly complete in the three persons of Trinity, removed or somehow outside of the Creation that is still unfolding? The statement, “God is himself still evolving” is a radical one in the context of traditional Christianity.

For those accustomed to the security of a religion of authority, a vista of imperfect, unstable, and unreliable situations arise. Disturbing to traditional religionists is the idea that if God is evolving it suggests he is not yet perfect, further leading to the implication that the previous revelations of God are only partially accurate, perhaps obsolete.

If new revelations of God are continuing to unfold, how do we assess the revelations we’ve already received in older sacred texts, the Bible, the Koran, the Torah? If they are in error, is it reasonable to continue to use them as guides to our decisions? We learn in the UB that, “in this way the sacred books of many religions have become fetishistic prisons incarcerating the spiritual imagination of man.” (88:2.6, pg. 969)

The important idea that God moves out of the “static” and “potential” aspects of eternity, the first two levels of Total Deity, into the “associative, creative, evolutional,” levels is hard for mortal beings to comprehend. My Catholic relatives could neither understand nor accept it.

Notice by the way how the first letter of each of these five Deity levels spells out the word SPACE. A joke, right? Possibly--but a good one. And also a useful way to memorize the seven levels of Total Deity. The last two levels, Supreme and Ultimate, spelling SU, prompted The UB study group leader, David Glass, to teach his mnemonic device, Space-Su(it).

In our era, process theology teaches, “a process must be inherent in God’s nature whereby his infinity is acquiring realization,” (A.N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas) and progressive Christianity is beginning to absorb such new thoughts.

On the back deck of a beautiful home in the mountains of Santa Cruz, a fellow reader and I stood together one cold winter night and watched the blazing stars of Orion dance across a clear, unpolluted sky like an unfolding spectacle of the Supreme, “He is seated upon the circle of the earth, and …he stretches out the heavens as a curtain (Isaiah 40:22). He was moved to the thought that if only people could come to know the Supreme, we might be better equipped to solve the planet’s problems, “… action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive kinship with the cosmic actuality of the Supreme Being.” (pg. 1211; 110.6.17)

I think my friend in Santa Cruz is right. We can rely on God the Supreme to reciprocate in any choice that has something to do with the further evolution of spiritual dominance over matter-energy, our spiritual natures finding greater control over material life circumstances. We are a harmony, a rhyme, with the purpose and destiny of the Supreme when our decisions help write this mighty song, this great poem.

“During the present universe age the evolving personalities of the grand universe suffer many difficulties due to the incomplete actualization of the sovereignty of God the Supreme, but we are all sharing the unique experience of his evolution. We evolve in him and he evolves in us.” (31:10.12, pg. 353)

“The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and leading of the Thought Adjuster. Personality, both human and superhuman, is characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called “the evolution of dominance,” the expansion of the control of both itself and its environment.” (112:2.15, pg. 1229) Talk about a path to solving environmental problems! Please join us on that path.

Further Thoughts on the Importance of Art Inspired by Chauvet Cave

Dave — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 18:21:39 GMT

I find it sad at times to observe that my artist, musician, and literary friends seem to run the opposite direction as soon as they hear or see any hint or appearance of Jesus’s presence in their midst. With poor vision distorted by old fears, it is the Christian version of Jesus they see, the one they likely grew up with, who inspires anti-abortion protesters to become terrorists, and fundamentalists to abhor advocates of gay marriage; not the Jesus we love in the Urantia Book (The UB). People of the arts also fear that their self-expression, their art is threatened, that it too will be negated, devalued, perhaps destroyed by a religion associated with the Master.

The UB seems to sympathize and show some understanding for the feeling, though from a somewhat different perspective: “Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them—and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.” (195:9.6, pg. 2083)

Jesus tried to correct a misperception that serving God and man required one to adopt the religious career of an evangelist, or minister of some kind, “Fail not to remember that the will of God can be done in any earthly occupation. Some callings are not holy and others secular. All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, subordinated to truth, ennobled by love, dominated by mercy, and restrained by fairness—justice. The spirit which my Father and I shall send into the world is not only the Spirit of Truth but also the spirit of idealistic beauty.” (155:6.11, pg. 1732)

Idealistic beauty, hmmm … now there’s a goal for an artist to strive for! So let us look at how the noble occupations of artist, musician, poet, painter and the rest are supported and encouraged to make art that guides our civilization to a higher purpose.

“The domains of philosophy and art intervene between the nonreligious and the religious activities of the human self. Through art and philosophy the material-minded man is inveigled into the contemplation of the spiritual realities and universe values of eternal meanings.” (5:4.4, pg. 67)

“The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity.” (48:7.23, pg. 557)

Einstein once wrote, “In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this [cosmic religious] feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.”

(fr. Science and Religion, 1930.) http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

“Art faces the same problem now … that it did then: namely, how to generate and articulate what Kandinsky called "the all-important spark of inner life," . . . As he said, "It is the core of spiritual experience." (Donald Kuspit)

“Beauty, art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of beauty. The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature. Man finding God and God finding man—the creature becoming perfect as is the Creator—that is the supernal achievement of the supremely beautiful, the attainment of the apex of cosmic art. (56:10.3, pg. 646)

“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts—such is the duty of the artist,” (Robert Schumann)

“Art proves that man is not mechanistic, but it does not prove that he is spiritually immortal. Art is mortal morontia, the intervening field between man, the material, and man, the spiritual.” (195:7.15, pg. 2079)

“In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion,” Alain de Botton. Perhaps what Monsieur de Botton said might still be true today but in an enlightened age to come, art and religion will combine forces to evolve a higher reverence for the Supreme, and friendship with the Creator, the greatest artist of all.

“Literature, music and art are the first and most sensitive spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself felt. They reflect the dark picture of the present time and show the importance of what at first was only a little point of light noticed by few and for the great majority non-existent. … they turn away from the soulless life of the present towards those substances and ideas which give free scope to the non-material strivings of the soul.” (artist, Wassily Kandinsky)

Keep the faith in that “Spirit of Idealistic Beauty” bestowed by Michael, our local Creator Son! From “a little point of light noticed by few” we artists can make a lighthouse to guide the travelers home.

Cromagnon Cave Artists: the Blue Sangiks

Dave — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 18:19:29 GMT

I had a chance to see Werner Hertzog’s famous documentary movie, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, (released April 2011), now available on Netflix. The film is about the Chauvet-Pont D’Arc cave in southern France and its cave paintings, older than the date fifteen thousand years ago given in The Urantia Book (The UB) as the height of prehistoric art. Latest information shows that usage of the cave has dates (not undisputed) that fall “into two groups, one centered around 27,000–25,000 BP (Gravettian culture) and the other around 32,000–30,000 BP (Aurignacian), obtained from radiocarbon dating of the charcoal on the wall, and on the floor of the cave.

The UB tells us the cave artists were from the blue Sangik race. These UB terms, blue race and blue man, are similar to the European term “Blue Blood” that originated with royal families claiming Visigothic decent, also a term going back in some sources as far as 2,500 BCE. Blue bloods may represent Europe’s historical memory of Sangik heritage.

“They had courage, but above all they were artists; the Adamic mixture suddenly accelerated creative imagination. The height of the blue man's art was about fifteen thousand years ago.” (80:3.7, Pg. 892) Rarely does The UB employ our anthropological terms, but the Archangel of Nebadon who authored paper 80 uses Cro-magnon in section 3, “The Cro-magnoid Blue Man.”

Richard Klein, a Stanford professor of anthropological sciences, has what many consider a controversial explanation for the sudden development of cave art. "I think there was a biological change -- a genetic mutation of some kind that promoted the fully modern ability to create and innovate." In an interview last year, he stood by his theory despite disagreements. “We know that over the course of evolution, there’s been a huge amount of genetic change. We start with people with brains one-third the size of ours, and then we have us”, bringing in a sudden revolution in human culture.

This idea of a biological mutation would be supported by the The UB account that individuals from the blue race and the Adamic race were mating. “The Adamic descendants preferred them to all of the later persisting colored races.” (64:6.21)

“The blue men, then dominant in Europe, had no religious practices which were repulsive to the earlier migrating Adamites, and there was great sex attraction between the violet and the blue races. The best of the blue men deemed it a high honor to be permitted to mate with the Adamites. Every blue man entertained the ambition of becoming so skillful and artistic as to win the affection of some Adamite woman (80:1.6, pg. 890).”

It appears their accomplishment in the arts was a result of this intermixing with the Adamites.

However, it was not the first time in The UB’s history that the blue race excelled in art. The leader of the Planetary Prince’s “planetary council on art and science” was Mek. “Mek did a great deal to advance the culture of the Andonites and to improve the art of the blue man. A blend of the blue man with the Andon stock produced an artistically gifted type, and many of them became master sculptors. They did not work in stone or marble, but their works of clay, hardened by baking, adorned the gardens of Dalamatia.” (66:5.26) Artistic gift was a potential the blue race always possessed as a genetic endowment, a gene first expressed or enhanced through the Andonite combination, then later through conjugal unions with the Adamites.

Chauvet Cave was also in the news when a research article was published in the May 2012, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” Several scientists from the University of Savoy, Aix-Marseille University and the Centre National de Prehistoire confirmed the paintings that were created by people in the Aurignacian era (named after Aurignac site in France), between 30,000 and 32,000 years ago. The findings are based on analysis using geomorphological and chlorine-36 dating of the rockslide surfaces around what is believed to be the cave’s only entrance. Analysis showed that the entrance was sealed by a collapsing cliff some 29,000 years ago, information that agrees with what was deduced from radiocarbon dating. Support for these dates also came from analysis of cave bear DNA found in Chauvet cave.

In The Urantia Book history, this time period follows just after Adam and Eve’s occupation of Eden and of the Second Garden.

Because of this long ago landslide, the Chauvet cave art was perfectly preserved. The general public has never been allowed to enter however director Werner Herzog received special permission from the French Minister of Culture to film inside the cave. The film consists of the cave footage as well as interviews with various scientists and historians. Herzog used 3-D in Cave of Forgotten Dreams to help "capture the intentions of the painters", who incorporated the stone wall's subtle bulges and contours into their art.

The Chauvet cave has been sealed off since its discovery in 1994 partly because of the previous problems at Lascaux Cave (discovered earlier in 1940). The admission of 1,200 visitors a day breathing out carbon dioxide led to the growth of mold on the walls that damaged the art. This led to the closure of Lascaux in 1963 and the creation of a facsimile, the so-called "Faux Lascaux." A replica of Chauvet Cave is also being planned and is scheduled to open to the general public by the end of 2014.

Fortune, the Young Man Fortunate to Meet Jesus

Dave — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 18:16:50 GMT

January is the customary time in our society when we make New Year’s resolutions. I don’t usually participate in the ritual because I try to make resolutions or “decisions” whenever the time is right and I am ready. “Revelation teaches mortal man that, to start … a magnificent and intriguing adventure … he should begin by the organization of knowledge into idea-decisions.” (101:6.7, pg. 1112)

Here is a story of a time when I made some important resolutions. Not in January. It was the springtime of a year during one of our intermittent economic recessions, when I was laid off from my employment at a music publishing house in downtown San Francisco. The only solid opportunity that came my way was a possible job as a security guard at the California Academy of Sciences, a museum in Golden Gate Park that included the Steinhardt Aquarium, very popular with kids. I was offered the job through an employee there, a neighbor we were friends with, and I took it gladly so I could keep us in the apartment with food on the table.

My wife and I used to jokingly refer to my new job as “guarding the alligators at the museum,” because central to the Aquarium was a display that had been built to simulate a swamp with flowing waterfalls and lush jungle growth. The “swamp tank” was used to house live crocodiles and alligators. The security guards were expected to protect the reptiles from being bothered by children (mostly) who dropped nickels and pennies on their backs. Our description of the job made my daughter laugh. She would tell her friends, “My dad used to guard the alligators,” when her class took their field trips to the Steinhardt.

Before I made the evening rounds with the round checker device we carried, I’d written out favorite quotes, mostly from The Urantia Book (The UB), some from other sources like an old Lakota prayer I loved. I used index cards to write the quotes out for purposes of memorization. The cards fit perfectly into my blue work shirt pocket, nicely concealed by the buttoned down flap. Some passages were about taking charge of my mental life, achieving self-mastery. I realized my personality was not under my control. Fears and subconscious needs overruled my conscious ego. I wondered if I brought failure on myself. One of my favorites was the speech Jesus gave to Fortune, “the young man who was afraid” in The UB, Paper 130. Jesus was instructing him like the Buddha, “teach your mind,” asking him to courageously face his problems and to refuse the bondage to fear and depression. I used this speech to Fortune to help myself gain “directionization” of my personality.

“Set your mind at work to solve its problems; teach your intellect to work for you; refuse longer to be dominated by fear like an unthinking animal. Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond servant of depression and defeat. But most valuable of all, your potential of real achievement is the spirit which lives within you …” (130:6.3, pg. 1438)

I told myself, "you must give yourself a direction even if you only take one step at at time."

“You are at full liberty to reject any part or all of the Thought Adjusters' program. It is their mission to effect such mind changes and to make such spiritual adjustments as you may willingly and intelligently authorize, to the end that they may gain more influence over the personality directionization; but under no circumstances do these divine Monitors ever take advantage of you or in any way arbitrarily influence you in your choices and decisions. The Adjusters respect your sovereignty of personality; they are always subservient to your will. (110:2.1, pg. 1204)

Although on the surface this museum guard job represented an unproductive phase in my life, it became an opportunity to set in motion achievements that came later, proof perhaps of the idea that our spiritual growth happens unconsciously. “The factors of religious growth may be intentional, but the growth itself is unvaryingly unconscious.” (100:1.8-9, pg. 1095)

This quirky practice that I hid from the other guards, the study and recitation of The UB quotes, made the quiet uneventful hours of guarding the museum more interesting. It also led to several good changes that flowed from a deeper intimacy with wise teachings. I resolved to develop my just discovered ability to write well. Already I was journaling on my lunch break in the guard’s locker room, or discussing poetry with Fritz, one of the guards who looked like a beatnik. Not long afterwards, I went on to earn B.A. and Master’s Degrees in writing. While I was still in school, we got pregnant and my wife and I joyfully undertook the work of raising a wonderful daughter. I began a new career with Wells Fargo, a well-known California bank.

Though the results registered unconsciously, it was the first time I created a conscious partnership of mind with the spirit and it bore fruit.

In seeing Jesus teach like the Buddha himself in these passages, “inspire your mind to control itself … release the body from the fetters of fear,” I learned to appreciate the universality of these religious teachings. I better understood being established in the dharma, the eight-fold path to righteousness. I found both plans of mental discipline more accessible to my understanding than the well known injunction, “Be you perfect,” also given in Christianity, which seemed to me to require rationalizations about your imperfections. Both the paths of Buddha and Jesus required fighting “the good fight of faith,” to perfect my faith, if not my character right away.

But there was more than a call to focus spiritual and mental strengths in Jesus’ speech, there was his call to action, “do great things with your body … activate the body … begin your deliverance from the evils of inaction,” and Fortune responded. He left the solitary mountain byways and went on to perform great acts of service for the believers in Crete. Let us all find ways to act in service to the Father. The time is here for our actions to help actualize the Supreme on this troubled earth, “… action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of ... kinship with ... the Supreme Being.” (110.6.14, pg. 1211)

Peace on Earth, Joy to all Humankind

Dave — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 18:14:33 GMT

A haze lay upon the conjoined waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. With Carquinez Strait in the distance, hidden from view, I turned my gaze back south to the peaks of Diablo and thought of the ancient psalmist who sang, “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help,” (Psalm 121). I think of this passage as a statement not only of his faith, but of a personal spiritual experience. I too have felt as if angels swooped in over a cleft in the rocks, from out of a mottled gray, late autumn sky, like God, literally rushing out to meet you in the middle of the air. Even when I don’t feel their presence, I try to remember they are there.

As I enter into contemplation and prayer, I soon discover God’s generosity, his loving kindness, his readiness to visit as soon as you are ready and willing to receive him. Jesus taught us this about our Father, "You have been admonished by the prophets from Samuel to John that you should seek for God—search for truth. Always have they said, 'Seek the Lord while he may be found.' And all such teaching should be taken to heart. But I have come to show you that, while you are seeking to find God, God is likewise seeking to find you.” (The Urantia Book, The UB, 169:1.2, pg. 1850)

The more I experience this, the less I perceive the need to work at preparations, chanting mantras, counting breaths, perfecting a posture, pulling and stretching my body parts into a reverential pose like Swami Vertebraeka. Nevertheless if old rituals help in the approach to him, then of course they are right and good.

The spirit helpers or angels bring joy from the heart of God. From a place of weakness and struggle, I sense the strength of it flowing into me, as I learn and understand the law of my being, how to go about the integration of ego-self with spirit, incorporating the elements of a total self, not leaving anything behind, not climbing out of an old skin, but finding the new wiggle room, getting more comfortable in the old one, using the power of my wounds, learning new ways to love one another better, and to value our families and friends more dearly.

“Man's sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality—living faith.” (The UB, 100:3.7, pg. 1097)

The call of a red tail hawk enters my meditations as it roosts in a nearby tree. Then the sound of flapping wings as it leaves its perch to fly further uphill, calling out a few more times until quiet returns. He’s settled somewhere, to peruse the blue oak forest and meadow below. The woods, silent again; the still calm of the fall season resumes. Joy comes and also peace for a time. We wait for winter rain to ease the drought in California.

I wish you all Merry Christmas and Joy and Goodwill on Urantia for all children, women and men. Let us find strength to accomplish the projects of Peace and Joy throughout the coming New Year.

Is God a Person?

Dave — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 18:12:15 GMT

I was a teenager when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi taught me about Absolute Being as a source of personal power, a way of discovering “greater fields of happiness.” But he rejected the idea in Western religions of a God who loves you personally. This suited me just fine when I was a young man who’d rejected his Christian church upbringing. I thought of the Absolute as much like “the Force” that Yoda instructs Luke Skywalker how to use in the Star Wars saga. Perhaps the Force was even innately Good as Plato spoke of it—Goodness as an absolute quality, the Perfect Form of goodness. The philosopher Jules Evans writes, “Plato thought our reason was divine, a fragment of God.” But Plato’s God of Reason had no personal or lovable qualities.

http://philosophyforlife.org/philosophies-for-life/platonists/#sthash.pVJPIBWJ.dpuf

My examination of these questions began when I made a mess of my life in the big city and was on a forlorn train trip back to my parents’ house. While gazing at the passing countryside out the window, I was overcome by emotion and started to pray for help until I stopped myself with the question, “What was I praying to?” Thinking reasonably, it seemed to me the unknowable Absolute Force would be indifferent to personal pleas although I believed its nature sustained, energized. “True prayer does not … appear until the agency of religious ministry is visualized as personal.” (The UB, 91:1.4, pg. 995)

Was I trying to go back to the God of my Sunday school upbringing which I debunked as a childhood fairy tale? Was I on my knees praying because of weakness, a pathetic inability to deal with a crisis?

Obviously I was confused and needed to sort out what I truly believed. I continued to read and study Asian religion and philosophy but this mostly added to my confusion because passages of scripture contradicted each other. After struggling for centuries with the question, spiritual teachers appeared unresolved about Bhagavan, personal nature, and Brahman, the impersonal aspect of the divine.

Then I read The Urantia Book (The UB) and was astonished by its concept, “The personality of the Paradise Son is absolute and purely spiritual, and this absolute personality is also the divine and eternal pattern, first, of the Father's bestowal of personality upon the Conjoint Actor and, subsequently, of his bestowal of personality upon the myriads of his creatures throughout a far-flung universe.” (6:7.2, pg. 79)

This information represented a huge irony to me. Where I had been struggling with an either/or “difference,” I actually got a both/and result, two sides of the same Deity. I eventually came to accept the new idea (for me) that the Absolute Being was also the God of love. This happened at the end of a very long struggle. But the question persists to this day. I hear the debate, is God a Person or an impersonal Force? Often in our modern secularized society, we also currently deal with the new aggressive doctrines of atheism.

When you’re young, they tell you that you have great potential. It pleased me to hear that and it satisfied me temporarily. But I didn’t want to just have potential; I wanted to achieve something. I was partly influenced by our highly individualistic nation where personal motivation to achieve is prized. Our first desire as motivated individuals is to make our dreams real. The question occurred to me, would God be any less motivated than I? Why should God not dream as we do, to have the desire to realize his full potential as a personality? The old proverb, “A stream cannot rise higher than its source,” seemed truly insightful and accurate. I could not imagine that “the source” would possess anything less in its nature than we mere mortals living downstream.

God had a dream that he wanted to bring to fruition. In my exploration of Hindu literature, I’d read the Rig Veda Creation Hymn that calls this the birth of desire, “first seed of mind.” God wished to be a creator, a creative artist, as well as a divine parent, a father as Jesus taught. He was perfect but also somehow incomplete without the actualization of his idea of nature and the rhythms of evolution. God wished to have the children of nature gathered around him.

We learn from the Foreword of The UB, that “Total Deity is functional on the following seven levels” (I’ll quote just the first five levels which are most relevant to a consideration of my questions here, leaving out Supreme and Ultimate for the moment):

0:1.4 Static —self-contained and self-existent Deity.

0:1.5 Potential —self-willed and self-purposive Deity.

0:1.6 Associative —self-personalized and divinely fraternal Deity.

0:1.7 Creative —self-distributive and divinely revealed Deity.

0:1.8 Evolutional —self-expansive and creature-identified Deity. (0:1.4-8, pg. 2)

We can readily observe that the universe is not just static, absolute and unchanging. We are witness to change, creativity, and evolution all around us.

In Genesis 1:2, the “Spirit brooded over the face of the deep” and suddenly there was a wrinkle in the fabric of eternity. A great personality stirred like the first ripple across the surface of “the waters.” God differentiated himself, rising like a wave out of the Unqualified Absolute, achieving “liberation from the fetters of unqualified infinity through the exercise of … eternal free will,” (0:3.21, pg. 6) to begin a long roll from one end of eternity to the other. This picture I imagine is perhaps inaccurate. Levels of Total Deity are concurrent, coexisting all at once, not unfolding in phases, but my metaphor helps me to understand the different levels of Deity, how Deity is both static—self-contained, and yet also creative—self-distributive and divinely revealed.

Once I accepted the reality of a Supreme Being, supreme albeit analogous in all aspects to my being, I was cognizant of an innate sense that we are part of a destiny that carries us to the other shore. We can’t see the far shore unless we use what some call the third eye, or the eye of faith. Locating it in our line of vision has to do with the “actualization of the Supreme” (117:4.9, pg. 1284).

The impulse to create a self and define a direction for that self must have a relationship to the segregation of personality out of static, undifferentiated (absolute) reality. We choose difference, movement and a purpose for this creative act, and we share all these motivations with the Creator, the First Source, who originally instigated the movement.

The teachings of Jesus expanded our horizons. He made a new revelation of an even higher aspect of the personality of God. “And so I give you this new commandment: That you love one another even as I have loved you. And by this will all men know that you are my disciples if you thus love one another.” (180:1.1, pg. 1944) When he gave his apostles this new commandment, Jesus emphasized the personal aspect of God who loved as a Father.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Live in my love even as I live in the Father's love. If you do as I have taught you, you shall abide in my love even as I have kept the Father's word and evermore abide in his love." (180:2.2, pg. 1945)

This was the great reward at the end of a long search, my discovery that I have a growing relationship with God the Person (really three Persons) as God the Father. And through Michael, our Creator Son, we are held in the embrace of the Eternal Son, the Absolute personality. A source of refreshment springs up within our weary souls. With water from the pure well, we slake the thirst brought on by our wanderings through the parched landscape of unanswered questions.

The Mysterious Denisovan Fossils of Siberia

Dave — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:10:28 GMT

An odd and provocative announcement appeared November 19^th in various science and nature magazines, such as, http://www.nature.com/news/mystery-humans-spiced-up-ancients-sex-lives-1.14196. The article is about the genetic sequencing of two fossil finds from the same cave site in Siberia, one from a Neanderthal (H. sapiens neandertalensis) and a finger bone from a Denisovan female specimen discovered in 2008. The previously unknown species is named after the Denisova Cave. Because both the Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes come from bones discovered in the same cave, they are thought to be “cousins.”

A year later (2009), analysis of the Denisovan mitochondrial DNA sequence revealed that it belonged to a kind of human being never before seen. It had been thought by many to be a species of Homo Sapiens (our species). Others classify it under the more general "hominin" (as a possible Homo Sapiens). This month’s articles revealed that more genetic information about “the mystery humans” was uncovered. In my own research I’d thought the new Denisovan fossil was archaic human, archaic H. Sapiens until I learned of the uncertain classification. The newest articles indicate the intermixing of an "unknown human type."

Denisovans are known only from this distal manual phalanx bone and two unusually large molars, all excavated at Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia. DNA from the fossils, well preserved by the cold climate, has been sequenced by the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig. However, the fossil DNA does not show up in the genomes of the Chinese or any other Asian people. Therefore they are not yellow Sangik race as would be classified in The UB’s terminology.

It should be noted that the article writer is a bit confused. His second last paragraph reads, "Most surprisingly, Reich said, the genomes indicate that Denisovans interbred with yet another extinct population of archaic humans that lived in Asia more than 30,000 years ago — one that is neither human nor Neanderthal." Oddly the writer discusses them as human in the next paragraph!

I can see grounds for the author’s confusion. For The UB readers, the time line of over 30,000 years ago is right for offspring of Adam and Eve, known as the Adamites (the violet race after the default). Note however that the date of the fossil site has been variously reported as 41,000 years old a year ago (2012) or 80,000 years ago by the BBC, both dates from long before Adam and Eve’s arrival on Urantia. As you can see, the uncertainties that plague the Denisovan discovery may possibly scuttle my Adamite theory. However let us proceed to explore it.

“The planetary history of the violet race, begin[s] soon after the default of Adam, about 35,000 B.C., and extend[s] down through its amalgamation with the Nodite and Sangik races, about 15,000 B.C.” (78:0.2)

“The more intelligent of the races of earth looked forward eagerly to the time when they would be permitted to intermarry with the superior children of the violet race … as it was, tremendous gains resulted from the small amount of the blood of this imported race which the evolutionary peoples incidentally secured.” (74:7.23, pg. 836)

Is the “pure” violet race human? Technically perhaps not, especially as to how their DNA must look to our genetic scientists, since the “imported” violet race does not spring organically from human populations as the Sangik races did. They are the children of a Material Son and Daughter.

“These Material Sons are the highest type of sex-reproducing beings to be found on the training spheres of the evolving universes. And they are really material.” (45:5.3, pg. 515)

“Adam and Eve were the founders of the violet race of men, the ninth human race to appear on Urantia. Adam and his offspring had blue eyes, and the violet peoples were characterized by fair complexions and light hair color—yellow, red, and brown.” (76:4.1, pg. 850)

The identity of the Denisovan female as a child of the Adamites does at least theoretically explain the discordant information in the DNA research.

There is one other significant detail about the findings in the Denisovan cave. It was originally thought the bone might belong to a member of our own species, Homo sapiens, because of the discovery of a sophisticated artifact. A beautiful stone bracelet of polished green chlorite found in the same deposits could only be the work of modern humans, unless perhaps of the unknown “human group.” It is a find that would be consistent with the presence of the more artistically gifted Adamites on the scene.

Readers of The UB might like to agree that this hypothetical group whose unfamiliar DNA has been found could be the violet race. We are tempted to view these discoveries as supportive of the information revealed in The UB. However, it is mysterious that violet race DNA would be considered “unknown” because much of it should be present in the genetic sequencing of modern day races. Perhaps it is the quantity of undiluted violet race blood (the unfamiliar DNA) that is mystifying the researchers. There is a lot to speculate on here. The scientists are speculating also! More info is most definitely needed to clear up the mysteries.

Other sources: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/125-missing-human-ancestor/shreeve-text

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19423147 (2012)

“Somebody Said a Prayer For Me”

Dave — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 18:08:13 GMT

“ … I feel a peace within my soul; somebody said a prayer for me, I’ve never felt this good before. Somebody prayed that I’d be well; somebody cared to send me strength; somebody wants me to have faith; I’m feeling healed once again.” (Copyright © Francyl Gawryn)

The folk-gospel song quoted above, Somebody Said a Prayer For Me, was composed by Francyl Gawryn, an accomplished singer and performer, also recognized for her songwriting ability. She has worked hard to perfect it and just completed her college senior project in composition. I have heard many of Francyl’s songs; the lyric, Somebody Said a Prayer For Me, has long been one of my favorites. It puts into words an experience that I’ve had a couple of times in my life.

The “somebody” she describes as praying for her doesn’t have to be a friend, family member or a fellow human being in every case. That someone who holds you lovingly in his or her prayers could be the indwelling Spirit Helper, or your angels who guide you.

“… the urge to pray so often experienced by God-conscious mortals very often arises as the result of seraphic influence.” (113:4.4, pg. 1245)

“Jesus consistently employed the beneficial influence of praying for one’s fellows.” (144:4.6, pg. 1621)

One morning upon waking to a winter sunrise through gray pines, I experienced a moment of cleansing. A feeling of forgiveness for all, and our human failings swept through me. In response to this sudden wave of spiritual uplift, I said a prayer specifically for my sister. Years before, we’d become estranged after a family quarrel and parted without resolving it, withholding any expression of forgiveness from each other. But we continued to exchange polite Happy Birthday notes and Christmas cards.

This sunrise moment released me from the burden I’d carried. For a brief time, everything sparkled before I had to return to my job in the tense, workaday corporate world.

That night after the same morning I made the prayer of forgiveness, my sister wrote to me for the first time in years, a real (email) letter of contact that seemed to prove there was a kind of circuit connecting us, as if she heard or felt my prayer and responded to it. This circuit must be there ready to be used at any time, even by those who couldn’t forgive each other in the past.

“You become conscious of man as your creature brother because you are already conscious of God as your Creator Father … Fatherhood becomes, or may become, a universe reality to all moral creatures because the Father has himself bestowed personality upon all such beings and has encircuited them within the grasp of the universal personality circuit.” (16:9.14, pg. 196)

I can recall another experience like it, only it was with a stranger the next time. I met Jim for the first time at a party celebrating a friend’s music studio opening. People came from many different towns to the open house gathering. Most of us didn’t know each other. I was in a group of three or four men talking together, meeting for the first time, when Jim, who was the oldest, suddenly told us he had leukemia, announcing he had six months to live. He said it without emotion and with no expectation of a response. He simply stated it as a fact and didn’t seem to be asking for sympathy.

It was not a moment when I felt comfortable about answering him with something real and direct. Apparently none of us did. However I was aware in my mind of an immediate sensation that I’d conveyed a message of strength and support to him. Though I was hesitant to voice it out loud, I transmitted it to him over the “air waves.” All this occurred unconsciously at first, that is, until he spoke up as he left the party. Then I consciously realized what had happened.

He expressed gratitude to the group in a manner that struck me as unusual, thanking us for the “quality of the conversation.” “Especially you,” he said, turning to face me. Somewhat astonished, I went over what I remembered about our talk. The only thing said that could truly be described as having “quality” was the silent message I’d sent. I realized that he must have been aware of receiving my prayer sent to comfort him.

“When you pray for the sick and afflicted, do not expect that your petitions will take the place of loving and intelligent ministry to the necessities of these afflicted ones. Pray for the welfare of your families, friends, and fellows, but especially pray for those who curse you, and make loving petitions for those who persecute you. ‘But when to pray, I will not say. Only the spirit that dwells within you may move you to the utterance of those petitions which are expressive of your inner relationship with the Father of spirits.’” (146:2.11, pg. 1639)

I asked my wife if she’d ever had the experience of praying for someone and feeling that it was recognized or received. She confirmed it had happened to her before. I think probably many of us must occasionally have these experiences of spiritual connection with each other. There are cases when we have the capacity to communicate effectively, even telepathically, with another person who is in danger or in need. I do believe that the effectiveness of prayer, its capacity for binding us together, is something that improves with practice.

As Francyl’s words say, “I felt so awful and alone; it seemed I’d lost my light upon the path, and I just couldn’t get back home, when hope came flying in at last. Somebody said a prayer for me.” (Copyright © Francyl Gawryn)

Francyl Gawryn, is a director of youth and children ministries at Grace Community Church, in Boulder City, NV, where she works with Sunday school and after-school programs, one of those tireless laborers in the vineyard who receives occasional attention for her ministry. Of course, she doesn’t do the work to earn personal recognition. She once said she uses “music, dance, or any way we can worship God, since that's what I'm going for."

Somebody Said a Prayer For Me, from her album Love Songs of Heaven and Earth can be heard or purchased at: http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/artist_songs/2611990

(This article is modified from the original that appeared on examiner.com site in October 2012.)

Coping with Depression While Leading a Spiritual Life

Dave — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 18:05:14 GMT

I recently featured in this blog an article encouraging the use of spiritual resources to improve one’s mental health. It turned out to be a hot button topic. Shortly afterwards, there was a discussion in one of our Facebook friend groups that fascinated me because more people were drawn to talk about their struggles with depression than most topics I’d seen initiated on this social media site before. There is such an urgency to the issue it demands further consideration. Many people are suffering; direct and immediate responses are needed.

The host of the Facebook discussion wrote, “I am moved by the stories of people who know all is not right with their emotional/mental states and pursue full health. When my therapist asked ‘how much time a day I was willing to spend on my mental health?’ it really stopped me. But,” she protested, “that would take time away from my many projects, my work schedule, my housework, etc." The need for a daily application of effort is a consistent recommendation from those who offer therapy, care or guidance.

Many participants in the discussion were concerned to find a medication that was more effective and also safe, along with a good cognitive therapist. However it is meditation as therapy, not medication that I want to focus on here. The group came up with five pillars of mental wellness: “sleep, nutrition, exercise,” another one which was termed “stress reduction.” This category is the one under which breathing and yoga, “being present,” Tai Chi, and meditation techniques are usually listed and recommended by health professionals. The fifth and last pillar mentioned by the group was social support, something these Facebook friends were clearly providing for each other.

Though the causal factor, loss of faith, was not raised in our discussion group (a mostly secular group of poets and writers), it is a major cause of depression. I don’t necessarily just mean faith in God or Jesus or some other spiritual entity (though I would include it). It often involves the loss of a dependable path that once inspired a reaction of desire, passion, or the will to accomplish a goal. We may already even know that what is needed is a re-examination of our faith perspective, looking for ways to regain it. We may also realize this redirection to a goal we’ve believed in before needs to be either recovered, refreshed, or revised and renewed. But depression takes over sometimes, those times when we encounter weakness, helplessness, and even laziness as we contemplate the work required to accomplish a renewal/revival.

Jesus in The UB is a strong advocate for meditation, his “stress reduction technique,” worshipful communion as he describes it. “Believers must increasingly learn how to step aside from the rush of life — escape the harassments of material existence — while they refresh the soul, inspire the mind, and renew the spirit by worshipful communion. God-knowing individuals are not discouraged by misfortune or downcast by disappointment. Believers are immune to the depression consequent upon purely material upheavals; spirit livers are not perturbed by the episodes of the material world.” (156:5.12-13, pg. 1739)

We could all benefit by reading the case histories of depression recorded in The UB: Fortune (130:6, pg. 1437), the woman with the spirit of infirmity (167:3.2, pg. 1835), and the apostle Thomas (139:8.10-11, pg. 1562). Jesus was very understanding of Thomas’s struggles. He never questioned the strength of Thomas’s belief or faith. His support of Thomas and his teachings reassure us that the more we progress in our faith, the more we will “increasingly” be immune to depression.

One of the meditative techniques taught at conferences and in many churches, is the Centering Prayer, a practice promoted by Fr. Thomas Keating (www.contemplativeoutreach.org). We can in our contemplation or worship time move the perspective away from ego-based mind to spirit mind. We allow spirit mind to come in and consult with us on our faith path, our life journey. “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths of his heart.” (Proverbs 20:27) Whether we call this process meditation, worship, communion, prayer, or visualization, the technique can have the same results we desire—renewal and revival.

Completion of the grief process, or unfinished emotional business, was a topic that came up in the Facebook discussion. One of the group said, “It is true that true mental stability requires a lot of attention, attention that I am often reluctant to give, partly because I resent having to deal with past traumas.” I have sometimes wondered if there is a final point where we have completed the grief process. My own experience in completing my experience with my father seems to require occasional revisiting.

http://www.griefrecoverymethod.com/1993/02/unresolved-grief-difficult-person/

The apostle Thomas suffered from depression and it seemed to stem at least partly from an unresolved grief from his childhood. “Thomas had some very bad days; he was blue and downcast at times. The loss of his twin sister when he was nine years old had occasioned him much youthful sorrow and had added to his temperamental problems of later life.” (139:8.10)

The solution to his depression was choosing to take advantage of the “pillar” of his support group, his fellowship with the other apostles. “He was inclined toward melancholic brooding when he joined the apostles, but contact with Jesus and the apostles largely cured him of this morbid introspection.” (139:8.5)

The Four and Twenty Counselors, Part II

Dave — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 17:03:40 GMT

There is a statement I frequently come back to in The Urantia Book (UB), Paper 67:0.1, pg. 754. It’s an important touchstone I have quoted from before in this forum. “The problems associated with human existence on Urantia are impossible of understanding without a knowledge of certain great epochs of the past, notably the occurrence and consequences of the planetary rebellion.”

Not only has our planet needed a “new universe story,” it has also needed an upgraded and improved version of the old. The UB provides both.

Memories of the Lucifer Rebellion are fading but I can sometimes find a distant echo in Christian commentary. Author C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) once said in a sermon, “Our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.” (fr. The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis)

Clearly Lewis discerned the importance of, the very necessity of, possessing a knowledge of the planetary rebellion that The UB preserves for us.

Some readers may believe this council of twenty-four is new information, revealed in The Urantia Book for the first time. Indeed much of it is quite new. However, those raised with the Bible may have already encountered the Four and Twenty Elders in John the Divine’s Book of Revelation, 4:4, (also quoted in The UB, 45:4.1, pg. 513). There we find, "And round about the Throne were Four and Twenty Seats (Thrones): and upon the Seats I saw Four and Twenty Elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads Crowns of Gold."

“When in temporary exile on Patmos, John wrote the Book of Revelation, which you now have in greatly abridged and distorted form.” (139:4.14, pg. 1555)

In their interpretations made from the scant record preserved in the Bible, scholars have already deduced much of what The UB says about the Book of Revelation. These theologians have understood John’s Revelation better than we did from anything we heard about it in an average Sunday morning sermon, if such a sermon about his book was even preached.

I know I must have heard one in my church, St. Paul’s United Church of Canada, because I remember I wanted to have my name “written in the book of life. (Rev 20:15)” Otherwise it was “the lake of fire” for me!

Many Christian commentators figured out that the elders are surviving (resurrected) mortals of advanced spiritual standing. Some speculate that they are the twelve apostles and the twelve patriarchs of Israel (http://watch.pair.com/24-elders.html) however that would make it a somewhat one-sided ruling body, not only all male, but a completely Jewish council. The UB presents a more diverse group. It is revealed that the twenty-four include the spiritual leaders of the eight races of Urantia such as Onagar, Singlangton, and Onamonalonton.

Some UB readers have unhappily pointed out that the council has only one woman representative out of the sixteen members named, she being Adam’s mate Eve. My only speculation on this point is that if spiritual leadership is the criteria, “by nature they were all real leaders when they functioned on Urantia,” (114:2.1, pg. 1251) there were few women to choose from. Most ancient societies did not allow woman to hold such leadership positions.

Naturally, Christian scholars are forced to fall back on the information in the Bible alone (at least publicly). I came across Pastor John Burke’s scholarly analysis (same link above) which resonates in a fascinating way with The UB revelation. He points out that the elders are “saints,” and resurrected “representatives of the redeemed human race,” not angels. He goes on to say, “These beings are called "elders" and nowhere else in the Bible are angelic beings ever called "elders" but there are many instances where men are so designated.”

The author of the Book of Revelation believed that the councilors had been given the authority and ability to pass judgment. “I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgment was given unto them (Rev. 20:4).” However, the UB does not agree with the Biblical account on this point.

“The actual administration of Urantia is indeed difficult to describe. There exists no formal government along the lines of universe organization, such as separate legislative, executive, and judicial departments. The twenty-four counselors come the nearest to being the legislative branch of the planetary government.” (114:5.1, pg. 1254)

In John the Revelator’s version, the elders sing a song of worship to “the Lamb,” the divine entity we would know as Michael of Nebadon, “and they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the Book, and to open the Seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us … out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign on the earth,” Rev. 5:9-10. For more, also see http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/tbr/tbr022.htm

In The UB, we see the elders described as “his [Christ Michael’s] personal agents on Jerusem” (45:4.1) and serving as Governors General of our planet and the other quarantined planets.

The UB authors do not discredit the Book of Revelation. That they admire John’s work is clear, “This Book of Revelation contains the surviving fragments of a great revelation, large portions of which were lost, other portions of which were removed, subsequent to John’s writing. It is preserved in only fragmentary and adulterated form.” (139:4.14) We have to hope that the missing portions will perhaps be discovered by archaeologists some day in the future.

The UB adds much to the small amount of information given in the Bible. Just as we were told that the 19^th governor general was succeeded by the 20^th “during the times of the preparation of these narratives (114:3.1, p. 1252),” note this would refer to the year A.D. 1934 [31:10.22, pg. 354]. We also learn in other sections of The UB the names of two executives who have previously served.

“1-2-3 the first, the eldest of the primary order, was released from immediate planetary duties shortly after Pentecost. This noble midwayer stood steadfast with Van and Amadon during the tragic days of the planetary rebellion, and his fearless leadership was instrumental in reducing the casualties in his order. He serves at present on Jerusem as a member of the twenty-four counselors, having already functioned as governor general of Urantia once since Pentecost.” (77:9.5, pg. 866)

“Less than a thousand years ago this same Machiventa Melchizedek, the onetime sage of Salem, was invisibly present on Urantia for a period of one hundred years, acting as resident governor general of the planet; and if the present system of directing planetary affairs should continue, he will be due to return in the same capacity in a little over one thousand years.” (93:10.10, pg. 1025)

The UB goes on to say that the name of the current “planetary supervisor” is withheld because human beings are so prone to venerate “even to deify” (114:3.1) these rulers. I know I shouldn’t think such things, and I am undoubtedly guilty of some form of veneration, but it pleases me to think that Onamonalonton, the spiritual leader of the red race, has served as resident governor general during my lifetime!

The Spirit of Truth: a New Sense of Fullness for Lives That Are Empty

Dave — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 16:59:42 GMT

“The first mission of this spirit [of Truth] is, of course, to foster and personalize truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this spirit to destroy the believer's feeling of orphanhood.” (194:2.2, pg. 2061)

We may first experience the desire for God when overwhelmed by feelings of being alone in the universe. I encounter many fellow humans suffering from loneliness and isolation, described in The Urantia Book (The UB) as a “feeling of orphanhood.” If in discovering God, we experience being comforted, I believe it is the result of the ministry of the Spirit of Truth “which … shall guide and comfort you,” (180:4.2, pg. 1948) also known as the Comforter in both The UB and the Bible (John 14:26, 15:26, 16:7).

The feeling of being comforted may be the initial experience that leads us to accept God as a friend. The UB clarifies that “the Comforter” of John’s gospel is the Spirit of Truth bestowed on earth at the end of Jesus’ life, Michael’s bestowal.

Just because one has found The UB, or a spiritual self-help book, and absorbed its information, does not mean he or she won’t still experience emotions that can overwhelm one even in situations where there are solutions. Exhaustion and hopelessness, a profound sense of sin and unworthiness, or the paranoia of not being loved can dog our footsteps. Understanding the feelings of loneliness and hopelessness in ourselves, we can recognize the same in friends and loved ones, knowing there are times we can’t seem to derive comfort in the message of God’s love.

One of our famous local SF Bay Area characters, Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest) once talked with the Paris Review about people who struggle in the valley of the shadow of death. He described the stratagem of self-medicating to deal with pain. “It’s the same old wilderness, just no longer up on that hill or around that bend or in the gully. It’s the fact that there is no more hill or gully, that the hollow is there and you’ve got to explore the hollow with faith. If you don’t have faith that there is something down there, pretty soon when you’re in the hollow, you begin to get scared and start shaking. That’s when you stop taking acid and start taking coke and drinking booze and start trying to fill the hollow with depressants and Valium.”

Kesey went on to say in this interview: “Real warriors like William Burroughs or Leonard Cohen or Wallace Stevens examine the hollow as well as anybody; they get in there, look far into the dark, and yet come out with poetry.”

“The spirit which my Father and I shall send into the world is not only the Spirit of Truth but also the spirit of idealistic beauty. (155:6.11, pg. 1732)

I recently read Darkness Visible by William Styron, a book I resisted reading for years (it came out in 1990). His experience of depression is illuminating for someone like myself who suffers comparatively mild symptoms when evaluated next to his, though I was still able to recognize features he described with such vividness. Styron’s depression was so severe he sought a cure through a hospitalization that lasted about seven weeks.

Unfortunately, I think, his book shows no experience of, or recognition of the Spirit of Truth, or any other spiritual assistance or helpers, for that matter. His one mention of religion is to condemn the ineffectiveness of Christian platitudes. I concluded that his complete indifference to the influence of spiritual life was a reason he suffered depression to such an extreme. However there is more to say on the unconscious experiences leading to his rescue that is beyond the range of this article. I came away from that book with a stronger faith in having our minds centered on "God." Anchoring oneself in the love of the Spirit helps me recharge, restore, regain balance, and continue to make progress in life.

The Apostle Paul wrote about the Comforter as the Spirit of Adoption: "For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.'" (Romans 8:12-17)

"The Supreme Spirit shall bear witness with your spirits that you are truly the children of God. And if you are the sons of God, then have you been born of the spirit of God; and whosoever has been born of the spirit has in himself the power to overcome all doubt, and this is the victory that overcomes all uncertainty, even your faith. (Discourse on Assurance, UB pg. 1601, 142:5.3)

Styron wrote that “self-hatred … a failure of self esteem and… a feeling of worthlessness,” were key causes of his depression. Jesus taught a new insight into Job’s self hatred in his private conference with the apostle John. He perceived another meaning to Job’s suffering, how Job used it as a fulcrum to turn it around.

“Even in the very face of the breakdown of his theological defenses he ascended to those spiritual heights where he could sincerely say, ‘I abhor myself’; then was there granted him the salvation of a vision of God. So even through misunderstood suffering, Job ascended to the superhuman plane of moral understanding and spiritual insight. When the suffering servant obtains a vision of God, there follows a soul peace which passes all human understanding.” (148:6.3)

Jesus taught believers, “Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” (John 16:24) “I have come that my brethren in the flesh may have joy, gladness, and life more abundantly.” (John 10:10, and 15:11, UB pg. 1558) “I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sorrow, confidence in the place of dread, loving service and appreciative worship in the place of slavish bondage and meaningless ceremonies.” (UB 149:6.5, pg. 1675)

With his gift of the Spirit of Truth to the planet, this access to joy obtained, the door was opened. We can in our meditations and prayers ask for guidance and comfort from this Spirit and expect with confidence to receive it.

“Intellectual self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience.” (2:7.6, pg. 42)

More on Urantia’s Planetary Government: The Four and Twenty Counselors (Part One)

Dave — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 16:57:05 GMT

With Onamonalonton recently on our minds after The United Urantia Family Festival’s (TUUFF’s) Yosemite celebration in August, let us also honor him for his position on the council of twenty four, assisting our planet as a representative of our Creator Son, Michael. It’s even possible Onamonalonton has served his one hundred year term as resident governor general at some point since Michael became Planetary Prince. He could be serving as we speak but we are not given such provocative details in The Urantia Book.

Each of these counselors serves as a governor general on Urantia as “a provisional and advisory chief executive.” “Every one hundred years of Urantia time, the Jerusem corps of twenty-four planetary supervisors designate one of their number to sojourn on your world to act as their executive representative, as resident governor general.” (114:3.1, pg. 1252)

Sixteen of the counselors are introduced by name in The UB, (45:4, pg. 514). The other eight seats are “not permanently occupied.”

“Urantia had no sure and settled relationship with the local universe and its administrative divisions until the completion of Michael's bestowal in the flesh, when he was proclaimed, by the Union of Days, Planetary Prince of Urantia. … in practice the Sovereign Creator Son made no gesture of personal administration of the planet aside from the establishment of the Jerusem commission of twenty-four former Urantians with authority to represent him in the government of Urantia and all other quarantined planets in the system. One of this council is now always resident on Urantia as resident governor general.” (114:1.1, pg. 1250)

Of the consequences The UB asks us to understand, a major one is the effect of the quarantine imposed on our planet following the Lucifer Rebellion of 200, 000 years ago. After the default of the Prince’s staff, a temporary government was installed under twelve Melchizedek receivers (as discussed in my blog item of 9/13). The rebellion ended our relationship with the visible representation of universe rule that we had with the Prince’s staff, although Prince Caligastia himself was not visible to human eyes. Some relief for this situation came much later with the arrival of an Adam and Eve, a Material Son and Daughter, 37,927 years ago.

“These Sons [and Daughters] provide the inhabited worlds with a mutually contactable intermediary between the invisible Planetary Prince and the material creatures of the realms.” (45:5.3, pg. 515)

However as we learn in The UB story, later machinations of the deposed Planetary Prince Caligastia ("the serpent" of the Bible) led to the default of our Adam and Eve. They then experienced a degradation of status from “Son and Daughter of God” to that of mortals. When they subsequently departed Urantia through the normal process of mortal death, the isolation of our planet seemed complete. Our planet Earth had suffered a double default of universe leadership.

How will this “restoration of … lost knowledge (101:4.5)” of the Lucifer Rebellion help our understanding of human problems? I have noticed that it has sharpened my awareness of where, how, and when the Lucifer Doctrine still operates in our planetary affairs.

Another crucial lesson for us here is the importance of renewing our faith as a way to build relationship with “the kingdom,” or universe government. Because we no longer have a visible representative of a heavenly government, we must learn to treasure our relationship with the Father through the Thought Adjuster’s presence, with Jesus through the Spirit of Truth, with other “heavenly helpers,” and rely on our faith “in the evidence of things unseen (99:5.8, Hebrews 11.1).” We must proudly fulfill our role as “agondonters … evolutionary will creatures who can believe without seeing, persevere when isolated, and triumph over insuperable difficulties even when alone.” (50:7.2; pg. 579)

(In Part 2 of this article, I will cover previous revelations of the twenty four counselors. Please stay tuned!)

How Philosophy Serves In our Personal Growth: Managing Disappointment

Dave — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:55:01 GMT

We usually think of philosophy as the quest for meaning in life. Religious certainty, faith may be the end result of the quest. Strength of character can also result from our efforts to think clearly about our values. When we have made wise choices in favor of goodness and truth, allowed a hopeful optimism to triumph over our crushing disappointments, humility instead of egoistical pride, these decisions are our accomplishments, evidence of our growth in self-mastery. The behavior choice becomes our possession, and eventually a habitual reaction, the foundation of a philosophy of living.

“When these experiences are frequently repeated, they crystallize into habits, strength-giving and worshipful habits, and such habits eventually formulate themselves into a spiritual character, and such a character is finally recognized by one's fellows as a mature personality.” (160:3.2, p. 1777)

In giving advice to achieve a healthy philosophy of life The UB authors offer us in contrast the example of Judas: “Judas met defeat in his battles of the earth struggle because of the following factors of personal tendencies and character weakness: … 3. He never acquired a philosophic technique for meeting disappointment. Instead of accepting disappointments as a regular and commonplace feature of human existence, he unfailingly resorted to the practice of blaming someone in particular, or his associates as a group, for all his personal difficulties and disappointments.” (193:4.4-7, pg. 2056)

Jesus had learned this “philosophic technique” from his own personal life experiences growing up. For example, after the death of Joseph, “Apparently all Jesus' plans for a career were thwarted. The future did not look bright as matters now developed. But he did not falter; he was not discouraged. He lived on, day by day, doing well the present duty and faithfully discharging the immediate responsibilities of his station in life. Jesus' life is the everlasting comfort of all disappointed idealists. (126:5.4, pg. 1393)

Are you a disappointed idealist? You will probably agree with me that those who read and believe in The Urantia Book (UB) are susceptible to encountering such a fate.

Some writers believe that this lack of a philosophy of life has become a part of the national character at present. Jesus felt this had happened to the Jewish people and so he told Gonod and Ganid (132:7.5, pg. 1467): “my people are piteously enslaved to the fear of a God without a saving philosophy of life and liberty.”

In commenting on American society, poet Robert Bly wrote, “Denial can be considered as an extension—into all levels of society—of the naïve person’s inability to face the harsh facts of life. The health of any nation’s soul depends on the capacity of adults to face the harsh facts of the time.” (Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, pg. 195)

Bly believed that “great art,” particularly great poetry, would help people get used “to having that flavor of bitter truth in the mouth.”

American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, saw disappointment as an opportunity to learn courage. “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.”

The Japanese have a saying, “Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

Our greatest master teacher, Jesus, taught that love and service could be learned during episodes of disappointment. His final admonition to Nathaniel the philosophical apostle was, “Admix friendship with your counsel and add love to your philosophy. Serve your fellow men even as I have served you. Be faithful to men as I have watched over you. Be less critical; expect less of some men and thereby lessen the extent of your disappointment.” (192:2.10, pg. 2049)

The Melchizedek Receivers and the Early Government of Urantia

Dave — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 16:52:29 GMT

It is not recognized in currently understood history of planet Earth that our affairs were administered for over 160,000 years by an emergency council of Sons of God. They worked in liaison with the loyal children of Urantia whose steadfast faithfulness was crucial to the cause. This council was put into place following the “war in heaven.” There are vestiges of this knowledge in the Bible and world literature but sadly even these are fading from memory. This is revealed history, “the restoration of important bits of lost knowledge concerning epochal transactions in the distant past.” (UB 101:4.5)

Melchizedek Sons, the first order of the local universe Sons of God (35:2), joined with the Amadonites, the human associates of Van, a former leader on Prince Caligastia’s staff, to preserve Urantian civilization. This period of governance began when the Lucifer Rebellion of 200,000 years ago resulted in the default of Caligastia and most of his staff.

“The affairs of Urantia were for a long time administered by a council of planetary receivers, twelve Melchizedeks, confirmed by the mandate of the senior constellation ruler, the Most High Father of Norlatiadek [a Vorondadek Son]. Associated with the Melchizedek receivers was an advisory council, “that included [among others] … the two resident Life Carriers, … a volunteer Teacher Son, … advisers from two neighboring planets, … and Van, the commander in chief of the midway creatures. And thus was Urantia governed and administered until the arrival of Adam.” (67:6, 5, pg. 759)

Note that the “Most High” are Vorondadek Sons, the second order of universe sonship (35:5), constellation administrators as differentiated from the third order of sonship, the Lanonadek sons, Caligastia being one. The Lanonadeks serve as rulers of the local systems (35:8).

Let’s look at this unusual use in a philosophical/religious work of the term “receivers.” It made sense after I checked my dictionary. In the legal sense of the word, a receiver is a person appointed by a court to manage the affairs of a bankrupt business or person, or to care for property in litigation.

Our Walnut Creek Study Group was reading The Garden of Eden, Paper 74, during our meetings last fall. Many questions came up about the rarely-discussed Melchizedek receivers, described in The Urantia Book (The UB) as having taken charge of the affairs of rebellion-torn Urantia. Their authority continued up until the arrival of Adam and Eve. It is very troubling to watch them depart the planet leaving our Material Son and Daughter in total loneliness.

The era of Melchizedek rule represents a time period from 200,000 years before present to 37,848 years before present (1934 dates), lasting more than 162,200 years. It will especially interest students of The UB that Machiventa Melchizedek, who later completed his own emergency bestowal mission to Urantia about 4,000 years ago, was one of this group of twelve receivers (93:1.3, pg. 1014).

Going back to the times of the Rebellion 200,000 years ago, all were given time to choose where to affirm their loyalty. This is described as, “The Seven Crucial Years,” in paper 67:3. No action was taken before that point in respect of the free will decision of every personal being involved with the insurrection. The Melchizedeks formed their provisional government on Urantia only after the “seven years of waiting.”

“But at last the final decision of the last personality was made, and then, but only then, did a Most High of Edentia arrive with the emergency Melchizedeks to seize authority on Urantia. The Caligastia panoramic reign-records on Jerusem were obliterated, and the probationary era of planetary rehabilitation was inaugurated.” (67:3.10, pg. 757)

The Melchizedeks granted Van titular authority over our planet, and “his loyal army of men, midwayers, and angels,” was entrusted to carry out their policies. Van and Amadon, who gained renown as “the human hero of the rebellion,” set out to establish communities loyal to the Universal Father’s rule. “Within one thousand years after the rebellion he had more than three hundred and fifty advanced groups scattered abroad in the world.” (67:6.5-6, pg. 759)

Many of these settlements were situated around the lake that still bears Van’s name (present day Turkey). “Van was left on Urantia until the time of Adam, remaining as titular head of all superhuman personalities functioning on the planet. For over one hundred and fifty thousand years, he and Amadon were sustained by the technique of the tree of life in conjunction with the specialized life ministry of the Melchizedeks. (67:6.4)

Another question that came up for our study group was: could Van actually see his Melchizedek advisors in face to face meetings with them. Recalling that Van, as an original member of the Prince’s staff, once directed “the supreme court of tribal co-ordination and racial cooperation” (66:5.31, pg. 749), I did more research. I wanted to find out what supernormal capabilities the original staff possessed before they lost their immortal status. Van would have still retained these abilities as he still had access to the tree of life.

We are informed in 66:4.10 that “the primary midway creatures” were “wholly visible to the planetary staff and to their celestial associates but … not visible to the men and women of the various human tribes.” From this I deduced it was likely Van could also see the Melchizedek receivers while he held conference with them and the advisory council.

“The twelve Melchizedek receivers of Urantia did heroic work. They preserved the remnants of civilization, and their planetary policies were faithfully executed by Van,” with the aid of the 144 Amadonites led by Amadon (67:6.5-6; p.760).

Many millennia later, Adamson, the eldest son of Adam and Eve, set out on a three year search for the people and the northern lands by Lake Van, the stuff of romance, his “childhood fantasies (77:5.5).” With the life companion he finds there, Ratta, who became the mother of sixty-seven children, he founds another outpost of civilization, one that became the basis of our present day civilizations in Europe and India.

Where Were Onamonalonton’s California Headquarters Located?

Dave — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 16:48:37 GMT

I have been asked a few times about the location of Onamonalonton's "headquarters" in the California redwoods. I borrowed the title of this blog item from the Fellowship Herald article I published in 2009. In that essay, I put forward a theory that this Pre-Columbian center of civilization was founded at "a place on the Klamath River" (from a Hupa tribe legend) near Mt. Shasta, a location that fits within the California redwoods range. The redwood forest extends all the way up to the northern border of our state. Here’s the link to the 2009 article:

http://urantia-book.org/archive/newsletters/herald/Herald%202009.pdf

“Many of his [Onamonalonton’s] later descendants have come down to modern times among the Blackfoot Indians.” (Urantia Book, 64:6.7) Such an ancestry places Onamonalonton securely within a group of native peoples who speak what linguists call the Algonkin dialect. The term is a broader category than the more familiar term Algonquin which is a tribe name.

I have since done more research on the linguistics along with other related anthropology studies. The evidence we have is not without controversy and disagreement (as in most science) but it places the only incidence of the Algonkin dialect in California among the Yurok, Wiyot, and other tribes (related to the Hupa) who inhabit the Mt. Shasta region. This location is quite a bit north of Yosemite.

There are several reasons besides the Algonkin language and tribal literature (such as Hupa traditions I wrote about) to place Onamonalonton's headquarters in the Mt. Shasta region and I hope to publish these.

I realized after I wrote the Fellowship article in 2009 that my Shasta theory did not agree with apocryphal lore associating Yosemite’s Grizzly Giant Big Tree with Onamonalonton's headquarters. This unpublished material, which was also not authorized for inclusion in The Urantia Book, is circulating at present because of The United Urantia Family Festival recently held in Yosemite.

Much of the scholarship I did to back up my Mt. Shasta theory was not ready to include in the 2009 article. I hope for a new version of "the Civilization of Onamonalonton" in the near future.

How do I account for the discrepancy between my research based on linguistic and anthropological evidence with information given by previous Contact Commissioners involved with publishing The Urantia Book?

I have had to come to the conclusion that an error was made either in transmitting or receiving this information. I believe it was not done intentionally, just that information handed down became garbled in some way. I also speculate that folks living in Chicago were too far away from our geography. Thus they easily fastened on making the connection of Onamonalonton's headquarters with the Grizzly Giant Urantia legend.

I’ve researched California Indian and other regional histories for many years and I can find no support for the idea that Onamonalonton's headquarters were located in Yosemite. I hope for the opportunity to make the argument in detail in support of the theory that his base was located near the mountain that is sacred to many Indian tribes, Mt. Shasta.

How Can We Make Progress in Today’s Civilization?

Dave — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:46:55 GMT

There is much discussion on the air waves these days about the state of civilization and the health of our democracies. Harvard professor, Niall Ferguson, wrote his recent book (2011) to accompany the British TV series Civilization, is the West History? Another recent book, Future, by Al Gore laments the deterioration of the ideals that inspired our nation’s founders. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrators in 2011 were motivated by the fear that we were losing our democracy to the rule of big banks and a new wealthy oligarchy. Jim Wallis, a progressive Christian (founder of Sojourners), advised OWS to “keep asking what a just economy should look like and whom it should be for. They are noble questions.”

Are we truly in the state of crisis that our news media so frequently proclaims? There is a passage where The Urantia Book (UB) confirms our present condition to be one of “crisis”:

“Institutional religion cannot afford inspiration and provide leadership in this impending world-wide social reconstruction and economic reorganization because it has unfortunately become more or less of an organic part of the social order and the economic system which is destined to undergo reconstruction. Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully and creatively in the present crisis of civilization.” (99:2.1, pg. 1087)

Many believe the UB has been concerned with this urgent situation since publication (1955). Many times, when studying the UB, I feel that it was sent to prevent “the ultimate collapse of a civilization which has abandoned its sense of moral values and has repudiated its spiritual goal of attainment.”(132:1.3, pg. 1457) Even bearing in mind that Jesus was in Rome when he made this observation to Angamon, we must not be blind to the possibility of such a lapse in our own time, even if improved modern communications make it seem not so likely.

I have approached this topic from two viewpoints (and written two different papers on it). One: a crisis manifesting as a “crash,” will be needed to bring change and spiritual growth, or Two: we can actually plan ahead, implementing progressive methods to preserve the best of what we’ve evolved. I could say that I am still on the fence about which future is ahead of us.

Many of us over the years have noted the likelihood that the Fifth Epochal revelation is a Melchizedek emergency mission, “Melchizedek Sons function in emergencies.” (90:0.1, pg. 1014) and they had much to do with directing, sponsoring and presenting the UB to our planet.

If we are concerned today about the ability of our civilization to remain progressive and maintain its high level of attainment, there are further questions to address. Do we have the kind of leadership waiting in the wings needed to move forward? Are we choosing (electing) these leaders when we find them and are we supporting their ability to work for progressive goals?

“Old-fashioned war did select the innately great men for leadership, but modern war no longer does this. To discover leaders society must now turn to the conquests of peace: industry, science, and social achievement.” (70:2.16, pg. 786)

It is not just in the political arena that we need great leaders. In the corporate world we need companies such as David Brooks described in the New York Times, ones that are “more deeply rooted in local communities rather than just free-floating instruments of capital markets.” For this, CEOs with vision and strong moral values are needed.

The UB itself refers to previous dark interregnums of culture and often repeats its message that civilizations holding on to their spiritual goals and vision of truth are destined to endure rather than those built on materialistic foundations. Just as we ideally try to learn to do God’s will in our individual lives, so are civilizations expected to cherish the goal of God’s will to bring the “kingdom of God” to Urantia if they are to survive.

Although it is interesting to study the origin and history of civilizations that collapsed, more importantly, let us take a proactive stance and look at our civilization’s destiny. Maybe we can learn what is needed to build a more progressive one beginning with what has been established. The UB provides some guidelines. The list that follows is by no means complete.

I have left out other factors mentioned in the UB such as “eugenics,” (51:4.8, pg. 585); “military preparedness” (71:4.5, pg. 804); conserving, restoring and efficiently using our natural resource wealth (72:6.7, pg. 814); and other matters. In this article I will concentrate on the last two items in the 12 point list given in paper 71:4.2, Progressive Civilization. Let’s examine the spiritual needs and idealistic roots of our civilization, and methods for nourishing those roots. Whether we express our democratic voice at the ballot box or in protests on street corners, we should all review what the UB recommends to ensure progress:

A vision of a God of love (“Love is … the wellspring of superior civilization,” 102:6.3, p. 1124). The people of a civilization must be liberated from fear so that their energies can be devoted to cultural progress.
Citizens attentive to a creative inner life where “the advances of true civilization are all born” (111:4.3, p. 1220). The plans we make as religious teachers and leaders must include ideas about how to enhance the creative inner life of our citizens. “The attainment of a high cultural civilization demands first, the ideal type of citizen,” (99:3.4, pg. 1088).
The increased study of philosophy, cosmology and divinity to better understand and realize Diety—Truth, Beauty and goodness (56:10.2, p. 646). How do we make these topics attractive to modern people in the age of the un-churched?
True religion, the indispensable source of the higher energy needed to establish a superior civilization based on human brotherhood (79:4.9), “The religion of Jesus fosters the highest type of human civilization in that it creates the highest type of spiritual personality and proclaims the sacredness of that person.” (194:3.7, p. 2063)
Spiritual idealism, the energy which really uplifts and advances human culture (81:6.27). We must look for idealism in our leadership and nurture its growth. How do we improve the selection of leaders, the character of torch-bearers, so that idealistic leaders have an opportunity to lead? They are needed in the business world as well.
Moral values, augmented moral insight (“mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers,” 52:6.7, p. 598)
Augmenting a spiritual goal of attainment or, as Jesus said, face “the ultimate collapse of a civilization which has… repudiated its spiritual goal of attainment.” (132:1.3)

In our time, if a civilization is to be on the vanguard of planetary progress, it must also acquire an ideal of cosmic citizenship in preparation for our inevitable reunification with the family of planets. I believe our service work should take all these goals into consideration.

A peaceful, progressive civilization begins at home and in the heart of the individual, therefore let’s be sure we are keeping our own gardens well-watered, cultivated, and fertile, before we try to restore the drought stricken plain of a collapsing civilization.. Are we developing better habits to control negative emotions and manage our anger; better habits of service? Do you see ways in which you can improve your service techniques?

If one is moved to join demonstrations in the street, do it with a heart full of love, not with anger, offering protest in the spirit of service to the family of humankind, even if progress is going to require the destruction of the old order.

Exploring Sikhism in the San Francisco Bay Area

Dave — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:45:24 GMT

From Interstate 80, you can see the large golden dome perched on the roof. Look closer and you’ll see the white arches over the windows of the beige tiled structure. The Sikh Center looks out over commuters and traffic jams from high up in the hills. As I drive by I think about the waves of prayer rolling out of that building and sweeping across this tortured landscape of materialistic struggle. The prayers speak of a faith based on love, in Punjabi (a language of Northern India), "jin prem keyo tin hee prab paeyo" - "Only those who have love, will attain God," (Guru Gobind Singh Ji).

The Sikh Center of San Francisco Bay Area, aka Gurdwara Sahib of El Sobrante (Gurdwara is their word for temple) was established May 1979. Sikhism began 500 years ago in India and was founded by Guru Nanak, who preached tolerance in the midst of friction between Islam and Hinduism that arose at the time. Sikhism has grown to become the fifth largest religion in the world. The teachings found at Sikh websites speak of tolerance and equality, and they are attractive to a deeply divided world, http://www.sikhs.org/summary.htm (under the heading “Philosophy and Beliefs.”)

“There is only One God. He is the same God for all people of all religions.”

Sadly, many Americans who perceive the turban of the Sikh mistake him unthinkingly for an Arab Muslim. Since the Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001 male Sikhs have been frequently shot at and harassed.

”The teachers of the religion of Jesus should approach other religions with the recognition of the truths which are held in common (many of which come directly or indirectly from Jesus' message) while they refrain from placing so much emphasis on the differences.” (The UB 149:2.5)

Everyone, Sikh and non-Sikh, is welcome to the regular services held every Wednesday and Sunday at Gurdwara Sahib of El Sobrante (3550 Hillcrest Rd., El Sobrante, CA 94803, (510) 223-9987). The center is open to drop in visitors from 5 AM to 9 PM. “Langar” or collective eating, where vegetarian food is served, is given every day free of charge to all visitors. Visitors must cover their hair, be sober and have no drugs, alcohol, or tobacco products in their possession. Together with my friend and fellow Examiner reporter, Jannie Dresser, www.examiner.com/poetry-in-san-francisco/jannie-dresser we visited the El Sobrante temple. As required, we removed our shoes to enter the wide open large worship room. I had picked up a scarf to cover my head from a bin just before the entrance. There are no pews, but there are a few benches at the back of the room. Most of the men and women seat themselves on the carpeted floor. If you go, be sure you can handle sitting in this posture for an hour or more.

“While your religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most important that you should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse mortals) to the end that you may prevent your religious life from becoming egocentric -- circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial.” (The UB, 103:1.3, pg. 1130)

Only the goodness of God is real. This is what I imagined was said in the prayers although they were all spoken in Punjabi. Sikhism preaches that people of different races, religions, or sex are all equal in the eyes of God. It teaches the full equality of men and women. Women can participate in any religious function or perform any Sikh ceremony or lead the congregation in prayer. I was glad to hear of this teaching though I did not see it happening in practice the evening I visited. But at least the ideal has been established.

“Just as there is fragrance in the flower, and reflection in a mirror, so similarly God lives within us. Search for Him in your heart!” (Adi Granth, the first Sikh scripture)

As I sat meditating, a smell of sweet food cooking arose in the room right behind me. I opened my eyes to look and saw the “cantor” stirring something in a bowl. He motioned to me to dip my hand in the bowl just as the other worshipers were doing when they left the room. It was a sticky brown confection. I was directed by his hand signals to place it in a napkin. After I left the room, I saw a man nearby who appeared to be eating the mixture. “Do I eat this?” I asked. He said yes, and as we relaxed into easy conversation, this brilliant young man eventually answered all my other numerous questions about the center’s practices.

“There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations.” (The Urantia Book [UB], 52:6.4)

I made a new Sikh friend that night. He said helping others follow their path of choice is important in Sikhism and he was happy to meet someone like myself who explored various spiritual paths. We both wished there were more truth seekers in our communities who explored outside their own religious groups. It would be a good beginning toward achieving unity, a spiritual brotherhood, between the different faiths of the world.

“Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term “faith” stand for the individual’s relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. ” (The UB 99:5.7)

On Possessing Virtue

Dave — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 16:43:38 GMT

“No one uses words like ‘virtue’ anymore, Father Joe,” author Tony Hendra said to the monk who became his true father. He recorded this conversation in his memoir, Father Joe (2002).

In our youth, we associated the word virtue with sexual purity and abstinence. It may have been because when we were boys and girls growing up the virtue of chastity was drilled into us by our parents. They wanted to help us stay out of trouble. As teenagers we were often sensitive to the damage caused by an unwanted pregnancy, especially if there was someone in our class who did not escape the terrible trials of lost virtue.

I was out of high school when I became more aware of the meaning of virtue in the classic sense. “Socrates and his successors, Plato and Aristotle, taught that virtue is knowledge. (98:2.6, pg. 1079)” I have mentioned before that the Urantia Book (UB) strives to improve and upstep our language. In Paper 16:7.6 (pg. 193), Morals, Virtue and Personality, the authors set out to rehabilitate the word virtue, to restore the forgotten meaning.

“Virtue is righteousness—conformity with the cosmos,” is the UB definition extending it far beyond the Greek idea, “virtue is knowledge.” I was somewhat perplexed by it as I’d never seen such a meaning attributed to the word before. It’s amusing to look back now and recall the narrower meaning we thought it had as kids.

The Buddha’s teachings of mindfulness also help me further understand the value of learning courage and self-discipline to achieve self-mastery. Virtue always meant work of some kind but this was more the kind of work virtue entailed. Making decisions: we have free will to make decisions for good or evil. Choosing the good is up to our well-honed judgments and informed actions.

In my studies of the American Indian medicine wheel and its re-occurrence in Jungian psychology (also used by Robert Bly in his poetic theory), I realized how the four directions of the medicine wheel depicted the self-correcting balance mechanism of all creation. “Morality, virtue is indigenous to human personality (16:7.1).” When our behavior tips out of balance, we can draw on elements from our psyche that will put it back in place. Carl Jung emphasized the value of our “unconscious” resources. The medicine wheel is therefore often used as a therapeutic tool in crisis or drug counseling centers to help patients develop an awareness of their own inherent healing resources.

In guiding ourselves to the choice of using the medicine wheel concept to achieve mental health, we are actually choosing to align ourselves with cosmic reality. The wheel depicts what the Universal Father has already set in place as part of “human mind endowment (16:7.1).” Morality is inherent to creation, to the universe’s structure. The Father, Creator, provided us with a moral universe. Through our decisions we align ourselves with such a creation, accepting correction, even chastisement, when we are out of balance. We also refer to this as choosing to do God’s will, “and such choosing ability is evidence of the possession of a moral nature (16:7.6).” By faith, we take possession, ownership of the gift we were given.

If you are Buddhist, you turn the wheel of dharma in the same way, creating good karma by living in balance and obeying the universal law of the dharma, “that which supports,” “all things and events are part of an indivisible whole.”

Here is the UB quote in full:

“Virtue is righteousness—conformity with the cosmos. To name virtues is not to define them, but to live them is to know them. Virtue is not mere knowledge nor yet wisdom but rather the reality of progressive experience in the attainment of ascending levels of cosmic achievement. In the day-by-day life of mortal man, virtue is realized by the consistent choosing of good rather than evil, and such choosing ability is evidence of the possession of a moral nature.” (16:7.6)

God does not expect us to be perfectly virtuous upon discovering it, but to make progress in our attainment. Decisions and action, completion of decisions, are essential.

“God the Father deals with man his child on the basis, not of actual virtue or worthiness, but in recognition of the child's motivation—the creature purpose and intent. The relationship is one of parent-child association and is actuated by divine love.” (103:4.5, pg. 1133) And this is what Jesus came to earth to reveal about the Father’s nature and his moral universe.

Spiritual Journaling for Healing and Growth

Dave — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:40:37 GMT

What is “spiritual journaling?” You may have heard of it. There are even products available you can buy to learn how to do it. One reputable site that offers guidance without trying to sell you something is http://therapyinphiladelphia.com/selfhelp/tips/keeping_a_spiritual_journal/. A wise teacher and healer, Dr. Ernest F. Pecci, also a former lecturer at John F. Kennedy University here in Walnut Creek, California, provided a six step approach in his wonderful book, Guidance from Within-You can Have a Conversation With God. In teaching the new holistic discipline of Integrative Psychology, Pecci combined the results of his psychiatric treatment methodology with spiritual teachings. He connected the mental anguish and suffering of his patients to their unfulfilled spiritual needs and desires. Keeping a journal of their psychological and spiritual progress was a routine he frequently recommended to them. There are many possible ways of spiritual journaling; most people are able to evolve their own with a little outside help.

We writers, poets and journalists are accustomed to keeping notebooks or journals to capture ideas, themes we want to explore, metaphors, insights etc., and these notes become a source for our articles, prose and poem pieces. Although I had not heard anyone recommend before the writing of a journal for therapeutic purposes, it immediately struck me as a great idea. In reality I’d already been doing it for years, unconsciously at times. On those occasions when you are gripped by anger, hate, or fear, it is helpful to write through the experience, working out your feelings in the process, including a note of what healed the conflict, a prayer or meditation that helped with the negative emotions.

One of the things Pecci’s patients were asked to record was a list of the resistances they felt to having a conversation with God or “the Helper,” (p. 51) a term Pecci uses, which he states is equivalent to the “Holy Spirit.” What reasons could they give for their resistance to listening to the “still small voice within”? Many thought God was too high up and remote in his perfect goodness, removed from evil, to be a source of wisdom and hope they could contact. Many did not esteem themselves worthy of talking with God. Shame often causes people to retreat from the intimacy of relationship.

“The Father desires all his creatures to be in personal communion with him … Therefore settle in your philosophy now and forever: To each of you and to all of us, God is approachable, the Father is attainable, the way is open; the forces of divine love and the ways and means of divine administration are all interlocked in an effort to facilitate the advancement of every worthy intelligence of every universe to the Paradise presence of the Universal Father.” (UB 5:1.8)

Pecci devotes a whole chapter to the fear of love that affected most of his patients. Such fear needed to be overcome in order for them to be healed. “The love of God strikingly portrays the transcendent value of each will creature, unmistakably reveals the high value which the Universal Father has placed upon each and every one of his children … (UB 12:7.9)

One process I discovered in myself by writing it down in my journal was a behavior that happened when I felt insecure or fearful about a public appearance, or an important meeting. This recurring fear caused me to withdraw into myself. There I built a safe fortress, strong walls to hide behind. It is a trait I learned within my family system. Because the fears of the children were minimized or even belittled when feelings of weakness were confessed, the children trained themselves to be stoical, to never show their vulnerability. Ideally, our loved ones should create a safe place with each other where anxieties can be discussed and voiced out loud. “Being sensitive and responsive to human need creates genuine and lasting happiness, while such kindly attitudes safeguard the soul from the destructive influences of anger, hate, and suspicion.” (UB 140:5.16)

From journaling my feelings, I learned to see that creating a stone wall of cold unresponsiveness as protection was precisely the wrong thing to do in new situations I was insecure with. I learned to pray for strength and insight into the situation so I could take down the wall, and go through the experience with an open friendly demeanor. I wrote down in my spiritual journal the essence of the prayers I made. If while in meditation I found a symbol that gave me strength, I noted that as well. Almost always I noticed that my prayers and meditations helped.

Pecci believes our institutions neglect “to teach our young how to examine and change their thinking patterns,” (p. 161) One way to do this, he recommends, is to “quiet the thinking area” altogether, allowing a space for spiritual wisdom from the “Higher Self” to enter our minds. This is precisely one of the goals of spiritual meditation that is taught in Eastern traditions, and echoed in the Urantia Book. Pecci’s method of spiritual journaling and his healing practice successfully blended the wisdom of the east with the psychological knowledge of the west. The youth of the modern world need this more than ever before.

Pentecost: A Jewish and Christian Shared Celebration

Dave — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:39:04 GMT

This week the two Abrahamic faiths of Judaism and Christianity celebrate the liturgical feast of Pentecost, which falls on the ancient Jewish holiday festival called the "feast of weeks" or Shavuot (Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:10). This date is called Pentecost because it takes place &ldquoldquo;fifty” days after the major Jewish festival of Passover. Shavuot is the second of the three harvest feasts. Most Christian believers know little of the significance of Pentecost, Shavuot, for the Jewish people.

In Old Testament times, the Holy Spirit descended upon certain people for a specific service, and then departed after the purpose was accomplished (cf. 1 Samuel 16:13-14; Ps. 51:11). At Jesus' baptism, the Spirit descended on him like a dove so the disciples fully experienced the ministry of what they understood to be the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

In the gospel of John 14:17, some think Jesus declared that from now on the Holy Spirit would not just assist them but be in them. "He abides with you and will be in you." This scripture suggests a permanent, uninterrupted residence--something that wasn’t emphasized in Old Testament times. The Lord promised a spiritual indweller in Ezekiel 37:14 as the prophet recorded, "I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life."

The prophet was probably being assured of the gift of an indwelling spirit that we know in the UB as the Thought Adjuster, the “Spirit of the Father,” distinct from the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. This same promise was confirmed by Jesus and taught to the Christian community in Luke’s gospel, “the kingdom of God is within you.”

The Urantia Book (UB) provides more of what Jesus told his apostles: “In just a few hours the world will see me no more; but you will continue to know me in your hearts even until I send you this new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. As I have lived with you in person, then shall I live in you; I shall be one with your personal experience in the spirit kingdom. And when this has come to pass, you shall surely know that I am in the Father, and that, while your life is hid with the Father in me, I am also in you. (180:4.2)

The Comforter, a New Bestowal of Spirit

Jesus is quoted in the Bible as saying the Spirit he is sending at the time of his death and ascension is “another Helper.” He refers to its role in another passage as “the Comforter,” or the “Spirit of Truth.” Plainly he was promising that an additional spiritual influence would be bestowed on the world. Many scholars have pointed out that scriptures show we were “anointed” with both a Spirit of the Father and a Spirit of the Son. Passages in New Testament scriptures (such as Galatians 4:6), reveal that Jesus sent a Spirit “of the Son,” and this sparked the controversy that created a schism between Western and Eastern Orthodox sects for over a thousand years. In the UB, this is confirmed in Jesus’s own words, “And when this new day comes, you will be indwelt by the Son as well as by the Father.” (180:4.3)

In recognizing this truth, we are stunned by the generous outpouring of fatherly love. Since the day of Pentecost we live with the help and guidance of several coordinated spirit influences. In addition to the spirit presences that were bestowed or sent is the “Holy Spirit” of the Creative Mother Spirit, and the original “person” of the Trinity, “The Infinite Spirit” that has existed since the beginnings of eternity. Logically speaking, new readers should realize that God the Father would not send a spirit entity in Jesus’ time that was already sent in the times of Ezekiel. Clearly we need philosophic logic to sort out what we are witnessing in the texts and the UB has come across with a big dollop of it along with added information. It is important to help new readers adopt an objective distance from the “sacredness” of their traditional texts if we are to do the necessary sorting. There are exciting discoveries ahead for us and all new UB readers as we seek partnership with these spirit presences!

Jesus sought to reassure his followers with his message saying: “But the helper … whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you.” (John 14:26) “When he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he shall eventually guide you into all truth as you pass through the many abodes in my Father’s universe.” (UB 180:6.3, John 16.13). This is the Comforter he spoke of who would bring comfort to his bereaved and lonely followers.

The Energizing Experience at the Spirit of the Son’s Arrival

Pentecost was the experience of a new found energy and fire that sent the apostles into the streets and synagogues to preach the glad tidings, as first described in our biblical tradition in the Acts of the Apostles. It so empowered their preaching that they brought thousands of souls to be baptised on that day. Both Jews and Gentiles participated in Pentecost. There was no Christian Church yet. Although traditional Christians claim the Spirit of Truth was only given to the Church, enlightened Christians understand that it was given to all who believed in truth.

In reality, it is an influence felt by all who believe in the truth of the message Jesus taught. The writer at http://barnes.biblecommenter.com/john/16.htm has an enlightened perspective that differs from other Christian commentators, understanding that the Spirit of Truth’s presence is available to all peoples. “While on the earth the Lord Jesus could be bodily present but in one place at one time. Yet, in order to secure the great design of saving men, it was needful that there should be some agent who could be in all places, who could attend all ministers, and who could, at the same time, apply the work of Christ to people in all parts of the earth.”

This is what excites American Indian Christians, at least those familiar with the deeper meanings of the story. Pentecost gave those who love truth all around the world access to the gift of his presence that Jesus bestowed on that day. American Indian believers thus feel they were able to experience "the Christ" at the same time as Jews and Gentiles in Jerusalem were and can continue to experience him. This part of Pentecost was so exciting to the Lakota American Indian pastor and theologian, Richard Twiss, that he was teaching his followers this truth before he passed away in February of this year. See the website, http://www.wiconi.com/?cid=1276

What we all were given is a friend who will share the difficult path. The Jewish prophet Joel foresaw the gift in Joel 2: 28-30, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth.”

May we all walk in beauty.

It’s About the Joy That is Missing

Dave — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:36:58 GMT

On Tuesday, April 16, the city of Alameda's Poet Laureate, Mary Rudge, and the Alameda Multicultural Community Center celebrated National Poetry Month with their 2013 Alameda Student Poetry Reading. I was privileged to serve as one of the four judges for the high school entries. There were also middle school and elementary school poets submitting their best work and receiving awards. Our group had to work hard in making the right selections. For us, it was a wonderful, inspiring event.

The students read their work for an enthusiastic crowd who heard some great poetry from these young authors. In our role as judges, we were also given time to present our work to the audience. I read "It's About the Joy That is Missing," to the kids, parents, teachers, and fellow poets who were present.

It’s About the Joy That is Missing

Listen and learn;

love in return.

Your position is clear

so have no fear.

Just be assured

when vision is blurred

what the spirits will say

is the best way to fight

for what’s right; stay guided

by God’s pilot light.

You might get roughed up;

things get tough but

trust the Spirit’s

word when you hear it.

This mocking futility,

these days of cruelty,

my own thoughts fool me;

no use having a GPS,

won’t help with this distress

-ful mess, and feeling dismay

there just ain’t no way.

Hey … Universe gonna hold me.

Embrace and enfold me,

I got a road map to the goal

close the gap up in my soul.

Take it from me, friends,

I believe, for you, for us, this route

can be trusted, it’s a must—

see, we’re stardust,

Creator’s belov-ed.

“The Master’s Program”

Dave — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:34:40 GMT

“If the Christian church would only dare to espouse the Master's program, thousands of apparently indifferent youths would rush forward to enlist in such a spiritual undertaking, and they would not hesitate to go all the way through with this great adventure.” (Urantia Book, 195:10.10, pg. 2085)

Note that this challenge in the Urantia Book (UB) is given to the Christian church. If Christianity has shirked the task so far, can we as UB readers and teachers take up the “dare” and do better? What can we share, teach or impart that might inspire the youth of our world to rush to sign up for the Master’s program?

“The call to the adventure of building a new and transformed human society by means of the spiritual rebirth of Jesus' brotherhood of the kingdom should thrill all who believe in him as men have not been stirred since the days when they walked about on earth as his companions in the flesh.” (195:10.6, pg. 2084)

There are obstacles. In many cases, we find the ears of youth (as well as adults) closed to such an appeal. Why?

“Civilization can hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer world.” (111:4.3, pg. 1220)

If we try to make the Master’s program available, do we present Jesus as an example to follow?

“He did not come down to live on Urantia as the perfect and detailed example for any child or adult, any man or woman, in that age or any other. True it is, indeed, that in his full, rich, beautiful, and noble life we may all find much that is exquisitely exemplary, divinely inspiring, but this is because he lived a true and genuinely human life. Jesus did not live his life on earth in order to set an example for all other human beings to copy. … as he lived his mortal life in his day and as he was, so did he thereby set the example for all of us thus to live our lives in our day and as we are. You may not aspire to live his life, but you can resolve to live your lives even as, and by the same means that, he lived his. Jesus may not be the technical and detailed example for all the mortals of all ages on all the realms of this local universe, but he is everlastingly the inspiration and guide of all Paradise pilgrims from the worlds of initial ascension …” (129:4.7, pg. 1426), a guide to living a true and genuine human life.

“It should not be the aim of kingdom believers literally to imitate the outward life of Jesus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God and to believe in men as he believed in men.” (196:1.5, pg. 2091)

To effectively present the Master’s program, what should our action plan look like?

“…action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive kinship with the cosmic actuality of the Supreme Being.” (110:6.17, pg. 1211)

There are no limitations to the ways the Master’s program can be expressed, taught, and followed:

“… the will of God can be done in any earthly occupation. Some callings are not holy and others secular. All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, subordinated to truth, ennobled by love, dominated by mercy, and restrained by fairness—justice.” (155:6.11, pg. 1732)

Courage and faithful devotion are essential even if these qualities need to be learned and acquired. Consider Jesus’s speech to Fortune, “The Young Man Who Was Afraid.” All of Paper 130, section 6, was preserved for young people to hear throughout the ages, an appeal they are likely to respond to. It is the Master’s program in his very own words:

“You may be surrounded with small enemies and be retarded by many obstacles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the universe are on your side. The sun rises every morning to salute you just as it does the most powerful and prosperous man on earth. … You are trying to run away from your unhappy self, but it cannot be done. You and your problems of living are real; you cannot escape them as long as you live. But look again, your mind is clear and capable. Your strong body has an intelligent mind to direct it. Set your mind at work to solve its problems; teach your intellect to work for you; refuse longer to be dominated by fear like an unthinking animal. Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond-servant of depression and defeat. But most valuable of all, your potential of real achievement is the spirit which lives within you …

"This day, my son, you are to be reborn, re-established as a man of faith, courage, and devoted service to man, for God's sake. And when you become so readjusted to life within yourself, you become likewise readjusted to the universe; you have been born again—born of the spirit—and henceforth will your whole life become one of victorious accomplishment. Trouble will invigorate you; disappointment will spur you on; difficulties will challenge you; and obstacles will stimulate you.” (130:6.3-4, pg. 1437)

Jesus was clear about his purpose: “I have come into the world to proclaim spiritual liberty to the end that mortals may be empowered to live individual lives of originality and freedom before God.” (141:5.1, pg. )

Therefore to empower modern youth, our approach to the Master’s program should foster mental expansion, creative imagination, higher levels of self-understanding, and faith urges to identify and commune with the indwelling presence of the Father’s spirit.

The ultimate goal of the program must be to achieve the chief purpose of all human struggling:

“Fatherly love has singleness of purpose, and it always looks for the best in man; that is the attitude of a true parent.” He instructed his followers “… in the realization of the chief purpose of all human struggling … to love with a fatherly as well as a brotherly affection.” (140:5.12-16, pg. 1575)

“The Master’s Program”

Dave — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:32:55 GMT

There are obstacles. In many cases, we find the ears of youth (as well as adults) closed to such an appeal. Why?

If we try to make the Master’s program available, do we present Jesus as an example to follow?

To effectively present the Master’s program, what should our action plan look like?

“…action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive kinship with the cosmic actuality of the Supreme Being.” (110:6.17, pg. 1211)

There are no limitations to the ways the Master’s program can be expressed, taught, and followed:

The ultimate goal of the program must be to achieve the chief purpose of all human struggling:

I First Reviewed “The Shack” in June 2009 …

Dave — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 17:30:58 GMT

This is a brave and wonderfully written book by William P. Young, a graduate in Religion from Warner Pacific College, Portland OR. Although “The Shack” is a great contemporary presentation of the Trinity concept, God in three persons, it may disappoint Urantia Book (UB) readers that Mr. Young’s version still portrays Jesus as the Son in the Holy Trinity. The UB is careful to distinguish between Jesus/Michael as the Creator Son of the local universe of Nebadon, and the Eternal Son, 2^nd person of the Paradise Trinity of the Central Universe of universes. I realize that it may be a long time before this UB depiction finds acceptance among world religions.

The story follows Mackenzie “Mack” Philips journey through the crippling pain caused by his youngest daughter’s abduction. He finds eventual redemption from the anger and bitterness of the loss. This book has some important things to say to people who wonder why bad things happen to good people, and who ask the question how can God allow evil and suffering? “Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will lead you to false notions about me.” (p. 185)

In spite of philosophic differences about the Trinity and how the will of God is discerned in our lives, I was quite swept off my feet by the powerful and uplifting messages in this story. “It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way (p. 192).” Again on pg. 198, “Don’t just look for rules and principles, look for relationship—a way of coming to be with us.”

Here is an excerpt from the review of William Young’s new book, “Cross Roads,” that was published in Maclean’s, Canada’s news magazine last month.

Author of ‘The Shack’ is back with a New Novel, Cross Roads

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/01/21/breaking-out-of-the-shack/

When one of the world’s best selling novelists dropped by a deserted strip mall in suburban Toronto recently, he was unperturbed to find just four people waiting for him in a Christian bookstore. As long as there is anyone at all to hug—as he does with everyone he meets—and to share stories with, William Paul Young is more than content. Story is everything for Young: the personal tale of childhood pain, adult brokenness and spiritual healing he poured five years ago into The Shack; the story of that novel’s astonishing explosion from 15 copies printed at a Kinko’s to 18 million copies sold worldwide; and the 100,000 stories he has collected from readers. He doesn’t even mind that the people he meets barely spare a word for Cross Roads, the new novel he is—in theory—promoting. …

Young, 57, never used to find God and his ways funny, or have much to laugh about at all. Born in Grande Prairie, Alta., but raised by his missionary parents in Dutch New Guinea, Young was sexually abused by some of his parents’ congregants, and again later, at a Christian boarding school. As an adult, Young kept his past and his feelings of shame and worthlessness secret, bundling it all into his metaphorical shack, “the place we make to hide all our crap.” Until, at 38, the crisis came, when Young’s wife, Kim, discovered his affair with one of her best friends. He realized he couldn’t hide any longer and had to somehow restore his relationships with Kim, with God and with himself.

It took him 11 years, but he managed. And he created Mack, The Shack’s protagonist, whose ﬁve-year-old daughter, Missy, was murdered. Years later, Mack, as angry and despairing as Young had been, finds a note in his mailbox—a note from God—inviting him back to the wilderness shack where Missy died. He’s greeted at the door by God, in the guise of a plump, middle-aged black woman incongruously known as Papa. Mack soon meets the rest of an unusual Holy Trinity: a sawdust-covered, olive-skinned Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, an Asian woman called Sarayu. Together, enveloping him in their loving relationship, they heal Mack.

Some Christian leaders reacted favourably. … Many more doctrinaire Christians, however, were outraged by Young’s “ungendered” Trinity and by what they saw as New Age taint. “My own mother slammed the book shut when Papa opened the shack door,” laughs Young, “and immediately phoned my sister: ‘Debby, he really is a heretic!’ ” But the response of ordinary Christians was viscerally positive.

Young’s personal shack was an evil place, but not the one two readers showed him in photos at a Midwestern book signing. The grief-ravaged couple, who had lost their daughter to a drunk driver, were on an aimless road trip when they saw it, a building standing alone in a field, sporting a sign reading “the Shack.” Intrigued, they went in to find a yellow legal pad with the instruction to “Take what you need,” and two worn copies of The Shack. The wife did take one; “it saved my life,” she tearfully told Young. The Shack has brought him a lot, including wealth enough to support his family—he had been working three jobs—and to build a house for a Honduran orphanage, a school in Uganda and to fund several charities in Portland, near his Oregon home—but none he treasures as much as those 100,000 stories. (Brian Bethune)

What Does It Mean Spiritually to be a High Achiever?

Dave — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:27:25 GMT

“The great achievement of mortal life is the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within your mind.” (Urantia Book [UB], p. 1206; 110:3.4)

It is interesting how a few key phrases out of a great heft of scripture can stay with you, like the one I quote above that became a useful guide to my own day to day living. Of the many teachings we encounter in our best loved spiritual books, perhaps only a handful become truly motivational, an “emotionally activated knowledge.” (UB, p. 1090, 99:4.5)

My mind, at times, is on the hamster wheel of success. Am I succeeding? Did I succeed? What was it in me that prevented me from succeeding? In such moments, the mind often never stops to inquire more deeply: what is success? What do I truly want to succeed at?

Section two of the same Paper 110 features this opening remark, “When Thought Adjusters indwell human minds, they bring with them the model careers, the ideal lives… for the intellectual and spiritual development of their human subjects. (p. 1204, 110:2)”

Thus we find the ideas of “career” and “achievement,” deliberately connected in the same paper about our indwelling divine helpers. By the time I first read these UB passages in the late seventies, I was certain the UB authors were not using the terms career and achievement in the same conventional sense employed by career counsellors at our community colleges. In another paper, they point out that the Thought Adjuster’s mission “chiefly concerns the future life, not this life,” (p. 1191, 108:5.5), so I understood that we are cautioned not to apply these ideas too rigorously to earth careers.

If you have departed widely from the ideal model career, whatever you believe it may have been, we learn that our Adjusters “adapt, modify, and substitute in accordance with circumstances.” (pg. 1183, 107:7.3)

The motivation to achieve is likely to fire up an average American in our modern society. I believe the U.S. is more achievement oriented than other societies historically. I know that it’s a driver and a lure for those who emigrate to the West. They come to America with high expectations of achieving their dreams (usually economic).

The true, or “great achievement” that I aspired to certainly seemed elusive in my experience. At times I found Thomas Edison’s famous quote reassuring: “I have not failed. I’ve just found another one of the ten thousand ways that won’t work.”

To counterbalance an instinctive aggression to achieve, we must develop mechanisms to deal with failure, loss, and unexpected change. Much of spiritual life requires dealing gracefully with disappointment and the failure to be materially rewarded. We get an archangel’s advice early on in our reading of the Urantia Book, “You will learn that you increase your burdens and decrease the likelihood of success by taking yourself too seriously.” (48:6.7, p. 555)

Eventually, we are motivated to learn about service to others, rather than to solely cherish our own goals.

In Sidon, Jesus spoke forthrightly about achievement and he set a higher bar for his followers, asking them “to strive for the attainment of the full stature of divine sonship in the communion of the spirit and in the fellowship of believers.” (156:2.6, p. 1736)

In section five of Paper 156, more clues concerning the “universe expansion of your career,” are offered when he further advises his followers to, “lighten your burdens of soul by speedily acquiring a long-distance view of your destiny.”

Jesus was by that time dropping low in the polls. He would’ve been considered by the ordinary Jewish citizens of his day to be at the bottom of the social ladder, even a criminal by some. A warrant was issued for his arrest and he fled Galilee pursued by King Herod’s soldiers.

The quote I used at the beginning of this article is from Paper 110, Relation of Adjusters to Individual Mortals, (page 1206). I memorized it so I could use it as a mantra in my meditations. For me it was a clear answer I’d been seeking throughout my life to that point. It became a window into an end to the struggle and confusion of my younger years, a new start at what true and noble achievements might look like.

Lessons of Faith: Great Grandfather, Buddha, Ganesha, and Jesus

Dave — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:25:43 GMT

The Ojibwe Indians of Canada have a tradition of prophecies given by the elders known as the Seven Fires. I discovered I was a participant in these prophecies—they were an instinctive part of my being. One of the Grandfather Prophets accurately foretold what I stumbled over in my life journey: The cup of life will almost become the cup of grief. This was the stage known as the Sixth Fire in our Ojibwe “American Indian” tradition.

The Christian church tried to teach me that spiritual liberty lay within my reach but in my church the Christian God was also authoritarian and judgmental. I felt I was wrong to feel unhappy and I didn’t feel forgiven for it, as if it was a sin to be in pain when the joy of Jesus was so close at hand. Knock and the door shall be opened, they said, but it slammed shut in my face somehow.

I came to California as a 21 year old man who believed his life was based on a huge and insurmountable grief. I felt drawn to seek help in Asian sacred books. I found that Buddhism described my life experience up to that point. Not surprising then that my early spiritual search was influenced by Buddha’s first “noble truth of suffering.” I accepted his teaching that undertaking the Eight-fold Path would lead to the extinction of suffering. But as circumstances would have it, this was not the path where I found salvation.

It was the teachings of Hinduism that first saved me from suffering as if the god Ganesha himself removed the stumbling blocks, the obstacles in my pathway. I responded to the promise contained in the techniques of Yoga and meditation and learned that the suffering could be brought under my control. I had the power to choose to extinguish it. The Hindu disciplines were the first doorways to open to freedom and peace in my mind and soul. I was also combining Bible teachings I remembered like “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” which I used as a mantra in my meditations.

It was later, after I was given the Urantia Book (UB) in 1978, that I learned how Jesus had used these scriptures in his life, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives” (Luke 4:18-19). I discovered my relationship with Jesus and began our conversation. I was shown the way to change my life from its basis in grief to a foundation in faith through his words and his Spirit guidance. Although, like the Biblical Jonah, I’d been swallowed by a whale of selfishness, there was a way back to the shore of new service opportunities. With Jesus’ offer of creative freedom, I was free to realize myself and my destiny if I could shake off the burdens of sin, guilt and sadness.

I learned about forgiveness of myself and others.

“The escape from the service of light and life can only result in those distressing conflicts with the difficult whales of selfishness which lead eventually to darkness and death unless such God-forsaking Jonahs shall turn their hearts, even when in the very depths of despair, to seek after God and his goodness. And when such disheartened souls sincerely seek for God -- hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness -- there is nothing that can hold them in further captivity. No matter into what great depths they may have fallen, when they seek the light with a whole heart, the spirit of the Lord God of heaven will deliver them from their captivity; the evil circumstances of life will spew them out upon the dry land of fresh opportunities for renewed service and wiser living." (UB 130:1.2, pg. 1428)

From these words, I also learned to not stay stuck in disappointment. Always move ahead seeking the next horizon of possibilities. Never take anything personally, or turn your disappointments into personal offenses taken.

Old habits can persist as most of us know, and there are times I sink into the mire. I fall backwards into grief. The Jesus path takes courage, self-discipline, self-mastery, what I believe was meant by virtue in the old classical sense. “Fidelity was a cardinal virtue in his estimate of character, while courage was the very heart of his teachings. "Fear not" was his watchword, and patient endurance his ideal of strength of character.” (140:8.20, pg. 1582)

Not only his death, but his life demonstrated this very courage he spoke about. If our father/brother, the human Jesus, did this, we know we can walk that walk too.

The Nature of Thought Adjusters and Our Contact With Them

Dave — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:22:42 GMT

Encourage yourself to form a “favorable liaison” (110:7.6, p. 1213) with the gift of spirit that dwells within you. There is perhaps no better collection of passages describing the fruits of our attempted contacts with indwelling spirit than what is found in the Urantia Book (UB). These are concrete, literal experiences, no longer mere symbols of an all-pervading “Force,” or the personifications of poetic metaphors other texts may have provided.

The UB authors encourage us to be proactive in our relationship with the indwelling spirit fragment. We can, “rejoice in the ever-present possibility of immediate communion with the bestowal spirit of the Father.” (5:1.3, p. 63)

“All mortals...have been ‘lighted by the true light,’ and they possess capacity for seeking reciprocal contact with divinity.” (52:17, p. 590)

“...the ..spirits of fusion potential...”, “...draw the nearest to you...in the spirit touch of inner communion with the very souls of his mortal sons and daughters.” (40:5.3, p. 445)

“...the heavenly helper [can] cheer you with the clear vision of the eternal outlook of universal life ...” (111:7.3, p. 1223)

“...the presence of the divine Spirit, the water of life...prevents the consuming thirst of mortal discontent...you may be strengthened with power through His spirit...” (34:6.8, p. 381)

“...the Adjuster translates…the universal broadcasts of love proceeding from the Father of mercies.” (110:7.6, p. 1213)

“the divine Monitor”...”endow[s] the personality partnership with the meanings and values ... carried forward from the eternity of the past.” (110:7.5, p. 1213)

Enable the indwelling spirit, “...to register his picturizations of destiny with augmenting vividness and conviction ...” (110:6.5, p. 1209)

Faith in “the assurance of the divine presence ... will expand the mind, ennoble the soul, reinforce the personality, augment the happiness, deepen the spirit perception, and enhance the power to love and be loved.” (Jesus, 159:3.12, p. 1766)

“... as you progress in harmonizing with the Adjuster's spiritual leadings...”, “you can...more fully..discern the presence and transforming power of those other spiritual influences that surround you and impinge upon you...” (5:2.4, p. 64)

“...every honest attempt of the material mind to communicate with its indwelling spirit meets with certain success.” (Jesus, 133:4.10, p. 1475)

UB reader, Cristina Hutchins, once shared an insight with our study group: “It struck me that in our personal ministry, we may enter discussions where the concept of the Thought Adjuster arises, and we may feel uncomfortable using it.” She shared a list of alternate descriptions of the Thought Adjuster and Mystery Monitor that she’d assembled. Since she welcomed us to add to it, I went ahead and added more below, including some from other traditions. If you come up with more, I encourage you to join in the fun and please add your discoveries to the project. Here, in alphabetical order, is our list so far:

A capacity for the infinite, (from W. Clarke, Roman Catholic), the Atman (Upanishads),

the Buddha nature (94:11.5),

Divine gift, Divine indweller, Divine lover, Divine presence, Divine spark,

Father fragment, Fire Builds Inside (American Indian Blackfoot teaching), Fragment of infinity,

Guardian spirit or spirit ally (American Indian), Great Mystery (Wakan Tanka in Lakota Sioux)

Immortal germ (UB 132:3.6), Inner Self (Upanishads), the indwelling spirit,

The Kingdom of Heaven within you (UB 108:6.2, Luke 17:20),

Pilot light, the Pilot Supreme (Sri Chinmoy), the Purusha (India),

Spark of infinity, Spirit guide, Spirit that dwells within you, Spirit teacher of man’s soul (149:4.2), Spirit of the Universal Father, Still small voice within, the Spirit in a (hu)man (Upanishads/India), the Supreme Mystery beyond thought (Maitri Upanishad), Qi or Chi (Chinese), True light which lights every person, the Water of Life

As the list seems to confirm, it doesn’t seem to matter overmuch what term or title we use for the indwelling spirit. “God of many names, gather us in. We come together from different places around the world to share our faith and to learn from one another. Allow us to learn from your children who are different than us,” as said in a prayer from Sojourner Magazine.

There have been many times I myself did not feel comfortable with using the term, “Thought Adjuster.” I preferred “spirit guide” though I can see the imprecision of that phrase, how it could just as easily apply to the way the Spirit of Truth operates. Over the years I’ve grown more comfortable with the term predominantly favored by the UB authors as I learn and experience its reality. Thought Adjusters don’t fix things that are wrong, or provide answers right away. They adjust our attitude to the oftentimes difficult situations we encounter in day to day living.

For this reason, I enjoy Tabamantia’s speech where we hear the Mystery Monitor described as one who adjusts more than our thoughts. These Father fragments adjust for our mistakes and “compensate for [our] shortcomings”:

"I come to express admiration and profound respect for this magnificent group of celestial ministers, the Mystery Monitors, who have volunteered to serve on this irregular sphere. … You have helped to adjust the mistakes and to compensate for the shortcomings of all who labor on this confused planet.” (108:3.6)

These remarks mirror Rodan of Alexandria’s commentary on what he believed Jesus derived from “contacting with divinity.” (160:1.11) Rodan was impressed with what Jesus found, “better methods of adjusting oneself to the ever-changing situations of living existence, to effect those … readjustments of one’s personal attitudes … so essential to enhanced insight into everything worthwhile and real.”

May you be blessed in your efforts to build a relationship with the “Thought Adjuster” under whatever name or term appeals to your soul.

The “Divine invasion”

Dave — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:18:58 GMT

One evening in a poetry workshop, I said the spiritual insight in my poem was the result of “a divine invasion.” I didn’t share that it was a phrase I’d read in the Urantia Book (UB). One of my fellow poets, an avowed atheist, asked me what a divine invasion was. I found myself a little tongue-tied, and didn’t want to quote the Urantia Book in my poets group. I’d never done so before, especially because none of the others were familiar with it. I think Joe wanted me to demonstrate that this “invasion” was observable in some way. Like many nonbelievers, he was looking to logic and reason to validate my idea of the reality of God. But as the philosopher, Kant, reminded us, “Religion cannot be proved by theoretical reason.”

Here are a couple of instances where the UB uses the term invasion. “Every time man makes a reflective moral choice, he immediately experiences a new divine invasion of his soul.” (2095.4; 196:3.20)

“In the days of the mortal flesh the divine spirit indwells you, almost as a thing apart, in reality an invasion of man by the bestowed spirit of the Universal Father.” (48:1.6)

This seems to imply that the Thought Adjuster has to force its way in at times, although many UB passages confirm the spirit indweller never enters our minds against our will (p. 753; 66:8.6). Perhaps the phrase “divine invasion” describes what happens at an early stage in our relationship with God where there is still a lot of personal noise in the mind to overcome, a stage where we have not yet acquired much ability to listen to the still small voice within.

I am personally biased to describe spiritual insights as a feeling of “being elevated,” or “transported” but I realize that could be misleading. Enlightenment can come with an emotional content, but it also arrives without such feelings. “There is no mystic religious faculty for the reception or expression of religious emotions.” (101:1.2)

“The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking.” (pg. 1104; 101:1.3)

We UB readers describe discovering God through faith, an idea we share with Christianity. And sometimes it is an emotional experience. Our unreasoned, unreasonable faith tells us the emotions are real.

I might have quoted Thomas Merton, the Catholic contemplative, to answer Joe the poet’s challenge. Merton wrote, “The soul … is penetrated from time to time with vivid intuitions of God’s action,” (Bread in the Wilderness.)

A well-known Christian pastor of the Lakota Indian people once wrote, “You have experienced, like me, being at the divine intersections of time and space where amazing new realities appear.” (Lakota Christian minister, Richard Twiss)

Once we’ve had an experience of the “divine invasion,” or a soul penetration, we then reach out to the Spirit (our spirit teacher, the Thought Adjuster, the divine spark) seeking further experiences of enlightenment.

“You would not seek me, had you not found me.” (Blaise Pascal) We begin to experience the reciprocal nature of personal revelations:

… “Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach.” (102:6.10, p. 1125)

“… when there exists perfection of the human motivation of loyalties to the divine idea, then there very often occurs a sudden down-grasp of the indwelling spirit …” (pg. 1098; 100:5.4)

When we discover how certain the Spirit is to respond to a knock on its door, this becomes a proof of God’s existence for us—the personal faith experience. I wouldn’t be able to successfully express, demonstrate or justify these discoveries to my atheist friend Joe. He would have to experience the “sudden downgrasp,” for himself.

The UB also cautions us about errors in our understanding that can happen: (100:5.7) “Altogether too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious levels of the human mind has been mistaken for divine revelations and spirit leadings.”

Is there a way to verify that our divine invasions are genuine insights, not simply unconscious memories? In a later discussion, we’ll talk about developing and using a truth filter.

Next time: more on the Thought Adjuster.

Language: Choosing the Right Ways to Speak About God

Dave — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:16:18 GMT

The revelations in the Urantia Book (UB) are truly mind expanding and we are encouraged to learn an expanded language to accommodate them. “Today, there is a great need for further linguistic development to facilitate the expression of evolving thought.” (81:6.16; p. 908, Old Ed.)

Almost the very first issue the author raises on page one of the UB is the use of language. Many new UB readers encounter the complaint expressed by the author of the Foreword, a Divine Counselor from Orvonton, that is, if they begin the book at the Foreword (some do!) Of course a new reader also encounters unfamiliar information about the hierarchy of the universe, Orvonton being our Superuniverse, one of seven. These UB descriptions occur alongside modern astronomy’s ongoing discoveries of over fifty new habitable planets in our lifetime. We are learning to live in a larger universe than we were used to. Conceptual categories accrue, and therefore the sheer number of personalities needed to run the universe must also increase.

Returning to our Divine Counselor’s comment, “It is exceedingly difficult to present enlarged concepts and advanced truth, in our endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception, when we are restricted to the use of a circumscribed language of the realm. But our mandate admonishes us to make every effort to convey our meanings by using the word symbols of the English tongue. We have been instructed to introduce new terms only when the concept to be portrayed finds no terminology in English which can be employed to convey such a new concept partially or even with more or less distortion of meaning.” (0:0.2)

The improvement in the English language’s capacity for portraying divine values and presenting spiritual meanings will also improve our personal relationship, our friendship with God. There has been a tendency in theology for the last few decades to reduce references about God and indwelling spirit to the level where we are speaking symbolically or merely metaphorically. The Urantia Book purposefully sets out to reverse that trend. When the text informs us the divine spirit indwells us, it is meant literally, concretely, expressing it as a “fact that an actual fragment of the living God resides within the intellect of every normal-minded and morally conscious Urantia mortal” (5.0.1).

The UB also gently steers us into adopting more carefully nuanced and discriminated definitions of our terminology. In several places, the book points out where terms specific to the local universe of Nebadon have been used on our planet to designate what are actually Central and Superuniverse personalities. The Holy Spirit of our Christian Trinity is a local universe bestowal of the Mother Spirit (8:5.3, Pg. 95 OE), and does not refer to the Infinite Spirit, “the Third Person of Deity,” of the Paradise Trinity in the UB.

The version of the Trinity I grew up with in the Christian Church also continues to portray Jesus as the Son, one of the three persons of God. However the UB is careful to make a distinction between Jesus/Michael as a Creator Son (with origins in time) and the Eternal Son, the 2^nd person of the Trinity. I realize that it will be a long time before these UB depictions may find understanding acceptance among world religions.

Here’s just a few of the many other new uses of language in the UB that will be future topics I’ll deal with separately in this blog:

Our modern dictionaries often present sin, evil, and iniquity as synonymous, but the UB carefully distinguishes sin from evil, error, and iniquity. Whereas evil is an “unconscious transgression,” “Sin is the conscious, knowing, and deliberate transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will.” (148:4.3)

A UB student learns that the Supreme (Being) is not just a synonym for, or another word for God as might be believed from comparing sacred texts around the world.

UB clarifies distinctions between soul and spirit, spiritual growth and progress, faith and trust, will and volition, and more.

Language will be an ongoing issue we will revisit in our discussions on this site. When we eventually come to speak about the Celestial Artisans, for example, we’ll once again encounter the urgent qualification, “Your comprehension is incapable of grasping, and your language is inadequate for conveying, the meaning, value, and relationship of these semispirit activities.” (44:0.13; p. 499)

Welcome to Dave Holt’s Friendly Universe Conversation!

Dave — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 17:09:30 GMT

An Introduction to the Blog:

How did I end up where I am today, a Urantia Book reader, conference organizer, Urantia Society officer (Golden Gate Circle), blogger, and essayist publicly sharing thoughts and ideas with you?

In Toronto, Ontario, (Canada) where I was born, I was involved as a young man with a few different groups, classical music students, blues-rock musicians, and the student radical-political community. I’d left the United Church of Canada. My political friends helped start experimental communes, organized strikes, labored for worker’s rights, and socialist ideals in government. My best friend in college was jailed a couple of times for his labor union activities.

Even while I was still in that scene, I knew my perspective was changing. I was making decisions to get involved with spiritual solutions, and was less interested in political answers to social problems. Eventually my gradually evolving idea was that a ruling kingdom of the spirit (I didn’t have these words for it then) had to be established, not necessarily a new and more just power structure for the worker. Many of us had grown up watching the rule of labor devolve into a rule of tyrants in the Russian experiment.

My language back then also did not include terminology for describing growth of the spirit or soul, but I began to believe in the spiritual transformation of the individual. This was the real requirement that would lead to social improvements. I wanted transformation for myself, and I admired a song the Beatles sang, “You tell me it’s the institution, you better free your mind instead.” (John Lennon’s hit, Revolution)

When I arrived in California in the early 70's, it was the spiritual ferment of the San Francisco Bay Area that I found irresistible, its atmosphere of excitement and discovery that made me want to live here. I explored many paths: The Fourth Way (Gurdjieff/Ouspensky), psychedelics, yoga, Hinduism, Jesus Freakism, psychic readings, astrology and more. Northern California was criticized for its “salad bar” approach to spirituality. Critics say the exposure to so many spiritual traditions that is encouraged here will not ultimately provide an enduring haven, true sustenance for the soul. Of course, for some, it was true their New Age religious phase was just a passing fad. They left religions and got jobs in San Francisco’s financial district or Silicon Valley’s computer industry.

The era of 1967 to 1980 is when the Urantia Book gained a larger audience and an enthusiastic readership among the spiritual orphans and adventurers. After 1985, the appeal of the Urantia “movement” and new age spiritual groups in general seemed less attractive to younger generations. The appeal of the UB declined further when the conflicts of the 80’s happened between the Urantia Foundation and the Fellowship. Efforts undertaken to overcome the old conflicts are having some success.

In addition to that, there seems to be less overall interest in spiritual movements and religious messages currently. Atheism is more present. It speaks with a more strident voice. Some of the reason for this is undoubtedly economic—the modern business ethic that draws our creative youth is centered more on goals of getting rich, less on ideals of service to the community. Spiritual activities were discredited in the past by episodes of cult behavior that would be considered immoral by any genuinely spiritual or religious person. Sexual indiscretions, financial irregularities, crimes, even murder plagued New Age communities and the New Thought churches. A faith in God founded on personal experience will have a more certain chance of surviving such episodes. I believe the credibility of The Urantia Book stands because it is such a strong advocate of the religion of personal experience “founded” by Jesus (196:2.6).

I hope you will enjoy following the themes and ideas in this blog. The “religion of personal experience” is one of the topics I will be talking about, along with explications of the Urantia Book’s difficult texts, its unusual ideas, unfamiliar history, unknown personalities, and new language. I often like to compare what we read in the book with traditional sacred texts, when possible, as a way of enhancing interfaith understanding, relationships and communities. I will share the leadings of my spirit guide, and those of my master teacher, Jesus, as I continue to grow in my understanding. I’ve pursued these worthwhile activities for many years so I hope I’ve learned some things of value along the way that you will also enjoy as I share them with you. Cheers and blessings on the path!